Isaiah chapter 55. Isaiah 55, we'll read the first
five verses. You'll remember we've looked
at verses one and two already, but let's read it all together.
Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters. And he
that hath no money, come ye, buy and eat. Yea, come, buy wine
and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do you spend
money for that which is not bread? and your labor for that which
satisfies not. Hearken diligently unto me and
eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself
in fatness. Incline your ear and come unto
me, hear, and your soul shall live. And I will make an everlasting
covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. Behold, I have
given him for a witness to the people, a leader and commander
to the people. Behold, thou shalt call a nation
that thou knowest not, and nations that knew not thee shall run
unto thee because of the Lord thy God and for the Holy One
of Israel, for he hath glorified thee. Let's pray. Father, thank you, Lord, for
your blessings. Thank you for bringing us together again. Thank
you for your precious gospel, and may Christ be exalted, your
people comforted. May you be glorified, Lord, in
all things. We ask in his name, amen. Now, God has not changed the
subject in verse three. He's talking in the first two
verses about come to the waters, drink, eat. And then you might
think, well, he's switched the narrative here. Now he's talking
about listening, hearing. It's the same thing. He's talking
about the same thing because you see, in the kingdom of God,
the way that you are nourished, the way that you are fed, the
way that you receive that which is good, real food in his kingdom
is through listening, through hearing from God. He said in Matthew 4, for it
is written, man shall not live by bread alone. What a simple,
beautiful analogy that is. Man can't just survive on physical,
earthly food. That's not going to give you
life. But by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of
God. Every word. Paul said to the
Ephesians, I held nothing back. Nothing profitable unto you.
I preached unto you the whole gospel. Everything God says is
what we live on. It's not just some kind of a
supplement to our life, you know. That is life, he is life. He's the bread of life. Now this
verse is quoted, listen, he quoted that from Deuteronomy 8.2. Let
me read you that, the full passage that that's quoted from, Deuteronomy
8.2, and thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy
God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble
thee, to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether
thou wouldest keep his commandments or no. And he humbled thee, and
suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou
knewest not, neither did thy fathers know. that he might make
thee know that man doth not live by bread only." Think about that. He tossed them on the backside
of the desert for 40 years to teach them that life is not about
luxuries and physical things. We don't live by that. Life is
by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth the Lord That's how man lives Now think
about that now is he teaching are we in the desert is this
world a desert place? When it comes to the things of
God He said I'll send a famine of hearing the word of the Lord.
It's a spiritual desert, isn't it? And why does he allow us
to live here? He said, he prayed to his father,
don't take him out of the world. Keep him from the evil, but don't
take him out. Why has he put us in the desert? Why do we have
to roam these years in this place? To teach us, to look to him,
to live on him, to glorify him in this flesh, in this desolate
place. And I remember the context of
that, that wandering on the backside of the desert. They were in the
wilderness because they were free from the bondage of Egypt. And they were free from the bondage
of Egypt because of the blood of the lamb, the Passover lamb.
And so here we are in a desert place spiritually, but we're
not in bondage. We're not in Egypt. the very manna Spoken of there
in Deuteronomy 8 where we read Was for what purpose Listen to
it will turn with me. Let's look at some of this together
John chapter 6 In plan your ear even talking
about eating and And the last part of verse two, he started
talking about that. He said, why do you spend your
money for that which is not bread? Hearken diligently unto me, the
last part of verse two, and eat ye that which is good. Listen,
and enjoy that which is good. So, look at John 6, 30. They
said, therefore, unto him, what sign showest thou then that we
may see and believe thee? What dost thou work? Our fathers
did eat manna in the desert. As it is written, he gave them
bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from
heaven. That's the first thing they needed to understand. They
missed that right off the bat, didn't they? Moses gave us bread
from heaven. No, he didn't. My father gave
you that. But my father giveth you not
only that bread, but the true bread from heaven. For the bread of
God is he which cometh down from heaven and gives life to the
world. If you're going to have life,
you're going to have to have him. They said unto him, Lord evermore,
give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am
the bread of life. Again, what a simple, beautiful
analogy this is. It's not complicated, is it?
You've got to eat to live, don't you? Spiritually, it's the same
way. But there's just one food. Come
down from heaven to us. They utterly depended on Him
for it, didn't they? It had to rain that bread down from heaven,
that picture, that manna in the wilderness. And he did that to
teach them that man doesn't live by physical bread alone. Lord
evermore give, I'm the bread of life. He that cometh to me
shall never hunger. And he that believeth on me shall
never thirst. Consider the simple truth that
our Lord is teaching here. In Matthew 4.4, he said, you don't live by bread
alone, but by every word. that proceedeth from the mouth
of God, the equivalent of eating and living and thriving by nourishing
your body and enjoying the good things that the Lord has provided
for us on this earth to live on physically, the spiritual
equivalent to what we do when we sit down to a meal, what we
do three times a day or some of us two times a day, we might
skip breakfast, we might eat four or five times a day on certain
types of diets, but we eat, we eat constantly. And our body
continually thrives on what we eat. The equivalent to that is
to hear God's word. It's so simple and it's so beautiful.
If you don't hear the word of God, you know, it's easy just
to think, well, you know, if I don't, you know, I already
know what he's going to say. Yeah, you probably do. I know what chicken tastes like
too, but you know what I'm gonna eat tonight when I get home?
Probably some fried chicken. You reckon? Gotta have something. Gotta have food. Gotta have it. Remember Simon Peter said, I
believe it's necessary while I'm in this body to put you in
remembrance of these things. Though you know them. You know
them. every word that comes from the
mouth of God. That's what we do here. That's
what we do, and that's how important it is. That's how vital it is. And that's not the end of this
spiritual simple lesson here. Listen to this. Everything that
comes out of God's mouth, we've read some scripture together.
What is it that comes from God's mouth? Christ, right? He's the bread that came down
from heaven. He still is. We need bread from
heaven tonight and it's Him. He is the bread to eat the flesh
and drink the blood of God's Son. As he said in that one,
I believe that's also in John, he that eateth my flesh and drinketh
my blood. That's not some weird thing that Catholics have come
up with some weird stuff. He's just saying, hear what I
say. That's what it is to eat in God's
kingdom. To listen, hearken unto me diligently and your soul shall
live. That's what our souls live on.
That's how we eat. That's how we feed upon Christ.
We hear from him. He said, my flesh and my blood,
my flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed. Christ,
his person, him crucified, his work. If you hear God now, you will
come and you won't bring any money with you, without money
and without price. And you'll do what Solomon said,
listen to Proverbs 4, 5. Here's the wisest man that ever
lived, other than the man, Christ Jesus. The Lord said, I'm gonna
give you wisdom like I've never given anybody before you, and
I'm never gonna give anybody else any like this. Never gonna
happen again. And you know what he said? Get
wisdom. Proverbs 4, 5, get wisdom, get understanding, forget it
not, neither decline from the words of my mouth. Forsake her
not, and she shall preserve thee. Love her, and she shall keep
thee. Wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom,
and with all thy getting, get understanding. Unto them which are called, Christ
is the power of God and the wisdom of God. You're probably going to get
tired of hearing me say this, but I don't care. You'll remember
it maybe if you're sick of it. What I care about is that you
do it. That's what I care about. And anybody that hears this,
that's what I care about. I don't care if you get tired
of hearing it. I care that you do it. hear from God, hear from
God. Hear every word. When you're
in trouble, hear from God. The way you worship Him is to
hear Him, hear from Him. That's how worship happens. When
things are going great, you need to hear from God. The way you
grow in grace is to grow in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ
by hearing from God. I was gonna, 2 Peter chapter
one is a good chapter to read in relation to that if you wanna
read that later. But listen, let's move on in our text. Listen
to what he said. Incline your ear. Incline your
ear. Incline your ear and come unto
me. If you're going to listen to
him, if you're going to hear from God, you're going to come to
him. Because that's what he says. That's what he's telling you.
What did I say this morning? This book says one thing, come
to Christ. And he said to those religious
Jews, you've mastered this book, but you haven't done the only
thing this book says do. You will not come to me that
you might have life. The whole book, that's what it
says. It just says it a lot of times in a lot of different ways. Come to Christ. Come unto me all you that labor
and are heavy laden and I'll give you rest. Incline your ear
and come unto me. Come to him for rest, that's
what he said. Come to him for life. Come to Him for everything. It'd take a million books to
just scratch the surface on all of the reasons to come to Him. But I'll tell you this, all of
the reasons to come to Him are really Him. It's who He is. That's why you gotta come to
Him. He's life. That's why. He's rest. He's peace. He's strength. He's hope. We were talking about this morning,
Vicki and I, We're talking about people that kill themselves,
that commit suicide. That subject just came up and
we were talking about that. Why would a person come to that
place? And I know that drugs are involved
a lot of times. But I don't believe that a person
kills themselves because their prospects in life are not good.
It's not that they need some kind of goal or something like
that, what people need is somebody. And that's true in a physical
sense. They need somebody. I think a lot of young people
come to the place where they feel like they're gonna, if they
go to their parents, they're gonna be judged instead of just
held. And I know that in some cases
is true. But what people really need is
Christ. And you need somebody that knows
him. You need somebody that knows Him. If you're going to have
any hope, come to Him for hope. Thank God that He wrote this
book that we can hear and live because there's no life He said
in John 21, 25, I say this a lot too, but I want to remind you
of this. Listen, John 21, 25. There are also many other things
which Jesus did, which if they should be written, every one,
I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the
books that should be written. John 20, 30. And many other signs
truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not
written in this book. but these are written. Why? That you might believe that
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you
might have life through his name. That's our text. Incline your
ear and come unto me, here and your soul shall live. That's
the next phrase in our text, hear and your soul shall live. Hear from God, hear of Christ,
hear the things concerning his son. Believe on Christ. Christ is God's righteousness
for sinners. Christ is God's lamb which takes
away sin. Hear of Christ the sovereign
savior who gives life to whomsoever he will. You need to hear. Hearing
of the Jesus of this religious world is not going to help you.
Somebody that's done all they can and left the whole thing
up to you can't help a sinner. I preach a sovereign savior that
will come right where you are if he wants to. And he'll save
you. He'll save you. And this is how
he does it. by the preaching of his gospel. Hear of the sovereign
Christ who has power on earth to forgive sins. I love that
scripture. He said, I could have told that
man, take up your bed and walk. But I said, your sins are forgiven
so that you might know that I have power. I have the authority on
this earth to forgive sins. Aren't you glad? You who have
children and grandchildren who, as of yet, don't know the Savior,
aren't you glad he's got the power to do that? He can forgive
their sins with a word. Hear and live. You know, people are dead. You
realize that? People are dead. That's why he
said, if you're going to live, you got to hear. You don't have
to listen now. You have to incline your ear
people are dead while they live. This is a world full of dead
people Their souls are dead dead and trespasses and sins This
is why the Lord said to Thomas in John 14 6. He said I'm the
way I'm the truth. I'm the life No man cometh under
the father, but by me I He did not just say there that he gives
life, although he does, but he is the life that he gives. He
gives himself for the life of the world. I think I mentioned this recently. I heard somebody say, some celebrity
on television, and they said, boy, it's just important for
me to have God in my life. That's a telling statement. If
God is a supplement to your life, if he's just something in your
life, you don't have life. You don't have life. You don't need God in your life.
You need to be in his life. That's not just nitpicking now.
There's a difference. There's a difference. He is life,
or you don't have any. When people say, well, I need
God in my life, that's just like, well, for my life to be complete, I've
got just about everything. So I just need, you know, I need
that too. No. In this truth, it's pictured
in all the miracles, isn't it? Lazarus, come forth. Stretch forth thine hand. The
Lord, you know, I had somebody tell me one time, I've said this
to you before too, I'm just telling you everything you already know
tonight. But somebody said to me one time,
God wouldn't command a sinner to do something he couldn't do,
that that sinner couldn't do. Have you read the Bible? He ain't
never told anybody to do anything they could do. Did he? Not one
time. Lazarus come forth, are you kidding
me? He ain't never commanded anybody to do what they can't
do. I mean, that sounds logical, doesn't it, when you say it,
but it's stupid. It's not according to the Word.
He never told anybody ever to do anything they could do. Stretch
forth thy hand, that's the one thing that man couldn't do. He might have won a gold medal
in pole vaulting, but he wasn't fixing to stretch forth that
hand. That's exactly what the Lord told him to do. That's salvation. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
You can't do that. You can't come to him except
the Father draw you. And yet the command goes forth.
He still told him to stretch forth his hand, didn't he? And
he did. That's salvation. That's a picture of his saving
power and grace. Why didn't Lazarus just decide
to come forth? Well, that's obvious. But let me ask you this too.
Why didn't the Lord just will for him to come forth? He could
have done that. He could have just willed it.
He didn't have to say anything. But it's by the power of his word
that he gives life. That's our text. Here and your
soul shall live. Can a dead man hear God's word? If it's God's word, he can hear
it. Can these bones live? The only one that can answer
that is the one that can make them live. Oh, that's exactly
what happens in the gospel. Prophesy to these dead bones,
and I'll put flesh on them, and I'll put a heart in them, and
I'll give them life. That's his promise. That's why
when I'm preaching, I might walk around with my head hanging down,
I'm worried about everything. I don't preach like that, do
I? It makes me happy to preach what
the Lord's given me to preach. What a glorious gospel it is. Paul said this gospel is the
power of God unto salvation. I'm not ashamed of it, he said,
because it's the power of God. unto salvation. He still speaks
and commands sinners to live. And that's why we're here. Turn
to Ezekiel chapter 16. We gotta look at this, you know
we do. Ezekiel chapter 16. Well, let's see, I'm in the wrong. Verse one. Again, again the word of the
Lord came unto me saying. We can say that, can't we? Again,
he spoke to me again. His word came to me again. Son
of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations. And here's
how you're gonna do it. Tell them this story. Say, thus
saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem, thy birth and thy nativity is
of the land of Canaan. Cursed people, godless. And that's
our birth now. You don't become a sinner at
the age of accountability. There's no such thing. You're
born a sinner. For thy father was an Amorite
and thy mother an Hittite, again, godless. people outside the commonwealth
of Israel without God and without hope in the world. And as for
thy nativity, in the day that thou wast born, thy navel was
not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee. Thou
wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all. None eye pitied thee
to do any of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee.
But thou wast cast out in the open field to the loathing of
thy person in the day that thou wast born." He's picturing an
abandoned child that nobody wanted, that was just cast out into the
open field and left to die. And when I passed by you, I saw
you polluted in your own blood. And I said unto you, when you
were in your blood, live. Yea, I said unto thee, when thou
wast in thy blood, live. What a picture. Nobody cared,
except him. I have caused thee to multiply
as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased and waxen
great. And thou art come to excellent ornaments. Thy breasts are fashioned,
and thy hair is grown, whereas thou wast naked and bare. Now,
when I passed by you and looked upon you, behold, the time was
the time of love. Whose love? That's not hard to
answer, is it? Oh, if we ever love him, it's
because he loved us first, isn't it? And I spread my skirt over
you and covered your nakedness. Yea, I swore unto you and entered
into a covenant with you, saith the Lord God, and you became
mine. What a blessed word man Man What's the next phrase in
our text he just said I'll make a cut I made a covenant with
you Look at our text again, and I will make an everlasting covenant
with you even the sure mercies of David Now this covenant is
all Christ is all, if Christ is all, we say that, Paul said
that, he said, Christ is all and in all. If that's true, then
what does he have to do with the covenant? All of the promises of God in
that covenant are yes and so be it in him. There ain't never
been a covenant we could meet the conditions of. You think
about it, well, you might say, well, the law, the law, that's
expecting a lot of us. There's a lot of thou shalts
and thou shalt nots and all that. What about in the garden? You
can eat anything you want, everything, eat all of it, but don't eat
that one thing. Can you keep that one? No. Why not? Because you're a wretch,
that's why. Because you're an absolute, godless, self-righteous,
proud, rich, and me too. But this covenant now, the everlasting
covenant of God's grace, it doesn't depend on you. Under the old
covenant, it was this do and live. If you keep all the commandments
I've given you this day, I will bless you. Well, we know how
that turned out. But this covenant's Christ. We're
born under the law, the old covenant, Whether we like it or not, all
sinners are under a divine covenant. Romans 3.19, we know that what
things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under
the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world
become guilty before God. But in the gospel, the Lord God
promises to all who come to Christ life in him. Here, incline your
ear and come here. and your soul will live, and
I'll make a covenant with you." That's the promise of God in
the new covenant, life in Him. And turn to Galatians 3, and
let's talk about that a little bit. I'm gonna have to, Galatians
chapter 3, verse 15. Galatians 3 15 Brethren I speak after the manner
of men Though it be but a man's covenant yet if it be confirmed
no man disanalyse or addeth thereto now to Abraham And his seed were
the promises made. That's a covenant, the promises
of God. And he saith not into seeds as
of many, but as of one into that seed, singular, which is Christ. You see how every word in the
scripture, he didn't say seeds. He said seed. Why did he do that?
Paul said, it's because he's talking about Christ and not
us. That's how how exact the Scripture is now. In this I say,
verse 17, that the covenant that was confirmed before of God in
Christ, the law which was 430 years after cannot disannul.
You see the old covenant is the covenant of the law, but the
new covenant was actually made before the old covenant. old covenant, the covenant of
the law can't disannul God's promises because God's promises
are yea and amen not based on your obedience but they are yea
and amen based on Christ's obedience. Then it should make the promise
of none effect. Verse 18, for if the inheritance be of the
law it is no more of promise but God gave it to Abraham by
promise. And He didn't say, Abraham, I'll bless you if. He said, I'm
in the business of blessing and I'm going to bless you. I'm going
to do it. I will and you shall. Verse 19,
wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions
till the seed should come, Christ, to whom the promise was made.
And it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. Now
a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one. Is the law then against the promises
of God? God forbid. For if there had
been a law given which could have given life, Verily, righteousness
should have been by the law. Again, there's no covenant that
we can keep. There is no way we can measure
up to God, to his standard, to his holiness. Righteousness should
have been by the law if it was possible, but the scripture hath
concluded all under sin, guilty of breaking God's law. that the
promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. But before faith came, we were
kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards
be revealed. We didn't know anything about
it. We were born under the law, we're under God's curse. By nature,
the children of wrath, even as others. Wherefore, the law was
our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ. When we understood
something about the law and that we're never going to be able
to keep it, what are you going to do then? You're going to run
to Christ. That's what you're going to do. If you're going
to be righteous before God, and you're going to have to be, that we might be justified by
faith, connected to Christ by faith and justified in him. But
after that faith has come, we're no longer under a schoolmaster.
We're not under the law. For you're all the children of
God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been
baptized into Christ have put on Christ. And there's neither
Jew nor Greek, there's neither bond nor free, there's neither
male nor female. No other distinction makes any
difference. For you're all one in Christ Jesus. And if you be
Christ's, then are you Abraham's seed. He said it again, didn't he?
because we're one with Him and heirs according to the covenant,
to the promise, the covenant, the covenant of grace, the new
covenant made with us in Christ by the preaching of the gospel,
by the way, that's how he made it with you. He made it between
the persons of the Godhead. This covenant is eternal, but
you didn't find out about it until much later in time. And how did you find out? How
does he make that covenant with you? By the preaching of the
gospel. Hear, listen, incline your ear and come to me. I'll
make a covenant with you. Hear the gospel and you'll be
in on it. You'll live. Your soul shall
live. And that, we enter into that
covenant by faith in Christ. And it disannuls the first covenant.
The old, the covenant of the law cannot, it can't make the
promises void. But I'll tell you this, the promise
of life, salvation by grace through faith in Christ, it does disannul
the old covenant. It's done away with. For sin
shall not have dominion over you, Romans 6, 14, for you're
not under the law, but under grace. Grace is powerful now. Grace is powerful. And that new
covenant has four promises. And I want to give them to you
briefly. This is another thing, I've preached this to you a bunch
of times, hadn't I, Todd? This is one of Todd's favorite
passages of scripture, and it's one of mine too. But we're going
to look at it again. It has four promises and all
of them are confirmed and ratified and made sure, as he said, it's
ordered in all things and sure. And there's one way that happens. And listen, here are the promises
themselves. In Hebrews 8.10, he said, this is the covenant
I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith
the Lord. And that's spiritual Israel, of course. He said, I
will put my laws into their mind and write them in their hearts. The law is not just gonna be
a standard anymore that we've got, that we're trying to live
up to. People that don't hear the law are trying to keep the
law. Those that hear the law, they love the law, but they're
not trying to keep it. They know better than that. We can't keep
God's law. And I will be to them a God,
and they shall be to me a people. Shall. There's a lot of shalls
in this new covenant. It don't depend on you. There
ain't no if in it. There ain't no if for us. 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. So that doesn't mean that we're
not gonna teach our children. We've talked about that before.
But it's not just gonna be something passed down from generation to
generation. God said, I'm gonna teach them. I'm gonna do it. And that's how
you know God. You got to hear from God to know
God. For all of them, everybody that has an interest in this
covenant, that's included in this covenant shall know me from
the least to the greatest. And the fourth thing, for I will
be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their iniquities
while I remember no more. Now here's the one reason that
God can make these promises to a sinner and keep them. Turn
to 2 Corinthians 1.19 with me. Old Covenant. Paul said in Hebrews
the Lord wouldn't have made a Second Covenant, a New Covenant if the
Old One would have been satisfactory. If it would have been this do
and live, and we had, and we all lived everything would be
great. But it didn't happen that way. So, He made a New Covenant.
So, let's look at this in 2 Corinthians 119, for the Son of God, Jesus Christ,
who was preached among you by us, even by me, and Silvanus
and Timotheus, was not yea and nay. In other words, there was
no contradiction or uncertainty or confusion, no frustration
of the grace of God, but in him was yea. For all the promises
of God in him are yea, and in him, amen. unto the glory of God by us. We make these promises to sinners
because he sent us to do that. We have a word from the king.
It's promise. His promise. I will. I will. I will incline
your ear here in your social live. I'll make a covenant with
you. Even the sure mercies of David. I deliver that promise
to you tonight. Those four wonderful things.
God said I will. I will, you listen to me, you
hear me, and you come to me, and your sins are gone. You're gonna
know me. My word will be in your heart.
You're still not gonna be able to keep it, but you're sure gonna
want to. Oh, and there's a lot to say for that, isn't there?
You're sure gonna want to. And I'm gonna be your God. and
you're gonna be my people from now on. All the promises of God in him
are yea, and in him, amen, under the glory of God by us. The old
covenant of law and works depended on man's obedience, and of course,
failed. The new one depends on Christ's
obedience unto death, even the death of the cross, and he cannot
fail. He did not fail. He shall not
fail. He cannot. Listen to Isaiah 42,
four with regard to that. He shall not fail nor be discouraged
till he have set judgment in the earth and the isles shall
wait for his law. That's his word. And thus sayeth
God, the Lord, he that created the heavens and stretched them
out. He that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh
out of it, he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and
spirit to them that walk therein, I the Lord have called thee in
righteousness. I should have had you turn here,
Isaiah 42, this is what we've been saying now. He said, I the
Lord have called thee in righteousness and will hold your hand. I will
hold your hand, and I will keep you. This is the new covenant.
It ain't God, you know, here's my law, now it's up to you. That's
what people preach for a gospel in false churches. Here's what
I say, now it's up to you. No, the new covenant's not like
that. He said, listen to me now, I the Lord have called you in
righteousness and I will hold your hand and will keep you and
give you for a covenant of the people for a light of the Gentiles.
That's talking about Christ, but that's everybody in him. That's us to open the blind eyes,
to bring out the prisoners from the prison and them that sit
in darkness out of the prison house. Christ can't fail. He
shall not fail. He's held, and so are we. What did he say? Nobody can pluck
you out of my hand. I and my father are one, and
nobody can pluck you out of my father's hand. And then that's sitting in the
darkness, he's gonna bring him out of the prison house. And
it all starts with what? Here, incline your ear unto me,
listen to me. That's how the promise of the
covenant comes to a sinner like you and me. The cup of which
we drink, the Lord Jesus Christ himself
said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. In other words,
all of the new covenant All of it. What does it depend on? How
is it successful? Well, how is it different from
the old one from the covenant of law that blood? That blood
Christ crucified. That's why this new covenant
is ordered in all things insure. Because of the power and efficacy
of his precious blood, Christ crucified is the fulfillment
of the everlasting covenant of grace, which David said is all
my salvation and all my desire. Let's pray.