Here's Pastor Alan Wright with today's blessing, a biblical faith-filled vision for your life. Like Bethlehem, out of your life will come surprise blessings. Feeling small? Remember Bethlehem. You're feeling insignificant.
Remember the place of Jesus' birth. How big was Bethlehem?
Well, think Chugwater, Wyoming, population 216. Think of Barney Fife's domain, Mayberry, North Carolina. If God had made his grand entrance just a few miles northwest in Jerusalem, the whole religious world would have been taking note. But instead, the baby, the Messiah, was born in Chokewater to Bethlehem. If you feel like an unlikely candidate for God's grace to sprout, remember little Bethlehem and a little feeding trough.
I bless you with Micah's prophetic words. You by no means are the least. God specializes in bringing forth blessings from unlikely locations.
So if you feel weak, or forgotten, or unnoticed, Well good. You're quite the candidate for God's surprising blessing. Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright.
So the blood is personified, is as if the blood has a voice, and there's a voice to Abel's blood, and there's a voice to Jesus' blood. And I want to show you the difference so that you could apply the blood of Jesus in maybe a richer and deeper way to your life. 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 Britton.
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. Mm.
Mm-hmm. Beloved, are you ready for some good news? There is power, power, wonder-working power in the blood of the Lamb. There is hope giving. Despair dispelling.
Darkness fleeing, devil defeating. life-giving power. in the blood of the Lamb.
Some time ago, Anne, my wife's sitting on the front pew next to a new believer who I think was taking communion for the first time. And as the elements were being passed to her, my wife was trying to explain to her what the little piece of bread meant and what the little cup of juice meant. And she got the little cup of juice, and she said, This little cup of juice, it represents the blood of Jesus. She was like, Well, what does that mean? She said, Well, Through His shed blood, we have forgiveness of sins.
and our debt's been paid. And the Bible says, by his wounds we're healed, and we have hope and redemption and certainty of our future in heaven, all because he shed his blood. You know, she was telling like that. And then she said, the woman, my eye caught her in front of you. She took the little cup and she drained that little few, you know, one little swallow, and then she was shaking it and tapping on it to get out of the way.
I thought that's the way we should all feel, right? About the benefits of the blood of the Lord Jesus. I am preaching this series we call Simply Empowered on living a God-empowered life. rather than a human-empowered life. And I thought it's fitting that there be a message about the Blood of Jesus.
We talk about the power, the wonder-working power of the blood, but what is that? We sometimes say, I plead the blood of Jesus. What do we mean by that? And I never expected And when I got into my search of the scriptures to find such riches that really. There should be a sermon series on this.
And I don't have time for sermon series on this, but I have adjusted our preaching schedule so that we'll sort of have part one this week and part two next. And this week, I want to turn our attention. to a an intriguing, curious contrast. that in the old uh covenant The the earliest family had these two boys, Cain and Abel. Adam and Eve's sons.
And Cain is born first. He's the firstborn, Abel the younger. And as we'll be seeing in detail today, when they brought offerings to the Lord, and for whatever reason the Lord Was really pleased with Abel's and complimented him on it, you know, and blessed him on it. Then Cain became very, very jealous. and killed his younger brother.
And what is so intriguing about the The story is to watch the reaction of the Lord. Because he says at verse 10, what have you done? And he's not asking because he doesn't know the answer to this. It's more like a moan of pain from God's heart. Like We would say something like that, what have you done?
What have you done? And then the Lord says this. The voice of your brother's blood. is crying to me from the ground. And I've just been fixated on trying to understand what that voice is crying.
and what that means. Because the writer of Hebrews picks up on this image in Hebrews chapter 12. and hearkens back to it, telling us That we've come to Zion, we've come to a new covenant. We've come to a To Jesus. and as his comment to the sprinkled blood.
that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
So the blood is personified, is as if the blood has a voice. and there's a voice to Abel's blood. And there's a voice to Jesus's blood. And I want to show you the difference.
So that you could apply the blood of Jesus in maybe a richer and deeper way to your life. There's a part of all of us that would like to sanitize the Christian gospel. You know, make it about nice people being nice to other people.
sorta a bunch of You know, everybody learning to live a better life kind of thing. And the the whole of culture around us You know, the idea of a bloody cross is at first not something that's appealing, right? We'd rather have self-help books and let's all just live morally better lives and all of that. And a lot of people have no idea the meaning of the cross. I chuckle to hear a story of a boy who was not doing well in school at all.
And his grades were so bad that his dad decided I'm going to do something drastic. He pulled him out of the public school system and put him into a very strict Catholic private school. And first semester, got his report card and his grades had really gone up, especially in math. He going from making F's to making A's in math. And dad said, son said, this is great.
He said, what's been the change? What's inspired you? And the boy said, Well, when they took us to chapel that first week, And I looked up on the wall and saw how they'd nailed that guy to a plus sign. I knew they were serious about that. We are in a culture that will increasingly have no idea what we're talking about with the cross of Jesus.
I get a little bit amused when I watch celebrities and athletes with all their. dangling necklaces of gold crosses and all, and it's fine to wear a cross, you know. But Phil Yancey, I think it was, who once noted, he said, imagine someone wearing a small guillotine around their neck or a hangman's noose. The cross is gruesome. It is a form of The most horrid execution imaginable.
It is a symbol for who we are as a people. But it was bloody and it was awful. and you can't have a Christianity. that sanitized from the cross. If you have something, that has no cross in the middle.
It's not Christianity. The whole of the Bible, actually. was pointing towards the cross. We often speak of this, that the Bible is really one big story. that all fits together.
And it's only possible. that it's because it was all inspired by the Holy Spirit. I don't know any other way that this could happen. over so many different centuries of time, under so many different pens. that would consistently be portraying a picture of the blood of the Lord Jesus.
all ahead of time. In the beginning, when Adam and Eve sinned and the crushing weight of shame came into the world, they suddenly felt very exposed. And so they made themselves primitive kind of clothing out of fig leaves. and God saw it wasn't good. And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skin, and clothed them.
So it was God who shed the first blood. The very first act of God to cover shame was to shed innocent blood.
so that he can make better clothing. for Adam and Eve. even though they had Brought this great breach in their fellowship with God because of their sin. Do you see the heart of God?
So the first association of the shedding of blood is for the covering of shame so that there can be relationship. And as we'll be looking in detail, the next scene we see, Cain. shedding the blood of Abel. After there had been such rampant evil on the face of the earth that God had considered just wiping it out and starting over again, instead, he sent a great flood. And after the deluge, Noah offered a blood sacrifice, a burnt offering to the Lord.
And in Genesis 8, You read that the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart, I'll never again curse the ground because of man.
So the first association of blood is the covering of shame. The next time that you see this association of the blood, There's a mention from the Lord that he's not going to curse.
So blood is associated with the covering of shame and the removing of curse. And when God wanted to form a people unto himself, He brought up a man out of the Ur of the Chaldees named Abram. And he promised him that he was going to be a great father, a father of a great nation. And when Abram needed reassurance about this, God told Abram to get a heifer and a goat and a ram. and to slaughter the animals, and put them into a kind of bloody gauntlet.
And therein a covenant was ratified. And when the sun had gone down in Genesis chapter 15, the text says, It was dark, behold, a smoking Firepot and flaming torch passed between them. This is a picture of the Holy Spirit, of God's presence. And on that day, the Lord God made a covenant with Abram, saying, To your offspring, I'll give this land.
So the blood is associated with the ratifying or the confirmation of a covenant. In fact, we see that in other places. when Moses came to Mount Sinai and received the covenant of the law. And God gave him the law. And Moses in in Exodus chapter 24 took And sacrificed animals and took half the blood and put it in basin, and half the blood he threw against the altar.
And then he took the book of the covenant, read it in the hearing of the people. And then Moses took the blood and he threw it on the people, and he said, Behold, the blood of the covenant.
So there's something about the blood that puts into effect The promises of the word of God and consecrates the people of God. I'm giving you. the picture that was growing over time. of the blood. When the priests were ordained, who would serve in the temple.
Blood was applied to their ear, their thumb, and their great toe. There was something about the blood. that was associated with setting someone apart as holy. And one day a year on Yom Kippur on the day of atonement. This high holy day, the Jewish people will soon be celebrating again.
the high priest sacrificed bulls and goats. and was allowed to go behind the veil into the holiest place on earth. The Holy of Holies where the Ark of the Covenant with its golden mercy seat with cherubim overlooking, And the instruction was: the priest shall take some of the blood of the bull. And sprinkle it with his finger in the front of the mercy seat, and on the east side, in the front of the mercy seat, he shall sprinkle it. Seven times.
Seven is the Hebrew number for perfection or completion.
So I want you to keep that in mind: that in the holiest day, in the holiest place on earth, the high priest once a year would take his fingers into the basin and sprinkle it. on to that golden mercy seat where the presence of God was inhabited. One, two. Three. Four.
Five. Six. Seven. Complete. God was painting a picture.
of the perfection of the covering and atoning for sin. And that people would know that for one more year it was as if their sins had been covered. The life of the flesh is in the blood, Leviticus 17 says. I've given it to you to make atonement for your souls, for it's the blood that makes atonement by the life.
So it was understood in the Hebrew concept that the blood represented life. And the actual phrase here is the nefish. That's the Hebrew word for soul or life itself. is in the blood. And so they understood there was a kind of power.
in that shed blood. The prophets and the poets of Israel spoke of it, most notably, Isaiah prophesied. He was pierced for our transgressions, and with his wounds we healed. And he shall divide the spoil with the strong. Because he's poured out his soul to death.
That's that same phrase about the life The nefesh is in the blood. He poured out his nefesh. to death. Over and over, throughout all the corridors of time and down through human history. God had in this Hebrew people have been painting a portrait of what it was that he wanted to do for humanity.
and a million Passover lambs were offered. and a million sacrifices and blood offerings, and year after year on Yom Kippur the blood was sprinkled seven times.
Now back to the story of Cain and Abel. Cain and Abel are the first brothers. I grew up in a home with three boys. I was the youngest of three, had two older brothers. I can tell you by firsthand experience, brothers are naturally competitive.
We competed at everything.
Somebody'd come home with a balloon from a birthday party, and we'd have a game of play Keep Up the Balloon. And I mean, it'd be vicious games. We would be, and there were no rules. There was no, I mean, we played this game in the upstairs hallway of our house, which for me as a little boy, I remembered it being a long hallway. When I went back there after I grew up, I was like.
This isn't even long. What even is this? But we would open the doors to my mom's bedroom, and my bedroom was at the other end. And those were our goals. And we would get down all hands and knees and And we would play some kind of combination of hockey and handball and rugby and I don't know.
There were no rules. It was a contact sport and you're trying to bat the ball past the other guys into the door on the end. And it was rough. And my mom didn't like it up there banging around up there, inevitably somebody getting hurt.
So she didn't like us to play this game. We called bat ball.
So we decided that we would use pig Latin anytime we wanted to play because mom didn't understand pig Latin.
So we called it At Bay Albay, and we'd look at each other. You want to play some At Bay Albay? As if my mom didn't know what we were getting ready to do. We were so competitive, it didn't matter what we were doing. There's a kind of rivalry that just happens amongst boys.
I was thinking back to a parishioner many years ago who told me of his boys, Kevin and Tommy. They were so always getting at each other. They were on a road trip one time, and it was just bad. And Tommy cried out, Kevin's poking me. And dad said, Stop poking your brother.
And Kevin cried out a little later and said, Kevin's touching me. Don't even touch your brother. And it kept going for a little bit until finally the dad pulled the car over to the side of the road. And he said, I've had it. He said, Here's what.
He took his hand like this. He said, I'm drawing an invisible line between the two of you. And he drew this invisible plane. And he said, Tommy, you're on this side. Kevin, you're on this side.
You can't even go on to the other guy's side. You can't touch him. You can't do anything. You can't go. This is their side.
This is your side. And if anybody violates that and goes on the other side, I'm going to pull this car over, and there's going to be consequences.
So they drive along for a while and it was quiet for a while and then suddenly Tommy cried out. He said, Dad, Kevin's breathing my air. Kevin was leaning over towards the invisible plane going. Like he was snorting in the others' atmosphere. It wasn't a laughing matter in the first family.
What happened was Cain and Abel brought offerings to the Lord. We don't know why, but the Lord showed favor. Pastor Alan Wright, our good news message: the power of better blood. It's in the series Empowered, and Pastor Alan will be back here in the studio sharing a parting good news thought for you and me in just a moment. Unlock the power of blessing your life.
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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 sharing Pastor Alan's parting good news thought for the day as we really kick off the teaching of the power of better blood today.
Pastor Alan.
Well Daniel, we sing about the power, power, wonderworking power in the blood. And what do we mean by that? Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think as long as I've been a Christian, like the power of the blood.
Yeah. What is the power of the blood? I grew up in church and took it for granted, but I know a lot of people who are not familiar with church language might think this is a strange way, uh, song to sing, you know? It is.
So I I to get at it, I have become fascinated with The The assurance in Hebrews chapter 12 That we've come to a sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, to understand that. We need to go back and see what was said of the blood of Abel.
And the Lord said to Cain after he murdered his brother Abel, The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground.
So the blood is personified like it has a voice in it calling out to God. And then he says, but Jesus' blood is calling out, but in a better way. And there and understanding that is our key. That's what we're going to be looking at. Thanks for listening today.
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