9 March 2014
Der Phyllis,
This past week has been a big one for me. I got a top-of-the-line visa for Thailand. This is a major mile stone for me. For the past six years I have gone down to Penang, Malaysia for visas. Last December I went down to my usual guest house/visa service to get my visa and came away with a three months visa. What a bummer! I spent five days and $300 to get a three months visa. But Rom. 8:28 is still a fact. God does make ALL THINGS to work together for good. I couldn't see much good in that. But it was because of that that I have moved up and now have the top-of-the-line visa for 1/5 the price and I got it in four hours without leaving town. Praise the Lord.
Pammy has been doing commendably well since last fall, but she does have a weakness of getting enamored with kooks. Two years ago she came back from the Pentecostal conference with the startling announcement that she met a couple that the Holy Spirit had told both of them that she was to be the pastor of their church. Needless to say, I wasn't too impressed. It took several months – and then several failures – before she realized she was dealing with kooks. Today we are on the same page. The other day she came home again telling me that she met some lady who had a special anointing and understanding about spiritual warfare. Alarm bells. Two weeks ago I went with her to have supper and a meeting with Redeem. I came home saying, “This is an old movie that I have seen before”. Every place has one. I have met several (usually women) who have a special anointing and insight that others don't have.
I am getting to the place where I don't care for spiritual warfare. Peter Wagner has a message about determening the dominant demon over an area, and then binding it. If you do that, then revival breaks out. He brought a bus load of people to Japan several years ago to bind the spirit in Kyoto. I haven't seen much change in Japan since then. The only thing that I saw that came out of that was that Kyoto was enriched by 30 more tourists that came to see the temples. Redeem had a few well worn verses that she pulled out of Eph. 6 to enlightened us about the amour and fighting with spiritual forces. But there is next to nothing written on that subject in the rest of the Pauline epistles, except that Paul says that, “the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but might through God to the pulling down of strong holds”, in 2 Cor. 10:4. I have experienced this, but not the way Redeem described it. The biggest spiritual warfare I saw that came out of that night was tension between Pammy and myself. To me that was the spiritual fight. Fortunately last Sunday night Pammy came home again saying, “That woman is crazy”. Praise the Lord.
But the subject of the Blood of Christ is one that has blown my mind.
Andrew Murray deals heavily on explaining the types and shadows of Christ and the Blood in the OT. To refresh myself I decided to reread Leviticus last week. I saw one word that has had a tremendous impact on me. The Day of Atonement in Lev. 16 is a very major event. It was the one day each year when the high priest was permitted to enter behind the Veil into the very presence of God. Andrew Murry points out that the OT Tabernacle was a contradictory statement about the character of God. The fact that God told Moses to build Him a Tabernacle was a statement of God's desire to live with His people. But the Veil was a statement that it was impossible for humans to dwell with God. The Veil was the barrier to keep man out. The love of God would not allow Him to give man up. But the holiness of God would exempt men from His wrath. Atonement was the only possible solution. There must be atonement in order to restore humanity back to the fellowship for which God had originally created him. Therefore God established the Day of Atonement where the priest was permitted to enter behind the Veil solely for the purpose of sprinkling the blood on the Mercy Seat. I have known this for years. But last week when I read Lev. 16:14 I saw a word that I had never seen before – EASTWARD.
The OT Tabernacle, as well as the Temple, was laid out east and west. The entrance was on the east side, and everything the priest did to approach the Lord was by moving from east to west. This is one of the arguments that makes me fanatical for the Back to Jerusalem Movement. The movement of God is from east to west. The first altar that the priest came to was the brass altar where the blood of all sacrifices was poured out. After that was the laver of brass where the priest washed before entering into the Tabernacle itself. Then, inside the Tabernacle, there was the candle sticks on the left, the table of show bread on the right, and the golden altar for burning incense in the middle before the Veil. Behind the Veil was the Ark of the Covenant with the Mercy Seat over it, and the two cherubims on each side. If there was such a thing as God's Throne where He sat, it would have been the Mercy Seat. This, of course, faced eastward. As the priest proceeded from east to west he finally came to the Throne of God who sat there facing east to greet him.
But last week I read that when the priest entered the Holy of Holies to sprinkle the Mercy Seat he was instructed to do that eastward. I said that was impossible. I thought he was facing west, how can he possibly do that eastward? Then the Lord showed me a truth I had never seen before. He had to stand behind the Mercy Seat and sprinkle the blood on the back. Or in other words he had to sprinkle the back of God. With that my mind exploded.
Immediately my mind went to the Cross when Jesus uttered that famous fourth cry, “My God MY God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (Mt. 27:46). As never before I saw what happened on that Cross when the Father turned His back on His Son. This was prefigured 1,500 times when each year as the priest went into the presence of God, God turned His back on him while he sprinkled the back side of the Mercy Seat facing eastward.
Oh my goodness, what is this? There are few things a person can do to show more emotion than turn your back on someone. That is the ultimate rejection. Watchman Nee said that the sufferings of Christ was rejection. He was rejected by both God and man. He was right. I never saw how totally Jesus was rejected of the Father until I saw that He turned His back on His Son. How can we take that in? It is impossible! There had never been a moment in the life of Christ that He didn't stand in the presence of the Father and saw the Father's face. I know this is difficult, but perhaps we might be able to intellectually accept it. But for Jesus that was reality. Jesus could say on the last night that all would forsake Him, but He was not alone because the Father was with Him (Jn. 16:32). But then 18 hours later the unthinkable happened. There was never a moment when He was not in the presence of the Father. And then at the most intense moment of His life – for the first time – the Father turned His back on His Son. As never before I understood the Fourth Cry from the Cross. It would have been impossible had Jesus not cried this out. My God, why Hast Thou forsaken Me? Vaguely we know the answer.
It was because, at that moment Jesus was bearing the sin of the world. When death was being worked out and Christ was paying the price for sin, the only thing God could do was to turn His back on the guilty one. He could not look in favor on the sin-bearer, even if it was His own Son. Sin is the rejection of God and God can only reject the sinner. He must turn His back on the sinner. Seeing God turn His back was part of paying the price. Oh my goodness, what must have the priest thought every year on the Day of Atonement when they went into the Holy of Holiest to sprinkle the blood to have to stand behind the Throne rather than in front of it? Little could they imagine the suffering of the true sin-bearer who had to endure God turning His back on Him.
For those who feel hell is unreasonable, all we have to consider is the price both the Son and the Father paid to forgive them and give them a free pass into heaven – and then have someone run up their nose and say “no thank you”. Salvation is free – but what a price! Mystery! Mystery! Dear Phyllis, for anyone who thinks they understand the full worth of the Blood of Christ they are on an ego trip. We know next to nothing about it. Oh what Jesus did for us! For 4,000 years real reconciliation between God and Adam and his sons was only something future. The first suggestion was when God slew the animal to clothe Adam and his wife with the skin (Gen 3:21). The next was when Able offered a more acceptable sacrifice (Gen 4:4, Heb. 11:4). After that was Noah, and the list goes on on every page of the Bible.
When Moses asked to see the glory of God, the Lord told him that he could not see His face but only get a glimpse of His back side (Ex. 33:20,23). It is highly significant that the priest was not permitted to stand before the Ark of the Covenant and the Mercy Seat (Throne of God) even on the Day of Atonement, but had to sprinkle it from behind. The ultimate of that was when God turned His back on His Son. Oh what an act! It isn't until we get to the very last page of the Bible that we read “They shall see His face” (Rev. 22:4). This is the bottom line of salvation.
Turning His back is the ultimate ruptured relationship. How can it be? The eternal bond between the Father and His Son; and God had to turn His back in order to restore Adam and his sons who had turned their backs on Him. And it was the shedding of that Blood that restored that relationship.
Unquestionably, the is no subject as profound and mysterious in any book, or discussion, as the Blood of Christ. It is the central theme of the Bible. It is genuinely offensive to the natural man. There is no subject more offensive to the natural mind than drinking the Blood of Christ. The Catholcs are dead wrong. It is incomprehensible to the natural man (1 Cor. 2:14), and can only be assimilated by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is able to impart it to us so that it become unspeakably precious, but it is extremely difficult to comprehend with our natural mind.
Paul is struggling with it. We have had some warm discussions. He keeps insisting the Blood is symbolic, and I come back by insisting the Blood is real.Symbolism has no power, but the Blood does have power. I told Paul that the proof of that was what the Blood has done for him. I asked, “Are you different today?” Radically! Totally different! “Has your conscience been cleansed?” Certainly. What did it? There is no question but what the Blood of Christ has totally changed Paul. He comes back, “Yes, but that is by the Holy Spirit.” What we don't realize is that we cannot separate the Holy Spirit from the Blood. The life is in the Blood. It is because Jesus shed His Blood that He was able to pour out His Spirit. It wasn't until Jesus shed His Blood that He was able to pour out His Spirit on us. There was no out-pouring of the Holy Spirit in the OT. There was no out-pouring of the Spirit even in the gospels. It wasn't until Jesus shed His Blood and returned to the Father that He was able to pour out His Spirit on us today.
Gomen nasai. I'm sorry. I promised you last week that I would try to explain something about drinking the Blood of Christ today and I haven't gotten to that subject. That verse in Lev. 16:14 where the priest had to sprinkle the blood EASTWARD so captured my mind that I haven't been able to think about much else than when God turned His back on His Son for us.
Praise God! Isn't is wonderful? What a Savior!
See you next week, Lord willing;
bill
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