The Blood of His Cross

Transcription

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2 The Blood of His Cross

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4 The Blood of His Cross by Charles Lincoln CHARLES LINCOLN PUBLISHING Garland, TX 75041

5 The Blood of His Cross Copyright 2016 Charles Lincoln Published by Charles Lincoln Publishing Garland, Texas All Rights Reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form without the express permission of the publisher First Edition: Printed in the United States of America

6 Introduction The finished work of Calvary is a singular work which solves every issue of life for the believer. The major components of Calvary are the blood and the cross. Although the finished work is singular, the blood satisfies God's divine justice whereas the cross empowers man to live free of the bondage of the sin nature. My prayer is that this distinction will help to enable the believer to live free from the guilt of failure and free from a future filled with repetitive sin. Charles Lincoln 6

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8 The Blood of His Cross For it pleased the Father that in Him, in Christ, should all fullness dwell, and having made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself. By Him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven. Colossians 1:19 The blood of His cross. It is a phrase that is employed in only one place in the entirety of the Bible, but still carries an impact which is out of proportion to its rarity of use. We understand that the finished work of Calvary is a single work. God has one solution for all of man s problems. No matter what that problem may be or how it may manifest, God has one solution, and it is the solution that Calvary provided for us. Yet, that one solution is comprised of two different components. There is, on the one hand, the blood that was shed. On the other hand, the 8

9 death that was experienced. Each of these two aspects has different impacts upon the believer, but still they are one finished work. The blood is God-ward, whereas the cross is man-ward. The problem shared by the whole of the human race is sin. Man is a sinner. When the Creator is thrice holy and man is a sinner, it becomes a huge, huge issue. Now, man is not a sinner because he commits sin, but the opposite. He commits sin because he is a sinner. If man never performed any sins, he would still be a sinner because of Original Sin in the Garden of Eden. I am a Lincoln. When I was born, I was a Lincoln. When I was in my mother s womb, it was already known that whenever I got here I would be a Lincoln. I am a Lincoln not because I act like a Lincoln. I am a Lincoln because my daddy was a Lincoln, and his daddy was a Lincoln. Man 9

10 is a sinner because it was passed down through his lineage. I do not mean to be personal with you, but you are a sinner because your parents were sinners, and your grandparents. We each carry the sin nature within. You can take a man right now that is saved and full of the Holy Ghost, his wife could be saved and full of the Holy Ghost, if they have a baby, that baby will be born a sinner. This is the product of Original Sin. Man has a huge problem because, as a sinner, we are constantly producing all manner of sinful activity. If you look back over the last 24 to 48 hours of your life, if you are honest, you can pinpoint something in your life that you did, or that you thought, or that you omitted, that was not God s manifest will for your life - that is the definition of sin. Even after you are saved, you still fall short. You still miss the mark from time to time. That is sin. What do we do, when from the age of accountability and 10

11 even still after that, there were sins that were committed? What is the solution? It is the blood of Jesus Christ. As I said, the blood is really God-ward. Although you and I benefit, it is really Godward. The blood was not spilt for you to see it. The blood was not given to satisfy your sense of justice. The blood was spilt to satisfy God s divine justice. The high priest of Israel, once a year, would go into the Holy of Holies on the great Day of Atonement with a bowl that was filled with blood. In performing his priestly duties, he presented that blood before the Lord, not before Israel. It was hidden from Israel s view. Now, Israel benefited from it, but the blood was God-ward in that it served to push back God s judgment to the next Day of Atonement. When you look at the original Passover, it is the same; there was blood on the lintels of the door. Well, the folks who 11

12 benefited from that blood were sitting inside the house eating the Passover lamb. But God said, When I see the blood, not When Israel sees the blood, but When I see the blood, I will pass over you. The benefit for the Christian is that when you find acts of past sin in your life, plead the blood of Jesus Christ over that sin. Put that sin under the blood. Tell God, I come to you, Lord, and I ask you to cover my past sin in the blood. Because the blood was given so that God has the legal ground to forgive your sin based on the fact that innocent blood was spilt for you. We must understand that we have an enemy, which the Bible describes as the accuser of the brethren. "And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night, Revelation 12:10. He accuses us 12

13 night and day before the justice bench of God. In other words, you make a mistake and the devil is right at God s Throne saying, Look, see what Your child did. See how evil they acted. They don t really love You or they wouldn t act like that. You know you re a Holy God and they are sinners. He is accusing you. But, even worse than that, he comes and accuses you in your own heart. See what you did. You ve done that a thousand times. You're not really saved. You don t love Him, or you wouldn t have done that. Yes, he accuses you in your own heart. Whenever that happens you must agree with God. When the devil says, "You have done it. You know you re guilty," how do you plead? Tell him, I plead the blood! I plead the blood! Do not make an excuse. Do not make a defence for yourself. Plead the blood of Jesus Christ. When he says, Are you guilty or are you innocent? the answer is, I m guilty. 13

14 Jesus is innocent. I plead His blood over my sin. I plead His blood over my life. The blood is given for the forgiveness of sin. The blood can do nothing to stop your future sins, it is for your sins of the past. Now that is not an excuse to just continue in sin or to have the attitude that, I m going to live in sin and then plead the blood over my sinful lifestyle. If that is your mindset, it is proof positive that you are not saved. Because when you get saved, God puts a divine nature in you, and you do not want to sin. When God s nature is in you and you fall short, it breaks your heart. You can be all by yourself, not trying to impress anybody, and think about that last sin. Tears may come up in your eyes. Lord, forgive me for what I am. We need to preach this because in church you should not stumble under the weight of sin. Yes, you should be convicted that is was wrong in your heart. But, if you are carrying a load 14

15 of guilt over your shortcomings, and you are a child of God, it is because you do not understand the application of the blood of Jesus Christ. What did Jesus say during the Last Supper? For this is My blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins, Matthew 26:28. The word remission means when one discharges a claim. It means the debt is discharged. There was a debt owed to God because we fell short of His divine justice, but the blood discharges that debt when you put your faith in it. So, if you are letting Satan accuse you all day long saying, You re no good. You re low down. You re no good. You did this. You did that, plead the blood. Call on the blood of Jesus Christ. That is why it was shed, so that you would not have to live under the guilt of your past 15

16 failures. It is a horrible thing when we fail God. When the child of God falls short and realizes that they have fallen short, there is a conviction in the heart. However, that conviction should not turn into a sense of guilt and self-loathing. If you know that you have fallen short, immediately say, God, I plead the blood. I ask you to wash me from my sin in the blood according to Your Word. Your Word said, Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool, Isaiah 1:18. And, Lord, I ve got this thing going on in my life. I refuse to hide it. I refuse to make an excuse for it. I refuse to blame somebody else for it. I simply plead the blood of Jesus Christ over my brokenness. 16

17 The blood was given to cover every sin that you have ever committed. You do not have to carry the load of that guilt every day. That is the benefit of the blood of His cross. So then, the blood is God-ward to cover your past sins. But, man continues to have a problem. Paul said it this way, For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do, Romans 7:19. It means I want to do what is right and I want to live strong for God, but those are things I do not do. And, the very thing that I told God I would never do again, I repeatedly do. Now when you have done that sin again, that is the purpose for the blood. Do not make God promises. You are just going to break them. I make it a point that I will not ever promise God anything. He already knows what I am. He knows my heart. In fact, the Bible says, But let your 17

18 communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil," Matthew 5:37. Just keep it short. There is no sense in making promises, because you may find that, (1) you have sinned, and (2) you have broken the promise to God. Just keep it simple. God will understand where you are at. When you fall short in your moral walk, immediately begin to plead the blood. It is not just that you say, I plead the blood. You must believe this. Because you plead the blood, that does not mean Satan is just going to say, Well, don t mess with him because he has pleaded the blood. He is still going to try to accuse you. He cannot go back to the Throne of God because God will tell him, My divine justice has been satisfied. Their punishment has been rendered because they believed on the blood." So, Satan cannot come to God, but he is sure going to come to you. Somebody said, But I believe the blood. However, 18

19 Satan is going to test to see whether you really believe it. If that thing keeps coming up in your mind that you did last week, it keeps coming up trying to work its way into your thoughts, bringing condemnation, it is because you have not yet fully appropriated faith in the shed blood, in what Jesus did for you. You must reckon it. You must work out the spiritual equation in your mind, That my sin must be punished. But because I put my faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ, my sin was punished on Calvary 2,000 years ago. It cannot be punished again. Jesus took my punishment. Yes, I m guilty, but Jesus was innocent, and He was punished for me. Isaiah prophesied, Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for 19

20 our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all, " Isaiah 53:4-6. That innocent Lamb of God went to Calvary s cross, by way of Gethsemane, where He began His sacrificial work. He anguished in the garden until drops of sweat like blood began to come down from His brow. When Jesus took upon Him the sins of the world, the shame of it was such that the blood rushed to His face. The anguish was so deep until it began to burst the capillaries, and the blood mixed with sweat began to drop down. That is where the blood began to be shed. Then Jesus went to the whipping pole. Isaiah prophesied again, I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting, Isaiah 50:6. 20

21 There were thirty-nine major stripes across His back. He could have stopped it at any time, but He hung across that little stump with His back laid naked. The lictor's whip tore deep into His flesh. He did it for me; He did it for you. It was for this purpose: when you or I fall short, we can plead the blood. When I am sick in my body, when my body is failing and the brokenness is in it, I can say, Lord, by your stripes I am healed." As I have said, the blood is Godward, for your benefit. But the cross is man-ward, meaning that the cross was given because it is an instrument of death. The same way that you plead the blood over sins that you have already committed, you now appropriate the benefits of the cross over sins that you have not yet committed. Even though the blood has forgiven all my past sins, the problem is that, within me, I have a factory that is constantly producing acts of sin. It may not be the types of sin as 21

22 before I got saved because at salvation the factory was rendered dormant. The sins slowed down but sometimes sins still trickle out. The reason that it is continuing to trickle out is because inside of you the principle of sin is still there. It came from the first Adam. It came down through Seth or one of the sons. It came down through Noah and one of his sons. It came down to your great-grandfather, your grandfather, your father, then came right down into you. If you had a baby today, you would pass it on to them. The principle of sin is on the inside. When you apply the cross to your life, the sin nature on the inside is laid dormant. In other words, the old man that you are, is rendered dead to the sin nature. You continue to produce sin because the old man is the one who produces these acts, even after your salvation experience. But when you begin to anchor your faith in 22

23 the cross and appropriate the benefits in desperation, the sin nature within you is rendered more and more dormant. The Scripture says, And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts, Galatians 5:24. Now, here is the problem. Pleading the blood, that does not cost you anything. The blood has been shed and sins past are forgiven. These two cancel each other out. But, now when I want to appropriate the benefits of the cross, now I have to engage myself. By faith I have to believe that I am crucified with Christ. Paul said, Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?, Romans 6:3. Meaning, that in the mind of God, when Jesus died on the cross, because of your faith in Him, you were cocrucified at the same time. Though your father, your grandparents, your lineage passed the old Adam down to you, when you put your faith in Jesus Christ, the old Adam is taken back to Calvary. He is 23

24 crucified on that cross and buried in a grave. Then the Last Adam gets up out of that grave, and you now are able to walk in the newness of life. The cross, applied to the Christian life, renders the old man dead. However, it is not a once-and-for-all solution and application. The solution is once-and-forall, but the application is not. In other words, you hear this today, Ah, Preacher, I ve got it now. I ll never do another sin. I heard the message. That is not how it plays out. Now when that temptation comes and you feel that sin getting ready to come up, you call on God, Father, right now, I believe what you said concerning me, that I m crucified with Christ. I am now applying the death of the cross to the affections of my members, the passions. I would be the first one to admit when you start applying the cross to your passions, you do not get it right on day one. 24

25 You have to do it over and over. We learn by trial and error; so if we fail, we pray about it, and try it again, and try it again. And then one day, all of a sudden, you will have the victory in Jesus. The cross has been applied, and now you stand perfect before God because sins past are under the blood. Concerning sins future, the cross has been applied to the old man divorcing him from the sin nature. Now you are able to walk in the light as He is in the light, because there is nothing hidden in your life. God is a thrice Holy God. There is no darkness in Him. But now I can walk in the light with Him because every aberration of my being is either under the blood or it is crucified on the cross. There is nothing hidden. I am not hiding from God. Oh, if Christians could just come out from amongst the trees of the forest. You know, this is a sad thought. We have the whole homosexual community 25

26 coming out, and Christians are the ones still hiding from God. We need to come out and say, God, here I am. I know my sin is ugly. I know you don t accept it. But, Lord, you knew that this was going to happen, and you provided a sin Sacrifice for me. I plead the blood of Jesus Christ over my life. The Scripture promises that, "If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous," 1 John 2:1. What does He do? What do all high priests do? He presents His blood before the Father - not before the Christian, before the Father. The Christian gets all of the benefits of it. That means you do not have to walk in guilt over yesterday's sins. You do not have to walk in anxiety over tomorrow s sins. All of the energy you are spending on anxiety, spend that energy in projecting faith in the cross and the finished work thereof. When Jesus died, you died in Him. God the Holy Ghost baptized you, submerged you into His death. I do not 26

27 care what your experience is; the Bible says you are crucified with Christ. I stand with the Bible. Someone may ask, Well, what about that sin you just sinned? That one is under the blood. Well, what about the next sin you sin? That one is crucified with Christ. Well, what if you did it again? Then it will be under the blood, but the next one is crucified with Christ. You keep confessing it, and you keep believing it. You keep reaching out for it, and you will find one day that that thing will just fall off of you. You might not even realize that you stopped. When you know the power of Calvary, it means that you will no longer walk under the guilt of the past. Once you have sinned a sin, it is out of your hands. There is nothing you can do other than plead the blood. You surely cannot undo a sin. So why anguish over it? Just say, Lord, you have provided a means for me to deal with these past sins, the blood of Jesus 27

28 Christ. I put my faith in the blood. The blood was shed for the remission of sin. So, you plead the blood over everything in the past. Then the real work comes in when you have to start appropriating the benefits of the cross. The cross is not a glamorous thing. It is where the Christian rubber meets the Christian road. I know we sing songs about the cross. We say, Oh, the Message of the Cross. But it is not glamorous. The cross is an instrument of death. It only does one thing, and that is to destroy its victim. The process that God has for us constantly cleans us up, so that as you walk day to day, all your committed sin is under the blood. Also, any future sins are being impacted by the cross. You are getting cleaner and cleaner each day you walk with Him. As you walk through life, the Lord's provision has you behind (sins past). The 28

29 cross is proactively dealing with my temptations (future sin). You are dying more and more. Paul said, I die daily. See, that is the thing about the cross. It is never simply, I believe in the cross. It s all said and done. No, dear saint of God, it is an everyday application. There comes a time you have to put on your spiritual pull-ups. Take the diapers off, and put the pull-ups on. There comes a time you have got to grow up in the things of God. This is what the Christian walk is all about. Here is why people do not walk it as tightly as they should, because this life is not about the big I. Christianity is not about, I want to be the focal point. I want to be the one everybody s looking at. No, Christianity is about the reduction of I. He (Christ) must increase. I must decrease. I must become humble. I must become less. 29

30 The Message of the Cross The entire epistle of Romans and specifically the sixth chapter is perhaps one of the most misunderstood books of the New Testament. Within Chapter 6 of this great epistle, Paul details very precisely the definition of God s plan for victorious living In Christ, which is the meaning of the New Covenant. Available at ChristUnveiled.org 30

31 Ephesians Commentary The book of Ephesians presents truths on a wide spectrum of moral and ethical behaviors, designed to ensure Christians live up to our heavenly expectation. The first three chapters of the book present Christian theology and the last three chapters reflect the practical application of those doctrines in one s everyday life. Available at ChristUnveiled.org 31

32 Colossians Commentary Many in our modern age of Christianity attempt to hold to Jesus and at the same time look for help in from other quarters. Yet the Apostle Paul in the epistle to the Colossians protests over and again that "ye are complete in him" meaning the person of Christ is sufficient for every need of the human heart. Available at ChristUnveiled.org 32

33 Galatians Commentary The book of Galatians presents the strongest argument concerning the Grace versus Law controversy found anywhere in the New Testament. The apostle Paul establishes the doctrine of justification by faith in Christ alone. In doing so he provides a wealth of wisdom and insight from the Old Testament scriptures. Available at ChristUnveiled.org 33