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Apostolic Faith Church, Bournemouth
The Beginning Of The Pleading Of The Blood

PRECIOUS, PRECIOUS BLOOD OF JESUS

 

 

PRECIOUS, precious Blood of Jesus,

Shed on Calvary;

Shed for rebels, shed for sinners,

Shed for thee!

Precious, precious Blood of Jesus,

Ever flowing free;

Oh, believe it, oh, receive it,

'Tis for thee.

Precious, Precious Blood of Jesus,

Let it make thee whole;

Let it flow in mighty cleansing

O'er thy soul.

Though thy sins are red like crimson,

Deep in scarlet glow,

Jesus' precious Blood shall wash thee

White as snow.

Precious Blood that hath redeemed us!

All the price is paid!

Perfect pardon now is offered,

Peace is made.

Now the holiest with boldness

We may enter in;

For the open fountain cleanseth

From all sin.

Precious Blood, by this we conquer,

In the fiercest fight,

Sin and Satan overcoming

By its might.

Precious Blood whose full atonement

Makes us nigh to God!

Precious Blood, our way of glory,

Praise and laud!

 

 

France R. Havergal.

 

 

Contents

 

 

The Beginning Of The Pleading Of The Blood

 

(As reported by Pastor Andrew Murdoch and Elders Wm. Fleming and James Abercrombie, and taken down by the writer at Kilsyth December, 1917.)

Pastor Andrew Murdoch, of Kilsyth, Scotland, got his baptism in his own house, January 29th, 1908. He was on his knees praying, when the Holy Spirit fell on him, filling him with joy unspeakable, and instantaneously speaking through him in a plain tongue that flowed out without any effort on his part. The Spirit was so mightily on him that he was caused to jump up and down on his knees over two feet high, and he thought it was translation coming to him.  He was in the hands of God, and suffered no damage.  The pleading of the Blood had not then commenced.  The fire fell on the assembly in Westport Hall, Kilsyth, two days later.  John Reid, sitting in the midst, leaned back in his seat and raised his hand, and cried, “Blood, Blood, Blood!” a few times, and the Spirit of God descended on the congregation, and thirteen young persons went down on their knees and got their baptism, and spoke in tongues that night.  The seal of God was on this meeting; great victory followed the Blood cry.

Rev. Samuel Renick, from A.B. Simpson's work, was visiting in Scotland, and holding meetings; he came to see Pastor Murdoch, and got his baptism in the kitchen, February 1st, 1908.  He went into the kitchen, where the maid had just received her baptism, and was speaking in tongues.  He got down on his knees, and commenced praying, and fell on his back with his hands up, pleading the Blood, and pled it earnestly until he got his baptism, which came quickly; the power of God being strongly manifest.  His meeting engagements were broken; he was rejected because he got the baptism and spake in tongues. Mrs. Murdoch got her baptism this same day.  Her husband having been baptised three days before, she felt assured in the morning before rising, that she would get her baptism that day.  Before she arose, she had a wonderful vision of the Blood.  She saw the whole front side of her room was a waterfall of blood, and it frightened her.  She exclaimed, “Blood, blood, blood!” and sent for Pastor Murdoch to come in; then the thought came, “It is the Lord: why be frightened?”  She got her baptism that day, with the Blood like a waterfall pouring before her.  After this, when anyone spoke to her disparagingly of the pleading of the Blood of Jesus Christ, she was so affected it was like it would break her heart.  Since that day, she says, the Blood prayer has not been off her lips; she feels it has been her very life, sustaining her through very trying ordeals.  The waterfall of blood is before her still, and as she pleads the Blood, the Holy Spirit answers to it in power.

James Macrae, a day or two after John Reid cried out the Blood, knelt over his companion, Alexander Clelland, as he lay on the floor in Westport Hall under the power of God, and cried out “Blood, Blood, Blood!” as though opposing the powers of darkness, and driving them back; and prophecy came that Clelland would get his baptism on the following Sabbath at three o'clock; and it came to pass.  He is now a missionary in India.

On February 3rd, 1908, Wm. Macrae, the father of James, was in the attic of his house, praying, when the Lord spoke to him, and told him that two brothers were coming from Glasgow to take the meeting that night, but that they were not to be allowed to go on the platform.  They had not yet received the baptism, and worked on the old lines.  He told the overseer who was in charge about this experience.  The two brethren came, but the overseer disobeyed, and allowed them to go on the platform.  Macrae kept the deacons and elders in a side room, and told them to plead the Blood, because a great darkness was over all the place.  While they pled the Blood, the Lord revealed all that was going on inside the hall on the platform.  One of the brethren who came from Glasgow got up to sing; the Spirit revealed to the brethren that it was to show off his voice.  Then the Lord told them to go inside and plead the Blood against the opposing powers, and put them down; which was done, and the singer confessed he was wrong, and they were right.  The Friday night following, the singer received his baptism here, pleading the Blood, and his singing was blest of the Lord with new power; the other brother came into his baptism later on, and is now a pastor in one of the Apostolic Faith Churches. Forty-three persons were baptised during this week-end, whilst pleading the Blood.  We can see here how the work of the Holy Spirit would have been broken into had these brethren from Glasgow been allowed to stop the course He was taking.  For nine months these meetings continued every night, and hundreds of people from England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Africa and America got their baptism and spoke in tongues at Kilsyth, pleading the Blood.

Rev. James G. Williamson, of Pennsylvania, U.S., got his baptism in Pastor Murdoch's house, pleading the Blood.  He told Brother Murdoch that many leaders of meetings in America had laid their hands on him, and he had not received his baptism.  When Pastor Murdoch laid hands on him, and he pled the Blood, he got a clear baptism and spoke in tongues.  A Scottish sister in Philadelphia, reading an account in “Confidence” of the work in Westport Hall, Kilsyth, crossed the Atlantic to Scotland, and received the baptism, pleading the Blood.  She had been seeking for some time, but had failed to get the baptism.

John Martin, a missionary from Africa, came after the pleading of the Blood commenced, to a conference at Kilsyth, and went forward to the altar of prayer on a Saturday night, but would not plead the Blood; he came on Sunday a.m., but would not plead the Blood, and he did the same at the 3 p.m.service.  He then went home with Pastor Murdoch, who told him, if he wanted the baptism to get down like a child, and plead the Blood.  He went to the 6.30 p.m. service, and forward with those praying, but would not plead the Blood.  Then he went back home with Pastor Murdoch, who laid hands on him, and he yielded to the pleading of the Blood, and was baptised, and spake in tongues for four-and-a-half hours.  While many people had been baptised before this pleading the Blood, and continued to plead it with the power of the Spirit on them, yet John Martin pled the Blood - one of the brothers said in his Scots accent - “like a steam engine,” with great power and unction; in fact, none seemed to plead it with such power of the Spirit as Martin had resting on him.  Mrs Perkins, wife of J.M. Perkins, missionaries in Liberia, came on her way to America, and got her baptism, pleading the Blood.

Rev. A.A. Boddy, of Sunderland, came and saw them pleading the Blood, falling under the power, and speaking in tongues; he was so overcome he lay on the platform on his face, unable to speak.  He told Pastor Murdoch that he had been in Norway, in Barrett's meetings, and that the power of the Holy Spirit was more manifest in Kilsyth than it was there; in fact, than in any place he had ever been.  Then he and Mrs. Boddy pled the Blood in their meetings in Sunderland.  In Sunderland the baptisms they had at first, without pleading the Blood, had practically ceased, and John Martin was sent down there, and commenced pleading the Blood; the power of the Spirit was manifest anew, and many were baptised. Our brother, Pastor W.O. Hutchinson, went to Sunderland, seeking his baptism.  In the vicarage he pled the Blood for over two hours - Pastor Murdoch and others present laying hands on him - and received a wonderful baptism.

When the Blood pleading commenced, there was no preaching, exhortation, or remarks on the subject; it came spontaneously under the strong expulsive power of the Holy Spirit.  In it we see the power of God descending in a wonderful way in answer to the pleading of the Blood, that burst out under the power of the Spirit.  This had great meaning; in it was a marvellous Divine leading and seal of approval to the pleading the Blood that stirred the country.

At the dedication of Solomon's temple, the peace offering was 22,000 oxen and 122,000 sheep; and when the ark that held the covenant of blood was brought in, he sacrificed oxen and sheep that could not be numbered for multitude.  “Could not one sheep and one bullock have sufficed?  Why all the repetition of shed blood?” asks Pastor Murdoch.

He sees in it a significance that cannot well be set aside.  Had it not a meaning for all time through the Lamb of God's Blood redemption history on the earth?  Yes, verily.  Let us be simple enough to learn and apply its meaning when the Holy Spirit brings it into action and gives light upon its great and endless repetition form, set forth in the Scriptures.

A Little Child that Pleaded the Blood, Having Never Heard It

In a home where the writer stopped in Scotland, the mother told him that at the time the pleading of the Blood commenced, one day her child, between two and three years of age, went under the table in the room, and for several minutes pled the Blood aloud of her own accord, having never heard it to the knowledge of the family.1  She had never been taken to the meetings where they pled the Blood; none of the family had yet broken through into the liberty of pleading the Blood; they were not then reconciled to it, she said, as I questioned closely; not even reconciled to praying together, she added. In this act of the child they felt God was speaking to them, and showing them the baby spirit they needed in yielding themselves to Him, that the Spirit might plead the Blood through them.  They were soon led to plead the Blood, and to pray together, and have advanced spiritually, giving evidence of being fully yielded to God.  Then, I was told, this child continued to show a spiritual nature; that when she was about five years of age, she would pray and plead the Blood, and weep maybe for an hour, and that this was no uncommon experience for her.  She would show a real burden of the Spirit, and would pray until deliverance came, and the mother's spirit would have the witness to the child's victory.

              

1  The following admonition came through the gifts of the Holy Spirit on this child's praying, that we feel would be of interest, and helpful to the reader of this article: “I have a purpose in that I might show the innocency of the child in being in the plan indeed.  For the little one verily was unconscious of My glory, and could not take the glory unto the little heart that was praying, presenting the Blood of My Son.  And thou seest a great thing was done, even on the day that thou speakest of, for behold, it is the advent of the Christ, the purity and simplicity of the Christ, and the coming of that time when the wild beasts shall be tamed, and a little child shall lead them.  Thus remember this, the child's heart is in thee ... as a man, thou canst not move aught, but as a child, mountains shall flee before thee. Therefore regard even the place of the child as I showed unto thee.”

The mother would kneel and pray with her at times, and though she felt constrained to rise and go on with her work, the child would continue to plead the Blood until she had prayed through, too small to know much about the meaning of the Holy Spirit's operations, but abandoned to them.  And who can tell the greatness of the child's prayer?  It is locked up and hidden in the bosom of the Father.  Occasionally the mother would have a weeping burden of prayer come upon her, and her husband thought one day that it could not be God, and exhorted her to refrain; she did, when immediately the child went to weeping & praying; the Holy Spirit and His burden, like a dove, seemed to rise and change from the mother to the child.

 

When we see now (1918) what was coming on this old world five years ago, it was enough to cause God in heaven to sorrow with weeping over the terrible slaughter of human lives and the great devastation of this awful war coming on the earth.  Jesus wept over Jerusalem,2 foreseeing the destruction of the people and the desolation of the place.  Through Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, God poured forth His sorrow over the fall of Jerusalem and the seventy years' captivity.  God opens up channels in the world for the expression of His own great heart-emotions.  After Christ left, they were to be manifest in His followers through the workings of the Holy Spirit.

 

“Why weep?  for it does no good,” we often say.  Did it no good for Jesus and Jeremiah to weep and to record the words that were the vehicles of their sorrow?  Had it no meaning in the Godhead and to the world?  When Justice must have sway in judgments, Mercy is in tears.  The Holy Spirit, in our temples of clay, has had great grief and sorrow to pour forth.  The baptism with the sign of tongues has evidently been a special preparation of some saints for this operation of the Spirit.  Mysterious, indeed! but those who experience this are made conscious of God wonderfully moving in it, at times in soul travail that is hard to bear.

              

2  We believe Jesus here was broken completely down over the sight of the city, and let His heart emotions pour forth as unrestrained as a little child - bowed down, weeping aloud in a convulsive lamentation.  The original not only admits, but carries the thought of weeping aloud, and the occasion and the Jewish custom of lamentation favours it; otherwise it would scarcely have been a noticeable feature of the procession, in which they were waving palm branches, rejoicing, and praising God “with a loud voice.”  What a contrast of feeling in the people and Christ.

As time passes, and light comes, we may see, as we look back, why God's heart was so heavy, and weep when it is too late to weep, because we were not fully enough yielded to Him in childlike simplicity at a time when He was seeking for some to weep with Him in His sorrow.  We may weep in the natural from a sympathetic nature; we may weep in the Spirit outwardly in a flow of tears, or inwardly without much of an outward expression: this last state, we believe, comes more in advanced christian experience.  Anyway, we cry out to God for the baby spirit that will give expression to the heart of God. It is not much wonder that God's Spirit does not come to many of the wise and prudent, for He cannot have His way with them; the pleading of the Blood may be a stone of offence and a rock of stumbling, most foolish to some, yet it can have in it the greatest wisdom and power of God; this we know: the godly believing in it will not be put to shame.

How thrilling and full of meaning has been the pleading of the Blood by the Holy Spirit facing the world's present great calamity.  He moved as many as would believe forward into the old Pentecostal trenches and firing lines, empowering them with the gifts and the Blood-weapon.  He threw Himself back with them on Calvary and the Blood alone, with no other plea, with no other word but the Blood, in a tremendous intercession as the only hope of the earth.  The Blood cry rang through the heavenlies in advance of this outbreak of satanic fury; the Blood-weapon most dreaded by Satan appeared on the field, and it has cut down and beaten back and stayed his advance, bringing victory to the Christ. Without it, what might the world have come to?

“In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father; for so it seemed good in Thy sight.”

The most commendable order of brotherhood to seek membership in is God's Order of Babes; it stands high in heaven, having great power, moving God and angels, for from such the Father does not withhold His great revelations; and Jesus rejoiced that it was so.  To meet all the requirements of this order is indeed hard on the flesh; in fact, it is consumed in the high degree of lowliness and of the perfect child-like spirit.  It will take a baby spirit to go through with God, and receive all the Latter Rain revelation.

The Beginning of the History of the Blood

“By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he, being dead, yet speaketh” (Heb. 11:14).

Satan's Fight Against the Blood Commenced at the Gate of Eden

The offering of blood was made to stand out by God with prominence in Abel's sacrifice at the gate of Eden six thousand years ago.  Although being long dead, he speaks to the world in these last days.  In the witness given to Abel's sacrifice, God spake to the world through him of a plan He had on hand of redemption by blood.  As God commenced with the blood, so will He end with the blood, and with great stress on the blood.  Abel's blood-offering being accepted - probably revealed by fire falling on it from heaven - led to Cain's knowing that his bloodless offering was rejected.  Satan entered into him, as he did into Judas, and he slew his brother Abel: so the first man saved by faith in the blood was slain.  We see his lifeless form - the first dead body on the earth - lying motionless by the side of an altar of blood, his soul borne by the angels into the heavens.  We see in this dead man the first fight of hell against the blood and righteousness by the blood; and the last fight of hell will be over the blood and righteousness by the blood.  Cain was cursed and driven out from before the face of the Lord, and became a fugitive and a vagabond upon the earth, crying out, “My punishment is more than I can bear.”  It is a serious thing for a man to get into a fight with God over redemption by blood, for ere he is aware he may find himself hopeless, wandering in the dark abyss of eternal night, with a wail more awful than that of Cain. In the last days there will be many Cains, with their bloodless altars and bloodless prayers - like “Christian Scientists” - where no fires of God descend, and where no witness of God is given to righteousness.  The voice of the Holy Spirit cried out through Abel's sacrifice of blood; and He cries out today in witnessing power to the soul, where the Blood of Jesus is sincerely presented.

When Noah came out of the Ark he offered up a sacrifice of every clean beast and bird, and God said He would not curse the ground any more, nor smite every living thing as He had done.  “While the earth remaineth, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease” (Gen. 8:19-22).  This kind of a covenant all men are well pleased with; it is full of comfort for this old world, sinners as well as christians; but let it be remembered that it was secured to us through the Blood of Christ's redemption.

“The Lord made a covenant (lit. 'cut a covenant') with Abram.”

Abraham obeyed God, and offered a sacrifice as specified (Gen. 15:8-18).  He cut through the midst of the animals and God's presence, as a smoking furnace and a burning lamp, passed between the pieces.

So God cut a covenant with Abraham, in which He entered into a very close compact of heart relationship with him, that had great meaning - had God bound up in it.  God told Abraham how a nation would afflict his seed four hundred years, and after that He would judge that nation, and bring His people out with great substance; and verily God cut through the hearts of all family life in Egypt, bringing about a fulfilment to the letter of His blood covenant with Abraham, regardless of cost to His opposers, who refused to let Israel go.  God, in redeeming the lost world, cut through His own heart - the heart of His beloved Son; and in doing so, He holds this old world in blood covenant bonds of redemption.  It was at an awful cost, an act unrepented of by God!  He has never reproached Himself for it, but He will enforce the meaning of the Blood of Jesus by his righteous judgements to the last day and hour of earth's habitation by man.  Those who reject His proffered love and mercy of salvation through the Blood of Jesus will miserably perish.  The price paid has cleared the field for action, and in His execution of judgment, God will clear Himself, dealing with men according to their deserts: the wicked will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal (Mat. 25:46).

The Battle for the Mountain of Blood

“And David and all Israel went to Jerusalem (the same is Jebus); and the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, were there.  And the inhabitants of Jebus said to David, Thou shalt not come in hither. Nevertheless David took the stronghold of Zion ... And David dwelt in the stronghold; therefore they called it the city of David” (1 Chr. 11:4-7, R.V.).

Of all the places captured by David, and taken from the enemy as a permanent possession, Jebus of the Jebusites was the most important, for the castle was a stronghold, and became his dwelling-place, the name being changed to Jerusalem, the Holy City, that God set to be a light and blessing to the entire world.  He said, “I have chosen Jerusalem, that My name might be there” (2 Chr. 6:6).  David brought the ark of the covenant here from the house of Obed-edom, with music, singing, and dancing.  The crowning glory of this ancient city was the Temple where the ark of the covenant came to rest, and God revealed Himself to His people.  Here, as His seat, God taught the nations of the world great lessons through His dealings with Israel, showing how He would prosper people in their righteousness, and chastise them with judgments of terrible calamities for their wickedness.  Of all the lessons God taught the world, and set forth with great emphasis on this mountain, redemption from sin by a blood sacrifice was the greatest.

At the dedication of the Temple, Solomon offered a sacrifice of peace offerings of twenty-two thousand oxen and one-hundred-and-twenty-two thousand sheep (1 Kings 8:63 and 2 Chr. 7:5).  And speaking of the bringing in of the ark, it is said that he “Sacrificed sheep and oxen which could not be told nor numbered for multitude” (1 Kings 8:5 and 2 Chr. 5:6).  The ark held God's blood covenant with Israel, that was to find its fulfilment in Jesus Christ and His shed Blood.  It is marvellous that the last two Scriptures differ from the two former ones; the former give the great number of animals slain, but the latter, too large to be numbered, prefigures the inestimable value of the Blood of Jesus.  The Jews could not have known what this meant when written, and it shows how Bible history was inspired.  Let us pause and consider the rivers of blood that flowed down this mountain in the slaughtering of all these animals, and then of the blood of the animals slain at the annual Passover, the other festivals, and the daily sacrifices through the thousand years that followed until Jesus, the Lamb of God, the Antitype of them all, poured out His Blood on this mountain for the salvation of the world.  Truly God set the blood out in great prominence, like a mountain before the eyes of the world, because of the great importance and meaning He has put in it.  From Mount Sinai, trembling with His fiery presence, God spake down through fifteen hundred years to the time of the death of Jesus, saying, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul” (Lev. 17:11).  Then after Jesus was slain, we read “Without shedding of blood is no remission” (Heb. 9:22).  Oh, the meaning God has put in the blood! The blood sacrifices were used through these long centuries to get the world ready in faith for redemption by the Blood of Jesus Christ. From Abel down through four thousand years, God has taken to underscore with His tremendous emphasis the Blood of Jesus - a long, red blood line - as the only atonement made by Him for sin, and that man might never be able to set it aside or to get away from its truth.  “Ye know ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold ... but with the precious Blood of Christ, as a Lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Pet. 1:18-19).  Such is the Word of God, that is as unchangeable as Himself.  On it we stand in our faith, and will stand till the end, God helping us.

“Oh for a heart to praise my God

A heart from sin set free;

A heart that always feels the Blood

So freely shed for me.”

On this mountain of blood, we may truly say in the midst of blood, and out from covenant blood, God lifted up His voice to the entire world through the prophets, foretelling in marvellous language the Coming of the Redeemer.  We can here refer but to one or two of them.

Isaiah 1:3 the Great Messianic Prophecy

This most marvellous prophecy is the portrayal in detail of the griefs, sorrows, sufferings, and death of Jesus Christ seven hundred years before He came.  Here we find a condensed statement of what He was to be and do; how, as a Lamb, He was to be led to the slaughter, not opening His mouth; how He would be despised and rejected of men; how He should justify many, bearing their iniquities; how He maketh intercession for the transgressors; how Divine Justice should see the travail of His soul, and be satisfied; how, though He had no generation to be declared, His seed - His spiritual offspring - should be seen, and the pleasure of God should prosper in His hands.  Only God Himself could pack into the twelve verses of this chapter all the fullness they contain; only He could seal it up for seven long centuries, and then open it and fulfil it to the letter.  It may seem strange, but to the Jews this - the greatest Messianic prophecy, given by their greatest prophet - was the strangest and most repelling chapter in the Bible: it embodied the greatest pain and sorrow ever known; they were never able to solve its mysteries; it was all blackness of darkness to them; but Jesus went in at the front door of this chapter, and came out at the rear, through the doorway of a tomb.  This was their Messiah, the world's Redeemer.  In the first verse the prophet foresaw the rejection of his prophecy, and Jesus and His disciples experienced its truth.  The word and its fulfilment not only shows God in the prophecy, but He under-scores the vicarious sufferings of Christ with a seven hundred years of emphasis, and gives it a great meaning beyond word to tell that men might be duly impressed with it, and be constrained to see and believe; yea, verily to see and know that the only redemption made by God for man, or ever will be made, was by the Blood of His Son, our Saviour.  It is God's only way, and will never be overthrown by men or devils.  Let us enter with Him into His death, and come out with Him in the power of His resurrection; then with Him we shall be indeed of “the pleasure of the Lord, and prosper in His hand.”  There is a Divine solution to the darkness and sorrow now in the world, and those who are lowly and teachable will hear the report and believe, and will come out with Christ in the light of the new day.

The Fountain of Blood

“In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for un-cleanness” (Zec. 13:1).

This is the fountain of blood prophesied of five hundred years after David's time, and five hundred years before Christ came.

This prophet appears on the scene after the seventy years' captivity, at the rebuilding of the Temple, and raises his voice, conscious of the great need of a cleansing fountain for his people; and so let this cry be mightily raised again, and the Spirit will attend it with power to both Jew and Gentile.  Do we believe in a literal fountain of blood?  A sceptical age of reasoning asks.  Yea, we believe, in the sight of God and His people, that the Blood of Jesus has its literal form, that it poured from His side, more real and precious to man and God than gold and silver.  It has its great soul-cleansing, spiritual power, an actual element, the only efficacious sin-cleansing element known.  There are chemical fluids that cleanse out stains; the Blood of Jesus makes the deepest dyed sins let go their deadly hold on the soul, and drop away, taking all their poisonous stains and defilement with them.  Great has been the outpouring of blessing through Cowper's old hymn;

“There is a fountain filled with Blood,

Drawn from Emmanuel's veins;

And sinners plunged beneath that flood

Lose all their guilty stains.”

Miss Havergal's “Precious, Precious Blood of Jesus” distils like dew in heavenly sweetness in meetings over which the Holy Spirit hovers.

“Blessed be the fountain of Blood

To a world of sinners revealed”

is very precious indeed to God's children.  “Alas, and did my Saviour Bleed?” by Isaac Watts, is numbered among the hymns that will remain with us because of the blood that speaks in it.

The Great Outpouring of Blood from Sacrifices on Mount Zion

“When I See the Blood, I will Pass Over You” (Ex. 12:13).

The great slaughtering of animals on Mount Zion in the worship of Jehovah is enough to stagger the world with conviction over the way God has emphasized annually and daily, simply in type form, the atonement made by Jesus Christ.  The blood offerings were tremendous, and show the tremendous meaning God has put in the blood!  Who is able to write on the subject?  Our heart fails, and our hands drop at our sides, as we face the bleeding Son of God on Calvary's Cross, and think of all that God has bound up in His death as it touches the world and each one of us individually.  We can give but a few brief thoughts from the Bible lessons on the blood that have come here in great fulness under the illuminating power of the Holy Spirit.

The great Day of Atonement, held annually, with the scapegoat taken into the wilderness, has its great meaning wrapped up in its name, and in the goat - a type of Christ, Who has taken our curse of sin upon Himself, and carried it off into an uninhabited desert waste, to be seen no more (Lev. 16:22). The sin-offering represented the holy union or covenant between God and man, as broken by man in his fall into sin, and knit together again by the “shedding of blood.”  There were the daily morning and evening burnt-offerings, the double burnt-offering on the Sabbath, and the burnt-offerings at the great festivals, that typified our Lord's full surrender of Himself, a perfect Sacrifice in our stead, all consuming in the fiery heat of His great suffering for us.  We would pause before the great yearly Passover service, when all the families of Israel, according to their households, offered a lamb unto the Lord.  If one lamb was slain for about every fifteen3 persons, then for two-and-a-half millions of people, over one-hundred-and-sixty-six thousand lambs were slain on that historic night when the bonds of Egyptian slavery burst asunder, and Israel came out free.  In the time of Solomon, the population is supposed to have reached five4 or six millions; so the greatness of the slaughter of lambs, by all who were able to attend the feast, is apparent.  In no way could the Lord make the meaning of the blood clearer and more impressive than in this lesson, setting forth Christ as our Passover, sacrificed for us (1 Cor. 5:7), by which we are delivered from the bondage of sin.  We can see a household in Israel gathered around the Paschal Supper, along about midnight, the father at the head of the table, probably raised a little above the rest; they sing the Hallel, and pass the cup and unleavened bread, when the son asked the father the meaning of the feast, who follows with an account of its institution.

“And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service? that ye shall say, it is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover, Who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when He smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses.  And the people bowed their head and worshipped” (Ex. 12:26,27).

“And it shall be when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What is this? that thou shalt say unto him, By strength of hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, from the house of bondage: and it came to pass, when Pharaoh would hardly let us go, that the Lord slew all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both the first-born of man and the first-born of beast ...And it shall for a token unto thine hand, and for frontlets between thine eyes; for by strength of hand the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt” (Ex. 13:14-16).

              

3  “According to Josephus (Wars, 6:9,3), ten was the least number regarded as sufficient, while twenty was not considered too many.”

4  Taking 2 Sam. 24:9, there are 1,300,000 “valiant men that drew sword,” multiplied by five.

We can see bright-eyed young folks, with an occasional tear in their eyes, intently listening, their hearts stirred within them over the story that never grew old; then we see them eating the lamb, with the bitter herbs, the word of Divine truth entering their hearts as they realized that by blood Israel had been redeemed, made precious unto God, and preserved.  Let the man who will, compute the number of times this passover story was told in fifteen hundred years to Israel's young generations, who listened with a vision of the blood bespattered on the door-posts and the lintels.  Marvellous the pressure God put on the blood seal in this event to stamp the truth of blood redemption deep upon the hearts and minds of the inhabitants of this world of sin.

Yes, the blood was put on the door-posts and on the lintels of the doors of the houses in Egypt.  The Israelites came out with blood over them and on both sides of them.  The blood on the doorways was a sight to behold; it seemed there was blood everywhere; it was blood, blood, blood, blood!  This was faith's upward look to God, and the blood-cry for protection from the angel of death and for deliverance from bondage.  The blood had to be used before Israel could move; the blood-cry had the breaking-up, moving power of God in it; by the blood, the bonds of Egypt were loosed and dropped off, and Israel started out, without confusion, a mighty host of men, women, and children, with their sheep, cattle, and belongings; out under the blood they came, no armed forces or evil thing was able to touch them.  They did not have to fight their way out, or suffer any loss; it was not a flight made in haste or confusion; through the blood they came out whole, calmly and in perfect order, not leaving a hoof behind them.  On that terrible night, God made Egypt pay Israel for their services.  God took Israel to Egypt in accordance with His blood covenant with Abraham, and when He brought them out, because of that blood covenant, He saw that justice was done them: they were paid for their services, even though it spoiled the Egyptians.  God's blood covenant was salvation to His people and destruction to His enemies; and so it will be to the end of time.  “Bear in mind that your God hath shewn unto ye, that death and life there is in the Blood of Christ Jesus” - word through gifts.

Egypt cried out for Israel to go, lest they be all dead men.  At the time of Jesus' death, those who accepted His atonement were saved, and those who rejected Him either miserably perished by the hundreds of thousands, or became outcasts on the earth, doomed to wander for two thousand years, bearing the most awful judgment that God ever visited upon a people.

One of the greatest proofs of the genuineness of the Scriptures is the Israelites, with their fifteen hundred years of animal sacrifices, and then the rejected Divine Sacrifice and its penalty.  The great Divine Sacrifice rejected! A momentous moment in Israel's history!  It brings before us a tableau of intense, painful stillness: Behold, Zion a waste!  Her house left desolate!  The Jews gone forth for two thousand years, “to become an astonishment, a proverb, and a bye-word among all nations” (Deu. 28:37).  It is enough to overwhelm us to see how God's Word has been fulfilled.  There is a terrible penalty in rejecting the Blood of Jesus Christ!  God's judgments descend on brazen unbelief and the wickedness that follows in its train, and the result is that millions of human beings perish - men, women, and children - as in this war now raging.  Let men reject the Blood of Jesus, and their own blood will be poured out until the earth runs red.  God's lessons on the blood are simple and plain enough for a child to understand, and woe to him who stands against God, or offends one of His little ones.

Isaac the Highest Type of Jesus, the Lamb of God

        ISAAC                           JESUS

 

“Take now thy son, thine only   “For God so loved the world

son ISAAC, WHOM THOU LOVEST,    that He gave His ONLY BEGOTTEN

and get thee into the land of   Son ...” (John 3:16).  “This

Moriah; and offer him there     is MY BELOVED SON: hear Him”

for a burnt offering upon one   (Luke 9:35).  “And they took

of the mountains which I will   Jesus, and led Him away.  And

tell thee of ... And Abraham    HE, BEARING HIS CROSS, went

took THE WOOD OF THE BURNT      forth into a place called the

offering, AND LAID IT UPON      place of a skull, which is

ISAAC his son; .... and they    called in the Hebrew, Golgotha:

went both of them together”     where they crucified Him”

(Gen 22:2,6).                   (John 19:16-18).

While a lamb without blemish, submissively being led to the altar, is a strong and very impressive type of JESUS, yet the most perfect type God ever chose was found in ISAAC, a human being, a beloved son like our Saviour, and an only begotten son of his father.  ISAAC was chosen by God for a burnt offering at the hands of his father, which was a most perfect test of the abandonment of the son to the will of the father, in which he perfectly represented Christ in His submission to death at the will of God.

We see Isaac carrying the wood on which he was lain as a sacrifice, up the same mountain side that Jesus carried the Cross on which He suffered and died.  Isaac and his father appeared on this spot on Mount Zion nineteen hundred years before Christ, back in the dawn of the world's history.

There is that sublimity and grandeur of God in this distant scene, so perfectly foreshadowing our great Redeemer's death, that it throws a Divine spell over the soul of man as he studies the great lesson God has in it for the world.  It was set by God to be viewed afar off, even after the death of Jesus, and instead of weakening, it grows in strength as the centuries pass.

Through this great test of faith, God shewed the character of the men He had chosen, through whom Jesus was to come.  By it, He uncovered their hearts to the world, to be seen to the end of time, shewing why the Redeemer and the great revelation of Him should come through Abraham.  God tried and proved them, showing that He reigned in them, and that life and human relationships went down into dust and ashes before Him and His Word.  God showed that He reigned even under the terrible test of death.  As they came up to the place, only one question was asked, and one answer given; and truly, no greater question could have been asked, and no greater answer given.  “Where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” asked Isaac, who voiced the cry of a fallen world for a Redeemer.  “My Son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering” was the God-given reply to the God-given question; this was enough to cause Christ to arise and stand up at the right hand of the Father, as They looked on the scene from above.  Thank God neither Abraham nor Isaac faltered and marred the scene; it was a perfect forecast of our Saviour's death.  Out of the smoke and heat of this fiery ordeal, we see Abraham rise up with the Babe of Bethlehem in his arms - his Seed (Gal. 3:16), the Lamb of God.

Jesus Christ our Great Sacrifice

In the first thirty years of Christ's life, the record is very brief; we see Him only in babyhood, and at twelve years of age; then there are eighteen years of silence.  In His ministry of three years, or 156 weeks, nearly one-third of the four Gospels - almost half of John - is devoted to the last week of His life - a week of the greatest and most vital interest ever known in this world's history, the week of Christ's passion and death.  God is clearly seen in putting so much of the Gospels into this week, when full light on every event needed to be given as Christ approached the altar on which He was to redeem the world by shedding His Blood.  Every little word, act, and expression were most notable and precious: His weeping over Jerusalem; His bloody sweat in Gethsemane; the look He gave Peter that broke his heart; His silence before His accusers; the bowing of His head in death - seem small incidents of this week, but were made to stand out very clearly, that people might see God in them, and believe.  There is nothing hidden, but all is wide open to the world, to see into the heart of God, and read there the story of redeeming love in agonies of crucifixion and death.  Oh, Calvary! Oh, wonderful heart of God!

THE DEATH OF JESUS WAS A REVELATION TO THE WORLD; TRULY IT WAS A REVELATION IN BLOOD, FOR IT WAS IN HIS BLOOD HE DIED, ON A MOUNTAIN OF BLOOD; IT WAS A REVELATION WRAPPED IN BLOOD OF CENTURIES; A REVELATION OVER THE BLOOD SACRIFICES ON JEWISH ALTARS, FROM WHICH GOD INTENDED THAT THE OFFICIATING PRIESTS SHOULD LIFT THEIR EYES AND SEE THE LAMB OF GOD SLAIN FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD FOR MAN'S REDEMPTION FROM SIN (1 PET 1:20).  THE SACRIFICES THEY OFFERED WERE BUT STEPPING-STONES UP CALVARY'S SIDE TO THE LAMB OF GOD IN HIS DEATH.  IT WAS THEN THE VAIL OF THE TEMPLE WAS RENT, AND THE PRIESTS STOOD AGHAST, SEEING INTO THE HOLY OF HOLIES; THE SACRIFICES HAD SERVED THEIR PURPOSE, AND CAME TO AN END, WHILE CALVARY'S FOUNTAIN STANDS WIDE OPEN DAY AND NIGHT FOR SIN AND UNCLEANNESS.  IN THIS GREAT WORKED-OUT BLOOD-PLAN OF REDEMPTION, THERE IS ETERNAL JOY FOR THE SAINTS, SAVED AND MADE HOLY BY IT, AND ETERNAL GLORY TO GOD.  AMEN AND AMEN!

Mountain of the Pleading of the Blood Taken in a Faith Battle, and Held

When I came to England in 1909, there was quite a flow of spiritual life and power in many Pentecostal meetings.  Many of the saints, in their prayers, pled the blood in strong repetition for all that burdened their hearts, and especially were seekers for their baptism helped in this way.  I saw that it was a simple and powerful weapon against the opposing forces of evil, and I was numbered among the seekers who pled the blood for the baptism.  The Holy Spirit moved in it in a strong and precious way, until one broke through into tongues; we know His pleasure and delight is to witness to the blood.  I saw it was humbling to the flesh, and the flesh I knew above all things in these days God wanted brought down.  The blood pleading had broken out at Kilsyth, Scotland, in one of the most powerful Pentecostal movements of the Spirit known in the British Isles; it was taken up naturally by the lowly, earnest-hearted, with the clear leading and blessing of God upon it.  Then the word began to come clear and strong through the gifts of the Holy Spirit, especially here at Bournemouth, to plead the blood.  The Lord let opposition arise, and real testings come, over the pleading of the blood, which He had a purpose in, that He might prove the people; Satan was indeed permitted to sift them.  Many who started pleading the blood, fully endorsing it, when “persecution arose because of the word, they were offended” (Mat. 13:21), and drew back, seeing it would lead to divisions and separations; and, indeed, quite a turmoil and conflict arose over the subject.  There was a kind of a reproach about it, too, that evidently some did not want to carry; and while they saw God was in it, they were apparently glad of an excuse and a way of escape to sunnier grounds.  In this, let us go without the gate, bearing His reproach.

The offence of the cross has ceased, and evidently the Lord would have the blood, or something else closely related to the cross as a necessary reproach in His workings, for the humbling of the flesh and the refining of His children; the Cross and the Blood go together; we can hardly think of one without the other.  And especially would the Holy Spirit take the blood up to be used, because of Satan's onslaught against it, in his bloodless organizations and forms of unbelief that he has caused to spring up.  I realized all this, became greatly interested in the conflict waged, and sought for all the light God was giving on the subject.

The gifts of the Holy Spirit then came out in Pastor Hutchinson's assembly in strong admonitions to “plead the blood”; “hold to the blood”; “stay by the blood”; “overcome by the blood”; “by the blood ye enter in”; “by the blood comes your deliverance”; “the blood is the weapon to defeat Satan;” “the blood is the sword”; etc..  One could realise it was God speaking, and the admonition came through quite a period of time, while the battle was on.  Probably not so much was the opposition from men as from the powers of darkness, but men were instruments of Satan to hinder the work of God, as they always are. It was given us by the Holy Spirit to clearly discern the battle; we saw where God was working, and where Satan and his forces stood strongly opposing the adoption of the blood weapon - in wily ways indeed working to discourage it.  One could clearly see that Satan did not want the blood used against him.  Rev. 12:9-11 more firmly fastened on us than ever before, where it says that Satan “is overcome by the Blood of the Lamb and by the word of their (the saints') testimony”; their testimony, we may truly say, is their experience gotten through the blood.  The blood is God's labelled weapon of sure defeat to all the hosts of darkness.  It is a more powerful siege-gun than any found in this world-war; it tears up nests of evil spirits, and destroys strongholds and old habitations of Satan's forces in the heavenlies.  We saw that evil spirits exposed to the shell fire of the blood under the power of the Holy Spirit fled in terror.  It causes more consternation among the hosts of darkness than all poisonous gases do to men on the battle-front in France.  There are no masks or defences Satan can use as a protection from its terrible effects upon his hosts.  Men cannot explain the mystery in gases formed from certain chemicals, why they are deadly poison, and on entering the lungs of soldiers, they are done for - there is no more fight in them: it is a mystery, but they know it is so, and that is all they want to know.  God has put that power in the Blood of Jesus that we cannot explain the mystery of, but we know Satan's hosts fall hors de combat before its power.  How wonderful is the Blood of Jesus in all the meaning it embraces for us!

We know the blood has purchasing power - it redeems lost souls; we know it is a fountain that has Divine efficacy in it, that washes away our sins - sanctifying and cleansing from all sin; we know it breaks the power of sin, so that we are not in bondage to it; we know it defeats the powers of hell; it purifies the air, and brings the blessed freedom of the Christ and the sweetness of heaven's sunshine into our souls.  We know that Divine Justice is satisfied, for Jesus with His Blood made propitiation for our sins, that through faith in His Blood God might be just, and the Justifier of him that believeth in Jesus Christ (Rom. 3:25,26).  All the blessings of life have been purchased for us by the Blood of Jesus. Even while we are given to know all this, the Lord tells us, through the gifts, that we cannot grasp all the meaning there is in the blood, and that there is in pleading the blood.  We know sin is a great reality, a terrible curse; so we can know, and God would have us know, that we are saved from our sins and the power of sin; this is a mystery, but a great and blessed reality that we experience in our lives, and is witnessed to by the Holy Spirit, filling the soul with the joy of the Lord.

The Lord let the brethren who were pleading the blood be tried to the uttermost to prove them, whether His Word would triumph over flesh, whether they would please Him or man, whether they would be strong in His Word and in the power of the Spirit, or be of a weak, compromising, flesh-pleasing nature that is sickening to God.  Brother Hutchinson strongly desired to keep in harmony and fellowship with all the Pentecostal brethren; schisms were painful to him as to the rest of us, especially at a time when we were all hoping that unity was to be the one great feature of the Latter Rain movement.  But all over the world in Pentecost, instead of union, there were many divisions.  We believe that most of the differences that people had would have disappeared had all the offices and gifts been in action from the beginning; the voice of the Lord through the gifts, being heard and yielded to, would have set people right.  In this fight it was recognised that all those who were baptised and spake in tongues claimed salvation through the blood, and the blood was set forth with usual emphasis by all; and naturally Pastor Hutchinson would reason, “Why could not all stand together on this common ground?”  As the battle increased, the word came through the gifts in burning exhortations: “Stay with the blood!” “Hold to the blood!” “Plead the blood!” and many Scriptures on the blood were taken up and explained through the gifts emphasizing the important meaning God had put in the blood, and bringing to naught the arguments of those who were opposing the pleading of the blood.  In seeking for light from the Lord through the gifts, in 1911, on what opposers were saying, we got twelve pages of a close type-written word, meeting their objections; it was a decision from the Judge of the Court above, bearing the blood seal of the Trinity, and fully satisfied us.

Where is the leading opposer of that day - editor and speaker?  Gone afloat - out of the work! as many others who followed the same ill-advised course.  Let us not be unstable as the waves of the sea, driven and tossed by the winds, “For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord” (James 1:6,7).

I remember well the climax of the conflict, and the pallor on Pastor Hutchinson's face, when the conviction settled fully on him that it was God, and that if he would walk in the full light, he would have to plead the blood regardless of consequences.  It meant suffering with Christ; it was part of the death route to be travelled.  It was most marvellous, the strong, clear clarion ring of the Holy Spirit's cry for the blood to be used in this special way.  We knew God was speaking, and that some great meaning was wrapt up in it, beyond what we could see or know, even though we had then received great light upon the subject, and felt its power and meaning in a great measure.  To those who held on to the pleading of the Blood, the Lord gave much assurance of victory and blessing coming, and it not only looks like all promised will be fulfilled, but we are sure it will be, and praise God and rejoice over the grounds held; we have the witness of the Spirit that God's will has been done.  We can clearly see the advance made by those who have held to the pleading of the blood, and the loss that has come to others.  This we say humbly, but honestly, with clear convictions of its truth.

The Holy Spirit's New Setting Forth of the Blood

The Mountain Of Blood The Place Of Revelation

Had not the Lord had His way here at Bournemouth in 1910, and the mountain of blood been taken by faith and held, we are fully satisfied this place would not have been chosen by God for the revelation of the plan of His Latter Rain Church, its offices (1 Cor. 12:28; Eph. 4:11-13) and gifts (1 Cor. 12:4-11). The great place of sacrifices - blood-pleading offerings - to God on Mount Zion, the stronghold for David His anointed, symbolizes the great mountain fortress of the Blood of Jesus taken in this faith battle, that is the stronghold of His anointed in the last days; not that it is a locally fixed place, as Mount Zion, but has its existence in the spiritual more real and important than any mountain of this earth; and by faith we abide in it.  In waging the battle and winning the victory for this mountain of blood pleading, we have been made conscious by the Spirit of an important height and stronghold being possessed, opening the way for God to move and work.  It was so with Mount Zion: it was the place of a great plan and order of things God had on hand, leading to the revelation of the Redeemer.

The Word of God, the plan and new order of things for the last days, leading to the revelation of the Manchild, surely must come in a mountain of blood pleading - that is, by the blood being made prominent and powerful - for in no other way do God's revelations come, only indeed, through the blood.

The Holy Spirit's blood-cry in the hearts of saints will surely bring it to pass.  While we had victory and blessing in pleading the blood, we little knew what was coming until the Lord began to speak in our midst, setting forth the new day of revelation.  He spake about the revelation that was coming and said, “The blood is the doorway indeed; enter the door, enter through the blood.”  So we enter the chamber of Divine revelation by the blood!  While we tremble some and fear, yet we enter; having now gone so far, we have lost all in the old, and have nothing left to lose and everything to gain.  In this position we were soon made conscious we were not being trifled with; we were in the midst of God's operations, such as we had never known before.  All the while the word came over and over again, “The revelation is in the Blood.”  It was the voice of God from the throne speaking indeed, making a deep and solemn impression upon us.  We knew not what the revelation was until later we were told the revelation of the Manchild would be in the Blood, and so we pressed on in simple faith and obedience, pleading the blood. We saw that as Christ had come on a mountain of blood, and in blood, so would the Manchild revelation come; and we saw more and more the road we were travelling in the blood pleading and what it was leading to.

The Fiery Test and Heat of God's Word Coming Again

Through the pleading of the blood, the word began to come through interpretation and prophecy; the blood cut the way for the word, it opened up a channel by heavy blasting through the natural rock-hardness and unbelief of human life.  Through the pleading of the blood, faith sprang up in the spoken word.  As we cried to God.  He took our weak-kneed faith in hand, and brought us out with strength to stand up at least for the light He was giving, with a trembling sensation, not so much of fear as joy over the assurance that the word of God was indeed once more being heard among men.  It is a great work for God to establish the faith of man again in the word spoken by prophets at the time it is given.  The word is hard to handle, and it takes beginners through testings and refinings.  “He has given His word, but it has pierced both our hands and hearts in receiving it,” might often be said.  “The word is so heavy it is all I can do to bear it,” is often heard.  Persons may be troubled somewhat by setting their minds on a word that comes that is to be opened up in the future, and not letting the word rest with God until He works it out.  God purposes that the word shall try us, and it is one of the proofs that He is in it.

The word Joseph received caused him to be sold into Egypt as a slave, and cast as a criminal into prison: “Whose feet they hurt with fetters: he was laid in chains of iron (Heb., his soul entered into the iron, margin, R.V.), until the time that His word came to pass: the word of the Lord tried him” (Ps. 105:17-19).  So has the word of the Lord come here, first binding in fetters of iron - bringing into bonds inwardly to God's word, and outwardly in bonds by God's word, like Joseph, at an awful cost and the painful loss of all things - until the very soul-life, as it were, entered into the iron chains, until there was death to the old, and God had worked out that transformation He saw was needed, that one to know about must experience.  Then, bless God! there is a coming out, as Joseph came out of prison, with a joyful consciousness of the divinity of the word that has been given.  In these trying ordeals, fear is found to pass away in regard to the newly spoken word, and there is peace and joy.  This is no small transformation; it is an astounding change!  All one can say is “Behold what God hath wrought!”

Jesus and His Blood

We are not passing by Jesus, and setting His Blood above Him; we would merely put the Blood in its right place.  The Devil is wily, and we know he is ready to twist and pervert what we say and mean. Through carnally minded men, Satan would have Christ exalted and His Blood left out of sight; they would hide the Blood, that has the price of our ransom in it, and the necessity of being saved by Blood. Jesus said we were to pray the Father in His name (John 16:23-26), in that He suffered and died to open the way to the throne for us, that our prayers might be answered.  But some will say, “Why not pray, 'Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,' for that name covers all, for He is all and in all to us?”  True, He is all and in all to us, but this is not according to the Word that we are to overcome by the Blood; the fight to hell is against the Blood.  Wordly congregations do not want a Blood sermon preached to them: they are so refined, so delicate, so sensitive, that the thought of the blood and shambles is very offensive to them. Such are full of sin and the world - especially pride - and they drink in the spirit of the world “like a fish drinks water.” They have never seen sin in themselves, and the loathing, deadly state they are in, that God cannot look upon until the Blood cleanses them.  These sensitive, delicate natures are from their father, the Devil, who cannot stand the Blood.  When one is saved and filled with the Holy Spirit,he loves Jesus and His Blood; the Blood that is very precious to man; this enabled Peter to call the Blood of Jesus “precious” (1 Pet. 1:19).  We have heard the cry of saints, tremulous with the Spirit upon them, weeping in great love, joy, and praise over the Blood of Jesus; it indeed was made to them inexpressibly precious.  Many accept the life and example of Jesus, but reject His vicarious atonement, and the drift of humanity is now strong in that direction - away from the Blood.  God would stay this evil, and we believe this is one of the reasons why the pleading of the Blood has been brought into action by the Spirit.  It is a time of crisis for the Blood of our redemption.  When faith in the Blood of Jesus is lost, the Bible is destroyed; its transforming power in lives comes through faith in His atoning Blood.  Because of His atonement for us we cry, “Jesus, Jesus!” in times of distress and trouble, and He comes and saves. We cry, “Jesus, Jesus!” in exclamation of adoration and worship, and it is made acceptable through the Blood; but when we come to the Blood cry, it is specific and decisive in faith and action, and cuts like a sword through all kinds of shams and unbelief, and the heart of things is laid wide open - seance spirits vanish, they cannot stand before the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ; the Blood cuts a way through all kinds of opposing forces of evil for God's children to pass through.  We see this in Israel's escape from Egypt.  When faith and the anointing of the Spirit is on a child of God, he grips the sword of the Blood with a sense of its slaying power, and his hand cleaves to the sword, as Eleazar's did when he slew the Philistines, and Jehovah wrought a great victory through him (2 Sam. 23:10).  The principalities and powers of evil we face are not imaginary.  Oh, soul of man, awaken! thy foes, the hosts of darkness set against thee, are more real than the great battle line in France.  Thy covering is the Blood!  Thy weapon is the Blood! The Blood is the sword; it is the little stone from the brook with which giant6 Goliaths, that stalk abroad in these last days defying God and His people, are brought down and made to bite the dust of the earth in their death-pangs; God has ordained it so.  No Saul's armour will fit a David for the fight; it is a soul in the Spirit's free acting, with the sling of faith and the little stone from the brook; it appears as a little, insignificant thing to Goliaths, who strut and defy God, but they will die.  Rejoice, oh soul, in thy weapon of deliverance!  Those who oppose and defy God, will not take the Blood into their hearts and lives, will get the stone of it buried in their foreheads, and will sprawl and kick the ground in the end of their fight against God.  The Blood has in it the savour of life unto life and of death unto death. “Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.”  Men who reject the Blood, reject Christ and the price God has paid for their souls' eternal redemption; those who reject the Blood are the most pitiful Devil-deluded beings on the earth.

Marvellous Manifestations of the Spirit in Pleading the Blood

 

The consciousness of the Holy Spirit taking the human vessel in hand to plead the Blood is clearly experienced.  Often we have heard testimonies from those who have had battles over the pleading of the Blood, telling how, as soon as they submitted the Holy Spirit took possession of them and pleaded the Blood through them, even in astonishing rapidity.  And somehow in it through the Holy Spirit comes the sense of its effectiveness: the oppressive powers of evil are driven back, and rest comes to the soul. Many and wonderful have been the operations of the Spirit in this Pentecostal movement that have been experienced by the children of God, that are beyond the power of man to describe or explain.  We know that “to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit to profit withal” (1 Cor. 12:7).  We have had the pleading of the Blood run in great speed off our tongues, even supernaturally as in the speaking and praying in tongues - it is from the same Spirt; and we have known occasions when it did not seem to meet the activity of the Spirit within, and led to a vision of His great operations with the Blood.  We have seen it as a rapidly revolving wheel - like an emery wheel grinding steel with a shower of sparks flying from the stone - throwing off the word “Blood” like a shower, making one think of the sprinkling of the blood.  He runs like a wheel all on fire, pleading the Blood, we know in power, with tremendous effect, that it is mysteriously wonderful and real.  Paul says, “We know not how to pray as we ought; but the Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered; He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit.”  These experiences are flashes from the Divine depths, like Ezekiel's vision of the wheels; the fiery presence of Divinity is in them, that is flashing and running like lightning - a likely manifestation of the workings and coming of Christ (Luke 17:24). Yes, Divinity is in them, that one is conscious of, for God is moving within in strong reality; the soul of man is in action in the Spirit, poised in God, like a little child.  Yet it is not the display of the gifts that is sought; it is the results of His operations that are to be obtained.  In the blast furnaces of the steel works it is not the shower of sparks they are after, but the steel product; so His manifestations are present in His operations, and in them “we shall profit withal.”  “What is the use of such rapid action?” someone may ask.  What is the use of it in Ezekiel's vision?  we ask in reply.  Can God act and move no faster than man?  What is the use of Jesus Christ coming like lightning?  The operations of the Spirit in man mean the operation of God.  Electricity and light travel a hundred and eighty six thousand miles a second; and yet are they not slow steeds for Him?  “But we cannot move so fast,” we hear said.  No, but we can manipulate these forces, and make them our servants, as we do electricity and light; they are manifest in the spiritual realm of our beings; we can enjoy the revelation and blessing God has in them for us, even though they are quick like flashes of lightning.  Often God gives us light, and we recognise the quick operation of the Spirit is like lightning in its flash within, quicker than “the twinkling of an eye.”

We came to notice that in sore conflicts with the enemy, the pleading of the Blood was turned loose in us by the Spirit in great power, and poured out like a stream of fire.

It seemed then (in 1910) like the “sharp, two-edged sword” of the Lord flashing out from human beings; not coming from man, but from the mouth of God Himself.  In Rev. 1:16; and 2:16; and 19:15, we see the sword with which God makes war and smites the nations.  We saw and felt then, in the pleading of the Blood and in the words coming through the gifts, a fiery sword, with a sense of its power and cutting force that startled us and moved us at times with awe and fear.  Now, after eight years, we have further light on the experiences we had then.  Was it not the movement of God through earthen vessel, that was a manifestation of the fierceness of the wrath of God Almighty, that was soon to burst out upon the earth, even in this terrible war? What moved God against the earth?  What was it that was weighed against the world in its wickedness?  Was it not the Blood of Jesus!  Was not the cry of the Holy Spirit on the earth in His temples, the bodies of the saints, to the Father over the Blood of His Son, that was wickedly being cast aside as an unnecessary thing, and on account of which, sin and worldliness was increasing in an alarming manner, and the earth was losing its salt and savouring power! “What cry,” we ask, “Did the Holy Spirit send up to the throne as a lamentation?” “The Blood! the Blood! the Blood!” and the answer came back in fiery sword-flashes of judgement that we did not then know the meaning of.  Now, the cry of the Spirit is, “The Blood! the Blood! the Blood!” that the Blood may intervene and bring deliverance to the world, that is held in the crushing tentacles of this great war-octopus from the abyss.  No wonder the Holy Spirit sent up the Blood cry to the throne of God when this world-catastrophe was foreseen!  And now the Blood is our only hope; there is no other plea, there is no other argument to present in the court of Divine justice in the heavens.  Jesus is there with His Blood, and we join Him in our intercessions, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  There has never been such a time for the Blood-prayer as now, and is that not the reason it has been given?  It is stripped of all encumbering thoughts and phraseology, and like a pile-driver, by faith and the Holy Spirit, it strikes hard and telling blows.  And is it not a time when the Holy Spirit would drive home to the very heart of the throne of God the endangered interests of the kingdom of Christ on the earth?  For Satan, being shaken out of the heavenlies, will make it worse for the earth in the period preceding the Great Tribulation and the catching up of the saints.

The Sprinkling of the Blood

“But ye are come ... to Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel” (Heb. 12:24).  “Elect ... through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the Blood of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:2; also Heb. 9:13,14, where the word “sprinkling” in verse 13 is implied in verse 14).  The Old Testament blood sacrifices, or the sprinkling of the blood, was the soul's blood-pleading prayer before God.  In the New Testament we read of the sprinkling of the Blood of Jesus, and ask, What does it mean, and how is it done?

We know the sprinkling of the blood in the Old Testament must have its fulfilment in the sprinkling of the Blood of Jesus in the New Testament by the saints, who we are told are a royal priesthood (1 Pet. 2:5,9; Rev. 1:6).  It must have reference to the operations of the Spirit through them in prayer.  The pleading of the Blood most perfectly represents the sprinkling of His Blood; it implies repetition, or the ever flowing or falling of the Blood over us, keeping us clean, and of its continual action before God, availing for us.  We enter “into the sanctuary, into the inner court, to minister in the sanctuary” (Eze. 44:27) in the Spirit standing by the side of Jesus, our great High Priest, sprinkling the blood with Him.

It can be truly said that the pleading of the Blood is not a man-made form of prayer; only in a very lowly state, under the power of the Spirit, would man become conscious of God in it, and adopt its use, getting light to support it from the Bible.  Additional to this light from the Word have come the strong exhortations through the gifts to plead the Blood, that have fully confirmed us that God brought it into action.  “But probably the time for its use was only for a very short period, and is past,” says someone. When the blood sacrifices commenced, they were continued without abatement; so will be the pleading of the Blood, even with increased power until Jesus with His angels burst through the heavens upon this world.  It is the weapon for the last days of terrible conflict, and will not be laid down until Satan and his evil hosts are cast out.  The Blood is the weapon of weapons; let us accept no substitute, nor listen to Satan's smooth-tongued arguments.  There is nothing so powerful as the Spirit's cry through the Blood ascending to the throne from the hearts of God's children.

“Is it not vain repetition?” some ask.  No, not where there is faith; the Lord's Prayer can be made a vain repetition.  The vain repetition of the heathen is in the worship of idols, where the heart is full of superstition and darkness, “who think they will be heard for their much speaking” (Mat. 6:7).  How differently is the pleading of the Blood under the Holy Spirit's enlightenment, in His blessed witnessing to it, and strong empowerment of it.  The fact of God answering to it is proof that it is not a vain repetition.

“Will not the pleading of the Blood bring one into bondage?”  No, it will deliver from bondage, as one perseveres in it.  At first contact with it, there may be some natural bondage and repugnance, which vanishes in the light and blessing that comes in it.

“When our sins are washed away, why plead the Blood?”  Because we overcome Satan's attacks on us by faith and the Blood.  We know we are kept clean by the continual application of the Blood.  “But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the Blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth (present tense) us from all sin.”  By the Blood, and faith in the Blood, and our continual use of the Blood, as we walk in the light, we are kept clean.

The Blood of Jesus means not only the life of Jesus, but also the death of Jesus.  This is strongly emphasised by the Lord through the gifts, and is in accordance with His written Word.  The life of Jesus had to be poured out in death before the Blood had any meaning to us.  “Where there is a testament, there must of necessity be the death of him who made it” (Heb. 9:16,17).  Our life to Christ and our death to sin are in the Blood.

“But there have not been many pleading the Blood: how could it avail?”  There never are many in the time of a crisis that do the thing that God wants done.  It was so with Gideon's army - a simple little thing was God's trial in the lapping of the water, that was evidently looked upon by many as humbling and non-essential: God worked through the few, and many times we read of Him doing this in the Bible: “there is no restraint to the Lord to save by many or by few” (1 Sam. 16:16).  What God wants is a channel of faith opened that He may work through.

In pleading the Blood one should have an object in doing so, a strong soul-purpose back of it, and do it with all the heart going out unto God that His will may be done and His kingdom come, first in oneself and then in the world.