The Blood of Jesus

Mike Connell

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 Mike Connell Ministries

http://mikeconnellministries.com

The Blood of Jesus

The Blood of Jesus (1 of 4) Many struggle consistently in their intimacy with God, and in believing that God will answer their prayers. In fact probably the most common problem that people face is a sense of not being good enough, that somehow I'm not good enough, that there's something wrong with me and when I pray it doesn't look like God's going to answer. If you're living with this it's because there's some foundations are not built and established in your life and until they are, let me tell you this; you will continue in what you're struggling with.

The Blood of Jesus (2 of 4) Sin has consequences. God wants us to deal with the deliberate transgressions, with the sins of ignorance, and to deal with inequity, the thing that gets into our whole family line. The blood is the remedy for all three. God says that rather than kill people the moment that they commit sin, He'll let them carry inequity or carry the consequence of it through their generational line.

The Blood of Jesus (3 of 4) If I just tell you that Jesus died for your sins, and He's forgiven you, it's very shallow. But if we begin to look into some of the pictures and patterns shown in the Old Testament, oh, it becomes so vivid all that He did, because it's hard to explain to someone all that Jesus did on the cross. That's why the Old Testament has got these pictures so as you study them and keep thinking about Jesus and what He did for us you begin to see the full breadth of it

The Blood of Jesus (4 of 4) If you have a besetting problem, something that seems to stick in your life, it’s been in your family, it’s in your life and you’re concerned it’s starting to turn up in your children, I’ll help you understand what it is and what to do about it. The answer is the blood of Jesus Christ. Exodus, Chapter 12, and this is the first Passover that the Jews ever had. It’s a prophetic picture of the work of Jesus Christ at Calvary.

1. The Blood of Jesus (1 of 4)

Sun 30 Oct 2011     « Back to Top

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So we're in a great day. Isn't it a great day to be alive? [Yes!] Great day to be alive. Great day to serve God. I want you to open your Bible for me in Ephesians 1, Verse 7. I want to share something I felt the Lord has just put on my heart, to do two or three messages on it, and I want to speak about the blood of Jesus. I want to talk about the blood of Jesus, and I reckon there's a heap of people haven't got a clue what it is, apart from it being a song and we talk about it in church and, you know, [sings] I am redeemed by the blood of the lamb.

Yeah, we know these songs, but I want us to get some understanding. Without understanding you won't have faith, and it's absolutely certain that if you're going to build a building, you need to make sure you've got something holding it up, and if the foundation's not much good, then when it gets a shake, down she goes. That's what we saw in Christchurch. We saw that - and it was actually completely predictable by the way. The surveyors had surveyed the whole area before the town plan was put out and they advanced and built, the geologists already knew where the places were that were unstable and what would happen if you built on there.

About 10 years ago a report was put out about what would happen, and it was almost accurate to exactly the locations, so isn't it amazing? And yet in spite of the knowledge, it didn't make any difference. People still built there. Isn't that amazing?

So buildings have to have foundations. Your life with God needs certain foundations in it. My experience in working with Christians over a long period of time is many struggle consistently in their intimacy with God, and consistently in believing that God will answer their prayers. In fact probably the most common problem that people face is a sense of not being good enough, that somehow I'm not good enough, that somehow there's something wrong with me, and somehow when I pray it doesn't look like God's going to answer. This is very common amongst Christians and it could well be that that's what you're living with.

If you're living with this, it's because there's some foundations are not built and established in your life, and until they are, let me tell you this; you will continue in what you're struggling with. It will not change. More meetings won't solve it, more Bible studies won't solve it. It requires revelation to your heart, and then application to your life of some things. Now I want to pick up one thing that is absolutely foundational to building your relationship with God, and it's also my observation over counselling people for many years, that people start with it and shift from it. This is a huge consequence in terms of how it works out in our Christian life.

Notice what it says here in Ephesians 1, Verse 7. We'll just keep coming back to this one over two or three Sundays. In Him, in Jesus Christ we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace. We have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to - look at that. Isn't that amazing - the riches, not poverty, rich! God is rich in what? Rich in kindness. Grace is about kindness. It's about favour. It's about God being good to you. God is very, very, very wealthy in grace, see?

So the problem is, what's all this thing about redemption and the blood? Now if you go out of church and into the streets, you don't hear people talking about redemption. You don't even hear them talking about the blood, and if you mention it then probably eyes will raise, so there's no concept out. The only place you'd hear about redemption perhaps, would be if you went to the bank and talked about your mortgage, and they would want you to redeem your mortgage, so they do know what redemption is in a financial sense.

But I found a lot of the church, if I was to ask everyone to say, what do you mean I'm redeemed, we would probably struggle with getting clarity about what that is, and what that means, and why it's important. So I want to lay a foundation around this, and see what the blood of Jesus has accomplished for us, and how specifically you apply it to your life, because what Jesus has done for us - we know He died for the sins of the world, but a lot of the world isn't saved. Have you noticed?

That means that all that God has done is ineffective, because they haven't applied it to their life, and so God has done many things for us, but if we don't know what He's done, and then apply it, it's in the application that change takes place. And if you don't know how to apply the blood to your life, and where to apply it; the blood of Jesus is to be applied to at least three areas of our life to bring a change, and Jesus shed His blood in a whole number of different ways, to deal with every possible condition of humanity. So He didn't just shed His blood and that's it. There's quite a lot more to it. As we'll see it's very, very foundational. So what I want to do get this started, I want to just start off really, right now before we even talk about the blood and why we need the blood, we need to look at what it is, that is the problem, because if you don't know what problem you're trying to fix, then you won't embrace the solution.

So we say Jesus is the saviour - in fact the name Jesus means saviour - but why do you need to be saved? And do you really need to be saved? And why is it people go out on the streets and speak to people, why are they so passionate to do that? What is there about it, because if you listen to a lot of people, you get the impression that almost like somehow it's all going to work out alright for everyone, no matter what. Actually nothing could be further from the truth, and I want to lay out some foundations.

The first one I want to talk about is, God has established consequences for sin. God has established consequences for the sin. Now I want you to listen to this part very carefully, because I want to show that there are two major things that God has established. The first one we're going to see is that He's established certain consequences. The thing about consequence - we'll see in a moment - you can absolutely do nothing about them. That's not the bit you get involved in. That's what you experience as a result of making decisions, so if we see for example in John 1, we find in the first three verses it tells us that everything that was made, or everything we can see, that was made was made by Him. As believers we would understand creation has been made by Him. I'm going to keep appealing to things you know, to get you to look a little above it to things you're not so sure of.

So if I designed something, I'm a manufacturer and I designed something, I decide how it will work, because I'm the designer. Steve Jobs designed an iPad. He's the one who knows how the iPad works, and it can't do anything more than he put into it. He designed it - so you can either use it for what it was intended, or if you don't know what it's intended for, you'll end up abusing it and smashing it or destroying it, because you just didn't know what to do with it. It's designed with certain things built into it. In other words the person who designed it makes the rules about how it's to be used, and makes the rules about how it works, and what will make it work well, and how you get the best out of it. You don't get a say in that. You just either buy in or don't buy in. Getting the idea? So it's quite foundational this.

So we need to see that God created the physical world. He set in place physical laws. Now scientists have got no idea why the laws are there, they just know there are laws, and by observation they can work out the laws; for example there's the law of gravity. Now no one knows what really creates the law of gravity. They don't understand fully what is the cause of it. They don't even understand fully the forces behind it. It's just a law of gravity which they can describe, and that we can work with.

Now you can say I don't believe in the law of gravity. It doesn't really matter whether you believe in it or not, it's still in place, it's still there. It's what holds you to the earth. It's what makes planes crash if they run out of power. There's a law of gravity, and whether you believe it or not is irrelevant, it's still there and it operates, holds our solar system in place. So God has set the law in there, and He's set many physical laws in place; for example He's set in the law of sowing and reaping, so we know and we depend on it in this area - we sow products and we expect to reap, we sow vegetables, we expect to reap. We sow, we expect to reap - so we actually run our life without even thinking, but there are laws that are in place. Okay, we've got one.

Now, so we know that God has set physical laws. Now God has also set spiritual laws in place. This is where the contention comes. God has set spiritual laws in place. Now you cannot change the law of gravity; you either understand it and work with it, or you violate it and it costs you something. It's as simple as that. So God has also set in place spirit laws. He's set in place principles - He doesn't continually intervene. You know, they see something happening over - and there's a big flood and they say oh, it's an act of God. It isn't an act of God at all. It's actually the consequence of certain laws being in place. It's the consequence of neglect of the environment many times, and ultimately, as we'll see, it's the consequence of sin.

When we look and say well, there's this big thing happened and there was this earthquake and tsunami and all that kind of thing, and that was a big act of God - it wasn't an act of God. It's actually the earth croaking, groaning and creaking because it's under the bondage of sin. Sin has affected the whole environment, and we often don't understand that the problems that we see in the world, are a direct consequence of sin. If we don't understand this, we won't get the remedy for it, nor even see why the remedy is needed. So firstly I've got to just establish a little bit around this area here.

So God has also set laws. I want you to have a look with me in Genesis 2, Verse 15, and I want to look at one law that God has set in place. Now whether you agree with this law is irrelevant. It's just like the law of gravity, it's there and you either agree with it and learn how to work with what God says, or you violate it and have consequences. So number one, God, the one who does the creating, established the rules. That's the first thing we've seen. The second thing is, God has established certain consequences of sin. In Genesis, Chapter 2 and Verse 15 through to Verse 17; Now the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to tend it and keep it. So God created man, gave him an assignment. He created all of us with an assignment, which only God can give to us. It's only discovered as we spend connection with Him, and it involves guarding something and also cultivating it - and the Lord God commanded the man, the first man, of every tree of the fruit of the garden you may freely eat, tree of the knowledge of good and evil you should not eat, for in that day you eat it, you shall die. Here's the law; violate God's law, and you die. It's as simple as that. Violate the law and you die - so God gave man freedom, God gave man responsibility, God gave him ability to make free choices. However, God describes the consequences. So for example with the law of gravity, now there's a law of gravity. It's very clear there's an attractive force pulls any object down, it's proportional to so and so and masses and so on - and so here it is, the law of gravity. If I go over this edge here - I'll just take it off here, I don't want to fall too far - take it from here. If I step out into this space you all know exactly what's going to happen. You know if I just take a step out here, just off here, that just in a moment there's nothing - I'm going to go straight down. You know that. You're convinced of it.

Now I can't do anything to change that. I wish it could be different. I could say well I don't believe in it. I don't agree with it. I think this is a religious concept gravity and you see, I step off and it doesn't make any difference. Now imagine that was a very tall building. Suppose now it's a skyscraper and I tried the same thing now off a skyscraper. Now I'm in deep trouble because here's the thing - I have power to make the choice, step or not step, but definitely no power over the consequence. So in other words God sets consequences in motion. You get to make the choices. You have total free will on all the choices of your life. God loves you enough, loves me enough, loves all of us enough to say you get to run your life the way you choose. How about that? Isn't that great? Because I love you, and I'm never going to impose my will on you. I'm never going to force anything on you. I am never going to make you do anything. I'm going to attract you with love, and if you want to walk in a loving relationship with me, here's the deal; if you do life my way, connected to me, you'll live - but if you cut off from me, and you do life your own way, you'll die. You get to choose. Live or die. Simple as that.

Now that's what sin is about. Sin - I'll define it; sin is literally transgressing, or breaking the law of God, the Bible tells us. When you break the laws of God, that is what sin is about. He says don't steal. If you steal something, hold something back, mislead someone as to the value of something, and rip them off or cheat them - that is sin. There's a consequence.

You may delay the consequence, hide the consequence, conceal it for a little while, but there's always a consequence. And I'll show you, there are several consequences of sin that you may not have thought about or considered, but it's always there. Whether you believe in it or not, it's as inevitable as stepping off a building. Just the same, see? So if I step off a building, you all know what's going to happen; I'm going to fall on the ground. I'll hit splat on the ground, and if I can still breathe a few things I could be saying something like this - it's not my fault you know? [Laughter] No one told me about this. Not my fault. Actually it's just stupid that they don't make the buildings wider, so I could walk further out. [Laughter] Now you see, that's - now you understand how stupid that reasoning is, but when it comes to sin, we apply that kind of reasoning. When it comes to these things that God talks about as sin, so sin is - get it clear - sin is whenever you break God's law. Now whether you know the law's there or not is irrelevant. It's like when you drive down the road. It actually is, it says over there 30kms so go down there at 70km - whether you saw the sign is irrelevant. The cop's there, you're done. You're guilty. You broke the law, you pay the price, simple as that. Don't complain. Don't make excuses. You just did the crime, do the time. That's kind of how it works.

We understand - and something about that appeals to us. Have you noticed that? Especially when it's someone else that did the crime. We think they should do the time. It really appeals to us that. You notice young kids feel that way? They'll always do that. They'll point out someone else's crime, to make sure that they do their time. Have you noticed that they do that as well? There's an inbuilt sense of justice in us, and it's bigger than that; it's actually part of godliness. We have a sense of justice in us. We hate to think that people who do terrible crimes get away with it. It's not right, it's unjust. Something should be done - in fact our nation would be an unsafe place if there wasn't a consequence for bad actions. Imagine if everyone could drive around, do whatever they wanted, bump people off, knock people, mug people and they could do it with impunity, no consequence. What an unsafe place it'd be - be hopeless. You couldn't run it. It'd be absolute chaos and disorder - so we live in our life off this expectation that if something is wrong, there should be a consequence.

And if you want to raise good children, make them understand there are consequences for their choices. Give them the freedom to choose, but make sure they understand the consequences, and make sure they experience it, or you don't help them at all. Okay, so we've got the deal now. God makes the rules. He's got rules that govern the natural law, rules that govern spiritual world and our interactions, relationships, how we do life, and this is what He says very clearly; if you sin - sin is the transgression of the law, sins breaking God's laws, so I'll put it this way - sin is saying yeah, I know you're God, but I'm going my way. That's sin, and sin is a little more than that; it's going my way, and then it's doing it my way, which means what's best for me, so sin in its full manifestation is just living your life without God, going your way, doing it your way for your advantage, and using people to get where you want to get. That's sin.

Now it's got many ways it shows up, but that's what it is, and God says this about it; there's a consequence. You get to choose, but not the freedom of what happens. Now you see the problem is, we just don't believe in this, and so we've got some certain approaches to sin, so what we tend to do is this. We tend to find ways of trying to avoid the consequence, so first of all we'll just not call it sin; I have a problem. See sin's got a remedy. It's got God's remedy. A problem? A problem usually comes from sin, so what you're dealing with is the fruit, the root is usually sin, doing it your own way for your own advantage, ignoring God and hurting someone on the way. That's usually what is sin.

So when people come, usually what they do - what you find is that people try to find a way to get rid of this concept of sin and the New Age, they totally reject God, and an ultimate moral authority. Therefore, there's no such thing as sin, nor failure. So everything is smoothed over, so no one has to own that I have sinned, and it really sounds very appealing, because man becomes his own God, his own redeemer, his own saviour. This works kind of like this; well I can work on myself to improve myself. That's the core of it. The trouble is, you can't deal with sin just by working on yourself. That's what we're going to get to - redemption - in a moment, because you have to see what redemption means, and you'll see how there's two ways you're either going to redeem yourself, one or the other - you either do it God's way, or your way. Ha ha! Okay, so sin's violating God's law.

Okay, now let's get this. So I can deny it, I can blame someone else, I can say I don't believe in it, I can say it's just a Christian junkie thing to make you feel guilty. I can try and find all kinds of ways to try and persuade you sin isn't sin, and dress it up so it looks better than it is, but actually sin is sin. Okay and sin has a consequence - death. So what does that look like? What does death look like, because you notice that Adam didn't immediately die. He lived quite a long time before he died, so when God says that you'll die, He says certain things are going to happen around your life as a consequence of your actions, you see? And once you realise this, most believers, most Christians can't connect what they're experiencing now, to what they chose to do a little while ago. That's why they don't get to repent of sin, and that's why we don't fear sin, because this next bit we don't really believe. Let me tell you what it means. This is what sin means; every time, every situation, every circumstance that this happens, this is the consequence - these are the consequences. I've identified these ones. There may be others, but these are good enough to me. Number one is, the separation from God, or a loss of connection with God. You lose. You become disconnected from God. The wage of sin is death. What it means is you are disconnected relationally. You've disconnected from God because you rejected Him. He didn't move, you moved. You disconnected when you sin. Okay then - and what that leaves is spiritual emptiness. Romans 6:23, says the wages of sin is death, so sin pays up, and it's just always the same. It's never inflated. It's always been the same. You actually get disconnected.

Some of us in the church today, the thing we're struggling - the disconnection we're struggling, I'll just put it really simply; it's due to sin in the heart. Oh, well I don't know about sin. I don't feel I've got any sin going on. That doesn't mean there isn't any, just because you can't recognise it. That's why people counsel. We show what causes - and people come, you know why they come? They can't see what's going on! It's just terrible, all of these things in my life - the fruit. And the counsellor, if they're a good counsellor, will just sift through it all, pull it all apart, get right down - guess what's underneath it? Sin! Every time - and as soon as they own the sin, and do God's remedy, you get free, see?

See, so the first thing's sin. So we've got to see that first is separation from God, so mostly you find when people come to us with a problem, they've disconnected from God. They don't hear God. They feel just, boo-hoo! I don't feel God anymore, God's a long way off - so they talk at God; God, He's a long way off - see, because the heart's not clean and clear and close and intimate.

The second thing that we experience is judgement. God must hold us to account for what we've done. He's a just God, He's a holy God, so He does call all of us to account. The Bible's very clear, in Romans 14 I think, Verse 10. It tells us that all, all, all, all, all - no exceptions - give account of ourselves to God - no exceptions. You come into the world one at a time, we leave one at a time, we stand before God one at a time. We get to be judged one at a time - so there's no we and us in that. It's personal, very personal, very personal, every one of us.

You have an appointment one day. Fortunately, if you're a believer in Christ, the issue of sin and its judgement is over. What's now in mind will be how you've handled your stewardship of your walk with God, and whether you've produced anything for His kingdom. Okay then, so judgement, and so the Bible's very clear. I won't go into it all, but Matthew 25, Verse 41, He said separate the sheep from the goats, and the sheep go into the kingdom, and the goats go into a fire prepared not for man, but for the devil and his angels, so believe me there is an eternal consequence of sin. Mark 9 talks about it being tormented day and night, and night and day, forever. There is a consequence - and that's quite good that there's a consequence. I feel happy that God is a just God now, that the world, actually ultimately it's alright, because God's in charge, and everyone's going to get their dues. Everyone. They may not get it now, but one day they'll get their dues.

Everyone gets to be called up front. Everyone gets to be found out. Everyone. There's nothing hidden from God, so that's not bad is it? So maybe someone pulls one over you and gets away with it, or gets away with it in front of the law, but long term they never get away with it. They never get away with it eternally, but actually something else happens too. Here's the third consequence. Third consequence of sin - that's why you don't have to look at God. When you see a major tragedy or something, it's not God intervening, judging the nation or anything like that. He doesn't - it's very rare He does that. What actually is the thing that's happening is, reaping consequences, so God set laws in place, naturally and spiritually - found in Galatians 6, what a man sows, that he reaps. Sow, reap. Sow, reap. The problem you're facing today, probably was sown a while ago, so when we counsel people we often look right back to the roots of how they started, and whether - you trace it right back. One of the first places you look is in the family; did it come right there, right at the beginning of the family? Did it grow in the person's life and here they are, full of a mess, and somewhere there's sin and they're reaping? You see, if you start to tell a lie - think I got away with it. Oh, I'll tell another one. Got away with it, got away with it, got away with it, got away - I'm getting away with it. Oh, this is quite good. I'm getting away with it - and then you think oh well, you know, I'll just say sorry before I die, get right with God, and I'll be right.

Now listen, God's got another process in place, and it's called sowing and reaping, so now what you begin to find is you've got all these problems of breakdowns of trust in relationships everywhere. Life is actually going in a mess, and you can't get to figure it's right back to your sin, which has created the problem, so counselling always directs people back to what they may be reaping from what they've sown - for example, we've found in marriages a lot of people are reaping the consequence of sowing judgement against a father and a mother, bitterness is in the heart and now what's in the family, what's in the marriage now, and what's coming up in their children is the same thing that grew in their heart - they never saw it happening because they didn't recognise it or feel it.

But when the fruit is there, if you see it's an orange tree - an orange is on it, it's an orange tree. If you see that there's bitter fruit, there's definitely a bitter root, absolutely. Sin has got consequences. Now here's the fourth one, this is the grand slammer of it all. This is why God doesn't have to intervene all the time to keep the world going, because He set laws. So here's the law - you sin, you cut off from God; two, sin, you have consequences. Three, sin, there's actually a reaping, so whatever you keep doing you're going to reap, reap, reap and you reap more than what you sowed! Isn't that nice aye? That makes sin really scary, so if I sowed a little bit of judgement in my background on my parents, I got a whole heap of reaping coming up! [Laughter] and the problem you have now may be that whole lot of reaping is because you didn't notice a little bit of sinning back there. But does that mean it didn't happen? Oh no, it happened. Does that mean you can fix it up without solving that problem? No, you can't.

See, God just set it in place. See one of the things that's happening in the earth today is, the earth is reaping centuries of the power of sin operating, and so then the world is creaking and groaning and protesting. They point its global warming is the problem. That doesn't explain all the wars you know - doesn't explain all the earthquakes either, doesn't explain lots of things. In fact there's lots of things can't be explained, except what the Bible says, which is the whole earth groans under the burden of sin.

So the earth is in turmoil, and people are in turmoil. Why are there wars when we're so educated? Because sin is the problem - and here's the last one. This is the grand slammer of all. God has set the laws in place. Notice what He said, that the wages of sin is death. Okay, now here's the thing. Get this one. I want you listen on this; so in the area I sin I disconnect my life from God, so I go from light into - and guess who's waiting there to latch onto me? Demonic spirits - and God has allowed them, and permitted them, to operate everywhere that there's violation of His law. What a grand slam! Man, you can't escape. There is no escaping!

Why do people get tormented with demons? You'll find out there's a sin there somewhere, always. So the problems people have - now how do demons torment them? Infirmity, sicknesses, poverty, setbacks; you work so hard, and just when you should be getting ahead, should be just really making the breakthrough, suddenly it all falls over and you can't work out why, and you build again, another four or five years, suddenly it all falls over again. There you are, pain and bitter and angry and frustrated. Why? Somewhere in the background, sin is working! It's alive! It's not a thing, it's something that lives, that works, and the Bible calls it the law of sin and death! It needs a remedy, and you don't remedy it by calling it something else like a problem. It doesn't remedy it, it just disguises it.

But you know, you hit the root of it, there'll be a problem there see, and here's how - the extent of it. Here's the bit I - this bit here, just to make you feel happy that you're not the only one, Romans 3:23 says all have sinned. So all of us have sinned, and you've heard some of us testify of some of our short-fallings and failings, and how God's had to help us. All have sinned. There are no exceptions. All have sinned, we've fallen short of God's grace, so we need a remedy to sin.

Now you can try all kinds of remedies for all kinds of things. None - nothing will be solved permanently unless we address the root cause, it's as simple as that. So there's an answer at the root cause, so what do we need to do for the root cause? Ha ha! The root cause, alright then, we've got to find a remedy - and here's the remedy: What can I do to get out of this mess? I want out of the mess! So what can I do? Well the first thing you can try is a little bit of religion, and religion has this in common; this is all religions everywhere, and you may have your own form of religion - no guarantee that being here, you don't have a whole heap of religion around your life, see? And all religions everywhere, the core defining thing is, what do you do about this problem of sin that won't go away? How do we solve it? So here's the remedies we come up - well we'll pray some prayers. Great, but that won't solve the sin problem. Well, I'll tell you what we'll do, we'll do some good things. I'll really try hard to live a good life, and four times out of five I did. It was that fifth time was a bit of a worry - fifth time I really lost it, made the promise I wouldn't get angry, and the fifth time I blew it, and it was worse then than it's ever been before - but I'll try harder again.

So we've got what we call a self-help, self-improvement programme. You go on the internet, they're everywhere: Improve yourself! Improve this! Improve that! Improve that! Get another book - How to - Seven Steps to This, Eight Steps to That, 21 Steps to - God knows how you remember it all anyway! [Laughter]

And what you do find is, there's not a lot of improving takes place. There's certain up-skilling takes place, yes, but the core problem doesn't get dealt with any time, because the core problem is a spiritual problem, needing a spiritual remedy - and there is a spiritual remedy, so we will try all our remedies first. So we'll try a little bit of religion, we'll go to church, some services, we'll get involved in some community - oh, community work, that'll be the way! I'll do some community work. I know what I'll do - I'll go and I'll get involved with one of the things in the community. I'll work hard and I'm such a good person, such an upstanding person in the community - it's a shame you found out about that sin I was hiding! [Laughter] But this is how I'm going to work it out.

I'm going to have these little scales, and my sin will be on one side, and my good deeds on the other side, I'll do a juggling act. The problem is, I never know how bad my badness is, and whether the goodness is going to balance it up. That's the problem. Are you doing enough good to balance up all the other stuff? Well of course you think well, I wouldn't be like that. Oh yes you are, far more than you realise it. I'll show you how it shows up in Christians.

Today, glory to God, I'm doing well. I've had a great prayer time, so I feel close to God - then tomorrow, I didn't have a prayer time. I actually really blew it, so I'll come to God now - oh God - and you see, so I've got no foundation at all. I'm still thinking that my works make the difference in the relationship with God, because if I did well today, or blew it today, is irrelevant. God has got a way to come near and solve my problem, and it's not me working harder and trying harder. You see, you've got to get that out of your system. We're all wired to perform better, wired to try harder, perform better - it's not the answer.

So the deal then is, how can I get free of the sin which has snared me, its right through my whole make-up, it's in my fabric. You don't even have to tell kids how to be selfish, they're just selfish automatically - have you noticed that? So God's established a remedy, and the interesting thing, you can't even use money to buy the problem of sin away. In Psalm 49, Verse 6 and 7, it said man's soul's so precious, there's not enough money in the world to buy it. So you can't solve it with money, you can't put enough money to solve the sin problem. You can't do anything like that, so what can we do? Well here's the answer: God has established a way to deal with it.

Now remember, God set in the physical laws, God set in the spiritual laws, God set in the consequences of sin, God also set in the remedy for it, and the remedy is called redemption. Now you don't hear that word too often, so I'll just explain the word so we know what it is. The process of dealing with the issue of sin is called redemption. I am redeemed! Right, see? Now what does that mean?

Well we sing the song, but what does 'redeem' mean? Since you don't hear the word too often, I want to get a good, clear definition. So how many of you saw on the news a little while ago that Somalia, some of the pirates there captured some people that were in the boats offshore? Have you noticed that - they caught some ships and captured all kinds of people? Now anytime someone fronted up with the money, and gave the money to the pirate, and then the pirate released them, and they got set free, that is redeemed. That is redeemed. A lot of people aren't redeemed. The ships are still in bondage, people are still in bondage, the crew's still in bondage, they're all still in captivity. They're in captivity to someone evil, and when you pay up the money you get free, that's what it is.

So to redeem someone is to pay the ransom - simply, that's all it means. It means a ransom, it's a price paid to liberate a captive, save them out of the power of someone else, which they couldn't do themselves. So in other words, you get possession back. Now you may have already owned it, but you get it back when you pay the money. God owned us because He created us, but He had to pay a price to get us back, and the problem with - this is the problem of sin: sin puts you in captivity, and you haven't got the power to get yourself free. Religion and all the other activities or works are about attempting to get free. It cannot do it, not by the works. No works we can do get us free. We need God's provision.

You can't save yourself. I know that's a blow. That is a bitter blow, because many of us have been doing all we can to save ourselves for many years. Saving yourself is called control. It's called control; controlling your world, controlling your emotions, controlling your inner life, controlling every kind of aspect of your life. That's what's saving yourself. It's because underneath, you believe it's unsafe out there. The only one to be trusted is me - so I will save myself the very best I can. It's okay to do that, until you've found that there's a saviour. In Matthew 1 it says, you shall call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.

So we need to be redeemed. We need a redeemer. You cannot save yourself. You cannot do enough good works to go into heaven. You actually have to have someone help you out. Isn't it a terrible thing to feel you're that lost? I hope it's sinking in, that we're that lost, that there is such no hope to deal with the issue of sin. Our communities have been trying for years to make it a better place. It isn't getting better. There's no hope with all the programmes.

The core issue is not dealt with, which is sin, and there's only one remedy for sin and fortunately - I'm glad you asked what it was because Jesus tells us. Let's have a look in the Bible, Leviticus, Chapter 17. So God who set the laws about sin, set the laws about how to deal with it as well. Isn't that nice that He did that? He laid it out, Leviticus 17, Verse 11. For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given the blood of an animal on the altar, or I've given it, or the blood, to make atonement for yourself, for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul. Now that word atonement, well there's another funny word. Any of you see the movie Atonement? Girl did this terrible lie, and wrecked someone's life, and spent all her life in guilt trying to find a way to atone for what she had done, but she never was able to, and in the story, she was starting to get Alzheimer's, and she tried to write her story out, but she changed the story to try and make it have a happy ending. Actually she couldn't atone for her sin, because the people had died, and she couldn't get free of the guilt.

So atonement means to make two at one, that weren't one before - at one - it means an at-one-ment. So what it means, when you atone something, is that you pay the price to get the relationship come back together, so the two people are one again, so redemption and atonement are very similar things. Redemption, you pay the price to get someone out of someone's captivity, and atonement is you pay the price to make two people one, so it's all together; redemption, atonement, similar things - a price is paid, that enables a person to get totally out of a snare, and become one with the person they're separated from.

So whenever you hear the word redemption, that's what it means; someone's paying a price. He is my redeemer! That means He pays the price. He has the chequebook. He pays the price every time. Every time! Every time! Every time He pays the price.

Okay then, so God set the law up. He set the law up that if you sin, you die. He also set the law up, if you've sinned, this is how you get free - you need blood. And this is another gory thing about Christianity. It's a blood religion. It is a blood religion. In other words, you can't buy your way into heaven. You can't work your way into heaven. You just need blood, the way God said. That's humbling because surely there must be something I can do to help out in this thing. I've got to submit to God's way, and God's way is the blood. He said atonement's in the blood. Notice that we read in Exodus, Chapter 12, where the people of God were coming out of captivity, and the angel of death was bringing judgement on the Egyptians, and He said Verse 22 take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood in the basin, strike the lintel, strike the two doorposts with the blood, and don't go out. Stay under the blood. Stay in it. You've got to realise what's happening now is, there's an angel of death. That means you're going to die if you go outside the house, you're going to die if you haven't got a remedy. Now that's a scary place to be. Imagine in a nation, and you're all going to die unless someone finds an antidote.

You know there's a movie coming out and it's probably - I can't remember quite the name, but it's all about a virus, the pandemic thing and the virus spreads and they can't do anything. No remedy! Sheer panic when people find there's no remedy. Imagine if there's a pandemic and it spreads and you can't - you know what you'll be looking for? You're going to die unless you get the remedy, see? And this is what this is about. These people are all about to die. They were about to die. You imagine, going to lose someone you love and they're going to die. You could do nothing about it - except God's remedy. And God gave them revelation; here's the remedy, take a lamb, a perfect lamb, a lamb without spot. Keep the lamb four days, inspect the lamb, slay the lamb, take the blood of the lamb, apply the blood to the lintel, apply it to the doorposts, and stay in the house, under the blood!

And the destroyer, seeing the blood and your faith in it, will pass. Oh, they were very glad to have that kind of inside information weren't they, because they heard the cries through the streets as family after family after family had their firstborn struck dead by the judgement of God. What was the remedy? It was always the blood. That was it. See when God set up, if you sin you'll die, He said, I know what you're going to do. I know exactly what's going to happen. I've already planned the remedy - the remedy is the blood, and actually it's not even the blood of an animal. It's the blood of my Son, and I've already planned it all out before you get down this track. I planned it out, that He already is willing to go. Even before you come up with your sin ideas, even before you go down messing it all up for everyone, I've already got a plan for a solution. It's called the blood of Jesus Christ, who was the lamb of God, slain before the foundation of the world, so before the world even began, God had a plan to solve it, anything that could come up, anything that could come up.

He figured out what man was likely to come up with, and He come up with a better plan called the blood of Jesus, the lamb that was slain. Why is it so significant? You see the blood of animals was only a temporary thing. It was never that that could keep a person free, or get them redeemed. It sufficed for one year, then they had to do it all again, because they kept sinning - but there's another offering, and why the blood of Jesus? Why His blood had to be shed - very simply, in a person's blood, so far as I understand it, the main part of the blood comes from the DNA of the father. The mother's DNA doesn't come into it. There's a separation of the mother's bloodstream, and the father, and the child's bloodstream. It's always kept separate. The two bloodstreams are completely separate, although there's food goes in, nutrition goes from one to the other - no blood exchanged. So the DNA, or the shaping of the blood, comes from the father, and of course Jesus, remember whose birth, that the Holy Spirit - Luke, Chapter 1 - came on Mary, and she conceived by the Holy Ghost. She got the DNA of God planted into her, so she never had the sinful nature - He never had the sinful nature of Adam. His blood was pure! His blood was without any sin! His blood was totally clean. He lived His life right before God, and so He was the lamb that was to be slain.

His blood was to be shed. His blood breaks curses. His blood breaks demonic powers. His blood breaks the hold of sin. His blood breaks inequity. His blood breaks transgression. His blood does it. There ain't no other way! You've got to know, not only what it does, but how to do it - and I'll share that another time.

Let me just finish with quoting these verses. In 1 Peter 1, Verse 17 to 18, it says you are redeemed, not with corruptible things like money, but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ, highly valuable. Ephesians 1:7 it says in Him we have redemption. We have purchase out of sin, its power, influence of devils, curses, everything. We are brought out by the blood. What a great deal! This is getting better every verse you read it.

Romans 3:25 it says that God has sent Jesus to be the mercy seat, so by His blood and faith in it, we would be free of sin. Revelations 5, oh God, you have redeemed us out of every nation - so it's not a white man's religion. [Laughter] It's a Jewish religion, and it's God's idea - blood, Jesus' blood, no other remedy. So what about the other faiths? Well I'm sorry, they don't go anywhere, because the one thing they can't bring you, is to the Father. Why can't they bring you to the Father? Because they can't deal with sin. There's only one remedy for sin; it's the blood of Jesus Christ, and we must not only know what it does, but also how to apply it to our life.

I'll finish with this last verse then, and just flow into it. Colossians says this - it says the most amazing thing, Chapter 2, Verses 14-15. It says Jesus at His death, when He shed His blood, took away the list of every sin recorded in our past, present and future against us. How did He do it? His blood! His blood - because He provided the remedy. The blood cancelled all the sin, and so He was able to take away the list. And then the Bible says, He disarmed devils. Now I don't know whether you've thought about that.

What does it take to disarm a devil, to take away the power they have to afflict your life? The blood. You've got to deal with sin. The only weapons they have, are the ones we give them by sinning. We've got to remove it by bringing our sin into the light, and to the cross, and to the blood, and He triumphed over them! They never figured when they killed Him what He was up to - devil wasn't that smart - says if they figured what He was up to, they'd have never crucified Him.

God hid the plan of the cross totally, and after Jesus had died and given up His life, then the devil's realised - oh no! We've actually brought ourselves down. Think about that. We inspired these men to whip Him and torture Him, and put Him on a cross and put Him to death. Instead we found ourselves co-operating with God's plan, and now the very thing we initiated to do, has now become the very thing that's caused our defeat. Isn't this a stunning wisdom of God!

Christ has made for us redemption, and so now you are redeemed from every curse, poverty, sickness, failure, loneliness, emptiness, meaningless life - redeemed! Someone paid the price. A redeemer paid the price so that I could walk in blessing, favour and have the Holy Ghost in my life. Galatians 3:13 and 14; oh my, what a great thing God has done for us. How we need to be grateful. How you need to really constantly see, constantly see, any sin, however little, has an effect - call it the Butterfly Effect. One little thing, and it magnifies and goes everywhere, affects all kinds of stuff - but get on top it it quick. Don't call it by some other name. Don't say it didn't matter. Get a sharp, sensitive conscience with the Holy Ghost. Say Holy Ghost, I know that was wrong! I didn't say the truth. I did this - was wrong. That was the wrong - that was a bad - I bring it to the cross, and I declare I am guilty! But Jesus has redeemed me! [Yeah! Amen.] His blood has broken the power of the sin, so I can just step back boldly into the presence of God again, like it had never happened! That's what justified means, just like it never happened, and I can come back, walk in His presence, enjoy Him again.

What an amazing thing is the blood of Jesus! Oh my.

I'm going to share with you a bit more about what He's done through His blood so you understand it. I want to share how to apply it, because there's things - if you don't apply this truth to your life, you'll always walk condemned. You'll never walk free, and you'll think you're just doing your best - and you probably are, but you're just missing what could be better, God's way.

Father, we thank you. I just say thank you. My redeemer lives. I got so touched I wept this morning as I felt the fresh reality of the need for a redeemer. Jesus, my redeemer lives! He paid the price and I'll honour Him by believing, dealing with sin and holding on to His promise.

Summary Notes:

1. Introduction

Every building must be established on a sound foundation e.g. Christchurch earthquake.

Our relationship with God has foundations upon which it is established and maintained.

Eph.1:7 “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace.”

We need to discover what the Blood of Jesus has accomplished for us – and also how we are to apply it to our lives to walk in the grace and favour of God.

2. God Established Consequences for Sin

a) The One who creates makes the rules

Jn 1:1-3 “All things were made through Him …. and in Him was life.”

The one who designs/creates something establishes how it will work/function.

If you don’t know the purpose something designed for you will abuse it.

God created the physical world and also the laws that govern how it operates.

You can’t make or break the laws only work with them or against them.

God also created laws that govern His relationship with people.

b) God established the Consequences of Sin

Gen.2:15-17

God gave man freedom, responsibility, boundaries and consequences.

God gave man free will to choose how he will govern his life and relationships.

God also established the consequences of sin “You shall die”.

This is a spiritual law “the law of sin and death”.

You are free to choose what you will do but not the consequences.

e.g. if you jump of tall building – no power over consequences – law of gravity.

Definition of Sin: Sin is violating the laws of God(1 Jn3:4).

Sin is choosing to live independent of our creator and live for selfish advantage.

c) The consequences of Sin

Consequences of breaking God’s laws are as inevitable as night follows day.

You cannot avoid the consequences.

You may try to deny, blame, redefine sin, ignore, explain reality experience.

(i) Separation from God – loss of connection, spiritual emptiness Rom.6:23.

(ii) Judgement from God – experience a penalty ct Mt.25:41/Mk.9:44.

(iii) Reaping consequences in personal life, family, relationships Gal.6:8.

(iv) Legal authority is established for evil spirits to access your life.

Eph.2:2/Lk.4:5-6.

None of us are exempt from this spiritual problem of sin.

Rom.3:23 “For all have sinned…”

Rom. 5:12 “Death has spread to all men..”

We must find a remedy for sin and its consequences – What?

We must return from cursing to blessing and favour of God – How?

3. God Also Established the Remedy for Sin

a) What can I do to resolve the problem of sin?

Religion = man’s efforts to try to improve his life and gain access to God.

= favour with God is thought to be determined by my works.

Serving, good works, charitable acts, prayers, attempts to improve self.

What must I do to be good enough? How much is enough?

What must I do to redeem myself? Ps.49:7 1 Gal.2:16.

b) God has established a law a basis for dealing with sin

The process of addressing the issue of sin is called redemption.

Redemption =3083= a ransom

= price paid to liberate a captive or prisoner, someone in power of another.

= to regain possession by paying the full recovery price.

= to buy back, ransom – e.g. redeem mortgage e.g. Somali pirates.

Atonement =2643= exchange that restores divine favour

= to resolve a difference, to exchange money for something of equivalent value.

= the condition of being “at one” – reconciled.

c) God requires the shedding of blood

Lev.17:11

There are two aspects to this (i) Blood must be shed (ii) Blood must be applied.

Exod.12:22-23 “Strike the lintel and the two door posts with the blood”.

God set up a temporary process where the blood of animals was shed.

d) Only the Blood of Jesus can Redeem Us

Blood of a child is determined and contributed to by the male chromosomes not female.

Mother’s blood never mingles with the blood of her child.

Lk1:35 Mary was impregnated with male chromosome – came from God.

Blood of Jesus was never contaminated by Adam’s sin/blood.

Blood of Jesus was pure.

1 Pet.1:17-18 Redeemed – with the precious blood of Christ.

Eph.1:7 In Him we have redemption through His blood.

Rom.3:23-25 God has set forth as a mercy seat through faith in His blood.

Rev.5:9 …and have redeemed us to God by your blood …

Col.2:14-15 Paid the full price – obtained redemption for all.

Removed the sin list.

Disarmed spiritual powers = took away their weapon.

Gal. 3:13-14 Redeemed us from the curse of the law – blessing and favour.

We must choose God’s way to deal with sin – applying Blood of Christ.

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2. The Blood of Jesus (2 of 4)

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I want you to open your Bible in Genesis, Chapter 2. We’ve started just doing a series on the blood of Jesus, and our foundational truth for your walk with God, and unless the foundations of the building are established, the building doesn’t stay very strong when the pressure comes on. I just want to revise what we saw last week, and we looked at a key verse in Ephesians 1, Verse 7; in Him we have redemption, through His blood the forgiveness of sin. So we saw about those terms and what they meant. This is basically what we covered last week, just for those who this is perhaps your first time here.

The first one we saw was, and we looked very much at the natural things, the one who designs something always knows how it works best. The one who designs something writes the manual how it works. You make something, design something, you create something, you set the manual how it works. God made the something – He made the design, the creation and He made the rules and we saw that there are clearly physical laws in place. There are also spiritual laws in place. Man is a moral being, and subject to both the physical laws and spiritual laws, and because God set the laws in place, He just set them in place. We can’t change the laws. We can’t break the laws. All we can do is understand them, and work with them, or violate them.

If we violate them, we see a third thing that we looked at last week, is God establishes the consequences of violation of His laws. He’s the one who set the consequences. We saw how with gravity you can pretend it’s not there, ignore it, deny it or whatever, but if you step off a building you will feel the consequences. You could lie there, and you could blame your father, your mother, you can blame the government, you can blame everyone – but in the end you’ve just proven that there was a law, and by acting in such a way in ignorance of it you have actually proven the law exists. Yet when it comes – so we would think that’s stupid that someone would blame someone else for something like that, but when it comes to spiritual and moral matters, when we violate the laws of God, there’s still a consequence, except we look everywhere but to the right place to find where the problem is, and also what the solution is.

So we’ll have a look in Genesis, Chapter 2. We looked at this and we saw in Genesis, Chapter 2, how God gave man consequences, and the consequences of sin, Verse 17, in the day you eat, you will die. It’s really clear isn’t it? You eat, you die. What could be harder about that? You sin, you die. You sin, there’s a consequence, and of course we think that we’re exceptional, that we could do things and there won’t be a consequence, that God just says you break the laws or the rules or the guides He set in place for a productive life, there’s always a consequence.

Romans 5:12, we found in Romans 5:12 that by one man’s sin, sin entered the world, and death through sin, and sins come on all – death comes on all. Everyone has sinned, so we saw this issue of sin’s a big problem, and you can dress it up. You can call it another name, but whatever you do with it, in the end it is the root behind the problems we have. No education can overcome it, no counselling can overcome it. There actually has to be a remedy for this issue called sin, and that’s what we’ve seen, so in Genesis, Chapter 3, when Adam and Even sinned, Verse 7, the eyes of them both were open. They knew they were naked, and sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves coverings. There was an immediate impact, firstly within them, of sin. The first place you experience the impact of sin is within you, and then you notice it turns up in all the relationships. They can cover themselves - then in Verse 8 they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden, in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord. God called Adam and said where are you? He said I heard your voice in the garden. Now notice what he is going through internally. This is the consequence of sin: I was afraid. Fear is an outcome of sin. I was afraid because I was naked. He was ashamed. He was ashamed of his condition, so he carried things in his emotions now, that he had never carried before.

Sin disconnected him from God, so his spirit did not carry the glory and life of God. His soul becomes filled with fear, guilt, shame and then he began to conceal, cover and hide himself, and all his relationships became shattered. And of course there were further consequences physically. Eventually he died. A curse came into the earth, and we face the problem that we have. It's a serious and a big problem. It's not going to go away easily, but God has given a remedy for it, so we saw - the last thing that we looked at last week was that God established a remedy for sin. God established a remedy for sin. We saw in Hebrews 9:22 that without the shedding of blood, there can be no cleansing of sin, so if God said here's the law and here's the consequence, He also provided the remedy, and we saw the remedy was the shedding of blood. So I want to pick that up now and go a little bit further now, and look at how the blood of Jesus is applied. I can't do it all in one session. I will spread it out over two because the work of the cross is absolutely stunning in its completion to help us. It's absolutely stunning in its completion to help us, so I thought I'd start to talk about the application just at this point, and some foundational things to applying the blood of Jesus.

First of all we look in Exodus, Chapter 12. Now this is the first place in the Bible where it talks about a particular feast or a particular occasion, when God required the people of Israel to shed blood, the blood of a lamb. It says in Exodus, Chapter 12, Verse 21, pick out and take lambs for yourself according to your families, kill the Passover lamb. And you shall take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood in the basin, strike the lintel, strike the doorposts, put blood on it. Now He said, and when you put the blood on it, stay in behind that covering that's provided, and when the Angel of Death comes through you will be protected, you will not be harmed, because he will see the blood.

Now imagine you were a Hebrew on that day and you knew, having watched all the miracles and plagues that had come through, that God is well able to do what He said, and then shortly a plague is going to come. It's going to take out the members of the family, eldest members of all the families. Now you've got a loved son, he's the eldest first born, and you also are the first born. You are going to do something. Now what are you going to do? Are you going to do it because, you know, this is oh well, you know, God loves us and he's asked us to do this? You're not going to do it for that reason. You're going to do it for one reason alone; you're absolutely convinced that there's consequences if you don't. Think about that.

You see if we pretend there's no consequences, we won't see the need for the remedy, but when you see the consequences - here's the consequences. If they did not apply the blood, death came into the home, and they didn't have windows in those days so what would have happened then is they would have heard the screams and shouts as family after family were hit by God's judgement on each of them, and the only thing that stood between them and that judgement was the blood, which they had to apply. Now I think you would be pretty keen to do a good job of applying the blood. I reckon you'd make sure you got all the blood you could out of that lamb. You'd get it in a big basin, you wouldn't let any of it go, get that hyssop there, and dad would go out there - notice dad, the head of the home had to apply the blood for the whole family. And you get out there, you'd make sure there's a heap of blood on that lintel! And you'd make sure there's a heap of blood on the door-posts! And you know who'd be helping you make sure? Your family and particularly your eldest son! [Laughter] Dad! You do a good job. I don't think there's enough! I don't think the Angel of Death... Put more on! Get the blood on the lintel and the door-posts!

Now you see? Now this is the very first mention of applying the blood to be a remedy for sin, and notice how important it was, how big a deal it was that they stayed in, under the blood, under the covering of the blood. There was something important about it, because it's God's answer to the issue of sin, and the consequences of sin. There is only one thing stands between you and the consequences of your sin and generational inequity. It is the blood of Jesus. It's not enough He shed it. We have to apply it. Alright? We have to be able to apply it. So they applied the blood, and notice there, that word strike means - it could mean to touch. It also means to strike. I think if I was there, I'd be smiting it and striking it until all the blood's all gone, there's nothing left, blood everywhere.

I'd want to make sure. I wouldn't be worried about making a nice pretty job. I'd make sure I got it all up there, so it's absolutely certain there's blood there. No angel's going to miss that unless he's blind, you know! We make sure we've got it in place - so the blood was applied in three places. Now the interesting thing is it was in three places. It had to apply right across the lintel down the - He was quite specific. You notice what He didn't say? He didn't say just put it on the door. He said put it in these three places. Often in the Bible when there's three, it describes the completion of something that God has in mind, and so the three things that are there, the blood deals with three different aspects of man's failure, and these words, now some of you may know them but not know what they mean, so I want to explain them, because if you don't know what they mean, you will miss applying the blood to it.

I wonder what would happen if they just put it on one of the doorposts. That's kind of risky isn't it aye? Maybe you just put it on the doorposts. That should be enough. I mean it's there, won't that do? Come on, just put it on there. It should be enough. I don't think so. God said three places - I think we should think three places are where it needs to go, so I want to show you just something, just a verse. I want you to have a look with me in Leviticus, Chapter 16 - and there were three places. Now I think we must understand is that when we're talking about this Passover, it's not something Old Testament. It's actually an Old Testament picture of something real in the New Testament, because the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 5:7, Christ, our Passover is sacrificed for us. So whatever you're seeing here, in a picture from in the Old Testament, actually is a deep truth for us in the New Testament, so we don't need to go celebrate a Passover feast. Christ is our Passover! Every time we have communion we can celebrate that Passover with Him, any day, day after day, every day we can celebrate it because the Old Testament feast of Passover pointed to something very spiritual, very great that one day God was going to bring into being.

So even when they did it here, it was referring to the other, and so Leviticus, Chapter 16. Let's see if we can get it, Leviticus, Chapter 16. Here it is - in Verse 21; Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat - now he's talking about the law of the offerings - and he said and he shall confess over it all the inequities of the children of Israel. Inequities - and all their transgressions - so there's another thing, second thing - concerning all their sins. That is what the High Priest was told to do. He had to confess all the inequities - whatever that is - all the transgressions - whatever that is - all the sins. I think I know what that is. So he had to confess them or speak them aloud over a goat, lay his hands on it, impart all the sins to it, and then one goat was sent out into the wilderness, and another goat's blood was shed. This is the offerings that would take place consistently.

Now notice three things are mentioned there. The three things that are mentioned there are inequity, transgression and sin. When you look in the Bible in the New Testament, the only word we hear out mostly is sin, the word sin, so if I use the word sin, what would you think? Because God is very clear. God is very clear in getting this sorted out. When we think the word sin we think oh, I did something bad. You know, I got drunk, okay, alright, you know. I beat someone up. You know, we think of it that way but sin, the word sin just means missing the mark. So when the Bible refers to sin in the New Testament, it's the word hamartia, meaning to miss the mark, so you can imagine an archer and he's standing there, and now he's going to take a sight at a target. There is the mark. Shwoosh! Missed! Blow. Sin. That's it - missed the mark, missed the mark of what God intended. Fell short of his glory. He said all of sin.

Now there's three reasons if I was doing this, I could miss the mark. Reason number one, I just didn't know how to hit the mark. I was just ignorant. I didn't even know there was a mark there to be hit. I just fired at that big old target over there and I missed the whole thing completely and I missed it, it was unintentional. I didn't really mean to. I didn't really know about that. I was just firing the arrow. I didn't know I was supposed to hit a mark. I just was ignorant - see? So the first reason I could have missed the mark is because I just didn't know.

Second one is, I could have aimed at the mark and then gone deliberately off - ooh, deliberate. Miss, see? And the third reason is because I've got faulty gear, and I'm not doing it the right way, and I'm not holding it the right way, and I'm trying to get this thing and I'm just actually functioning wrong. I can't get it right because I'm not actually operating right. So there's three things: unintentional, intentional and faulty in the way of doing stuff. Got the idea? And all of those would end up with the same consequence, missing the mark. So when the Bible talks about sin, it says we have missed God's mark, missed God's plan, missed God's best for which there is a consequence, and that could have been unintentional. You just didn't know.

Well we kind of think like this; well if I didn't know I can't be blamed then. Not so. Try driving down the road at 100km and say, I didn't know it was a 50km zone. Doesn't work. You broke the law, do the crime, do the time. Not only that, in the Old Testament there was an offering specifically for sins of ignorance. Ignorance can never, in the spirit realm and the realm with God, be counted as an excuse for something being done. You can't come to God and just say, I didn't know. It is called something. It's got a specific name, and we're going to explain - it's called sin, see? Or you could have actually seen the sign down there, 50km, driven anyway, so you drove 100km. I'm going to give it a go - hope there's no cops around. Now you knew exactly what you were doing. That is called transgression, a deliberate violation of something you knew to be the right standard. You knew it and you still deliberately did it. That's a transgression, so from God's point of view sin is something that you did, and you didn't have knowledge of what it was, or you didn't fully understand what it was. It's still sin.

A transgression means you knew exactly what you were doing, and you did it anyway. There's something in your heart, rebellion in your heart - so sins and transgressions are two different things, but in the New Testament it's called all sin. But they do use the words sins and transgressions and inequities in the New Testament as well, but often when they use word sin, it's referring to the whole deal. But the blood applied to all three, so just to come to God and say well, I didn't really know, it doesn't mean you're not bearing consequences, because as far as the spirit world goes, they don't care whether you know or don't know. You still have the consequences. Aah, that's not fair! That's called sin, and all of sin, and the wages of sin, is death. Oh, but that's not fair! Go talk to God. He set the rules. Get clued up. Get connected. The real problem's deeper than that. The real problem is deeper than that - and then there's a third thing, inequity.

Now inequity is a crookedness. Inequity, the word means literally twisted. You know, you see those wicker furniture, they have all these things twisted together? That's wicker. That's kind of wicked, you know and that's what inequity is. Inequity is the crookedness inside you. Inequity is not so easy to see, because inequity lies right through the strand of your being. In fact, inequity is in the family line, and God says that rather than kill people the moment that they commit sin, He'll let them carry inequity, or carry the consequence of it, through their generational line. So we have several things that the blood deals with. One, inequity, the crookedness that's in your family background, in your family line, specifically motivating you to then do sins, things that you're not even sure they're right or wrong, and transgressions - things you know exactly what you're doing, and you still did it anyway.

The root behind the whole deal is inequity, so inequity is like the lintel. Sins and transgressions are like the failures that we have on either side, some we know about and some we didn't know about. Some we did deliberately, some we just did it was a mistake - it was all a mistake, I didn't know! Listen, there's still an offering required for those things you didn't know. There's still a price to pay for the things you didn't know. Oh, this is a real problem sin then isn't it? What am I going to do? Because most of us think oh, we'll come out - somehow God will - I'll just say a little prayer to Jesus and it'll be right. No, no. There's a way that you apply the blood to your life, and there are areas of your life to apply the blood, and three areas to apply it are transgressions, deliberate violations where you know exactly what you did, and did it anyway; sins, where actually I did this thing, but I didn't realise I was doing it. You're still required to front up and own up and say you're sorry. I found a lot of relationships, people do things, and they don't realise what they did was wrong, but then they don't take any ownership either. God requires us to take responsibility for all three, and there's a remedy for the things that you own up to. The things that you don't own up to just remain in effect. Oh, well it's not a big deal, we'll just let it go. No, no, no. That's why so many Christians walk defeated. They've got so much baggage unresolved, and so much demonic stuff around their life, they can't seem to stay free, so God wants us to deal with the deliberate transgressions. He wants to deal with the sins of ignorance. He wants us all to deal with inequity, the thing that gets into our whole family line that's like a twist toward sin, and the blood is the remedy for all three.

Notice that Aaron had to confess all three. The blood deals with all three. Now you getting the idea? In Ephesians 2:1 it tells us - just to give you a New Testament context, Ephesians 2:1, it says you were dead in trespasses and sins. There it is. The word trespass is the word transgression, so He tells the same thing. Trespasses and - or transgressions - and sins, things you didn't know, things you did know, and did anyway. He said you were dead in sin in those things, but Christ, oh thank God that He's rich in grace and mercy because it says we were dead in trespasses and sins, walking according to the course of this world, under demonic influence, sowing and reaping havoc in our lives and we were without any hope, but Jesus with His goodness and grace helped us! Oh my! When you see what disastrous situations we've all been in and still face, how you'll appreciate oh the mercy of our God, and the blood that was shed! The precious blood! It is very, very precious.

Titus 2:14 tells us that Jesus shed His blood that we might be cleansed from all our inequity, so these words are all through the Bible. Now, so how are we going to do it? So number one, here's the first thing; we have to apply the blood, and we're going to apply it specifically to those things. That's the first thing. We need to know what to apply it to, and apply it to those three things. The second thing is this; you must speak out. Notice the High Priest. He confessed the sins. You have to speak. You can't do this stuff just in your head. You have to speak, and you have to be vocal, and you have to be specific. I've found that people pray a very general prayer - oh, well I'm so sorry for what I've done. That's wonderful. It won't do you much good though.

What you've got to do is, actually be specific. It's good that you spoke up, but you need to go further than that, and actually be specific. Have you ever noticed that people who make an apology like this, it doesn't cut it with you? Oh, well if I've hurt you I'm sorry, or if I've done something wrong I'm sorry. What? And you kind of think oh blow, you know, this is a pain, because they're saying they're sorry - yes, they're a bit sorry, but why is it I feel so bad about this? Because something's missing. They didn't - 'if' I've done something wrong - they're not even admitting they've done anything wrong, and 'something' - well whats 'something'? See? There's no awareness of actually an action creating a pain in a relationship and needing to be addressed, so the apology never cuts it. You walk away feeling that didn't really cut it too well. Apologies need to be specific, and need to be vocal; I was wrong when I did this. I'm sorry. What I did was wrong. What I did was sin. What I did was, I sinned against you - but you see, we just call it a problem or a mistake, or we kind of just remove what it really is, and so we can't fix it.

So if you can't fix it with God's method, then it still stays there, and it has a burden on your life. It just exerts a pressure, continued pressure. So it says in Leviticus 16:21, Aaron shall confess the inequities. Now that's a long day that day. He's got a whole nation to confess their inequities. Well Father, I just confess before you the inequities of these families in the church, idolatry and sexual sin and - and now my list goes, there's a whole sin list going there, a whole list of crookedness and twistedness and inequities, sin and transgression, all of it being confessed. It's a long, long, long list but he did the whole lot, and laid it on the hands of the goat. But the Bible says in John 1:9, if we confess. Oh, you mean I just - it's more than being sorry for it? If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So there's our bit, God's bit. God's bit is to shed the blood, so we could be forgiven and cleansed. Our bit is to meet the condition: if we confess. We have to come before Him confessing.

Now, when you think of that word confessing, you think if you come up like me, as from a Roman Catholic background, you're thinking a little box and telling your sins to some priest, you know? But actually there's someone we're to talk to. He's called Jesus Christ. That's the one that we go to. He's the only one that can make the difference, and the word confess is the word in Greek, homologia - homo meaning of the same kind, or to be in agreement, or to be of the same; logia meaning a word. So what it says simply is this: I need to speak to God the same things His word says about my sin. This is sin. I am guilty. There is a judgement that comes because of this. Demonic spirits, sowing and reaping, all kinds of consequences and I'm guilty. That's only half of the confession. The other half of the confession is what the blood has done - but Jesus, I believe that you died on the cross for my sins. You shed your blood for my sins, and I confess today that my sins are forgiven because of the blood you shed by your mercy and by your grace! I apply that blood to my sin, and it's as good as gone!

Now you notice it's not just an, all down on your knees, feeling sorry for yourself? It's actually about declaring God, you're right, I'm wrong. God, you're provision and I apply it - both parts. You have to do it. You have to do it. That's how you get out. Now a lot of people mumble. Hello! Speak up! I didn't hear I'm guilty sound yet! [Laughter] You'd be surprised how hard it is to get 'I'm guilty' to come out of anyone. Do you know why that is? Because of inequity. We think somehow the rules don't apply to us. We're special. My mummy said I was special. [Laughter] Pastor told me I'm special to Jesus. Aah, but sin also has to be brought out in the open specifically. Got to bring it out specifically. I was wrong! I sinned! What I did was sin! I sinned against you Lord, when I did these - when I spoke those words in anger. Lord, your judgement is upon what I've done. I bring it to the cross, and to the blood, and you have said if I confess my sins, oh glory to God, I will be forgiven! Now what does that mean? It means whatever happens in the courts of heaven, there's a cancelling of the consequences of my sin. And I will be cleansed inside of the impact of this thing in my life, the inequity, the perversion that goes on inside, the twistedness in the heart.

Now here's the thing. We have to speak! I hear people come to church and they mumble, mumble in praise, mumble in prayer. They come up and you lead them in a confession, they mumble most times when I do deliverance things. I've got to stop them and tell them to speak up, because this is an important issue to deal with. You don't want mumbling around it. Be specific, be vocal, be clear. Bible's very, very clear, and so here's the thing you need to realise, that the spirit world is watching every word you say, everything you do. The spirit world watches.

What makes you think you can get away with anything, when there's someone watching all the time? Well I'm not watching all the time, so you think I can get away with the Pastor anyway, he won't notice. Says he's listening to God and then he notices. Oh, how did you know that? [Laughter] But the spirit world is watching, so there are a number of people watching you. Number one is watching. Number one who is watching, is the devil. He's watching every word you say, every move you make. Why? Because he wants to go before God and say listen, did you hear what that blighter said? Hear what he said? Hear what he did? I demand the right to afflict him!

God says well, not much we can do about it. He just mumbled. [Laughter] There's too much pride. Wouldn't even admit that he'd made a failure, sin - so the devil is watching all the time. The bible says in Zechariah 3, Verse 1; Joshua with the High Priest, he had a vision - Joshua with the High Priest, standing before God, standing in the courts of heaven before the presence of God, and Satan right there to accuse him. So there is a courtroom where there is a legal process goes on. It's to do with the laws that govern the realm of the spirit, and the realm of earth, and in that courtroom there's a whole number of people present; number one is the devil, and he's there and he's ready to get on your tail straight away and you know what? The Bible says, Revelations 12:10, he's not going to stop accusing you. He's a vicious prosecutor. If you've ever been to court - probably the person next you has - I hate going to court. I've been there a few times - very embarrassed, very humiliated to stand. In those days you used to have to go to court for a traffic fine - it was a shocker. They've got rid of - I'm glad those days are gone now, just pay the fine and get over it, you know? [Laughter] But you go there and you have to stand in a dock. Oh, it's a miserable place to be and there's a bench, oh-ho there's a bench, and there's someone who's a judge - horrible. The whole thing's horrible and humiliating and frightening, so you go there, and there over on one side, there's a man in a uniform. He's a prosecutor, and he's got a list of charges. There they are, and they're all itemised, and do you know something? The devil has a list of everything you've done, everything you've said, every mistake, every transgression, every inequity - he's got the whole list! It's a big list! You should be ready to forgive others - your list is too long. You can't afford to be showing no mercy to others, see?

So he's in the court and happily reads it out, and he has a right to afflict you. This is why many people live burdened, pressured, depressed, can't get victory, repeated cycles of sin, living with infirmities and all kinds - they live defeated, because they haven't known how to get into that place and apply the blood and shut the devil up!

People come and tell me they're oppressed of devils. Listen! Jesus said you stomp on them, tread them under feet, and I've given you something to do it with! I have dealt with his list of accusations at the cross of Jesus Christ. The Bible tells us He removed the list that was against us. That's our inequities going back generations. He removed all the sins, all the transgressions, and He stripped away the devil's power to accuse, and triumphed over gloriously. Well that's what He's done. What have you done?

It's what you do that determines whether you walk in victory, because your actions activate this to become real in your life, see? Think about it. Think about it. So you have to speak, so we have to speak - so number one, the devil's watching. Number two, the Holy Ghost is watching. He's watching. How do we know He's watching? Because His role is to watch you. One of His roles is to tell you any time you go off the tracks. One of His roles is to tell you any time you go off, so He must be watching everything you say and do. You think oh, I let him out of my eyes for a little bit. He even went overseas, I didn't notice what he did, you know? It doesn't work like that. God's everywhere. He knows exactly what you do, so the Holy Spirit also knows all that you've done, and here's the tricky part. There's also an angel, the Scribe Angel [Laughter] and this is the bad one. He's a good fella, but just got a very simple job, and his job is just to record what you said and did. Whoa, really! Oh - on the way out of church, oh! Write it all down!

He's got a book. It's got your name on it. You open up that book, oh-ho-ho - and believe me, it will be open one day. See? And it's got in it everything you said or did. My goodness me, that's a bit of a concern isn't it? [Laughter] So it seems in the spirit world, everyone's got their eyes on you. That's a bit of a shock. I kind of thought I could sneak in and sneak out and sneak off and have a private fag and no one would notice [Laughter] and sneak around the pub and have a little drink and no one would notice and, you know, sneak a little look at something I shouldn't be looking at, you see? That's what people think - but all the time the spirit world is whoa! The devil's rubbing his hands, all the ammunition he's got to fire off against you, and demand the right to have a go at you!

He did it to Peter. Jesus said that. He said Satan has demanded the right to come against you, but I've prayed your faith doesn't fail in the middle of it - and boy did he get a hiding too! He got a massive hiding, publicly humiliated, but you know, it's because there was something there in his heart, there was pride. So everyone is watching what you're doing. How exciting! And everything is written down. So here we go, we'll get to how it works out.

So your confession, you must speak from your heart, you know? Bible says we confess with our mouth and speak with our heart towards salvation, so I've got to be sincere - so mumbling - oh, I'm sorry - that doesn't really quite cut it. It doesn't cut it with anyone. Kids come up and say oh, sorry - you know they're sorry because they got caught out! [Laughter] It's not a very deep sorry is it? It doesn't really change either. A lot of us come to God and say I'm sorry. We're sorry because we're in a mess, rather than deeply sorry because of the consequences. Okay, here's the next thing and then we'll show you how your confession activates Jesus' High Priest ministry.

In Hebrews 3, Verse 1 it says - now get this. Listen to this carefully: Jesus is the apostle - now notice this - the High Priest of our confession. So what are you giving Him to be a High Priest with? Remember it's the High Priest who dealt with the sins of Israel, but they had to let Him know what they were. Jesus needs something to work with. He's done the work. The problem is we've got to do our part. He's the High Priest of our confession, so the Bible says in Hebrews; hold fast your confession of faith. It's always using the same word, homologia, a profession, a statement agreeing with God about my sin, and about the remedy. Hebrews 4:15, we don't have a High Priest that doesn't know what it's like to be tempted and can't feel what we feel, and doesn't understand us. There's not someone there who's impersonal. We have Him - He's so personal He walked everywhere in Israel, He suffered everything we could suffer, He knows exactly what it's like. So when you go to talk to Him, He knows what its like - I know what that's like. Oh, I know what that one's like! Oh-ho yeah, I know what that one's like. You must come to Him and the Bible says, let us come boldly! Boldly! Boldly! Boldly! Ooh, ooh - no, that's not how to come. That's coming religiously. We are to come boldly!

Where do we get our boldness from? Because we absolutely know what Jesus has done, and if I will step in and agree with it, then His High Priest ministry will be effective, and this is what'll happen; the court in heaven - number of places refer to it. I won't go into the things on it now, but the court in heaven, there's a prosecutor there, and he reads out the list of charges. Here you are, he did this, this, this, this, this, this - oh! Look at them. It's such a long list. Then comes over to you and of course the Angel of the Lord, the Scribe Angel is there and the Holy Spirit's there. They check the records - oh, that's pretty true. It's exactly what went on down there, and we know exactly what happened down there. We were watching too. And so now it comes to your turn to speak, so what will you speak? Well I didn't know. Don't blame me. Don't look at me like that. Don't blame me. Well, it was my father, it was the Pastor. I didn't go through the new Christian's class - and so it comes out. Well it wasn't really that bad. Well anyway, that guy was mean to me, so it's all - now you understand what you're doing is, your falling into the trap, there's no blood will apply to you for what you've done. The devil will say guilty as charged, so I've got a right to have a go at him. Jesus said if you harbour unforgiveness in your heart, and won't admit to it and deal with it, well of course the devil will have a right to afflict with infirmities and sicknesses and things - and people wonder why there's so much trouble?

This is what needs to come. Lord, I hear the list of charges. How do you hear them? Because the Holy Spirit talks to you about them. If He doesn't, someone else near you will come and tell you [laughs] There's a lot of people around like to tell you, but there it is - so I am guilty. Just I have done exactly what was said that I did. I did it. I am guilty. However, I brought these matters to the cross, to the blood of Jesus Christ. I believe that Jesus, I put my case in Jesus' hands. He will speak to me. Now of course if you go to a court, you have to have lawyer, and the lawyer does the speaking for you, so they just ask you, are you guilty or not guilty? So in this case you say well, I'm guilty. They say great! The devil's rubbing his hands, he can have a good go at you now. Your lawyer stands up and His name is Jesus Christ. One John, Chapter 2, Verse 1: We have an advocate with the Father. He is gone in, a High Priest has gone into the heavenly places, to be in the presence of God, for us it tells us. Oh! He's there for us!

Now, have I been in discussion with my advocate? Oh, no. Well there's not much for Him to work with then, is there. I need to have come to Jesus, the High Priest, to Jesus, my advocate in the court, so that when I've come to Him and confessed my sins, acknowledged my guilt, acknowledged my sin, before I ever get into the courtroom - acknowledge it straight away. God, this is what I have done. Jesus, I come to you. I hate that sin, I turn from it, I take the blood that you shed for me, and apply it to my life. I thank you, I am forgiven and cleansed. Apply it to my inequity, my transgressions, my sins. I apply your blood - and then when the devil's done all his accusing and you've pleaded guilty, say well I'm just going to leave it in the hands of my lawyer to sort this one out. And Jesus steps up, excuse me but I have a record here, and you notice here that there's no sign or evidence of any of these charges in our record.

There is no record in my book of any of these charges! There can be only one reason - not because he didn't do them, but because he applied the blood that I shed for him successfully to the charges and therefore devil, you can tear up your list of charges. This man is innocent - I paid the price. [Applause] See - paid the price! Paid the price! Now, that won't stop the devil badgering you. He will keep badgering you - oh well, out of court, when you get out of court - you know something? You really are a bad person. You did all that stuff. I know you did all of it. I've got the list. I've been watching - you did all that stuff. You're really a bad - how can you come into church? How can you?

You've got to shut him up. You've got to shut him up, because you've already been to Jesus, you've already been into court, you've already brought the things there. You say devil, go talk it out with my advocate! Go talk it out with Jesus Christ! I'm listening to none of your stuff. I overcome you by the blood He shed, and my confession is that I believe what it did. You've got to be quite assertive on this, and some sins more assertive than others. You've got to take a strong stand of confession, not only agreeing with God and coming into alignment with Him and turning from sin, but also agreeing with Him what the blood has done for you. I am redeemed by the blood! I am redeemed completely! Oh-ho, all my sins are forgiven! You need to get it in your mouth, confess it, confess it, confess it! Build this confession out of your mouth. I'll be listening to hear in the next few weeks what you're confessing, so whether it's got into your heart, because if you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth, you will make effective Jesus' High Priest ministry. Amen! And that blood will cleanse you. You'll come to church, you won't be all depressed and down, saying oh my God, I thank you! I'm clean, I'm free, that inequity's gone, that old devil, I sent him running. I trod on him underfoot, showed him the blood.

Listen, I've been in some deliverance cases, got a bit tricky on the way, got a bit hard, the devil's resisting. I say devil, look at the cross! Look at the blood - and they would scream! Aah, not the blood! Not the blood! Not the blood! [Laughter] Hey, how about that. They know more than we do. It was just when I applied the blood by confession that they got into a bit of a frenzy. They get into a frenzy when you apply the blood, because now they've got nothing to work on you with.

Oh halleluiah, I thank you for the blood of Jesus Christ by which I am redeemed. I am forgiven. I have acceptance with the beloved. Oh, I thank you, halleluiah, come on! Let's stand and give Him a clap today shall we? [Applause] Oh my! Oh, I feel so excited about what Jesus has done for us! Oh halleluiah! The blood - there is power in that blood, mighty power in the blood of Jesus Christ! Oh, you try it. You apply it, and you will see what it will do for you! Every time that accusation comes up, oh, stick the blood in there! Speak of what Jesus has done for you. Hold it out over the devil and make him shrink away defeated! He'll give up on you after a while. Come on, what are we going to sing?

Summary Notes:

1. Introduction

Eph.1:7 “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His Grace ..”

The one who creates makes the rules – God the Creator put in place physical and spiritual laws.

God established the consequences of sin

- Gen 2:15-17 “…in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

- Rom.5:12 “By one man (Adam) sin entered the world and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, for all have sinned.”

- Gen.3:7-10 “I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid, because I was naked and I hid myself.”

Consequences: spiritual – emotional – relational – physical.

God established a remedy for sin – the blood of Jesus Christ.

Heb. 9:22 Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.

The Old Testament shedding of blood of animals was a prophetic picture of the blood of Jesus shed.

Redemption =3083= a ransom, price paid to totally liberate a captive.

2. How the Blood of Jesus is Applied

(a) The blood must be applied – there is a part we must fulfil.

Exod.12:22-23 take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood in the basin and strike the lintel and the two door posts with the blood that is in the basin.

These were the instructions given for the first Passover – how to apply the blood.

Christ is our Passover (1 Cor.5:7) – He is the fulfilment of this feast.

Strike =5060= to touch, strike with force.

The blood was applied in 3 places – lintel and 2 door posts.

These three places cover all areas of man’s sin.

(b) The blood is to deal with Iniquity, transgressions and sin.

Lev.16:21-22 “Aaron shall lay both hands on the head of the live goat; confess over it the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions, and all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat.”

In the New Testament one word is often used to describe all these three words.

Sin =harmartia= to miss the mark and forfeit the prize e.g. archer.

We can miss the mark in three ways:

(i) unintentionally (ii) Intentionally (iii) Fault or flaw in how doing it

These three words all mean different things that must be addressed by the blood.

(i) Sin = unintentional wrong. An action committed in ignorance, without

knowledge = an error made in ignorance.

(ii) Transgression = a wrong committed with full knowledge. It means to know

better but to do it anyway.

(iii) Iniquity = an inner perverseness, twistedness, which causes a person to commit a sin or transgression – it motivates the person.

Eph.2:1 “..you were dead in trespasses and sins..”

Tit.2:14 “..that He might redeem us from all iniquity..”

(c) You must speak out – be vocal – be specific

Lev.16:21 “Aaron shall lay both his hands on the live goat and confess over it…”

1 Jn.1:9 “If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Confess =3670= homologeo= to say the same thing as the Word of God does concerning our condition.

We must speak – be vocal and be specific about what the Word of God says.

(1) We are guilty as charged. (2) The blood of Jesus was shed for our forgiveness.

The spirit world is watching our every action and word.

(i) The devil watches: Rev.12:10 He accuses us on every point.

(ii) The Holy Spirit watches: Rom.9:1 ..my conscience bears witness to the

Holy Spirit.

(iii) The Angel of God watches: Ecc.5:6 The scribe angel keeps account of all

we say and do in a book. Rom.14:12 Each of us shall give an account of

himself to God.

(d) You must speak from your heart = sincerity

Rom.10:9-10 “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and shall believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead you will be saved.”

There must be ‘heart’ behind your words – sincerity not just empty words.

(e) Your confession of faith activates Jesus Ministry on your behalf

Heb.3:1 “…consider the Apostle, and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus”

Confession =3670= homologo = to say the same thing as the Word of God.

1 Jn.1:9 “If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us…”

Heb.4:15-16 “..Let us hold fast our confession …

…Let us come boldly to the throne of grace!”

We need to hold fast to the confession of what the Word of God says that the blood of Jesus has done for us.

(f) The Courts of Heaven

There is a heavenly court (Dan.7:9-10)

There is an accuser – the Devil

Rev.12:10

Zech.3:1

There are witnesses – the Holy Spirit/The Scribe Angel

There is an advocate with the Father – someone to represent us

1 Jn.2:1-2

The Devil reads the charges against you (accuses you).

(i) They are detailed and specific

(ii) They are valid

(iii) How do you plead? - Guilty as charged

- Blood of Jesus Christ forgives

Rev.12:10 “They overcame him (devil) by the blood of the lamb and by the Word of their testimony.”

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3. The Blood of Jesus (3 of 4)

Sun 20 Nov 2011 AM     « Back to Top

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Well I want to continue a series I've been doing on the blood of Jesus Christ, and it's true that people everywhere, it doesn't matter who we are, we talk to one another, you find that what goes on in our lives that is not seen, are struggles with low esteem, struggles with not feeling good enough, struggles with guilt. We remember things that we've done in the past, and struggle to feel good enough to come near to God. We have issues that seem to - we thought we'd gotten over them, and they seem to come back, old patterns, old habits, old ways.

For all of us there are inner conflicts and turmoil that go on. I think they go on until the day you die. They're a struggling against the old life, that old nature - but there is a remedy. There is a remedy, and there are things that you and I can get hold of in our life that will cause us to get victory over those struggles. One of the most powerful weapons that God has given you and me, to overcome anything the devil would throw, and that is the blood of Jesus Christ. The blood that Jesus shed is still powerful today. I have been to many meetings where I have spoken to a demonised man and said to that demon, here, look at the blood of Jesus! And I saw that demon with fear in its eyes scream out. They certainly know the reality of the blood and what it does. Most Christians don't, and so we want to help you with that.

We saw as we've looked over the last couple of weeks that God who established all things, set rules in place, He set physical laws, He set spiritual laws. Not only that, He also set consequences for disobeying or breaking spiritual laws, so when we break spiritual laws, there's always a consequence. You say well, I sinned and didn't even see anything. I didn't feel any different afterwards - but that doesn't mean that you haven't set in place something you will feel and experience. That's the problem with sin. It really deceives us, because we think we sin and get away with it, nothing much seemed to happen immediately. God spoke to Adam - in the day you sin you'll die, but he didn't die physically that day. He lived almost 1,000 years - but was it true that what God said actually applied? Certainly. The day he sinned, something changed in him. He changed, and that change outworked in all kinds of different ways. So that's the deception of sin.

We come and we call things by another name except sin; what is my problem? Oh, it's my hang up, or it's my past. We have all kinds of labels to try and smooth it out, rather than calling it what it is. That was sin. That was pride. That was anger. That was hate. That was lust. That was fear. That was sin! And when you can call it what it is, there's a remedy. If you try and cover it or deny it, or wrestle to admit to it, you've got no remedy. It's still going to work in your life, you'll just reap the consequences.

There is a remedy for the failures of life. There is a remedy for our mistakes that we make. There is a remedy for the besetting problems. It's found in what Jesus did at the cross, so we want to look about it. Let's have a look in Hebrews 9, and I want to share some things today about the completeness of the redemption in Jesus. We'll just read this in Hebrews, Chapter 9 and when you read these, it may be initially a little difficult to get a hold of. We'll just explain it in simple terms shortly.

Now Verse 11 - Christ came as a High Priest of good things to come - so Jesus is a High Priest - of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is not this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves - notice - with His own blood, He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. If the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling of unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

So He's referring here, and the book to Hebrews was written to people who understood their heritage and their history, so they understood the law of Moses, and all the things that perhaps you and I are not so familiar with. So they understood that all that they had learned in the past, was a picture of something that would be fulfilled in Jesus Christ. They were told by God when they came out of Egypt to build a tabernacle, a place where God would dwell, and there was a protocol for coming into the very presence of God, which the High Priests followed. If you broke that protocol you died, so once a year the High Priests would go into the very holy place, where the presence of God shone and lit this place up, and he would make offerings on behalf of the nation, with the blood of goats and heifers and bulls and calves. He would do it once a year, and that would sanctify the people for one more year. It never solved sin. It never dealt with the root problems. What it did was, legally before God, made provision for the nation for another year, but God was using these things as a picture of something that was to come. So when you study these things in the Old Testament, they are a vivid prophetic picture of the reality of what Jesus has done, and I want to lay that out in a bit more detail today.

So go into Leviticus, Chapter 16 and it'll become quite practical in just a moment when you start to see, how this translates into realities for us today. In Leviticus, Chapter 16, it is a description of what would happen on the Day of Atonement. The Day of Atonement was the one day a year when the High Priests came in and had to deal with sins of a nation. There'd be a lot of sins wouldn't there? Two or three million people, and everyone's sinning every day. Man, that's a lot of sins. So once a year he'd come, and this was the big day - and God describes exactly what he's got to do, and notice what he says, Verse 7; Take two goats and present them before the Lord, at the door of the tabernacle of the meeting. Two goats - then he'll cast lots for the two goats. He'll throw a lot - one for the Lord, and the other for the scapegoat - so he'd have two goats. The two goats were presented to the Lord, one offering. So when you think two goats, one offering, okay? One offering.

Then they would get the dice, throw the lot, and one of them would be chosen, and one of them was chosen to shed its blood, the other was chosen to be the scapegoat, but it was all a picture of the same and one offering, what Jesus would do for us. So they would take the goat that was chosen to be the offering, the sin offering for the people, and in Verse 15, he kill the goat of the sin offering for the people, and bring it's blood inside the veil, and do with the blood what he did with the blood of the bull, sprinkle it on the mercy seat and before the mercy seat, seven times. So the Priest would take the two goats, present them to the Lord, one offering. He'd take one of them and that one would be slain, take the blood and he would go into the very holiest where God was, and he'd take the blood - he had it in a basin - and seven times he would sprinkle the blood on the mercy seat, on the ark where the presence dwelt, and then right down on the ground before it, seven times. We'll come back to that in a moment.

Then the second thing he did after that, in Verse 20, when he made an end for atoning for the Holy Place and so on, he'd bring the live goat and he'd lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the inequities of the children of Israel, all their transgressions, all their sins, and he'd put them on the head of the goat - ooh, that's a long, long list. Imagine going around the nation finding out what did you all do wrong this last year? That's a lot of sinning has gone on among two million people in one year. You can imagine that.

So he would lay hands on the head of the live goat. Notice what he'd do - laying on the hands always is impartation. He'd put his hands on the head of the goat and he would speak or decree these are the sins: lust, pride, fornication, adultery, perversions. He'd go through the list of what had been going on in the nation for a year and he would speak them over the live goat. Then the live goat would be released or go into the wilderness. He would never be seen again - so notice two pictures: two goats, one offering. One goat would be slain and shed it's blood, and the blood sprinkled seven times. The other goat, hands laid on it, and now the work becomes complete, the sins are imparted to the goat. The goat goes, never to be seen again. A picture for us of Jesus Christ who shed his blood, and when you and I apply the blood to our life, our sins are taken away, never to be remembered any more - a most amazing picture, amazing Old Testament picture.

All of these things in the Old Testament are to help us understand what Christ has done, because if I just tell you well, Jesus died for your sins and He's forgiven you, it's very shallow. But if we begin to look into some of the pictures and patterns shown in the Old Testament, oh, it becomes so vivid all that He did, because it's hard to explain to someone all that Jesus did on the cross. That's why the Old Testament has got these pictures so as you study them, and keep thinking about Jesus and what He did for us, you begin to see the full breadth of it. It's extraordinary! But even in how it happens, someone has to shed their blood, and someone else must confess the sins, see? But the work is complete - the work of Jesus Christ, so we want to focus on that. Now notice what they confessed over them: inequities, transgressions and sins.

Now in the New Testament you hear one word and it's called sin, kind of the coverall word, but actually it's composed of three things: Sin - sins are where we break the law of God, but we do it ignorantly. We didn't realise, we didn't know. That's what the Bible calls sins. Transgressions are where we actually knew what we should do, we knew what was right and what was wrong, and we deliberately did what was wrong. That is a transgression. One, we didn't know and did it anyway, we're still guilty. There was an offering for those sins of ignorance. Two, we did it and we knew exactly what we were doing and the third thing is inequity. Inequity is the crookedness or the twistedness in our life that motivates and moves us to continually sin in certain kinds of ways, so often it's connected to our generational background. We'll get back to that another time.

Okay, so notice what he did. All of it went on - sins, transgressions, inequities. It didn't matter if you didn't know. It still needed a remedy - so God has provided a remedy, all of them, the whole lot - ignorance, deliberate, or just the crookedness in our life, this is all there. Now notice - so we've got it there. Notice what happens here in Verse 14: He'll take some of the blood of the bull, sprinkle it with his finger on the mercy seat, and before the mercy seat, seven times. Now I want to look at this thing, seven times. Whenever you see something done seven times, seven times the blood of this was put on, seven times the blood of that was put on - every time you see the number seven, it tries to highlight to us, that whatever we're looking at or whatever's there, is a complete picture of what God is wanting to do. There's always a perfect number; seven days in a week, a full week. Now how many times should I forgive? Seventy times seven - in other words Jesus was saying, you just forgive completely, and you don't keep going back there. It's completion of whatever we do. Many cycles of things are in times or days of seven, so even is a number of God, but it's a number where something is complete. So he sprinkles seven times - so each time he sprinkled, it was a part of the complete picture of sin and the things we struggle with being dealt with.

So he sprinkled the blood seven times, and I want to open up for you a little bit of understanding about the shedding of that blood. He shed the blood so that we could be forgiven, made clean, come out of all cursing, and walk in blessing. That's the provision. We'll look at it in another scripture, but just have a look in Isaiah 53. There are seven things that Jesus came to redeem us from, seven things that the blood of Jesus Christ addresses. Go into Isaiah 53, you notice - very familiar - then I'm going to pick up, and see if you can identify what the seven areas or seven ways, Jesus shed His blood. It's interesting, shed His blood in seven ways. The High Priest sprinkled the blood seven times, seven. Now why did he do it seven times? Just because this is a good thing? It's a happy thing? It's a good number? I like that seven - we'll do it seven - no, it was not. It's because God's trying to tell us that the work Jesus did can be applied to every aspect of our life, and there is a way to apply it. Now, if we don't apply the blood, in the way God designates, we don't get the benefits of what He's done for us, see?

So let's have a look at it, Isaiah 53, Verse 4: Surely He has borne our griefs, He's carried our sorrows; we esteemed Him stricken and smitten by God, but He was afflicted. He was wounded for our transgressions, or pierced through for our transgressions. He was bruised for our inequities. The chastisement for our peace, lack of peace was upon Him. By His stripes we were healed, and we all like sheep have gone astray. We've all turned, every one, to his own way and the Lord put on Him the inequity of us all. Now I'm not going to open all that up but I'm going to go through piece by piece and have a look at where and how Jesus shed His blood, and you'll see all of them are included.

There are different things that the blood of Jesus was shed to do in our life. If you just say well He just shed His blood for my sins, Jesus, please forgive me and I'm getting on my way now, that'll be fine. Thank you for forgiving me. Now God will operate with you when you're a young Christian certainly, just through simple prayer like that, but as we grow He wants us to understand the completeness of the work, so we can lay hold of all the fullness of what He's done for us, because I've observed that many people come to Christ, they experience the initial joy of their forgiveness and salvation, and often don't stay in a place of life. Much of it is because of an internal wrestling with feeling guilty, something's wrong with me, not good enough. Something seems to keep landing on the soul they can't seem to get a victory over - struggles that go on, old issues seem to come up. There's a remedy for all of these things.

You've got to know what the remedy is, and how the remedy applies, so let's have a look at the first one then. So the first thing we'll do there is we're going to ask you then, if you can identify how many places you felt Jesus shed His blood? Probably you'll come up with a few of them. See if we can get all the seven? Where would be the first place that you can just think of? The head? The head was one, yeah, yeah, okay. Another one? Hands - must have been the hands, yeah, nails and hands. The back, yes, okay, the back, yes. Side, yes, spear in the side, yeah. Feet. Okay, we've got it. Five - internal bleeding, yes. And the blood - good, you got a whole seven, that's fantastic.

Okay, let's go through each one of them and have a look at each one of them in turn. The first - not necessarily in the order of importance, but I want to pick the last two are the very important ones, very, very important. First, Jesus, when He was crucified on the cross they drove great spikes through his wrists. When the Bible's talking about your hands, whenever the Bible's talking about your hands, it's always referring to the work you do, because you do things with your hands. If you have no hands, it's very hard to work, so with our hands we work, so when we talk about hands we're talking about the works that we do. In the Bible the first sin was committed with hands. You know, Even took the fruit with her hands. She gave the fruit to her husband. He took it and he ate it, with his hands.

The first murder was committed by the hands of Cain. Cain slew his brother, so the Bible tells us very clearly that by the hands of a man, sin came. In other words, your hands then is a picture of every work that you do, the things that we do. Now you can think of the things that you've done with your hands that you're a little ashamed of, things that you've done with your hands that you wish you hadn't done, areas of our life where we've done things with our hands, the works of our hands, literally the things we've done that we feel a sense of shame or guilt or regret about. All the works of our hands - now Jesus when He died on the cross, they pierced through. Now they didn't put it through His hand - it would have just torn off the cross. What they did is they drove two big spikes just at the base of the hand, right there just in this part of the wrist here where there's a gap between the bones. It is also the place where there's a major nerve. Now if you were to get your hand - if I hold my hand up like this and I just start to squeeze into my - now you can see like that, just involuntarily when I put my finger on that nerve that runs down inside my arm, the hand begins to shrivel up. You just can't stop it.

Any of you had a massage, and someone puts a hand and they squeeze you there? Your hand will just close like that, just closes. Actually when someone massages it's very nice - and the reason it does that, is because there's a massive nerve that runs through there, around past your elbow - that's called your funny bone but it's actually the nerve - and it runs right across through to your heart, right across the chest.

So what they did was, they drove a spike right through the nerve, and immediately His hand would go like a claw like that, and blood would spurt out all over His hands. When Jesus did this, He suffered immense torment and He had to, in order to breath, keep pulling Himself up on His hands, on that spike. Blood would spurt out until in the end, the hole opened up, and you could even see the very bones inside. It was a horrendous way to die, and Jesus shed His blood on His hands for every work you did that was evil, everything you've ever done that was wrong. The blood was shed for forgiveness and cleansing, and that blood can be applied to every sinful action, no matter what we have done, no matter what we have participated in, no matter what our hands have touched that have brought defilement to our life. You can come and say Lord, with my hands I have sinned. Lord, I am guilty of punishment and judgement because of what I did with my hands, but I thank you today that the blood of Jesus Christ was shed to cleanse all my works!

You can apply that blood and have cleansing - not only have cleansing, but you can also have blessing upon the works of your hands, because Jesus died not just to forgive us, but that we might be blessed in all the works of our hands. So you can arise whenever you fail, whenever you do something with your hands that's wrong or evil, and you can just say Lord, I come before you. What I did was sin, what I did was wrong, but I come Lord to the cross, I come to the blood was shed, I apply that blood to this work of mine, and I decree and declare in agreement with you, forgiven, now today I present my hands to you, and I declare the works of my hands are blessed. When I lay hands upon people, the blessing of God will flow, the anointing of God will flow. Whatever I do will be blessed by Almighty God.

That's good faith praying for you, day by day by day, praying for the works of your hands, because everyone can go out and do something. You do something with your hands. Why not begin to get your hands clean. Hands are always connected to the heart. What we do comes out of our heart.

Second thing then is the feet. The Bible - because obviously the feet speaks of your walk, because wherever your feet go, that's where you're going. So your feet are the walk, your direction in life, your steps, your ways. So when the Bible's talking about your feet, it's talking about your ways, the kind of walk you have. You can walk in pride. You can walk in fear, you can walk in anxiety, you can walk in rebellion. You can walk in independence. Whatever your walk, your walk is your path. Now initially when you take one step, that's not a path, but you keep taking the same steps, after a while there's a path that you've worn, and when you look at that path you can see what's written all over it: pride, fear, grief, rejection. Your path that you walk will come out of the decisions you make, and so your feet speak then of your walk, the way you live your life.

People become known for their walk. They become known for how they live out their life, so if there's pride in your heart, you become known as a proud or an arrogant person; if there's anger, you become known as an angry person, and you have an angry way. The Bible says we all like sheep have gone astray, every one to his own way, so when the Bible's speaking about the feet it's speaking about your steps, the walk you take. It's speaking about the decisions you make day by day that will take you in a certain direction. Jesus died and shed His blood. He shed His blood over His feet. What did they do? Well they took these huge spikes and they put them right there between the second and third metatarsal bone. They drove the spikes straight through the feet. Now it turns out that if you were to find that spot on your feet and press on it, you'd find it quite painful because there's a nerve there as well, so the spike went straight into the nerve that's bunched there, right at that place, and now this excruciating pain and shock would have gone right through His body.

So He's in shock because of the spikes on His hands, and in shock because of the spikes through His feet, and the blood spurted out all over His feet. He shed His blood a second time, this time for your ways, the way you walk, the decisions you make, choices you make. We make decisions every day. How many have made some bad decisions? How many did it, and you didn't really realise it was bad? You kind of thought it was okay? Yeah - but it was still a bad choice. You have a bad consequence you notice, even if you didn't - but I didn't mean it. It doesn't make any difference. You still get the results. Have you noticed that too? But I didn't mean - I meant well! No, but you actually made a very bad choice, so your bad choices have consequences and remember sins - or sins of ignorance - are still a sin. They still have a consequence. You can't go through life with God saying well, I didn't know, it's not fair.

It doesn't work that way. He just laid the principle out, we either walk in His principles or against them. When you violate them, there's always a consequence. Oh, but I didn't really know. No, no, your conscience, in your heart you knew it was wrong. If you'd stopped to listen to your heart, you would have known that wasn't the right thing to do, but you still did it anyway.

Well here's the good news. The good news is the blood of Jesus was shed for every wrong decision you made. The blood of Jesus can be applied to every wrong decision. It can be applied to the choices you've made in the past.

Sometimes we say I wish I hadn't made that decision, I wish I hadn't done that. I can think of some right now. I wish I hadn't done that. To this day, the consequences are there. Well God will give you grace for the consequences, provided you bring the wrong decision to the cross. So for all the wrong decisions that I've made, I need to come - Lord, that decision was a wrong decision. Lord, I acted contrary to you. I went against your way. I just followed by old crooked ways. It's sin and it has a consequence, but Lord today I bring my choice to the cross. I bring it to the blood and I thank you, I agree with you. It is sin worthy of punishment, but I also agree that your blood has paid the price of that wrong choice, so today in Jesus' name it no longer stands, and I commit my life today to make good choices. I thank you today you will lead me in every decision I make - so you can bring your wrong decisions to the cross. You never need to be condemned or guilty any more for any wrong choice you make.

The blood is there to cover, and to address, the whole thing of your wrong decisions. I wonder how many of you today as you pray, and you get up and you begin to pray, commit your hands to the Lord, the works of your hands, all you put your hand to today and declare His blessing over it, or commit your walk today and choose to walk - today I'll walk in dependence on you. Today I'll walk in love, today I'll walk in faith, today I choose to walk in humility. Today Lord I thank you, your blood cleanses my will and every part of me, cleanses my feet. Today I will walk in right paths because you're leading me.

See, this is powerful faith praying to establish your life before you go out in the day. You could do that couldn't you? Many people don't think to do that, and then they wonder why they seem to have a lot of problems. You can establish your life very easily.

Here's another one - His back. The back is the strongest part of your body, and the Bible tells us that that's where the strength is of course, that's where all the muscles and so on are. In Isaiah 53, Verse 6, it says we've all turned, every one to his own way to do their own thing. By His stripes we are healed. Now think about that. What they did was they stretched Him up against a post and then they had this whip, had all these chords and little bones and pieces of metal in it, and then they would systematically go right down the back, right down the body on one side, right down the body on the other side, and it wouldn't just cause Him to be red. It would actually start to tear open the whole of the flesh, and the particular reason the Romans did this was to bring the body into shock, and to maximise the suffering of the person. So they would be torn open, literally the body would be dripping with blood, and then what they'd do then is of course the person would - ultimately they'd be dragged in the ground, there'd be dirt in it. When they're on the cross the constant moving up and down on the cross to try and breathe, the wounds are kept open and they continue to bleed, so the blood's continually washing down, coming down the back, constant pain, constant distress.

The Bible tells us very clearly, helps us - says this is for your healing. By His stripes, you were healed. If there is no healing for a believer, then there's no need for the stripes to have been laid on Jesus. When that blood was shed, it was shed for healing. It was shed for wholeness. Sickness is when we lose our strength in our body. Sickness is a part of the curse of the four, so when sickness comes around our body it's an invader. It's part of the cursing. Jesus Christ shed His blood, the blood than ran down His back was shed for you and for me, so there is blood. There is a provision made in Jesus' death. His blood was shed for healing. Why do we not see more people healed? Well much of it's to do with unbelief. Some of it has to do with unconfessed sin, and some to do with being determined to take hold of what God says is my provision.

You know when they came out of slavery out of Egypt, there was not one sick person. That's a pretty tall order isn't it? They were all healed at the Feast of Passover, and we celebrate Jesus as our Passover. Interesting thing about all these feasts, Jesus was the High Priest. Jesus is our High Priest. Jesus was the offering, He's our offering. Jesus is the altar where the offering was shed, Jesus is everything. That's why when Jesus was speaking to the disciples, He said He opened up in their understanding, everything in the Old Testament concerning Himself, and this was part of it, so they begin to see all of what were their tradition and their culture, they saw it suddenly, like the lights came on. They were oh my! Oh my! That blood that was shed, oh, it was shed for this, blood that was shed for that, oh, it was shed for this!

They began to see Him in all the amazing what He'd done, so He shed His blood for healing. What about His head? The head is the crown. It's interesting it tells us in the Bible - let me give you the Verse for it - Matthew 27, Verse 27 to 30 - it says they plaited a crown of thorns, beat it upon His head, and they put it down. Then they began to bow down and mock Him, and they called Him the King of the Jews. They began to mock and ridicule His kingship. Was He a king? Yes He was, and yet they bowed down and ridiculed Him. Now when Adam fell of course, the Bible tells us that he fell by giving up his rulership, by surrendering. He put something in place of God in his life. He put something before God. He put his own wife, he put his own desires before God and what happened was, the Bible said there was a curse came, and the ground that he laboured that he should have had dominion over, brought forth thorns.

That means it was very hard, it was very difficult. If you'll notice with people today is they struggle and strive. It doesn't matter who people are, it's like the ground of their life does not yield and become fruitful. They don't prosper easily. There's a lot of sorrows and pains and difficulties accompany trying to accrue wealth, trying to succeed and get ahead in life. Life seems to be extraordinarily difficult, in spite of all the modern appliances we have. Why is that? Because there's a curse on the ground, and it won't yield forth willingly. That's why people struggle and wrestle.

It's like there's an invisible power that you're working against, and you just get something happen and it goes backwards, something else breaks out. It's like there's a constant pressure against people, and that's a result of the curse. When Jesus took this crown on His head, He dealt with the issue of idolatry in our lives, putting something ahead of God, so you and I could be restored to our rightful relationship, and the ability to reign in life. You're not a victim any more. When Jesus had that crown put on Him He suffered, He endured the failure of Adam. He endured Adam's sin where Adam substituted God being first, put something else first, and in the end brought all of us into a problem. So Jesus took that. Isn't that amazing?

They plaited a crown of thorns. Whenever you place something in your life ahead of Jesus, ahead of God, its idolatry. Have you noticed this, that when you put something ahead of God, how hard life gets? Have you noticed or ever had the experience, where God told you to repent of idolatry, and when you put something right, life went a lot easier for you? This is the crown of thorns. These are the thorns of life, and I've found whenever you're going through thorny experiences in life, have a look into your heart and see if something came in your heart ahead of God. If somehow you've displaced God from your life, and now your life is very, very hard - I've watched people and it shows the stubbornness. They will go through hardship after hardship after hardship, and never stop to think that maybe the hardship is the consequence of having idols in my heart, that my life is not rightly aligned.

Jesus shed His blood to get our lives right. Oh, today Lord I put you first in my life. I seek first those things of right living, the things of your kingdom. I seek to honour you in all I do and I thank you Lord today I reign in life. I thank you Lord, I bring every mistake, every place where I've substituted something for you, I bring it to the cross. Lord, I am guilty as charged but I thank you today I am forgiven by the blood. I thank you today I reign in life. Your life flows through me, I have the victory.

See, you can pray very powerfully if you will start to take what God has done for you, and start to bring it in your prayer life and apply it. It's only applied through confession. You have to speak something if you want the things of God to work in your life, see? It grieves me, because I see a lot of people struggle, and I watch them go through suffering after suffering after suffering, and yet when you talk to them it's almost like there's a blindness. They can't see it's the things in their heart have stopped them going forward, and only a revelation of that can change it.

Then the last couple of things - side. Jesus was wounded in His side. The Bible says in John 19, Verse 34, the soldiers pierced His side. They just - when they thought He was dead, this was the last thing they did. They took a spear, pushed it right up His side into His heart. Blood and water came out - last place the blood was shed, and He shed that blood for our transgressions, every place that you and I wilfully have sinned against God, wilfully have done it, it comes out of the heart. Out of the heart flows the issues of your life, and where our heart has wilfully chosen to do something, the blood was shed not just to cleanse us, but to give us a new heart, a right heart, a heart to please God. Oh Lord, today in my heart I've wilfully gone against you in this way. Lord, I am so sorry. I decree it's a sin, I declare and agree with your word what you say about it, but Lord I bring it to the cross where the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses me, forgives me. Today I thank you; you're renewing my heart, a right spirit within me.

See? We need to be established in God, because your heart is what condemns you. When it comes to praying, the hardest place it is to stand before God, is in your personal life, when you come to pray and then you get reminded of all the things you've done wrong, and so the moment you start to be reminded of all the things you've done wrong, you will either take God's remedy and apply the blood to come out of it, or you'll yield and withdraw from God, and draw away from Him, because you're depleted.

That's what lots of people do. They just got overwhelmed and condemned in the heart. If you can't deal with condemnation in the heart, the devil will just have a hey day with you. You see God has established a plan whereby you and I can be right before Him. It's called the blood of Jesus, and we get right with Him by believing what the blood has done. If our heart condemns us, God is bigger! If your heart knows something you did wrong, God is bigger! If you have failed, and there's something the devil's reminding you of, then God is bigger! The work of the blood of Jesus is bigger! You don't need to live with your head down, condemned by what you've failed to do, didn't do, someone pointed out you did. Rather, take that thing and say, I bring it to the cross! You're right Lord, I didn't do that. Thank you devil for pointing that out, I did do that but I thank you that the blood has covered that thing now! I refuse to be condemned. I refuse to hold myself down. Why? Because there's no condemnation to me in Jesus Christ! I stand up, cleansed by the blood, confident before God!

This is the place most people struggle. It's the one place the devil will beat on you more than ever. If you can't break through that, you'll never have the victorious life - you'll struggle never being good enough. We are made good and right before God by the blood of Jesus Christ, not by our works. The devil can shift you back to your works, get you focussing on your failures, you've lost the battle. The only way I can enjoy the power of God flowing in my life is to know I am righteous before Him! By what Jesus did for me I firmly hold it! How do I hold it? By my heart believing and my mouth confessing! You've got to learn to speak. I listen to people pray. I can tell when they're praying they're not near God, nowhere near God. Why are they not near God? Because of condemnation, because of this issue here. The very last thing - they put the thing through His side, blood came out and that blood covers what's gone on in your heart, covers your wilful transgressions. So now I can come boldly into His presence!

When the Bible tells you to do that, tells you the protocol for coming into His presence; thanksgiving, gratitude, praise, boldly - but you'll never know until you stand up and do it, that it works. So many people just live in a melancholy and a heaviness of condemnation, and they don't feel good enough. Where is that coming from? It's coming from old transgressions. It's coming from old ways. It's coming from the devil accusing you, condemning you. Listen, even if you've got a list as long as your arm and then some, of all the things you did wrong, the blood of Jesus is bigger than those things! Bigger than all of them! That's why a murderer can be forgiven and become an Apostle, and the greatest New Testament leader. And you know what? Religious people, it's a mystery, it's a total mystery, because religion is built on, I have to do it, and I have to earn it. That's why it astounds people when the grace of God comes to a simple person, says Oh God, I really messed my life, but I believe you love me and died for me! I receive your forgiveness! Then God's grace flows in their life, and people say but he doesn't deserve it. He's still got so many things wrong. Now who said you needed to deserve it? Where did that come from? That's the older brother talking, the older brother and the prodigal son. The prodigal son just come back and got all - God blessed him. That's the mercies of God. Oh the blood, thank you for the blood! Thank you for what you've done! Thank you Lord, I'd have lived in condemnation and judgement. See? Don't need to. Can be free, and if you're free then your feet know it, let your face know it, let your inner man know it! See the blood, it's for all of those things.

The last two places was the brow - interesting, and it took place as the very first place the blood was shed - Luke 22:44, when Jesus went into the garden of Gethsemane, it said He was sorrowful and in distress, and it says that He came in - because He knew what was coming up. He knew that shortly, He's going to die in the most horrible way. Now that would freak you out. Ever been to the dentist you know, and you know you've got to have something taken out? I went to an Indian dentist in Malaysia and I had to get a - what do they call those - an implant. I was terrified. When they started cutting and the blood spurted I went into shock - oh ho ho no! Horrible! Now that's a little thing compared to knowing you're going to be tortured to death tomorrow. That would keep you awake at night wouldn't it aye?

So fear, terrible, terrible fear, dread, anxiety, concern - emotional trauma, that's what He went through. See what happened was He prayed. Now He prayed so intensely, and so strongly, and so fervently, and He's so engaged and purposing He'd do what God wanted and not draw back, the Bible tells us that He sweated is the word, great drops of blood, and the language of it just says that the sweat became blood - so it started off sweating, and then eventually the capillaries started to burst and blood started to come out. It's a medical condition, and the blood started to just flow out through His skin and began to drop down, and what was it all about? His determination to overcome fears, anxieties, dreads, all of those things that would stop us from doing what God wants, from living a powerful life and He overcame it! Shed His blood, so whenever you've got a fear and a dread, go back and look at Jesus. He shed His blood. Why don't you get the blood of Jesus, and hold it by your faith confession against that fear! Hold it against that fear! Yes, I'm afraid. Yes, I'm anxious. Yes, I have all these things around my mind - but Jesus Christ came and He shed His blood. Therefore it will not have power on me!

Got to do it. You've got to take a stand on what you saw. He bore our griefs and our sorrows, so blood is only shed when there's great emotional trauma and distress.

So Jesus took all the traumas and distresses that we face in life, took them on Himself. Finally the last one is the bruising. He was bruised for our inequities. A bruise is an interesting thing because you can't see - or we don't see it initially. If someone gets a beating, you know the interesting thing is, they may not fracture the skin but the next day man, there's the worst black eye you've ever seen. Ever had a black eye? That's a bruise. Is it painful? Oh my! Ever played Paintball and someone hit you and you've got these bruises and spots all over you now? Of course it's just this red thing, and then have you noticed it turns this black colour? That's because underneath the skin the blood - the vessels have been broken, and the blood has been shed, and you notice when you touch that bruise how painful it is? Oh ooh ooh ooh - and you can't even see it.

Now the Bible tells us of Jesus - I'll just give you the Verse then we'll finish with this. Here it is, in Mark 14:65, they put a hood over His head, and they just began to beat Him. The thing about it is, when you put a hood over someone's head, you can't see where the blow's coming from. They just kept raining blows on Him, and He couldn't see who it is - so tell Him who it is, tell us who was that? They mocked Him and jeered Him and they rained blows on Him, and His body and face became bruised. The Bible says He's bruised for our inequity. A bruise is something you don't see on the outside because it's underneath. Inequity is a twist in our life towards sin. Often it comes from our background, our families, it's in our family line, it's in the DNA of our line, and it's a horrible thing because you can't see it, but you find it's affecting your life. You find the thing you hated in your family background is manifesting in your life. It's like a hidden, invisible thing, and so Jesus shed His blood inside, bruised, to break the power - everything! Whatever you've come from, whatever was in your family line, whatever's in your DNA, blood was shed that you could be free!

But you need to take the inequity to the cross - Lord - and it could be a whole range of things; pride, fear, anger, lust, bitterness. Those are the common ones - I bring my pride to the cross! My father walked in pride. I am walking in pride. It's an inequity in our family Lord, and I bring it to the cross because the blood of Jesus was shed - He was bruised for my inequity, so I decree the blood of Jesus Christ breaks that inequity right now! I'm forgiven. I'm cleansed. It has no more power. I hold the cross of Christ between me and my family line and decree the blood has broken that power!

You've got to be quite assertive on this stuff. You notice none of this is timid stuff. It was a huge act of aggression and violence of Jesus to die in such a way and shed His blood so horribly. It's so horrible that you know when that movie came out of Jesus, that latest one and Mel Gibson's one? It shocked everyone. What shocked everyone? Who did it shock? It shocked the Christians, the lovely sweet Christians who got a little picture of Jesus on a cross, and didn't stop to think that the cross is the most wicked and evil and painful way ever devised to kill a human being, to prolong their suffering, deliberately strip the body of all of it's blood, so in the end they die from shock and loss of blood - and all the time there's pain that can't be relieved.

We look at the movie and we're so shocked by it, our sensibility's shocked, and it's true because no one wants to be exposed to violence. But listen, this is the reality of what Jesus took on, so you and I could be free. We honour Him when we believe and apply it to our life, and live in the freedom. We honour Him and we honour what He's done when we believe what the blood has done, apply it to our lives and take hold of the freedom He called us to walk in.

I don't care what the issue is. The blood of Jesus has the answer for it. It's a matter of whether you will believe or not. Will you believe? Will you believe that Jesus shed His blood for you to be free?

By the blood of Jesus Christ I am redeemed! The full price paid, I have to pay no more price! I just need to believe and confess. If you'll believe in your heart and confess these things with your mouth the power of God will be released to make them effective in your life. I encourage you to apply it.

Let's just close our eyes right now, perhaps there's someone here today, and you've never even made the first step to get near to God, which is to receive Jesus Christ. Oh, friend today I can't put in words how much God loves you and all of those failures, the things you're ashamed of, things you did with your hands, things that you did with your feet, the choices you've made, the things you've done - the way you've thought, the way you've governed your life, the bad choices you've made, the traumas you've been through. Oh, the things that have been in your heart that you never said anything, but you knew they were there, the crookedness, the following in old bad ways, whatever has happened the blood of Jesus has made a way for you.

If you will believe in your heart and receive Jesus Christ you will be set free. He said I did not come into this world to judge you. I came to save you. Perhaps you're sitting today in great pain, great anguish of heart because of your sin and your failures. Friend, Jesus is here for you. He loves you, and if while you were away and abandoning Him and refusing Him, He died for you, how much more will He give you all that you need. It just requires one decision. Is there any person here today ready to receive Jesus Christ, I'd like you to raise your hand.

Summary Notes:

1. Introduction

Eph.1:7 “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace”.

God has put in place both physical and spiritual laws.

God has established that sin has consequences – death (physical, spiritual and mentally).

God has established the only remedy for sin – the blood of Jesus Christ shed on the Cross.

Heb.9:11-14 “But Christ – by His own blood – obtained eternal redemption for us…”

Redemption =3083= to ransom in full, totally pay the price to release captives.

2. The Redemption of Jesus for us is Complete

(a) The Old Testament Pattern

Lev.16:7-21 The sin offering

(v7) Two goats = one offering for the sins of the congregation.

(v15) One goat slain – blood sprinkled on and before the mercy seat 7 times.

(v21) Second goat – confess all the iniquities, sins and transgressions – never seen again.

Two goats represent one offering = the work of Jesus Christ on the Cross.

Sin = unintentional wrongdoing, action committed in ignorance.

Transgression = intentional wrong, action committed with full knowledge.

Iniquity = inner twistedness which causes a person to commit sin.

Note: (i) Jesus is our High Priest

(Heb 3:1 Jesus the High Priest of our confession)

(ii) Jesus is our offering

(Jn.1:29 Behold the lamb of God which …)

(iii) Jesus is our mercy seat

(Rom.3:23-25 God set faith as a mercy seat)

All of this is a prophetic picture of the work of Jesus on the Cross redeeming us.

(b) His Redemption is Complete

Lev.16:14-15 “… shall sprinkle some of the blood seven times”.

7 = number of spiritual perfection; complete e.g. Forgive 70 x 7 Mt. 18.

The blood was sprinkled 7 times.

Jesus shed His blood so we could be forgiven, cleansed, enter the presence of God and walk in blessing of covenant relationship in every area of our life.

Jesus also shed His blood in seven separate ways to redeem us.

Is.53:4-6 “Surely he has born our grief’s and carried our sorrows …”

Each way Jesus shed His blood purchased for us forgiveness, cleansing and freedom from all cursing in that aspect of our life.

Gal.3:13-14 “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the Law – that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Jesus Christ”.

3. Seven Ways Jesus Shed His Blood

Can you identify different ways that Jesus shed his blood for us?

(i) Hands = the works that we do.

Gen.2:6 Eve took of the fruit and ate (with hand) – Adam took the fruit.

Gen.4:11 Cain slew his brother with his hand.

Cain’s hands were cursed by committing murder.

Your hands – what you do are connected to your heart (Jam.4:8).

The spikes did not enter hands but entered without severing median nerve – hand become black.

Weight on hands opened the wound – blood shed.

Hands can now become a source of blessing when cleansed by the blood of Jesus.

(ii) Feet = walk, the decisions that we make.

The steps of your feet determine the direction of your life, your way, path in life.

Is.53:6 We have turned, everyone to his own way – Do own thing.

Many times we follow generational patterns or ways, wrong paths of parents.

Nailed between 2-3 metatarsal bones – nerve centre of foot – body in shoe.

Blood shed for wrong decisions – forgive, cleanse so make a godly decision.

(iii) Back = strongest part of the body, also defenceless.

Pilate had Jesus scourged with a whip containing pieces of bone and metal.

It not only lashed but also cut, tore, ripped and shredded.

Jesus limited it to 39 times – Romans did not limit the lashing.

Is. 53:5 and by his stripes we are healed.

Infirmity = without strength. Jesus shed his blood to break the curse of sickness.

Blood cleanses sins done against body = e.g. drugs, alcohol, diet, abuse, sexual sin, tattoos, piercing

Blood shed so we could walk in health, wholeness, (Ps 105:37).

(iv) Head = mind, governs direction of life.

Gen.3:17-18 Ground cursed – thorns and thistles bring forth – sweat.

Adam was given dominion over the earth – it became cursed when he betrayed his loyalty to God as King and lost his dominion.

Thorns = frustrations, difficulties, setbacks in life.

Mt.27:27-30 “They plaited a crown of thorns and put it on his head – bowed .. mocked him”.

Placing something before God is idolatry.

Jesus shed His blood to cleanse us from all idolatry so we could be restored to the place of dominion, crowned with glory of God and be free from striving and serving idols.

(v) Side = heart, the motivation of life.

Transgression = wilful action, not a deception but intentional sin.

Eve was deceived but Adam’s sin was intentional – he knew what he was doing.

Adam gave away his rights to rule the earth and opened the door to sin.

Jn. 19:34 The soldiers pierced his side and forthwith came out blood and water. The spear pierced Jesus side - pleura = membrane that lines the chest cavity and covers things.

The spear pierced Jesus heart.

The last place Jesus bled address the first transgression ever committed – Adam.

The blood of Jesus cleanses every wilful sinful action and restores us to relationship.

(vi) Brow = mind, fears, anxiety, sorrows.

Lk.22:44 Being in agony he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling to the ground.

The first way Jesus shed His blood – in the garden of Gethsemane in prayer.

Mt.26:37 He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed.

He was agonising over doing the will of God – prevailing over fear, grief’s, sorrows.

His sweat was = became great drops of blood.

Hematidrosis = medical term – mental stress and emotional trauma.

= blood oozes out of capillaries of skin instead of perspiration.

Is 53:4 surely he has borne our grief’s and carried our sorrows.

The blood of Jesus breaks the power of fear, sorrow, anxiety so we can be at rest.

(vii) Bruised = internal bleeding – iniquities.

Is.53:5 He was bruised for our iniquities.

Bruise = internal injury, no seen, internal, very painful.

Mk.14:65

The temple guards beat Jesus with his head covered so he could not see where the blows cam from.

Blood vessels under the skin ruptured and bled.

Iniquity is an inner drive towards sin, unseen, often generational.

Generational iniquities pressure and torment people.

Tit.2:14 “He gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify to himself a peculiar people zealous for good works”.

The blood of Jesus cleanses us from iniquity – generational, pride, lust, fear, anger, bitterness.

How to Apply

Heb 3:1 Confession = to say same things as God says.

(1) Admit sin

(2) Admit guilt

(3) Admit punishment

(4) Declare what Jesus has done – forgiveness, cleansed, freedom.

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4. The Blood of Jesus (4 of 4)

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I want you to open your Bible with me in Exodus, Chapter 12. We’ve been doing a series on the blood of Jesus. If you have a besetting problem, something that seems to stick in your life, it’s been in your family, it’s in your life and you’re concerned it’s starting to turn up in your children, I’ll help you understand what it is and what to do about it. The answer is the blood of Jesus Christ. Exodus, Chapter 12, and this is the first Passover that the Jews ever had. It’s a prophetic picture of the work of Jesus Christ at Calvary. When Jesus came John prophesised, behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. 1 Corinthians 5:7 says Jesus, our Passover, was sacrificed for us, so when we see what happens here you’ll see a picture of some things that God intends us to understand.

He said in Verse 22 of Exodus 12, you shall take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that’s in the basin, and strike the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that’s in the basin. Notice this, notice what they had to do; they had to slay the lamb, take the blood of the lamb, put it in a basin. Then they had to apply the blood, first to the lintel, then to the two sides of the door. Then they had to go inside, and notice what it says, stay in the house until the morning or the new day, for the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians. When He sees the blood on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to strike you. And you’ll observe this as an ordinance for you and your sons forever.

This is one of the most important feasts in the history of Israel. It was the first feast that led to their deliverance out of bondage, and it was all centred around a lamb, which was inspected for four days, inspected four times. Jesus was inspected four times, found innocent each time. In the end they trumped up the charges and declared Him to be guilty.

The lamb was taken, its blood was shed. They had to apply the blood, and notice this; they had to remain behind the door covered with the blood, and when they stayed behind that blood, behind that covering of the blood, the destroyer, the demonic powers could not enter in to afflict them. I want you to notice this; when they applied the blood, the devil had no power to enter their house, to destroy them, or afflict them in any way. There’s a tremendous picture here for us, of how necessary it is for us to apply the blood of Jesus, and then to remain by faith in a place where we stand. Under the protection of that blood, no demon can access your life, no demon can continue to afflict you, no demon has a ground for a hold. Whatever you have brought behind the blood, now there’s no legal grounds for you to be afflicted and attacked. But you must exercise faith.

It’s not a matter of some formula – I plead the blood. It’s nothing like that. It’s actually something far more than that. It’s actually a personal faith, that what God said works, will work! Halleluiah! It’s exciting. So we saw it had to applied three places, and in one of the previous messages we saw that there were three issues that the Bible says have to be dealt with by the blood. The first was sin, the second transgression, the third iniquity. Let’s review it again. Sin was any action against or contrary to God’s laws that was done in ignorance. You didn’t know what you were doing or you didn’t know there was a law. In spite of the fact you didn’t know, there was still a sin, and so there was a particular offering it tells in Leviticus, Chapter 4. There was a special offering for sins of ignorance, so don’t say that you don’t know. It won’t do it. You need to bring things under the blood.

The second thing was transgressions. Transgressions were deliberate violations. You knew to do better ,but you decided well I’m just going to do what I’m going to do anyway. The third is iniquity. Iniquity is quite different, and that’s the one we want to address today, because this is the root cause. Iniquity is an inner twist in a person’s life that bends them towards sins and transgressions. It’s something crooked inside you, so even if you’re brought up in a good environment, you still get twisted, and still do bad stuff. So iniquity is the issue.

Now there’s three different words, three different offences, one single issue that dealt with it. It’s the blood of Jesus Christ. Legally, the blood of Jesus Christ puts and deals a death blow to the issues of sin, transgression and iniquity. In Isaiah 53, Verse 5 and 6, I want you to have a look at this. We’re going to focus on iniquity which is the root cause, the major thing that lies behind the sins and failures and issues we have in life. When you begin to see this, you’ll begin to see tremendous victory that Christ has won for us.

Isaiah 53, in Verse 5 and 6; He was wounded for our transgressions, deliberate violations of God’s laws. He was bruised for our iniquities. Bruised means He suffered internal haemorrhaging. His blood was shed as the blood vessels were shattered internally for our iniquity, our crookedness. He shed blood so you could no longer – you don’t need to be crooked any more on the inside. You don’t need to be under the power of anything on the inside. Notice what else it says. It says He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, by His stripes we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray. We’ve turned, every one to his own way. Now look at this. You’ll see the significance of this Verse in a moment. The Lord laid on Jesus Christ the iniquity, crookedness, perverseness, of us all. He didn’t just deal with your sin failures done in ignorance. He didn’t deal just with your transgressions, deliberate actions against Him. He actually initiated an answer for the root cause that drives us into dysfunctional and sinful behaviours, and we want to have a look at that.

The first thing we want to have a look at is iniquity. What is iniquity? In the New Testament they use one word, sin. So most of the time, Christians, we use the word sin; well I sinned. Actually we need to be quite clear what we’re talking about here. Are you dealing with sin? Are you dealing with transgressions? Are you dealing with iniquities? They are three different things. They all need an answer. They all need an answer, not just that you just generally – oh God, won’t you just forgive me all? You know God in times will allow His grace to flow, according to the knowledge we have to cover it all, but as we grow we need to learn how to deal with things properly.

So first thing is it’s an internal corrupting force. When Jesus was speaking with the Pharisees in Matthew 23, Verse 28, notice what he – remember he said this to them. Now these are religious people that look good. He said outwardly you appear to men to be righteous. You look good. But he said inwardly, you’re full of hypocrisy and iniquity. The word there is iniquity, so what he’s saying is to religious people. He’s saying outwardly you’ve got all the behaviour looking good, you’ve got yourself dressed up, you’re behaving meticulously on the outside – but I know what’s in your heart. It’s full of hypocrisy. You’re acting out something, because really there’s iniquity, there’s a sinful power operating in your heart. You just look good on the outside. The real issue is you’re full – he said this – full of iniquity. Full of it in other words. That’s where the expression came from I suppose – you’re just full of it. So there it is.

So iniquity is an internal corruption inside us. We’ll see where it is in a moment, and how to deal with it. Not only that, it’s a painful lasting influence. I want you to have a look in Genesis, Chapter 4. It is something that lasts. It’s something that goes on. This is why you’ve got to deal with this. This is the spider. The rest is all the webbing. You don’t get the spider, you still keep having the webs turn up. So notice in Verse 6 – Genesis, Chapter 4, Verse 6, and God is speaking to Cain and He said “Why are you angry? Why has your countenance fallen?” You notice what He’s speaking there and He goes down, then you know that Cain went out and he committed sin. He murdered his brother. We’re going to look why he did that shortly.

He said now notice there in Verse 11, now you are cursed from the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. And He said you’ll be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth. Now notice this, Verse 13; Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear!” The word punishment there is the word iniquity. It’s exactly the same original word iniquity. So in the Bible when they use the word iniquity, it has several meanings. That’s why language, it helps you understand what it means, because if I say use the word ‘love’ you’ve all got different kinds of understandings of what that could mean. So if I use the word iniquity, probably you don’t even know what it is. I use ‘sin’ you’ve got all kinds of ideas what that might be, so I’ll just pull iniquity apart and give you it, so you actually understand what we’re dealing with here. Then you’ll see why the blood is so important to deal with it.

The word iniquity in the Old Testament’s translated two ways. It’s translated, number one, it’s the same word as the word avon. Avon, a-v-o-n is the original Hebrew word. Now what it means is this; it means to be twisted, to be crooked, to be perverse, to be twisted out of shape. That’s one meaning of it. The second meaning it has is the meaning ‘punishment’ or something painful that goes on for a long time, because of something you’ve done, so now you’re getting the idea. Iniquity is something painful that continues in your life as a result of things you’ve done, and you end up twisted and corrupted on the inside with a tendency to certain kinds of bad behaviour. That is iniquity.

In the New Testament they use a different word. The use to be without law, or in other words, no one tells me what to do, or another way of saying it is, I’m the exception, the laws don’t apply to me. Now have you ever had that thing where you know you see the speeding signs, and you think well it doesn’t apply to me. It applies to everyone else, not to me. How many cases have you, situations you've been in, where you think well yeah, it may apply to everyone else. It doesn’t apply to me. That is iniquity. It’s saying I am not subject to law like everyone else. I actually can do my own thing, go my own way – or putting it another way, it’s just I want to do my own thing. Doing your own thing, acting independently of God, is iniquity. That is the core of it see? So that is iniquity, a bit of a bad word isn’t it aye?

When you look it up in the dictionary, the word iniquity is the word translated ‘wickedness,’ wickedness. It’s roots find itself in a ‘wicker,’ you know, the wick in a candle, it’s all twisted, twisted cord or ‘wicker,’ the twisting that causes people to get involved in spiritualism. All of this gives you a picture of what iniquity is like. It is a crookedness, a perverseness, a twistedness that is painful. It stays in our life. It continues to operate in our life, causing us lots of suffering, and it’s something that causes us to want to live without any restraint, doing our own thing. In the last days the world will be full of iniquity. That’s what the Bible says. It’ll be full of iniquity, people doing their own thing, so that is iniquity. So where’s the Verse reference of it? Well here it is up here, in Verse 6. The Lord said to Cain “Why are you angry?” And he was angry, Cain was angry at the Lord, for He rejected his offering, because he didn’t go along with what God said was the right way to do it. I’m the exception remember? God had explained what He wanted, He explained how to get the right offering that would have pleased Him, and he didn’t give the right offering. He said well I’ll just do what I think will please God, and it wasn’t accepted. He got angry. He got angry with God, and angry with his brother. Now what did he do as a result of being angry? He went out and killed his brother. Now get it here; anger is the iniquity. Murder is the transgression. The murder flows out of the iniquity. One is the action that’s seen, the other flows out of what lies in the heart, the unresolved issue, and that is called iniquity. Whoa! You notice someone who’s angry, there’s murder waiting to happen. It’s true.

Once you can connect them that the murder, the sin of murder, flowed out of the anger in the heart. When a person unleashes their anger, they release a spirit of murder. It hurts and wounds people, and if it’s unrestrained it’ll result in violence that ends in death. See? Okay, we’re getting the idea. Now when Jesus spoke on the Sermon on the Mount, notice what He said. You’ll remember this very clearly now. Now you’ll see what He’s getting at. On the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:21 and 22, He said if you have anger in your heart, you are literally a murderer. Why? Because anger leads to murder. If you lust after a woman in your heart, you have already committed adultery. Why? Because adultery is the outward behaviour of lust, or the iniquity of lust in the heart, so iniquity, lust is the iniquity, adultery and sexual sin is the transgression. This is the outward, the other’s the inward. You don’t deal with the inward, the other will just keep bubbling out somehow. Religious people try to cover the outward and keep it hidden, but inside what goes on is all this iniquity; lust, fears, envy, hatred, bitterness. Those are all issues of the heart. That is what’s called iniquity. It’s the twist that inevitably will show up in your relationships, and this is the thing that Jesus came to deal with. Iniquity is the spider, the other stuff’s all what it produces (the web).

Now where does this stuff all originate from in the first place? Well the first place it originates in our life in several ways. It helps if you understand this. The first is it comes from the devil himself. The Bible says, the first reference in the Bible to the origin of iniquity is found in Lucifer himself, and we read in Ezekiel 28, in 14 to 18, we find that Lucifer was an anointed cherub in the Garden of Eden. He was an angel, full of worship. He was absolutely a beautiful sight to be seen – until iniquity was found in him. When iniquity was found in him, it then manifested, by him arising up and saying actually, I want what belongs to God. I want the worship that belongs to God. I want the place up on the mountain of God. I want to arise and ascend – and so his iniquity in his heart was pride, exalting himself, coveting, wanting what was only God’s and the result was rebellion, leading angels to react and rebel against God, and the result was they were cast out of heaven.

Iniquity originated in Lucifer, and he imparts it into lives. When you have iniquity operating, you’re touching something from the spirit realm that comes out of the demonic realm. See? When Adam and Eve ate, they didn’t just eat some fruit. They ate of what he ministered to them, and iniquity was imparted into them, so if you see almost straight away after Adam and Eve fell, the Bible says that they begat children in their own image, not the image of God any more, the image of them, which was they had iniquity operating in them. First generation, they’ve got anger and then murder. Second generation, third generation – if you watch the lines they just get worse and worse and worse. Why? Because there’s this thing operating called iniquity. Iniquity is the problem. We’re going to see how it gets in, and how to deal with it in just a moment.

Second origin of iniquity – the primary origin is demonic. The second is generational. You think oh blow, ooh, I didn’t want this to happen. You’re going to have to see this. Exodus, Chapter 20, you see why in a moment, and then you see how Jesus really dealt with it. In Exodus, Chapter 20, He’s talking about – the 10 Commandments – He’s talking about the sin of idolatry, Verse 4. Don’t make a carved image, a likeness of anything in heaven above, or the earth beneath, or the water in the earth. Don’t bow down or serve them. So He’s saying, don’t get involved in idolatry, putting things before God, because – notice this – because here’s why you don’t want to do it. Why? Because He said I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. Now notice what happens; He said I will visit the iniquity of the fathers onto their children, and their grandchildren, and their great-grandchildren up to their great-great-grandchildren. That’s a lot of people.

Now when you look at that you think, what a mean God that is, my! How could it be like that? What is this? Now here’s what’s going on here. God has set a law in place. The soul that sins, dies. So what’s He going to do if you do something that He says counts for death? You killed someone, you’re involved in idolatry, involved in some kind of sexual sin, and the law that God has set in place says you need to die. Now He’s got a dilemma now. He’s a just God, so you need to be held to account for your sin, but if He kills you, then you can’t produce a family and on-going generations. So what’s He going to do? This is how He deals with it. Listen to this, very simple. What He does is He takes the death penalty, and He spreads it over four generations, so it’s no longer a death penalty. It becomes bearing the iniquity. In other words He just shares the original punishment over three to four generations, so when you are involved in a sin which is worthy of death, God in His mercy doesn’t kill you, but the iniquity, the consequence, the corruption of what you’ve done now spreads over three to four generations. Think about that. Say ooh wow! That means – so how does it actually transfer? Very simply.

First of all it’s in a person’s spirit. It’s in their spiritual DNA, so if you have iniquity charged by God to you, what will happen is any of your children, it will be in them as well. Secondly, it’s imparted through the DNA, physical, genetic DNA. The DNA gets impacted and affected by iniquity. That’s why you find that certain things will pass down generation to generation. Have you looked in your family line and you’ll see there’s certain traits. There’s corruption, there’s physical sickness, there’s breakdowns, there’s various kinds of things. We can call them generational curses, but actually what they truly are, is the iniquity of the fathers having an influence or a consequence over generations. You don’t want to sin against God. You have four generations that will be affected by it.

You don’t want to break the laws of God, because not only does it affect you, but you’ve got generations after you who’ll be affected by this. We don’t want to bring from our actions a consequence on following generations. Probably the greatest example of this is found in the life of King David. You think about King David. King David was guilty of murder and adultery, first adultery, so the root, the physical thing of adultery was birthed out of lust. Is that right? Lust was the iniquity. David said in Psalm 51, he said I was shaped in iniquity. My mother carried me and birthed me in sin and iniquity. So where did that come from? Follow David’s line back, you find he comes from the tribe of Judah, and if you have a look at Judah, you find that Judah went out and slept with a woman he thought was a prostitute, and it turns out it was his daughter-in-law, had a child out of wedlock to her, and so you have a curse comes into the family because of his sin.

So what happens when you follow down that family line? You see sin after sin after sin. What is the iniquity? Lust. The sins are sexual in nature, and of course accompanied with it is a spirit of anger, that goes with being rejected, and murder. So you follow David’s line, you find he's got one son commits incest with his half sister, and he gets murdered. You’ve got another son, and he lusts after David’s wife, and he gets his life cut off. You got another son, and he just has so many women, he’s just full of lust, full of all kinds of things, and his whole kingdom is lost. You find right through the family line of David, you find this iniquity flowing through, generation after generation. You think oh my goodness, what could be done about it?

So out of kindness and mercy, God spread the consequence of sin – but now in the New Testament He deals with it, and He doesn’t just deal with sin. He deals with iniquity. It won’t matter where you’ve come from. It won’t matter what has happened in your background. It won’t matter what line you’ve come out of! There is a remedy for it! You don’t need to blame your past or your background. You may have had some corrupt DNA. You may have had some corrupt impartation into you. You may be brought up in a difficult, or bad, or destructive environment, but you do not need to carry that iniquity! I’ll tell you why in a moment.

This is what the Bible says, in Isaiah 53, Verse 5; He was bruised for our iniquities. He shed blood internally. He suffered internal pain, internal suffering, just like you and I suffer when there’s torments of hatred and bitterness and various other iniquity. They torment people. They make them sick. They make them do things that are crazy stuff. They make fathers that love their daughters abuse them. What causes such a thing? It’s iniquity inside them. It’s a driving power of sin working in their heart. God has to deal not just with the behaviour, but the very root core of the thing, so Jesus was bruised for our iniquities and not only this. Look at this. He laid on Him the iniquity of us all! Now I want you to get what that means.

Suppose here we have a father sins in idolatry, then the sin is carried here, laid on this one, laid on this one, laid on this one, laid four generations. Now this is what Jesus did at the cross. All of that iniquity, which normally would be spread generationally, the Bible says God laid it all on Him – ALL the iniquity of every generation laid upon Jesus Christ. He was bruised when He was beaten viciously, and the skin punctured, underneath He was bruised and damaged, His blood shed. It was for the crookedness, the twist, the torments that go on inside our lives! It was to deal with the root of sin itself, so no longer would you carry the iniquity of your fathers and your ancestors. No longer would you pass it on. You could be free of that thing, and walk in peace with God, and peace in your heart. What an amazing thing the blood of Jesus has done!

What an amazing kindness. What an amazing God! Oh my, that the blood was shed for our iniquities and crookedness. So how come so many people still wrestle with it?

Colossians 2, Verse 13; He took away the list of ordinances against us, all the transgression and sin, all the iniquity. He put it on Jesus on the cross, the whole lot put on Him! You don’t have to carry any of it. You don’t have to carry any of it! So what the blood of Jesus Christ does – I’m going to show you, last couple of Verses. You’ve got to have a look at this. Have a look at this, and then we’re going to pray for people who’ve got iniquity gripping and sticking – you need to stand up, get the blood of Jesus flowing into your life and spirit. Get set free of it!

Look in Hebrews, Chapter 10, notice what He says. So this gives a whole new dimension on communion which I can’t cover, but here it is. It says – Verse 12 – But this man, when He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever – once – from that time waiting until His enemies made His footstool. By one offering, He has perfected forever those who are in the process of being sanctified. Verse 16; Holy Ghost witnesses out of Jeremiah, "This is the covenant I will make with after those days," says the Lord; I will put My laws in their heart, in my mind I will write them - now notice this - and their sins and iniquities I will remember no more. Now it's the remembering of iniquity that causes sin to flourish, so if your iniquity is not dealt with, sin flourishes in your life. You can restrain it, hide it, cover it. It'll always find a way out somewhere.

You'll keep your temper five times out of six, and then the sixth time out you go! Whack! Come back in - you know they all saw it. It's too late to get it back - or you'll try not to talk about the things in your heart. Suddenly WHOOSH! Out it comes. It's too late. It's out there. Now your own mouth has revealed the iniquity that's in your heart. Bitterness or hate or whatever it is, envy and jealousy, all those things. Those are iniquities in the heart, and they will carry on generationally if we don't deal with them.

He says this is the covenant I'll deal with, this is the covenant. The covenant is - this is how God is - I love this. He said first of all, when Jesus went to the cross, God put all the iniquities on Him, so He shed His blood, all the iniquities He dealt with - I've get to get this thing to apply, so this is what God says; I'm going to make a new covenant. It's not external, it's internal. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going change that crooked spirit you've got inside you. That spirit that's carrying all that corrupt DNA, that spirit that's carrying iniquity, that part of you that motivates you, drives you, He said I'm going to put it to death and give you a new spirit! That's the deal! When you get born again, you get a whole new spirit inside you! You come alive inside, on the inside! You come out of death and trespasses and sins alive in God, a new creation!

What else do we need to do? We need to apply the blood to my lifeline. I need to apply the blood to my generational background. I need to put the cross and the blood between me and where I've come from and declare by confession of my mouth it stops here. [Applause] IT STOPS WITH ME! Iniquity stops with me! It will not proceed! It will not go any further! How can I apply this? I've got to confess it.

The Bible talks in Leviticus about confessing the iniquity that's in your family, confessing your own iniquity, get it out into the realm of the courts of heaven, and speak it out. You know, in Nehemiah 9:2 it says they confessed the iniquities of their fathers and their own iniquity - said we've walked this way and so did our family. Our whole family's been into this stuff and we've gone along with it. That's why we're in a mess. Bring it out to the light! If you've got a bad corrupt seed you've come from, bring it to the cross! Bring it to the blood! Make value of Jesus' bloodshed. He shed it for our iniquity, shed His blood for our iniquity so I need to confess it, bring it out!

Lord, this thing has been in my family. It's been an iniquity in my family line, and I've been a part of it, and it's resting on me. I bring it to the cross today! I thank you, your blood shed at the cross breaks the power of iniquity!

See? And so the Bible says in Romans 6:16, then reckon yourself dead to that thing. See, now you say but I keep having the thing come. Well now you've got to actually stand up by faith. To reckon is an accounting term. You've got to hold over it and say, I don't care if I feel that thing pulling on me. Spiritual reality, the cross says you're dead! You're dead. I hold the blood over that thing right now.

Start to do it, assert the blood over the iniquity in your life, and begin to watch as it loses its power. The devil will try - now here's the difficulty, is of course there's cells in your body retain memories of iniquity. That's a part of the problem. Cells in your body retain memories of iniquity and your mind itself, the way it's constructed, it retains memories of the things you've done that were wrong. It does it in the form of neuron trees, and I just saw something recently that really just fired me up. I see Jesus spoke to a tree, it was a bad tree. He cursed the thing. No more fruit! And I encourage you to just bring whatever's in your background to the cross, hold the cross and the blood against it, reject anything coming down your family line, and speak into your thought trees - NO MORE FRUIT! Just speak to them like Jesus did. Speak into that kingdom of iniquity, no more fruit! Hold the word of God - NO MORE FRUIT! I bring the blood of Jesus against that tree, against those memories - NO MORE FRUIT!

Jesus said that's how faith operates - NO MORE FRUIT! You got some bad memories? Bring the blood over them - NO MORE FRUIT! Curse them in Jesus' name, just like He did the big tree. All He did was say no more fruit! I found it a great help personally in dealing with memories of things - hold the blood up to it, then begin to just speak into that thought tree, that physical structure in the brain, the memories of past sins and speak into it and curse it - no more fruit!

The interesting thing that scientifically they tell you, that when the memory comes alive, you can either add to it and increase the memory tree, or you can decrease it. You can increase it if you keep focussing on those negative thoughts; you can decrease it if you reject them and put something else in its place. How about that? Science tells us what the Bible's been telling for all these years, that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses me from iniquity and sin. I AM FREE OF IT!

Wow! I'm sure you're sitting on something today that you need to depart from. The Bible says in Titus, depart from iniquity. Get rid of it. Don't hang out with people that practise it. Start to walk with God, and let God bring you to new dimensions, bring all of us into a new dimension of freedom in the Holy Ghost. You don't have to live condemned. Bible says no condemnation. Why? Because that blood has dealt to it. Oh my! I want you to just put that clip up right now and while we put the clip up and just play it, if you could just watch this and let this - this blood is for you. You may want to put something right in your life, make your way to the front. Stand up here and we will come and pray with you.

[Video clip 00.34.17] Quietly they grabbed his arms, as they tightly strapped each wrist. With the hellish looks that a strong arm soldier, whip clenched in his fist. Laced with chips of bone they beat Him hard, from His shoulders to His feet and it sliced right through His olive skin just like razors through a sheet. Countless times the blood splattered as each inhuman lash was given. Several times His knees gave way as His flesh just came loose. Surprisingly He turned His head and the words He used were few, the soldiers face turned pale and He said this blood is for you. Uncarefully they tossed armaments across His weakened form and His blood pressure fell down below, as the crows witnessed. They forced Him to carry His cross uphill as His face they punched and smacked, while the splinters from the cross dug deep into His back. Through lack of sleep and dehydration His tongue began to swell and weakened by His loss of blood this prophet teacher fell. When He did some blood splattered on the man called Simon's shoe and as he bent to wipe it off the prophet looked at said Simon,this blood is for you.

[Song 00.36.09] This blood can save the soul, heal the sick, mend the heart. This blood can give you access to the very throne of God, and it still can go the distance through the pain to where you are. This blood is for you, the blood of the lamb. Then they pounded a spike through the bones in His wrists, bursting arteries and veins. And as they drive the cross in the hole they dug His body convulsed with pain. Through agony and torment that never a soul shall find. He tilts His face towards heaven with full control of His mind, with more love than any human holds, before mankind ceases. He made a statement that to this day pledged the strongest love. He cried Father God forgive them for they know not what they do - and as He gave His life for those lost in sin He was saying this blood is for you. His Blood save the soul, heal the sick, mend the heart. This blood can give you access to the very throne of God. And it still can go the distance through the pain to where you are. This blood is for you. If you're lost and alone and your mind is confused, this blood is for you. If you feel like you have been hurt and abused, this blood is for you. The atoning, cleansing blood of Yahweh. His blood can save your soul, heal the sick, mend the heart. This blood can give you access to the very throne of God and it still can go the distance through the pain to where you are. This blood is for you. The blood of the Lamb. This blood is for you. The blood of the Lamb.

Father, we thank you for the blood that was shed for us, for the love that you have for us and your willingness to help us. Is there any person here today who's never given their life yet to Christ? You're without God in this world, tossed and turned and struggling with issues in your heart that you have no power to deal with. They're called sin. Jesus died on the cross shedding His life for you, so you could be free of sin, but for that to take place you have to take a step, to acknowledge I have these issues in my heart called sin. I'm walking my own way without God. I'm full of iniquity, but Jesus, I believe You died for me and I'm coming to You to receive Your forgiveness; to become a child of God, to have a whole new start, the power of sin broken in me. Lord, I'm coming to you.

Is there anyone here today, just while our eyes are closed and heads are bowed, you're not yet a Christian, but right now God has been speaking to you, and you want to come to Christ? Would you raise your hand right now and let me know? Raise your hand right now. Is there any person here today needing to come to Jesus Christ, raise your hand. Put it up. Put it up. Make a decision today, I'm going to receive Jesus Christ. Maybe others here today and you're not walking near Him, you have issues in your heart that have choked Him out. You know that you're not walking with Him but you say today Jesus, I'm coming to you. Would you raise your hand? People here today, raise your hand. God bless, God bless, God bless.

I wonder while I was speaking about the issue of iniquity and crookedness, and as you've thought about that you realised there's things in my life have been in my family line - perhaps it's anger, could be pride, could be fear, could be lust. There's so many things it could be. If you're wrestling with something, it's like a fire that goes on inside you you can't resolve, would you dare to believe that Jesus could break the power of that iniquity? God laid on Him the iniquity of us all. You don't need to carry it any more. It's just a deception of the devil to keep you in bondage.

Here's what I'd like you to do right now. If you're carrying issues that go back right into your family, generational issues, things that have gone from father to son, mother to daughter, come down through the family line. You've got issues that you've wrestled with inside and you're willing to believe today - you'll dare to believe that what Jesus did is enough to break its power. I'd like you to get out of your seat and come down to the front, begin to start to speak in your heart to the Lord, bring words to Him, talk to Him and tell Him Lord, I want to be free today. I want to be free of this thing today. I hear you talking to me. Lord, the last few weeks you've been talking to me, but today there's something in my heart I need to get out. I need to let go of this iniquity, this crookedness, this twist inside me that drives me. I hate it. I don't want it to be there and Lord, today having heard the word of God I have faith to believe I could be set free by the power of Almighty God.

I could be set free from my iniquity. I could be set free from tormenting spirits that use my iniquity to drive me into actions I don't want to do, that I feel ashamed of doing. Come on, there's others here today. Let's come and let's our hands to Jesus Christ. I'll lead you in a prayer and then as you worship the Lord we're going to come and break the power of this thing over your life. We're going to believe that God will come upon you, the power of the cross and the blood will set you free today.

Oh, there's so many of us responding today. I know we're going a little bit longer than we expected but friend, this is a God moment. This is a time to meet with Him today, to let the power of Almighty God, the power of the blood break this thing in your life once and for all.

Now this is what I want us to do right now. Have your eyes closed and for just a few moments talk to the Lord about this iniquity. What is this thing, this twist inside you that so disturbs you, you so hate it? Has it been in your father? Has it been in your mother? Has it been in your family line, that crookedness? Is it in other members of your family? It doesn't need to remain in you because you're a born again believer, but you need to hold the blood of Jesus Christ against that iniquity, assert the victory of Calvary over it by believing in what Jesus has done.

I'm going to lead you in a prayer and I want you to not just be waiting for someone to do something to you, but I want you to rise in your heart; this blood was for you. It was shed for your iniquity. It was shed to set you free. When Jesus went to the cross, He carried that iniquity. You don't have to carry it any more - so you've just got to bring it. You've got to speak it out. Maybe it is idolatry, freemasonry. Maybe the thing you're struggling with is anger, there may be violence and murder in your family lines you don't really know. If the issues you're struggling with are fears and pride and rebellion and anxiety and those kinds of things, probably there's been idolatry in your family somewhere. If you're struggling with lusts of all kinds, addictions of all kinds, probably there's been sexual sin in your family background - so we'll just come to the cross with it right now.

I want you to follow me in this prayer:

Father, I come to you in Jesus' name. I believe Jesus carried my iniquity, and the blood of Jesus cleanses me from all iniquity. Lord, I confess my iniquity now. I confess the iniquity of my family, that we have carried for generations and I'll bring it to the cross. I bring it to the cross. I hold the cross of Jesus between me and my family line. I hold the blood of Jesus against that iniquity. I refuse its power! I am dead to that iniquity. Now Lord I ask you to set me free from every oppressing spirit that has used that iniquity to hold me in bondage. Thank you Jesus for setting me free. Halleluiah! Okay, Halleluiah! Halleluiah! Praise the Lord. Okay then, thank you Jesus. Come on, just keep worshipping Him - thank you Lord, thank you Lord. Father I thank you for the mighty power of the blood of Jesus.

Summary Notes:

1. Introduction

Exod.12:22-23 “And you shall take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin and strike the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin.”

The first Passover feast – a prophetic picture of Christ Our Passover (1 Cor. 5:7).

Blood was applied in three places – the lintel and the two doorposts.

Israel stood by faith behind the protection provided by the blood of the lamb.

Three wrongs were atoned for by the blood:

(i) Sin = an unintentional wrong, action committed in ignorance (Lev. 4:27) – sins of ignorance.

(ii) Transgressions = wrong committed with full knowledge.

(iii) Iniquity = an inner twist that moves a person to commit sins and transgressions.

Three different words – three different offences – one remedy – The Blood of Jesus Christ.

Is.53:5-6 “He was bruised for our iniquities … and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all!”

2. What is Iniquity?

(i) It is the driving power, the motivating force behind sins and transgressions.

· Ezel.21:24

· Whenever sins and transgressions occur iniquity is remembered – it is the root cause.

(ii) It is an internal corrupting force

· Mt.23:28 “Even so outwardly appear righteous to man but inside you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.”

· It is an inner torment, pain, pressure, force that motivates people to sin.

(iii) It is a painful and lasting influence

· The first mention of the word iniquity is associated with Cain.

· Gen. 4:11-13 “My punishment is greater than I can bear.”

· Punishment = Heb 5771 Avon = punishment, iniquity.

· O.T. Avon = to bend, twist, distort, do perversely, be crooked.

= an inner force that causes a person to be twisted.

= a punishment – a painful long lasting consequence of a

wrong action.

· Dictionary: iniquity = wickedness from wicca = to twist, wick-twisted condition.

· N.T. Iniquity =458= anomia = illegal, violate the law of God, contempt for the law.

· Person thinks: I am an exception – this law does not apply to me.

(iv) It is the motivating force or power behind sins and transgressions

E.g. Gen. 4:5 Why are you angry?

Cain was angry with God and angry with his brother Abel.

· Anger = iniquity = motivating force or drive.

· Murder = transgression = resulting action.

E.g. Sermon on the Mount.

· Mt.5:21-22 Anger = iniquity; murder = resulting action.

· Mt.5:27-28 Lust = iniquity; adultery = resulting action.

· Iniquity is the spider – sins and transgressions are the web.

3. What is the Root Cause of Iniquity?

(i) The Origin is Demonic

· Ezek.28:14-18 “Iniquity was found in you.”

· The first occurrence of iniquity – it was found in Lucifer.

· He desired (lusted) after things that belonged to God –

· Lucifer became corrupted by iniquity and sought to rebel against God.

· He traded – exchanged his relationship and role with God in order to exalt himself.

· Satan – imparted iniquity into Adam and Eve – spiritual impartation.

(ii) The Origin is Generational

· Exod.20:1-6 “..visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.”

· If God applied the death penalty to Adam immediately then no descendents.

· God showed justice – He required a consequence for sin.

· God showed mercy – He spread the death penalty over several generations. He forgave their transgressions but the consequences were carried to successive generations in the form of a twist or bent towards sinning.

· The sin is charged to the offender – the iniquity is spread over three or four generations.

· Ps.106:6 “We have sinned with our fathers – we have committed iniquity.”

· Iniquity manifests as a twist towards sin – if the family members sins it carries on.

· E.g. murder = anger is passed on

Idolatry = pride, fear is passed on

Sexual sin = lust of all kinds is passed on

· E.g. King David’s sin of adultery and murder = iniquity passed on to family.

Family experienced = rape, murder, betrayal

– Amnon/Absolum/Adonejah/Solomon

David’s origin – tribe of Judah = sexual sin with daughter in law Tama

Resultant iniquities – rejection (Dt.23:2) lust (Ps.57:5).

(iii) How is Iniquity passed on?

· Human spirit carries iniquity

· Human DNA carries “twists”

· Family environment – how the child is raised.

4. What is the Remedy? The Blood of Jesus!

· Tit.2:14 “He redeemed us from all iniquity”

· Is.53:5-6 “He was bruised (shed blood) for our iniquities the Lord has Laid on Him the iniquity of all”

· Col.2:14-15 “He took away the list of ordinances that was against us!

· Heb.10:12-17 “Their iniquities I will remember no more

· New Covenant = New Spirit = New Spiritual DNA!

· How can I be free?

(i) Confession of iniquity (fathers and own Lev.26:40-42; Neh.9:2)

(ii) Faith – believe and confess what Jesus did (Rom.6:6)

(iii) Depart from iniquity (2 Tim2:19).

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