When Jesus came to the earth, He came to declare war on the devil’s kingdom and take back what Adam lost through the fall. In order to do that, Jesus had to pay the price for sin and redeem the human race (2 Corinthians 5:21). Your sins and transgressions are paid for through God’s loving grace. You must repent, confess your sins, forsake your old way of life, and follow Jesus.
Because of man accepting and having a right relationship with Christ, he now is given authority, power, and dominion to use the name of Jesus and to apply the blood of Christ to see lives changed and forgiven.
Luke 10:17-24
17 The seventy-two returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.” 18 He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.19 I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. 20 However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” 21 At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do. 22 “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” 23 Then he turned to his disciples and said privately,“Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. 24 For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”
These men were amazed by the power of the name of Jesus. For the first time in history, men had power over their adversary.
Ephesians 6:12
12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
Because we are engaged in this spiritual battle, we need to know how to use our spiritual weapons that Jesus gave us.
2 Corinthians 10:4-5
4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
As we operate by faith and depend on Him, these spiritual weapons are supplied by God and have divine power. We are to move out against the forces of darkness and take new ground and territory for Jesus Christ and His kingdom. At times you may feel weak, helpless and unworthy, but you must trust the blood of Christ and the Word of God.
1 Corinthians 1:27-28
27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are.
Revelation 12:10-11
10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. 11 They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.”
The crucial statement here is this: “They overcame him.” Notice the direct, person-to-person contact of believers with the enemy. Their weapons in the fight were the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony. In addition, they were totally committed to the battle, even to death.
I interpret this text in a simple, practical way: We overcome Satan when we testify personally to what the Word of God says the blood of Jesus does for us. When we use these three weapons together—the blood of Jesus, the Word of God and our personal testimony—we make them effective. But to do this properly, we must know what the Word of God says about the blood of Jesus.
In 1 Peter 1:18–19 we read:
For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers but with the precious blood of Christ, a Lamb without blemish or defect.
Here Jesus is compared to the Passover lamb.
Under the old covenant, the blood of the Passover lamb was applied to the homes of Israelites. The father of each family killed the Passover lamb, collected the blood in a basin and transferred the blood from the basin “…Jesus walked into Satan’s slave market and bought us”
In Ephesians 1:7 Paul says, “In him [Jesus] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace” (NIV). Paul here states two things that are provided for us by the blood of Jesus: redemption and forgiveness of sins. In order to make these provisions effective in our lives, however, we have
to make the appropriate testimony. This is the message of Psalm 107:2: “Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, whom he has redeemed from the hand of the enemy” (NKJV). We have to declare boldly, “I am redeemed from the hand of the enemy”—that is, from Satan.
To redeem means “to buy back.” We were once sinners, displayed in Satan’s slave market for sale. But Jesus walked into Satan’s slave market and bought us back out of the devil’s possession with His own precious blood. This redemption from the enemy is based upon the forgiveness of our sins.
To make Christ’s redemption and forgiveness effective in our lives, then, we must use our personal testimony, saying, “Through the blood of Jesus, all my sins are forgiven. Through the blood of Jesus, I have been redeemed out of the hand of Satan.” That testimony, when we make it with our own lips, is like the hyssop. It transfers the power of the blood of Jesus from the realm of the potential into our practical daily living.
Cleansing
1 John 1:7
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
