Past The Past
The Bible says come and let us reason together.
• There is something we have to reason together so that we are the victorious people we were saved to be.
Pleading the blood has been a part of the faith of the old-timers when they experienced attacks from the devil or needed healing, etc.
• Basically it was the saint’s resort whenever any need arose.
• All the promises of the Bible for God’s people were claimed by pleading the blood.
This understanding has been lost for the most part today.
• In a world of prosperity preachers who tell you that God wants you to own a Rolls Royce, and miracle workers drawing thousands of people who want to see something happen, much of the vital truths of the Bible have been replaced by SENSATIONALISTIC searching studies of the miraculous or the prosperous.
• God does accomplish some sensational acts sometimes, and He can bless us and prosper us, but not all the time.
• But there is one thing that works all the time and is there for us all the time and that is the simple, basic truths concerning the CROSS.
The terms like pleading the blood, and power in the blood and cherishing the old rugged cross are all but lost today.
• Who understands these things?
• Ask yourself what “pleading the blood” means.
• What does “cherishing the old rugged cross” mean?
• What does “power in the blood” refer to? !
To PLEAD means to advocate a case in court.
• It means to speak in favour of a certain decision.
• And in our case, pleading the blood means to point to the blood as our basis for claiming whatever we need to claim, as though we were in a court case where we claimed innocence based upon certain proofs.
• TO PLEAD THE BLOOD MEANS TO CLAIM RIGHTS to whatever we need.
• And all true Christians can do this.
True Christians baptized into Jesus death can claim the blood.
• This is so because the BLOOD is the embodiment of everything that is involved with the thought of Jesus’ death.
• We are not pointing to red fluid that flows through the veins of a body by being pumped by a heart.
• The term THE BLOOD is representative of Jesus’ death.
• When we sing power in the blood, we are not pointing to gooey, red, thick liquid from a body.
• Blood in the body means LIFE and blood out of the body means DEATH.
Matthew 26:28 For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
Notice that Jesus said the blood is SHED.
• That speaks of DEATH.
Jesus’ death is different than anybody else’s death.
John 12:31-33 Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. This he said, signifying what death he should die.
Jesus referred to His death as drawing all men to himself.
• This means that His death would become the deaths of all people.
• People who BELIEVE the Gospel, are people who were baptized into Jesus’ death, and believe that His death became their deaths.
We all heard people say that Jesus died FOR US.
• What does that mean?
• Is it that we don’t have to die because He died for us?
• NO.
• He died because we had to die.
Hebrews 9:27-28 And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.
Because we have to die once, Christ died to bear OUR sins.
• So He died because we had to die.
• Not so that we would not have to die.
2 Corinthians 5:14 For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:
When the Bible says that He died for us, it concludes that God considers US TO HAVE DIED.
When the Bible says FOR US it means AS US.
• It means we experienced it through His experience.
• Dying FOR US means WE ARE DEAD.
Now we must apply this truth to our lives today.
• We do not really believe something until we act upon it.
• ...until we apply it to ourselves in everyday experiences.
So we need to plead the blood as we go through troubles.
We will teach on this subject for a few weeks to really get this into our hearts.
• THIS IS THE GUTS OF THE GOSPEL.
LET ME SHOW YOU ONE EXAMPLE TODAY.
YOUR PAST PASSED AWAY
2 Corinthians says that we died through Jesus’ death.
2Corinthians 5:16-17 Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
His passing away was our passing away.
Paul and the apostles would not look at people after the flesh.
• In other words, he did not care about anything their pasts involved.
• We were all born after the flesh and then if we are saved, we were born after the Spirit.
• Paul only concerned himself with what was after the Spirit.
If you were a murderer and got saved, Paul would not consider your past at all.
• The murderer died in Christ.
• Old things passed away.
• When?
• When Christ passed away.
• DIED.
• ALL THINGS ARE BECOME NEW.
So do not look at brothers and sisters after the flesh.
• The FLESH we have is still the same flesh we had before we were saved.
• Our SPIRITS are made NEW when we are saved.
• After your human spirit is made new you need to get HIS SPIRIT into your spirit.
Ezekiel 36:26-27 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
New bottles are created to contain new wine.
• New wine is God’s Spirit.
Matthew 9:17 Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.
And our MINDS or SOULS are being renewed in times like this service when we are hearing God’s word.
Romans 12:2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
But the FLESH is the same as it was before salvation.
• Many believer’s MINDS are
also the same, but they can be changed and renewed right now, whereas the flesh cannot be changed now.
But since the flesh is still the same as it always was, it is easy to look at people after the flesh and connect that person’s SOUL with the past experiences that are really no longer a part of that soul since salvation.
But do not look at people after the flesh.
• Look at them after the spirit, according to what state their human spirit is in.
• And since God gives us a new spirit to then put His Spirit within us, and since all things passed away in our co-crucifixion with Him, we must look at people in that light, with NO CONNECTIONS TO THEIR PASTS.
• Look at them as though their past passed away.
• That is the reality anyhow.
No matter what embarrassing or shameful past you may have, true mature believers do not even consider it!
IT PASSED AWAY.
ITS BURIED.
2 Corinthians 5:16 Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
Paul did not even look at Jesus after the flesh, before the crucifixion.
• For then He was humble and meek and a servant, but now He is Lord and sits on the throne and is King of Kings.
The only link you have to your past in reality is not that it is so much a part of you that you will never be free from it.
• Your only link is the recorded memory of it in your mind.
• That is all the connection that it has to you.
• If all things have passed away then they are no longer part of you.. That refers to ALL OF YOUR PAST!
When memories that get you down start top plague your mind... PLEAD THE BLOOD.
• The devil will throw such thoughts at you.
• And many times you throw them at yourself!
• SO PLEAD THE BLOOD as you claim your right to not be pestered by those thoughts any more.
• You have a right to be free of condemnation from the past on the basis of the DEATH OF JESUS CHRIST THAT BECAME YOUR DEATH WHEN YOU WERE BAPTIZED INTO IT, MAKING IT NO LONGER A PART OF YOU.
• FOR YOU ARE NOW A NEW CREATURE IN CHRIST.
1a1) recently made, fresh, recent, unused, unworn
The greek word for NEW means FRESH or UNWORN.
Your life is UNWORN.
• Your past can have nothing to do with you now because what you are now is UNWORN.
• ITS UNUSED.
• Your old used up existence, worn out by sin and made old by evil is gone and you now have an existence that YOU NEVER WORE BEFORE THE CROSS.
• You never carried this new existence into anything sinful from your past.
• It is alien to your past.
• The life and all its baggage you used to carry is GONE!
The death of Jesus destroyed the old man.
Romans 6:6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
CRUCIFIED
DESTROYED
Jeremiah 31:33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
No wonder He will not remember their sin any more.
• He destroyed who they were and crucified who they used to be.
That covenant is the NEW COVENANT.
Hebrews 2:9 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.
He tasted death for every man.
• Death is the end of a lifetime.
• It’s the end of all its experiences.
• He tasted the end of all your past as you.
• That means, in God’s eyes your past is destroyed and you are free from it all.
PLEAD THE BLOOD when your past torments your mind.
CLAIM YOUR FREEDOM FROM IT based upon the death of Christ that caused YOUR OLD LIFE TO BE DESTROYED.
Destroying evidence means that nothing is left to convict a person.
• Not only was your evidence of sins destroyed, but YOU WERE destroyed on the cross, in Christ, and who you are now is a person who did not exist prior to baptism into that death.
The cross is not something we came across halfway through our lives.
• That kind of talk is void of what the Bible teaches about the cross.
• WE WERE BORN CRUCIFIED.
• ITS THE BEGINNING OF OUR LIVES, not something that can occur halfway through your life.
It’s the end of one life and the beginning of a new one.
The only way that your past can affect you is if you dwell on the recording of it in your memory.
• But I hear recordings of singers who have died.
• They no longer exist.
• And I know that and you know that.
• You listen to music by a singer from the 30’s who died several years ago and that is something that seems alive right now, but is only a recording.
• That person no longer exists nor even sings any more.
• We need to think like that when it comes to memories of our pasts.
Your past can only affect you according to how much you DOUBT or are unaware of the destruction of the old man on the cross through Christ’s death.
They are no longer a part of our actual existence right now.
So if YOU LINK YOUR PRESENT EXISTENCE TO YOUR DESTROYED PAST, then you are the problem here.
I said this before, and wish to repeat it again.
• Its so powerful.
• LIVING BY FAITH IS SEEING YOURSELF AS GOD SEES YOU.
If you take something that is not a part of you anymore and think it still is a part of you as you try to remove the grief of that past, you are not getting the truth of the cross into your heart.
One saved person tried destroying all pictures of oneself from one’s past in order to psychologically remove all guilt and bad memories of one’s past.
• That is resulting from one still linking the past to the present christian life.
• It is against the teachings of the Bible.
• It contradicts the Word’s revelation of the cross.
I am not ashamed of the things I did in the past because they are not a part of me any longer.
• So why should I be ashamed of them?
• Yes, they were shameful.
• But the person to whom they belonged is gone!
• The one to be ashamed is dead and gone!
Someone else tried going into the past through memory regression.
• Trying to find out why they act like they do today due to the past influence.
• That past is no longer a part of us any longer.
• The cross cut it off.
• ALL THINGS mean EVERYTHING.
• EVERYTHING FROM OUR PAST LIVES IS PASSED AWAY AND BURIED.
YOUR PAST PASSED AWAY.
Yes you still have the recording of that life.
• But its all according to how you deal with it, now that you have it.
• If you understand that its only like a recording and its not alive any more and that person is not the present you, then it will not condemn you.
• All the condemnation your old life deserved was wrought out upon Christ on the cross.
• That is the reason Jesus said NOW IS THE JUDGMENT OF THIS WORLD, in John 12, when He spoke of His death.
• My judgment already occurred for the things of my past.
Plead the blood when those thoughts torment you.
• Lay claim to your death in Christ when He died.
• Its your right to guilt free living today!
• You have a right!
• PLEAD YOUR CASE BY THE BLOOD.
• STAND UPON THAT PROOF.
Say, “I rebuke this thought and refuse to allow it to torment me because I stand upon the fact that I and all those past experiences died with Christ 2,000 years ago! I claim my right to freedom from guilt of the past due to the cross and the blood – in other words, due to my baptism into Jesus’ death, making it MY DEATH! And death cuts off an entire life with all its past failures.”
Satan, every demon, every angel and especially God knows what the blood of Jesus means!
• NOW YOU NEED TO KNOW.
• It’s a death that drew all people into Him to experience His death and to claim the ramifications of being dead.
Notice the ramifications.
Romans 6:7 For he that is dead is freed from sin.
Verse 8 says that we are DEAD WITH CHRIST.
Romans 6:8 Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:
Everything that is Jesus’ since He died is our’s since we joined to Him in His death.
• That is the reason we read that Christ dies no more and is free from death’s dominion since He died once already.
Romans 6:9-10 Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.
But verse 8 says that we are dead with Him.
Therefore we read...
Romans 6:11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Add a little liner note to the recording of your past in your memory.
• "All of this belongs to a dead man who doesn’t exist any more!"
Reckon yourselves DEAD TO SIN.
• Because verse 7 says he that is dead is freed from sin.
• And free from your past!
You look back on your past and get worried about future troubles, because in your past the old you could not deal with those things.
• But in the past, the old you did not have GOD like the new you has God now!
If we can believe the Bible enough, our pasts will absolutely lay no claim nor affect upon our lives today whatsoever.
• If a person connects that memory-recording to their present lives as Christians, that is their unbelief and lack of maturity in Christ acting.
NOW WE HAVE STRENGTH THAT WE NEVER HAD BEFORE!
• WE HAVE CHRIST.
Did you fret in your old life when certain troubles came?
• You did not have Christ then.
• How could you succeed?
• But things are different NOW!
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