Alright brethren, let's turn
in our Bibles to Hebrews chapter 9. If a person has property and
has some possessions, before they die, They tend to draw up
a last will and testament. A last will and testament. And
it's written something like this. It would read something like
this. I, Clay Curtis, being of sound mind and lawful age and
memory and not under restraint, do publish this to be my last
will and testament. hereby revoking all wills and
testaments made by me heretofore. I do give my inheritance to such
and such, and you list what you give to who. So that means that this last
will and testament, by that statement, hereby revoking all wills and
testaments made heretofore, that means any will and testament,
any covenant made before that's disannulled. It revokes any covenant
made before that. This is the last will and testament. The one who makes the will and
testament is called a testator. And for the testament to go into
force, for the will and the testament to go into force, the man must
die. He must die. And then his will
is testified, it's published, and the people are called that's
in the will, they're called. And he freely gives to whomsoever
he will, what he will. God saves by his will and testament. Our Bible is divided into the
Old Testament and the New Testament. Now that does not mean you have
an old Bible and a new Bible. It's just one Bible. Both of
them have the same message. But the Old Testament is dealing
with what's called an Old Covenant, the Old Testament of God. The New is dealing with the New
Testament. Christ is the mediator of God's
will and testament. He's the mediator. You know,
if you made a will and testament, you're going to have somebody
that's going to execute it for you because you're going to die.
You're going to have somebody execute it for you. So this type
is a pitcher, but all pitchers don't stand on four legs in the
scripture. God made his son to be the mediator to execute his
covenant, and he's the testator who died, and he really is the
covenant. And so he made his son all things. And he publishes it, sends his
ministers forth to publish this will and testament. He executes
it, applies it, gives it freely to whomsoever God the Father
willed for it to be given to, the inheritance. Now let's read
Hebrews 9 verse 15. And for this cause Christ is
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 a testament is a force after
men are dead, otherwise it is of no strength at all while the
testator liveth. And we have here spoken of the
New Testament, the New Testament, and then we have what's called
here the First Testament. He's the mediator of the New
Testament, and he laid down his life for the redemption of the
transgressions that were under the first testament. The first
testament was the first covenant that God revealed to the first
man. The first covenant is called
the first because it's the first covenant that was revealed. God
revealed it to Adam. God came and he made a covenant
with Adam, between him and Adam. He told Adam, do not eat of that
tree, you will live. He said, eat of that tree, you
will die. That was a covenant of works. It was based on Adam
obeying God that he would live. If he disobeyed, he would die.
But Adam disobeyed God. He ate of the tree and he plunged
the whole human race into sin and death. So God's not going
to make a covenant with you in the regard that he's going to
give you something to do because we already died. End of that
story. But then God did make a covenant
at Sinai. And it was really the same covenant
he had made with Adam, but it revealed a little more. It was
a covenant of works, but it revealed a little more. The Ten Commandments
were to show God's people our sins. It was to show us how we
really sinned in Adam, what all we did in Adam, and the transgression
we're guilty of, not to mention our own transgression. And the
tabernacle and the ceremonies and the sacrifices that came
with that law were all pictures and types and figures to show
us types of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's what they were for. But
the promises under that first covenant, when God made that
promise to Adam, under that first covenant of works, when God made
promises under that first covenant to Israel at Sinai, The promises
were only temporal. They were only temporal. If Adam
obeyed, God promised he'd live on this earth. If Israel obeyed, God promised
he'd give them an earthly inheritance in Canaan and defeat all their
temporal political enemies. But God never did purpose for
anybody to be saved by that first covenant. That was not God's
purpose in even giving it. It was not that anybody would
be saved by that first covenant. He never purposed that that covenant
he gave to Israel was going to put away any sin or save anybody. That wasn't the purpose of it.
He couldn't do that. He couldn't do that. What was
the purpose of it? Look at Hebrews 9.9. It was a
figure, it was a type, a picture for the time then present, which
were offered both gifts and sacrifices that could not make him that
did the service perfect as pertaining to the conscience. It was a picture. That's what it was, was a picture.
Now, the new covenant's called new because it's newly revealed
by God to his people. Newly revealed to God by his
people. But this has always been the
only covenant by which God saves. This is the only covenant God
ever purposed to save anybody with, is this new covenant. You
see, before this world was made, before he gave Adam that covenant
of works, God had already established this covenant. Man didn't know
anything about it yet, but God had already established His covenant.
God the Father chose His Son, and God the Father and God the
Son entered into a covenant. God's will was to give an inheritance,
just like if you were making a will and testament, your will
is to give an inheritance. You pick who you give that inheritance
to. It's a free gift to them. Well,
God chose who he would give his inheritance to. That man that
makes his will out to give it to somebody, he's under no restraint
to give to anybody. That's why you'll see things
in a will and testament that says, I'm of sound mind and I'm
under no restraint. I'm willingly giving this. Nobody's
making me do this. And so God chose freely who he
would give the inheritance to. That's what Paul said in Romans
9. God chose Jacob and passed by Esau. And he's using them
as being in their mother's womb, but it had been done from eternity,
but they're in their womb. They had not been born yet. They
had not done any good or evil that the purpose of God according
to election might stand, not of works, but of God that calleth. He said, I'll have mercy on whom
I will have mercy. I'll have compassion on whom
I will have compassion. You men, if you make out a will
and testament, you choose who you're going to give it to. If
somebody comes to you and says, well, that's not fair you're
giving that to them, or I don't think you ought to give that
to them, so what what they think. It's your will. It's your inheritance.
You give it to who you want to. And that's something along those
lines is probably what you're going to tell them. It's not
their business who you give it to. You get to give it to who
you will. Well, that's God's grace and
salvation. So the Son of God entered covenant
to come as a man. The Son of God whose spirit agreed
to come as a man. Those he was going to save were
men. He would come as a man and he
would be the mediator of this new covenant. He's the mediator
of the New Testament, the will and testament of God. He's the
mediator of it. Look back at Hebrews 8 and look
at verse 6. You had all those, you had that
ministry of priests, to picture Christ the high priest. You had
the tabernacle, to picture Christ who is our tabernacle. You had
the altar, picturing Christ who is our altar. You had the lambs,
picturing Christ who is the lamb of God. You had the ark and the
mercy seat, picturing Christ and whose heart the law was,
who is the mercy seat, who brings us to God, so God can have mercy
to us in a just way. All that ministry was in that
old covenant called in our text the first testament, But now
look what it says because of what Christ has done. Hebrews
8, 6. Now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much
also he's the mediator of a better covenant, a better testament,
which was established on better promises. That one only promised
earthly things. This is an eternal inheritance. For if that first covenant had
been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the
second. For finding fault with them, the fault was in the sinner.
No sinner, not even perfect Adam, ever kept God's covenant. He
said, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make
a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house
of Judah, not according to the covenant 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, saith the Lord. 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.
And 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. That doesn't mean we won't preach
the gospel. We will. But it means God's the
teacher. God's the one that's going to
teach his people, and so that all of his true people are going
to know him. Look, for I will be merciful to their unrighteousness
and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. That's
all the sins of all those people throughout our life and throughout
all time. He said, I'm going to be merciful
to their unrighteousness and their sins and iniquities will
I remember no more. How's God going to be just to
do that? How does this testament go into effect? By the death
of Christ. by the death of Christ. Let's
look here now, verse Hebrews 9, 16. For where a testament
is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator.
For a testament's a force after men are dead, otherwise it's
of no strength at all while a testator liveth. See, you make your will
a testament now, but it's not going to be in power and be effective,
it's just a piece of paper right now, until you die. And the attorney's going to come
in and they're going to call the people who are in it, and
they're going to make your testimony known, your will known, and whatever
you chose will be given to whomsoever you chose. You remember when
the Lord instituted the Lord's table? When he instituted the
Lord's table, he gave the bread to symbolize his broken body,
and he gave the wine. And this is what he said about
that wine. This cup is the New Testament in my blood. It's in my blood when it's shed
for you. The reason Christ's blood accomplished
redemption, and it did, it accomplished redemption. He said there in
our text that it accomplished the redemption of the transgressions
that were under the first covenant. All your transgressions from
most all of us were born once that old first covenant was abolished
but every sin of ours came from that first testament because
we all sinned in Adam and everything that we sin is due to us being
born of Adam and so all those transgressions were under that
covenant But Christ redeemed his people. He accomplished redemption
because life is in the blood. Life is in the blood. That's
what all the Old Testament sacrifices were declaring. Listen to this
from Leviticus 17 11. God said the life of the flesh
is in the blood. I've given it to you upon the
altar to make an atonement for your souls. For it's the blood
that maketh an atonement for the soul. Now that was a picture
when those lambs died, a picture of atonement made by the death
of a substitute in that lamb. We sinned and we have sinned. And God's justice, he won't clear
us. He will not clear anybody that
sinned. He commands we have to die. So,
this was the covenant Christ entered into to be the mediator
of this testament and fulfill all that was written. He came
as a man and he, in the place of his people, laid down his
life as the substitute of his people. He willingly gave his
life and shed his own blood instead of his people having to die under
the justice of God. And by that, he made atonement
with God for everybody he represented, for all those the father chose
to give this inheritance to. He made atonement for all the
sins of all his elect. What does that mean? It means
he justified us. If God says you're justified,
oh believer please get this, if God says you're justified,
it means just what he promised in that covenant, I will be merciful
to your unrighteousness and your sins and iniquities, I will remember
no more. They're blotted out of God's
book, they're not in God's book. but they had to be paid for,
justice had to be poured out and that happened with the Lord
Jesus Christ taking the place of his people so that now God's
just to give us this eternal inheritance. So when God instituted
that first covenant to picture this, he pictured it even in
that first covenant, that old covenant, he took a lamb, and
a lamb was slain, and Moses was used to apply the blood. Now look here at Hebrews 9 and
verse 18. It says, Whereupon neither the first
testament was dedicated without blood. For when Moses had spoken
every precept to all the people according to the law, He told
them everything the law of God said, everything in it, 600 and
something commandments. And every law in that was declaring
they were guilty as they could be. And it's pictured in the
fact God said, wash yourselves and then I'm going to call Moses
up and I'm going to appear. And boy, they washed themselves,
sanctified themselves, got themselves ready. And when they saw that
mountain on fire, with God's wrath and God quaking on that
mountain, they ran back and said, Moses, you go talk to God for
us, we can't do it. But then he read everything in
that book and he took the blood of a substitute, he took the
blood of a calf and a goat with water, that's a picture of the
Holy Spirit in this gospel we're preaching, and wool and hyssop
and he sprinkled both the book and all the people, saying, this
is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined to you. Moreover, he sprinkled with blood
both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry, and
almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and without
shedding of blood is no remission, no remission of sin. It was therefore
necessary, now, that the patterns of the things in heavens, that's
what they all were, they were just patterns. All that he just
talked about, they were patterns of things in the heavens. That
they should be purified with his blood of these lambs and
goats. But the heavenly things themselves,
they have to be purified with better sacrifices than these.
Christ Jesus is that better sacrifice. He's that better sacrifice. Look
at verse 24. For Christ is not entered into
the holy places made with hands, which they were just figures
of the true. They were pictures. That tabernacle
of old and all of that was just a picture. But he's gone into
heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God for us. Nor
yet that he should offer himself often as the high priest entered
into the holy place every year with the blood of others. For
then, he would have been suffering since the foundation of the world.
But now, once in the end of the world, has Christ appeared to
put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. That's what he did. He put away the sin of everybody
he represented. And as it is appointed that a
man wants to die, and after this the judgment, So Christ was once
offered. He bore that death. He bore that
judgment. He bore the sins of many and
unto them that look for him shall appear the second time without
sin unto salvation. Look at Hebrews 10 verse 12. What did he accomplish? This
man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat
down on the right hand of God. Why? Verse 14, for by one offering
he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. You see,
he fulfilled everything in that first covenant. God gave that
covenant to Adam, and Adam did not keep that covenant. But Christ
is the last Adam, and God entered covenant with Christ, and Christ
did everything the Father gave Him to do. He fulfilled all the
covenant of God, and so Christ made this new covenant in His
blood, and in doing so, He made that first covenant old. It's
finished. It's over with. Hebrews 8.13,
in that He saith a new covenant, He hath made the first old. Now
that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away."
At that time, see, the whole problem the Hebrews were having,
they've been under that old covenant all their life. And so they thought
you came to God by the works of the law. And their mamas and
daddies and priests and religious leaders, everybody was telling
them, you still got to come to God under this law. It don't matter
if you believe Christ, you got to come to God under this law.
And the Lord sent the Hebrew writer to tell them, That's all
been fulfilled. And it was still a little bit
in practice right now, but he said it's like an old dead carcass,
it's vanishing, it's vanishing, it's decaying. Because why? Because
this testament, what do you put in your will and testament? This
testament disannulls any covenant I've made heretofore. It disannulls
it. That means any covenant that
came before, this is the covenant I'm looking to. That's what,
if you made a covenant, Cyril, 20 years ago, and then you make
a new one today, and you say, this new covenant excludes that
covenant I made 20 years ago, that means that one 20 years
ago don't have a thing to say about it. And that's how the
Lord was turning. And see, we're no different from
the Hebrews. We come into this world and our vain imagination
thinks the way you come to God is you look in here and see what
God says, do or not do, and you do that, you don't do that, and
that's how you come to God. And we're taught that all our
lives. That's what religion is teaching
everybody under the sun right now. Vain religion. The Lord has to send a true messenger
to you and declare, Christ fulfilled it. Christ fulfilled it. If He does that for you, you
won't sit for years under vanity anymore. You will follow Him. You'll follow Him. Look there
at Hebrews 9.9. Then said He, Lo, I come to do
thy will, O God. I'm sorry, did I say Hebrews
9.9? Hebrews 10.9. Then He said, Lo, I come to do
thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that
He may establish the second. By the witch will, by His will,
by Him taking away the first and establishing the second,
we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus
Christ one time. What does that mean, you are
sanctified? You are perfected forever. In Christ and by Christ
we are perfected forever. Who gets the glory? Christ does. God and His Son alone. All right,
now, back in Hebrews 9, this will and testament must
be published. You know, when a man dies, the
people that are in his will, they've got to be called. They're
going to be called into an office and it's going to be told what
belongs to them. Well, everybody God chose to
give this inheritance to, they have to be called and the will's
got to be read. That's what we're doing every
time we come here and preach the gospel. We're reading God
the Father's last will and testament. First, Hebrews 9 verse 15 says
that they which are called might receive the promise of eternal
inheritance. Now, who's the heir? Who's the
heir? Who's the heir of God? The Lord Jesus Christ. Do you
see how totally Christ is everything in this? He's the mediator of
this covenant. He's the testator of it, who
died to put it in force. He's the one who's going to advocate,
be the lawyer, who's going to call you and tell you what's
in this will. And He's the heir. He's the heir. God hath in these last days,
Hebrews 1-2, listen to this, Hebrews 1-2, God hath in these
last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir
of all things. He's the heir. by whom he made
the worlds, being the brightness of his glory and the express
image of his person and upholding all things by the word of his
power when he had by himself purged our sin. That means he
upheld all things by the word of his covenant by doing what
he said he would do. He by himself purged our sin
and sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high. Why is
He everything in you? It just told us He's the heir,
He's the mediator, He's the testator. He created the worlds even. He
upholds everything by His covenant word. And He's the one that accomplished
our redemption through His death. Why is He everything? The Lord
said in Colossians 1.16, By Him were all things created. All
things were created by Him and for Him. Because in all things,
It pleased God that he might have all preeminence. See, he's
the only one going to be talked about in this. It's him. It's him. He's the mediator of
this covenant, so he gets all the glory in every aspect of
our salvation. even in the calling of his people.
Peter said, whom by him do believe in God. It's by him that you
believe. He's calling you. He's the advocate,
the mediator that's executing this testament and calling the
ones that are included in it to him. That's what the preaching
of the gospel is. That's why you value the preaching
of the gospel when he's called you because you see, this is
how he called me. Christ called me. Nobody else
did. And that's when you see, I've got to have the gospel. So he sends forth his ministers
to preach this gospel. And the minister is only preaching
by Christ, and we're only preaching Christ. We're preaching God's
will and testament, which in every way gives Christ all the
preeminence. And so by Christ, by the Spirit
of God, he applies his blood. and he purges your conscience,
the conscience of his people, and he turns us from our dead
legal works. That's what he does. You see,
the Hebrews, if you just step back and look and see what was
going on here, they were still trying to come to God by their
dead works, by their dead legal works. They thought they sanctified
themselves. They thought that by those sacrificed,
that's no different than you saying, you know, because I've
transformed my life and I've reformed and I've quit doing
this and that and the other. I'm more holy now. That don't
make you holy. I'm telling you, brethren, that
is a false gospel and you will go to hell believing that. You
could do all of that you want to, but until Christ creates
a new man in you and makes this word official in you and makes
you holy, you're not holy. And then when he makes you holy,
you're going to still stumble and fall and sin and everything
else, though you don't want to, but that does not make you unholy. What I'm saying is, Christ makes
you holy, and you can't make yourself not be holy. Because
what he makes holy, he's going to keep holy. And he's going
to save you, because it's in God's will and testament to give
it to you. and he's going to have the preeminence.
So he's going to give you faith to believe on Christ and rest
in Christ and trust he alone has perfected us forever. Now when that old covenant was
instituted, and we saw there Moses took the blood of the lambs,
and he sprinkled the people, and he sprinkled all things,
that's what Christ is doing by the Spirit of God through the
preaching of the gospel. He's sprinkling his own blood,
and he's purging the conscience. He's writing this everlasting
covenant on our hearts. He's writing this gospel on our
hearts, so only way we understand it and bow to God. And His blood's
going to make you cease trying to come to God by anything you've
done. And it's going to make you cease
being, fall away or return to the law or run back to try to
fix it when you have sinned and you see you've sinned. What He's
going to keep you doing is what He did in the first hour by this
message. He's going to keep you coming to Christ only. Christ
only. And it's the Holy Spirit that
makes you know this. Look at Hebrews 10, 15. So when He sprinkled
you with His blood, He's purged your coffins, here's what the
Holy Ghost does in your heart. The Holy Ghost also is a witness
to us. For after that He had said before,
this is the covenant I'll make with them after those days, saith
the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts and their minds.
Will I right them and their sins and iniquities? Will I remember
no more? Now a remission of these is there's
no more offering for sin. What's the result of that? That's
when you find out you don't need an earthly high priest. That's
when you start living to men and trying to please men in religion.
That's when you see you can come to the thrice holy God and He
will receive you because you have a high priest who has made
you perfect. And that's the only way God can
receive His people. And so we draw near because we've
been washed in His blood, we've been washed with the water of
the Word, we've been washed by the Spirit of God. You had nothing
to do with that. You didn't do that, and you won't
ever do that. It's all of Him. In fact, when
you go into a shower and wash yourself, you don't really wash
yourself. The water and the soap wash you. And everything we're talking
about here is Christ washing you, and the Spirit washing you,
and the Word washing you. And you know what you are? Washed. Verse 19, Having therefore, brethren,
boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new
and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the
veil, that is to say, his flesh, and having a high priest over
the house of God, You see, we're not anywhere in that. He did
it all to us. We're passive, passive, passive. He did this to us, for us, in
us. He did it. And what's the result
now? Let us draw near with a true
heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts already sprinkled
from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
Done. Done. When those people were washed
and sprinkled with that blood when Moses did it, they just
stood there and were sprinkled. That's it. And God said ceremonially, he
pronounced them clean. Each of his saints then after
this, we endeavor to walk before God in obedience to him. We want
to follow God and be obedient to him. We're in a sinful body still,
and we face a lot of opposition. A lot of opposition. Sometimes
when a man leaves an inheritance, he chose who he would give it
to, he called them in, the inheritance is given to them freely, and
sometimes those that were left out of the will contest it. They're offended. That wasn't
fair, you didn't include us in the will. And so they try to
contest it to make it null and void. They want to be included,
but they want to change it because they feel like, what, we deserve
an inheritance. Because, look, I cut your grass
all your life. I mowed your field all your life.
I came out and cleaned out your septic tank. I did this. I did
that. And you didn't put me in your
will. I earned it. Nobody's going to stand in God's
presence and say, we earned the inheritance. Not in any regard. But when you're opposed and you're
persecuted for declaring this gospel, with people contesting
God's will and testament, rejecting Christ, rejecting our gospel,
rejecting us, trying to make God's covenant null and void,
trying to obtain the inheritance by their works, I'll tell you
what you usually end up doing. Sinning. When you're opposed,
you'll sin. you'll sin. And other times we
just flat out fail at sin. Now I'm not saying do that. Don't
run to the Pharisees that accuse us of being antinomians and say
you don't preach man's responsibility enough. You have a responsibility
to believe on Christ and you do not have the ability to do
it. You have the responsibility not to ever sin again and you
do not have the ability to do it. And when you fall and you do
sin as a believer, you have a responsibility to repent and believe God, and
you do not have the ability to do it. You could reform yourself, you
can go back to the law, you can clean up, clean out, and you're
just the same what you was, now just a cleaned up version, but
now you're twice dirty because you think you've really done
something that counts. but nothing will purge our conscience.
When we're a believer, I'm talking about a believer now, and you've
either been, you know, you've tried to meet the opposition
and you just end up getting self-righteousness just produces self-righteousness.
or you've sinned, and you know, whatever it is you've tried to
do to fix it, nothing will purge your conscience to make you know
you are perfect in Christ Jesus, and nothing has changed except
for Christ making you know it through the Spirit, through the
gospel. Nothing else. If it did, we'd glory in it.
We'd glory in it. We'd stand up and look down our
nose at others, and we'd condemn others, and we'd, you know, whatever. He's the mediator, and He is
the one who mediates the New Testament. He publishes it to
us again and again, and His gospel reminding us again and again
what He's done for us. He purges our conscience again
and again by His blood, by the water of the Spirit, by the washing
of the Word. And at the same time, our mediator
and high priest, while he's working that for us, being the mediator
to us and doing this in us, he's also mediating for us with God,
making intercession for us. And this is why nothing's changed,
because he is everything. And he's doing it all. Therefore,
by him, you know what we do? We repent. We leave whatever
it was that He's turned you from. We draw to Christ by His Spirit,
by His Word and full assurance of faith, knowing He made us
joint heirs with Him. And if you've ever experienced
that, you'll stop condemning folks. Now, don't amen yourself into
hell. Hear the message, and God help you to hear it, because
it's vital. Because He knows the heart. He's looking right
at it. You have got to be made to renounce yourself entirely. Somebody's got to preach the
gospel. I have to stand up here and preach it. Two people can
ride a horse. One of them's got to hold the
reins. And He's going to bring you into submission to Christ.
He's going to bring you into submission to Christ, if you're
His. And He's going to make you say of yourself, I am vile. I've contributed nothing, I can
contribute nothing. If he doesn't keep me tomorrow
or this afternoon I'll fall and I won't return to him unless
he makes me return to him. But he calls you by this gospel
and he keeps teaching you that when you have sinned and you
have fallen or when you've been puffed up and started looking
at yourself, both is just the same sin just dressed up in different
ways. He makes you see by His Spirit,
nothing's changed. Here's what He's making you see,
Romans 8, 14. As many as are led by the Spirit
of God, they're the sons of God. You've not received the Spirit
of bondage again to fear. He's not going to bring you in
bondage again. Don't you just hate feeling like
you have to watch everything you do around somebody? They're
going to condemn you if you don't. He doesn't bring you into that
again. He will not bring you into that again. That's the spirit
of bondage. That's to make you fear, to try to coerce you to
do something somebody else wants you to do. God will not bring
you into that. He gives you the spirit of adoption
so that you can cry, Father, Father. And the spirit itself
birth. Witness with our spirit that
we're the children of God. And if children, then heirs of
God. Joint heirs with Christ. What a Savior. He did it all. He keeps doing it all. And when
He brings us to God, He will have done it all, and it will
all be the praise of His glory, and He's going to give you jointly
to enjoy everything that God gave to Him. It's all His. That's God's promise, and nothing
and nobody will change it. That's the will and testament. You remember this in Hebrews
9.13, In that he saith a new covenant, he hath made the first
old, now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish
away. Go to 1 Peter 1. Look at verse 3. Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his
abundant mercy hath begotten us again to a lively hope by
the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance
incorruptible and undefiled that fadeth not away. This don't fade
away. It's reserved in heaven for you
who are kept by the power of God. Is God the only one keeping
you? Are you kept only by God's power?
Then He's speaking to you. It's through faith or you trust
in Christ only. It's unto salvation which is
all ready. It's ready, it's done, and it's
ready to be revealed in the last time. And he goes on to say there,
in every one of those trials, if need be, he'll put you through
a trial just to keep showing you this, keep reminding you
this, and even when you... He brings you through the trial.
At the end, He says, though you don't see Him, you're going to
love Him, verse 8, and though you see Him not, you believe
Him, and you rejoice with joy unspeakable, full of glory, receiving
right now as a foretaste the end of your faith, even the salvation
of your soul. He's saving you little by little
by little, showing you, giving you a foretaste of that day when
you'll walk into that inheritance. That is God's will and testament.
That's the mediator of the New Testament, brethren. Prayer God
bless.