Let us turn to the Word of God
in the portion of Holy Scripture we read in Ezekiel chapter 16
the last two verses Ezekiel 16 verses 62 and 63 I will establish
my covenant with thee and thou shalt know that I am the Lord
that thou mayest remember and be confounded and never open
thy mouth any more because of thy shame when I am pacified
toward thee for all that thou hast done saith the Lord God
to consider then something of the covenant as we read of it
here being established and then the remembrance of it in verse
63 that thou mayest remember I will establish my covenant
with thee, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord that thou
mayest remember. What is this covenant? Is it
not that covenant that God initially made with Abraham back in Genesis
chapter 15? And there at verse 18 we're told
in the same day the Lord made a covenants with Abraham and
that was very much God's covenant. I will establish my covenant
he says. Remember something of the detail
that we have in that 15th chapter of Exodus where Abraham makes
a sacrifice, and then lays out the sacrifice, and now we're
told, behold a smoking furnace and a burning lamp that passed
through the pieces, the pieces of the sacrifice. That was God
cutting the covenant, which is what the word make really means. The basic meaning of that word,
I will make, or I will cut my covenant, it was God alone in
the smoking furnace and the burning lamp then that made that covenant
a unilateral covenant and it's that that he's spoken of in the
New Testament particularly there in what Paul says when writing
to the Galatians Galatians chapter 3 and the language that we have
at verse 16 following it says now to Abraham and his seed where
the promise is made he saith not unto seeds as of many but
as of one and to those seed which is Christ and this I say that
the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ that's
God's covenant with Abraham and The Law, which was 430 years
after, cannot disannul that it should make the promise of none
effect. For if the inheritance be of
the Law, it is no more of promise, but God gave it to Abraham by
promise." The contrast then there is between the covenant with
Abraham and that covenant that God gave at Mount Sinai. and we often refer to the Covenant
at Sinai as the Old Covenant that Covenant that concerns the
Law the Ten Commandments or remember how God spoke those ten words
in Exodus chapter 20 and previous to that of course we have the
account of them coming to Mount Sinai in chapter 19 and all the
preparation how the mountains to be fenced off and then God
descending upon the mountain in thunderings and in lightnings
and how the people were greatly afraid and that is the covenant
that God made with the children of Israel when he brought them
out of the bondage which was Egypt and it's spoken of here
In verse 60 for example, nevertheless I will remember my covenant with
thee in the days of thy youth. We refer this morning to those
words in Jeremiah chapter 2 and verse 2, I remember thee the
kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou
wentest after me in the wilderness. Israel was holiness unto the
Lord. it's the same as being spoken
of then there in verse 60 the days of thy youth the covenant
that God made with them as a people expressed in terms of the law,
the Ten Commandments but then we also have the the new covenant, the gospel
spoken of at the end of verse 60 God says I will establish
unto thee an everlasting covenant Again, what does he say in verse
62? I will establish my covenant
with thee. There's two covenants here. There's
law and then there is the gospel. And we sought to say something
this morning with regard to that wonderful provision that God
does make in that everlasting covenant. We looked at the language
that we have at the beginning of this remarkable 16th chapter. In verse 8, Then when I passed by thee, and
looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love, and
I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness. Yea,
I swear unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith
the Lord God, and thou becamest mine. or they were God's peculiar
possession. And He didn't set His love upon
them because they were greater than any of the nations. They
were the least of all the nations, we're told in Deuteronomy 7.
It was because God loved them. They are of course atypical people,
as we've said many a time. They're a type of God's spiritual
Israel, the true people of God. Well this morning we looked at
those words and the provision that God made and I said that
that verse is so full of a salvation that is so free. It's the new
covenant. It's what God does for his people
in the gospel of his grace. And tonight I want us in a sense
to continue with that theme but to think more now in terms of
this as an everlasting covenant. Isn't that how God speaks of
it here in verse 60? He calls it an everlasting
covenant. And then again at verse 62, I
will establish my covenant with thee and thou shalt know that
I am the Lord that thou mayest remember. and be confounded and
never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame when I am
pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done saith the
Lord. Peace of God being pacified. It's a covenant of peace. It's
God's great counsel of peace that's spoken of in Zechariah
chapter 6 And verse 13, there shall be a council of peace between
them both, between the Father and the Son. Well, let us consider
this everlasting covenant. First of all, we see it as that
that is established by God. It's God's covenant. Verse 16,
I will establish, He says, unto thee an everlasting covenant. And then again, verse 62, I will
establish My covenant with thee. What is this covenant? Well,
four particular truths. This covenant concerns the promise
of God. And we see that quite clearly.
What does He say here in verse 62? I will and thou shalt. I will establish, and thou shalt
know. That is the language of the covenant. That's the language, for example,
that we have in another of the prophecies. In the book of Isaiah,
there in chapter 32, verse 40, it says, I will make an everlasting
covenant with them. that I will not turn away from
them to do them good but I will put my fear in their hearts that
they shall not depart from me and again we observe the language
I will make I will not turn away he says I will put my fear in
their hearts and then they shall not depart It's the I wills and
the they shalls of God's covenant. This is how God is pleasing to
work mightily, graciously in the hearts of His people. They
shall be my people, He says, and I will be their God. There we have it again. They
shall, and He says, I will. Now how different is the language
of the Old Covenant, the language of the Law? What does the Law
say? Which if a man do them, he shall
live in them. It's as a man does. It's his
obedience. And he must be obedient to every
one of the commandments and he must obey that commandment perfectly. Not only is he to obey it in
the externals of his life, it's a spiritual law, he is to obey
it inwardly. A sinful thought, you see, is
a transgression. A sinful feeling is a transgression,
which if a man do, he shall live in them. We sometimes sing that
rather quaint little hymn of Berridge, number 49. Although
it's rather quaint, it's language, it's full of good doctrine, solid
doctrine, and it contrasts law and gospel. You read through
those verses in the 49th hymn, and what does it say there? Run,
run and work, the law commands. but finds me neither feet nor
hands, but sweeter news the gospel brings. It bids me fly and lends
me wings. There's a difference. All the
law makes demands, this stern, whereas the gospel makes every
provision for the sinner. the great promise of the New
Covenant. And now we see that it's all
fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. We think of the language that
we have back in Jeremiah again, Jeremiah 31 at verse 31 following,
and when we come to the New Testament we see how the Apostle Paul takes
up those very verses and applies them. to Christ and the work
that He came to accomplish there in the epistle to the Hebrews
Hebrews 8 verse 10 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 minds 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. For I will be merciful to their
unrighteousness, and their sins, and their iniquities. Will I
remember no more? Again, it's all the shalls and
the wills, it's all the work of God. And then verse 13, in
that he saith, A new covenant he hath made the first of all,
Oh, that is the law. Now that which decayeth and waxeth
old is ready to vanish away. Oh, what is this covenant? It's the promise of God. It's
what God promises that He will do, and He has done it, of course.
And He has done it in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and
that remarkable work that Christ came to accomplish. And what
does he say in his high priestly prayer? I have finished the work
that thou gavest me to do. Oh, he has glorified God upon
the earth, he has finished the work and then upon the cross
he utters that great cry, at the end of his sufferings it
is finished. And he bows the head and he heals
up the ghost. This covenant that God has established
then It concerns God's promise. I will establish my covenant
with thee, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord, for which
life eternal to know, thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ,
whom thou hast sent. I will thou shalt, says God. The language of the covenant,
and as I've already intimated, This covenant speaks of peace
with God. It speaks of peace with God.
When I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done saith
the Lord God. So it is truly a covenant of
peace. Again that's how Jeremiah speaks
of it in his book there in Jeremiah 34 verse 23 and the following
verses rather I should say this book
of Ezekiel in chapter 34 and verse 23 following I will set up one shepherd over
them and he shall feed them even my servant David he shall feed
them and he shall be their shepherd and I the Lord will be their
God and my servant David the prince among them I the Lord
have spoken it and I will make with them a covenant of peace Mark what God says there, and
again it's the shells, it's the wheels, and then he says that
in verse 25, I will make with them a covenant of peace. And he speaks of David, but the
reference is not to David that we read of earlier in the Old
Testament. The reference there is clearly
to him who is the good shepherd of the sheep, David's greatest
son, the Lord Jesus Christ. it is a covenant of peace and
isn't that the work really that the Lord Jesus came to accomplish
we mentioned this morning the necessity of that reconciliation
he comes to reconcile the sinner to God we see it in so many ways
what is the sacrifice that he makes? well it's an expiation
for sins I know these are technical terms they are doctrinal words
but they are important words for us to understand and to grasp
because it speaks of the work that the Lord Jesus Christ came
to do, he came to make peace through the blood of his cross
and how has he done that? well we have the mention of the
curse think of the man-made aspect of that work in a sense Where there is transgression,
there's condemnation, there's curse. Cursed is everyone that
continueth not in all things written in the book of the law
to do them. And what has Christ done? He's redeemed us from the
curse of the law, it says. being made a curse for us for
it is written cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree the curse,
the condemnation has come upon him and in that sense he has
dealt with the sin of his people that sin that was deserving of
the wrath of God that wrath has now been poured out upon the
person of God's only begotten son he has died as a substitute
and doubts with that aspect, that human aspect of sin the
curse, the condemnation but then there's also the Godward aspect
of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ how God's justice must
also be satisfied and that's what the Lord has done it's the
word propitiation that we're to think of, then expiation when
we think of sin and the condemnation and the curse, propitiation when
we think of God and His justice, and the fact that He can by no
means clear the guilty, and Christ, He is the propitiation for our
sins, it seems. Here in His love, not that we
love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation
for our sins. I deliberately chose that first
hymn because I think dear William Tucker brings that truth out
in such a remarkable fashion. The harmony of the perfections
of God where we have the mercy and justice meeting together. What does he say Verse 2, their
wisdom shines in fullest blaze, and justice to all her rights
maintains. Astonished angels stoop to gaze,
while mercy o'er the guilty reigns. Yes, mercy reigns, and justice
too. In Christ they both harmoniously
meet. He paid to justice all its due,
and now He fills the mercy seat. That's what the Lord Jesus Christ
has done. He has made the propitiation.
He has satisfied the justice of God. He has dealt with that
curse of the broken law that rests upon the conscience of
the sinner. He has made peace through the
blood of His cross. When I am pacified toward for
all that thou hast done. And think of the content of the
chapter. We've read the chapter today, right through. And how
awful is the account of Israel's sin, likened unto a harlot worse
than a harlot, a whorish woman, an unfaithful wife, and yet God's
pacified. and the sinner brought to that
state of peace with God all this covenant you see this everlasting
covenant and then also think here with regard to the way in
which it is established surely we have to think in terms of
the extent of the covenant and how extensive it is how extensive
it is verse 61 we read Thou shalt receive thy
sisters thine older and thy younger and I will give them unto thee
for daughters but not by thy covenants who are these sisters? the older
and the younger? well We have it really in all
the preceding verses where we read so much of Sodom and of
Samaria. We go back to verse 44 where
we read of Proverbs. Behold, everyone that useth Proverbs
shall use his proverb against thee, saying, As is the mother,
so is her daughter. Thou art thy mother's daughter
that loatheth her husband and her children and thou art the sister of thy
sisters which loathe their husbands and their children your mother
was an Hittite and your father an Amorite and thine eldest sister
is Samaria she and her daughters that dwell at thy left hand and
thy youngest sister that dwelleth at thy right hand is Sodom and
her daughters and we are to think of what we associate with those
people, the sodomites and the Samaritans we know what became
of those wicked cities of the Plains Sodom and Gomorrah how God visited terrible judgment
upon them, even fire from heaven the very name sodomite of course
which refers to homosexual practices or used to now of course our
English language is so mangled that those who are sodomites
are referred to as people who are gay which is a perversion
of our language but we know what God deals upon such a people who
glory in those practices and then the Samaritans the Samaritans
were those who the Jews would have nothing to do with why?
because It seems they were in part descended from the Ten Lost
Tribes after the Assyrians came and destroyed that northern kingdom
of Israel made up of the Ten Tribes. There was much intermingling
and marrying It was a mongrel religion that Samaritans had.
There were aspects of the true religion of Jehovah, but there
were other things. And that's why the Jews would
have nothing to do with the Samaritans. But it's interesting, isn't it?
The chapter is being addressed to Jerusalem. Son of Man caused Jerusalem to
know her abominations. and I was thinking of that and
I thought well when we come to the book of the prophet Isaiah
and there in the opening chapter we also read there of Sodom and
Gomorrah and the amazing thing is that God speaks of the sins
of his ancient people in terms of those dreadful sins there in Isaiah 1 verse Verse
8, the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as
a lodge in a garden of cucumbers and besieged Italy. Oh, poor
Zion in such a dreadful plight. Except the Lord of Hosts had
left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been a Sodom and
we should have been like unto Gomorrah. And then, hear the
word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom, Give ear unto the law
of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude
of your sacrifices unto me, saith the Lord? I am full of burnt
offerings of rams and so forth. Why God begins to address Zion,
Jerusalem, as if they are Sodom and Gomorrah. Because so great
is their sin. so great is their sin that they
are spoken of as if they are those very people who belong
to those wicked cities of the plain but the amazing thing is that
really this shows us all the fullness of God's grace in the
gospel that it will reach even to the daughters of Sodom and
the descendants of the Samaritans, it will reach to these people.
It will embrace them. You see, the Gospel is such that
there is hope for every sort of sinner. All sorts of sinners
can know the salvation of God. We know that there were those
who were the Lord's people, saved people in the church at Corinth
who had once been guilty of those awful sins. Remember that passage
that we find in the first letter to the Corinthians in chapter
6 and verse 9? Know ye not that
the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God, be not deceived,
neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, all those sins
that we've read of in Ezekiel 16 that they were so guilty of,
they were fornicators, they were idolaters, they were adulterers,
nor effeminates, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor
thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners,
shall inherit the kingdom of God. And then we have that amazing
statement in verse 11, and such were some of you. Oh, they were
guilty, some of these Corinthians, of these very sins. Such were
some of you, but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you
are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit
of our God. Oh, there's the gospel, you see.
There's the great extent of this new covenant, this covenant of
grace. It's God's covenant. What does
he say to these people concerning those daughters of Sodom, those
daughters of Samaria? Thine elder sister and thy younger
and I will give them unto thee for daughters, he says, but not
by thy covenant or not by that covenant of works that covenant
that God had given to them at Mount Sinai, not by thy covenant. That covenant belonged to the Jews. Remember how it's spoken of in
the language of the Psalm. Think of the words at the end
of the 147th Psalm. He showeth His word unto Jacob,
His statutes, and His judgments unto Israel. He hath not dealt
so with any nation as for His judgments they have not known
them. O you only have I known of all the families of the earth,
He says. And then in the New Testament
what does the Apostle say referring to these who were so privileged,
the Jews? Romans 9.4, "...who are Israelites,
to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenant,
and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises."
All these were theirs. That was their covenant. But this is the new covenant.
This is the covenant of grace. Not by thy covenant. and I will establish my covenant,
God says. My covenant. All that is God's prerogative. He will save
sinners and He will save the greatest of sinners. All this
covenant that's so well established, the certainty of it, How has God established His covenant?
Why, He has given His words, He has spoken His promise, He's
confirmed it by an oath, when He gave promise to Abraham, remember,
because he could swear by no greater, God swore by Himself,
saying, Blessing I will bless thee, multiplying I will multiply
thee, He is sworn by Himself, in other
words the very being of God is bound up with the accomplishments
of the word of promise that He has spoken. If that promise fails,
God fails. And that's impossible. That's
impossible. He has magnified His words above
all His name in this covenant of Christ and the certainty of
it. I will, He says, establish unto
thee an everlasting covenant. I will establish my covenant
with thee, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord. Again, we saw it in that verse
we were considering earlier, and the end of that 8th verse, What does God say? Yea, I swear
unto them and entered into a covenant with thee saith the Lord God
and thou becamest mine. Here is that covenant then that
God has established. But it's also a covenant that
is to be remembered and is to be remembered by God's people.
That's what he says in verse 63, that thou mayest remember.
Speaks of the covenant being established, verse 62, that thou
mayest remember and be confounded and never open thy mouth any
more because of thy shame when I am pacified toward thee for
all that thou hast done, saith the Lord God. Now what is the
consequence when there is this remembering? These people are
to remember the covenants, but when we remember, if we're the
people of God, there will be certain results, consequences
following our remembrance. Well, here we see there will
be the stopping of the mouth. And surely there's some allusion
here to what we're told concerning the Lord of Gods. that ministry
of the law that Paul speaks of in Romans 3 we know that what things so ever
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 that's a remarkable ministry of the law to stop the mouths
of men all men make their boast you
see They want to commend themselves.
But what does the Lord of God do? He brings the sinner up sharp. He has to see that he is really
a transgressor, Saul of Tarsus. That self-righteous Pharisee,
how he was brought up sharp. There at the very gate of Damascus. that thou mayest remember and
be confounded and never open thy mouth any more because of
thy shame but mark the fact that God is
the one who is pacified towards his people here when I am pacified
towards it's not just the stopping of the mouth the ministry of
the law there's something more than that there's gospel There's
gospel. It's not that God brings his
people to a legal sort of repentance. But God brings his people to
that place where they're full of great grief and sorrow because
of what they see in the gospel of the grace of God. Godly sorrow. Workers repentance to salvation
not to be repented of. the sorrow of the world's worketh
death. And we have such a remarkable
example of that, of course, in the sad case of Esau, the twin
brother of Jacob, who sold his birthrights. Remember what the
Apostle says concerning Esau, and what remorse, oh what remorse,
but no real repentance, there in Hebrews 12, 16. He says, lest there be any fornicator
or profane person as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his
birthright. For you know how that afterward,
when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected,
for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully
with tears. All the important thing, surely,
is that we sorrow after a godly manner and that's the sort of
sorrow that we see here in the in the last verse of the chapter
that thou mayest remember and be confounded and never open
thy mouth any more because of thy shame when I am pacified
toward thee for all that thou hast done saith the Lord God
all that wickedness that is the content of the whole chapter
that great sin that they were guilty of It was when God came in mercy
and in grace in the New Covenant that there was then that true
godly sorrow over their sins. It's what we're reminded of in
the language of Zechariah 12.10. They shall look upon me whom
they have pierced. and they shall mourn for him,
as one mourneth for an only son, and shall be in bitterness for
him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn." Always beholding
the Lord Jesus Christ. And of course that's what we
are to be about just now, when we come to the Lord's table. The Lord says, all is to be done
in remembrance of me, that they must remember, it says. and be
confounded. When we come to the Lord's table,
do we come as those who would seek to examine ourselves? Let
a man examine himself, says Paul, so let him eat of that bread
and drink of that cup. We examine ourselves, we look
to ourselves and we think, well, what have I been about since
last I sat at that table? How many sins have I been guilty
of over these past weeks? How much have I fallen short
of the glory of God? Well, we see that there's nothing
of any worth in us, but we come, of course, there to remember
the Lord. And that's our comfort. We have to look to Him again,
and again, and again. He says, take heed, this is my
body which is broken for you, this too in remembrance of me.
And then after the same manner also he takes the cup and says,
this cup is the New Testament in my blood, this do you as often
as you drink it, in remembrance of me. It's always remembering
him, we have to look to him. It's always that looking away
unto Jesus. It's there and only there that
we find all that fullness of salvation. It's there that we
Remember Him and meditate upon Him and seek that by the grace
of God we might fleed upon Him. In that spiritual sense to know
that real, living, vital union to eat His flesh, to drink His
blood as it's spoken of there in John chapter 6. Oh the Lord help us then as we
turn from the Word of God turn to that holy ordinance of the
supper of the Lord that we might remember that it is a covenant
ordinance it's the New Testament in Christ's blood the cup of
blessing that we bless it's the communion of the blood
of Christ the bread that we break it's the communion of the body
of Christ and he says this cup is the New Testament, the New
Covenant in my blood I will establish my covenant with thee and thou
shalt know that I am the Lord that thou mayest remember and
be confounded and never open thy mouth any more because of
thy shame when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou
hast done saith the Lord God or what strange emotions then
as we come to the table there's much that makes us sad when we
remember ourselves and examine ourselves and recollect our many
sins, our fallings, our transgressions but then also to remember the
Lord and to find all our comfort only in His person and in His
work. Oh will the Lord be pleased to
bless these things to us. Amen.