So in Mark chapter 2, as we saw
last week, verse 19, the Lord Jesus answers the Pharisees who
criticized him for eating with sinners. And the Lord Jesus gives
three illustrations. One of him being the bridegroom
who has come and is with his bride so that this is a time
for rejoicing. not for mourning. The others
are the patching of the old garment with the new cloth and putting
new wine into old wineskins. And all of these can be seen
as illustrations of the new covenant, the new covenant which came in
the Lord Jesus, the new covenant which came to abolish the Mosaic
covenant. So the gospel, these gospel letters
that we have, gospel and the letters we have before us all
come at a time in the church when there was serious opposition
to the Lord Jesus and serious opposition to what his apostles
were saying about who he was. and what he had done on behalf
of his people. So when we read the gospels,
the four gospel narratives about the Lord Jesus, we need to remember
that they are written in the context of the church coming
under severe opposition. And the most severe and the first
opposition was from the Judaizers. People who were extraordinarily
zealous, they thought, for God, so zealous that they would go
all the way from Jerusalem up to Turkey, modern-day Turkey,
to harass the believers there. And such a big deal it was that
the Jerusalem Council in Acts chapter 15 was called, and Paul
went down to Jerusalem to see what was going on and why the
church was coming. under such serious attack. And
so when we read the gospels, we need to remember that there
is a context that they were written in. And that context was the
challenge to the gospel of grace of the Lord Jesus. And so the
gospels show us this contrast all the time between the grace
of the Lord Jesus to broken, downcast sinners. who felt their
helplessness and felt their need of a savior. And that contrasted
sadly and starkly with the way the Pharisees, as we saw last
time I spoke, they couldn't rejoice. They saw people healed. They saw people they hated turned
away from their wicked tax collecting and their idolatry. And the Pharisees,
rather than rejoicing, all they could do was condemn and criticize. And so I think the Gospels are
portraying that contrast all the time and such is the contrast
that goes on in the lives of all believers. But if the Holy
Spirit allows, I would like us to look at what it is for us
to be New Testament believers, to be New Covenant believers. That word testament, in some
senses, caused us not to see the Bible in terms of its covenants
as clearly as I think God lays out. The testament is a Latin
word and the Greek actually just means covenant. And as Simon
said earlier, it's just an agreement. And so there is a correct understanding
of the way the covenant works, which is vitally important both
for the glory of God and the good of God's children. Whatever
glorifies God the most is always the best for us. And so this
is the sure foundation which we can build our faith upon.
It's the rock which will stand the severest storms and the greatest
of sins. And so a correct understanding
of this eternal covenant in the blood of the Lord Jesus and the
relationship between that covenant and the Mosaic covenant is essential
for seeing the scriptures in their correct biblical context. It's essential for seeing the
Lord Jesus in His glory. but also it's a wonderful comfort
for dying sinners and I'd like us to turn to 2nd Samuel 23 and
the Holy Spirit records in 2nd Samuel 23 the dying words of
David My son Hume left for America
a couple of days ago and not long before he left we were chatting
and he was asking me about my father and my father, I'm already
older now than my father was when I died and I'm not very
far away from the age of my mother when I died and all of a sudden
He was very concerned about whether I'd actually been to the doctors
and I got all the right tests. And so, you know, death even
for the young has a biting reality to it. But David was an old man,
and yet we have here his last words, and they're just incredibly
instructive words, and they're words that tell us about this
eternal covenant. I'll just read the first five
verses of 2 Samuel 23. Now, these are the last words
of David. David, the son of Jesse, declares,
the man who was raised on high declares, the anointed of the
God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel. The Spirit of the
Lord spoke by me, and His word was on my tongue. The God of
Israel said, the Rock of Israel spoke to me. He who rules over
men righteously, or he who must be just, who rules in the fear
of God, is as the light of the morning when the sun rises, a
morning without clouds, when the tender grass springs up out
of the earth through sunshine after rain. And this is the verse
that I'd like us to spend most of our time on. Truly is not
my house so with God, for he has made an everlasting covenant
with me, ordered in all things and secured for all my salvation
and all my desire. Will he not indeed make it grow? So surely the words which David
finds comfort in when he is dying are words which should be the
comfort of believers every day and every hour. If these are
the truths which sustain believers in the hour of death, Then when
we find ourselves looking for answers in the difficulties of
life, even the difficulties we encounter in the scripture, then
this is a foundation to go back to again and again and a foundation
to build upon again and again. It is the foundation on which
the scriptures are built. In fact, every event in all of
time is ordained to ensure the fulfilling of these covenantal
promises. That's what Romans 8.28 says,
isn't it? God works, God works all things for the good of those
who loved him, the call according to his purpose. So every time
we encounter some difficult passage or concept in the scriptures,
this is the foundation God has laid. And the question for us
is how does our understanding fit upon this foundation, fit
on this rock? If the fit is uncomfortable,
then we need to seek the Lord in prayer to give us an understanding
which sits comfortably with it. So David was a man raised up
on high, taken from caring for his father's sheep and raised
to be Israel's greatest king, a type of the Messiah. He was
an anointed one, anointed by God and responsible for writing
many of the Psalms. They're called sweet Psalms because
they contain sweet promises from God. David was given the very
words of God to speak. and meditate on. And David was
given the witness of God's faithfulness to his covenant promises in his
life. And so the God of Israel said,
the rock of Israel spoke to me. He who rules over men must be
just. God is a just God and a savior. So wherever God sees sin, he
must punish it. He must be just or otherwise
his holiness is compromised. And David then briefly looks
at his own family and he says, although my house is not so with
God. So he looked with natural eyes
on his family and the circumstances around him and there was very,
very little to give him comfort. What a sad, sad family David
had with Absalom and Amnon and his daughter, his wife, Michael. It was a sad, sad situation that
David lived in for so much of his life. But David turns and
he has that wonderful word yet, often in the New Testament it's
but. Yet he has made, God has made with me an everlasting covenant,
ordered in all things and secure. This is all my salvation and
all my desire. Will he not make it increase?
So now this dying king, looks to his God, just like the Messiah
as he was dying, looks to his God and his internal purposes
for all his salvation and all his desire. And may the Lord
grant us the grace to live as David did before he died. So
David was a man who was born under the law of Moses given
at Sinai. And like all Old Testament saints,
he found no comfort for his soul in that law covenant. This is
a great demonstration of the purpose of the law in a believer's
life. It drives them to look away from
themselves to a Savior. Hebrews 10.3 says that the law
is just a constant reminder of sins. Even the sacrifices were
just a reminder of sins. And David lived in Jerusalem.
where under his leadership, the tabernacle was brought to Ariana's
threshing floor. David had collected tons and
tons of material to build this temple. Mountains of gold and
silver and iron, just amazing, amazing amount of things that
David had collected and there it all was. And the temple was
just, the temple site was just nearby where David lay, maybe
even just across the road. But David in his dying hour doesn't
look to any of those things. He looks somewhere else for his
comfort, for his hope and for his peace. He looks beyond the
shadows to the reality which is Christ Jesus the Lord. So
why was David led by God the Holy Spirit to give this dying
testimony? It's because that's just the
reality that God's people live in. Our Almighty God before the
world began, as Simon and Norm had said, just took counsel amongst
the members of the Trinity, God the Father, and God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit. They took counsel together, and
all things will work according to the counsel of God's will,
says Ephesians 1.11. And this wisdom of God was then
enacted by means of covenants. God operates and works all things
in the world according to His promises, His covenantal promises. And all of this to the praise
of the glory of His grace. And so God made a covenant with
Noah, Hosea 6-7 says. He made a covenant with Adam
in Hosea 6-7. He made a covenant with Noah
in Genesis 9. And the sign of that covenant
is the rainbow. Simon's spoken to us over this
last couple of weeks about the fact that God came and took Abraham
out of Iraq and took him to the Promised Land and made covenantal
promises with him in chapter 12. And then in 15, he ratified
that covenant in blood. And then 430 years later, God
makes a covenant with Moses and the nation Israel on Mount Sinai. So a covenant is simply an agreement. It involves agreement between
parties to do things that are stipulated in the terms of the
covenant. And today I want to look at the differences between
the Mosaic covenant that was made at Sinai and the eternal
covenant that was made between God the Father, God the Son and
God the Holy Spirit before the world began. Hebrews 13 20 says
this is the eternal covenant in the blood of the Lord Jesus. And the Lord Jesus is the guarantee
or the surety of this covenant. And I think I'm right in saying
that it's my sad experience that almost all believers live with
these two covenants mixed up in our lives and our understanding.
And I think the one reason is a powerful reason, and that is
simply that in our Adam flesh, It was made under a covenant
of works. And while ever we live in this
tent of flesh, God promises that we will be involved in a battle
between our flesh and the spirit. Galatians 5, 17 and Romans 7
make this very, very clear. My flesh wants to live by works.
I want you to see my good deeds. I naturally want to relate to
God on the basis of what I do. That is why natural religions
of free will, of works, and of laws are so dominant throughout
the world, both the Christian world, sadly, and the pagan. And I think all of us who are
honest will confess that that's how we live. When we're put in
any sort of difficult situation, immediately we'll want to defend
ourselves and try and make up for what's going on around us
by something that we do. And God's solution is that we
cannot look into ourselves ever for any hope. We have to, like
David, look outside of ourselves. And so God must rescue us from
this body of death. And so the eternal covenant is
the covenant that holds all of the scriptures together. As you
hold your Bible in your hand, all of God's purposes from before
the foundation of the world into the new creation are held together
and controlled by the eternal covenant. And then if you take
your Bibles and turn to Exodus 20, and go from Exodus 20 through
until Malachi in this whole section of scripture. And it can be taken
even through until John chapter 19 when the Lord Jesus dies as
one born under the law, born of a woman and suffered the just
punishment of God's people under the law. All of that part of
the Bible, and it's a big chunk of the Bible, all of that part
of the Bible has two covenants running through it. It has one
covenant which is the eternal covenant. That was the covenant
that David was saved under, that was the covenant that Moses was
saved under, the covenant that Abel was saved under, the covenant
that hosts of Old Testament people were saved under. The Mosaic
law came alongside that eternal covenant. and sits alongside
it, and the two, according to God, are not to be mixed. And that's the sad experience
of my life, and the sad experience, I think, of many, many Christians
that we know, is that we want to mix those two covenants. Romans
11.6 says that we cannot mix the covenants together. We cannot
mix grace and works. We cannot mix grace and law. And so all through the Old Testament,
the tension that exists in the Old Testament from Exodus 20
through to Malachi is this tension between the wickedness of nation
Israel, which deserved always to be destroyed by God for their
sinful rebellion, And yet God continues to come in covenant
mercy again and again and again. And he shows extraordinary grace,
grace to people like David. The law said to David, we should
take you outside. God says to take you outside
of this city, you and Bathsheba. And God says, we are to stone
you to death. That's what the law said to David.
And yet God in his eternal purposes had another covenant, a covenant
in the blood of the Lord Jesus. And when Nathan came to David,
he said, the Lord has taken away your sin. You will not die. There are consequences, terrible
consequences in David's family. But David wasn't to die. Why
wasn't he to die? The law said he must die. David didn't die because David
was actually a man who before God had no sin. God had made with him an everlasting
covenant. and it's a travesty of justice
to the human mind that God should let David go through. It's all
very well for Nathan to come along and say, David, you're
now a free man and God has taken away your sin. It would have
seemed absolutely appalling. Just imagine if you were Uriah's
father and you were down the street in Jerusalem the next
day and there was Nathan with David. And Uriah's dad says,
what are you going to do with this guy who has murdered my
son? And Nathan says, the Lord's taken
away his sin. It seems incredibly unjust. The gospel is a travesty, it
seems, of justice. It seems that way until we come
to the cross of the Lord Jesus. In the eternal covenant, God
had dealt with David's sin. He had exacted every little tiny
bit of the justice that he must exert because he's holy. And
that justice was done when the Lord Jesus died on the cross,
and God punished David's sin. He punished David's sin to the
full extent of the law so that Uriah's father and Satan and
everyone else must say that God is holy and God is just. So the eternal covenant is a
covenant that gives great comfort to sinners, great comfort to
sinners in their hour of death, great comfort to sinners in their
hours when they mess things up. Sin is a big, big deal. Let's just read some of the ways
that God describes this eternal covenant. As Simon reminded us
just a little while ago, God came to Abraham in Iraq and he
took him out of Iraq and he took him to the nation, the land of
Canaan and he said, this is to the land I will show you and
I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make
your name great and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those
who bless you and the one who curses you, I will curse. and
in you all the families of the earth will be blessed. As Simon
reminded us when this covenant was ratified by blood in Genesis
15, Abraham was asleep because it was a picture of the fact
that this covenant is a covenant between God the Father and God
the Son and God the Holy Spirit and Abraham is the recipient
the inheritor of blessing not the earner of blessings. In Ezekiel
36 is a passage we often go to and Ezekiel 36 says in promising
the Spirit to come on people after the Lord Jesus has done
his amazing work he says in Ezekiel 36 24 for I will take you from
the nations I will gather you from all the lands and bring
you into your own land "'then I will sprinkle clean water on
you "'and you will be clean. "'I will cleanse you from all
your filthiness "'and from all your idols. "'Moreover, I will
give you a new heart "'and put a new spirit within you. "'And
I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh "'and give you
a heart of flesh. "'I will put my spirit within
you "'and cause you to walk in my statutes "'and you will be
careful to observe my ordinances.'" Jeremiah 32 is just a wonderful
picture again of these amazing promises from God. It's a great... I often send this to people when
they're getting married. I pray that the Lord would bless
it to these people. So in Jeremiah 32, he says, Behold,
I will gather them out of the lands to which I have driven
them in my anger, in my wrath, and in great indignation. And
I will bring them back to this place and make them dwell in
safety. They shall be my people, and
I will be their God. And I will give them one heart
and one way that they may fear me always for their own good
and for the good of their children after them. I will make an everlasting
covenant with them, and I will not turn away from them to do
them good. I will put the fear of me in
their hearts so that they will not turn away from me. there's
a wonderful promise in Jeremiah 32 41 I will rejoice over them
to do them good and will faithfully plant them in the land with all
my heart and all my soul and as we have seen in Mark's gospel
the people who witnessed Jesus miracles went away amazed and
rejoicing at the grace and mercy and love, the great kindness
of the Savior. And there before them were these
Pharisees who could do nothing but whinge and nitpick. It's
terrible ingratitude. There's a famous passage which
is quoted so often in the New Testament and Hebrews, much of
Hebrews is written around this particular passage and it talks
about a better covenant in Hebrews 8 and it's been enacted on better
promises. We've just been reading some
of those promises. David called them sweet Psalms.
In Hebrews 8, he talks about the Mosaic covenant, that for
finding fault with them, he says, behold, the days are coming,
says the Lord, when I will effect a new covenant with the house
of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not like the covenant
I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the
hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not
continue in my covenant, and I did not care for them, says
the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house
of Israel. And just listen to God's promises in this covenant.
After those days, says the Lord, I will put my laws into their
minds, and I will write them on their hearts, and I will be
their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not
teach everyone his fellow citizen, and everyone his brother, saying,
Know the Lord, for all will know me, from the least to the greatest
of them. And this is the reason why God
will deal with them so graciously. Because, or for, I will be merciful
to their iniquities, and will remember their sins no more. What a great word for sinners
who have been caused by the Holy Spirit to see something of the
depth of their sin. And when He said a new covenant,
He has made the first mosaic obsolete. But whatever is becoming
obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear. And if we think
back to Jesus' story about the old garment of cloth and the
old wineskins, He's actually talking about the new covenant.
So these promises are at the center of the work of the Lord
Jesus. And it's the promise that comes
because the Spirit has been poured out because of the work of the
Lord Jesus, not because of the work of men. They are just unconditional
promises. God says He will do it and He
will lead His people. And the promises of the Mosaic
covenant were promises concerning earthly temporal, temporary blessings. There was an earthly inheritance
in a land called Canaan and a land in which Israel might obtain
peace and plenty and prosperity. But the promises of Christ, the
promises of the new covenant are spiritual and eternal promises. When David was dying, all the
riches and lands in the world meant nothing to him. Power and
prestige and an amazing record of life meant nothing to him.
Spiritual blessings are infinitely better than anything the world
offers to please our flesh. So the eternal covenant comes
before the Mosaic covenant. and the Mosaic covenant is superintended
on the eternal covenant and just for a time until the seed comes. So the Old Testament saints,
David and Moses, all of them were saved by the Lord Jesus
in the eternal covenant, not by anything they did under the
Mosaic covenant. And this new covenant promises
eternal forgiveness. It promises eternal life, eternal
peace, eternal glory. The Lord Jesus said, when he
was about to ratify the new covenant by his death, just before he
died on that last night, in John 17, he says, this is eternal
life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus
Christ, whom you have sent. So when Israel obeyed God and
worshiped God according to the requirements of the Mosaic law,
God did bless them. He blessed them with peace and
plenty. Just read about Solomon's kingdom.
It was amazing. When they neglected the tabernacle
and served other gods, He dealt with them in wrath and judgment. But in Jesus, in the Lord Jesus,
our mediator, we have a better covenant according to Hebrews
8. And it's made on better promises. He has reconciled us to God. by being both man and God in
one glorious person, he's able to deal perfectly with God on
our behalf and he's able to deal perfectly with us. And he's made
peace, it says, through the blood of his cross. He's satisfied
the justice of God by the sacrifice of himself. And so in the new
covenant, he makes us sons. He indwells us with His Spirit
and He makes us priests of God. Our promises and blessings have
to do with a spiritual kingdom and life, not an earthly kingdom
and carnal benefits. And there's another distinction
between these two covenants, because they are different kinds
of covenants. The Eternal Covenant is a covenant
of grace. The Mosaic Covenant is a covenant
of works. And Romans 11.6 says that we
cannot mix the two together. The Mosaic Covenant is in the
form of a contract, as Simon said earlier. But you do certain
things. Always the first obligation was
upon the people. You obey and I will bless. You disobey and I will curse. Just read Deuteronomy and you'll
see it all through that Mosaic covenant. So when the covenant
is a contract, it operates under the terms of the contract. Benefits
received under the contract are only possible when all the terms
of the contract are met by both parties. Mosaic law was like
a contract. It was a conditional covenant.
So we read in the Old Testament, if you will humble yourselves
and pray, then I will heal your land. So no blessing comes unless
there is obedience. And where there is disobedience,
there is punishment. And the blessings of the two
covenants are really incredibly different, aren't they? The covenant
of grace is accomplished obtained and administered because of the
promises of God. And the promises of God are righteousness,
a righteous standing before God and eternal life. And all of
this comes through the Lord Jesus. The covenant of grace was administered
only spiritual blessings, and it was just conditioned on one
thing, and that was the obedience of the Lord Jesus. And so the
scriptures keep reminding us that we have all spiritual blessings. Just read 2 Peter 1 through to
4. We have all these great and precious
promises from God. Ephesians 1 through to 4 talks
about all the spiritual blessings which are given to us in Christ
Jesus. So there are no conditions placed upon the believer in the
covenant of grace whatsoever. If you have anything from God,
it is in spite of what you are, not because of what you have
done. So the eternal covenant, rather
than being a contract, is actually a will and testament. 60 something
years ago, Lisa's grandfather was dying of cancer and wrote
a will. And he did something which I'd
never heard of before. Maybe it was common in those days,
but he actually wrote a will where the beneficiaries were
his four children, none of whom were married. And also the beneficiaries
of his will were his grandchildren. So he wrote a will, which included
Lisa, And she was written into this will maybe 20 years before
she even existed. And so it's a great picture,
isn't it? The will and testament is actually what the new covenant
is, isn't it? And so when the will is drawn
up, the beneficiaries are named in the will. And they can name
them named in the will in Lisa's case, before any of them were
there at all. And it doesn't make any difference
whether there are 10 cousins in this family. It doesn't make
any difference what sort of life the cousins led. what sort of
things they ever did. They could have spent their lives
in jail, they could have been complete reprobates, they could
have been multi-millionaires, but the blessings of the will,
the blessings of the covenant come to all ten of them equally,
regardless of what they do, and regardless of what they do to
each other. It's extraordinary, isn't it? It's a great picture.
Please don't think that it's worth very much. I'm not sure.
It's none of my business. We have been cared for by the
Lord regardless of that. But anyway, it's just a picture,
I think, of what a will and testament is. You know, I have some will.
I don't know where it is. But in that will, there are four
beneficiaries of it. I haven't got to the stage of
thinking about grandchildren when we wrote it. But they are
going to be beneficiaries of my will, whatever's left of it.
regardless of their activities. And that's the new covenant,
isn't it? The new covenant was written before the foundation
of the world. It's a will and testament that God has written
and God has then signed by the blood of the Lord Jesus. So the
covenant that is a will assures those written in the will will
receive the blessings. The blessings that Abraham received
were the blessings of the eternal covenant. The blessings that
David talked about when he's dying are the blessings of this
eternal covenant. And when God comes to Abraham,
he says, this is what you're going to do. This is what you're
going to become. And these are the blessings you
are going to receive. And they all come as a result
of promise and promises have nothing to do with merit. And so, as I said earlier, with
regard to David, the gospel is a scandalous thing. Standing
before you is someone who has received everything that God
can possibly give a human being, and I haven't earned a thing.
My name, and I trust yours, was written in a will before I was
born. Lisa's parents weren't even married
when her name was put in the will. Not her name, but the fact
that she would be a beneficiary. And so until God comes and reveals
the gospel to us as he did to Paul, that Christ was revealed
in him, we have no idea of our blessings. We have no idea of
the promises that God has made to us. We live as enemies with
each other and enemies in our mind of God. And then God comes
along and opens our eyes and causes us to see that this blessing
is immense. And one of the wonderful things
about reading the scriptures and we read those sweet psalms
as David called them, is that we see that our promised blessings
are bigger and more secure and more amazing the longer we go
on. And we do well to think about
David, because if they're blessings that will hold you firm on your
deathbed, they are blessings that will keep you strong in
the midst of the storms of life. But God has made an eternal covenant. It is ordered and secure in all
things. Every little thing that has come
to pass in your life is God's ordained way of dealing with
you, and His ordained way of dealing with His children is
never anything but unamazing love, just amazing love. He can't do anything else but
love His children. He's poured out His wrath on
His Son. He now sees His children as wholly
He now sees his children as blameless. He now sees his children as free
from accusation. And people might say, well, that's
the way God sees it. I think what the scriptures say
is that the way God sees it is the way that it really is. grieves
over the depth of my wickedness, my ongoing slackness in so many
areas. I hate the idea that people call
sin little slip-ups. It's a much bigger deal than
that and it's much, much worse than that. But in the New Covenant,
God has made with each of his people, it's ordered by God and
it's secure in every detail. So the New Covenant promises
an inheritance without looking to the merits of anyone except
the Lord Jesus. God's children were in the will.
What we deserve from God is eternal punishment, but before the law
came, our names were written in a book. they are written in
the will so that when the law comes it cannot affect that will
and that's why David when he's dying turns not to the temple
not to the ark of the covenant he looks away from all of those
things and he looks to his God for his security and if you read
of Moses in his dying days He actually does exactly the same
thing. He finishes his words in Deuteronomy 33, he says, the
eternal, 33, 27, he says, the eternal God is your refuge. not the mosaic covenant, not
the tabernacle, the magnificent tabernacle, not all the promises
of the land across the river from him. The eternal God is
your refuge and underneath are everlasting arms. It's a wonderful
picture of salvation by grace. And next week, I'm hoping that
we will go and look at the relationship between the Lord Jesus and the
law, because people would then say, does the Lord Jesus abrogate
the law in any way at all? But the Lord Jesus honoured the
law. He honoured the law as holy. He honoured the law as righteous
and just. He honoured the law in his life
and he honoured the law in his death. So what's it all mean
for us living here now? David saw his relationship with
God as ordered and secure in every detail. And we would do
well to remember that in all of our trials, in all the difficulties
of our lives, God is absolutely sovereign. It is ordered and
it is secure. David saw his relationship with
God as eternal. He had always been the object
of God's everlasting love. He looked to eternity in the
past and he looked to eternity in the future and the foundation
of his life was as big and broad as whatever that means. David
had an amazing record of achievements. Can you remember one battle he
lost? Several skirmishes and setbacks, but they were only
temporary. Yet he did not look to his performances,
but to the Lord Jesus, and he says the Lord Jesus is all of
his salvation. We are often inclined to look
at David's great sin, but we would do well to remember that
although they are written for all to see, they are forgotten
by God, taken away in perfect justice by the Lord Jesus, who
rules over all men. And according to 2 Samuel 23.3,
he must be just. David and all believers are saved
with perfect holy justice, and the justice of God ensures our
salvation. God cannot punish us for our
sins. He will discipline us, but that
just reflects intense relationship, not abandonment. He has punished
Jesus to the full satisfaction of His justice, and now grace
reigns through love and faith. And when we look to the flesh
of our brothers and sisters and see sin, and often that's all
we'll see, we need to be reminded that God has put these sins behind
His back. They are gone. And we ought to
be as quick as we possibly can to be as forgiving as we possibly
can to our brothers and sisters. We have no right to lift their
skirt and expose their sins. God will deal with sins in His
people. He'll bring deep and serious conviction. God's children
are wounded children. They are wounded by the sins
that they know they have. They are wounded by the trials
of life. God's children need the comfort
of the gospel again and again and again. And when we are confronted
by the law and those who would yoke us to that killing letter,
we would do well to remember that David looked away from that
ministry of death and put his hope, all his hope, in the Lord
Jesus. So this is the eternal covenant.
This eternal covenant is what the saints in heaven are rejoicing
in right now. Worthy is the lamb, they sing,
who was slain and has purchased men for God from every tribe
and nation and tongue. The eternal covenant will keep
and preserve God's saints, not just in this life, but it keeps
and preserves all of his children into eternity. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we do thank
you and praise you that you are a God who makes promises, that
you are a God who keeps your promises. We praise you, heavenly
Father, that we have boldness to come into the throne room
of heaven because our Savior is there and we, heavenly Father,
are seated with him. He is seated because his work
is finished and he reigns supremely over all the things of this world.
And we pray, Heavenly Father, that you would cause us to continually
look like David to him, to look to the fact that you have made
with your children an everlasting covenant. And nothing that ever
happens in time can change or alter that covenant in any way
at all. It is ordered and secure and
sealed in the blood of our Savior. And we praise you, Heavenly Father,
that you cause us to come to you and call you as Abba, Father,
because we come to you robed in a robe of righteousness of
our dear Savior and washed and cleansed from our sins in his
blood. And we praise you, Heavenly Father,
and we pray that you'd cause him to be glorified in our lives
and us in him. We thank you and praise you in
Jesus' name. Amen.