Blood Bought — David Ravenhill

The Cross as the Missing Element of Gospel Proclamation

Ecclesia. You know, the very first message God ever gave me was on the cross. We had graduated from Bible school, my wife and I, in 1964, we were working with David Wilkerson in New York City, and possibly a couple of months had gone by, and I was sitting one Sunday afternoon asking myself the question, why is the world still un-evangelized?

Two thousand years since the cross, two thousand years since the baptism of the Spirit, and you know, what's wrong? And out of that, over a period of time, God began to say, you know, we're missing the true understanding of the cross as an element of our presentation of the gospel that is inadequate, it's not the whole package, if you like.

And so from that came this message, and over the years I finally got it in print and sort of elaborated on it a little bit, and got some other writers like Spurgeon and so on to give their view, and so I called it Blood Board.

The Cross as God's Medicine for Human Sin

The first thing I think was a revelation, if you like, that the cross really is God's medicine for man's sickness. If I got sick and I had a runny nose, aches and pains, and I go to the doctor, and he prescribes medication, at the end of that course of medication, let's say ten days on penicillin or whatever, if I still have all the same symptoms, something is not right.

The medication has not worked, or the doctor has misdiagnosed my situation. Because if the medication works, it's to bring you back to your original condition, you know, we say, I'm feeling my old self again, you know, this is the way I used to be, you know, I had energy and so on.

And so the cross really is God's medicine for man's sickness. Having said that, it's to bring us back to his original intention and purpose. And so I developed the thought of trying to get into the mind of God, pertaining to his original plan, and I tell people, we live in a crooked and perverse generation.

In other words, everything we see right now was not the way God intended it to be. You know, I have two dispensations, before the fall and after the fall. And before the fall, obviously, everything was perfect.

And so we've got to go back to before sin, before corruption, before selfishness, and so on, and say, what was God's original plan? Some of the old-timers that, you know, taught used an expression, the law of first mention, or the law of beginnings.

And a good example of that is, like, divorce. They came to Jesus, and of course, they're always kind of embroiled in some controversy. And on this occasion, it's divorce. And they say, listen, even Moses gave us permission to divorce our wives, you know, what say you, type thing.

And Jesus very wisely took it out of the present debate, and he said, in the beginning, it was not so. In other words, the beginning always gives us a different perspective. Divorce came in because of sin, because of the hardness of our heart, and so on.

And so in order to understand what man was like when he was healthy, to use the illustration again, we have to go back to before he was sick. And so I take them back to Genesis, which is the book of beginnings.

God's Original Design: Submission, Placement, and Vocation

And Genesis 2, verse 15 says, the Lord God took the man, placed him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and to keep it. And I say there's three things that you can take from that verse. First of all, submission, the Lord God, not just God in a sort of generic sense, but God as Lord, Master, Creator, took the man.

In other words, man was totally compliant. There's no resistance, we don't have any arguments on man's part. So God had total lordship over him. And then he placed him in a geographical location, in this case, of course, the Garden of Eden.

And then in that location, revealed his vocation. This is what I want you to do. He didn't give man a choice of saying, would you like to do this or do that and so on. He said, I have a plan for your life, basically, and this is what it is.

So I develop that and I say, if we truly understand the cross, God wants to bring us back to his original plan. And that is, he wants access to our life. He wants to be able to take us without any resistance on our part.

Places wherever he chooses, whether it's India or Africa, China or whatever, and then say, I've sent you here or placed you here for this reason, to serve me. And this is what I want you to do. And so then I go to the New Testament, look at a number of scriptures.

Colossians, for instance, 1 .16 says that all things were created by him. And then it adds a little PS, if you like, to tweak it, and for him. I say, most of us don't have trouble with the fact that God created all things.

But why did he create all things? He created all things for himself. They were created by him and for him. And so I develop that with other scriptures, Revelation 4, verse 11. That it says, and for your pleasure, we were created.

And so I try and get into the mind of God, if you like, as to why he created man. The earth is Lord's, the fullness thereof. We are his people, the sheep of his pasture, and so on. In other words, he never created us to just simply live for ourselves.

Lordship and the Cost of Discipleship

And so that's the sort of the beginning of the book. Number one, how shall they hear without a preacher? And so because we have de-emphasized lordship, people just do their own thing. And so even if God is calling them to go to Africa, China, because he's not willing that any should perish, then people are not responding, and therefore people are not hearing.

And the other side is when we do preach it, again, we have sort of an optional discipleship. You can accept Jesus Christ as Savior, and then if you want to, it'll cost you a little more. You make him Lord, almost like buying a car, with or without automatic or sunroof.

And you can get the basic model, and you can get the deluxe model. And we've produced a gospel that has a basic package, which is very self-centered. I say again in the book that man's problem is selfishness, and that the root of all sin is selfishness.

The reason Jesus didn't say, if any man follow me, he's got to give up, and he listed 30 or 60 or 100 sins. He simply took the ax and laid it at the root and said, if any man come after me, he's got to die to self.

Because the reason we do all those sins is basically self-gratification. The reason I steal, the reason I cheat or whatever is all for self-gratification. And so we've got to die to self. And the problem with that is that from the moment we are born, self occupies the throne of our life.

And so because we're always and always have been geared around what's in it for me, when we look at the cross, we immediately look at the cross from a selfish point of view. What has Jesus Christ done for me?

How can I benefit? And so the cross then all becomes about me and not about him. And I tell people, I've got various scriptures, but the cross really is about God. It says in Revelation 5, I think verse 9, that Jesus Christ died and he purchased for God with his blood men from every tribe, tongue, and nation.

In other words, it's really a God-centered thing. We benefit, obviously we benefit. But the ultimate benefit is supposed to be God himself. And we fail to emphasize that because we have a man-centered view.

The Two Sides of the Cross

And so I teach that there are two sides to the cross. And normally, hopefully, in the church I'm in, if there's a cross, which is an advantage. And I say, imagine a cross here in front of you. And the left side of the cross is how man benefits.

And the right side of the cross is how God benefits. And I take them to Titus 2, verse 14, and it says, he gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from every lawless deed. I said, that's the side we know, that we're redeemed from every sinful act, every transgression, and so on.

On the left side of the cross, we're reconciled to God. We have peace with God. We have the peace of God. We're taken out of one kingdom, transferred to another kingdom. All of those things that we are familiar with.

But then it goes on to say, and purify for himself a people for his own possession. And I said, that's God's side. I said, what the blood cleanses on this side of the cross, the blood claims on this side of the cross.

And I use an illustration, and I've used it for years, and I've had people around the world say, you were at our church 20 years ago or whatever, and I'll never forget that illustration. The illustration is this.

I say, suppose my wife and I have only been married for a year, and we started our married life with a number of debts. And we've agreed together that before we go into buy any luxury items, we are gonna pay off our debt.

So a year goes by, and we are being successful. Our debts have been totally eradicated. And not only that, but we have $1 ,000 in the bank. We go out to celebrate, cuz we've hardly eaten out for a year.

And across the dinner table, I said to my wife, wouldn't it be great if we had our own car? One of the things we've gone without is a car. And we've cut down to the bare minimal in order to pay off this debt.

And she said, boy, it'd be great to have a car. And I said, well, why don't we buy one? And she points her finger and says, no, no, we're not going back into debt. And I said, but we've got $1 ,000 in the bank.

She said, well, laughs and said, well, if you think you can buy $1 ,000, a car for $1 ,000, good on you. And I said, well, I think I can. She said, okay, $1 ,000, but no more, we're not going back into debt.

I say, let's suppose also by way of illustration that that one year that we have lived as a married couple, we've established a reputation in the town, well, the community, as being Mr. and Mrs. Clean.

Everything about our house is immaculate, lawns are always beautifully manicured, everything is pristine, windows are always windexed, and so on. So I go out looking for a car, and I say to her, darling, this is my department.

You pray, and I'll go looking for a car. At the end of several hours of looking around, I finally come across a car, 25 years old. But it seems to be running pretty good, and it cost me $995. I buy the car and I drive it home.

I drive it around the back of the house and I start washing that car. And I mean, I am meticulous, I wash that car thoroughly, I take solvents, I remove all the grease grime, and so on. I take the seats out, vacuum the carpets, shampoo the carpets, just windex the windows, armor all the dash, even steam clean the engine.

And at the end of four or five hours of work, that car is absolutely without a trace of dirt. I then take all the cleaning paraphernalia and all the filth that I've got from that car, and I take it into the house, pile it on the kitchen table, shred the contents of the vacuum cleaner, shake out all the dust and so on, and I call my wife.

And I say, look what we got for $1 ,000, and here's a huge pile of dirt. And she says to me, you're crazy, I thought you went to buy a car. And I say, what was the object of my payment? I took my last penny, all that I had, and was it in exchange for all this dirt, because I value the dirt?

Or was it in exchange for the car? And I said, I think this is where the gospel has got sort of perverted somewhat. Jesus did die to wash us, but what he really wanted was the car. It was the car that I was really after, and almost as a byproduct, and I say that a little bit tongue in cheek, but almost as a byproduct.

He washed us because he has a reputation to uphold, just as I do. If I drive around that filthy car, there goes my reputation. People are gonna say, that guy's not Mr. Clean. Look at the car he drives around in.

And so God brings us up to his standard. Let everyone that nameth the name of the Lord depart from iniquity. And so if I'm gonna call myself a Christian, I have to live as a Christian. But the ultimate purpose is, he went to redeem for himself a people for his own possession.

Bought by the Blood to Belong to God

And so I emphasize that the cross really is about God purchasing and buying us. And therefore, he has a claim to our life. We benefit by being cleansed. We benefit by having eternal life and ultimately getting to heaven.

But God's benefit is, the people that he created for himself, he now has as his own again. And I emphasize 1 Corinthians 6, 19, and 20, you're not your own. You've been bought with a price, and it's you that being bought, not your sin.

I tell people, God does not have a sin collection. He doesn't relish collecting sin. I said, as soon as he gets it, he buries it in the depths of the sea. I said, your sin has no value to God. It can't testify, it can't prophesy, it can't tithe, it can't go on a mission strip.

It has no value. You do, and that's what he wants. He wants your body as his house, his temple, so that he can continue what he did through the original body of Christ, if you like, the Lord Jesus Christ.

That body eventually fell into the ground and died, and it brought forth, if you like, the mystical body of Christ. The original body of Christ, if I can put it that way, could only be in one place at one time.

If Jesus was in Nazareth, he couldn't be in Capernaum. If he was in Capernaum, he couldn't be in Jericho. If he was in Jericho, he couldn't be in Jerusalem, and so on. But that corn of wheat would abide alone unless it died.

Now we have the body of Christ, and it can be in Africa, and China, and India, and so on and so forth, but it's to do what the original body of Christ did. And that is, as the Father sent me, so send I you.

The Cross, Death to Self, and True Conversion

Well, first of all, I don't believe in ultimate reconciliation or universalism, that everybody's gonna be saved. And I think it depends on how the gospel is presented. If it truly is presented biblically, there is a cost.

Nobody wants to die. In fact, when I wrote my book, I sent it into a large charismatic publishing company. And it passed the first hurdle, and then it went to the committee. And the committee said, this is not a book that really will make money.

That was the gist of it. They put it nicely, but I mean, this is not a book that we think will appeal. And they said, it's not that the content's, there's anything wrong with the content. It's just, it's a message that is not popular, basically.

And I wrote the girl back that was the girl I went through. And I said, the cross has never been popular. Most people would rather go to the beauty salon and have a makeover than they would to the coroner's office to be buried.

And we have this makeover gospel. It's all about me, your best day yet, and your finest this. And it's all appeals to the flesh. But Jesus said, you've gotta die. And even the disciples said, this is a hard saying, who can bear it?

And so many forsook him because of that. On the other hand, I think if we truly understand the cross, and it may take time, it can be the happiest thing in the world, because you're coming back to your original condition.

God never made us to operate selfishly and for us to be in control. And the Bible puts it this way, if you seek to save your life, you'll lose it. If you lose your life, you really find it. And so when you find it, there is happiness, because you know you're in the center of God's will.

You're doing what God originally called you to do, so to speak. Whereas if you persist in doing your own thing, it will never work. It's like, well, let me put it this way. I think the majority of Christians in the church are really sort of frustrated with their Christian life, because it's not working the way God intended it to work.

And I think it's only when you lose yourself and truly die to self that you find yourself, and then there's meaning to life. He took our place so that we could have eternal life. But we are also, the Bible says, crucified with him.

And in that sense, he spared nothing. In other words, I can't have a partial crucifixion and say, God, I'll give you this, but I won't give you that. I'll give up my career, but I won't give up my girlfriend.

Or I'll give up my girlfriend, but I won't give up my career. So in that sense, he spared nothing, I assume, is what he's referring to there. The cross today, we would call it the electric chair, I guess, because we don't have crosses.

But if somebody said they were being crucified in the New Testament, you know that they were not gonna be back at work on Monday morning. And you'd never see them again. It was a total death process. The cross in our own life is a death to self.

It's I, Paul says, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, and yet not I, but Christ lives in me. And we've gotta come to that place where we truly die to my goals, my dreams. I had one passion in life, and that was to go into the field of graphics.

I had two brothers that were brilliant, straight A students. I was the dummy in the family. Brought home Fs on my report card on more than one occasion, as they tell people, if the job's worth doing, it's worth doing well.

But I loathed school, but I excelled in art. And I was gifted in that area, and it gave me a sense of self-esteem. And so I wanted to pursue that. And so from the age of 14 to 18, I mean, I wrestled with God.

I wanted to be saved. My father was a hellfire preacher. I mean, I've been dangled over hell. I know there is a hell in that sense. And I knew where I was going, even though I was a good kid. I never smoked, I never drank, I never slept around with anybody.

All of those things, as I tell people, I should be in Guinness Book of Records. They just haven't discovered me yet, or I haven't applied. But I was the worst sort of sinner. I was a religious sinner, like the Pharisee.

I thank God that I'm not like you, you, you. I've never taken drugs, never. But I had this overwhelming desire to please myself, and that was to do what I enjoyed doing. And so from the age of 14 to 18, I mean, I literally came under conviction of sin almost every meeting.

It was just God after me. It didn't matter who was preaching hardly. God was after me. I would literally shake under conviction. We were living at a Bible school at the time in Minneapolis. And then finally, at the age of 18, I came to the altar.

Before anybody came to pray, I said, Lord, you know I'm a sinner. I need your forgiveness. I need you to cleanse me from sin and so on. But I said, Lord, I'm not here just to give you my sin. I'm here to give you my life.

And I said, I'm going to just surrender totally all my dreams, goals, ambitions. And I tell people, you know, I think in the average church that maybe 90%, maybe that's high, but let's say 80 of the people have accepted Christ as their Savior.

But I'd only say 10 have given God their life. In other words, we readily give God the garbage. But the thing he really wants, the car, so to speak, we're reluctant to give him. And so that's the key, I think, to evangelism.

Spiritual Growth and the Lordship of Christ

If God had everybody that claims to be a Christian, if he was Lord over those people, he would be sending them out left, right, and center to do his will. But instead, we claim to be Christians and yet we're pursuing our own thing.

We may clean up our life a little bit. We don't cheat. We don't smoke. We don't sleep around, you know, type thing. But basically, we're still motivated by selfishness. There's a maturing process. In 1 John 2, Paul says, or John rather says, I write unto you children.

I write unto you young men. I write to your fathers. So just as we grow spiritually, we grow, just as we grow naturally rather, we grow spiritually. And so, you know, not everything happens at once. But I think as we begin to grow, we learn to trust God more and more as he answers prayer and so on.

Now, I think the biggest hindrance is that that foundation of lordship, you know, we never make. And so it's hard for God to lead us. And it's hard, you know, for instance, Psalm 23, which everybody and his brother knows, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not know.

But it's the Lord is my shepherd. He can't be your shepherd unless he's your Lord. You know, the Savior is not my shepherd unless I'm prepared to make him Lord. Because unless I'm prepared to follow, take up your cross and follow, unless I'm prepared to do that, things are not going to work out.

And so part of it is there is a frustration, I think, with a lot of believers because they've never made that initial commitment to lordship. And therefore, God really can't lead them because they're doing the wrong thing.

And so, you know, but I think once we make him Lord and truly make him Lord and we seek to do his will, then there's going to be answers to prayer, there's going to be God leading us and so on. And then we grow in grace, we grow in the knowledge of God.

And so there's always that growth process. We don't arrive overnight. And I think God understands that. You know, if you have children, you don't put demands on a two-year-old that you'd put on a six-year-old and you don't put the same demands on a six-year-old that you'd put on a 12-year-old and so on, you know.

And so I think God, you know, is a God that understands our position. For instance, in the Old Testament, when God took the children of Israel out of Egypt, it said that his desire was to take them by way of the land of the Philistines because it was shorter into the promised land.

And then it says, but if I take you that way, there will be war and you're not yet ready to fight. And so God looked at their spiritual condition and he bypassed the problem and he bypasses the Philistines.

A little while later in Judges, it says that there were those that never learned war and so God left in the land and the first one that he left was the Philistines. In other words, there's a time when God will bypass a Philistine because you're immature.

There's another time when he says, you should have learned to fight by now, I'm going to give you a problem. And so he places a Philistine directly in front of them so they can learn to fight. And so, you know, God deals with us according to our spiritual age, I think, too.

Spiritual Covering, Authority, and Accountability

Boy, that is a sort of complex question. I don't know if I've ever done a...tried to correlate the covering cherub with the covering of the skins. Obviously, you know, man sought to cover his nakedness because he suddenly was aware that the glory had departed.

Most people feel, you know, we've come short of the glory of God and the glory of God was some sort of covering. And when that covering left, then man became aware of his own sin and so tried to cover himself with fig leaves.

Of course, Jesus came along or God came along and provided the covering of the skin of an animal. But, you know, the covering in the body of Christ, when you say we need the covering of an elder or so on, I believe that only pertains to the local church.

In other words, I don't believe that my local pastor here in Siloam Springs has the right to knock on the door and tell me what to do, how many children to have, you know, this and that and the other thing.

I do believe that if I were to stand up in church and prophesy and he felt it was off, he has a right to sort of shut me down in a nice way, hopefully, because he is, you know, he watches over the flock.

And so I think there's a difference. I think we do have direct access to God, obviously everybody does as a believer, and that I have a right to seek the mind of God. Now, if I'm wise, yeah, I may bounce that off my pastor and say, listen, I've had a real sense in which God wants me to do ABC and my wife feels the same, you know, I'd love you to pray about it.

Now, when I say I'd love you to pray about it, I mean pray about it. I don't mean that all of a sudden he just comes up with God's will for my life because I happen to own the Toyota dealership and I'm paying, you know, $2 ,000 tithe into the kiddie every week.

And he says, oh, I don't feel good about that, you know, you go into California because in the back of his mind he knows he's going to lose, you know, a big contributor. But if he genuinely prays about it and says, you know, I prayed about this and I have a check in my spirit, then, you know, if I'm wise, I may say to my wife, listen, let's wait a little longer, let's not rush this thing, this is a major move, you know.

And so I think there's a place of covering. I don't think there's a place of dictatorship. And that has happened in a lot of circles, you know, the whole discipleship movement that got into that heavy shepherding and they were telling people, you know, literally, you know, what to do moment by moment almost.

But I do believe there's a protection that says they take... Oh, they watch over our souls as those that must give an account. But, you know, I actually wrote to a man, I won't mention his name, who wrote a book called Undercover.

And I wrote a letter to him. I don't...I have to be honest, I don't know if he got the letter or not, but I did get his email address and called the office and sent it to him. But at least I think he had a response.

And I said, I've just read your book Undercover. And I said, you know, God hates an imbalance, a false balance is an abomination to the Lord. And I said, so also is weighted teaching. In other words, we can weight things in a way that is a false balance.

And I said, your book is all about submission, submission, submission, but it's not about those who are in a position of authority. And I said, Jesus was far harder on those in authority than those under authority.

And I said, I can readily, if I'm a wife, submit to my husband if he loves me. But I said, your book basically says, submit, submit, submit. It doesn't say, you know, husbands love your wife or those that rule over you, you know, you take those things to God.

You know, you don't just say, well, listen, I'm the pastor, I can tell you what to do. No, you are also under authority. And so I felt there was a false balance there that, you know, Jesus made it very, very clear to the scribes and the Pharisees and so on.

Sin, Substitution, and the Cost of Forgiveness

You know, you weigh people down with heavy burdens, tell them what to do, and so on and so forth, but basically, you don't do what I'm telling you to do. Well, the Bible defines sin as a transgression of the law.

So, you know, the essence of sin, again, is breaking the law. I steal, thou shalt not steal. You know, I commit adultery, thou shalt not commit adultery. You know, I've got other gods before God. And so the cross deals with that by, of course, taking all of that.

Jesus took that penalty of the wages of sin, his death, and so he died in my place and became a substitute, and therefore, I got off the hook. And, I mean, that's, you know, in a very basic way what Jesus did for us.

He died for me. Yeah, well, talking about the cross and prayer, there is a place, obviously, where we can pray for our needs. God is a father and, you know, we have needs. Give us this day our daily bread.

But ultimately, I think we've got to also put in our prayer life, if you like, thy will be done. What is your will? So it's not just a selfish type of prayer, you know, meet my needs, here's my shopping list for today, God, you know, take care of all of this.

You know, we've got to get to the place where we understand what God is about. One of my favorite scriptures is Acts 13, 36, David served the purpose of God in his generation, and afterwards, he slept or he died.

And I said, we've got to find out what is the purpose of God in our generation, and how do we become laborers together with God in that. And so, you know, in our prayer life, God, what are you doing, and how do I pray effectively, you know, for whatever your purpose is?

Now, obviously, we can't, you know, necessarily cover the globe, but I think God can lay things on our heart, and then we've got to pray accordingly. And it may have nothing to do with my own personal needs, you know, it may be praying for a missionary that we know of that's going through a difficult time.

It may be praying for a nation like Japan right now with the earthquake or something like that. It may be praying for the next elections, you know, I mean, a variety of things, but we need to at least seek to understand, you know, what is God's will, and how do I pray in accordance with that?

Prayer as Fellowship with God's Purpose

And I think the enemy has, over the years, you know, number one, eradicated prayer virtually from the church, which is sad. And yet, my house should be called a house of prayer more than anything else, you know, more than a house of worship, more than a house of teaching.

I mean, those are implied as well, but my house should be called a house of prayer. And, you know, I do a little bit of teaching on prayer, and I say to people, which shocks them a little bit, if I could eliminate one word from our Christian vocabulary, it would be the word prayer.

They sort of look at me like, you know, your dad spoke about prayer his entire life, you know, and I said, well, I'm not saying I'd eliminate prayer, I'm saying the word prayer, because I said prayer has lost its appeal.

You say you're going to have a prayer meeting, and, you know, there's an inward sigh, if not an outward sigh. If you say, you know, we're going to have some recording artist, you'll jam the place to the gills and even sell tickets.

If we say some famous preacher is going to be there, you know, everybody will come. But if we say we're going to have a prayer meeting, nobody shows up, you know. And so, and then we've tried to supersize prayer by using the word intercession.

And, you know, that's sort of replayed. Prayer now is like a first grade stuff, and an intercessor is like a prayer warrior on steroids. You know, and I tell people, the Book of James says Elijah was a man of like passions as we are, and he prayed, and God shut up the heavens.

I said, imagine what would have happened if he'd have interceded. In other words, the impression is that prayers, you know, intercession really gets the job done. No, he prayed, you know. And so, instead of using the word prayer, I'd say let's touch the throne of God together.

Is that hymn from, I think it's Hillsong, you know, touching heaven, changing earth, that's really what prayer is about, it's touching heaven. And so we've got to learn to touch heaven, and when we touch heaven, obviously we get the mind of God, or should be getting the mind of God.

Knowing and Following God's Revealed Will

I had the privilege of working with an older man in New Zealand years ago. His name was Neville Winger. And he said that you've got to walk in God's revealed will before you can know his concealed will.

By that, there's the revealed will of God that is the same for everybody. This is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from fornication. So God's will for your life, my life, every other Christian is we don't get involved in fornication.

So there's the general will of God that is revealed clearly in the word of God. So unless we're doing that, we can't really know his personal will, if I can put it that way, or his concealed will. So I think the first thing to do is make sure that we're walking in the light, we're walking in obedience.

And then we start saying, well, Lord, what do you want me to do? Paul, when he got converted on the Damascus road, the very first words out of his mouth was not, Savior, thank you for taking away my sin.