The Blood Is A Weapon To Be Wielded

The Dragon is the adversary. We are up against the Devourer.

All truly spiritual people know that today; some more than others, perhaps.

If he can swallow us up, he will.

I believe he is out to strike us with death if he can, to strike our bodies with death, to strike our souls with death.

Let me say this word to those who are more intimately associated with things...

That the more we come to stand in relation to the Lord concerning the heavenly kingdom and that priestly ministry in the heavenly kingdom in relation to the throne, the more shall we be aware of the immediate proximity of the Dragon, of him who would strike with death, strike our minds with death, strike these bodies with death. 

That will explain a good deal for some.

The nearer we get to the vocation of the man-child the closer we come to the Dragon... 

The more shall we be conscious of the encompassing and encircling of death, and shall cry to get out of it, and say, This is not life, it is death!

Are we going to accept it?

It is death; but where is the virtue of the Blood? 

Do we refuse it on the ground of that mighty shed Blood? 

They overcame him because of the blood... and we are not going to accept death, because of that Blood.

Perhaps some might misunderstand that.

We are not saying that we are not going to the grave if the Lord tarries long; but that is not accepting death.

We can die, and go to the grave in the physical sense, but that can be victory; not defeat, but triumph!

We do not accept death.

You may know it spiritually, you know it mentally, you know it round you and playing upon you when you come into close touch with that ultimate end of God in the testimony of Jesus Christ. 

Look after that explanation; hold on to it.

It calls, beloved, for standing up against the adversary, the engulfer, the swallower-up. 

Blessed be God, there is going to be a greater swallower-up than he.

Death is going to be swallowed up.

There is one who will swallow up if he can. 

Against the Dragon, against the Adversary, against the Accuser, against the Deceiver, the Blood is adequate, sufficient;

But there must be a positive, active appropriation of the full power and meaning of that Blood and a standing upon it;

A taking of it up as an active instrument.

Oh! to get a company like that here and now who know and appropriate the power of the Blood;

Not in the strength of the flesh, but emptied of self, and in all humility, nothingness, weakness, standing in HIS virtue, the power of His Blood...

And standing up and using that mighty weapon against the operation of death now, all round, to get through to that end which God has in view.

That is what is needed now, a people like that.

May the Lord bring this home to our heart, that this may not be an address but an appeal, an urge of the Spirit of Christ - bringing us into that thing actively by prayer.

Remember your ground, remember your weapon, remember that all the emptying of self, the weakening, the bringing down, the chastening, the discipline, is to bring you to an effective place.

Pride has no standing here; self-sufficiency has no standing here; self-strength comes not into this; naught but the precious Blood.

Weakness is not helplessness.

Helplessness on our part is not despair.

No, it is the open way for the mighty efficacy of the Blood to come into operation.

~T. Austin Sparks~