Derek Prince - There's Infinite Power In One Drop Of The Blood Of Jesus
This is a clip from the full sermon: How To Apply The Blood Of Jesus
The next is sanctification. Sanctification. We’ll turn to Hebrews 13:12. Hebrews 13:12: Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood suffered outside the gate. Now, to sanctify in the original is directly related to the word for holiness. Actually, 'sanct' is the same word we have in English, saint. So to sanctify is to make saintly or to make holy. It’s got two aspects, one is negative. We’re set apart from sin and from everything that defiles. And then we’re made holy with God’s own holiness.
In the 12th chapter of Hebrews, well, we might read that for a moment. Talking about God’s chastisement. It says in Hebrews 12:10 our human fathers chastised us for a short period of our lives according to their best judgment. But God does it in a different way. Hebrews 12:10: For they indeed, that’s human parents, for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit that we may be partakers of His holiness. Notice not our holiness anymore than our righteousness, but His holiness. How do we partake of His holiness? Through the blood of Jesus. So Jesus, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate.
Let me try to show you how you apply that operation of the blood. Through the blood of Jesus I am sanctified, separated from sin, set apart to God, made holy with God’s holiness. I’m not sure if I can remember that but I’ll try. This time you follow me. Through the blood of Jesus I am sanctified made holy set apart to God separated from sin made holy with God’s holiness. You can change the words a little as long as you get the facts. That’s what matters, all right? Now, what we’ve been doing every time so far is dipping the hyssop in the basin. And sprinkling it over us, you understand? Now we’re going to go on. We’ve so far dealt with redemption, cleansing, justification and sanctification.
Now we’re going to go to life. I once heard a preacher say that all the provisions of the blood of Jesus were only negative, they only saved us from something. I think that’s a very dangerous statement and I can’t think of anything more positive than life. Let’s look for a moment in Leviticus 17:11, which is the passage I quoted earlier. Leviticus 17:11: For the life of the flesh is in the blood and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls. It is the blood that makes atonement for the soul. So the life of God is in the blood of Jesus. God’s own life, the life of the Creator. Our human minds have no way to calculate the potential of that statement. Because the Creator is infinitely greater than all that He’s created. The entire created universe is just a snap of His fingers.
You see, if we could grasp what’s in the blood of Jesus. I’ve said there’s more power in one drop of the blood of Jesus, than there is in the whole kingdom of Satan. Because we’ve got the eternal, uncreated, measureless life of God Himself. A life that existed before anything was ever created in the blood of Jesus. With that in mind let’s turn to John 6. John 6. And we’re going to read from verse 53 through verse 57. John 6:53. Then Jesus said to them most assuredly, I say to you. There are two levels of emphasis in the teaching of Jesus. If you have the old authorized version, sometimes He said verily. And sometimes He said verily, verily. Verily means it’s important. Verily, verily means it’s super important.
Now in this translation they say assuredly and most assuredly. So this is one of the super important statements. I think I’ll go back to verily, verily. Verily, verily, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. And I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on me will live because of me. Now, I’m sure there are various ways to apply that. But I began my Christian ministry in 1946 in an Arab town called Ramallah just north of Jerusalem. It’s no longer a town, it’s a much bigger city today. And at that time, with my first wife and the children, the language of our home was Arabic.
And there are certain things that you get into you that you never get out of you. Whenever I think of the communion service or taking the Lord’s supper or the Eucharist or whatever you want to say, I always think of what the Arabs said: Let us drink the blood of Jesus. That was not some strange super-spiritual phrase. That was their way of talking about the communion. And there may be many ways to apply this but for me, when I take the communion, I eat His flesh and I drink His blood. Now that’s a stumbling block for some people. How can I help that? We have been taught, some of us, that we do it just as a memorial. That’s not what Jesus said. He said: You’re eating my flesh and you’re drinking my blood. We do it in memorial too, sure we do but that’s not all. We are actually partaking of the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
There’s no reason to change those words. There are a lot of different opinions as to how it becomes the body and the blood. The Catholics and the liturgical churches believe it’s through consecration by a priest. Frankly, that’s not what I believe. I believe it comes through faith. When I receive it in faith, believing what Jesus said in His word, it becomes to me precisely what He said it would be. Please don’t argue with me because I’m happy. Let’s look for a moment in 1 Corinthians 10. I believe we have here both Baptists and Brethren. That’s probably divine providence. Well, brothers.. I remember a Brethren preacher saying once to some of his fellow Christians: Jesus said as often as you do it, but you do it as seldom.
Let’s look in 1 Corinthians 10 for a moment, verse 16: The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? Communion, sharing in the blood of Christ. The bread which we break, is it not the communion, the sharing, in the body of Christ? And then he goes on in chapter 11. And he reminds them of the way the Lord’s supper was instituted in verses 23 and following. He says: For I received from the Lord that which also I delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread: and when He had given thanks He broke it and said: Take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you or which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.
It’s perfectly true we do it in remembrance of Him. But what do we do in remembrance of Him? We take His body. In the same manner also He took the cup after supper, saying: This cup is the new covenant in my blood. This do as oft as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes. I want to say very emphatically: I don’t recommend everybody to be like Ruth and me. There’s wonderful liberty in the Body of Christ. We can do within certain limits what God leads us to do. But this has become so important to me. And I so tremendously feel my need of the life of God.
Let me say, I think I can say it with humility, I think I’m something of an advertisement for the life of God. Most of you wouldn’t guess I’m 71 years old. And I think part of that is living on the body and the blood of Jesus. For me this is no doctrine or theory. This is a living reality. So, this is the way we do it. And please, I’m not suggesting that anybody should do what we do. But we take communion together as husband and wife every morning. And every morning I say the same things. Lord Jesus, now what do I say? Remind me. Yes, that’s right, I break the bread. I break the bread and I say: Lord Jesus, we receive this bread as Your flesh. And we eat it. And then we share a tiny little cup. And I say: Lord Jesus, we receive this cup as Your blood. And I say: As we do this, we proclaim Your death until You come.
You see, we do it mainly maybe in Jerusalem, where Christians are less than one percent of the population. What a privilege to proclaim the Lord’s death every day in the city where He died. A great Bible expositor of the last century commented on this. You do show or proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. He said: When we come to this ordinance, whatever you want to call it, we’re out of the whole context of immediate time. We have no past but the cross, no future but the coming. We proclaim His death until He comes. And every time we do that, we remind ourselves He’s coming again.
Now, let’s just... How are we going to confess this? Let’s just do it by faith. We’re not going to take any communion service. And I'm not ever recommending that to any of you, let’s just say: Lord Jesus, when we receive your blood, in it we receive your life, the life of God, divine, eternal, endless life. All right, if I can remember that, say it after me. Lord Jesus when we receive Your blood in it we receive Your life the life of God divine eternal endless life.
Thank you, Lord. Let’s take a moment to worship Him, shall we? Just receive it right now. Let the sense of divine life fill you, your heart, your mind, even your physical body. Paul said in due course: death will be swallowed up by life. But I think there’s a process of ongoing death in our bodies, sickness, decay and so on, which can be swallowed up by the life of God day by day. Paul said: though our outward man perishes, our inward man is renewed day by day. There’s enough life in the inward man to keep the outward man going until our task is finished.