If I just tell you that Jesus died for your sins, and He's forgiven you, it's very shallow. But if we begin to look into some of the pictures and patterns shown in the Old Testament, oh, it becomes so vivid all that He did, because it's hard to explain to someone all that Jesus did on the cross. That's why the Old Testament has got these pictures so as you study them and keep thinking about Jesus and what He did for us you begin to see the full breadth of it
Well I want to continue a series I've been doing on the blood of Jesus Christ, and it's true that people everywhere, it doesn't matter who we are, we talk to one another, you find that what goes on in our lives that is not seen, are struggles with low esteem, struggles with not feeling good enough, struggles with guilt. We remember things that we've done in the past, and struggle to feel good enough to come near to God. We have issues that seem to - we thought we'd gotten over them, and they seem to come back, old patterns, old habits, old ways.
For all of us there are inner conflicts and turmoil that go on. I think they go on until the day you die. They're a struggling against the old life, that old nature - but there is a remedy. There is a remedy, and there are things that you and I can get hold of in our life that will cause us to get victory over those struggles. One of the most powerful weapons that God has given you and me, to overcome anything the devil would throw, and that is the blood of Jesus Christ. The blood that Jesus shed is still powerful today. I have been to many meetings where I have spoken to a demonised man and said to that demon, here, look at the blood of Jesus! And I saw that demon with fear in its eyes scream out. They certainly know the reality of the blood and what it does. Most Christians don't, and so we want to help you with that.
We saw as we've looked over the last couple of weeks that God who established all things, set rules in place, He set physical laws, He set spiritual laws. Not only that, He also set consequences for disobeying or breaking spiritual laws, so when we break spiritual laws, there's always a consequence. You say well, I sinned and didn't even see anything. I didn't feel any different afterwards - but that doesn't mean that you haven't set in place something you will feel and experience. That's the problem with sin. It really deceives us, because we think we sin and get away with it, nothing much seemed to happen immediately. God spoke to Adam - in the day you sin you'll die, but he didn't die physically that day. He lived almost 1,000 years - but was it true that what God said actually applied? Certainly. The day he sinned, something changed in him. He changed, and that change outworked in all kinds of different ways. So that's the deception of sin.
We come and we call things by another name except sin; what is my problem? Oh, it's my hang up, or it's my past. We have all kinds of labels to try and smooth it out, rather than calling it what it is. That was sin. That was pride. That was anger. That was hate. That was lust. That was fear. That was sin! And when you can call it what it is, there's a remedy. If you try and cover it or deny it, or wrestle to admit to it, you've got no remedy. It's still going to work in your life, you'll just reap the consequences.
There is a remedy for the failures of life. There is a remedy for our mistakes that we make. There is a remedy for the besetting problems. It's found in what Jesus did at the cross, so we want to look about it. Let's have a look in Hebrews 9, and I want to share some things today about the completeness of the redemption in Jesus. We'll just read this in Hebrews, Chapter 9 and when you read these, it may be initially a little difficult to get a hold of. We'll just explain it in simple terms shortly.
Now Verse 11 - Christ came as a High Priest of good things to come - so Jesus is a High Priest - of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is not this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves - notice - with His own blood, He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. If the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling of unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?