P.O. Box 640109

El Paso, TX 79904

22 October, 2000

Dear Children,

Seeing how we’re already on the subject of blood, what better way to start this one off than by giving God the glory for the Perfect Sinless Blood of His Only Begotten Son. You see the fact of the matter is that if it weren’t for The Blood of Jesus, not one single human would stand a "snowball’s chance in Hell" of ever making it into Heaven. It’s only through Jesus’ death on the cross that us "sin filled" people can be considered "sin free" by God the Father. Because 2000 years ago Jesus took on all the dirty rotten sins of the world in His Perfect Flesh just so He could defeat them through His suffering on the cross. Jesus was made sin in order to conquer sin, and it was God the Father’s acceptance of Jesus’ Sinless Blood that likewise proved He did it. Praise God and Thank You Jesus!

So now that we’ve discussed the "sin free" blood are you ready for the "sin filled" blood? And just in case you have no earthly idea as to what in the world I’m talking about, it was in the last sermonet Naturally Dead Until Spiritually Alive (part VI of How Do You Want Your Fire... Now Or Later?) that we uncovered the fact of how the "soul" of God’s three part human (body-soul-spirit) is actually contained-in or a part-of the human blood. And iffin you’re still mystified about this crimson colored soulful matter, it’s the "soul" of us humans that God designed with a double set of ears in order for us to hear what both the "Spirit of God" and our "natural bodies" (the nerve sensors of the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and skin) have to say about what we ought to be doing next. Because when you take it on down to the basics, our "soul" not only makes the decision about what our bodies are going to do, but it also makes sure that whatever finally gets decided actually gets done. And you see it’s right about here that this thing about "the blood" comes into the picture.

So just how do you figure this blood stuff really works? Well in order to uncover the answer to that question what do you say we start off this digging expedition with a definition: Human blood is a reddish fluid that carries life-giving chemicals to and from the cells of the body as it circulates through the arteries and veins by means of the pumping action of the heart. And seeing how it’s the blood that gives "life" to the cells of the body, it only makes good sense that iffin it stops flowing the body’s gonna stop living. Got it?

OK, now that we’ve got a very general understanding of what human blood is, it’s time to get a whole lot more specific. Because you see blood can be broken down into the following four basic components: red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, and plasma. In fact just to give you an idea of how much of each actually goes into the blood mixture, one cubic millimeter of blood (a thimble full) contains about 5,000,000 red cells, 5000-10,000 white cells, 200,000-300,000 platelets, and the rest plasma. However if we look at the blood mixture as a volume of liquid we can say that it’s made up of approximately 49% red cells, 1% white cells, 1% platelets, and 49% plasma. And seeing how each of these four blood components has a different job to do in the human body, what do you say that we take a look at each one of them one at a time?

So starting things off with a little color first, the red blood cells (sometimes called red corpuscles) look like disks with great big dimples on both sides. And even though the unusual shape of the red cell is very important in determining "how much" chemicals it can carry, it’s the color that actually determines "which one" of the chemicals it will carry. You see the red color is really an "iron-containing protein" called "hemoglobin" that just loves to grab hold of two very important chemicals called oxygen and carbon dioxide. And of course the reason oxygen is so important to the human body is that each and every one of it’s living cells need it in order to keep on living. In fact each one of the itty bitty little cells in the human body kinda like takes in oxygen (the life-giving good stuff) and gives off carbon dioxide (the bad stuff) sorta like the lungs do. So the lungs "breath in" the life-giving oxygen that gets "breathed in" by the body cells, and likewise it’s the carbon dioxide "breathed out" by the body cells that also gets "breathed out" by the lungs. And of course seeing how most of the body cells are located a pretty fair distance away from the lungs, that’s the very good reason why God designed the red blood cells to carry the oxygen from the lungs to the body cells, and the carbon dioxide from the body cells to the lungs.

Now ain’t them red blood cells something? Well as neat as red might be, the white ones really ain’t any too shabby either. Because you see the white blood cells are sorta like the "armed forces" of the human body that protect the body cells from any of those "hostile foreign forces". I mean when it comes to fighting, these whites are what you call bad to the bone! In fact the best way to truly understand how bad they really are is by looking at the enemies they fight against. And just to name a few, you’ve got the enemy bacteria, the enemy allergy, and the enemy infection. So the question is, have you ever really seen any of these bacteria?

Well bacteria actually comes in several different shapes and sizes, but the worst looking one is probably a critter that’s pretty near the microscopic identical twin of the centipede. And just in case you don’t know what a centipede is, they’re creepy crawly little things with a whole bunch of legs that some people like to call "thousand legs". I mean these little thousand leg varmints actually come into our bodies and try their dead level best to gobble up our body cells. So just what do you think about that? Not a very pleasant thought! In fact that’s the very good reason why we should give the white blood cells a round of applause for the excellent job they do in protecting our body cells from all these grotesque and evil enemies.

All right, now that we’ve done the reds, and the whites, it’s time for the platelets. And even though these tiny spherical blood cells are the smallest of the three, they’re potentially the biggest because of the way they work. I mean these little critters know how to stick together when it comes to a crises. Because you see God’s sole purpose for these platelets is to keep the body’s life-giving fluid inside the body. In other words when the body’s blood supply plumbing (vascular system) develops any kind of a leak, these little round platelets sorta like grow Velcro hairs and link themselves together in order to plug-up the hole. Neat huh?

So we’ve got the red blood cells that sorta like make it possible for the body cells to breath, the white blood cells that protect the body cells against germ warfare, and the platelets that keep all this life-giving blood inside the body where it belongs. Three down and one to go, and believe you me this last one’s a real doozie. Because you see without the fourth and last component plasma, blood really ain’t blood. I mean you can take the plasma out of blood, and the blood will still be red, but it’ll no longer be a fluid. In fact without this plasma stuff the blood just flat out ain’t a gonna flow... and of course if it don’t flow then it ain’t a gonna go where it’s suppose to go. So based on that one little old watery fact, would anyone care to venture a guess as to what makes plasma a liquid?

Well if you guessed water you’re right. Because approximately 90% of all plasma is nothing more than ordinary H2O (water). And seeing how 90% of it is water, just what do you figure’s in the remaining 10%? Would you believe 8% of that is a variety of different proteins, and the remaining 2% is a mixture of salts (sodium, chloride, and potassium), nutrients (glucose, fats, and amino acids), hormones, and waste products such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen? You see plasma is really nothing more than a whole bunch of water with quite a few "other things" floating around in it. And as soon as we figure out what all these "other things" are we’ll be able to understand how the sin-filled Hell-bound "flesh and blood" human can be "spiritually quickened" into becoming a Heaven-bound "body and soul" child of God!

Whew! So after having said all that, I guess this is as good a place as any to announce that the title of this week’s message is The Water In The Blood! Because you see it’s through the following God-given sermonet that we’re gonna get one step closer to understanding the truth about the "salvation process" called "water and fire baptism". And with all that in mind, it’s about time to get into God’s chosen Scripture for this message:

"And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." (Ephesians 2:1-10)

Now I fully realize the preceding Scripture’s not too awful easy to understand, but of course that’s the reason I’ve brought along my shovel. You see it’s time to do some more digging. So where in the world do we start? Well what better place to start-off than where we left-off last. And iffin you recall, it was "in the beginning" that the first human (Adam) was created in the image of God with a perfectly sinless body, soul, and spirit that was very capable of disobeying God and becoming sinful. And from that first perfect man (Adam) God made the first perfect woman (Eve) who’s everlasting "soul" made the very imperfect decision to obey her "natural ears" instead of her "spiritual nose". And even though sin entered God’s perfect human creation through the woman, that was only a very small part of sin’s very big picture.

Because it was back in the Garden of Eden that Satan’s spirit possessed the serpent in order for Eve’s soul to be talked into sinning just so that Adam’s soul might be convinced to do the same. Understand? The first original sin started with Satan, traveled through the serpent, into the woman, and then on into Adam. In fact the reason Satan was so all-fired determined to get at Adam was because he knew how Adam’s body was design. You see Satan knew that if he could get man to sin then all of God’s earthly children, for all eternity, would be born into the world as sinners. It’s called starting life off on the wrong foot... destined to burn in the fires of Hell forever! That’s what Satan wanted, and that’s exactly what Satan got!

And now that we’ve said all that let’s review the Scripture just one more time: "And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience..."

OK, so after having read those few short verses do you have any bells going off in your head? Well the bells I’m talking about aren’t the kind that Pavlov’s dog heard when it was time to eat, but instead the kind that start ringing when you finally come to some earthshaking type of understanding. Because it was in the last sermonet Naturally Dead Until Spiritually Alive that we uncovered the Truth about how the first original sin of Adam and Eve not only "yoked" their "natural bodies" to Satan but it also made them "spiritually hard of hearing" to God’s voce. And because of this very sinful condition both Adam and Eve were "stinking rotten dead" even though their "living breathing warm blooded bodies" were still very much alive. So Adam and Eve were "living dead", and likewise all their children were going to be born "living dead", however all the "dead" could be made "alive" if they would only become "spiritually quickened".

So that’s where we left off last time, and that’s where we’re picking it back up this time. Because in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians he addresses the people as folks who were once "dead" in "trespasses and sins" but were "dead" no more because they’d been "quickened". And after having made the announcement that the "dead" were now "alive", Paul went right on into a full blown description of exactly how their deadly trespasses and sins all came about in the first place... which had something to do with a prince who was really a spirit who’s kingdom was of the air.

Now iffin I didn’t know any better I’d be tempted to believe that Paul had been reading up on a few of those "fractured fairy tales". I mean who’s ever heard tell of a Spirit Prince ruling over the Kingdom of Air? Well the truth of the matter is that the spirit of Satan is this prince, his powerful kingdom is the air that surrounds the earth, and he wants nothing less than for every person in his kingdom (that’s us) to be his "living dead" loyal subjects forever. And of course the way that Satan keeps all the "living" folks "dead" is by getting them to obey him instead of God (disobedience). He tells them what to do and they do it!

So Paul describes "sinners" as the "loyal subjects" of a kingdom who obey each and every command given by its powerful evil prince ruler. And even though it’s a whole lot easier visualizing folks in the fairy tale setting of Kingdom of Air, the truth of the matter is what Paul’s described in this Scripture actually goes on inside the human body. I mean take for instance the part about "And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience..." Would you believe me if I told you this thing about "walking" actually goes on inside of the body?

Well I didn’t figure you would, but somehow I’ve got to explain it so that you will. And I guess the best place to start is in the Greek. Because you see the word that "walked" was translated from means "to tread all around and make a path". And of course this thing about "making a path" is pretty easy to understand when the path just so happens to be across waist-deep grass covered ground in the Kingdom of Air. Because you see wherever this well traveled path cuts across the grassy field there’s actually no grass at all, but a well worn dirty old rut instead. And seeing how these dirty old ruts are so tempting to travel, it only makes sense that the Kingdom Air folks just keep right on taking them wherever they go. However the one big problem with Kingdom Air ruts is that they were made by the "children of disobedience" who were walking where they shouldn’t be walking in the first place (obeying Prince Satan instead of King Jesus).

Now all this Kingdom Air waist-high grass is just about ready to get a whole lot deeper... so follow close behind and don’t get lost. Because when it comes to the human body and sin, this thing about "treading all around and making a path" is exactly what "sins and trespasses" is all about. You see a "sin" is the path that’s made by walking across the field of waist-deep grass, for the very first time, in order to get to the forbidden place that was highly recommended by the "prince of the power of the air". And of course a "trespass" is the dirty old rut that comes about after having walked the same sinful path repeatedly.

So just what in the world has this got to do with the subject of "the water in the blood"? Well iffin you can just hold the phone for a few more minutes we’re gonna find out! Because where this path is about to take us is right back to the telephone discussion we had in Possessed By The Spirit? You see in that particular sermonet we used the telephone to describe how the human "master computer control" works inside the body. In fact it’s the nerve sensors on the outside of the body (the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and skin) that make telephone calls to the brain on the inside of the body, thereby letting it know exactly what’s going on in the outside world. And of course once the brain gets updated on the current world events it places a call to the various body parts (after first getting approval from the soul) letting them know exactly what must be done in order to keep up with the times.

Now iffin you could look inside the human body, what you’d see would be a whole bunch of these "telephone lines", strung out all over the place, from the top of the head to the bottom of the feet. I mean what I’m talking about here is an enormous amount of wire, but the body’s got to have it in order for all those body sensors to talk with the brain and the brain to talk with all the body parts. It’s really and truly one more mind boggling set-up! In fact just to put all this into it’s proper perspective, try to imagine only the amount of wire needed to connect-up each and every nerve sensor of the skin (touch, temperature, and pain) with the brain. It’s absolutely unbelievable!

And now that you "see" the human body as "a whole bunch of wires", let’s change the name of these "telephone lines" to "paths". Because in the true sense of the word it’s these "telephone lines" that allow the "telephone messages" to "walk" the "path" from the nerve sensors to the brain and then back to all the different body parts. And of course seeing how we’ve only used these "telephone lines" and "paths" to help explain the way human "nerves" really work, it’s now the appointed time for us to walk on out into some neck-high grass. In other words this little discussion is about ready to get really deep!

Because when you get into the specifics of nerves, you’ll find that even though they might act like one long piece of telephone wire they’re really not. In fact the nerve that extends from a nerve sensor on the skin to the brain, and then back to some other part of the body, is in reality not one long nerve but sometimes many short little nerves stacked together end-to-end. And you see it’s each one of these short little nerves that’s actually made up of a center piece (neuron) with very special connectors on each end (dendrites and axons).

Now without getting all bogged down in the nitty gritty details (neurons, dendrites, and axons), it’s only because of the nerves very unique short-length end-to-end set-up that the "master computer control" has the ability to get a few of it’s wires crossed during some really critical phone calls. In fact going back to our lovely couple in the Garden of Eden, there were quite a few of these "nerve wires" that had to get crossed before Adam and Eve’s bodies could actually go through the motions of picking and eating the forbidden fruit. Because you see when it comes to the forbidden fruit, God had designed their bodies so that their brain could not tell their arms to reach out and pick it, and neither could their mouth open up and eat it. That’s the way God designed it, but of course with the help of a few crossed wires their bodies were able to do the exact opposite by committing the very first sin.

OK, so are you still with me? Well relating all this crossed wire stuff back to the last sermonet of Naturally Dead Until Spiritually Alive, it was right about the time Adam and Eve’s soul gave their bodies the go-ahead to do the "picking and eating" that their blood carried out the orders by just making it all happen. And of course seeing how their bodies were designed not to sin, but yet they could sin by crossing up a few nerves, then the blood must have been what made the nerves cross in the first place.

Bueno! We’re finally making some headway. In fact now that we’ve uncovered this additional information about the blood it makes it easier to understand how a person can be "alive" but "dead" until "spiritually quickened". Because you see it all goes back to the way God designed the blood with it’s two major components. The red blood cells are what keep the physical body "alive and breathing", while it’s the watery plasma (with all it’s chemicals) that either straighten out the body’s crossed-up nerves and make it "spiritually alive" or cross-up a few more nerves and make it more "spiritually dead".

And I guess this is about the place we ought to get back to our discussion of "paths". You see God designed every "nerve" in the human body as a "path" that would take the soul of that human where He wanted it to go. In the beginning Adam and Eve’s nerves were all laid out nice and straight in a "sin-free" line... and that’s exactly the way they stayed until that very first sin. Because in order for them to sin their straight nerve path had to become very crooked. And it was this same crooked path that they continued using until the waist-high grass turned into a dirty old rut.

So before it was all over Adam’s body had a whole bunch of these dirty old crooked ruts for his sinful soul to follow, which of course got passed on down to his kids, who likewise passed them on down to us. And with all that in mind it should be a whole lot easier to understand what the rest of this Scripture is all about: "And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others."

Now seeing how the word "conversation" tends to put a few folks in an uproar (which even includes the homosexual community), what do you say we start things off by looking at it first. Because you see in real world terms it really and truly means nothing more than "a lifestyle" or "how the human chooses to live their life". And of course the way far too many folks (including the homosexuals) live their lives is according to what their flesh wants instead of what the Spirit of God wants... which brings us to this one more very important word "lust".

So what in the world is this "fleshly lust" thing all about? Well I know you’re going to have a hard time believing me, but if you take it on back to the Greek you’ll uncovered the fact that "lust" is "the desire in the human to sin" which results from a well formed path (pathos) in the flesh. And if you do the Greek thing on the word "path" you’ll discover that it means "the results (experience) of a sinful diseased soul." In other words "lust" is the well worn sinful nerve path in our flesh that continues tempting us to use it even though it ain’t the path that God wants us to take. And of course this "lust of the flesh" can either be inherited by the person from their parent or created on their own through the sinful choices of their "spiritually hard of hearing" soul.

It’s called a "lifestyle", and it’s nothing but a nerve path of sin, but it can be changed through faith in Christ. Because the Scripture says "But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."

So according to that Scripture we are all "naturally dead" until we make that choice to become "spiritually quickened" through Christ Jesus. And even though we’ve got a whole bunch more digging to do on the subject, what we’ve uncovered so far is that sin is a part of the human body’s nervous system which can be corrected by having the proper chemicals flowing in the blood’s watery plasma. The "sinfully crooked" nerve paths of the human body can be made into "righteously straight" nerve paths through a blood plasma process that only comes about through faith in Jesus. And just to give you a few more hints on how the "quickening process" really works, it all starts out with "faith in Jesus" which turns into the "good works for Christ" that ends up straighten out the paths that the Christian must continue walking for the rest of their lives.

Wow, what a message! Now I fully realize how hard it must be to follow this path that I’ve tried my best to lay in today’s sermonet. I mean what God’s telling me about the "human body and sin" is not very easy to understand. But please believe me when I say that even though it’s a very deep subject, a proper understanding will result in many lost and dying souls getting saved.

So until next time, why not straighten-out those sinfully crooked nerves by Keeping The Faith In Jesus!!!

Love,

Dad (Bruce Hallman)