This sermon emphasizes the significance of the blood of Jesus Christ in redeeming and justifying believers, highlighting how the blood cleanses from all sin, brings near to God, and removes the anger of God. It stresses the freedom from condemnation that comes through the precious blood of Christ, allowing believers to walk in the light, justified, and redeemed by His sacrifice.

I've sometimes wondered why a lot of people in CFC are not more full of the joy of the Lord. Sometimes I feel a lot of us are very serious and solemn and I think there could be a reason for it. I don't know whether we are really free from the spirit of condemnation for our past failures. You know, like in a lot of other churches there's a superficial joy. I've seen that in a lot of Pentecostal people, not all, but the joy is very superficial because it's not a joy that's there Monday to Saturday, it's just on Sunday morning and it's not a joy that comes as a result of being free from sin. It's not the joy that comes from being in the presence of God. Let me first turn to Psalm 16 and verse 11. Please remember this verse all your life. Psalm 16 and verse 11. To me it's been a very helpful guideline, Psalm 16 and verse 11, where we read that, in the middle of that verse, in God's presence, there is fullness of joy. So there's only one place where there is fullness of joy and it's there all the time. So I've used that verse for myself as a guideline that anytime, anytime, even for a few moments, if there is not fullness of joy in my heart, then at that particular time I'm not in the presence of God. I may have been in the presence of God five minutes earlier, maybe I will be in the presence of God a little later, but right at that moment I am not in the presence of God. Because in God's presence there's not just joy but fullness of joy. And the wonderful thing that Jesus did was to bring us right into the presence of God. And if you're not sure of that, because the devil keeps harassing us, condemning us, saying, no, no, no, you're not worthy to be there, and you're not there, and we keep believing that lie of the devil, and that's why there's no fullness of joy. So my desire is that all of us will experience that fullness of joy, not just as you understand the truth of God's Word today, but every day of this year and throughout your life. Because that is the will of the God, you know. Because the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. They could never have it in the Old Covenant, and people couldn't understand how they could have such a life. They had periods, you know, they used to come on the Sabbath day, and in the temple, and clap, and dance, and sing, and play instruments, and all that. But then they'd go back to six days of sinning. That's exactly how it is with many charismatic churches today. One day is a tremendous amount of praise and shouting, and then six days of fighting at home, and sin, and all types of wrong things in their life. That's not what we believe in. We believe in seven days a week, fullness of joy, and then what we express together on Sunday morning is just a public expression of what we have all the time in our hearts. I'm not saying we are singing all the time in our hearts. Joy is something in the heart. It's not smiling. It's not external, you know, exuberance, because that depends on a temperament. Some people's temperament is more reserved and introverted. That doesn't mean they can't have joy in the Lord. Some people are more extrovert and express their joy outwardly, but that does not mean those who express their joy outwardly have got more joy than the ones who are more quiet about it. So I'm not talking about the outward exuberant expression. That depends a lot on our personality, and I'm not trying to change your personality. I'm talking about what Jesus always emphasized, the inner life. Man looks on the outward appearance. God looks at the heart. So I'm talking not about that inward joy, even if outwardly you are a reserved, quiet type of person, an inward joy that never goes. That means you don't live a single moment of your life under condemnation. That's very, very important. Let me show you a couple of other verses in John chapter 3, John's Gospel chapter 3. We all know John 3.16, God so loved the world that he gave his only son, whoever believes in him should not perish, to have everlasting life. John 3.17, it's very important to understand this. God did not send his son into the world to judge or condemn the world. He did not send Jesus to condemn us. So if God, if Jesus has not come to give us condemnation, who is the one who is condemning you? That's the devil. Jesus, it says here, God sent his son so the world should be saved. And when you turn to 2nd Corinthians 3, you see this is one of the essential differences between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. 2nd Corinthians 3 and verse, the whole chapter is really about the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. And it says here that God has made us, verse 6, servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. The letter kills or condemns, the law condemned people but the Spirit gives life. And then he contrasts these two covenants and he calls the Old Covenant, verse 7, a ministry of death. And the New Covenant is called, in verse 8, the ministry of the Holy Spirit. There must be no spiritual death in our spirits at any time. And then he calls the Old Covenant, verse 9, the ministry of condemnation. And the New Covenant is a ministry of righteousness. Now when you hear righteousness preached, you can hear it in the spirit of the Old Covenant and get condemned. Or you can hear it in the spirit of the New Covenant and come into righteousness. If you hear a preacher or you hear a message that at the end of it you feel condemned, you can be sure that that message was not from God. You can be absolutely sure because God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world. Now you need to distinguish between condemnation and conviction. The Holy Spirit convicts. The ministry of the Spirit is a ministry that convicts of sin but does not condemn. Very, very important to understand that. And how shall we distinguish it? I mean, you know, think of God as a father. And earthly fathers are good examples of bad examples, really. The way they condemn their children. When you, if a father tells, or a mother tells a child, you're really useless. How many times have I got to tell you not to do that? When will you ever learn? That's a ministry of condemnation. And you keep on doing that to your children. Your children will grow up with feeling insecure and grow up to be useless. Useless for God and even useless to accomplish anything in the world. We've got to affirm them. What the right way to do it is. Listen son, that's not the right way to do it. I'll show you. Okay, you made a mistake. Never mind. We'll do it right the next time. That's conviction. But to say you're useless and you're good for nothing. And I've told you so many times, God never, never speaks to us like that. But because a lot of fathers speak, maybe you heard your father speak like that to you. You feel that now God is your father. He's gonna speak like that to you. He doesn't. God's not like you're condemning earthly father. So the Holy Spirit convicts and the way he convicts is, that's not right. There's a better way to do it. Oh, that's wrong. You shouldn't do like that. You shouldn't have that attitude to that person or the way you spoke to that person was not right. Go and set it right. Let's do it better next time. There is a message of hope whenever the Holy Spirit convicts. That's life. So if you hear a voice in your heart saying, you're useless, you're good for nothing, you'll never amount to anything, you'll never get victory over sin, you can be pretty sure that's not the Holy Spirit. Because that's a ministry of condemnation. So please remember that the Old Testament ministry is a ministry of condemnation. And if you hear a new covenant preacher preach the truth in the Holy Spirit and you feel condemned, then you have to say that's not his fault. It's the way I received it. It's the way you received it. Because you are so used to receiving condemnation, condemnation, that you never think that anything else is there for you but condemnation. And I want to say, you need to distinguish in the church between conviction and condemnation. Condemnation will discourage you. You'll go away from a meeting discouraged, gloomy, saying, I'm hopeless. And if it's conviction, and you know that the blood of Jesus Christ can cleanse you, you go away with hope. So that's the way. So even if you, supposing you're listening to an old covenant preacher who's just trying to condemn you, and there are lots of them like that in the world, and lots of them on the internet as well. You've got to say, well, I feel sorry for this guy. He doesn't know the new covenant. I'm not going to allow that message to condemn me. Never, never, never. I want you to be liberated. It doesn't mean that we don't take sin seriously, but we don't allow the ministry of condemnation to depress us. Because at the end of this chapter, when it says, we see the glory of the Lord, and Isaiah saw the glory of the Lord, he was convicted. He didn't get condemned. He didn't say, oh, I'm useless. No hope for me. He said, I'm an unclean man. I'm dwelling in the midst of one man of unclean lips, and immediately the fire from the altar cleansed his lips, and he was whole. Even in Romans 7 24, when Paul says, oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The next sentence is, thank God through Jesus Christ. He doesn't stop with, who shall deliver me, and stop there. The very next sentence is, thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So it's very important whenever we hear a strong message that shows us where we have come short of the glory of God. I'll tell you something, till the day Jesus comes in some area or the other, we will come short of the glory of God. The only day when you can say, I'm not coming short of the glory of God, is when we have become like Jesus perfectly, and that will not happen until Christ comes. But that doesn't mean I have to live in condemnation till Christ comes. It doesn't even mean that I have to live gloomy. In fact, I believe God wants us to rejoice all the time. Rejoice in the Lord always. And you know, 1 Thessalonians 5, it just says rejoice always. It's not just rejoice in the Lord always like Philippians 4.4. Just rejoice always, it says in 1 Thessalonians 5 16. So I trust that as we hear God's Word today, it will bring us to that place. And I believe one reason why we have this condemnation is because all of us have failed so much in the past. I mean there's not a single person here who has not failed in so many ways in the past. And not only in the past, we feel more miserable because after we were converted, also, we've done so many wrong things. You and I, sometimes knowingly, but we immediately regret and turn around. We don't keep on doing that. I mean, if you keep on doing it, you're not born again. But you slip up and you get up immediately and say, oh, I really feel bad about that. That means the Holy Spirit's working hard. You're convicted of sin. Like I often use the illustration of a cat or a pig falling into dirty water. The pig just enjoys it. But the cat immediately jumps out. You can't say a cat will never fall into dirty water and you can never say a believer will never fall into sin. But the difference is when they fall, they jump out immediately. They want to get out of it. They don't like it. That's the mark of being born again. And when they don't condemn themselves, lying in the muck there and saying, oh, well, I keep falling. Well, I don't care if you fall a thousand times, get out a thousand times and come out and a day will come when you gradually overcome. That is God's will. So we need to understand the power of the blood of Jesus Christ. And I feel that I have not spoken enough, like a complete message on the blood of Jesus Christ. And I thought I would do that today because we need to understand what the blood of Jesus Christ does for us. It's a very important part of the new covenant. Because if you turn to Matthew chapter 26, the last day just before he went to the cross, when he was sitting at the Lord's table, eating with the Last Supper, is the first time he used the word covenant. This, Matthew 26 verse 28, this is the blood of the covenant. And it's repeated in Mark, it's repeated in Luke as well. And in Luke chapter 22, also you read that. When he was sitting at the Lord's table, he said, I want to eat this Passover with you because I'm not going to eat it again. And that time he used the word new covenant, Luke 22 and verse 20. After he took the cup and he said, this cup just poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. You know, we speak a lot about the new covenant in our church. And it's good to see the first time the word, Jesus used that word new covenant, is the only time. In his entire life, he used the word new covenant once. So if we as a church, you know, believe in the new covenant and it's our greatest emphasis, it's good to see the one and only time Jesus ever spoke about it. And when he spoke about the new covenant, he related to his blood. He took the cup and said, this is the new covenant in my blood. So there's something about the blood of Jesus Christ that we need to understand if we are to experience this new covenant in fullness. That's the first thing I want to say. And the second thing is that when you get to heaven, the book of Revelation is the one that tells us a lot about heaven, Revelation chapter 5 and verse 9. Thou was slain, in the middle of that verse, and purchased us for God with thy blood from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. They're singing about the blood in heaven. The book of Revelation begins with that in Revelation 1 5. He's released us from our sins by his blood. He released us from our sins by his blood. He purchased us for God with his blood. And if they're going to sing about the blood in heaven, it must be pretty important. Because it says here, they sang a new song up there in heaven. Revelation 5 is a picture of how it is in heaven when they worship before the throne of God and they sing about the blood of Jesus with which we were purchased. And when you come to the end of, and also one more verse in Revelation before we go to the end of the book, in chapter 7, and you know there was a big crowd, a great multitude in verse 9 standing before the throne. And John asks the angel, who are these? John, I mean one of the elders actually asked. I said to him in verse 14, my Lord, you know who are they? Who are they? The elders asked John. And he replies in verse 14, 7 14. These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation and they washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. You see, in heaven they're talking about the blood of the Lamb. And again, in chapter 19, you see when Jesus comes from heaven, as it were, riding on a horse. It's all symbolic language. It says here in Revelation 19, I saw heaven open and a white horse, the one who's called faithful and true, coming down from heaven. And he's clothed with a robe dipped in blood. This is Jesus, symbolically coming in a robe dipped in blood. You see how much there is an emphasis on the blood of Jesus Christ in the book of Revelation. And the other thing you see in Revelation is heaven is a place of, they're perpetually praising God. There is no condemnation there at all. And I believe the secret of it is in that they understand the value and the power of the blood of Jesus Christ. So I want to share something with you about the importance of this. So let's do a little Bible study on it and begin with Leviticus in chapter 17. See the Old Testament gives us a little, we don't live in the Old Covenant, but the Old Testament instruction gives us a little understanding of many things in the New Testament. So Leviticus 17 and verse 10. You know that the Lord told the Israelites, when you kill an animal and eat, you must pour out the blood. And the Jews follow that even today. But the reason is given here. And if any man from the house of Israel eats blood, I will set my face against him who eats blood. Because the life of the flesh is in the blood. Or as the Margin says, the soul of the flesh is in the blood. And I've given that blood for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls. You know the blood of the animals was in the Old Testament, symbolic of the blood of Jesus. And it is by the blood that life, by reason of the life which is in that blood, that makes atonement for your soul. Now this law of not eating blood doesn't apply for us today, because we are not offering the blood of animals today in the altar. We go by the blood of Jesus. But in the Old Covenant, God emphasized that you must not eat blood. And so he said again in verse 12, I said to the sons of Israel, no person among you may eat blood. No one who lives among you should eat blood. And if you hunt and catch a beast, verse 13, you must pour out the blood on the earth and then only eat it. And again in verse 14, you are not to eat the blood of any flesh, because the life of the flesh is in the blood. So the Lord was trying to emphasize, the life of an animal is in his blood. You pour out the blood, the animal can't live anymore. It's true of us too. If all the blood is drained out from our body, we don't live. He was trying to teach them for 1,500 years, when finally Jesus died on the cross and shed every drop of his blood on the cross, that he actually gave out his life for us. That's the significance of the emphasis on the blood. That's why the Lord told them, you must not eat it. And the blood on the altar was symbolizing a life given out. So the blood of Jesus symbolizes his life that was drained out. His blood was shed in Gethsemane. His blood was shed when they whipped him before he went to the cross. And when he hung on the cross, his blood was shed when they nailed him, but not fully. But finally when they pierced his heart with a spear, all the blood and water drained out. And that blood and that body hung on the cross without any blood. It's an interesting thing. In our body, there is flesh, bones and blood. But when Jesus rose up from the dead, you read in Luke 24 that he told his disciples when he came before them, in Luke 24 39, you know, you read the Bible carefully, you see some wonderful things. He stood before them. He had risen from the dead. They were startled, Luke 24 37. They thought it was his spirit. He said, why are you troubled? Verse 39, see my hands and my feet, it is I. Touch me and see, because his spirit does not have flesh and bones. The blood is missing. The blood had gone. There is no blood in the new body of Jesus Christ. It was all drained out of the cross. It is the same body without blood, because that blood was poured out for our sins on the cross. These are little, little facts in Scripture, but very interesting. And so, I see that. I say, Lord, when you died on the cross, all that blood drained out from you. It was symbolic, not symbolic, it was literally his life being drained out for my sin. And it is symbolic of a break in the connection with the Father, that he faced hell for three hours as well on the cross, when he said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? When we understand the full implication of this, it brought in me, in any way, a tremendous sense of gratitude. Lord, what a price you paid that I might never, never go to hell. And there was no other way, no other way. Somebody had to allow his blood and his life to be poured out, because that's the price, the payment for sin. So, we see that. Now, this matter of covenant, why is this covenant so important? Let me show you a couple of other verses as well. In Hebrews and chapter 13, Hebrews 13, we read verse 20. Hebrews 13 and verse 20. It says here, the God of peace brought up from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep. How did he bring him up from the dead? Verse 20, through the blood of the eternal covenant. There's some connection there, even in the resurrection of Jesus, that God was so delighted that his son had paid the complete price for the payment of all of our sins, every sin we have ever committed. His life was drained out, and God says, because of that, I'm gonna raise him from the dead. And the resurrection from the dead is the proof that all my sins were atoned for on the cross. That's why it says he was raised in the blood of the eternal covenant, and that's a covenant God's made with us. So, the resurrection is the proof that all my sins have been taken care of on the cross. Now, I want to show you another verse in Hebrews and chapter 9. In the old covenant, it says here that whenever, when Moses, when he had given all the commandments, Hebrews 9 and verse 19, he sprinkled the book of the law and everything else with blood. And he says, this is the blood of the covenant, Hebrews 9 20, which God commanded you. But that was not a perfect covenant. It was symbolic of the blood of Jesus being poured out for us. So, what does the blood of Jesus do for us? First of all, let me turn to Romans chapter 3. I just want to tell you a few things the blood of Jesus does for us. But before I go there, let me show you this one more verse about the covenant in Hebrews chapter 12. Something about the blood. Very, very important. Relate this to the new covenant. You know, he's telling us in Hebrews 12 that we are to look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who endured the cross, Hebrews 12 and we must consider him when we are opposed by sinners. And then it talks about our attitude to sin. Verse 4, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin. Jesus did it, but you haven't done it yet. So, when Jesus shed his blood, it also symbolizes that he was refusing to sin. He said, if I have to shed my blood, I'll shed my blood, but I will not sin. That's the meaning of resisting, striving against sin to the point of shedding blood. He's saying Jesus did it, but you haven't done it that far yet. So, you see the covenant there, the new covenant is a covenant that teaches us to strive against sin to the point of shedding our blood. In other words, I'm willing to give up my life, or in other words, I'd rather die than commit sin. That is the spirit of the new covenant. That's the meaning of this verse. He said, do you have that spirit? That's the spirit that Jesus had. And that's why you read in the Garden of Gethsemane, he was striving against what? Why was that big struggle going on in the Garden of Gethsemane where he was sweating? And it says, his sweat was like great drops of blood. I've never heard of any human being who sweat like great drops of blood. It was such an intense struggle because he was striving against sin. What was the sin there? I don't want to drink the cup. Father, please take away this cup for me. He knew that was not the Father's will and he was striving against it. What was the cup? The cup was that for three hours he would lose fellowship with the Father. Jesus was not striving against lusting with the eyes or getting angry and all. He finished with that ages ago. But this, which we will never face, that for three hours he would lose fellowship with the Father. And he was saying, Father, isn't there any other way? For all eternity you and I have had fellowship. You mean I'm gonna lose it? And if someone were to say to him, some angel, but Lord, it's only for three hours and then you'll come back into fellowship with the Father. But I don't want to lose it for one second. You know, the thing is, you and I don't appreciate fellowship with the Father sufficiently. I'll tell you that. That's why we sin so easily. I don't know whether you realize that if you have sinful anger in that moment, you've lost fellowship with the Father. But we get angry so often in a sinful way. And it doesn't bother us. We say, oh well, I'm weak. In other words, yeah, I've lost fellowship with the Father. And until you confess that and forsake it, and until you ask forgiveness from the person you hurt, you are not in fellowship with the Father. Jesus said that. I mean, you sinned against somebody and you come to offer your offering and the Father is not even going to listen to you. Do you know that every time you get angry, until you confess it and until you ask forgiveness from that person, your fellowship with the Father is broken. You can imagine, oh, I'm a Christian. My sins are all forgiven. You're deceiving yourself. And that's the reason why many, many believers, their lives are so shallow. There's only one reason why the lives of many believers are shallow. It's because they don't take sin seriously. Sin breaks our fellowship with the Father. Completely. But we don't realize it. Because we live in such darkness that we're used to darkness and say, okay, you imagine it's light. There is no light there. You lust after a woman or you watch pornography and you don't repent deeply of it. At that moment, you know, when you're watching pornography, you're not in fellowship with the Father. You're in fellowship with the devil, whether you know it or not. It may be only a few minutes while you're watching it on the computer. The devil and you are having wonderful fellowship at that time. And your fellowship with the Father is gone. You're in pitch darkness. And then after it's over, you can repent and say, oh, Lord, I'm sorry I did all that. And you come back. You can be restored. But you keep doing that. Your fellowship with the Father is like a thin string, easily broken. We don't value fellowship with the Father. And that's why we take sin so lightly. We say, oh, well, I can always be forgiven. And that's why we never grow spiritually. Because fellowship with the Father has never been valued by us. But for Jesus, that was the most important thing in his life. That's why it says he strove against sin. That means strove against that break of fellowship with the Father to the point of shedding blood. OK, if I have to die, all the blood from my body is drained out and I die, I'm ready to die. But I don't want fellowship with the Father to be broken. I want to tell you something, dear brothers and sisters, if you want to have the attitude that Jesus had on earth to walk as Jesus walked means not to do miracles and do the things he did, but to have the same attitude that Jesus had. And if you want to have that attitude, it means to say, I never want fellowship with the Father to be broken for a single moment in my life. I want to shrink away from it. As soon as I sense something, I'm being tempted, whatever sin it is, whether it's lusting after a woman, whether it's pornography, whether it's getting going to get angry now with somebody or doing something unrighteous and money matters or telling a false statement to get some benefit. And you know, if you're really sensitive, the Holy Spirit will say, I'm not going to stop you, but that's going to break your fellowship with the Father. You go ahead, get angry if you like, go ahead. Whatever sin you want to commit, you commit. But your fellowship with the Father will be broken right now. You say, yeah, I want to do it. I want to enjoy this pleasure for a little while. Forget the fellowship with the Father. You keep doing that after some time. As I said, fellowship with the Father is like a thin string when it should have been like a solid chain that bound you to him, unbreakable. So that's how it was with Jesus. He valued fellowship with the Father so much. And the more you value fellowship with the Father, the more you're becoming like Christ. And the more you will shrink from any little sin. One word, if it accidentally came out of your mouth, you will react and say, Lord, forgive me. And you will ask forgiveness from the person you hurt. Give me a few people like that. We can turn Bangalore upside down for the Lord. But if you have a half-hearted people who say, yeah, we know the truth and our church is better than other churches. We know about the new covenant. What do you know about the new covenant? The new covenant in his blood. Do you know the new covenant in his blood, which we partake of? So many people want to take part in the lodge table every Sunday, but it's a ritual for them. It's not something that's meaningful. This is the new covenant. I'm striving against sin in my life and I'm testifying to that by drinking this cup. I'm in the same spirit that Jesus had when he shed blood on the cross. You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin. And so when Jesus was going through that struggle in Gethsemane, sweating great drops of blood because he knew that fellowship with the father would be broken just for three hours. He didn't even want it to be lost for one second. And I remember many years ago when the Lord first opened my eyes to see how Jesus suffered hell on the cross for three hours. And after that was over, immediately again, he came back into fellowship with the father. One other proof of it is that when he hung during those three hours was the only time in his in all eternity, during all eternity, from eternity past to eternity future, there was only three hours in Jesus' life when he talked to his father and called him God. He always called him father, father, father, father, father. But for three hours, he called him God. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why was that? Because at that moment, he was hanging there, not just as the son of God, he was hanging there before the ruler of the universe, who was his father, but he was not standing before him as a father, he was standing before him as the judge of the universe, being condemned, being sent to hell for three hours. And he could experience the eternal agony of hell in three hours because he was an infinite being. You know mathematics, infinity into three is equal to billions of human beings into eternity, same thing. So he could experience being an infinite being in three hours, the agony of an eternal hell. And he experienced that. And he stood before the God of the universe. And it was for nothing that he did. It's because of me. It's because of what I did, that he went through that. We say that glibly, but I never want to say it glibly. I want to weep when I think of it. That it was for me that he hung there like that and suffered agony of being separated from the father, the thing that he dreaded, which he didn't want, the cup he didn't want to drink. He drank it. And as I said, when the first time God revealed it to me, you know, I've meditated on the cross for 56 years. From the time I was converted, my primary meditation was the meditation of the cross of Jesus Christ. And any song about the cross would always move me, I would memorize it and sing it. Because I knew that that's where God's love was manifested. And I wanted to meditate on it so that I would love him in return. And that's how from that time, I found my love of money was gone. It's an amazing thing. I loved money. I loved honor. I wanted to be great in the world. But when Christ came into my life, it just disappeared, because the love of God replaced it. And the love of God, I saw on the cross. And as I meditated on it, many years later, I didn't understand it fully. I saw that in the garden of Gethsemane, what Jesus was really discussing with his father was, is there any other way out of this? And if the father were to say to him, okay, you can come up to heaven, you have never sinned, you can come straight up from Gethsemane to heaven, but Zach will go to hell. That's what made him stop. Zach will go to hell. Okay, father, I'll go through with it. The day I saw that, it really broke me. I said, Lord, I'll never again live for myself. Never, never, never. I don't want a single moment to live for myself. As long as I have a little bit of energy left in my body, even if I'm 100 years old, I'm going to use it for you. I don't care what inconvenience, I will never say it's inconvenient to serve the Lord, or it's inconvenient to go here, or it's inconvenient to go there, or it's too much of a sacrifice to do this. Never, never, never. Because look at the sacrifice he paid for me. I believe my dear brothers and sisters, many of you have not been gripped by that. You're singing the songs, hoping that your Christian life will improve. It will never. We love him because he first loved us. And when you see what it meant for him to pour out his life and his blood there on the cross, and to suffer eternal agony in hell because of what I did, I'm going to hate what I did, and I'll never want to do it again. That's the thing that will free us from sin. Otherwise, you can hear a thousand sermons against sin. You will not be free from sin. You'll still get angry, you still watch pornography, you will still lust after women, and you'll still be the same old person. You'll still fight with your wife and fight your husband. It will not change. Hasn't that been true? Some of you have been here so many years. What's the difference that's come into your life? You've been stirred, and temporarily you're stirred in a conference or a message, and you go back and live the same old life. You need to see the cross. You need to see what the blood of Jesus poured out on the cross really meant. Then you'll hate sin. Then you'll see also what the blood of Jesus does for us. Let me show you that. In Romans chapter 3, let me show you a few things the Bible says the blood of Jesus does for us. Romans in chapter 3, we read here, Romans 3 and verse 25, God displayed him publicly, Jesus, as a propitiation in his blood through faith. Propitiation means something to appease the anger of God. Do you know that God is angry against sin? He doesn't just hate it. He's angry against sin, and the word propitiation means to somehow make God happy, to appease him. Okay, okay, let me take away this anger, and there's only one way for that anger to be taken away. That's Jesus had to die on the cross. So that's the first thing, and some of us don't see that God is angry against sin. Every sin that you commit, God is angry with that sin, because that's violating his law. In a little thing, you violate God's law, and that anger of God had to be removed. You know, like we sing in that song, the anger of God was satisfied, the wrath of God was satisfied, when Jesus hung on the cross. It's really true. That means, okay, God says, now I can forgive them. Otherwise, God's nature doesn't change. He's made him a propitiation in his blood, and it's wonderful to recognize that, and then let's turn to chapter 5, Romans and chapter 5. Much more than being justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the anger of God. Have you ever heard the thought of being saved from the anger of God? Do you ever believe that God could be angry with you, and that God is angry with people who live in sin? Many people don't think of that. They only think of the love of God. What about the wrath of God? The New Testament speaks about the wrath, and the wrath is a bigger word than anger. The tremendous anger of God against sin. That's what I've been saved from, through the blood of Jesus Christ. You see that? The tremendous anger of God against you for playing the fool with sin, and after becoming a believer, claiming to belong to Jesus Christ, again playing the fool with sin. The intensity of God's anger. There's only one thing that can save you. I'll tell you that. It's the blood of Jesus Christ. That's the propitiation he's made. He's appeased the anger of God. Let me show you one more verse. In Colossians, in chapter 1, verse 20, through Jesus Christ, God reconciled all things to himself, and Jesus made peace through the blood of his cross. So here's what the blood does for me. An angry God, angry with me, righteously angry for all my sin. The anger is gone. He sees the blood, and I accept it. I say, I drink that cup, and say, this is the blood of the new covenant. I'm with you, Lord. Thank you. Thank you. The anger is gone. I'm at peace with God. Turn to Ephesians, in chapter 2, and verse 3. Ephesians 2. We were children of wrath, but in verse 13, it says, we who were far away have been brought near. God is so angry with us that we had to be millions of miles away from him. But the blood of Jesus brought us near. What is it that brought us near to God? It says here, the blood of Jesus Christ. That's why they sing about it in heaven. The blood that Jesus shed on the cross brought me near to God. Ephesians chapter 1, it says here, we have in through his blood, we have the forgiveness of our sins and redemption through his blood. So, forgiveness. It's a wonderful word. We take it so lightly. When I say, Lord, forgive me. For me, it's very easy. I'm immediately forgiven, but I must never forget. There was a price he paid for that forgiveness. That forgiveness is given to me, because he endured hell on the cross, because he shed his blood, and his blood was drained out from him. So, these are very, very important verses. We turn now to 1 John 1, and verse 7. 1 John 1, 7. When we walk in the light, we're told we have fellowship with the Father. You know, once we were far away, now we're brought in fellowship, because the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. Otherwise, I cannot have fellowship with the Father. I'm just trying to show you how much the New Testament speaks about the blood of Jesus Christ, and why they sing about it in heaven. This is the price he paid. This is the thing that brings us near to God. This is the way all our sins can be forgiven. That means our entire debt to God is wiped out by the blood of Jesus Christ, and we can have fellowship with the Father, because the blood is cleansing me all the time. All the time. You know, we have two types of sins. One is conscious sin, which I know is wrong, and the other is unconscious sin. That means there are a lot of things you and I are doing, attitudes that we are having, which we don't even know are un-Christlike. We get light on it little by little by little, but that sin also stops us from coming to God. Conscious sin, we have to confess, like if you did something you know is wrong, it'll be forgiven only when you confess it. Verse 9, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us. What if you don't confess your sin? If you don't confess your sin, He doesn't forgive you. He wants you to acknowledge that you did something wrong. You did something wrong, and you know it, and you don't acknowledge it, you can't be forgiven. You have to acknowledge it, Lord. In other words, you're taking the blame for it. Like the two thieves on the cross, they were both equally evil. One took the blame, and the other didn't take the blame. Because one took the blame, he went to heaven. The other fellow who was equally guilty, didn't take the blame, went to hell. What was the difference? One was not willing to take the blame. One said, I'm guilty. The other said, no, take me down from the cross. So this is what makes the difference between heaven and hell. We're all sinners. But some people acknowledge it, Lord, I'm to blame. See, that's the opposite of Adam. When Adam sinned, he blamed his wife. She's to blame. She's the one who gave me this. And as long as you confess sin, and in your heart, you blame somebody else, I want to tell you, your sin's not forgiven. Because you're still following Adam. If you want your sin to be forgiven, take the blame yourself and say, I'm guilty. Like David said in Psalm 51. He doesn't say, Oh, well, she should not have, that woman Bathsheba should not have come out there and bathed in public. That's why I got tempted. No, Lord, I alone am guilty. I don't want to blame Bathsheba or that. You know, a lot of men say it's because of these women dressing modestly. That's why I'm tempted. Well, you're following Adam. She is responsible for my sin. You'll never be forgiven. You'll keep on living with dirty thoughts all your life. But if you say like David, I'm not going to blame that woman for bathing in public. It's me Lord. It's my filth. It's my corrupt flesh. I alone am guilty. He was forgiven. And you can be forgiven too. If we confess our sin. That's why when you ask forgiveness, I've often repeated this. Don't go to somebody and say, if I have hurt you, forgive me. That's not confession. That is like saying, I don't think I've hurt you. But if you're stupid enough to think I hurt you, okay, forgive me. That's not the way to confess it. You're accusing him. But look back into the past. How have you asked people forgiveness? If I have hurt you? Haven't you said that so many times? And you don't see the pride and the arrogance there? Why not go out and say, I am sorry. That was my fault. Please forgive me. Never use the word if in confession. You can ask, I don't know where I hurt you. Can you please tell me? I think I did hurt you, but explain to me. That's okay. But the moment you put if, you're putting the blame on the other person. Let's be open and say, Lord, I did wrong. You'll be forgiven immediately. You'll be cleansed. If we confess our sins, he's faithful and righteous to forgive us and to cleanse us from all our unrighteousness. Now, once we are cleansed, we come into fellowship with God. Verse seven, we walk in the light. Now we're walking in the light. Walking in the light means there's no conscious sin in my life. I'm not aware of any sin because what I'm aware of, I confess. Why does the blood of Jesus still need to cleanse me? Verse seven, if I'm walking in the light with no conscious sin, I fellowship with the Father and while I'm having fellowship with the Father, the blood of Jesus cleanses me from what? From unconscious sin, which is still there in my life, which hinders my fellowship with the Father, because in my flesh dwells nothing good. So that's why the blood of Jesus needs to be continuously cleansing me. It's so precious. It's the thing that ensures that my fellowship with the Father is never broken. So I trust we have understood a little bit about what the blood of Jesus Christ does to us. There's another word, one or two words also in connection with the blood I want to say. One is Romans 5 and verse 9. Romans 5 and verse 9 says, we are justified by his blood. That's a great verse and it really means just as if I'd never sinned. That means I'm clothed with the righteousness of Christ because of the blood of Jesus and when I look back over my past, I'm not only completely forgiven, God says I will not remember your sin anymore and it's as if I have never sinned in my life. This is the part which is very difficult for many of us to believe because we keep on remembering, yeah there 20 years ago, there 25 years ago, nobody knows about it, but I did this or five years ago, I did this or last year I did this and that was a terrible thing. I concealed it from everybody, but you get reminded of it. The Bible says the devil is the accuser of the brethren, Revelation 12 10, who accuses them day and night before God and before man, but to us. How do we overcome him? You can't say, I resist you Satan in Jesus name. You've got to say more than that. Revelation, turn to Revelation chapter 12. How to overcome the accusations of Satan which keep reminding us of all the sins we have committed in the past. Revelation 12 verse 10 says, he accuses us day and night. He doesn't accuse the world. Notice what the devil does. Verse 9 Revelation 12 9. He deceives the whole world, but he doesn't accuse them because they are already his. Why does he have to accuse them? He's the deceiver of the world, but verse 10 he's the accuser of the brethren. Deceiver of the world, verse 9. Accuser of believers, verse 10. And this accuser was thrown down from heaven. He accuses them before God 24 hours. Do you know that Satan is a full-time worker? 24 hours he's working. He's doing one job, accusing, accusing, accusing. And when you hold hands with him to accuse somebody, Satan says, thank you. You're helping me to do my job. That's why it's very dangerous to go around accusing people. Don't speak evil about others. If you find something wrong with somebody and you feel it's a problem, go to the elder brother in the church and tell an elder brother that's not accusation. When you speak to an elder brother about somebody in the church, it is not accusation because you're trying to get that elder brother to help that person to be free from something. But when you go speaking about some brother behind his back here and there or sister, you are an accuser and you're in hand in hand with Satan at that moment, whether you knew it or not. You better get rid of that habit. And now when the devil accuses us to God, he also accuses us to ourselves. You did this. Don't you remember that thing? I know people in the church don't know anything about it, but I know very well what you did 13 years ago. And I know what you very well what you did in 1995 or something like that. He accuses us and we know what he's saying is true. How do you overcome that? It says here they overcame him by the blood. Verse 11. That's the only way. There's no other way. You can't argue with him. No, no, no. It's because of this that I did. No, no, no. The blood. The blood of Jesus Christ has not only forgiven me, it's justified me. It's made me as if I never did that thing in 1995 or 1975 or whenever, 19 whenever or 2010 or any. It's as if I never did it. I look back and I say, hey, Satan, it's not there. You can say it's there. It's not there. How? By the blood of the Lamb. That blood that drained out from Jesus' body on the cross took care of what you did, what you did yesterday. If you confessed it and what you did way back all the way to the beginning of your life, we have sinned from the time we were born. We have lived a lifetime of conscious and certainly unconscious sin. There's only one thing that can take care of it. The blood of Jesus forgives, cleanses, brings us near to God, justifies us, takes away the anger of God, does all those things, declares me righteous, makes me as if I've never sinned in my whole life. Imagine being able for me, for anyway, to look back over 76 years and say, wow, I'm thankful I never sinned in my whole life. God, I stand before you, my Father, as one who has never committed one sin in my whole life. If you believe in the blood of Jesus, that is the power of justification. It's more than forgiveness. Justify, just as if I'd never sinned. It'll make a difference in your life. That's why they sing about the blood of Christ in heaven, justified by His blood. There's another word, it's in connection with the blood. It says we are redeemed by His blood. Colossians 1.14, it says we are redeemed. That's another lovely word. We have redemption and the forgiveness of sins through His blood. Or 1 Peter 1 and verse 19, it says, with the precious blood of Christ, you were redeemed, verse 18, knowing that you were not redeemed with gold and silver, but with the precious blood of Christ. Redeemed means purchased. There was an Old Testament law which said, I can just show it to you briefly, Leviticus 25, 25, Leviticus 25, 25, that said, if a fellow countryman of yours becomes so poor that he has to sell part of his property, Leviticus 25, 25, if a countryman of yours becomes so poor that he has to sell his property, then a very close relative of his, only a close relative can do that, a close relative can come and buy back that property and give it to his relative out of love. That's what Boaz did for Ruth's property. But it has to be a near relative. So this is what redemption means. Can redeem. This is where the word redeem comes in the Old Testament. Buy back. You and I were sold, not to the devil, but the law of God, which demanded total punishment for my sin, which is death. But somebody who's my near relative, there was no relative of mine who could purchase me back, so Jesus had to come and become my relative. That's why he came in our flesh and buy me back, not from the devil, but from the law of God. Jesus never paid any price to the devil. Don't ever get that. Some people say that. It's a lie. The law of God demanded punishment, and Jesus paid the price to the law of God. The blood was shed not to satisfy the devil, but to satisfy the law of God. He shed his blood to redeem me. So you see there, I was sold in sin, and Jesus paid his blood to redeem me from the law of God and bring me back. What a wonderful position ours is now. Redeemed. You understand the meaning of the word redeemed now? Bought back from the slave market, where the law demanded that I should be punished and judged and sold to hell for the devil. And Jesus bought me back from the slave market before the devil could get a hold of me in hell for eternity. He bought me back and paid the price to the law of God and said, okay, this slave, he deserves to go to hell, I know, but here I am paying the price, and you can set him free. I'm free. To look back over a life where we have never sinned in our life because the blood of Jesus cleanses us. Dear brothers and sisters, how are you going to live the rest of your life? How are you going to show your gratitude to somebody who saved you from eternal damnation? Are you going to play the fool with sin again? Let's learn to value the blood of Christ. I believe when I look back, you know, if you can look back over a life where you know, you know that you're sinning, we can't forget it. In our memory, it's there, all the things, we can never change our memory. Our memory reminds us of the things we did way back in our unconverted days too. It was rebellion, rebellion, rebellion against God. And to see that Jesus shed his blood to blot it all out so completely that I have a clean record now, absolutely clean. This is what frees us from condemnation. I don't have to live in condemnation. I look back over my life and I say, why do I have to feel condemned? There's nothing in my record, absolutely nothing in my record. Why should I feel condemned? I'm free. I'm clean. I'm accepted by God. I should be happy. I should be jumping for joy because of what the Lord has done for me. Don't let the devil ever bring you under condemnation again. If you have repented and given your life to Jesus Christ, you're a precious child of God purchased, not with silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, much more than silver and gold. That's why I love that song which says, I've been redeemed. I think this is a good time to sing it. Let's stand up and sing that song.