Hello there. Hello to all of the Cottonwood family, whether you're here
locally or part of our great family online around the world. Grace and peace
to you in Jesus name. You know, we're in the midst of some very interesting times.
Been unprecedented in my lifetime. The coronavirus has basically shut down most
of the world. We're just meeting together as a church family, and as the body of
Christ online right now, rather than gathering together physically. And we're
trusting that will change shortly because I miss the physical presence of
my brothers and sisters. But I do want to bring the Word to you, and I want to
bring some encouragement to you, my friend. God is there with you right now.
He's not forsaken you. He's got good things in store for you,
and I had something on my heart that I wanted to share with you. I want to talk
to you about the big difference. Specifically, when Israel was in the land
of Egypt. The area of land that they lived in was called the land of Goshen.
And when God sent Moses to bring His people out of Egypt, God made a
difference between His people and the Egyptians. God made a big difference
between His people and those who were not His people. In fact, it says in Exodus
chapter 8, verses 22 to 24, says, In that day, was God speaking, And in that day I will
set apart the land of Goshen in which My people dwell that no swarms of flies
shall be there in order that you may know that I am the Lord in the midst of
the land. I will make a difference between My people and your people.
Tomorrow, the sign shall be, and the Lord did so. Thick swarms of flies came to the
house of Pharaoh, and into his servants houses, and to all the land of Egypt. And
the land was corrupted because of the swarm of flies, but they didn't come into
the land of the Israelites. God made a difference.
When all of the plagues came into the land of Egypt, God set His people apart.
We read again in Exodus 9 and 4, it says in the Lord will make a difference
between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt,
so nothing shall die of all that belongs to the children of Israel. But Egypt lost
a great portion of its wealth: their cattle, horses, donkeys, camels, and oxen.
But not the Israelites God made a difference. He made a big difference. And
then speaking of the night that the Israelites partook of the Passover, it
says in Exodus 11 and verse 7, But against none of the children of Israel
shall a dog move its tongue, against man or beast, that you may know that the Lord
does make a difference between the Egyptians and Israel. God made a
difference. Exodus 10 and 22, So Moses stretched out
his hand toward heaven, and there was thick darkness in all the land of Egypt
three days. They did not see one another; nor did anyone rise from his place for
three days. But all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.
There was darkness in the land of Egypt, darkness in the dwelling of the
Egyptians. But there was light in the land of Goshen. Light where the people of
God were. Light in the dwellings of the people of God. And my friend, God has
light and protection and provision for His people today. He has light for you. He
has protection for you. He has provision for you
I mean, God's given us light, hope knowledge, promise, a future. He's given us
light. I remember once I was at LAX, and this is just sort of a little mini drama
that was played out in an elevator, but it kind of showed a difference. I have
gotten in the elevator with a bunch of people to
go upstairs to get in the lines where the flights were gonna go. And there was,
it was a big elevator, and there was probably I'm gonna say eight or nine
people in this big elevator. One person was in a wheelchair, had a person pushing
the wheelchair. And in between floors the elevator suddenly became stuck and one
of the people in the elevator was an individual that worked at the airport, an
airport official. So they get on the little telephone in there and it's dead.
There's no response at all, and it was just interesting seeing what took place
in that little mini theater there. Some people immediately began to panic;
some people immediately began to curse and to get angry and to blame. And me,
I I just started laughing. Now, that's a little thing getting stuck in an
elevator. Missing a flight is a little
thing. And I just had a perspective that God, you know, as big as You are and in
the grand scheme of things, this is pretty small. And I started laughing, and
people got angry with me because I was laughing. And we're actually in the
elevator for a long time, and then finally, me and one of the guys there, we
sort of pulled this little Samson gig. We put our fingers, you know, between the
elevator doors, and we pried it open. He pried it one way, I pried it the other
way. It's literally stuck between floors, and so we lifted everybody out. We
started with the person in the wheelchair. We lifted them out. We lifted
all the other people out, and then finally I crawled out last out of that
elevator. And I did make it to my flight. But it was just interesting to see the
difference of responses, the difference of attitudes, the difference of the
way people viewed things. I was very hopeful, and just realized that God is
bigger than that, but some people immediately it was panic, it was fear. Are
we gonna be stuck in here? We're gonna have anything to eat? What are we gonna
do? You know, God does make a difference between His people and the people of the
world. Now God also provides protection for us. Yes, he does.
Light, provision, and protection. You know, the real game-changer in this story,
in the book of Exodus, it was the blood of the Lamb. That was the real
game-changer. God told His people, said, Alright, everyone, every family kill a
lamb. And you take the blood of that lamb and you put it on the sides of your door.
And you paint the top of your door with the blood of that lamb. And then you have
you Passover meal. You eat the lamb, and then when the angel of death,
when the plague comes through the land, that night every house that has the
blood on it, it will pass over that house and leave it untouched. But all of the
homes of the Egyptians, the firstborn died in every home when that angel of
death, that plague came through the land. But where there was blood,
my friend, there was safety. Where there was blood, there was protection. Back in the
Scripture it says this. Exodus 12 and 13, Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the
houses where you are, and when I see the Blood I will pass over you; and the
plague shall not be on any of you to destroy you when I strike the land of
Egypt. Here's the thing, first Corinthians 5:7, For indeed Christ our Passover was
sacrificed for us. It was all a type and a shadow pointing to Jesus and what He did
with His precious blood. And I just want to tell you, my friend, the precious blood
of Jesus is over the doorpost of the door of my heart. And if the plague wants
to come through, well, it's just gonna have to pass over and keep going because
I'm covered with the precious blood of the Lamb. My family is covered with the
precious blood of the Lamb. You know Romans 3 and 25 says this about
Jesus, Jesus whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith,
to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance God passed over the
sins that were previously committed. God set forth Jesus
as a propitiation by His blood, through faith. Another translation says, For those
who have faith in His blood, God has set Jesus out as a propitiation. Now,
obviously that's a word that we don't use every day when we're talking to our
friends, or when we're at work. It literally means a covering. In fact,
it's used to describe the covering, the top of the mercy seat. Literally, God has
set Jesus out to be a covering, a covering of mercy for those who have
faith in His blood. As surely as the Israelites were covered in the land of
Egypt by that blood, and the Death Angel had to pass over, my friend, Jesus is a
covering over us. A covering of mercy. You know, once when I was visiting to
Australia, the day before I got there, there was this huge hailstorm. And they
weren't just just little marble sized pieces of hail. The pieces of hail,
the chunks of hail coming down were the sizes of golf balls. Literally broke out
hundreds of car windshields, damaged thousands of cars in the city where I
was preaching. And when that hail started to fall, man, if the hail fell on you, hit
you in the head, and could literally kill you. And so people ran for cover,
they ran into buildings, they ran under things that could cover them and protect
them from the destruction that was falling. Well, my friend, Jesus shields us
because of His precious blood. He shields us from the ravages of sin and much more.
Like Israel, they were shielded from the darkness, and from the the plagues, and
the sicknesses, and the vermin that came into the land. And my friend, Jesus, yes, He
shields us from the ravages of sin. But He shields us from sickness. He shields
us from the plague. He shields us from from vermin. He shields us from the
hopelessness of darkness. And we do have a better
covenant established upon better promises. The book of Hebrews, it declares,
think about that, if all of those things were done for the Israelites, and we have
less, well, it's not a better covenant. I mean, it's better in the sense that we're
free from sin, but if the old covenant, if the type and the shadow provided certain
things that are not provided under the new, then at least in that respect the
new is not better. But we have a better covenant established upon better
promises. You're gonna tell me that the blood of an earthly Lamb has more power
to shield me and protect me than the blood of the Lamb of God has? No, never in
a thousand years. my friend. There's power in the blood of Jesus. You know, the verse,
Revelation chapter 12 and verse 11, And they overcame him, that is the devil, they
overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony. And they
loved not their lives unto death. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb.
Jesus is set forth as a shelter, as a covering of mercy for those who have
faith in his blood. Those that have been around for a while,
been around in the church for a while, you'll remember that the old timers used
to plead the blood. They used to sing a lot of songs about the blood of Jesus.
There's power, wonder-working power in the blood of the Lamb. And my friend, I
want to tell you there is wonder-working power in that blood. And their idea of
pleading the blood is basically just confessing their faith and the power of
the blood of Jesus. One old minister that I knew, he would travel from his church
and whenever he would leave his family would get sick. He said, I mean, it
was just just guaranteed. He'd leave and his wife would get sick. He'd leave, and
his kids would get sick. And it really hindered his traveling ministry, and so
he decided one day, look, enough is enough. I'm gonna put a
stop to this. And he just did something outwardly. It's an outward way to
express the inward faith of his heart. And he got the family. They owned a big
piece of property. He says, come on, brought the whole family outside and
they sort of made a little little train. He's made his wife put her hands on his
hips, the next oldest child, you know, put their their hands on Mama's hips, and
then the next child put their hands on that child's hips. And they had a whole
sort of little train going. And he said, we walked around the whole property and
I walked around the whole perimeter, and said, I put the blood. I put the blood. I put
the blood. I put the blood. And the kids and the wife were behind him. You know, I put
the blood. I put the blood. Well, you know, it might have looked crazy to somebody, but it
was just an outward way to demonstrate and express the faith in his heart. In
the power of the blood of Jesus. And he said, from that day on his wife never got
ill again when he left. His kids didn't get sick.
He said, the devil was trying to hinder my ministry, trying to hinder me from
going out, and sharing the Good News with other people. And I'd have to cancel
trips because they'd get sick, but he said, never again.
Once we just made that declaration, I put the blood, I put the blood, I put the
blood. Do you remember the story when Israel came and invaded
the promised land, and they came to the city of Jericho? Rahab the harlot, she hid
the spies, and then sent them away. And she said, you know, remember me. I've shown
you kindness. And they said, okay, you put a scarlet cord down your window, and when
we come and we take the city, you'll be protected. She said, okay. How the
Scripture tells us, she lived on the city wall. And she put a scarlet cord out her
window, down that wall, as a sign of her her trust in Jehovah God. And in the Word
of His people. And you know what, when they marched around the city of Jericho
seven times and the the trumpets were sounded, those ram's horns and the
people shouted, all the walls fell down flat. And they went into the city, except
for one section of wall. It was that section of wall where
Rahab the harlot's house was, and that scarlet cord was hanging down the window.
She and all of her family that she got in, my friend. That scarlet cord is
representative of the blood of Jesus. There was destruction all around, but God
protected them. I've got the blood painted over the door of my heart, in my
home I got the scarlet cord hanging out the window. My friend, I have faith in the
blood of Jesus, our conquering Hero, our soon
returning King. He loves you. Put your trust in Him. Put your trust in His
precious blood that's set forth as a covering from the ravages of sin and so
much more. Hallelujah to the Lamb of God forever
Father I pray for every person that's watching me right now, every person
that's listening. I pray that you'd open their hearts, that the truth and the
reality of the power of the blood of Jesus would dawn upon them, and they'd
see how beautiful and wonderful the Son of God truly is, and how miraculous this
redemption that we have truly is. Lord, I pray for those that have not come to
know you personally, that they'd open their hearts and confess you as Lord and
Savior. I pray that healing would come to those that are sick; that depression
would leave those that are plagued by it. Lord, we thank you for your precious
blood that covers us, that shields us, and that will eventually take us into heaven.
For we know it's on the heavenly mercy seat in that Holy of Holies, and it cries
welcome to those that were lost in sin. It cries welcome to all of those who put
their trust in that precious blood. My friend, God's arms are open wide. Heaven
is open wide. Thank you, Jesus, for what you have done. And thank you, friend, for
being with me for a little while. May His richest and best be yours, always.