"When The Blood Walked in and Took The Stand"

First, we must recognize that God had to get involved with taking care of man’s sin issues. Secondly, there had to be an innocent substitute for man. Man could not die for his own sins and be justified. Therefore, God had to get involved…I’m so glad He did. From Genesis all the way down throughout the scriptures, we see a “bloody trail” where God required blood for the penalty of man sins; innocent blood, sacrifice after sacrifice, it was a “bloody mess”. You might ask, “why did God require blood?” First of all, we must realize and understand that His Holiness will not allow Him to overlook nor ignore sin. Sin had to be dealt with one way or the other. We are living in a day where people are trying to minimize and justify their sins, but that will not work. Sin is a terrible thing. Sin is rebellion against the divine will of God. God knew that if man is going to be saved from sin, He must save man. There wasn’t anything man could come up with that would measure up to God’s satisfaction. His (man’s) good works nor his good deeds could satisfy God. Laws and instructions were given to man to follow in order to cover or atone for his sins so that the wrath of God would not be poured out on him.

God gave instructions to Adam and his sons. Moses and all the patriarchs understood what had to be done. In the Old Testament, there are pages upon pages of information concerning the Altar. God gave Moses instructions on how to build the Tabernacle. There were certain things that had to be performed. Inside the Tabernacle was the Altar. The High Priest was the most important person in the entire nation because he represented the nation to God. So, when they brought these animals…heifers, goats, rams, turtledoves, young pigeons, (animals God declared “clean” or "acceptable") to be given to the High Priest, the High Priest would first wash his hands and feet before entering the Holy of Holies. Innocent and flawless animals were slaughtered. The High Priest would lay his hand upon the animal’s head, cut his throat, and drain the blood in the basin. They would then take the animal’s blood, put it under the altar, on the four posts of the altar, and around the base of the altar. The animal’s blood served as a substitutional sacrifice pointing to the ultimate sacrifice. Whenever the blood was applied, it would only satisfy or pacify our Holy God. The blood is precious to God, and because life is in the blood, it must be innocent, blameless, and guiltless. God said, “I will not accept the blood of man because his blood is tainted”. So, they took the blood of these innocent animals, put them on the altar and burned those innocent sacrificial animals.

In the Tabernacle were the candle sticks, table of shewbread which represents the blood covenant meal, altar of incense, brazen laver which means “wash basin” and the brazen alter which means “brass”.

The high priest could only enter the Holy of Holies once a year. When the time came for the High Priest to enter the Holy of Holies to offer up the sacrifice unto the Lord for the atonement of their sins, all of Israel stood in attention.

When the priest went into the Tabernacle, the only thing he wanted to do was put the blood on the mercy seat, for under the mercy seat was the Laws, Aaron’s rod that budded, and brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds. (Numbers 17:8) All these items have a significant meaning. Israel knew that as long as they could hear the bells ringing, God had accepted their offering, and the High Priest was alive. Once again, year after year, the blood was applied. The Israelites were relieved because their offering had been accepted by God. Imagine this, there they all were, standing, hoping, and praying that God would not reject their sacrifice.

God’s mercy could not be released until the blood was applied. The same seat that was used for God’s mercy was also used for the judgment of God if the blood was not applied.

Notice now - the High Priest never sat down when he entered the Tabernacle. His work was never completed. Year after year, the same Blood Covenant Ceremony was performed. In the New Covenant, Paul speaks about us being complete in God, meaning, when Jesus completed his mission, it was finished. The “bloody trail” continued down through the years. I’m reminded of an incident that happened when the people went down to get the ark and placed it on a new cart. When they came to Nachon’s threshing floor the Bible says, “Uzzah reached out his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it, for the oxen shook it.” God killed him because the blood had not yet been applied (see 2 Samuel 6:6-7). We don’t want the wrath of God poured out on us, we want God’s mercy upon us and to give us more time. David learned from this incident. And it was so that when they that bare the ark of the Lord had gone six paces, he sacrificed oxen and fatlings. (2 Samuel 6:13). David said, “I’m covering my pass with the blood.” It doesn’t matter how much we praise God; we need to have the blood applied on our situations. It doesn’t matter how often we change our garments, do our dance and shout before the Lord (all of this is good) if we don’t apply the blood, God is not pleased. Cain tried to come up with his own way of doing things and failed to accept God’s way of serving, but he was rejected by God.

The human race was on a criminal trial, waiting for the verdict to be handed down. God, the master planner, the omniscient one, before He did anything, He prepared a Lamb before the foundation of the world. He had a plan to redeem us from the penalty of sin and death. The Bible says, “He commendeth his love toward us while we were yet sinners Christ died for the ungodly.” (Romans 5:8) We should be glad that our past is covered with the blood. We thank God for the New Covenant. Satan will remind you of your past because he wants to condemn you. Thank God when we look back and see that the blood has been applied to our past, we can’t help but to give God all the praise, all the glory honor, and adoration. We no longer have a past; we now have a future which is in Christ Jesus. Year after year, the criminal charges and the custody battles continued. Every year, whenever the Blood Covenant Ceremony was performed, the High Priest would enter the Holy of Holies, and every year the charges were never dropped, but rolled over to the next year.