COVENANT

COVENANT

Did not hit the SEND button!

11 They overcame him (ie satan) by the blood of the Lamb (ie Jesus)... (Revelation 12:11a)

In our family, blood has played an important part. For my wife Kathy, relaunched her working career as a nurse in her 40's as the fulltime Blood Donor's nurse at our local public hospital in the city of Tauranga, where we lived at the time. After 6 or seven years of collecting blood she transferred to the Operating Theatre, where they use the blood collected, to save patient's lives.

She still has the same job in the Hawkes Bay where we now live. Without this job, over the years and still today, this ministry would not have been possible, as her income enables us to live, day by day. So blood is a lifeline for us too! Thank you doll for your sacrifice over these many years.

Our son Andrew and his lovely wife Catriona, had the 'The Power of the Blood' sung at their wedding. It seemed a most unusual choice, but when you think about it, blood is the consideration or cost of all the covenants, and represents the life we are to 'give up' to our spouse under the marriage covenant.

1. Mankind was created spiritually and physically perfect, with a free will, to obey or disobey God. (A perfection to be proven through testing.)

2. Mankind exercised this right of choice to disobey God.

3. All mankind, from that day to this, is punished by God for the choice made by our ancestors.

a. SPIRITUALLY - fellowship lost with God.
b. PHYSICALLY - through pain, sickness and death.

4. To re-establish our relationship with God, God requires (His choice, not ours!) the sacrifice of an innocent life (represented by blood) as a substitute for our sinful life.

5. In Old Testament times, (ie. before Christ came) God required the sacrifice of innocent animals as a substitute for SINS.

6. In the ultimate act of self-sacrifice, reflecting God's unsurpassed love for us, He sent His innocent, perfect Son, Jesus Christ (God's self sacrifice) to die on the cross (shed His blood) to save the SINNER (us) once and for all.

Incredibly to me, the whole Bible, from the first page to the last, progressively reveals God's masterplan for my personal salvation (and yours too!) through the death of Jesus on the cross at Calvary.

This masterplan is not available to the skeptic but is progressively revealed to us, as we earnestly seek to understand more about the Savior we love.

Pictures of the sacrifice that Jesus made for me are seen in 'The Sacrifice' (ie. consideration or cost) sections of all the covenants we have just studied.

In Moses' Tabernacle the High Priest on the annual, most holy, 'Day of Atonement' (at one with God) foretold the suffering of my Jesus, during the last hours before His death, for me, on the cross at Calvary. The High Priest took the blood of a goat and sprinkled it seven times (7 means completion in Hebrew) on the Mercy Seat (symbolic of Jesus) of the Ark of the Covenant. (The Presence of God)

1500 years later the symbolism of this ritual was fulfilled by Jesus. On the day that my Jesus sacrificed Himself in love for me, He shed His blood 7 times on my account.

1. AT GETHSEMENE: As Jesus was praying in the garden for release from the coming agony his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.

My Jesus shed His blood for me.

3. JESUS WAS FLOGGED: Pilate had Jesus flogged

My Jesus shed His blood for me.

5. THE CROWN OF THORNS: Was placed on His head and they took the staff and struck him on the head again and again.

My Jesus shed His blood for me.

6. PIERCED HIS HANDS AND HIS FEET: As prophesied by King David 1000 years beforehand.

My Jesus shed His blood for me.

7. A SPEAR IN HIS SIDE:The spear brought a sudden flow of blood and water. As prophecied by Zechariah, round 500 years earlier.

My Jesus shed His blood for me.

The above expressed in poetic form. For in poetry we can get a better grasp of the emotional side of our nature and His!

Celebrating the most important event in history – the death and resurrection of Jesus.
To some it may seem like a tragedy but the reality is that it was the final victory for Jesus over sin and death, and through Him, for us too. The ultimate example of the saying, ‘No gain without pain!’ For the pain Jesus suffered that day was indescribable. He was beaten to a pulp, unrecognisable, not at all like the sanitised pictures we have of this gentle looking man sadly looking down on his followers from the cross. He suffered the most agonising and extreme torture and death that it was possible for the Romans to inflict, and they were real experts at it.

This poem attempts, inevitably inadequately, to describe some of the events of that day, a day that had amazingly, been specifically predicted hundreds of years before it came. Indeed it was foreshadowed from the very time that it became necessary, the moment that Adam and Eve were separated from God through sin.

My thanks to Dr Derek Prince for his insights in discovering and teaching this truth.

How we receive God's gift of eternal life.

This expresses it far better than I!

Power in the Blood of Jesus

Barney E. Warren, 1926

1. There’s power in the blood to save from sin,
To bring the peace of God where guilt hath been;
A new and happy life will then begin,
There’s power in the blood of Jesus.

* Refrain:
There’s power in the blood of Jesus,
There’s power in the blood of Jesus;
To save the soul today,
Wash every sin away,
There’s power in the blood of Jesus.

2. There’s power in the blood today, I see,
As when He set the palsied sinner free;
And now His saving grace extends to me,
There’s power in the blood of Jesus.

3. No righteousness of ours can e’er avail,
But through the Lamb of God we shall prevail;
There’s power in His blood, all else will fail,
There’s power in the blood of Jesus.

4. There’s power in the blood for our release,
There’s power in the blood to bring soul-peace;
The merits of His blood will not decrease,
There’s power in the blood of Jesus.

What are the Dead Sea Scrolls made of?

The majority of the scrolls were made from animal skins (parchment) but there were also a few made from papyrus. The major exception to these is the Copper scroll, which as its name suggests, was made from copper.

Source: http://www.bible-history.com