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The Living Blood
Episode #170
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
(M) Well John, we’ve done a number of podcasts on the Blood of Christ. And we’re sitting here with a beautiful day, so grateful for it after our terrible winter. Your pictures of Suches are beautiful, but (Martha laughs) they don’t describe the bitter cold and the wind that we’ve been through. So we’re thankful for this promise of spring, if not spring. And we’re drinking Punjama, is that the name of it, tea?
(J) Punjama tea from from Ireland.
(M) And we’re almost ‘out’, so it’s time to go back. (Martha laughs) Because we can’t… We’ve tried to buy it in the states, and we can’t, we can’t find it. But anyway, it’s wonderful tea, better than anything we can buy in the states. I don’t know if that… drinking it causes us to think of our dear friends in Ireland, or if it’s really that good. I think it’s really that good, and it reminds us of our friends in Ireland, both.
(J) Double dose.
(M) Yeah. But there’s something I want to go to today, about the Blood. Because I can remember, I can look back now and understand that the Church has used the Blood as something apart from the Person, a thing. And that’s… used it as something not only impersonal of Jesus, but impersonal to self. It’s kind of a banner you wave against the enemy. And the reason it has no power is because to be able to use the power of the Blood, it has to be internally in you. The power of the Blood is inestimable; we cannot imagine the power of the Blood against the enemy, within the conscience and for the sake of humanity. Not to mention its value to God; its power is from God. But it’s possible for the Lord Jesus to be absolutely erased out of it. Do you, do you… have you seen that in your experience?
(J) It has become like a good-luck charm, as something that you wave at a problem that you want to be resolved and to be dealt with. You just, you say, you know, the power of Christ repel you kind of thing, you know, just ‘pssst, pssst-psssst’, and… But it’s not about the person, it’s not about the heart of, the purpose of, the power of; it’s just really, ‘here, why don’t You take care of this, now go-away’.
(M) It’s used like a magic word. It has been used like a magic word. And all of us have done that, but the Lord… you take the Blood as an experiential matter, the more precious it is to you, and more personal. And I want to go back to how personal Jesus made it when He introduced it. It’s in John six, and the context of it is very interesting. He fed the five thousand; then they gathered twelve baskets left over. And because of that sign in John 6:14, the people said, “This is truly the Prophet Who has come into the world.” So Jesus, really perceiving that they were going to make Him King by force, withdrew to the mountain, by Himself alone. The next then, the disciples were on the boat, and the next day, in verse twenty-two, the crowd was watching for him. So they got in a boat. They realized He was in Capernanum, and they got in a boat and went there. And other small boats from Tiberius, it says, went to where the Lord was. And they found Him; it says they found Him by the side of the sea and they said, “Rabbi, when did You get here?” And Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled.” In other words, they merely followed Him because He took care of their material needs.
(J) Hmhmm, hmhmm.
(M) And He said this amazing statement, “Do not work for food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on Him the Father has set His seal.”
(J) I’ve just never seen this before, where you’re going to connect it. I’ve just never seen those two connections. That’s amazing.
(M) So, they only want to make Him King so that He would take care of their material needs. And we can do that even to this day. “So they said to Him, what shall we do to work the works of God? And He said, this is the work of God, that you believe in Him Whom He has sent.” Well they were all excited about Jesus because of the loaves. They wanted to make Him King. They were following Him in little boats across the sea; and only four miles, but still, across the sea. And they said, give us another sign; we want another sign. (Martha ‘sing-songs’ the word “sign”) And they said, “What work do you perform?” And Jesus said… “Our fathers ate manna in the wilderness.” And He said, “But truly I say to you, it was not Moses that who gave you the bread out of heaven, it was My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world.” And they said, oh give us this bread… always. And He said, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen Me and yet you do not believe.” And He said I’ve come down to do the Father’s will, not My will. And then He said… Again, the Jews were grumbling about Him because He had said these astonishing things, and because He had said “I am the bread from heaven.” And they were saying isn’t He just the son of Joseph, isn’t He just… don’t we know His father and mother, and how can He say I came down from heaven? But Jesus knew their thoughts, so He said don’t grumble, don’t be logical and try to figure this out logically. “No one can come to Me unless the Father draws him.” And then He says, again, “I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.” Can you imagine, placing yourself as best you can in that situation, how shocking that was? And He said, “I am the living bread that came down out of heaven, if anyone eats this bread He will live forever.” Then the Jews began to argue about it and He said, “The life I give for the world is My flesh.” He took it from “I am the bread”, to “it is My flesh”. The Jews of course began to logically try to figure this out, that it didn’t fit anything that they understood logically. So Jesus said to them… more and more shocks. He had them, He had them, and they wanted Him. And then He began to tear down their motive for wanting Him, and to give them the means to have Him in a way that was totally distasteful to them. He said. “Truly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink.” Ok, so He said if you do this you’ll have resurrection, you’ll have life. “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood, abides in Me and I in him.” Tremendous promises that come from taking, eating His flesh and drinking His blood; eternal life, resurrection life, abiding in Him. Your connection is in Him. “As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me.” Can you imagine?
(J) No, I can’t.
(M) He’s asking them… they think in their limited understanding He’s asking them for cannibalism.
(J) Yeah.
(M) A totally unthinkable thing to humanity, but especially to the Jews.
(J) Umhmm.
(M) Ok, “These things He said, and many of His disciples, when they heard this said, this is a difficult statement, who can listen to it, who can bear it?” And Jesus said, “Does this cause you to stumble? What then if you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I have spoken to you are Spirit and they are flesh.” Of course this is where many left Him; many of His followers left Him.
(J) Absolutely.
(M) Because they could not fit it into their logic. And their mistake was not going to God and having God tell them what this was about. What does this mean? Who is this Man? “As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore.” And that’s very telling to me, John. Because what it means is, if you, if you will not be humble enough to actually appropriate the flesh and blood of Jesus, you have no part in Him, you have no resurrection life, you have no abiding, you have no presence of the Lord, and you will not walk with Him anymore.
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) “So Jesus said to the Twelve, you do not want to go away also do you?” And Peter, of course, said those famous things, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life; we have believed, and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.” But that… when Jesus introduced the Body and Blood as our sustenance, He did it in a way that was extremely personal I’ll say. He introduced it as His very Self. And I remember realizing that it’s not enough we talk about repentance. We are repenting; we’re pretty constantly repenting. Somebody’s repenting all the time. And repentance is the huge call. But in this time after the cross, if you just go to repentance and ask forgiveness, you have not really secured the Life of Christ. It’s possible to repent short of the Blood. Do you know what I mean?
(J) Hmhmm. I’m just on the… how it connects here.
(M) Ok, go.
(J) Well I just, I’m looking at how it connects to, yeah, twenty-seven, 6:27. “Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on Him the Father God has set His seal.” That’s what I was saying when I said I’ve never connected this. I’ve never connected 27 to the rest of the thing.
(M) I didn’t either.
(J) All of a sudden when you were reading it, I was like, oh, ‘my gosh’, that… Oh, ‘my gosh’. So to come up to repentance and not go the full distance…
(M) But what are you seeing in this now? Before you go to that. That the food is…
(J) Is Him! He is the food.
(M) He is the food.
(J) Do not work for the food that perishes. I am the food. Don’t work for the food that perishes, I am the food I am the drink. And if you are putting your effort and your trust and your being, into a perishable food, you’re, you’re foolish. And I just don’t believe that that’s just a Big Mac and some fries. I believe that that is all of our efforts, all of our doing, all of our works.
(M) Hmhmm.
(J) He says, no, it’s the Blood.
(M) Oh, that’s amazing. I never connected it either.
(J) I, ah, uhmm.
(M) Here we have a revelation ‘on the air’. (Martha laughs) It says, of course it is, “The Son of Man will give to you”, freely, “For on Him the Father has set His seal.” Let’s see what the Amplified says.
(J) “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me not because you saw the sign, but because you ate the loaves and the fishes.” The sign… I, I, I can’t say it yet, uhmm, but I’m just… it’s like a light bulb in my head.
(M) Oh, let me read 27 in the Amplified. “Stop toiling for perishable food, but strive and work and produce rather for the lasting food which endures continually unto life eternal; the Son of Man will give, furnish you that, for God has authorized and certified Him and put His seal of endorsement on Him.” And that, that, that… When you take your sin, literally to the Blood, and believe that the Blood deals with it, the Blood becomes too precious for you to wave as a banner. The Blood is Him. I assure you that I remember cutting my ankle very deeply one time, and it was… I cut an artery, so it was gushing, and I can assure you I got myself to the emergency room. That blood was frightening, to see it coming out of my body like that. That was my life, and I knew it.
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) I’m sure there are others that have had far worse, you know, experiences with their own blood. But you… Jesus Blood was His Life, and He intends us to appropriate, drink that Blood, and take it into us by faith, by faith, by faith. And the ceremony is to give us a visual of that. But that is the food that it’s talking about.
(J) And then 29 says, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him.” And then He goes on to tell you, hey, ok, you saw this, it was wonderful, you loved it, you just thought that was so awesome that you were fed. And then, but your belly is going to want more, and want more, and want more. But believe, believe in Me, believe in Him Who sent, and let Me show you how…. He just connects it, it’s sort of like a, a, just a connection here of links going from… here’s… You’ve eaten this wonderful bread, you have believed in Me, now don’t believe in that food, let Me show you a different food. Oh yes, let Me give you ‘that food’. Then He says, ok, well, its Me, so believe in Him who is, who is sent. That… I’ve never made this full connection all the way through this.
