Crucifixion

God has given us weapons to fight His battles. Let us talk about the most powerful one, which is called the Blood of the Lamb. I will confess right in the beginning that I did not know the Blood was a weapon. I did not know the equipment I had! I knew the song, “The blood that cleanses me from day to day shall never lose its power,” but I did not know that I had the greatest weapon in the arsenal of God! I see people in the Pentecostal church getting frightened and when they do, they start saying, “The Blood – the Blood – the Blood – the Blood – the Blood.” However, this doesn’t phase the devil. You have to understand how to use the Blood. And don’t tell me you are going to wait until you get into the battle! You have to learn to use it by practice. When they take you in to boot camp, they make you practice shooting. If you have not been practiced in the Blood, you are yet a child and you are not going to overcome in a real battle. And the battles that we have to go into in this time are against the worst spirits that ever walked the earth.

Have you ever thought about why Blood is our weapon? You see, God had put a secret in the blood – the life that was in God. God put the life into red plasma and placed it into the man. And He said, “Don’t kill a man. For the life of every man who kills another man will be forfeited.” Some of us are like doves and don’t believe in corporal punishment. However, God believes in it! The reason being that you forfeit a life for a life! All the innocent blood that is shed will have to be requited, because when it is shed, a curse falls upon the land. God has given you blood power so that through your blood power you can wipe out some of this curse. I will give you an example: If you go to a hotel room and there was innocent blood shed in it, pray and command it to be wiped out! Cancel it out with the power of the Blood of Jesus and you will be able to sleep well.

But then, imagine having a gun that has no shots in it. You have to have your gun loaded! Do you know how you load it? In order for you to operate the Blood weapon effectively, you must have it built in you. Get it into your mind first of all. You don’t have to worry about getting it into your heart for whatever is in the mind will get into the heart. You have to take the Blood passages from the Bible and read them over and over again in all its crucifixion phases until they begin to get into your mind. Memorize them and then begin to think about them. The reason being that they have to come forth unconsciously and fight for you when you need them. If it goes down into your heart, you will automatically pull it out. It will be as a reflexive action. In other words, the Spirit of God will activate your weapon in the time of need.

When I was a young Christian, I used to fast and pray a lot. Sometimes twenty-one days; sometimes ten days or two weeks; one time it was even forty days. It seems to me that I was just continuously fasting. I had to fast, because I had desires and evil things in my body that I hated! A young man asked me one day, “Do you mean, Brother Ces, that all through my life I will have to be fighting lust?” I replied to him, “No, you won’t have to. I got rid of it as a young man and so you can also get rid of it in your youth.” What does the Bible say about youthful lusts? “Flee!” And because “flee” means to “run away from,” it means you must run. It says, “Flee youthful lusts” (2 Timothy 2:22), and “…abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul” (1 Peter 2:11). Youthful lusts destroy the power of God in your ministry and in your life. I got rid of it when I was young and it was all thanks to God training me. I did not go to Bible school, but He taught me by actual living experiences. And that is why I want to train you and set you up now for the biggest battle of your life.

Jesus came to me one day and said, “Come with Me. I want to show you Calvary.” This is one part of my life I will never forget. He took me step by step in the crucifixion. He took me from the time they gave Him the first blow, when the centurion slapped Him on His face with the back of his hand, up to the crucifixion. After the centurion’s blow, I went with Him to the whipping, when the first Blood was drawn. They beat Him with the Roman cat-o’-nine tail. That thing totally strips your back. The flesh flies off when the cat-o-nine tail hits it.

I used to be an assistant prosecutor in the Resident Magistrates Court in Jamaica. At that time they used whipping as a punishment to beat some of the bad criminals. For this whipping they would use a cat-o’-nine tail. It was a leather strap with nine tails and at the end of each tail they would sew in a lead ball. Whenever the lead ball hit, it would leave a blood bruise inside, but you would not see any marks outside. When they would strike you, one hit would give you nine blows across your back. Many of the men who went through the beating were crippled for life. We had an especially strong policeman, whom we called Stanko. When they called him out to beat a man that man would be finished after Stanko was done with him. When somebody would commit rape, these guys would take pleasure in beating him across his back. You could be sure he wouldn’t rape anybody anymore for the rest of his life. And so, the cat-o’-nine made of leather would take off the skin on Jesus’ back. When His back was raw, they would rub either salt or vinegar in it.

Because of my experience from the court, I didn’t understand how Jesus could take 39 strokes from the cat-o’-nine and still be able to go up to Calvary. But He did. He was super-human. Any man would have died before he did, he wouldn’t have reached the cross. And that is what Satan actually wanted. But, Jesus still carried the cross.

The beating was the first Blood. I asked Jesus, “Why is it that prophet Isaiah says that by His stripes we are healed. Why by His stripes?” He gave me an answer right there: from the time the first Blood was shed, we were healed. I stood there and watched the Blood, the beating, and the whipping. By His stripes!

Then, they took thorns and twisted it into a crown. There are thorns that grow on long strings and you can wind them into a crown. Some people call it a “crown of thorns,” others a “Jerusalem thorn.” And so they made a crown of thorns and put it on His head. A man took a rod and hit Him on the head (Matthew 27:29-30). The scripture says that he shall smite the shepherd with the rod. He smote him on His head and as he did, the crown fastened down like a pincushion – right through the flesh of His scalp. When the thorns went through His head, the Blood streamed down His face like sweat. If you ever wondered what kept the crown on His head even when He was on the cross, it was the pincushion effect.

I am just telling you what Jesus showed me. You need to be able to read the account of Jesus’ crucifixion, understand how the Blood was shed, and get it embedded into your mind and into your heart. When we come to have communion as a church, we are to remember Him and His Blood (1 Corinthians 11:24-26). So remember it for these are God-created barriers of memory in your soul. We are psychological creatures and there is no need to try to get away from this. Yet, there are certain things that have to be done to us in our minds in order to get us to be ready to move in God.

When, therefore, the flesh of His scalp was broken, the Blood came through the skin at the base of His head. Then, He showed me all the abuse He received. He told me the thing that hurt Him most was when a man spat in His face and He could not even wipe the saliva, because His hands were bound. Again, another time, one raised a hand and cried, “Crucify him! Crucify Him!” and the hand that was raised was a hand that He had healed.

I went with Jesus through the whole ordeal until He got upon the cross. They put this mock robe onto Him and gave Him the cross to carry. Jesus was a carpenter and was used to carrying wood on His shoulder. This wood was in the shape of a cross. A lot of people say, “Oh, it was a stick, one straight pole!” Nothing like that! I saw a cross. He showed me how they abused Him on the way with it and how He fell beneath it. When He did, you must know that physical strength could not bare it. God ordained that He should fall down so that Simon of Cyrene was able to help Him carry it.

When they got to the cross, generally, the Roman soldiers would have to fight the man in order to get him down. Jesus lay down on the cross by Himself. The Bible says that like a lamb to the slaughter, like a sheep before his shearers, He opened not his mouth (Isaiah 53:7). They put a big, old, rusty nail in His hand and drove it down in and then another nail in the other hand. They put the feet together and drove one more nail through them. All this time, God was protecting every bone. The nail went between the bones. They never touched a bone. The Bible says that not one bone was broken (Psalm 34:20, John 19:33).

When they dropped the cross into the hole and he sagged on His hands, His head was slant to the left. The Blood came down from the head, down the arm, twirled around the armpit, and went down His body. The Blood was also coming from His feet down on the foot of the cross. The beating they had given to His body drove the Blood and the water down into His stomach. The Roman soldier came along, plunged his sword into His side between the ribs, and pushed it right up to strike the heart. This way he made sure that Jesus was really dead. And so, the Blood was also coming from His side. Blood and water gushed out from His side.

In all they were doing, they were bringing forth the Word of God that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. Therefore, all of the Blood had to be drained out. It is the same with animals. When you kill an animal, you hang it up to drain the blood and then you skin it. The Blood of Jesus Christ drained out and you may wonder why. The reason is that God had a secret. When the Blood of Jesus left His body, the Holy Ghost at last had a weapon that He could use. The Scripture says that the Blood of Jesus Christ had more power, more glory, than the blood of the natural lamb. Moses killed the lambs, took the blood and daubed it over the lintels and on the doorposts. When the evil spirits came, they could not enter through those doors (Exodus 12:23), because of the glory of God shown from those doors. What do you think then? If the blood of lambs with the faith of man could have had such a power, what does it say about the Blood of Jesus Christ? It is the absolute weapon to defeat Satan.

There was one more thing, which happened on the cross, that was very important. You see, when God made man, He put him down on the earth, a big statue made out of clay, and then, He issued Himself into the clay. The Bible said that He breathed. What else could you say in language to make human beings understand what it is to “exhale God?” Yes, God exhaled Himself into the man. Thus when Jesus Christ was on the cross and made His last cry, it was an exhaling of the God that was in Him. And all that was left on the cross was the bare man without God. The Bible said that the rocks, the whole earth shook, the whole world trembled; and the veil in the temple was rent in twain. I think it was an earthquake that shook the whole world. One of the things that was issued forth through this cry was the command of resurrection. The dead in Christ stirred in their graves and when Jesus resurrected, they came out and walked the streets of Jerusalem.

The Bible said that the lamb for the sin offering should be burned with fire without the camp (Exodus 29:14, Hebrews 13:11). Therefore, Jesus Christ had one more duty to do – He had to go to hell. All the saints that died before Him had to go to hell. Adam was there as well as Abel, Abraham, David, and others. Jesus had to go to hell to set them free. Also, if He didn’t go there, I would have to go! The wages of sin is death and He had to pay for my death! The price was not fully paid until He paid it in hell. But He went and paid.

And so, brethren, this is the way I learned the Blood. After it got into my mind and I read through the account in the Bible, it became a permanent foundation in my heart, a big mountain in my soul.

You also need a permanent foundation of the Blood in you, because the Blood is your life! God said that we in the last days are going to fight the last fight for which we need all the weapons of our warfare. And so, think of the Blood of Jesus Christ. And then say, “This is for my deliverance. He shed His Blood for my soul.” When you are faced with a devil and you begin to call upon the Blood of Jesus Christ to come and set you free, to deliver you, or to cover you, energy from heaven will come down and cover you, and it will blow away any devil. There is no devil in hell, not even Satan himself who can stand the Blood of Jesus Christ!