“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it” (Ephesians 5:25).
Think about that! This salvation is actual or experiential in all who believe. Somebody asks you, Are you saved. You say ‘yea!’ How do you know? “I know” How do you know? “Because I did what He told me to do, and He did what He told me He was going to do.” Well, how else do you know? “He’s living in here, remember, He lives, He lives, He’s in my heart today . . .” A lot of songs are written.
I’ve got books in there that explain this. I’ve got a book in there, that after I was done reading it, I was so messed up, it was pathetic. I mean, everything he said was like . . . true? He went into metaphysical stuff - like this is what happened inside your body when you got saved, I mean, I can do it plainly like spiritual circumcision-but he went into emotions, psychological stuff, deep! And I read half the book and I’m saying, “Wow! Thank God I didn’t have to know all this stuff to get saved!”
Well, how do you know you are saved? “Because I am!” How do you know? “I just know!” How can you just know? “Because I was there! He did something to me! He moved in!!!”
Now people have various and different experiences, but if you are saved you know that something happened to you. And it happened to you because of your works? No! It was because of your belief in your heart-exercising of your will to believe what God said about you. And when He told you about who you were-repentance happens-What do you mean? That means anything that you were trusting that made you somehow good, all of a sudden you put behind you and said, what? “None of this stuff can work. My cathecism, my baptism, my communion, my confirmation-none of this stuff saves me!”
All the old ladies across the street that I helped with money, none of that! You repented, you changed your complete mind because you see, in one direction you were trying to salve you conscience-doing good works, thinking that worked-but when God came, and that Holy Spirit convicted you of your sinful condition-you cried out to God for salvation. That means, simultaneously it was like a repentance and an exercise of your will.
Everybody arguing over this stuff-ridiculous! Alls it mean is that anything you were trusting in before, you chucked it, and you turned to God and God saved you. It’s a big deal!
God gave Himself for the church, and that’s why you know that, and you live it experientially every day-through the up and downs.
Only A Great God Could Redeem Us From All Iniquity.
Now how did He do this? He did it by the shedding of His Own Blood.
“In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace” (Ephesians 1:7).
We don’t know how much riches He has, but we know it’s more than we can ever count. And we are talking about this Blood redemption from all iniquity . . .
That’s why when we teach the Gospel there in 1st Corinthians 15, the first four verses—we know that He died ‘according to the Scriptures,’ and I mentioned this before and I try to mention it all the time, to emphasize the blood part. Because a lot of people emphasize the death and you don’t need the blood. But according to the Scriptures He died—so for me to go into the Gospels and read how He died—there was the shedding of blood and we know that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. So it’s important to never forget about the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ—very important.
When you run into a cold spell with God and you can’t feel His presence, you know that there is something separating you from Him. That is sin! You may not even know what it is. What can we do? I plead the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. I’m not using it like a rabbit’s foot. I believe that there is power in the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe it’s enough to cleanse my consciousness from filthy works of the flesh. It allows me to serve God. To demote it or lower it and say it’s just the death of Christ—you’ve got to watch out. Scripture with Scripture.
“Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us” (Hebrews 9:12).
I’d say that Blood is pretty important. We talk about Old Testament priests and the High Priest once a year, going into the Holy of Holies to sprinkle the blood of the Lamb. Jesus did that one time—FINI—His Blood, His Blood. It’s very important to understand that . . . the He redeemed us from all iniquity through His Blood.
“Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (I Peter 1:18-19).
How are you redeemed? By the precious Blood of the Lamb, without blemish and without spot. You see how Scripture goes with Scripture? In your mind, if you read your Old Testament enough or you went through Leviticus, you know that that Lamb had to be without blemish and without spot. Think of all the types and figures around Easter time, and you think how that Lamb was prepared—how they watched so many days, how in type the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled everything. And it all started with His baptism, where John says, “Behold, the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world.” And your mind goes all the way back to Genesis where the first Adam and his wife were clothed with those animals, which I believe were lambs. Two of them. And all the way through Scriptures, God requires a lamb.
So now, here we are in 2018, we’re bought with the price He paid — and that was the shedding of His Blood — that precious Blood. That is just amazing to me . . . what He’s done for us.
- He died to redeem us from all iniquity. That’s in relation to the past.
- He redeemed us from the guilt and penalty to sin. That’s in relation to this present.
“For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures” (I Corinthians 15:3).
Our “sins” . . . plural . . . right? He died to redeem us from all iniquity.
- He redeems us from the power and grips of sin. That is future.
“For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace” (Romans 6:14).
PERIOD! And that is why verse 14 stands alone. No Scripture is of private interpretation. It is a statement of fact! It says that no sin shall have dominion over you.
There’s a lot of things that we drag around that slows us down from serving God. And we get to the point where we say ‘There’s no way I can stop this, I’ll never get over this!’
And then that verse that says . . . “For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace” — so, what do we need? We need grace. When we are going through something that we can’t stop — we need the grace of God.