Jentezen Franklin - Wise Blood
Look with me in Hebrews 2, Hebrews 2:10, "For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory", listen to this phrase, "to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings". Then, verse 14, "Inasmuch as the children have been partaker of the flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same", listen to this, "that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil". He called him, He called him out right there. He said, "When I died, I want you to know that I destroyed the power of him who had the power of death, that is, the devil". "And release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage". He said, "Because of the resurrection, you don't have to fear death".
That's the message of this day. Because of the resurrection, you do not have to be afraid. There is nothing but life that awaits the believer, and life beyond anything we can imagine, beyond this world. And He destroyed the power of death and the one who had the power of death, that is, the devil through His death and His resurrection.
I want to talk about that for just a moment. It's not the things that we see that we should fear the most, but it's the things that we can't see that actually are more dangerous than things we can see. You can become incredibly successful and build a massive empire and fall prey to a little cell of a disease that can take you out. We can see your power and your influence, but something unseen, an invisible force... cancer cell or something like that... has the potential to take a person out. Diseases that fight against our body that can't be seen are actually more dangerous than things, usually, that we can see.
In World War I, there were 17 million people who died as a result of fighting an enemy they could see, that was trying to take freedom from the world. Seventeen million died, and they could see the enemy...the tanks, the bombs, and the guns that were being fired at them. But what's interesting is one year later, in 1918, the great plague, a flu, broke out in Europe and killed 25 million. Now, the war took 17 million, but an unseen virus, a flu that you couldn't even see, got a hold of 25 million people and killed them. Eight million more died from an invisible enemy than a visible enemy.
In the body of every person under the sound of my voice is a fighting system. It fights for you every morning. It fights for you every evening. You would not make it probably 24 hours if this fighting system was not in your body. It's there to defeat infection. The fighting system in the body is called the blood. And John said, in the book of Revelation 12, he saw the accuser of the brethren, Satan, and he was fighting with the saints of God. And he said, "I saw this war going on and I saw the captain of our salvation step forward. He looked down and He saw that we were losing the battle". And the Bible said that John said, "And they overcame the devil by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony".
If we ever make it and win, it will be because of the blood of Jesus Christ. The Buddhists can't say that because Buddha's blood is not powerful. The Muslims cannot say that; I don't mean to offend, but Muhammad's blood is not powerful. But we can say that because the blood of Jesus Christ is our atomic warfare against the enemy. We've got a bloodline from a blood man named Jesus.
Doctors and scientists, when they find cancer cells or some awful disease, they'll go into the laboratory. They'll take the microscope. They'll put that disease on a little glass tray there and they'll begin to look at it and study it. And on that slide, they'll see that organism that is killing people and destroying their health. And they try to come up with an antibody. And if they can come up with something that can stop the spread of those dangerous cells and that disease, then comes the next challenge. Somehow, I've got to get this antibody to connect with this disease.
And they go in with their lab jackets on and they're looking through those telescopes and microscopes, trying to figure out "How in the world can I do this". And if they could, I'm sure many of them fighting the same disease down in Atlanta sometimes for 10, 15, 20, their whole lifetime, I'm sure they get fed up some days and just want to take the lab coat off and shrink themselves down and get on that slide themselves and jump in there and fight that disease. But they can't do it. A 200 pound man... there's no way. But that is exactly what Jesus Christ did.
One day, the captain of our salvation got looking over the balcony of heaven... the Alpha and the Omega, the Scientist of all scientists, the Beginning and the End... He looked down and He saw the earth and He saw the inhabitants, His own creation, being defeated and being destroyed by the devil and Satan and death. And when He looked down, He saw the enemy winning. And what the scientist could not do, my Savior, the captain of my salvation, did. He took off His robe of deity, He reduced Himself down into a human body.
Mary gave Him His physical body and she was a virgin, which means that the blood that was in Jesus did not come from and earthly father, Joseph; it came from a heavenly Father. And the blood was given by the Father and the body was given by Mary. Suddenly, God Almighty, all the God-ness, all the fullness of the God-head, came bodily in Christ Jesus. And He's walking around in a physical body, probably about six foot, like me, and probably just a normal looking person. But inside of that body was God's own blood. God's holy, precious blood. He said, "I'm going down and I'm going to take on the form of the seed of Abraham, the seed of David, and I'm going to become what they are so I can fight the war for them through My blood".
Here He comes. He has His mama's body that, the body that His mother provided for Him through birth; but He has His heavenly Father's blood. And so, suddenly, He goes to the wilderness at the age of 30, after being baptized, and He says, "If I'm going to have blood that overcomes temptation, I've got to face temptation". And blood can remember how to overcome temptation. So the devil comes to Him with three temptations, and there's only three; the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. They're all covered in the temptation in the wilderness. And the blood is boiling inside of Jesus as the devil comes with the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life; and he cannot get Jesus to bow down. And Jesus says, "It is written, it is written, it is written", and He overcomes every temptation of the devil.
And the blood, the blood remembers what happens, how to overcome temptation. It sends the message to the lymph nodes in Jesus' body and the lymph node sends the message down to the bone marrow, and the bone marrow produces enough blood that now there's enough stored in the blood of Jesus that any temptation-taken man is common but God has made a way of escape through any and all temptation. Guess how that is. Through the blood of Jesus Christ.
When I think about the fact that He didn't just, He didn't just have blood, but He defeated every temptation; and He didn't just defeat them, but the blood remembered Him defeating them. So after He got through whipping temptation, He said, "I think I'll take on sickness", and He starts healing people. He heals a blind man, and the blood remembers it and says, "This is how you heal blindness". And He heals the lame man and He heals a deaf man and He heals a dumb man and He heals the quadriplegic and He heals all manner of sickness and disease. He heals the lepers, He heals incurable diseases.
The Bible even said in John 21:25 that the books could not contain all the things that He did. The books couldn't contain 'em. We don't have every healing Jesus did 'cause the Book couldn't contain 'em. But the blood remembers them, and the blood was there, and the blood, I believe, was boiling in the veins of Jesus as it begins to chronicle and as it begins to remember and then log those healings in the blood of Jesus. And after He conquers temptation with His blood, and after He conquers and remembers, the blood remembers how to do it, and after He conquers sickness and the blood remembers how to do it, He says, "I think I'll take on death now", and He starts going to funerals. He goes from one funeral to another.
The first one He goes to is the daughter of Jairus, and the girl had just died. And Jesus walked in and put the mourners out and He began to say, "Arise, daughter". And when He did, even though she was still there in the death bed and she had just passed away, she came back to life. And the blood said, "Oooo. Oh, okay. He can raise the dead. We may need this somewhere in the future. We may need resurrection power for somebody else, so log it in they lymph nodes and let's keep this information. And should we ever face death again, His blood can do it". And then Jesus says, "I need to teach My blood a little bit more".
I can preach the sermon like I want to; it's my sermon. And you're going on this journey with me. Are you ready? You look nice, but you need to undo your tie for a minute, 'cause we're about to have church in here. When I preach on the blood, I get excited. I don't care about your new shoes. I'm here, talking about the blood that overcome. "Pastor, calm down. I brought my friend". Wrong Sunday. Watch this. Jesus goes down the road and the Bible said the widow of Nain, her son had died and he was in the coffin, and the pallbearers were carrying him on their shoulder, going to the burial site.
And Jesus says, "Mm, I feel My blood getting a little hot". And He did something so strange. He reaches up and touches the coffin. And when He touched the coffin, the Bible said "He who was in the coffin sat up straight", I mean, he broke the thing open. And this isn't in the Bible but I believe it's Bible true. The pallbearers ran. Come on, you know they did. You know they did. Can you imagine?
And so, the blood says, "Well, now, not only can He save somebody who was right at the point of death and who died and bring 'em back to life, but even if their so dead that you put 'em in the coffin and they're on their way in the hearse to the burial ground, He can still raise 'em". But then, Jesus says, "Let Me teach My blood just one more lesson. I've got a friend who died four days ago. His name is Lazarus and he's dead. He's not only dead and in the coffin, he's in the tomb and by now he stinks. Corruption has completely eaten his body away. But blood, watch this. Roll the stone away. Lazarus, come forth".
Now, the reason that's important is because you and I have loved ones who are in the grave, and they've seen corruption. Many of them have been there for years and years and years. But the blood remembers what He did at the tomb of Lazarus and one day when the trumpet sounds, the blood is going to resurrect our loved ones and we'll meet them. I've got a daddy that's going to be resurrected. I've got a brother that's going to be resurrected. Ain't no grave going to hold this body down! And just when the blood thinks, "Well, we've got a lot of knowledge stored up. If they face temptation, we know how to overcome it. If they get this blood in them... If they face disease, we know how to help 'em. If they face death, we can even overcome death. We've got enough fighters in the system, if the blood of Jesus gets in 'em". But then He says, "I've got to face the biggest thing ever".
And Jesus goes to the garden of Gethsemane. And when He gets in that garden, the Bible said that the Father passed Him a cup. And in that cup, according to Matthew 26, was every sin ever committed, so much so was this cup so dreaded by Jesus that the Bible said that He said, "Father, if it's permissible, let this cup pass Me; nevertheless, not My will but Thine be done". And then, Jesus took the cup. In that cup was lying. In that cup was murder. In that cup was prejudice. In that cup was hatred. In that cup was unforgiveness and bitterness. In that cup was molestation. In that cup was rape and violence and anger and every kind of conceivable sin you can think of. It was all in that cup. And Jesus turned it up, and now, why did He do that? He's introducing His blood to our sins. He's saying, "I'm going to take those sins into My body. I take them".
Every sin was hit by His blood and touched His blood, because His blood was totally sinless. He had never committed a sin. But He took your sins and He took my sins and He, at least a taste of 'em - That's why the Bible said it was so severe that it affected His blood when His sweat became like drops of blood. He's taking the whole sins of the world and introducing them to His blood, and His blood is going crazy. His blood is sending the bone marrow the message, "Produce all that we need to overcome every last sin that will ever be on the planet".
He turned that cup up and when His wise blood touched our sin, there went to the lymph nodes a message, and to the bone marrow, and suddenly the bone marrow produced an antibody, a vaccine. And there is no sin that Jesus Christ cannot save from. That's why we stand in awe of the blood of Jesus. That's why we sing about it. That's why we shout about it. That's why we preach about it. It was all in His body and He had wise blood that could overcome every sin, every temptation, every disease, and even death itself. And when they put Him on the cross and nailed Him to the cross, He was there and He took my temptation and He took my sickness and He took my death and He took my sin and He put it on His cross.
I've often wondered why the scripture said in Matthew 29 that when He died, that the veil in the temple was rent and the soldier stabbed Him in the spear and henceforth came blood and water. That was the first time that we know for sure that blood poured out and hit the earth. And when it did, there's this strange verse in Matthew 27, I think it is, and verse 52. The Bible said, "And there were those who came back from the dead", "...many bodies of the saints which slept arose". Why? Because the blood was testing the resurrection. The blood said, "Now, I remember when we programmed resurrection in here. Let's see if it works". And when His blood spilled out, suddenly there was a mini-resurrection and people who were dead started walking around, got resurrected. Y'all believe this stuff?
See, I believe the Bible. That blood knew how to resurrect from the grave. And when Jesus rose, they arose. And on that day, the Bible said many were seen walking all over Jerusalem. Jesus let them seal Him up in that tomb. And it's interesting that the clothes that they buried Him in... in three hours, they would get so hard. It was like plaster. It was like a cocoon. The only part that would be left would be the face, and they put a napkin on the face.
There would be no way to get out on your own after three hours. They would have to cut you out. But the Bible said that Jesus, on the third day, rose from the dead. Somehow, He slipped out of that cocoon, and He didn't cut any of the clothes. And then, He took the napkin, and the Bible said He walked over and folded it neatly and laid it down, as if to say, "I'm not in a hurry, I'm taking My time".
And now I want to preach. I'm almost done, but I'm right where I want to be 'cause I'm going to beat up on the devil this morning. I want to remind him that he is defeated. I could see Jesus as He slipped out of those grave clothes and that cocoon that's still siting over there. And then He folds His death napkin and lays it there neatly, as if to say, "I have overcome". But then, He slips on an asbestos suit. He says, "Now I'm going to go down into hell, before I push this stone out of the way; and Satan, your kingdom is about to know the power of My blood". And Jesus, the Bible said, descended into Hades.
Hell was not, the lake of fire is a compartment of hell that will be filled at judgment. But until then, there was this place called paradise that everyone who died went there and Jesus went down into hell. He still had blood on Him. He still was bloody. He hadn't cleaned up. He hadn't washed up. And He goes down into hell with blood all over Him. And He's walking through and the blood is boiling and the blood is remembering, "Oh, there's demons. We've got power 'cause the demons are scattering like little whipped puppies". They're just running out of His way. And He walks up to the devil himself and He says, "You've got something I want. I want the keys of death, hell, and the grave. Give them to Me".
I believe, I can't prove this but I believe Jesus just took a little bit of blood and smeared it on his head, and it so weakened him that He stripped him of the keys. I could hear Jesus say, "You know what? It's My blood that's shed this time, but good luck at the battle of Armageddon, because it'll be your blood and your antichrist's blood and his army that will be defeated at the battle of Armageddon. But until then, My blood will keep flowing. My blood will keep delivering. My blood will keep saving. And My blood will resurrect those who put their faith in Me". Everybody, take a praise break. I'm almost done.
In my mind, I could hear the devil, as Jesus turned with the keys rattling, and He starts walking down the prison house where Adam was, and Eve, and where Abraham was, and where Samson was, and where David was. And they're all locked up in a compartment called Hades. And Jesus has the keys and He's rattling 'em. I could hear Satan, in my mind, scream, "Stop Him! Stop Him"! And the demons cry back, "With what? His blood is wise to all of our schemes. Anything we try, His blood has overcome. Even death couldn't stop Him".
And He starts opening up the prison doors and He says, "Come on Abraham. Come on out, Adam. Come on, David". And David starts jerking and praising God and dancing before the Lord with all of his might. And He brings them up and He brings them out. And I've just come to say He still opens prison doors. He still sets captives free. He still sets addicts free. He can set you free through His blood. If you believe it, give the biggest praise you can produce to the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world through his shed blood.