Here's Pastor Alan Wright with today's blessing, a biblical faith-filled vision for your life. I bless you to trust in the cleansing, redeeming blood of Jesus. What can wash away your sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make you whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus. To say nothing but the blood can wash away your sins is to say that nothing other than the blood has any power to wash you. but it is also to say nothing other than the blood is necessary to wash you. Your salvation, your wholeness, your healing does not depend upon the blood of Jesus. Plus, Anything.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. But the blood. Pastor, author, and Bible teacher Alan Wright.
We talk about the power, the power, the wonder-working power of the blood. We talk about pleading the blood of Jesus, but what do we really mean by that? That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I am Daniel Britt.
Excited for you to hear the teaching today in our series, Empowered, as presented at Renolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at pastorallen.org. That's pastorallen.org.
or call 877-544-4860. More on this later in the program. But now let's get started with today's teaching. Here is Pastor Alan Wright.
Okay. Family of God, are you ready for some good news? What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What could make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood. And the reason it's such good news... is to say nothing but the blood can save us is also to say Nothing in addition to the blood. Yes, need it. I want you to see.
And this incredible picture of the Passover. what might be the most faith-building Power building image you could ever have in your life. about the blood applied over Hebrew homes. Through which the people were delivered. Saved.
and set free. Because it's all pointing. to the power of the blood of Jesus for our lives. as Christians.
Some of you might remember the animated film The Prince of Egypt. One of the best things DreamWorks ever put out. I remember when it came out in 1998, I think it was. It was so good. And in fact, it was by some heralded as the best animated film ever up until that time.
Did some pretty special things in that film. But it tells the story of Moses. The prince of Egypt, the one who was raised in the Egyptian court, with an emphasis in the storytelling about just how much he really was like a son to Pharaoh. fascinating angle They wanted to keep things as accurate as they could while taking some license with the story.
So they did consult with some Christian leaders and Jewish leaders and theologians. There's star-studded voices in the film. Val Kelmer was the voice of. Moses, and there's just all kinds of famous people that were the voices in this. When they finished the film and they showed a screening to A hundred Christian leaders that looked at it, they agreed.
that it was very important that they change one One scene. One line. Because in the scene where God, through Moses, is telling the people what will happen on Passover when he sees the blood on their homes that he'll pass over and they'll be saved. In the original version of the animated film, The lion had God saying, When I see the mark upon the doors. And the Christian leaders who saw the screening said, You got to change that one.
Because God said, when I see the blood. on the doors. And what was great is they listened to him and they called Val Kimmer back in, and after the whole thing had been made, and they redid that line.
So it said, when I see the blood upon the door. And I want you to understand today why that was such an important change. Because to say when I see the mark on your door. would be to say it could have been anything. to just demarcate the fact that you're the Hebrew people.
But what we'll see in the story is something that is almost the exact opposite of that. It wasn't a story about there's something special about the people intrinsically, as if they are better. people. though they were the ones who had suffered such injustice. The story is about the blood.
We began last week in kind of two parts talking about the power of the blood as part of a series I've called Empowered, which is to say the life of the Christian is meant to be empowered by God. We live by the power of God.
So we've been talking about the power of the Holy Spirit, we've been talking about an empowered life, and I just wanted to turn attention to the power of the blood. We talk about About the power, the power, the wonder-working power of the blood. We talk about pleading the blood of Jesus, but what do we really mean by that? And last week we saw this incredibly fascinating image. of how Abel, who was murdered by his brother, his blood the text says, was crying out to God, like it's speaking to God.
And then the writer Hebrews seized upon this image. And said, the blood of Jesus speaks a better word than Abel's, so Jesus' blood is crying out to God. And we looked at that, that there's a sense in which there's an A personification of the blood, like as an active voice. of the blood of Abel that's crying out, justice. I've been murdered.
There needs to be justice. But Jesus laid down his life. No one took it from him. And he came for the purpose of mercy. And the blood of Jesus is speaking to God on your behalf.
Wow. Today we come to this Passover story. Which more than as much as any image in all of the Bible will help you understand what it means to apply the blood of Jesus in faith over your life. for protection, for well-being, for wholeness, for healing, for peace. joy and prospering in every way.
The blood of Jesus. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. But the blood.
is needed. We like sometimes to think about maybe sanitizing the Christian gospel. Maybe we could just make it a little less about a bloody cross, you know, and a little more acceptable to people in the culture. And yet, I said last week, you can't do that because, well, the cross is the cross. But also, the whole narrative of scripture, this theme of the shed blood, just runs through it.
God's the first one that shed blood. Adam and Eve were so ashamed in their sin, they made fig leaves for clothing, and God shed the first blood of innocent animals and made them better clothing out of the skins of animals.
So the first instance of the shedding of blood was for the covering of shame. After the big flood, when Noah offered a blood offering to God, a sacrifice, God was pleased, and he said, I'm never going to curse the ground again for man. And so. the shedding of blood was somehow associated with the Reversing of a curse and the covering of shame. And when Abraham was called up to be the father of the nation, there was a covenant that was made and it was cut with these animals.
And God was demonstrating that I want you to know for sure that my promises are true. There's something about the faithfulness of God's covenantal love that is on display through the blood. We'll see in detail the Passover story. But then later, Moses is at Mount Sinai, receives the law of God, receives the word of God. And these sacrifices are offered, and some of the blood is thrown on the altar, and some is put upon the people in this act of the consecration and the receiving of revelation from God.
So the blood is somehow associated with the ratifying of covenant and the giving and the receiving of revelation from God. truth that's setting you free. On the stories go, the prophets foretell of a Messiah by whose stripes we would be healed. And then Jesus the Nazarene comes, and John the Baptist looked at him. right often said, Behold, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.
We saw in the Old Testament on the day of atonement that the priest would go in seven times he would sprinkle the blood behind the holy of holy veils. He would sprinkle blood on the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant. Seven times he would sprinkle. And we saw last time that Jesus shed his blood in seven different ways. He was sweating blood in Gethsemane.
He was hit with the rod. He was scourged with the whip. He was pierced in his hands, pierced in his side. He was pierced at the brow with a crown of thorns. And he was pierced in his side with a sword.
I bled. And the writers of the New Testament They all over and over are aware of what the blood of Jesus means to us. We have now been justified by his blood. Just as if I'd never sinned, Romans 5:9. In him we have redemption.
Through his blood. We've been bought, we've been purchased. Ephesians 1:7. Ephesians 2:13. We've been brought near by the blood of Christ.
Hebrews 10, 19. Brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus.
So we're given access through the blood. We're given access to God in the holy places. By his wounds, you have been healed. 1 Peter 2, 24. 1 John 1:7.
If we walk in the light as he's in the light, we'll have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses. See, it's not just that God overlooks your sin or temporarily covers your sin or even just forgives sin. He cleanses you. You're not stained by it.
You've been washed white as snow. And this is the picture that John gets in his revelation while in the exile in the Isle of Potmos. They have conquered him. by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. And I will say some more about that, but there is a power.
a victorious power of the testifying of the blood of the Lamb and the impact of the blood of the Lamb. and our lives. to all of scripture. You see. is in one way or another somehow pointing towards or pointing back.
to the blood of the Savior. And there's no more important or powerful, poignant place where we see that blood. than in the story of the Passover. It is the formative story. for Old Testament narrative.
It is the picture. of slaves that cry out to God who hears their cry. and He, by His providence and grace, and mighty power, sets them free from the tyranny of Pharaoh, so that they could be released to worship God and to take a promised land. This is the picture of the Christian life. A move from slavery to sin, slavery to fear.
into the liberation. By the blood of the Lamb. wherein we're not just set free, but given a charge to take a land. And so it's a powerful story. I can't think of any better way to try to understand what it means to apply the blood of Jesus to your life than to look at this Passover story and draw.
some of its symbolism for our own lives.
Okay, the Passover story, it starts with the horrors of slavery. It starts with these people that had grown so numerous in Egypt. It started with Joseph, who was taken by slavery to. Egypt, and then many Hebrew people that began to emerge, and they became quite plentiful and had much favor under the Pharaoh of Joseph. But when there was a Pharaoh who emerged who had not known Joseph, He was threatened by the Hebrew people, and he made their lives even more difficult, enslaved them all.
And over and over we see in this Pharaoh a tyrant. of the worst proportions. If by chance you're new to exploring Christianity and you look at the Bible and go, wait a minute, was God kind of this bloodthirsty God in the Old Testament? It seems judgmental. In the New Testament, he was different?
No, he's the same God, and He's always been full of everlasting love. His heart is a blessing. It always has been. but is also a just God. And if you think about a story like the Passover, we're going to look at his details of this and the slaying of the firstborn of the Egyptians.
Don't skip past this. This Pharaoh was. A tyrant of the worst kind, you got to think of Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, you got to think like that. I'm talking about a man who got threatened by the Hebrews and put an edict that every firstborn Hebrew son would be thrown into the Nile. If it weren't for the midwives, the Hebrew midwives, it would have been infanticide and ultimately genocide in the long run.
You gotta remember that this is a Pharaoh who was given chance after chance after chance to let the people go, but instead just made their work harder and harder. You gotta think like that. God's not going to just stand by forever and let that kind of evil go on. He heard the cry of his people. And This is what Moses was told by God at Exodus 4:22.
You shall say to Pharaoh, Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son. And I say to you, Let my son go that he may serve me. Or the word could be, worship me. If you refuse to let him go, behold, I'll kill your firstborn son. What he's saying is I made this people unto myself.
And he calls Israel the firstborn because out of this people is going to come a Savior, Jesus. And anyone who accepts Christ is going to be a child of God. And it's like... We have been engrafted in, you see. And But he's saying, but this is like my firstborn.
Well let him go. And if you were to go back, and we don't have time to do it, and look at the whole story, what you would really see is mercy over and over. Because he gave Pharaoh nine different chances through nine different plagues. that were very clearly signs from God. about the power of God.
And the insistence over and over from Moses to let the people go. And Pharaoh would say he's going to let them go, and then he'd change his mind. He was stubborn. He was cruel. He was evil.
And nine times God gave him mercy over and over and over. You got another chance, and he wouldn't do it. And he'd already told him. View. You keep killing my firstborn.
you're going to reap. It's right back on you.
So then comes Passover night. Exodus 12:1, the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, This month shall be for you the beginning of months. First month of the year. This is the month that was called Nisan. It became for the Jewish, the old Jewish calendar, their first month of the year.
It correlates roughly to April for us. It's a spring month. And this is going to be the month of new beginnings for you. This will be your new year. And so, in ancient Israel, that's the way they would always think of Passover.
and Passover would take place during that month of Nisan. Verse 3, tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month of Nisan, every man shall take a lamb according to their father's household. A lamb for each household. And jump to verse 5, your lamb shall be without blemish. A male a year old, you can take it from the sheep or the goats.
So every household. They have a lamb. And it's to be without blemish.
So they would inspect the lamb. Make sure there's no defects, no marred places. no birthmarks, no limp, no broken bones. Note this well, this is really important to the story. God did not ask them the people to be without blemish.
He asked that the lamb be without blemish. The spotlessness of the Lamb is the focus. Take the lamb into the home. It's a very personal thing. They bring this lamb in on the 10th, and then.
They would keep it for four days. And I imagine that's hard. Like on the kids, they get used to having this little lamb like a pet around, but it's there for the purpose. It's going to be slaughtered and. And that's going to become lamb chops.
And but this is, I think, part of the meaning of this. And verse 6, you shall keep it. until the 14th day of this month.
So take it in on the tenth, and then on the 14th day, when the whole assembly of the congregation shall kill their lambs at twilight. It really, the actual language here says something that's more like in the afternoon.
So it's like, it's sort of like between, you could think like between the hours of three and six. They shall take some of the blood, put it on the two doorposts, and put it over the top and over the sides. Pastor Alan Wright, our good news message, applying the power of the blood from the series Empowered. Please stay with us. Pastor Alan is back joining me in the studio, sharing his parting good news thought for the day in just a moment.
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We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Allen Wright Ministries. Call us at eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty. That's eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty. Or come to our website, pastorallen.org. Back here now in the studio with Pastor Alan for our parting good news thought for the day as we really have kicked off this next teaching, Applying the Power of the Blood, which really kind of picks up from the last teaching of the power of better blood that we just concluded.
So, Pastor Alan, what's our good news thought today?
Well, if we were learning about why Jesus' blood is so powerful, then the question arises: what does it mean to apply the blood of Jesus? And to understand this, We're gonna go back. into the ancient times the corridors of history On to the villages and hamlets of Egypt, and imagine we were there for that first Passover. when the destroyer would come through as the final plague, for the killing of the firstborn of the Egyptians, and watch. those Hebrew patriarchs paint blood over the door posts Of those Hebrew slave huts and watch what happens and think about what was going on, because in that picture, In their applying of the blood, literally, we can learn what it means for us spiritually to apply the blood of Jesus.
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