======================================================================== THE BLOOD OF CHRIST by Zac Poonen ======================================================================== Summary: This sermon emphasizes the importance of walking in the light and being truthful before God, acknowledging the need for the blood of Jesus to cleanse all sins. It highlights the significance of understanding God as our Father and the role of the blood of Jesus in our relationship with God, drawing parallels from Old Testament sacrifices to Christ's ultimate sacrifice. The sermon stresses the need for believers to be honest about their sins, confessing them to God and others, to experience the full cleansing power of Christ's blood and live in the assurance of righteousness. Topics: "Walking in the Light", "Confession and Cleansing" Scripture References: John 3:19, 1 John 1:7, Hebrews 10:3, Luke 11:34, Romans 5:9, Ephesians 1:7, Matthew 22:11 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This sermon emphasizes the importance of walking in the light and being truthful before God, acknowledging the need for the blood of Jesus to cleanse all sins. It highlights the significance of understanding God as our Father and the role of the blood of Jesus in our relationship with God, drawing parallels from Old Testament sacrifices to Christ's ultimate sacrifice. The sermon stresses the need for believers to be honest about their sins, confessing them to God and others, to experience the full cleansing power of Christ's blood and live in the assurance of righteousness. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Okay, we'll continue our study on holding fast to the Christian life, a tight hold on the Christian life. And you remember, I used the example of the hand and we started with the palm. You can't hold fast to anything if you don't have the palm. And we saw that the first thing that we need to be sure of is that God has really become our father. And I find a lot of Christians are not very sure of that. Theoretically, yes. But I think many of them, it's like a child whose father is living in another country. He's never seen him. Maybe occasionally he gets a letter from him and he knows there is a father there, but no personal contact with him. Most Christians that I've met are like that and one proof of that is they are worried and anxious and uncertain about many things. Uncertain in a wrong way. I mean, to be uncertain about many things of the future is right, but to be in a panic, these are all indications that I really don't know the father. Or even a fear concerning what will happen in the future if this thing happens or that thing happens or if my wife dies or my husband dies. All this is because the palm is not there and we don't have a proper hold of the Christian life. And we're trying to hold on to the Christian life and it always slips out. So get this right. And even if it takes time, the Bible says the Holy Spirit who comes in from within cries out, dad, you cannot produce that yourself. You can hear me a hundred times and say, oh God is my father, God is my father. It's trying to memorize something which is not real in your life. Ask the Holy Spirit to make real to you that God is your father. And I'll tell you this, if you seek him with all your heart, you'll find him. If you don't seek him with all your heart, the other things in the world are more important for you. I tell you now itself, don't waste your time praying, you will not find him. Because in Jeremiah 29, we saw that verse, you will seek me and find me, says the Lord, when you search for me with all your heart. So please meditate on that. Now we want to speak about the thumb. The next thing that we need to know very clearly is the place that the blood of Jesus Christ has in our relationship with God. In the Old Testament, there are many pictures of this. And the first picture we can think of where it became very clear is when the children of Israel were in Egypt in Exodus in chapter 12. Those things in the Old Testament are a picture of our experience now. And the children of Israel being enslaved for 430 years is a picture of man being enslaved to sin. And they were under the whiplash of Pharaoh's slaves who kept on saying, come on, produce bricks and work hard. And all human beings under the whiplash of Satan. And Satan keeps on urging them to do this and do that and do the other thing. And they just don't know how to get out of that slavery. And they suffered and suffered and suffered. I'm sure many times they prayed. But finally, we read God delivered them. And that was when they came to a place of desperation. I want you to see that first of all in Exodus chapter 2, verse 23. And I want to ask you a question here when you read this verse. Ask yourself whether you are so sick and tired of your sinful, defeated life as those Israeli slaves were in Egypt. It says here in verse 23, Exodus chapter 2. The middle of that verse, the sons of Israel sighed. Sighed is a word. It's very difficult to explain what it means. They've given up hope. Oh Lord, when will we ever get out of this slavery? Because of their bondage. And they cried out and they cried for help because of their bondage. Rose up to God and God heard their groaning. And God took notice of them. And in the next chapter you read, He began the deliverance. Why is it so many Christians never seem to get delivered from their sin? Because they don't cry out. It says Jesus prayed with loud crying and tears. How many Christians are there who pray with loud crying and tears? Lord, I'm fed up with getting angry. I'm fed up with my dirty thoughts. I'm fed up with my murmuring. I'm sick and tired, Lord, of my complaining. I'm fed up with my constantly fighting with my marriage partner. Not many Christians. They do something wrong. They say, Oh Lord, please forgive me. Cleanse me with your blood. I move on. You think such people will get victory? Not in 100 years. I'll tell you that right now. Don't waste your time praying. When you get sick and tired of it, it'll come very quickly. That's what we read here. They sighed. Oh God, not again. When have you wept at night for your defeated life? You cannot understand the blood of Christ and His power and value till you begin here. That's where the Israelites began. And then God came to them. And it says, God heard their groaning. Can you tell me the last time, not you prayed. I'm not talking about prayer. When was the last time you groaned for deliverance from sin? Can you think of it? Can you think of it at least once in your life? When you did something foolish and you're so sick and tired of it that you groaned before God. I think there are very few Christians like that. And that's the main reason I'd say more than 90 percent of believers never get victory over sin. And they assume that it'll never happen. And I tell you, quite honestly, some of those people think they are believers. They're not believers. So be careful. Anyway, when God appeared to them, He told them in Exodus 12 and verse 12, I'm going to go through the land of Egypt and I'm going to smite all the firstborn. I will execute judgments, the last part of verse 12. And it's because of this fear of judgment that He told them, if you want to escape that judgment, there is only one way. You must take a lamb or a goat, verse 5, a perfectly unblemished lamb or goat, and kill it, verse 6, Exodus 12, 6. And take some of that blood of that lamb and the two doorposts of your house, put the blood on it. And I have a feeling the doorposts extended a little bit higher than the door itself. It's my guess. And then the lintel on top, put the blood there. So when you have two doorposts extending in a lintel, it's like two crosses, you understand? That's why I believe the doorposts went above the level of the doors. So the Lord was putting their blood with two crosses outside the door of the Egyptian houses. And if you put that, He said, verse 13, that blood will be a sign for you on the houses. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you. And no plague will befall you like I'm going to strike the land of Egypt. Now inside those different homes there may have been murderers and thieves and some good people, but it didn't make a difference. The small sinners, big sinners, the only way of salvation was if they put the blood and had faith that they didn't understand it fully, but this, they were, it became clear later, this lamb is taking my sin and I'm putting that blood outside. That's where it began. The importance of the blood and then all those who put the blood outside the door with these two crosses of blood on it, the angel passed by, didn't touch those houses. All the other houses, every single one died. And if somebody thought, well I've lived a good life, I don't need this. This eldest son died as well. So this is where life for the Israelites began and where the nation of Israel was born through the blood. This is how the church is also born. And when you come to the New Testament, excuse me, you understand the meaning of this. And let me begin with Romans chapter 3, verse 23, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. You know, I've looked for the definition of sin in the Bible and there are many definitions. I don't have time to show it, show them all to you. One is transgression of the law, 1 John chapter 3. You look up that sometime. When you go beyond something God commanded and you didn't, you disobeyed it. The other is the last verse of Romans, of James chapter 4. It says, to him that knows what is right to do and does not do it. That's also sin. The other is a sin of committing and this is a sin of omitting. Now most of us, we confess sins where we commit some sin. We don't usually confess sins that we omit to do. When we talk about unconscious sin, it's usually the many things we should have done which we did not do. For example, Hebrews 3, 13 says, encourage one another daily. That is not a suggestion, that is a command. Can you think of the number of days in your life where we never encouraged anybody, not even our children, not even anyone in our home, not even one word of encouragement in a whole day to anyone in the world? We have disobeyed that. It's very easy. One word of encouragement takes about 15 seconds. That's all. I'm just giving you an example. Him who knows the right thing to do but does not do it, it is sin. Read that James 4. So there are different types of sin and it says here that all have sinned. This is the finest definition of sin in the whole Bible. It's Romans 3, 23. Coming short of the glory of God, anything less than the life of Christ, the glory of God was seen in Jesus Christ. Full of grace and truth, John 1, 14. Coming short of that, it says here, is sin. So we are all sinners and there's sin in our life every single day. I told you the other day that our Father who art in heaven is a prayer. The spirit of that prayer must be in us every day because the word daily comes in that prayer. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins. That's also daily. Does that mean we're committing sins daily? No. We can come to a place where we are free from conscious sin and we still say forgive us because there's a lot of unconscious sin in us. Things that I should have done today which I didn't do, which we don't usually think of. Whole areas in our life. And that's why we must recognize that we need the blood of Christ every single day of our life. Not for conscious sin. We should overcome that. Victory over sin is victory over conscious sin. Unconscious sin is there. I can discover it only as I get light on it. And that comes as we grow. You know, it's like a child in first grade. There are lots of things in mathematics he does not know. But in first grade, he gets a hundred percent. That means everything taught in first grade he knows. But mathematics is a huge subject all the way to PhD. That's all like unconscious sin. When he goes to the second grade, he'll discover something more in mathematics. Then he gets a hundred percent there. Then he goes to the third grade and he gets a hundred percent there. This is spiritual growth where I'm constantly getting light on areas of sin in my life which I did not know when I was in first grade, did not know when I was in second grade, did not know when I was in third grade. That's the thing you need to ask yourself. Are you getting light on areas of your life which you did not see as sin last year? I'm not talking about falling in the same area year after year after year. That happens to people. That's like a child sitting in the kindergarten learning two plus two is four, C-A-T is cat. 20 years later, he's still learning two plus two is four, C-A-T is cat. There are many Christians like that defeated by the same sins for 20 years. And they're not bothered about it. That's the sad part of it. That defeat is not so serious as the fact that they're not bothered about it. You would be bothered if your child had to sit one more year in the same class. Yeah. But spiritually, you're sitting in the same class for so many years, it doesn't bother you, means you're not taking your Christian life as seriously as you take the education of your children. That is the fundamental problem with many Christians. They are more concerned about the education of their children than their children's Christian life or their own Christian life. There's not much hope for such people, even if they sit in NCCF every Sunday. God is no respecter of churches or of people. So sin is coming short of the glory of God. And anything that comes short of the glory of God deserves God's judgment. And so it says here, God forgives us, justifies us by His grace, verse 24. And in Christ on the cross, God displayed publicly, verse 25, Him as a propitiation in His blood through faith. Propitiation means Jesus had to somehow, it's a difficult word to explain, propitiate means the anger of God against sin. Jesus had to quench it by offering Himself. You know that song, In Christ Alone, my hope is found, there's one line in it. And on the cross when Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied. Do you know there are some people when they sing that song, I heard about it, then some places they remove that line. I said, that's wrong to talk about the wrath of God being satisfied. You haven't understood the wrath of God against sin. I believe that line is absolutely, 100% true. And if you have not understood the wrath, the anger of God against sin, that may be the reason why you don't take sin seriously. There's an anger of God. In the Psalms, it says God is angry with sinners every day. The anger of God is something we need to understand before we can appreciate what the blood of Christ did for us. The anger of God against sin, that's the meaning of propitiation. That anger was satisfied. God, you don't have to be angry. I've paid the price. So, if you understand that God is angry with every sin you commit, and that if it was not for Christ's death on the cross, you would have to take that anger. You see, hell is the place where God manifests His anger against all those who do not accept the death of Christ as a propitiation. So, it's very important to understand when you think of the blood of Christ as it's a propitiation. The wrath of God was satisfied by Christ shedding His blood on the cross, and like you've often heard me say, when Jesus died and they pierced His side, the blood flowed out. Our body consists of flesh, bones, and blood. But when Jesus appeared to the disciples in Luke chapter 24, after the resurrection, we read that He manifested Himself to them and He said, a spirit does not have, I think it's probably in Matthew 27, 28, a spirit does not have flesh and bones like you see me have. I think it's here, yeah, Matthew, sorry, Luke 24, verse 39. Touch me and see, because a spirit does not have flesh and bones Luke 24, 39. Does not have flesh and bones as you see me have. We are flesh, bones, and blood. All of our bodies are flesh, bones, and blood. If a vein is cut in your body and all the blood is drained out, you don't even have to drain out all the blood, quite a bit of the blood, you die. You know, there are some people who commit suicide, but I don't want to tell you how. Anyway, when you lose your blood, you die, because the life of the flesh, Leviticus 17, 11, is in the blood. So when Jesus' body with flesh, blood, and bones was crucified, all the blood was drained out at the foot of that cross. There was not one drop of blood left in His body. That was the price He paid for your sin and mine. So when He rose up from the dead, there was no blood there. It was only, the Bible says, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God to the only flesh and bones. Now, what else does the blood of Christ do for us? It says in Ephesians, in chapter one, it's very important to understand this because, you know, if you don't have a clear foundation in this, we're always uncertain whether God has accepted us or not. And I find many Christians are like that. There's an uncertainty in their life. You know, is God angry with me? Like, you know, many people feel the right ways. I must always feel God is a little angry with me. Some people feel like that. I know I felt like that in my early days. I thought the spiritual thing is to always feel God is a little angry with me all the time. I want to ask you who are parents, how would you like to have a child who always feels that you're angry with them all the time? Would you like to have a child like that? Always insecure, like I heard a story of a adopted child, six years old, discovered that there were other real children in that family and he was only adopted and they saw him sitting up in bed one night in the middle of the night and when mom came and said, what's wrong with you? That boy said, I'm afraid you'll send me out of the house someday because I'm not your real child. That's what I mean by insecurity and adopted children have that sometimes. I feel a lot of Christians are like that. They're not sure. Will God kick me out one day? I'm not so sure. God must be angry with me. That's because that assurance of God is my dad who loves me is not there. That's not the only thing. We must understand what the blood does. We must sense the seriousness of sin. So here we are told in Ephesians 1 verse 7, we have redemption through his blood and the forgiveness of our sins. Forgiveness of our trespasses through the blood and redemption means, the word redeemed is a word which means purchased from the slave market. That's the other thing the blood does. You know, in the olden days, they had a slave market. Even in the time the Bible was written, there were slaves and just like you go to the market to buy a chair or a table, you go to the market to buy a slave. Okay, how much does this slave cost? It's a muscular slave. It costs more than a thin bony slave and then people would go and buy a slave and then you don't have to pay him because he's not a servant. He's a slave and he's yours and you can do with him whatever you like just like you do what you like with your. If you buy a chair and break it up, nobody's going to question you. In those days, if you bought a slave and killed them, no questions asked. The slave was like that and we were in the slave market of sin and Jesus paid the blood. Now, who was running that slave market? Not the devil. There are many people who say that Jesus paid his blood to the devil to deliver us. Absolute rubbish. It was the law of God that kept us there as a slave and the price that Jesus paid was not to the devil, to the law of God, to propitiate God who had to punish us for our sin. See, the other picture here is he purchased us with his blood. We are in the slave market, a slave of sin because the law of God demands that we cannot release him unless you pay this price and Jesus paid the price and we are set free. Can you imagine the joy of a slave who's slaved all his life, whipped and harmed by others and then one day somebody pays the billions and billions of dollars to set him free and then tells him, you don't have to work for me anymore, just go free. I don't know whether any of us have got that picture of our salvation, that you were a slave and Jesus paid billions and billions of dollars to purchase you and says you can go free now. Picture yourself as how a slave would feel in the slave market delivered like that. If you don't have that type of feeling towards Jesus Christ, you have not understood salvation properly. This is the meaning of redeemed. Whenever you hear the word redeemed in future, think of bought from the slave market of sin and forgiveness of our sins. We already thought of that. And then Ephesians chapter 2, it says here in verse 13, the blood of Christ has brought us near. We were far away and we were brought right close up to God, right up into God's presence. If you turn to Hebrews and chapter Hebrews chapter 9, we read about the Old Testament law where there was a tabernacle and there was one part of the tabernacle nobody could go to because God dwelt there to the most holy place and Hebrews chapter 9 speaks of that tabernacle in verse 2 and it says into the second most holy place, verse 7. Only once a year the high priest had could go inside into God's presence not without taking blood which he offers for himself and for the sins of the people. What type of sins? The sins committed in ignorance, what we call unconscious sin. You know that they had to take the blood in there for the unconscious sins of the people? Even for our unconscious sin, the thing that you didn't know it was wrong, the blood of Christ is needed to cleanse it. And the high priest going inside is a picture of Christ going into the very presence of God. He said, don't ever come there without the blood and if the high priest went in there without the blood of a bull or a goat he would be smitten dead right there. But the wrath of God is satisfied when he goes with blood. We need to understand the function of the blood of Christ here, understand it clearly and it's because we don't understand the tremendous power of Christ's blood to cleanse us thoroughly that we live in a lot of condemnation. Now turn to 1 John chapter 1. 1 John chapter 1 in verse 7 we read of the blood of Jesus cleansing us. But if you read it carefully, I don't know how many of us like I've always told you, read the Bible slowly. If you read 1 John 1 7 slowly, has a question come into your mind? Hey, there's something here I don't understand. Okay, if we walk in the light as God is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. And when you have fellowship with God, obviously you've confessed every sin, right? Otherwise you can't have fellowship with God. 1 John 1 9, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We've done that. That's how we can walk in the light with God. But then when we have fellowship with God, it says in verse 7, the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. Why do you need the blood of Jesus to cleanse you when you're already walking in the light? That's that's what I mean by asking where did you think about that verse. If you had read it slowly, you would have thought about it. You have not read it slowly and that's why you didn't think about it. If I'm already in fellowship with God, why do I need the blood of Jesus to cleanse me? I thought that is in order to come into fellowship with God. But here it says, we walk in the light, we are in fellowship with God and then the blood of Jesus cleanses me. That is from unconscious sin which I still need to be cleansed from even though I've confessed conscious sin in verse 9. We saw that, you know, in the Old Testament verse that we that we looked at in Hebrews chapter 9 as well. So, then we see that the blood of Jesus cleanses us completely. So, when I come before God, it's that absolute assurance that I've been accepted because the blood of Christ has satisfied this rod. Now, I'm giving you all these verses. I'm going to rush through it but I want you to think about it later on. Now, turn with me to Romans chapter 5. In Romans chapter 5, we read in verse 9 that we are justified by his blood. And the word justified means declared righteous. Just is another word for righteous in the New Testament and justified means made righteous. And so, the blood of Christ not only cleanses my past but makes me righteous before God because removing the guilt of the past is not enough. I need to be righteous before God to stand before him clothed with the righteousness of Christ. Christ himself becomes my righteousness. It's very important to understand this because if you understand these things you have boldness when you come before God in prayer or when you speak to him. So, we are declared righteous by his blood. In other words, we recognize there's no righteousness in me that my righteousness is like filthy rags. Turn to Isaiah 64. When you get time later, I'd like you to look at these verses and meditate on them. Isaiah 64 and verse 6. In the middle of that verse, it says, all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment. A filthy garment. A dirty piece of cloth that we throw into the trash that cannot be cleansed. You know that sometimes you have used a cloth perhaps to wipe the oil and dirt from a scooter or a motorcycle or something. It's all so filthy. Any amount of washing, it can't make it clean. It's so filthy, you throw it away. All our righteousness is like a filthy garment. Not our unrighteousness. If it's heavier, all our sin is like a filthy garment. We can understand that. Our righteousness, all the good deeds that you think you have done which make you feel that you're better than somebody else. All those things which make you feel, I did this, which that guy did not do. That's a filthy rag. I don't know whether most Christians have understood this. And that's why they compare themselves with others and say, well I've done this good thing, that person hasn't. I mean you haven't seen the good thing you did as a filthy rag. The best things you do are like filthy rags. That's why we need the blood of Christ to cleanse us. We read that Aaron the high priest had to have a sort of a turban on his head with the words holiness unto the Lord. And we read that in Exodus, I think it's chapter 31, where it says that this was to take away the sins which the Israelites did in their holy activities. That's an amazing verse. I don't have time to show it to you. Read it in Exodus 31. The sins that the Israelites committed in their holy activities. That means the motive was wrong. Something was wrong in that holy activity that also had to be taken away. So our filth, our righteousness is like filthy rags. And to come into God's presence, I had to have that completely cleansed, declared righteous with the righteousness of Christ. Now turn to Matthew's Gospel, chapter 22. You can understand this parable a little better. It's a parable about a king who had a wedding feast for his son and the dinner guests did not turn up and so the king sent his slaves to go and get from the highways and main highways and pick up all the poor people there, verse 9. And the people who were invited did not come. That's a read in the previous verses. And the slaves went out, verse 10, and they gathered all the beggars and the homeless people on the streets, the evil and the good, and filled the wedding hall with dinners. Yes, this is a picture of how we sinners were brought in. But in a king's wedding feast for his son, you can't have these homeless beggars coming with dirty clothes and torn clothes. That'd be shameful. So it's not written here, but this is how I understand it, that the king had servants at the gate of the palace with special beautiful garments to be put over them so that all their filthy garments were covered. So here's this beggar coming with torn dirty clothes and this guy says, here's this beautiful dress. He puts it on and he goes in and he looks so grand. Now here comes another guy in a sort of a suit and a tie and he says, I don't need that. I think my suit and tie is pretty good. I'm not one of these homeless beggars with torn dirty clothes. He says, I don't need that dress. I go and sit with my own suit and tie. And when the king came and looked out at the guests there, everybody, all the beggars who were in hopeless condition, they took the dress. Everybody came back except this guy, one guy who came with a suit and a tie who thought his dress was good enough. And he asked him, hey friend, you remember he calls him friend, verse 12. How did you come here without accepting the wedding dress given to you at the gate? The man was speechless. He couldn't say nobody offered it to me. It was offered to him. Why didn't he take it? He thought his righteousness was good enough. That's the meaning of this parable. All the other people were totally unrighteous. They took it. And that's why you find like the murderer on the cross who accepted Christ's righteousness. He was in paradise the same day and there are so many good people who go to hell because they think they are good enough. And I feel that a lot of people like that among Christians or maybe even sitting here who look down on others and say, well I'm not as bad as those people sitting there. Okay, maybe you're the one who's in danger of coming with a suit and tie and thinking that you can sit in the Lord's presence. You have not understood that only with the righteousness of Christ can you come into his presence. So how do we ensure that we live there continuously in God's presence? There's another verse in Hebrews in chapter 10 which I want to show you. In the old covenant we've seen many times the difference between the old covenant and the new covenant. And here's one of those differences. Hebrews 10 3 it says, in the old covenant sacrifices there is a constant reminder of sins year by year. And I want to ask you in your life, do you find yourself reminded, reminded in a way that you feel guilty about sins that you committed in the past, maybe last year or some time ago, especially some serious sins? The devil would love to remind, because he's the accuser of the believers, he'd love to remind you of some terrible things you did in the past. I don't mean small little things. Small little things we believe the blood of Christ has cleansed us. But sometimes we feel when it says if we confess our sins he's faithful and just to forgive us, we think that refers only to the small sins. The big sins, if we confess once, it is not enough. That's what the devil says. And that's why many of us, if you're honest, you may discover that some of the terrible sins you did in your life you have confessed again and again and again and again and again, even years after you committed it, which is the clearest proof that you don't believe the blood of Christ has cleansed you. You have to face up to it. I'm not saying we shouldn't feel sad about all those things we did. Of course. In fact, 2 Peter 1, he says, if you forget your former sins then you won't grow spiritually. You read that in 2 Peter chapter 1. There should be a, but not remember it in such a way that I feel guilty. I remember all the stupid things I did in my unconverted days. Sure, I remember it today. I was converted 60 years ago and I know the things I did foolishly before that. But I don't feel guilty about even one of them. I feel I'm absolutely righteous before God, but I never, because God does not take away the memory of sin from our life. What does He take away? The guilt of sin. Distinguish between the guilt of sin and the memory of sin. You will never get rid of the memory of sin till we go to heaven. And I wonder whether we'll get rid of it even there. Because it says there, they sing a new song saying the blood of Christ has cleansed us from all sin. But there's no guilt. So distinguish, you don't ever think that, oh, I still remember that thing that I did, therefore God does remember. No, God says, I will not remember your sin anymore, Hebrews 8, 12. So this remember of sin year after year is an old covenant experience. There's a reminder of sins year after year after year. But in the new covenant, no, because I believe the blood of Jesus has cleansed me and I have fellowship with God. And while I'm in fellowship with God, the blood of Jesus cleanses me again. But now let me come back to 1 John 1, 7. The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin if we walk in the light. Many people have the habit of quoting half a verse. And this is one of the most famous half verses quoted by Christians all over the world. The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. That is not true. It is not true. The full verse is, if we walk in the light as God is in the light, then the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. In other words, what does it mean to walk in the light? In simple terms, it means be honest about your sin. Come into the light. Don't hide in the darkness. Turn to John chapter 3 and you'll understand it. In John chapter 3, Jesus said, this is the judgment, John 3, 19. This is the judgment, John 3, 19, that light has come into the world and men love darkness more than light because their deeds are evil. Because everyone who does evil, John 3, 20, hates the light and does not come into the light. He's afraid that his deeds will be exposed. So we learn there that coming into the light means exposing our deeds. That's all it means. Walking in the light means I'm open about my deeds. Now see the contrast between verse 20 and 21. If you read the Bible slowly, you would have noticed the contrast between verse 20 and 21. You spent all your life reading the Bible fast, you never discovered it like a hundred more and other things you never discovered. What is the contrast between verse 20 and 21? At least notice it now. What is the opposite of evil? What is the opposite of evil? Good. So strictly speaking, you should read like this. Everyone who does evil, verse 20, hates the light and does not come into it. Verse 21, but everyone who practices good comes to the light. That's not what Jesus said. That's the thing I want you to see. Coming into the light, you don't have to be good, you have to be truthful. I hope you noticed that. Read the Bible slowly. So coming into the light, walking in the light means not being good, but being truthful. Lord, I acknowledge this is my fault. Lord, I acknowledge I said that with the wrong motive. Lord, I acknowledge the way I spoke to that person sounded so gracious, but there was a hidden sting in those words. I confess it, Lord. Haven't we all been guilty of that sometimes? Saying things which sound so nice, but there's a hidden sting in it to hurt that person. Be honest. Bring it into the light and be truthful. If you're not truthful, you will not be cleansed. He who practices truth comes to the light. In other words, in practical terms, when does the blood of Jesus cleanse us? When your conscience tells you something is wrong and you confess it. Confess your motive. Confess that wrong attitude you had towards your marriage partner, or the wrong way in which you spoke to somebody, or the hidden sting there was, or the sarcasm there was in the way you spoke to someone to humiliate that person. Confess it to God, and if necessary, confess it to that person as well. That is truthfulness. Many so-called believers are not truthful. Even a prostitute can come into the light. Say, I'm a prostitute. I don't claim to be holy. That person will be cleansed. You remember that story of Jesus, the self-righteous Pharisees and the woman caught in adultery? Who was the one who was forgiven that day? None of those self-righteous Pharisees. They had the opportunity to come into the light, but they went away. This woman said, yeah, I'm a sinner. She was forgiven. Many times you see this contrast. Another person was Simon the Pharisee, in whose house one sinful woman came and washed Jesus' feet. She was forgiven. Simon, the holy righteous man, was not forgiven. Jesus said, I did not come to call the righteous or those who think they are righteous. So it's very, very, very important to be quick to confess the sin in our conscience. Okay, one last verse. Luke and chapter 11. Verse 34. The eye is the lamp of your body. That's your, spiritually speaking, that is your conscience. The conscience is the eye of the heart. Why do I say that? If dust gets into your ear, it doesn't disturb you. If dust gets into your nose, it doesn't disturb you. Dust gets all over your body. It won't disturb you. But one speck of dust gets into your eye. It disturbs you. Why? Because the most sensitive part of your body is your eye. There's no part of your body. You touch your eye, it hurts you. That's why Jesus took the eye as the example of the conscience. And if the conscience is clear, verse 34, your whole body is full of light. But if it is bad, that means there's something your conscience told you and you did not set it right. You did not accept the propitiation of God's wrath through the blood of Christ. Then watch out, some of you who claim to have light, that the light in you can become darkness. But on the other hand, here's a maybe a young believer who immediately confesses sin to God and man. His whole body is full of light with no dark part in it. That means not a single sin that is emotive, attitude, thought, unconfessed. Everything is confessed. It's like a body full of light because the blood of Christ deals with everything that is brought into the truth, into the light. If we walk in this light, the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. It's very, very important that we have this assurance. It's like the thumb. You can hold things without a thumb, but it's not going to be a very strong grip. The thumb makes that grip so strong. Very important to be absolutely sure every single moment of every day that my sins are all cleansed in the blood of Christ. I'll tell you one last thing. If you can take care of your conscience like you take care of your slight pain in your body, some pain in your stomach, you do something about it. If you can keep your conscience like that, you live a wonderful Christian life. The sad thing is most people care more for the pain in their body than in their conscience, and that's why they do not progress in their Christian life. Change that from today. ======================================================================== Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/5M8yLKKCxAg.mp4 Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/zac-poonen/the-blood-of-christ/ ========================================================================