When the Bible tells you to do that, tells you the protocol for coming into His presence; thanksgiving, gratitude, praise, boldly - but you'll never know until you stand up and do it, that it works. So many people just live in a melancholy and a heaviness of condemnation, and they don't feel good enough. Where is that coming from? It's coming from old transgressions. It's coming from old ways. It's coming from the devil accusing you, condemning you. Listen, even if you've got a list as long as your arm and then some, of all the things you did wrong, the blood of Jesus is bigger than those things! Bigger than all of them! That's why a murderer can be forgiven and become an Apostle, and the greatest New Testament leader. And you know what? Religious people, it's a mystery, it's a total mystery, because religion is built on, I have to do it, and I have to earn it. That's why it astounds people when the grace of God comes to a simple person, says Oh God, I really messed my life, but I believe you love me and died for me! I receive your forgiveness! Then God's grace flows in their life, and people say but he doesn't deserve it. He's still got so many things wrong. Now who said you needed to deserve it? Where did that come from? That's the older brother talking, the older brother and the prodigal son. The prodigal son just come back and got all - God blessed him. That's the mercies of God. Oh the blood, thank you for the blood! Thank you for what you've done! Thank you Lord, I'd have lived in condemnation and judgement. See? Don't need to. Can be free, and if you're free then your feet know it, let your face know it, let your inner man know it! See the blood, it's for all of those things.
The last two places was the brow - interesting, and it took place as the very first place the blood was shed - Luke 22:44, when Jesus went into the garden of Gethsemane, it said He was sorrowful and in distress, and it says that He came in - because He knew what was coming up. He knew that shortly, He's going to die in the most horrible way. Now that would freak you out. Ever been to the dentist you know, and you know you've got to have something taken out? I went to an Indian dentist in Malaysia and I had to get a - what do they call those - an implant. I was terrified. When they started cutting and the blood spurted I went into shock - oh ho ho no! Horrible! Now that's a little thing compared to knowing you're going to be tortured to death tomorrow. That would keep you awake at night wouldn't it aye?
So fear, terrible, terrible fear, dread, anxiety, concern - emotional trauma, that's what He went through. See what happened was He prayed. Now He prayed so intensely, and so strongly, and so fervently, and He's so engaged and purposing He'd do what God wanted and not draw back, the Bible tells us that He sweated is the word, great drops of blood, and the language of it just says that the sweat became blood - so it started off sweating, and then eventually the capillaries started to burst and blood started to come out. It's a medical condition, and the blood started to just flow out through His skin and began to drop down, and what was it all about? His determination to overcome fears, anxieties, dreads, all of those things that would stop us from doing what God wants, from living a powerful life and He overcame it! Shed His blood, so whenever you've got a fear and a dread, go back and look at Jesus. He shed His blood. Why don't you get the blood of Jesus, and hold it by your faith confession against that fear! Hold it against that fear! Yes, I'm afraid. Yes, I'm anxious. Yes, I have all these things around my mind - but Jesus Christ came and He shed His blood. Therefore it will not have power on me!
Got to do it. You've got to take a stand on what you saw. He bore our griefs and our sorrows, so blood is only shed when there's great emotional trauma and distress.
So Jesus took all the traumas and distresses that we face in life, took them on Himself. Finally the last one is the bruising. He was bruised for our inequities. A bruise is an interesting thing because you can't see - or we don't see it initially. If someone gets a beating, you know the interesting thing is, they may not fracture the skin but the next day man, there's the worst black eye you've ever seen. Ever had a black eye? That's a bruise. Is it painful? Oh my! Ever played Paintball and someone hit you and you've got these bruises and spots all over you now? Of course it's just this red thing, and then have you noticed it turns this black colour? That's because underneath the skin the blood - the vessels have been broken, and the blood has been shed, and you notice when you touch that bruise how painful it is? Oh ooh ooh ooh - and you can't even see it.