Now the verses we're going to
look at here are some of my favorite verses in the Bible. It's a prophecy. You know, we talked about Jeremiah,
the prophet Jeremiah. He prophesied in a real low time
of Judah and Jerusalem, the southern kingdom of Judah, Israel, but
they were divided by this time. And he prophesied up to the time
that The whole city of Jerusalem and even the temple was destroyed
and the people taken captive by the Babylonian Empire. Nebuchadnezzar, you've heard
his name. And Jeremiah prophesied up to
that time And his prophecy was basically a negative, telling
the people that God was gonna bring judgment upon them because
of their unbelief and their idolatry, even in their religion now. You
need to understand that these people that Jeremiah's preaching
to, they were religious people. They were under what we call
the old covenant law. which was a conditional covenant
towards the people, where God promised blessings to the nation.
Now these were temporal and ceremonial blessings, not eternal now, but
he promised them temporal and ceremonial blessings based upon
their national obedience, which would be like the king and the
majority of the people being obedient. But they weren't, they
weren't obedient. And that's a testimony to conditional
covenants. If salvation were conditioned
on us, it would be a total failure. And that's what that covenant
is all about, to show us that there's no hope of salvation
for sinners based on any covenant, agreement. between God and sinners
where that covenant is conditioned on what we do or what we choose
or what we think or what we say. That's why we're under the covenant
of grace. And grace is conditioned on Christ. And that's what's so important
about this. Jeremiah is telling them, he says, we deserve God's
judgment, we may as well accept it. and praise God, even in his
judgments, and they were judged and they were taken away. But
Jeremiah had a message of hope, but that hope was in the future. And that hope revolved around
the coming of Jesus Christ into the world. And he told them,
don't depend on your works, don't depend on your ways, look ahead
to the future, to the promised Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ,
who would come in time, and who would put the sins of his people,
not just Israel, but God's elect all over the world, Jew and Gentile,
his sheep, he called them, his church, he said he'd put them
away and he'd bring them to a saving knowledge of Christ. And beginning
here in verse 31, he makes a distinction. He says, in verse 31, he says,
behold, the days come, saith the Lord. So he's talking about
the future. And he says, now you're going
into captivity, but there's coming days to come. And he's gonna
talk about two great historical events that's coming. Number one is what we call the
establishment of the new covenant by the finished work of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Actually, that's the greatest
event in history. I'm gonna preach on this in the
main message in Ephesians 1. The all of eternity and time
rest on the work of Christ in time at the cross. where he came
as the surety, the substitute, and the redeemer of God's chosen
people, given to him before the foundation of the world, whose
names were written in the Lamb's Book of Life before the foundation
of the world, and he accomplished redemption for his people. And
that's the establishment of the new covenant. Now, the word covenant
and testament is often interchanged. So when we think about the New
Covenant, we think about the New Testament. But we're not
talking about the New Testament in literature, which would range
from Matthew to Revelation. We're talking about the New Covenant,
which begins at the death of Christ and goes on until his
second coming. That's the New Covenant. That's
the New Testament in his blood, he said. So that's the first
great historical event that Jeremiah's talking about in these few verses.
The second one is the total abolishment of the old covenant by that same
great work. When Christ came and in his glorious
person, as God manifest in the flesh, the word made flesh and
tabernacling among us, When He came and when He did His great
work and finished it on the cross, remember in John 19, 30, He says,
it is finished, that means His work. Not only did He establish
the new covenant, but He abolished and finished and did away with
the old covenant. It's gone. And you remember what
happened when He died. The veil in the temple was torn
in two, not from bottom up, but from top to bottom, indicating
that this was a miraculous work of God, indicating that the way
into the holiest of all, you remember that curtain separated
the holiest of all, the Ark of the Covenant. Of course, at the
time of Christ's death, there was no Ark of the Covenant, because
it had been gone in Jeremiah's day. But that veil in the temple
was torn in two, indicating that the Old Covenant priesthood and
sacrifices, animal sacrifices, were over. All of that typified
and pointed to the future of Christ, who is the Lamb of God,
the one sacrificed. By his blood, our sins are forgiven. By his blood, righteousness is
established. So those are the two great events
that are spoken of in this prophecy. the establishment of the new
covenant in the death of Christ, the abolishment of the old covenant
in the death of Christ. Now you know what a covenant
is. Look here, he says in verse 31, behold, the days come, saith
the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah. A covenant is an agreement between
two parties whereupon certain conditions must be accomplished
by one or both of those parties in order for the agreement to
be valid. Now in the Bible, we see two
types of covenants. Just think about it this way.
There's a bilateral covenant. Now that's the old covenant.
That's where the two parties have to meet certain conditions
in order for the agreement to take effect. And so you've got
two conditions on both parties. That's a bilateral covenant.
But the new covenant's not like that. Look here. He said, I'm
gonna make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with
the house of Judah. Now why does he specifically
say the house of Israel and the house of Judah? Well, he's not
talking about the physical nation of Israel here. In Jeremiah's
day, Israel was divided into two kingdoms. There was the Northern
Kingdom, which was called Israel. It consisted of 10 of those tribes.
It had 12 tribes. 10 of those tribes went north,
and they established a nation. It was called Israel. Well, Israel
had already been gone. They'd already been done away
with. The Assyrian Empire swept through the Northern Kingdom
and scattered them. Judah was the Southern Kingdom.
There were two tribes in the Southern Kingdom, the tribe of
Judah, obviously, and then the tribe of Benjamin. And Christ,
in his humanity, was prophesied and determined by God to come
through the tribe of Judah. That's why God kept them intact.
The Messiah was coming through them. And they weren't destroyed
till after Christ died in A.D. 70. So the kingdom's divided
here, the physical kingdom. But under the new covenant, the
kingdom will not be divided. It'll be unified under one king,
and that king is the Lord Jesus Christ. And so Israel and Judah
here are not the physical nation, it's a typical thing here. It's
a picture, a type of spiritual Israel, spiritual Judah. Israel, the name Israel means
those who have prevailed with God, that's what it means. Well,
how do sinners prevail with God? Only one way. And that's through
the Lord Jesus Christ. The only way we're gonna be saved,
the only way we're gonna be justified and determined by God to be righteous
in His sight is by His grace conditioned on Christ. And that
brings us to the new covenant. It's not like the old covenant.
It's not a bilateral covenant where God promises blessings
if you'll do this or if you'll do that, which they didn't do
and we wouldn't have either. It's a unilateral covenant, not
conditioned on God's chosen people, but conditioned on one. That's
why we call it unilateral, conditioned on Christ, who by himself, as
our representative, our surety, our substitute, our redeemer,
fulfilled all the conditions of that unilateral covenant,
the new covenant. He fulfilled them all. He accomplished
them all, 2 Corinthians 1.20 says, all the promises of God
in Christ are yea, and in him, amen. That is sure and certain. We're gonna study in Ephesians
1 later on. Verse three, blessed be the God
and Father of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who hath blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. The new covenant is a covenant
of grace. And grace is conditioned on Christ. Romans 5.21, as sin hath reigned
unto death, even so might grace reign in righteousness unto eternal
life by Jesus Christ our Lord. And that's the difference. Israel
and Judah is the spiritual people of God. Every believer is a citizen
of the New Jerusalem, the spiritual Judah, spiritual Israel. Christ
came through Judah in his humanity. He saved his people, Jew and
Gentile. You know, the Bible tells us
that in Christ Jesus there is no Jew or Gentile. That distinction's
gone because the old covenant has been abolished, the new covenant
has been established. And here's something that we
need to remember. The gospel is the preaching of the terms
and conditions of the new covenant, which conditions have already
been fulfilled by Christ to the security of all for whom he died. They shall be saved. Now that's
what Jeremiah's preaching here. Look at verse 32. He says, this
new covenant is not according to the covenant that I made with
their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring
them out of the land of Egypt." Now that's the old covenant.
God brought them out of Egypt, he put them in camp in the foot
of Sinai, sent Moses up into the mount, and God gave Moses
the law, and he made that covenant with that nation, the Hebrew
children, And then he told them, he said, now, as long as you
obey me, you'll be prosperous in the land that I'll give you.
The land that he promised to Abraham 400 years before. And
they said, we'll obey. They didn't obey. Read the history
of it. You know, the time of the old
covenant lasted about 1500 years. From Sinai to the cross. And
most of the Old Testament is the history of Israel under that
old covenant, not all of it, up to Exodus. It begins in Exodus when God
gave him the Ten Commandments. And the history of the Old Testament
there is the history of Israel under the old covenant. Well,
if you read all that, you're gonna find that on the whole,
there were very few times in their history, brief times, when
the nation, where it could be said the nation was in obedience,
where the king led the people in the terms of the covenant.
Very few. And even those good kings, as
they say, had their problems. Think about David, that was one
of the high days of Israel's history, King David. And you
know how it ended with him, don't you? You know, with committing
adultery with Bathsheba and numbering Israel and all of that. That's
why David himself recognized that salvation was not conditioned
on him, but upon his Savior. Remember his deathbed words?
God has made a covenant with me, ordered in all things, ensure.
That's because it's a unilateral covenant. That's the covenant
of grace. David wasn't saved by his law keeping. Nobody is. By deeds of law shall no flesh
be justified in God's sight, for by the law is the knowledge
of sin. All the law can do for us is
show us our sinfulness and our need of salvation by grace in
that unilateral covenant. And what we find is this, and
this is what I'm gonna deal with in Ephesians 1. The establishment
of the new covenant in time, is the establishment and fulfillment
of an eternal covenant made before time. The everlasting covenant
of grace made between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit before
this world was ever created. And the gospel is the preaching
of those terms. So he says, verse 32, not according
to that covenant. He says in verse 32, which my
covenant they break. Israel broke that covenant. That
was a conditional covenant. It was a covenant of works. But let me tell you something
about the new covenant. The everlasting covenant of grace and the new
covenant in time, it cannot be broken. You can't break it. If you're in it, as evidenced
by your faith in Christ, and you're resting in Him, pleading
His righteousness imputed alone, The righteousness of God revealed
in the gospel. If you're in it, it cannot be
broken. Why? Because the only one it
was conditioned upon is Christ and he won't break that covenant.
He kept its precepts and he satisfied its penalty. He established righteousness. He put away our sins. He brought
in everlasting righteousness by which God's people are justified
and from which we have life. And so God says, which my covenant
they break, although I was in husband unto them, saith the
Lord. God joined himself to that physical nation for a little
while, and they broke the covenant. But God kept them intact, especially
the tribe of Judah, because his purpose in choosing that nation
was mainly to bring Christ into the world according to the flesh.
Remember, he was born of the tribe of Judah, made of the seed
of David, according to his sinless humanity. Christ is God and man
in one person, see. But his humanity came through
that nation, and that's God's determination. So even though
they broke the covenant, God had an appointed time in which
he would stay with them, join to them, even against their sinfulness,
until the Messiah came. And you remember what Galatians
4 and verse 4 says? It says, in the fullness of the
time, God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under the
law, to redeem them that were under the law. That time was
the finishing of this old covenant. And after it was over, you know
what God did? The Bible says in Isaiah, I think it's Isaiah,
he wrote him a bill of divorcement. He divorced him. He says, although
I wasn't husband to them, God stayed with them until he accomplished
his purpose to bring Christ, and then he divorced them. He'd
already divorced the northern kingdom, they were gone. He divorced
the southern kingdom too. He wrote him a bill of divorce.
But you know what? Under the new covenant, there
can be no divorce. I attended a wedding years ago. And the pastor, as he was reading
the vows, he added something to the vows. And he said something
like this. He said, and when he was talking
about this couple coming together, And he said, and divorce is not
an issue. You cannot be divorced. And Debbie
and I were sitting there, and I thought to myself, I looked
over and I said, is he kidding or what? I mean, you think about
it today. How many couples get married
and stay together? Very few. And it's sad, I know,
and y'all know that too. But for him to stand up and say,
and divorce is not possible. I thought, are you kidding me?
Come on. Well, there is a situation where
I can tell you divorce is not possible. And that's between
God and His chosen people in Christ. We're married to Christ,
and he will never write a bill of divorce, but he'll never put
us away. He saves us, he keeps us by his
grace based upon his righteousness, which incidentally is typified
in the Bible as our wedding garment. That's good, isn't it? It's his
righteousness imputed, charged to our account. And he will bring
us to glory. He will not let us go. These
people who talk about, well, you can be saved and then you
can be lost, they don't know the terms of this covenant. They
don't know the gospel. They're still thinking that it's
a bilateral covenant, that God's only gonna save me if I do my
part. Well, my friend, if that's the case, then we might as well
close this book up and lock the doors and go home. That's right. If it's conditioned on us, what
did David say in Psalm 130 verse three? He said, Lord, if thou,
Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, who would stand? None of us. How many times have I told you?
Only two types of people in this world. Sinners lost in their
sins and sinners saved by grace. Years ago, I don't remember where
I was preaching. I don't believe it was here.
I was at a meeting somewhere. And I was preaching about how,
where Paul wrote, he said, this is a faithful saying that Christ
has come into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. And
I really bared down on the fact that I'm a sinner saved by grace.
And a lady told a friend of hers, she said, well, I'm not gonna
go hear that preacher. He's a sinner too. Well, let me tell you something. If that would cause you to stop
listening to me, you might as well shut your ears right now.
I'm a sinner saved by grace. You're listening to a sinner.
That's right, even at my best. The Bible says that at our best,
we still have not attained the perfection of righteousness that
can only be found in Christ. That's it. He's my hope. We sing that song, my hope is
built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare
not trust the sweetest frame. but wholly lean on Jesus' name.
On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand."
Well, look back here, verse 33, he says, but this shall be the
covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those
days, saith the Lord. Now listen to the language of
this unilateral covenant, this unconditional covenant towards
us. God says it this way, I will
and you shall. That's the way this covenant
is written. It's not I will if you will. It's I will and this
is what you're gonna do. He says in verse 33, I will put
my law in their inward parts. That is he's gonna write it on
a heart. That's what he says, and write it in their heart.
It's not just a outside law imposed upon us with tablets of stone. It's written on our hearts. And
what is that law? It's the gospel. That's what he's talking about
here. The gospel is our law. Yes, we're to be obedient people,
but only in the gospel. And he says, I will be their
God and they shall be my people. That's the language of a marriage
union that cannot be broken. I will be their God and they'll
be my people. God together in Christ. Verse
34, and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every
man his brother, saying, know the Lord, for they shall all
know me from the least of them to the greatest. Back during
the old covenant, if you read the history of Israel, one of
the strongest complaints that all the prophets of God had towards
the people of Israel is that they were religious, but they
didn't know God. They claim to believe the God
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but they really didn't know him.
Here's what, it's kind of like saying this. If you believe that
salvation is conditioned on what you do or what you decide, my
friend, I can tell you, you don't know God. You may think you do. You may know a lot of things
about him, but you don't know the God of salvation. If you
know the God of salvation, you know that all of your salvation
has to be conditioned on one who fulfilled the conditions
of the covenant, and that's Christ. And that if it were conditioned
on you, you'd be damned forever. But they didn't know God. But
he says under the new covenant, it's not gonna be like that.
If you're a member of the new covenant, A sinner saved by grace,
a member of the everlasting covenant, you'll know God through Jesus
Christ. He says, Christ said in his high
priestly prayer in John 17, I believe verse three, he said, this is
life eternal that they might know thee, the only true God
and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. You'll know him as a just
God and a savior. One who is a righteous judge.
who must punish sinners to whom sin is charged, but you'll also
know him as a loving, merciful, and gracious father, that he's
both a just God and a savior. How? Based upon the blood and
righteousness of Christ. That's how. And so he says, he
saith the Lord, he said, that you all know me from the least
of them to the greatest, saith the Lord, for I will forgive
their iniquity and will remember their sin no more. He forgives
our iniquities on a just ground, the blood of Christ. God doesn't
forgive sin based upon what we do. He doesn't forgive sin because
we go confess it to a priest or to a preacher. He doesn't
forgive sin because we cry all night and repent. Should we repent? Yes, but that's not the basis
of forgiveness. What is the basis of forgiveness?
The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin. By one offering,
He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. That's how
the sins are forgiven. And because our sins are forgiven
in Christ, God will not hold them against us. He will not
charge us with those sins. He will not bring them up on
our record. That's what it means when He
says, I will remember their sin no more. This whole passage here
is quoted almost verbatim in the book of Hebrews chapter eight,
where the writer of Hebrews is showing the abolishment of the
old covenant and the establishment of the new. And this is what
he's saying. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? Romans 8.33. Who can condemn
us? It's Christ that died, yea rather
is risen again and at the right hand of the Father ever living
to make intercession for us. The reason God cannot charge
us with sin is because he charged our sins to Christ. And Christ
died for them. He paid the debt. He satisfied
justice. And we cannot be condemned, not
because of what we've done or what we've chosen to do, we cannot
be condemned because of what Christ did. And if he did it
for me, at some point in time, God's gonna bring me to believe
it. The gift of faith, that's where faith comes in. And so,
look at verse 35. Thus saith the Lord, which giveth
the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and
of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the
waves thereof roar. The Lord of hosts is his name,
the Lord who cannot be defeated. God set the seasons and the times
in order. And he says in verse 36, if those
ordinance depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the
seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me
forever." If the seasons and times, day and night, can cease
to be as God put them in force, if that could happen, then the
seed of Israel would be forgotten. But it can't happen. He says
in verse 37, thus saith the Lord, if heaven above can be measured
and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will
also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have
done, saith the Lord. What he's showing here is the
impossibility of his people being lost. All whom God chose for
whom Christ died shall be saved. And there's no stopping it. God
cannot be defeated. In verse 38, he said, Behold,
the days come, saith the Lord, that the city shall be built
to the Lord from the tower of Hananiel unto the gate of the
corner. That's talking about Jerusalem. And he's not talking
about a physical Jerusalem. He's talking about the spiritual,
heavenly Jerusalem. You can read about it in Galatians
chapter 4 or 3, and you can read about it in Hebrews chapter 12,
you can read about it in Revelation 20. That's the Jerusalem which
is above. That's the heavenly country,
the heavenly kingdom of God. And the measuring line, verse
30, shall yet go forth upon the hill of Gera and shall compass
about to Goeth. What's the measuring line here?
The measuring line is Christ. Do I have a righteousness that
answers the demands of God's law and justice? Well, if I'm
not in Christ, I don't have that. I don't measure up. But if I'm
in Christ, I measure up in him. And so he says, in the whole
valley of the dead bodies and of the ashes and all the fields
and to the brook of Kidron and the corner of the horse of the
toward the east shall be holy unto the Lord and it shall not
be plucked up nor thrown down any more. You can read the comments
that I put on that. But what he's talking about is
the eternal kingdom of God that is fulfilled and assured because
of what Christ accomplished for his people at the cross. Okay.