Alright brethren, let's go to
Luke chapter 22. Luke 22. Again in verse 19, The Lord took
bread, and He gave thanks, and broke it, and gave unto them,
saying, This is my body, which is given for you, this do in
remembrance of me. Likewise, also the cup after
supper, saying, this cup is the New Testament in my blood, which
is shed for you." Now, we're remembering the Lord's at the
Lord at his table this morning, and he's told us here that this
broken bread symbolizes his broken body. He says, this is my body
which is given for you, this due in remembrance of me. The
cup of wine symbolizes his blood. He said, this cup is the new
testament in my blood. which is shed for you. I want
to speak on this second part here on the subject of a better
testament. A better testament. A new testament. That's what the Hebrew writer
called it, a new testament. It's a better testament. Look
over with me now at Hebrews 8. I want you to hold your place
in Hebrews 8. We're going to be here most of
the time. Hebrews 8. It says here in verse
6, Now hath our Lord Jesus obtained a more excellent ministry, by
how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was
established upon better promises. The New Testament, the new covenant,
it's God's will and testament. That's really what it is, God's
will and testament. You remember in John 17, the
Lord Jesus prayed this in his highest priestly prayer. He said,
Father, I will, here's his will, I will that they also whom thou
has given me be with me where I am. that they may behold my
glory, which thou hast given me, for thou lovest me before
the foundation of the world." That's his will. When we come
here to hear the gospel preached, it's like the reading of a will.
We're hearing God's will. His will is to glorify his Son,
the Lord Jesus, and give him all preeminence. And then his
will is to have a people for himself, to save for himself
for eternity. And we're coming to hear this
will of our God, of our Savior, His will and testament. And it's
also called the everlasting covenant of grace. It is everlasting. It's a covenant that the triune
God fulfilled in Christ, and it's a covenant entirely of grace. Entirely of grace. It's better
because it's established in Christ's blood. This is the New Testament
in my blood. It's written in His blood, established
in His blood. That's why it's better. Now I'm
going to look first of all, it's called the New Covenant in contrast
with the First Covenant, which is also called the Old Covenant.
It didn't really come first, but it's first in order of time.
It was the first revealed to man. There's several lasting
covenants from eternity, but the first covenant was given
to Adam, given to the children of Israel at Sinai, and it's
also called the Old Covenant. Now look here in Hebrews 8 in
verse 7. He said, after he talked about
this better covenant, he said, for if that first covenant had
been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the
second. Now the fault was not in God's covenant, The covenant,
that old covenant, is the law of God. It's holy, just, and
good. The fault was in sinners. The fault is in His people that
He chose to save. We couldn't keep the covenant.
He says, for finding fault with them, He saith, Behold, the days
come, saith the Lord, when I'll make a new covenant with the
house of Israel and with the house of Judah. And that takes
in all His elect. Jew and Gentile, the house of
Israel, the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that
I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the
hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they continued
not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, said the Lord." One
reason the Lord found fault with men is because the mediator of
that covenant was the sinner himself, Moses. He's the one that went up between
God and between the people and brought the law to them. But
he was a sinful man just like the children of Israel. He was
a man like them, and he was a sinful man like them, like all they
let God save. A mediator, Paul said, is not
a mediator of one. He's mediating between two parties.
God is one, and his people are the other. And so the mediator
has to be one who is God and man in one person. So he can
represent both parties and bring us together in peace. There's
one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. He's
the mediator. So that was a picture, it was
a figure, it was a type to show us greater things. They express him, it's Christ
himself. The New Testament's better because God wrote the
old covenant on tables of stone. He writes this everlasting covenant
of grace, this New Testament, He writes it in the heart. In
the heart. Look here in verse 10. He said,
for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of
Israel after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws
into their mind and write them in their hearts. He's talking
here about the gospel, the covenant of grace, all the doctrine of
the gospel. I'll write it in their hearts,
I'll write it in their mind, and I will be to them a God,
and they shall be to me a people. That's one of these better promises.
I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.
And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man
his brother, saying, Know the Lord. For all shall know me from
the least to the greatest. Let me give you what Paul said
out of 2 Corinthians. Paul spoke to the Corinthian
brethren. He said, you are manifestly declared
to be the epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not
with ink, but with the spirit of the living God. Not in tables
of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart. That's why this
covenant's better. God writes it in the new heart.
He gives in the new birth. And when he does this, He makes
you know God by making you know Christ. What did John say? We know that the Son of God has
come and He's given us an understanding that we might know Him that is
true and we're in Him that is true. This is the true God. Christ Jesus, He's the true God.
He's eternal life. See, the Lord said, I'm going
to work this work effectually in spirit and you're going to
know me and I'm going to write this gospel on your heart. You're
never going to forget it because you're going to know me and you're
going to know what I've accomplished for my people. Another fault
with that old covenant was this. That first covenant was based
on the condition that they obey God And then God would give them
the promises. The covenant was, if you will,
God said, I shall. A conditional covenant. But God
gave Adam that old covenant. That's where it started, was
in the garden. And He gave Adam that covenant. And Adam broke
it. And when he broke it, we all
broke it. So we were guilty. And when Moses came down out
of the mount with this covenant, they were dancing around a golden
idol. Already guilty. God didn't give it to do anything
but to declare those under the law to be guilty. But we couldn't
keep it and be saved. God said they continue not in
my covenant and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. That didn't
surprise God. He didn't give them that covenant
and think they were going to keep it. When God makes a promise,
when He gave them that covenant, He said, if you do these things,
I will give you these promises. That doesn't necessitate that
God was surprised when they didn't keep it, or that God ever even
thought they would keep it. That's just a statement of fact.
If you keep this law, you'll be saved. I'll give you these
promises, I promise, if you keep this law. That's just a statement
of fact. But God never purposed for them
to be saved through the law, nor us. So we can't keep the
law. The New Covenant is better because
Christ established it by His obedience. He established it
in His blood. Look there at verse 12, Hebrews
8, 12. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and
their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. Why
is that? It's because this is the New Testament in Christ's
blood. It's because of what Christ accomplished. And so the promise
of God is, I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and
their sins and their iniquities, I'll remember no more. Now, in
that he saith they knew, he hath made the first old, now that
which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away. In their
time, when that letter was written, there were some still trying
to observe that old covenant and the ceremonies, and the Hebrew
writer said, it's waxing old, and now it's decaying, and it'll
soon vanish away. It's done. It's fulfilled in
Christ. Look over at Hebrews 10. Hebrews 10 verse 9. He said, Lo, this is Christ.
Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. I come to do thy will. I come
to fulfill everything under that old covenant to remove it and
establish this new covenant. And so He taketh away the first
that He may establish the second. And it's by His will that we're
sanctified, made righteous, holy, complete through that offering
of Christ one time. So another reason this testament
is better, this New Testament, is because the old only promised
temporal blessings. If you go back and read the promises
God made under that old covenant, they were just temporal blessings.
He never promised heaven to anybody that kept that covenant. He promised
an earthly land called Canaan. That's what he promised. This
new covenant has much better promises than that. God promises
an eternal inheritance. The promised land is glory with
God, with Christ. The good news is this, he said
in Hebrews 9.15, the last part, he said, that they which are
called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. Hebrews
1 tells us Christ is the heir. He's the firstborn son of God,
he's the heir. God gave him all things, all
things, he's the heir. But those that he died for, When
you're born of the Spirit of God, the Spirit bears witness
in our heart that we're the children of God. And if you're children,
then you're heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. That's
why Paul, right to the grave, said all things are yours. Seriously,
all things. More than you can even comprehend,
all things are yours. Eternal things. Spiritual things. An eternal inheritance. And you
know what Peter called that eternal inheritance? He said, it's an
inheritance incorruptible. You can't corrupt it. They corrupted
that inheritance, God promised, that temporal inheritance, because
they couldn't keep the law. You can't corrupt this inheritance.
It's incorruptible. It's undefiled. Can't be defiled
by us. and it fades not away. It's reserved
in heaven for you, Sarah. Get that now. Reserved for you. It won't fade away. You can't
corrupt it. You can't defile it. Why? Because you and me are
not the one that established it. Christ said this cup right
here you're going to drink represents the New Testament in my blood.
in my blood. Now I want to focus on that.
I want to focus on that statement. This cup is the New Testament
in my blood which is shed for you. Why blood? We see blood
running all through the Old Testament, all the sacrifices that were
offered, and that's, that's, there was a few sacrifices where
sin could be, could be purged, a few things could be purged
with fire. But if sin's going to be put away and forgiven,
at least ceremonially, God said blood had to be shed. Blood had
to be shed. The reason is because life's
in the blood. Life's in the blood. Brother
Marvin was talking to me about that this week. He's doing a
lot better, by the way, but still having some problems. But one
of the treatments they did on him was to give him some blood,
or to take his blood out and cleanse his blood. Life's in
the blood. That's a good picture of what
has to happen for God's child to make us righteous. It's by
the blood of the Lord Jesus. By the blood of the Lord Jesus.
God declared life's in the blood. That's why He told them when
He gave them those sacrifices of blood, He said life's in the
blood. And in Hebrews 9, we're told that, let me see here, Verse
22, almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and
without shedding of blood is no remission of sin. Well, what's
the significance of that? Well, since life's in the blood, and the wages of sin is death,
The wages of sin is death. God's just. He will by no means
clear the guilty. We've earned these wages of sin,
which is death. We have to die. God's just and
will not clear the guilty. So all God's elect have to die.
Everybody God saves has to die. We're talking about under the
justice of God. Not just physically, but under the justice of God.
We have to die. And so Christ took the place
of his people. He took the place of His people.
And Christ, bearing our sin, He laid down His life, and by
His own blood, shedding His own blood, giving His own life, He
died the death we owe to justice. He died the death we owe to justice.
Now look here in verse 15. He's going to tell us that. Hebrews
9, 15. For this cause, He's the mediator
of the New Testament. that by means of death, for the
redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament,
they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. For where a testament is, there
must also of necessity be the death of the testator. For testaments
are forced after men are dead, otherwise it's no strength at
all while the testator liveth. Now, when you read that, somebody
might say, well, that by means of death for the redemption of
the transgressions that were under the First Testament. And
somebody might say, well, I didn't live under that First Testament.
So I didn't commit the transgressions they committed under that First
Testament. You did live under that First Testament. Everybody
God saves lived under it. Even if you're born, if you're
one God chose and you were born yesterday, you lived under that
First Testament. because we were all in Adam.
And when Adam broke it, we broke it. And if you read Romans 5,
he says, but Christ came and not only put away that transgression,
but He died for all the sins of all His people. A multitude
of transgressions from the beginning of our life all the way to the
end of our life. And by His blood, brethren, look
here at verse 26, He put away sin. He redeemed us from that
curse. Look, verse 26. It says, Now
once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away
sin by the sacrifice of Himself. That's what he did. He did that
before you were ever born or ever knew him or ever born again
and ever brought faith in him. He put away sin by the sacrifice
of himself. That's why he said this cup represents
the New Testament in my blood. And as is appointed unto men
once to die, but after this the judgment, so Christ was once
offered to bear the sins of many, and to them that look for Him
shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation. You
only have one judgment, and Christ bore it. That's what he did at
Calvary. He bore the judgment of his people
at Calvary and put away our sin. So God's perfectly just now to
say, I will remember their sins no more. I'll be merciful to
their unrighteousness. Brethren, when you take this
bread and you drink this cup today, I mean, really think about
what Christ said there. He said, this bread, what a simple
little ordinance to help us just remember him. He said, this bread
represents My body given for you. And He said, this cup represents
the New Testament in My blood which is shed for you. That's
substitution. Him giving His body and His blood
for you, that you might live forever with Him, be righteous
and glorified. Peter said, you know you were
not redeemed with corruptible things. There's silver and gold.
That's what famed tradition teaches men, you know, the Catholic Church.
If you pay enough money, they'll tell you your sins are gone and
you're redeemed. But nobody's redeemed by something
like that. We're redeemed by the precious
blood of Christ as of a lamb without spot and without blemish.
That's how we're redeemed. He was foreordained before the
foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times
for you. That's God's people. That's those
he represented. That's those he's calling right
now. Those he has called for you, his elect. and were justified
freely by His grace, through redemption of sin Christ Jesus,
and God set Him forth to be the mercy seat, the sin atoning,
sin expiating, propitiation, how? Through faith in His blood. We're believing His blood. We're believing His blood, that
what He, all this that He accomplished by His blood, and He's declaring
the righteousness of God in doing it. Now, if that's so, and we're
going to have to be brought to believe in His blood and trust
Christ that His righteous, that His blood really purged us of
all our sin and made us accepted of God, how are we going to be
brought to believe that? Well, this covenant's going to
have to be made with us. It's going to have to be made
in our heart. It's going to have to write it on our heart. I tried to preach
on this out in California, and I felt like I did a terrible
job, but I'm going to try to just simplify it here today. How are we made to know Christ
and have faith in His blood? How are we made to do it? Well,
God pictured it in how He enjoined that first covenant to the children
of Israel. That's what he pictured. And
I remember this, first of all, when he gave that law, he didn't
give that law to everybody, he gave it to the children of Israel.
And the Lord is not, he's not sent this gospel and he's not
calling everybody in the world. The general call's going forth,
and everybody can hear that, but this is not a free offer.
This is the Lord sending his gospel and coming in power to
his people and making you know this covenant in your heart.
And he does that for his elect Israel only. Now look, here's
what he says in verse 18. Now here's how he did it. Moses
went up to the mount, he got that law, he brought it down
to the people. Verse 18. And he says, neither the first
testament was dedicated without blood. Now watch these steps
right here. when Moses has spoken every precept
to all the people according to the law. You want to talk about,
you know, I come in here and sometimes I get long winded and
preach for 45 minutes. You want to talk about a long
message? Moses read over 600 precepts
of the law to the children of Israel. That took some time.
He read all of it to them. And then he took the blood of
cows and of goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop,
and he sprinkled both the book, the word, and that's the covenant
itself, and he sprinkled the people, saying, and then he made
this declaration to them. He said, this is the blood of
the testament which God hath enjoined unto you. Moreover,
he sprinkled with blood the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry."
Because see, God had set them apart to be his holy vessels,
but for them to be ceremonially holy, they ought to be sprinkled
with blood and sanctified by the blood. And so, almost all things are
by the law purged with blood without shedding of blood's no
remission. When that old covenant was instituted,
now just get this picture, Moses read all the precepts of the
law. If you will, thou shalt, thou
shalt not, if you will. And you know that law said that
if your child sins, You get you some stones and you kill them.
If you're going to keep it. There were some serious laws
in that. Every transgression deserved death. He read that whole law to them.
And as he did that, he took the blood of lambs and goats and
hyssop and scarlet wool, the redhead fur, all that stuff.
Because you know, if anything they touched that was dead, they
were defiled. But as he read all these precepts, he took that
blood and he sprinkled them. He sprinkled them. He sprinkled
the Word. He sprinkled the tabernacle.
All those vessels God sanctified for his use, he sprinkled all
them. Because everything is made holy and perfect by the blood. It's all purged by the blood.
And then he declared, the blood of the testament. This is the
blood of the testament. Get that now. This is the blood
of the testament, which God has shown to you. What was he picturing
by all that? All that was just a picture.
It didn't make anything pure. It didn't cleanse anything of
sin. And it didn't cleanse the people of sin. It was just a
picture. And you think of this, it's not
only a picture for you and me, it is a picture for God. God's
looking at it, and every time he sees a lamp slain, he's thinking
what he brings his people to think. He's looking at his son,
what his son's gonna do, what his son's gonna accomplish. That's
how he was forbearing throughout that whole time and long-suffering
and waited that whole time, because in every sacrifice, he saw a
picture of his son. Now, here it is in Hebrews 9.23,
it says, It was necessary that the patterns of things in the
heavens, that's what they all were, they should be purified
with those carnal sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves
with better sacrifices than these. So here's what the Lord does
for us now. He sends His preacher. And his preacher comes, and the
preacher that's preaching the gospel, he's not using the precepts
of the law. and declaring what the Lord declared
in that old covenant. He's not giving you precepts
of law and saying, now if you do this, God will do the other.
That's not what God's preacher does. That's what Moses did. That's not how this new covenant
is enjoined to you. We come preaching the gospel
of Christ, how that he's fulfilled the whole law himself. And how
he went to the cross and put away all the sin of his people
and perfected his people by his one offering. That's what we
declare. He finished the work. He fulfilled
the law for us. He broke His body for us. He
gave His blood for us. He made us perfect by what He
did for us. We're complete by what He did
for us. That's the message we preach. That's how this new covenant's
instated. And then as that's going on,
Moses, he took that blood of bulls and goats and sprinkled
everything. The Spirit of God comes. sprinkles. He doesn't literally come and
sprinkle literal blood. That's a picture to show you
this is what's going on inwardly in us. The Spirit of God is making
you know the blood of Christ has really and truly put away
your sin forever and by that he purges your conscience so
that you stop offering dead works to try to make yourself accepted
of God. He said back up there in Hebrews
9.13, "'Cause if the blood of bulls and goats, and those ashes
of a heifer sprinkling the unclean, if they sanctify to the purifying
of the flesh, if they ceremonially did that outwardly, how much
more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit
offered himself without spite to God, purge your conscience
from dead works to serve the living God?' And when he does
this, and he purges you, Moses, when he did it, sprinkling them,
Moses declared, this is the blood of the testament which God has
enjoined to you. But when Christ does this, Christ
speaks into your heart, and he makes you know this is the blood
of the New Testament. This is the New Testament in
my blood, which was shed for you. This is the testament God's
enjoined to you. This everlasting covenant of
grace. Now the Hebrew writer puts it together for us, the
whole thing over in Hebrews 10. Look here, here's the gospel.
He declares, verse 14, Hebrews 10, 14, by one offering he hath
perfected for ever them that are sanctified. That's the message. That's the gospel. He declares
that. And then the Holy Spirit purges us within so that we can
hear it, and he writes this everlasting covenant on our hearts. He says,
verse 15, whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us. After
that, he said before, this is the covenant I'll make with them
after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws into their
minds, and their hearts and their minds will I write on. He does
that in the heart. making you know this gospel,
everything about this gospel is fulfilled by Christ. All the
precepts, everything's fulfilled. And this is the covenant. He
said, I'll enjoin my covenant to you. And this is the covenant
He makes with you. Listen to this now, believer.
He says, their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. That's
the covenant he enjoins to us. I'll be merciful to your unrighteousness
and your sins and iniquities I will remember no more. And
you know what happens? You stop working for salvation. Where remission of these is,
there's no more offering for sin. You stop trying to have
that legal motive of making God accept you because you did some
works. You stop trying to do these after
works so you can justify yourself before men. You stop trying to
put on a show before God and men, and you know, I'm saved
in Christ. I have God's Word on it. I have
His promise. I have the New Testament in Christ's
blood, and it's established for me. Now, he goes on there to
say, I won't read it, but he goes on to say, now you can enter
into God's holy presence and God will receive you by the blood
of Christ, by Christ our high priest, because He has washed
you inwardly and washed you outwardly. That means Christ totally accomplished
our total purification by what He's done for us. We're complete
in Him. And now, holy God can receive
you. If holy God can receive you,
you know what that means? That means you're holy. Because
God can't receive anybody but what's holy. And that's what
it means, brethren. Now listen. God said, they should
be my people and I'll be their God. It said this in Jeremiah
32. They should be my people and
I will be their God. I'll give them one heart and
one way. He gives all his people one heart for one way, and that
way is Christ. One heart and one way. That they
may fear me forever for the good of them and their children after
them, and I'll make an everlasting covenant with them that I will
not turn away from them to do them good. That's God's promise. I will not turn away from them
to do them good. I'll put my fear in their hearts
and they shall not depart from me. Yeah, I'll rejoice over them
to do them good and I'll plant them in this land assuredly with
my whole heart and with my whole soul. What about when, does that
mean we won't ever sin? No, it doesn't, because he said,
I won't remember your sins anymore. And he said, I'll be merciful
to your unrighteousness. but you won't leave Him. You
won't depart from Him because He won't let you. He said, I'll
be a God to them and they'll be a people to Me. This is all
certain and this is all sure because all the promises of God
are yes in Christ and amen in Christ to the praise of the glory
of God's grace and He is the one that establishes us with
you in Christ and hath anointed us. It's God who's done it, who
has sealed us and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.
That means it's sealed up. And He's made it sealed up to
you in your heart. That all these promises are yes in Christ and
amen in Christ. And I'll tell you this, go to
2 Samuel. I don't know if I wrote it down.
Hold on. I'm trying to get you to turn
to where David said about the covenant. I can't find it. I got 2 Samuel
23 written down. Is it 23-5? 23-5. Look here. This is what every the elect child of God, whose
conscience is purged by the blood of Christ. This is what we all
say with David right here. This is it. Although my house
be not so with God, yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant,
ordered in all things and sure. And this is all my salvation.
It's all my desire that we make it not to grow. So when you eat
this bread and you drink this wine, you remember Christ's word. This is my body given for you. This is the New Testament in
my blood which is shed for you. That's why it's ordered in all
things and sure. It's all in Christ and by Christ
complete. Let's go to him. Lord, thank
you for this day. Thank you for this word. Thank
you for Christ. Thank you for trusting this work
to him and fulfilling it all by him and in him. And Lord,
thank you for bringing us under this gospel and making us to
know. We are complete in Christ. Thank you for writing this everlasting
covenant on our hearts. And we pray, Lord, that you would
make us more faithful to be a people unto you. And Lord, make us see
more and more that You are indeed a God unto us, faithful and true
in everything. And Lord, we look for that day
we'll be with You in glory and be able to praise You as You
ought to be praised. Thank You for this good news,
Lord. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.