New Life Clinic. Our series is on the power of the blood. Its lesson number 6 entitled, "fellowship with God." The death of Christ opened up a mighty river of life from God's heart to man. Its flow destroyed the separating barrier. Reconciliation is what God called it. It erased the records of all charges against us, this is justification. It removed the inner pollution in men's lives which is cleansing and brought life, vigor and happiness which is sanctification.
In this study we will see the river of life carry us into the very presence of God. Removing all distance, providing fellowship through the blood of Jesus. We will consider our right to stand before Him, the results of living in His presence and what it means to minister in His presence. In the course of the flow of this river you will find the removing of the barriers, the sweeping away of that barrier that stood between man and God. Removing the records as that person puts their faith in the blood so that God cannot remember in fact He not only forgets your sin, He forgets He's forgiven you. So you can't say, "God I thank you for the 70 times you forgave me," God says, "what 70 times?" Because His forgiveness is so complete.
Then the real cleansing that comes, that under the beautiful covering of His righteousness, the blood that was shed for us is given to us and it moves through us, killing the seeds of death and wiping out the pollution that's in the world through lust the Word tells us, but the blood takes care of all of this. Then there's the beautiful story of sanctification that we went into last week which is not cleansing but it is the bringing of life. Not the eternal life but the actual life of Jesus being felt in our mortal bodies, His life, His incorruptible life. The blood that fell from His brow, the blood that came from His side and from His hands and back, the blood that may have fallen and dropped along the way, not one drop of that blood was wasted or just went into the soil and was corrupted for the Word tells us that His blood, because it contained all of the fullness of God Himself, that blood was preserved because it's incorruptible, it can never be destroyed. That blood the Word tells us, John had a chance to visit heaven and he said, "There it is, there's the blood of Jesus still there." As the ages of eternity roll on, the blood that purchased us and does it's cleansing just continues on and on and on. Paul had a chance to see it. Did you know that Paul was caught up and had a chance to visit in the heavens? And he tells us, "when I was there, there was God the Father of us all and there was the Holy Spirit present, His mighty influence and there was Jesus the mediator of the new covenant. And then he said, "There's all those spirits of just men made perfect" and then he said, "What an innumerable company of angels, there all over the place" and then he said, "There it is. There is the blood and it's still speaking and it's still saying, "count that person just, they've put their faith and their trust in Me." Hallelujah, the blood is there.
These lessons are not the product of research or of study. These lessons came directly from God's heart. About 8 years ago on a Saturday night God ministered to me and gave me such a message on the blood I have divided up for these 8 lessons. In this there were two hundred verses of scripture that God just poured in and proved the message that He was bringing. And it didn't do violence to the word of God but because of the Word of God it shed a big search light on what God was doing. And at that time because I had not yet seen what God is doing in our day and the measure that I'm seeing it, I was not aware fully. I knew of the great cleansing of the blood but in the area of sanctification I couldn't quite see it, in fact I didn't worry about it but it still wasn't something that I could relate to because I wasn't seeing it. But now as I took out those notes and I looked at it and I looked at the notations that God had me write down that were notes right from His heart to help shed light, oh I could see what God was doing.
When people have felt the flow of His life and the old burden was lifted and their eyes began to shine and radiation began to come out of their face and they could move out in a victory they never had before, kicking the enemy out of the way. I had realized what had happened; Jesus had adapted the power of the universe that was in the blood to human life. And the life of Jesus was being felt in those mortal bodies. And as we've studied last week all the way through when he spoke of sanctification, this is what he was talking about: The application of the life of Jesus, of the God-head, of the power of God to the human life. And to show you what this means, it's not a cold fearful force. But a little bit of that atmosphere of heaven shines through when God's glory is revealed and every person who drinks of that life becomes a reflection of what heaven is really like. It's not a hard thing, it's not an unhappy thing, and it's not a pious thing. What God is doing today is making them like Jesus.
Today we want to do a little bit of reading in the Word of God and enjoy. Another thing that the Spirit of the Lord has made real to us that the blood has purchased for us and that is a wonderful is fellowship with God. 1 John 1. "That which was from the beginning which we have heard, which we have seen from our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the word of life. For the life was manifested and we have seen it and bear witness and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us. That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you. That you also may have fellowship with us and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. These things write we unto you that your joy may be full. This then is the message that we have heard of Him and declare unto you that God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all."
That's why as these people come with their heaviness and the darkness of spirit and they look unto Him and they're lightened, they're drawing then of that beautiful light that comes from heaven that brings fellowship. In Him there is no darkness at all. "If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness we lie and do not the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the Light we have fellowship one with another." You and me in Him. "And the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin." Just keeps right on cleansing. This robs the teaching that when you're in this place of fellowship and of sanctification there is no sin that can come, there may be mistakes but there is no sin. But the Word lets us know that there may be definite sin each day, there may be sin in thought or in word. There may be some things that you have practically defied God on but the hunger and desire in your heart is to walk with Him and serve Him.
You're already cleansed when you start the day because of His blood. When you've laid everything out before God, you're cleansed. As you walk in this wonderful light all sin is gone. You don't have to wrestle and struggle and be so concerned. The main thing for you to be concerned about is loving Jesus, and looking unto Him. I had a man who was struggling to try to please the Lord to the point that he almost lost his mind. He feels that 24 hours a day he practically has to be on his knees. He may make half a sentence and then say, "Oh God I want your holiness and I want your sanctification" until he's a nervous wreck.
I told that fellow, "I don't even want you to read the Bible or quote the Bible." The enemy is using everything that you have learned there to whip you in the ground. And he tried to use the scripture on Christ too you know. So I told him to quit reading the Bible for a few days, God has saved you and He's written your name down in heaven and he wants you to know it. But He wants you to develop not just a big fat spirit just constantly concerned about keeping the flesh dead and your humanity, making it non-existent. God intends for you to be a well-rounded spirit, soul and body. If you don't take care of these other sides your spirit's not going to be worth two cents. So I gave him a national geographic. And I said I want you to read through that and I want you to report on it. Then he took two or three days and he called me last night and he said, "I've read through the geographic and I read through the reader's digest you gave me." He said, "I learned some interesting things about those coal mines" and for the first time he's relaxed because his soul is beginning to be restored.
He was told what God expected of him, he was raised in a setting similar to the children of God or the moon people where 8 hours a day they try and program them where there's such a tension in their mind and struggling, I've got to do this, I've got to do that and they practically are trying to get some hand holds on a steep cliff trying to reach where God is. Each time they make a few inches they slid back a foot and there's a constant feeling of failure if I'm ever going to make it. I told him I want you to let the Spirit lift you up. It's going to take a little bit of time to get rid of the junk. When I say junk, when it comes to mankind's traditions and rituals, when it ties people up in bondage like that, that's what it is, its garbage.
I can't understand people being so down and wanting to be so pious and feeling like it's such a hardship to walk with God when it can be such a wonderful thing. When you can be so happy and you can be yourself, and the person that God created you to be you can pull the mask away and come forth and be yourself in the Lord. He would have made you some other way if He wanted you some other way. But he doesn't want you just a whole bunch of rubber stamps, everybody programmed the same old way. He made everybody different because He made you that way. There's no point in getting that old wall in front of you, step out of it like Lazarus did. So He's calling you come forth. Notice our right to come here. When he says made nigh He says something happens. When you're way off there from God He doesn't say if you'll take some steps here and come a little bit closer and do this and follow this guidebook until you get right there then I'll listen to you, Oh no. He said if you call unto Me from the farthest point away I'll remove the distance by a miracle power. It reminds me of when Jesus and the disciples were out in the boat and they were toiling there. But when they called upon Jesus He came into the boat, the Word tells us He quieted things down and immediately they were where they were going. He just caused the distance to disappear. He has this ability. Ephesians 2:13. He tells us how far off people were but then he said, "But now in Christ Jesus you who were sometimes were afar off are made nigh by the blood of Jesus."
I still remember the excitement I had when the Lord made this verse so real to me, when I saw the distance just melt. You were far off but you're made nigh by the blood of Jesus. Hebrews 10:19. Hebrews is one of my favorite books in the whole Bible because God gives the pattern of what's going on in heaven all the time here in the book of Hebrews. The whole gospel, God's whole plan is seen in operation in this book. Beginning with verse 16, "This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, because of the blood He said I will make this covenant. I will put my laws into their hearts and their minds will I write them. And their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." There's no more offering for sin. Then because of this you can get real bold.
People down through the centuries weren't able to approach God. There had to be a fear because if they did one thing wrong their lives would be taken. They had to come with such fear knowing that everything had to be perfect because it was typifying what Jesus would do. But now Paul was saying all of this carefulness is gone now because the cake has already been made, it's already frosted and it's not going to fall. You know how you have to walk around in your kitchen when the cake is rising and if you step hard, you ladies know this. You have to be a little more careful then. This is what happened in the Old Testament but now God says it's done, it's all finished. And the reason for being so careful now is already done, the work is done. So now you can come in boldly and say God here I am. He said we can come boldly before the throne of grace. Having therefore brethren boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. The blood opened the way. And that holiest is where God lives, that's the center, it's the heart of God. And we can have boldness to come right into where God is. This seems to fit so good with that experience that God gave me where I felt like I had to walk on eggs so carefully. While God was drawing a plan and asking people to fit into the plan as a reenactment before it happened of the death of Jesus, that had to be because God said the plan of Jesus had to be so exact but now He says you can come boldly before the throne of grace. You don't have to walk carefully now. You can come skipping and jumping and leaping. And you don't have to come with silence. There could be no speaking at all in that holiest place when the priest was there; the blood had to do the speaking. The Bible says it was the blood that carried the message, there could be no sound. But now He says we can come and shout a loud. Praise God. When John had a chance to visit heaven and saw this beautiful throne of God he said there I saw these people before the throne and they were shouting with a loud voice and it sounded like a great waterfall because they were praising God for what He had done. All of this carefulness has been removed where we can come into God's presence in Jesus name. Don't you love Him? So we have boldness to enter. "By the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He had consecrated for us through the veil that is to say His flesh and having a high priest over the house of God let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering for faithful is He that promised and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is but so exhorting one another and so much the more as you see that day approaching." So He tells us we can come. God has not only invited us to come but He's prepared a spot for us. He says I have a very honored spot for you and you can come now as kings and priests unto God. Revelation 5:9-10, this is what John had a chance to see, he says we are made kings and priests, a real special place that God Himself honors. Then I want you to notice the results of living in His presence. David discovered this; because in His presence, that's where the fellowship is you see.
In Psalm 16:4, "Thou will show me the path of life, in His presence there is fullness of joy and at thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore." This is what happens in the presence of God. It's joy, it's not a drag. It's joy and this is why when He beams down of His life there's joy, there's a real bounce that comes to them. Then in Psalm 65:4, "Blessed is the man that You choose and cause to approach unto You. That he may dwell in Your courts. We shall be satisfied with the goodness of Your house, even in Your holy temple." So there's satisfaction, there's protection in His presence.
Psalm 31:19-20, "Oh how great is Your goodness that You have laid up for them that fear You, which You have wrought for them that trust You before the sons of men. You shall hide them in the secret of Your presence from the pride of man. You shall keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues." Regardless of what people may say against you, there is a hiding place, there's a place by Him. There's a little truth here in that word secret, when he says the secret of His presence. His presence is beautiful but there is a secret force or power that is emanating from His presence. It's something that people cannot see from the outside; it's an invisible force in that secret of His presence.
The enemy may wonder how can God protect those people, they look like they're all exposed there. He comes roaring up to hit you and he finds that there's a force field around you. That's the secret of His presence. People that are close to God are more interested in what God has to say then what people have to say.
1 John 1:7. He speaks of the fellowship we have with Him. Communion with God is something more than communication. Communication may be the passing of information, getting the thoughts straight, getting the words straight. But communion is when your heart speaks, and there's a heart fellowship, there's a oneness of spirit with God. This is what communion is. Have you noticed this with people sometimes you can have heart communion with them and you haven't said anything but there's just been something you've drawn. There's a feeling, he's my brother, and she's my sister in the Lord. This comes because God has let us come into His presence. I want you to notice the last heading here. This is something the Lord made so real to me. I wept before God when I asked the Lord to make this as real to me as it was that night when you spoke to my heart. And God did make Himself so very real to me there. He is our High Priest. Hebrews 7:23-28. There's so many beautiful verses here that I would kind of hate to leave some out but I would like to have you read them when you get home. We read these words, "and there truly were many priests because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death but Jesus remains a priest forever; his priesthood will never end. Therefore He is able to save everyone who comes to God through Him. He lives forever to plead with God on their behalf. He is the kind of high priest we need because he is holy and blameless, unstained by sin. He has now been set apart from sinners, and he has been given the highest place of honor in heaven. He does not need to offer sacrifices every day like the other high priests. They did this for their own sins first and then for the sins of the people. But Jesus did this once for all when He sacrificed Himself on the cross. Those who were high priests under the Law of Moses were limited by human weakness. But after the law was given, God appointed his Son with an oath, and his Son has been made perfect forever."
Here is the main point: Our High Priest sat down in the place of highest honor in heaven, at God's right hand. There he ministers in the sacred tent, the true place of worship that was built by the Lord and not by human hands. In verse 5 he says, "They serve in a place of worship that is only a copy, a shadow of the real one in heaven. But Jesus is up there in the tabernacle that God pitched, making intercession for us. So what God has asked us to do when we come into His presence is to come like those priests did and to minister to God. Now these priests as they ministered took their incense and burned it which wafted up into that alter of incense as a sweet savor unto God. God said, "I am pleased, I am satisfied. I enjoy this sweet savor of this offering. They ministered unto the Lord. It was a daily routine. Their daily routine actually became a priestly service. And our daily routine, the job that you're on, you ladies that are doing the tasks around the house, you men, some of you may work in the yard, you may have jobs, but whatever it is, that daily routine becomes priestly service because a priest is performing it. Did you know you were a priest now?
"Whatever you do in word or in deed do all for the glory of God, do all in the name of Jesus." Do it for God's glory. Now this is called ministering to the Lord. God's pleased with it. When you sit in His presence and you just draw from Him and you love Him, you're ministering to Jesus, you're serving Him. The biggest lie that the enemy would like for us to believe is that feverish activity is serving the Lord, is ministering to the Lord. That's not. You may be getting a few things done and you may not be but you're all tied up in knots trying to do God's work. God's work is to make you calm and your undoing God's work. But ministering unto Him, just loving Him. Doing your job with a song in your heart, you're ministering unto the Lord. This is what God has asked us to do. By the blood we can minister as unto Him. Then we minister to others. We minister through prayer, through intercession. We minister by activating God's vast network of resources considering ourselves as priests doing His work.
1 Peter 2:5-9. And now God is building you, as living stones, into his spiritual temple. What's more, you are God's holy priests, who offer the spiritual sacrifices that please him because of Jesus Christ. This is what we're doing in His presence, we're offering up some sacrifices acceptable to God. Then in verse nine he tells us how much God likes it. "But you are a chosen people. You are a kingdom of priests, God's holy nation, and his very own possession. This is so you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light."
You're a royal priesthood; you can come right into God's presence. This is what we do you see in ministering unto Him and then in ministering unto others. Ministering to others, we do it through prayer. And through prayer we activate the resources of heaven. God gave me a vision of the Christian in prayer and how as that Christian prayed he would push the buttons that would activate God's hand that would send whatever agency was necessary to get the job done. At God's command were hosts of angels that could come down and do it, there were people that didn't even know God, unbelievers, God could needle in and say get going and help that person. There were other believers and God could say that person needs a five dollar bill, give it to them. God's put it in some of your hearts to minister to people. There's a person who needs a little bit of help over there. They just need a word of comfort, and you go and do it. See God sends the people to do it.
Then there's the power of the Holy Spirit, the ministry of the Spirit through His gifts. Then God has an agency that readjusts the circumstances. Not always do circumstances change, God often will change the person and leave the circumstances the same but God can even readjust circumstances. Then in that vision God let me see Him calling His forces of nature, His creation to getting a swarm of bees to get out and do the job for Him. Bees can do two things, they can hasten people along, and they can do some other things. But I'll never forget when my wife and I were in Washington and a bunch of aphids were eating up, they just came in over night and landed in a big apple orchid. A man had only been a Christian about 3 months that owned the orchard but he had been told that God was real and he knew God was real so he figured if God was real He knew how to take care of things. So he went to fellowship meeting and asked, "What can I do against all of these aphids anyhow? So he went and told the people, told them to have a word of prayer with him so God would be reminded that there was a need over there. When he came home in the middle of the afternoon he heard a strange humming sound. And when God listened to that prayer he said, "What would be the best method to get rid of all of those. I could take a big wind and bring my heavenly vacuum cleaner and suck all those leaves clean. Now I've got a bunch of hungry bees over here that need the food, I'll do two things at once."
So He gathered millions of hungry bees and dumped them into this man's orchard and they had the biggest feast they ever had in their life. They picked every aphid off of those leaves. There wasn't one left. But God only sent enough bees to clean out that one field. Everybody else's orchards were still filled with aphids. God has access to whatever agency, He knows. If it's the weather God can change that. God isn't bound in following only one little narrow channel in answering prayer like we think He is as long as He is in control of the whole universe.
So in prayer we can minister and carry the blessing of God to others and share with them of His life and His love. That's why we read that verse in first John the first chapter that our job is to declare unto others about this wonderful fellowship. And surely the thing that you really need in your life is to have fellowship with our heavenly Father. It's the search, it's the hunger of men and woman down through the ages just to be able to get close to God again and he said here it's happened so we share it with you. And the work that we're doing, the work that you're doing in helping people, the main aim of that work is so that they can have fellowship with Jesus. Isn't that right? Fellowship was made possible because of the blood. Without the blood there could be no fellowship at all.
In conclusion, Jesus unlocked the grave with His blood. Hebrews 13:20 where it said that by His own blood He came forth from the grave. He unlocked heaven. With His blood He entered in the presence of God. With His blood He unlocked God's heart. Hebrews 10:19 and 7:23. Having therefore brethren boldness to enter now by the blood of Jesus, opened God's heart. Hebrews 8:1. This is the summary of the whole thing. We have a priest now who is seated at the right hand of God. In the Old Testament priesthood the priest could not sit down. He had to stand the entire time that he was working signifying the fact that the work was never quite completed; it was a continuing thing year after year, year after year. But now it says Jesus finished the work and He sat down. He got it done.
So we have a High priest today seated at the right hand of God. His sacrifice has been accepted, His work has been completed. It's all done. He looked at it and He said it's working, there it is, the blood is there it's incorruptible; it will just keep right on working. And Jesus looked at it and said, "Father how does it look?" God said, "I accept it, it's done, it's done, here have a seat." He sat down, Jesus isn't struggling. He's not worrying. God isn't worrying about it. God knows it's good. It's been good for nearly 2000 years and it's not going to stop. Jesus is resting in assurance that it's done. It's made forever, no more need to be done. And so He can't figure out why in the world we're so worried about it. God isn't worried about it, He said its working. Jesus isn't worried about it He sat down, He said it's done. Let's quit worrying about it and sweating about it. The blood has never lost its power. No never.
Jesus' blood avails for sin forever and will never lose its power. So he said there remains a rest for the people of God. When they can realize and catch a little bit of the message that Jesus had brought, that the blood will never be destroyed. That it's incorruptible and that it will keep on doing the work, that it's all powerful, it will just keep on moving, it will never, never, never cease. When we can catch that glimpse then we can enter into that same rest. "For he who has entered into this rest has ceased from his own labors as God did from His." I got so excited when the Lord revealed this to me that I could hardly stand it. And I would just love to have rubbed a little bit off on you. So He wants us to quit struggling. Right now God would be pleased if we would lift our hands toward heaven and thank God for the blood that's still effective, our High Priest is still there, Hallelujah.
Jesus we love you, thank you for the blood that has never lost its power. Jesus if there's one person that feels that there's distance between them and You I ask that at this moment it would be destroyed because of the Blood.
To us what is that river? What is the visible tangible channel, what is the pipe that draws this river, that washes away the barrier, that washes away the records, that washes away the sin, that brings the life, that destroys the distance that's between, what is the tangible thing that we can lay hold on? It's the name of Jesus. This is the reason why I encourage people, and I'll never get away from this because I see it's the most effective way of drawing what God has provided that there can possibly be is asking people to call the name of Jesus, for as we call that name that name becomes a mighty pipeline and God pours through it of this Life to us. They that call on the name of the Lord, that name Jesus, shall be saved. That river flows, washes away the sin, and washes away the barrier. So all of these things that come to us, come to us by the name of Jesus. Right now I'm going to ask everyone in this place, I know there are different kinds of needs. I'm going to ask that we lift our hearts and breath from deep within the name of Jesus and let Him do whatever is necessary in our lives as that river flows from God's heart right through us. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus ...
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