The Blood

2 March 2014

Dear Phyllis,

Here we are in another month. It has frequently been said that time passes more quickly when you are old. My goodness that is true! When a person is one year old, one year is an entire lifetime. When they are four, a year is a quarter of a lifetime. Now at 78, years pass like months, and months pass like days. The Lord's promise that He would come back quickly is hard to believe when we look at the calendar that 2000 years have passed, and He still isn't here. But I can see now, Jesus is operating by eternity's clock – not earths – and when He gets here, we will agree that He did come quickly. But even so, when we look at the world situation around us today, it is hard to believe that we have more than just a few hours left.

John Hagee has a book out on Four Blood Moons. In this he is simply going by NASA facts of lunar eclipses. There are rare eclipses where the moon looks blood red. Significantly, every time this has happened it has always been on a major Jewish festival. In recent years, in 1948 there was one on the day Israel was founded as a nation. In 1973 there was another one an the day of the Yom Kipper war which was the feast of the Tabernacles. I am not familiar with his book enough to quote the event and the Jewish festival, but I do know that NASA tells us that there will be two blood moons this year, which is the first time in 500 years, and both of these fall on major Jewish festivals. The first one is next month. I will not say dogmatically what will happen, but if Hagee is right, it may be hold-your-hat-Hanna this year as major prophetic events occur.

Perhaps the biggest event last week for us was when we had Pastor Hanook over for supper. He is the brother from Pakistan that has a clear call for us to come to Pakistan. I had a meal with him two weeks ago, and he contacted me saying he wanted to see me again. I was going to take him to a restaurant, but Pammy wanted to have him in our home. It seemed this definitely was of the Lord. The first time I spoke with him, I would rate my chance of going to Pakistan at 10%. The next time I would give it about 30%. But now the chance of it happening has moved up to 60%. I have promised him that if the Lord would provide the finances and a visa that I would come. Both of those look highly unlikely, but Pastor Hanook waves that off as no problem at all. In this he is right. Providing finances and a visa are not serious difficult for Jesus at all. To us they are impossible, but for the Lord, they can be as easy as a passing thought. My first inclination was that, if I go, it would be by myself; but now Pammy is determined that, if I go, she is going with me. I told brother Hanook that three years ago I had a ticket to go to Pakistan, but was refused a visa by the Pakistan embassy in Bangkok. I sincerely appreciated the head of the visa department, as he spent half a hour explaining to me how the situation had changed inside that country since I was there four years ago. Brother Hanook said he would go to the embassy in Bangkok to see what he could do to get that untangled.

He said the situation inside Pakistan varies from area to area. In the northwest, the Taliban owns that area, and it is extremely dangerous. Karachi is dangerous. But he said, in his area, of Punjab, the situation is quiet stable; and they are having many open air meetings. He told me that it was quite safe; but then said that 70 Christian homes had been burned, and 7 Christians killed. He has serious scars on his body that he got when he was captured by a Taliban mob, and tortured. He told me that he has four pastors working with him, but complained that they were too timid. People in the main cities are unresponsive, but he said that there was amazing hunger in the smaller villages. He previously told me that they have seen 500 come to Christ in the past year. If that is accurate, that would be a great incentive to join in the harvest.

One thing is certain,I firmly believe that the time has come for Islam. Traditionally, Islam has been the greatest resistance to the Gospel of any force in history. Until recent years the mission statics have been one life has produced one life. That is, for every missionary who went to a Muslim country, and devoted his life to evangelism, at the end of his life he could only point to one convert. In 1965 Harry Stam, who was probably worlds leading authority on foreign missions, told me that in Kuwait the CLC had a small meeting in the back of their book store with about a dozen Christians. To the best of his knowledge, that was the largest Christian meeting in the Muslim world. Today thousands are coming to Christ. I fanatically believe the Back to Jerusalem movement by the Chinese church is going to make enormous headway in the 10-40 window, and I would expect a significant harvest in Pakistan. Lord, Thy Kingdom come and Thy will be done – in Pakistan.

In my daily devotions the Lord has been speaking to me about the Blood of Christ.

Andrew Murray wrote a book of 253 pages on the Blood of Christ. I wondered how he could wrote such a lengthy thesis on that subject, but now I am convinced it is far too short. At just a cursory glance there are at least three persons and two places that have been majorly affected and altered by the Blood of Christ.

In our simple self-centered view, about the only thing we talk about is what the Blood of Christ does for us, the sinner. We all know it is by the Blood that we are saved. Without the Blood of Christ there would be no salvation. This was vividly demonstrated that night in Egypt where there was no salvation in any house where the blood of the lamb was not posted on the door post.

But far more than what the Blood of Christ has done for us, I am beginning to see what the Blood has done for God. In any rape case there are two parties involved – the perpetrator and the victim. It is true that the villain is guilty, but it is the victim who has been hurt the worst. In our case the guilt of sin is on us. We are the ones who need to be cleansed and forgiven. But it is God who has been sinned against. He is the one who has been injured. Correy ten Boon tells the story of an incident that happened to her after the war when she was in Germany preaching the Gospel. One night after a meeting, one of the most vile, wicked, guards in her prison came up to her with a big smile and cheerfully stuck out his hand saying, “Isn't the Blood of Jesus wonderful, sister.” In a flash her mind went back to the scenes of those horrible atrocities she saw that man commit in prison, and thought, “Is is so simple?” After all those unspeakable things this man has done, can he be absolved by simply saying, “I believe in Jesus.” Then the Holy Spirit took her back to her own experience, and the sin she had been forgiven of. True, her sins were feathers compared to the dump truck weight of his sins, but forgiveness was the same. When she stuck out her hand to greet this hated guard, the Holy Spirit filled her heart with love. The guard was the one who committed the crimes, but what the Blood of Christ did for Correy ten Boon in enabling her to forgive him was even more significant than what it did for him. I never realized what the Blood of Christ has done for God who was the one injured. This has enabled Him to forgive us.

In a vague way we know that the Blood of Jesus is a major force in dealing with the devil, but until recently I never knew how totally it finished him. Many years ago I asked Joe Carroll if the devil still had access to the Throne of God. He didn't know. I have never been able to resolve that question in my own mind. We know from Job 1 and 2 that the devil had access to the Throne. From Luke 22:31, we see that satan still had access to God the night before the Crucifixion to seek permission to sift Peter. Does he still have access today? The answer is “no”. Rev. 12 shows us the scene of the war in heaven and verse 10 says, “NOW … is the accuser … cast down.” If we accept that verse as a decisive moment, it would appear that this came when Jesus shed His Blood. Jesus shed some more light on it when He said, “I saw satan fall like lightning out of heaven” (Lk. 10:18) and then at the Last Supper Jesus added, “NOW is the prince of this world cast out” (Jn. 12:31). The devil reigned, and had full authority, from the Garden to the Cross, but when Jesus shed His Blood, the devil was finished.

I never thought of heaven needing to be cleansed, but the rite in the OT Tabernacle certainly demonstrated this. The Tabernacle was God's house, not man's. And it was by the blood that everything in the Tabernacle, and the Tabernacle itself, had to be cleansed by the shed blood. The Tabernacle, as well as the sinner, had to be cleansed by the blood. Exodus and Leviticus is full of this. The blood was basic to everything that happened in the Tabernacle, even the cleansing of the Mercy Seat once a year. The record of sin was kept in heaven – not on earth. It was the records that needed to be destroyed. It is by the Blood of Jesus that has washed away all trace of sin. Dr. Jack Green, of the Baptist church, had a serious car accident last week. A truck broad-sided his little car. I saw the car sitting in his yard yesterday. It was completely smashed. As long as that car is there, the evidence of that accident remains. As long as the records of sin were kept it is heaven, that needed to be cleansed. But the Blood of the Lamb has cleansed heaven as well as it has cleansed us.

I might be wrong in my terminology, but if we accept hell as the home base of the devil, as heaven is the home of God, then I believe the Blood of Christ has enormous impact on hell as well as heaven. I say this on the basis that the Blood of Christ has totally stripped the devil of any authority he had over God's people. When Jesus shed His blood He nailed a sign on the door to hell saying “Out of Business”. Not only was satan cast out of heaven, but every demon in his entourage of hell was finished when the Blood of Jesus was shed. Hell has no more authority over us; Jesus closed it down.

If Andrew Murray wrote a 253 page book on this subject there is no way I can cover it in one letter. I haven't begun to mention what I feel is the most important topic. Maybe next week I can get into that more. But this has to do with drinking the Blood. This is a subject that has bewildered me for years, and it is only now that I am beginning to gain a little understanding. Jesus said “Unless we eat His flesh and drink His Blood we have no life in us” (Jn. 6:55). What in the world is He talking about?

There are two aspects of this that I feel are important. We know that water has two functions – external and internal. Externally we use water to wash our bodies. This world would be a horribly smelly place if we didn't have water to cleanse ourselves. Water is very importantly externally. But it is far more important to take it internally for our life. Water is important to keep us clean, but without it internally, we could have no life at all. The Blood of Jesus has the same function. Externally, we need the Blood of Christ to cleanse us from our sin. But far more than external cleansing, we need the Blood internally for life. The key to this is the well known truth that “the life is in the Blood” (Lev. 17:14). Medical science, as well as the Bible, has established this fact. The life of any living creature is in the blood. And the life of Jesus is in His Blood. When we take communion, our digestive system breaks down the wine and bread until it literally winds up in our blood stream as nourishment to maintain our life. Without food and drink life would be impossible. Jesus said, “My flesh is food and My Blood is drink” (Jn. 6:55). Our spiritual life functions the same way as our physical life, and is is totally dependent on this. But that may be next week.

Jesus is coming soon. Thank God for what He is doing in Pakistan. Thank God for what He is doing in each of us. Thank God for Jesus and His wonderful Blood.

See you next week,

                              bill