Redemption by the Blood — Keith Malcomson

Redemption by the Blood: Ruin, Redemption, and Regeneration

I want you to turn with me here just to one verse in the New Testament to Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 7. We're just going to read this one verse tonight as we come to part 2 of our series which we simply called Ruin, Redemption and Regeneration.

As we said last week, these are three vital truths that we ought to preach and understand and proclaim to others. Ruin by the fall, we dealt with it last week. Tonight Redemption by the blood and next week Regeneration by the spirit.

Reading here tonight Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 7 and my message is Redemption by the blood. Redemption by the blood. Ephesians chapter 1 verse 7. In whom, that is Christ. In whom, in who, in Him, in Christ.

In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace. Let's pray together. Father, we do pray tonight, Lord God, that you'd bring the power of this redemption, Lord God, to individual souls and lives.

Lord God, we heard about the curse last week. Lord God, the ruin of mankind, the tragedy of sin entering into humanity. Lord God, how all sickness and death and disease and anger and bitterness and jealousy and war.

Lord God, it all sprung forth, O God, when man fell in a perfect paradise and garden. Lord God, I pray tonight, by your grace and mercy, Lord God, grant your Holy Spirit to apply the power of Jesus' blood, the remedy, the answer, the cure for the curse, O God.

Lord God, I pray, let your Holy Spirit apply it and interpret it to every single heart and mind. And even tonight, let us experience and enjoy the blessing and the washing of the blood of Jesus. In Jesus' mighty name, Amen.

The Threefold Message of Ruin, Redemption, and Regeneration

Redemption by the blood. I said last week how D .L. Moody, that great American evangelist, when he was asked what his theology was, he said, my theology is very simple. It has three points to it, ruin by the fall, redemption by the blood, and regeneration by the Spirit.

When he was asked further, where did he get such definitions of what he preached, he said, well, C .H. Spurgeon of London, I learned it from him. That great London soul winner and preacher and expounder of Scripture, he also preached these three simple truths.

So it's very apt tonight that we preach on these three truths. And last week, we dealt with the ruin of the fall, that every man, every woman that is born has been ruined by the fall. Sin has ruined every single man and woman.

Here we have tonight, we've dealt with ruin by the fall, but I want to move on and deal with redemption by the blood. We dealt with the curse last week. I want to deal with the cure here. I showed you the tragedy last week, but I want to show you God's remedy and answer.

And there is no other remedy. There is no other answer for your sin. There's no other remedy for the curse. There's no other answer for the fall of mankind. There's no other answer for your fallen nature.

There's no other remedy than what Jesus accomplished on the cross. And so here tonight, we're dealing with redemption by the fall. That word redemption, I hope tonight, is going to become very precious to you if it hasn't been before.

When you begin to look at the blood of Jesus, you see the full provision of God. And as we dealt with last week, we've been talking about this the past week. Last week, I used a lot of words that unless you spent a bit of time around the Bible and around church, you may not understand.

But we don't throw the words out. We preach and teach and inform you what they mean. And so we use words like redemption, justification, imputation, sanctification, reconciliation. And unless you've been around this for a bit, that means absolutely nothing to you.

That's why we preach as we do. In Nehemiah chapter 13 verse 23, Jerusalem had had a revival very recently. But the preacher, Nehemiah, went away for a period of time, then he'd come back. Listen to what it says in verse 23.

In those days also saw I the Jews that had married wives of Ashtod and of Ammon and of Moab. So he comes back. He had brought revival in Jerusalem. He goes away for a time. When he comes back, he starts to see these Jews that have been taught the word of God, that are meant to be followers of the real God, who are meant to be taught the word of God.

And you know what those Jews had begun to do in Jerusalem? They began to take a wife of Ashtod and Ammon and Moab and married them and began to have children by them. These three tribes were pagan tribes.

They worshiped Baal and Ashtoreth and they lived immoral, sinful lives. And yet you had Jews who knew better, marrying these women, marrying into these cultures, taking these women and having children.

These were not repentant believers that were coming into Israel. These were simply beautiful women who the Jewish men were marrying. Then listen to the consequence, verse 24. And their children, they came from these Moabitish women and these Jewish men.

It says, and their children speak half in the speech of Ashtod and they could not speak in the Jewish language. Notice here that when you get a mixture amongst God's people, they lose the ability to speak clearly with defined, understandable words.

It says the children that had mothers of Ashtod and fathers of Jews, that they actually spoke half in Ashtod. Half of their language, their terminology, their conversation was that of Ashtod. Ashtod were the Philistines, the enemies of God.

And in fact, all of this language from the Philistines came into Jerusalem. Do you know what the equivalent of that is? Some years ago when Candice and I just traveled constantly preaching and teaching, we'd fly out, go to a country or a church and then come home, and we would attend a church in this city.

And one Saturday, Candice came back from a ladies' meeting and she was crying and her heart was broken. And I said, what's wrong, are you okay? She said, at that ladies' meeting in that church here in Limerick, the women started to sit around in their meeting and began a discussion.

Why do we use the word redemption? Sure none of us understand what redemption means. And why do we use these old words? Why not use some other terminology? In that same church, in the same period of time, a few weeks later I think it was, I was in a house with the men.

And the lady that had said that at the ladies' meeting, who was now affecting the pastor's wife with the same ideology, her husband was over in the men's meeting and I was there and he sat down, he was very deliberate, and he began a discussion.

Why do you talk about the blood? We don't understand about the blood. That sounds vulgar and vile. And it was just that weekend when I was in the church on the Sunday, the pastor took me into his little office and he said, well Keith, you need to understand, in his culture they don't like talking about the blood.

And you need to understand that he and her, husband and wife, they're from a different culture and they don't understand this. Oh yes, they're born again. Yes, they're mature Christians, but they don't use words like redemption.

I want to tell you what happened in Nehemiah's day happens in our day, and that's why I'm going to preach on redemption in the blood. You know why? It's a biblical word, it's a biblical teaching, and more than that, it's so essential that if you don't understand it and you don't believe it and you haven't experienced it, you will die and go to hell.

That's how serious it is. And so my introduction, that's my justification for using lots of different words like justification and imputation and all the rest. Listen carefully here as I go into this message.

Redemption as Purchase and Ransom

What does the word redemption mean in the Bible? The Greek word redemption used in the New Testament, it means to buy something. You pay a price to actually purchase it. So it is the price you pay to possess something or to have something.

To redeem something means you buy it. You pay a price for it. This is where we get the word ransom. You give a ransom. Now I know none of you in this room are ever likely to be kidnapped and held to ransom.

I'm not sure we'd pay much for you to get you back. So no one's going to do that to you. But if you ever watch the movies and popular culture, we have where someone gets kidnapped and they pay a ransom.

They use that word, we pay a ransom. It's common in our culture. You know what they're saying? We pay a set price in order to get that person back. That is paying a ransom. That's what you're given. Now the word redemption, that is literally what it means.

It means to pay a price to gain something that without payment, you do not get it. It means to secure or to guarantee the possession of something by paying a price and that you lose someone from imprisonment or captivity by paying this price.

You've got to understand redemption, how the word is used. It says in Acts chapter 20 verse 28, listen carefully. The church of God, which he, that is God, has purchased with his own blood. Notice that the Bible says God has purchased the church with his own blood.

God has paid a price for the church to have the church. He paid a ransom. He paid a very great price. What was it? It was his own blood. Or what about 1 Timothy chapter 2 and 5? It says, for there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.

Listen carefully. Who gave himself a ransom for all. Who is the ransom? It is Christ. What is the ransom given for sinners who are ruined by the fall, destroyed by sin, under the curse? Their mind is messed up.

Their will is messed up. Their life is messed up. What is the ransom that is going to be paid for you as a sinner? It is Christ himself. It is the blood of Jesus. This is what redemption is. What is redemption?

The price of Jesus' blood is paid to redeem you or to save you. This term redemption, when the Bible, the New Testament was written in the first century, this term was used specifically in reference to purchasing slaves in the slave market.

This is the word they would actually use. If you went down to the slave market in the center of the city of Rome and you were going to buy a slave, you would use this word, redemption. I'm going to redeem.

I'm going to pay a price. I'm going to give a ransom that this person, this man, will become mine. I will own him. I will possess him. And so a price has got to be paid for this prisoner or this slave, a price paid for his freedom.

And in fact, the Greek word redemption used in our New Testament, it goes even further. It's not just purchasing a slave. The Greek used here is to buy a slave to set them free, not buy them to have them, but to buy them to loose them, to make them go free, to give them liberty, to give them freedom.

Do you know the city of Rome in the first century, half the population of the city of Rome were slaves. It had a population of at least a million people and half of them were slaves. Right across the entire Roman Empire of about 120 million people, the whole culture existed and rested upon slave trade and the operation of slaves within society.

And so everyone in the first century understood slavery. They understood what a slave was. They understood how you buy a slave and sell a slave, how you own a slave or how a slave gets their freedom. I wonder if you, if you're sitting here and you're a sinner tonight, I wonder if you understand how to go free.

I wonder if you understand if you're in Adam, you're a slave, you're a prisoner, you're in trouble. Do you know how to go free? Do you know it's only by redemption in the blood of Jesus? A slave in the first century, his owner owned all of his property, owned his wife.

Any children he had belonged to the slave owner. The bed you sleep on, the house you dwell in, anything that you do belongs to the slave owner. You don't have any possessions, any liberty, any freedom, any rights.

You lost all of that. Can I tell you as a sinner, you lost everything in the ruin, the fall of Adam. By sin, sin has destroyed your life. It has stolen friends from you and it stole your health and your sanity.

It stole and destroyed you, sometimes as a willing participant, sometimes as a victim. I want to tell you, sin is a very vicious thing. And so this word redemption in the New Testament, when a slave was in the market and he got redeemed and a price was paid for him and then he was told, you can go free.

This word redemption meant something in a real way, freedom from bondage and captivity. The core word of it means to be set free, to be loosed, deliver, to be totally free from everything that held you back.

We have redemption through his blood. Where are you going to get this redemption, being set free? Where are you going to get the price that's going to pay for you to go free? Look at your life, your sin, what you have done, the decisions you made.

What are you going to do? Refix your life, redo it again, try better in the future? There's only one answer. Only one answer and it's in the blood of Jesus. The blood is the ransom for your life. You'll destroy your life unless you experience the ransom of Jesus, paying a price for a slave who is then set free by the one who bought him.

Do you know what happened? It would be instant freedom, deliverance and release right there, right then, not progressive. You're free. Today you're free. Go free. The price is being paid and the price is the blood.

Redemption from Sin and the Forgiveness of Sins

Let me give you several different points here very quickly. Number one, redemption from your sins. What happened in redemption to a sinner? We saw that the fall, sin destroyed mankind. But what does the blood do?

When you put faith in the blood, I want to give you these several things. Number one, redemption from your sins. Look again in Ephesians 1, verse 7. It says, in whom we have redemption through his blood.

You have redemption in the blood of Jesus Christ that was shed on the cross. What does that mean? The forgiveness of sin according to the riches of his grace. When you come to Jesus and you put faith in his blood, what he done on the cross.

Do you know the first thing that happens? All of your sins are forgiven. The price is being paid. Are you going to try to work off those sins? Are you going to try better? Are you going to try to blank them out and forget them?

Do you know what the Bible says? Through redemption, the price of his blood, you receive forgiveness of your sins according to the riches of his grace. Now look how you get forgiven. According to the riches of his grace.

You know what grace is? It's on merited favor. God giving you what you do not deserve. Remember what mercy is? Mercy is God withholding what you deserve. You deserve the wrath of God. So God's mercy holds back the wrath of God.

What's grace? God giving you what you do not deserve. You have not earned and you should not have any rights to. Do you realize this forgiveness is according to the riches of his grace? Do you know how rich God is?

Do you know how rich God is? It says here according to the riches of his grace. Grace is his unmerited favor. It's the riches, the abundance of his grace, of his favor of saying, I want to give you what you don't deserve.

You don't deserve it. Lord, I don't deserve it. I know. I'm trying to tell you that. You don't deserve to be forgiven. You don't deserve your sins to be blotted out, never to be remembered ever again.

You don't deserve to be made clean and to feel as if you've never once sinned in your entire life. You don't deserve that. But do you know what? The ransom has been paid. The price has been paid. You're a prisoner.

You're a slave. You can go free tonight. And you know what? The price was paid in the blood of Jesus. And the first thing of it is you're forgiven. The word forgive means that God releases. Lets go of, sets aside, forgets, forgives, does away with your sin.

When you get forgiven, God says, that's it. I will never, ever bring it up again. Do you know you can't have a relationship with a boyfriend or a girlfriend? Well maybe you could squeeze through there, but certainly not with a wife or a husband unless forgiveness is central in that relationship.

You won't have a relationship in a year's time if you don't practice forgiveness. Why do you think there's so many marriages destroyed and relationships can't stay together? You know why? People don't forgive one another.

They don't know how to. Oh, I'll forgive you, but I'll never forget. Do you know what? Oh yes, I'll forgive you, but I'll make you pay for it every single day for the rest of your life. That isn't forgiveness.

The first great blessing of the price, the ransom paid, the blood of Jesus, is that you're forgiven. I want you to see it's in the blood that you're forgiven, only because of the blood. The blood forgives you of all of your sin, every single sin.

Have you done a sin and you think it can't be forgiven? Then you're saying your sin is bigger than the blood of Jesus. I want to tell you there's nothing like the blood of Jesus. It forgives you. Do you know in our Bible that the blood is mentioned three times as much as the cross?

Five times as much as the death of Jesus. That means when we come to talk about the cross and the death of Christ, the most important thing is the blood that he shed. He didn't spill it. Never talk about Jesus spilling his blood.

You know, spilling is an accident. Shedding is a deliberate act. His blood was shed. He laid down his life. That's where the forgiveness is. You know, this is where John MacArthur gets it so wrong. On this issue more than any other issue I've ever heard him say, he actually does not preach the blood like I'm preaching tonight.

He doesn't believe in it. He actually believes it's sufficient to preach the death of Christ and the cross of Christ, but he doesn't preach the blood of Christ. Check it out. And so we see in Hebrews 9 .22, it says, without the shedding of blood is no remission.

If Jesus had died on the cross but not shed his blood, you couldn't be forgiven tonight. If he had died with a bullet, if he died of a heart attack, you couldn't be forgiven. What does the Bible say? Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission, no forgiveness, no dealing with your sin.

Blood has to be shed. You know, some people say, I don't like blood in the gospel. You're going to have a big problem then, I'm afraid. Because you know what? You get all the way from Genesis to Revelation, the blood of Jesus Christ.

When Adam and Eve sinned right at the beginning, remember they made aprons to cover their nakedness? And then the Lord come looking and said, Adam, where are you? He's hiding. Why? Because he's ashamed.

He's covered himself with his own apron and yet he's still ashamed of his own nakedness. Even though he covered himself or attempted to. You know what God does? God slays an animal. The first blood ever shed was by God.

The first blood ever shed in all of human history was by God in the garden of an animal to clothe Adam and Eve. That's where it all began. What about Cain and Abel? You see them. You have Abel offering up an animal sacrifice of blood and you have it all through the Bible.

You know all of that? It was 4 ,000 years trying to teach people that without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness. You know what I was looking forward to? Was Jesus Christ dying upon the cross for sinners.

Without the shedding of blood, there's no remission. If you get diagnosed today with cancer and they say it's all through your body, you're going to die with it. It's very serious. Maybe by some miracle, they'll say, your cancer is suddenly in remission, remission.

You can have cancer go into remission, which means after all the tests, the physical exams and the scans, it shows up that your cancer is gone. It's no longer in your body. You know what they say? Your cancer is in remission.

We can't find any signs of it. We've looked, we've searched, we've studied. It used to be there, but it's not there anymore. It was there. It was definitely there. Your cancer's in remission. That's what they talk about.

You know someone who gets washed in the blood of the Lamb? Your sin is in remission. It was there. It was definitely there. But now we're studying it and you go, you needn't be looking for all my sins down over the years.

It's gone. It's in remission. Without the shedding of blood, there's no remission. I want to tell you tonight, there's remission. All of your sin can be washed away. All of your sin can be forgiven and no one will be able to find that sin.

It'll be washed away in the blood of Jesus Christ. When a criminal goes to prison, they might say, your sentence is in remission or you have remand. It means a reduction of time that someone has to spend less time in prison.

He was given six months remission for good behavior. You know what? It's getting less. Remission means forgiveness. That six months has been canceled out. You'll no longer have to serve it. No wonder in John chapter 129, John the Baptist came preaching, behold the Lamb of God.

Look unto Jesus. He pointed the finger to all the crowds. He pointed the finger. He said, I preach repentance. I've dealt with your sin. I've exposed your sin. I've talked about your sin. I've told you to flee from the wrath to come.

Now I'll give you the answer where you're to run. He pointed at Jesus Christ, his cousin, and says, behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. He sent 4 ,000 years of lambs. It's all about him.

He, the Lamb of God, slain, will take away the sin of the world. He is the answer. What does it mean that your sin is removed? It means to have it lifted, carried away, to remove from your sight, removed from one place and put somewhere else.

Where is your sin tonight? Are you carrying the burden of your sin, the guilt of it, the feeling of it, the consequence of it, the memory of it? Or has your sin been laid on Jesus Christ? You see, either you're a sinner bearing the penalty of your sin, or Christ is your redeemer who's paid the ransom.

Who is it tonight? Where is it? He not only removes your sin, remember what justification means? Justification, just as if I'd never sinned. Do you know what that's what redemption means? I suddenly, for the first time in my life, stand on a condition as if I've never once sinned in my entire life.

Do you know that's where a Christian begins? Do you know the Christian life begins here? You don't earn this. You don't mature into it. This is where you begin. You stand on a condition as if you've never once sinned.

Redemption from Disobedience and Iniquity

It's the removal of all guilt. It's the removal of the eternal consequence of your sin, and it brings you into relationship with God. Number two, redemption from disobedience. Not only redemption from your sin, what does the blood do?

Remember the song we sing, what has the blood done for you? We sing it here. We sing about, tell me, what has the blood of the Lamb done for you? I'm giving you the answers. Redemption from all of your sin.

Secondly, redemption from disobedience. It says in Titus chapter 2, 13, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing or manifestation of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. What sort of Savior are you looking to come back and appear again?

It tells you here, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity. Do you know the Jesus who's coming back again? Do you know who he is? He's the one who gave himself for us at the cross on the tree.

He gave himself there. That's the one who's going to come back on the clouds of heaven in great power and authority. It's the one who died on the cross. Why did he die on the cross? Why did he give himself?

To redeem us from all iniquity. Now, notice that very carefully, there's the second thing. Redemption from disobedience. Not just redemption where all your sins are forgiven, all that you've done wrong is forgiven.

But this second point, redemption from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people. It says here that this blood redemption, the price paid at Calvary was made that when you get forgiven of your sin, you'll also be redeemed from all iniquity.

That's why I tell a new Christian, if you say, I've just been forgiven and you still get drunk, you still sleep around, you still blaspheme for morn tonight, I have to question that. You see, the blood not only totally forgives you and cancels out your debt, it redeems you, it purges you out of all iniquity.

What does iniquity mean? The violation of the law. In other words, from being in a condition where you say, I'm not subject to any law, I live without law, without boundaries, without commandments, I'm free, I'm forgiven.

And now it doesn't matter how I live. Actually, the Bible says when Jesus shed his blood, it was to redeem you from all iniquity, from living a lifestyle that says, I don't have any boundaries, no restrictions, I don't listen to the law of God, I can do anything I want.

See if you ever meet anyone in the church like that, they're not washed in the blood of the lamb. Their sins have never been forgiven. Because it not only forgives you, it redeems you from all iniquity, from loving the world.

There's order, there's obedience within you. And here the apostle Paul says, not only redeeming you from all iniquity, but to purify unto himself a peculiar people. So look what happens through the blood.

You are redeemed from a lifestyle of rebellion against God. Rebels aren't washed in the blood. They're not forgiven by the blood. They haven't experienced the blood of the lamb. Because when I'm totally forgiven, I actually come out of a lifestyle of utter rebellion against God.

It's impossible to be a rebel against God and yet forgiven of your sin. Someone told me today on the phone speaking to me, an older Christian, talking about someone living a sinful life in this city, in the world, but they're a born again Christian, once saved, always saved.

You can live like the world, in the world, but you're a Christian. I don't believe that, don't believe it at all. And so we see here the blood redeems a people from an iniquitous lifestyle to purify unto himself.

In other words, to make clean a people who are going to be a peculiar people. That means beyond normal, special, different than that world out there. I can identify people who have been forgiven by the blood of the lamb because they've been redeemed, ransomed, set free from a life of disobedience.

Oh, I'm not talking about sinless perfection. I'm not. I don't believe any of you are sinlessly perfect, neither am I. But I'm telling you, if you still act the same way after being washed in the blood, I will challenge you and say you never experienced the blood, never.

That's utterly impossible. It also says here that it was to redeem you so you could be zealous of good works. Now I know a lot of preachers do not believe the Bible. They don't believe this. They actually do not believe that part of redemption by the blood is to make you zealous for good works.

In other words, you have a burning passion, a fire that says, I want to serve you, I want to obey you, I want to do good works, I want to serve you. They'll call that legalism or say you're under law.

No, I'm under the blood of Jesus Christ. That's the second great mark of this. Not only absolute, complete forgiveness of every sin, no matter how dark, but the second one, redemption from a disobedient lifestyle.

Redemption from Cultural Influences and Former Ways of Life

Number three, redemption from your old cultural lifestyle. Listen, 1 Peter 1 and 18, for as much as ye know that ye were not redeemed. So it's all about redemption. You know when the word redemption is used in the Bible, it's always talking about blood.

It's always connected to a price. The word redemption never stands alone. Some people think God can forgive me and they don't see it connected to the blood of the cross. You go out there and say, do you know God loves you?

Yes. Do you believe he forgives you? Yes, absolutely. They could care less about the cross. They know nothing about the blood. They just believe God generally forgives everyone. That's a deception. That's a lie.

Here it says, redeem not with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

So look at this third point here. Redemption from your old cultural lifestyle. Do you know what the blood of Jesus does? It doesn't only totally forgive you. It doesn't only redeem you from disobedience, but it actually redeems you from your old cultural lifestyle.

Look what it says here. Redemption by the blood has purchased you from your vain conversations. The word conversation here means your lifestyle, how you live your entire life or think about every area of life, marriage, home, family, work, all of it.

That's your conversation or your lifestyle. The blood of Jesus, what does it do? It redeems you. It pays a price. It delivers you. It loosens you. It sets you free. The blood of Jesus Christ sets you free from your old lifestyle that you received by tradition from your own fathers.

When it talks about the tradition of your fathers, that's the entire culture you were raised in. Well, you need to understand, Brother Keith, I'm Irish. I was African. Whatever your nation is, I'm from the Czech Republic.

Do you know what it says about the blood of Jesus? It redeems you from an entire cultural way of thinking, how you were taught by your fathers, your culture, your school, your parliament, by everything of society, by the young generation around you.

They say, this is how we live and think and breathe, and this is life. This is what we are like Irish. We'll turn up five days after we tell you we'll be there. I'll definitely be there at 12 o 'clock tomorrow.

You're sure? Yes, absolutely. You phone them. No, tomorrow I'll see you at 12, okay? You phone them again. No, next week I'll see you at 12, guaranteed. I'm telling you, it's all through this culture like no other nation I've ever lived in apart from some African nations.

Can't compare with anywhere else in the world. And so Irish culture, and it's not only Irish culture, it's every culture, the blood of Jesus redeems you. You know why? Because we blame our culture. Oh, well, I don't get up until 10 in the morning.

That's our culture. What about the Bible? Oh, well, we all drink in Germany. That's our culture. You need to understand that. We like a social drink. We have a few glasses of wine. That's our German culture.

All born-again Christians in Germany drink wine, all of them. That's what they do. Do you know what it says here? The blood of Jesus redeems you or sets you free. Do you know you not only get forgiven of all your sins, brought out of a disobedient lifestyle, but you get saved or delivered from being bound and imprisoned in your own native culture, your culture, your environment?

Or what about your family? Well, my dad always done this. My mom always done this. You need to understand how I was raised. I want to tell you the blood of Jesus has more power than anything of DNA or hereditary things passed on from your father.

You say, but my dad lied, and my grandfather lied, and my great-great parents, they used to lie. And this is actually a part of me. I think it's innately in my DNA. You know what? From Adam, it's in all of your DNA, okay?

You need to settle that. It is in your DNA. Everything is in your DNA. But don't you blame them. The blood of Jesus Christ redeems you. You know what it says? Your vain conversation. That means your empty, pointless, hopeless lifestyle that you had before Christ.

It was vain. It was empty. If you look back admiring your sinful life, you're in dangerous ground. Those that look back, do you know what they do? They go back. It goes on to say in 1 Peter chapter 4 and 3, for in the time past of our life, when we walked, and it begins to list sins.

You know the Bible often lists sins and explains them. Your past life, your old life, you walked in certain sins. What did that look like? Well, lasciviousness. That means no restraint morally. No one could tell you anything.

That's how you live outside of Christ, not when you're redeemed by the blood. There's no lasciviousness. You don't say, I don't have any restriction. You do have restrictions when you're redeemed by the blood.

You used to walk in the lusts of your flesh. That means deep long. It's not only sexual lust. It's these deep, driving longings that make you live a certain way. Do you know all of us have lusts of the flesh, all of us in this room.

But I tell you what, if you're driven to constantly walk in a certain way by them, you haven't been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. Excessive wine. That's different from taking a glass of wine. It's the stage between taking a glass of wine and being drunken.

It's somewhere in between these two points. In your old life, you walked in excess of wine. You used to think that's okay, but you don't when you're washed with the blood. It goes further, revelings. It's the word kumos, kumos.

You used to, outside of Christ, before the blood touched your life, you walked in revelings or kumos. What is that? That's you used to meet up regularly in environments where the atmosphere was created by drink.