All right, how are we now? OK.
All right, take your Bibles and turn with me to Hebrews chapter
12, Hebrews chapter 12, looking again at verse 24. Hebrews chapter
12, verse 24, the title of the message this morning is the new
covenant, the new covenant. Reading back for context in verse
22, it says, but ye are come unto Mount Zion, unto the city
of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable
company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn,
which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all,
and to spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator
of the new covenant." and to the blood of sprinkling that
speaketh better things than that of Abel." We who are believers
in Christ are come to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant. Again, picture the scene. Picture
the scene the Apostle is painting for us concerning Mount Sinai. We who believe in this allegory
We have come to the church of Jesus Christ. We who believe,
we have come to the church, the only church, of the Lord Jesus
Christ. We are citizens of a heavenly
Jerusalem. We have come to the church of
Christ the Firstborn, of God, and we are His church that He
has purchased with His own blood. Believers, we are the body of
the Lord Jesus Christ and we are joined in union with Jesus
as our head and joined together as one body. One body. All believers in Christ make
up the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a spiritual,
mystical body. It shows us the union that we
have with Christ. We who are believers have union
with Christ as our head, but we also have union and fellowship
together in this same head. We are this mystical union, but
how is this mystical union manifest? It's manifest by the local assembly
of the church. That's how the body of Christ
is manifest. When we meet together and assemble
together, we are testifying to the world that we are of the
body of the Lord Jesus Christ. That we are His church. This
is the place, the general assembly. In the Greek, this has to do
with festival, with rejoicing. A place where they gather together
and enjoy one another. This is the general assembly
of the saints, the place where we come to rejoice. This is a
place of rejoicing because we speak a message of rejoicing. The gospel means good news, and
it is good news to sinners. The forgiveness of sins, pardon,
peace with God, all speak of good news through one man, through
the Lord Jesus Christ and His merits, His triumphs, His grace,
His kindness and love toward us. Behold, the Scripture says,
how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in
unity. It's good and it's pleasant. Though this world thinks to this
world this church appears weak and small, but that's not how
it should appear to us. We should not listen to their
clamoring, to their mocking. I was reading in Nehemiah concerning
the rebuilding of the wall and how those men mocked the Jews
as they rebuilt this wall. And they said, hey, why don't
you just take a break a minute? Won't you just come down from
that wall and let's talk about this? And he said, how in the
world could I come down from the wall? How can I stop the
work to come and talk to you? We don't stop the work to talk
to anybody. We're here to serve God. You're
talking by sitting. This morning you're talking to
everybody by just being here. You're speaking a lot of words
to everyone concerning this place. That this is where God meets.
This is where God dwells. This is where His Word is preached.
And though the world think it small, we are to see this as
a badge of honor. That we are allowed and privileged
to have the gospel of Jesus Christ proclaimed in our day, in our
presence, without fear, to assemble together. What a privilege we
have. Let us see this grace and privilege,
that we've come to worship the God who is judge of all men. I've come to worship the judge
of all. God is the judge of all, and
we especially are not blind to His holy judgment. We know His
judgment. We know it's just. We know it's
right. And we know this, that He will
judge all sin. We do know that. Believers are
not blind to see the holiness of God, and so when we worship,
we come in reverence and holy fear of our God. We come in reverence
of His glorious presence among us. We come in reverence. And
knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men. Persuade men
to do what? Join our church? No! We persuade
men to believe! To believe the gospel! And I
know this, all who believe will join us. They will. They'll join God's church. They'll
hear God's man. We persuade men to believe on
Christ. That's our mission. That's the
purpose of this church, this assembly. The whole purpose of
our church is to profess, confess our faith in Christ by our lives
and by our words. Our whole mission. And all who
are come to God by Jesus Christ, we not need feel terror of the
law, because we are just men made perfect. You believe in
Christ, you are just men made perfect. What does this mean? This means that the judge of
all the earth has already justified us. He's already declared us
to be innocent of all charges justified. We are just men because God has
justified us. God justified us whose eyes cannot
overlook sin. God who will and must reward
a sin with eternal death. has justified us, has declared
us to be righteous. This could only be true because
we were given to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, before the world
began. The only way God could have ever
justified us is by His grace in giving us to His Son to be
our surety. When Jesus agreed in the covenant
of grace before the foundation of the world. God was willing
to justify us. The Son agreed to be our surety,
and therefore, in the purpose of God, in the mind of God, in
the eyes of God, we were justified because we were in Christ before
the foundation of the world. We were accepted, the Scripture
says, in the Beloved. I was always accepted in the
Beloved. But this was not always our experience,
was it? No. We were all together born
in sin. We were all together under the
condemnation of God. We were haters of God, even as
others. There was no difference between
us by birth and by sin, by choice. We all are sinners by nature. So when we come into this world,
we don't dare declare we're justified. How then do we know we've been
justified? To just men made perfect. And you must be made perfect
in order to know your justification. You must experience this perfection. How? By the coming of the Holy
Spirit and the regeneration, the creation of a new nature
inside of us. We were talking on Wednesday
how God doesn't just take what we've got and make something
good out of it. God doesn't take this old heart
and then just change it around and make it good. No, God creates
a brand new heart, a new life inside of us that wasn't there
before. It is the righteousness of God
by the faith of Jesus Christ and none of ourselves. We had
no part in this. This was the gift of God's grace
to us by the Spirit to make us perfect. We are just men justified by
God from eternity, yet in a time appointed, we were made perfect
by the creation of the righteous nature of God that is in us right
now, fit for the presence of the Holy Spirit to dwell in us. Dwell in us. Live in us. The
Holy Spirit lives in us. No, you not. That you are not
your own, but you have been bought with the price, and the Spirit
of God dwells in you. Do you not know that? The Spirit
of God dwells in you. We are new creatures. We are made perfect. And we who
are just men made perfect, we've come to Jesus, the mediator of
the new covenant. Last week, I looked at Jesus
as Mediator. What it means for Him to be our
Mediator. As Mediator, Jesus Christ touches
both God and man. He, by His holy deity, touches
and professes the claims of God's justice and holiness to be right
and true. God has a claim on you. that
you must be holy even as he is holy. Jesus proclaimed that to
be true. Accept your righteousness, exceed
the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you shall
in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. Jesus also touches man in that
he understands the need of man. He understands the weakness of
our frame. He is touched with the feelings
of our infirmities. He knows our weakness. He understands
our infirmities. And yet, He supplied all that
we needed so that we would be acceptable unto God. Moses was a mediator. He was
a mediator chosen of God to mediate the old covenant of the law. The old covenant of the law demands
obedience, and failure at any point of this old covenant results
in death. Scripture says that if a man
is, in Galatians 3 verse 10, it says, you that are under the
law, know you not this? If you are guilty of one point
of the law, you are guilty of the whole law. The law is an
all-or-none principle. No man is therefore justified
by the law in the sight of God. Paul says that's clear. That's
just so. You know you are a sinner. Every man's conscience, if he
would just be honest with himself, he doesn't have to be honest
with anybody else, just himself, just his own conscience declares
him to be guilty. He's felt guilt. He's known guilt. We've all been guilty of breaking
God's holy law. The Gentiles had not the law
that was written in stone. They had the law written on their
hearts. And they know they broke the law written on their hearts.
The Jews had the law written in stone, and they know they
broke the law written in stone. So what's the difference? There
is no difference. All sold under sin. All sold under sin. For by the
law is the knowledge of sin. How do I know what sin is? Well,
the law tells me, Thou shalt not lie. Thou shalt not covet. Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy strength,
and with all thy mind. And thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself. And I see nothing but my guilt."
That's what the law does, is show me guilt. This law, everyone that thinks
to be accepted, anyone, I don't care who it is, anyone who thinks
to be accepted by some deed that they have performed before God
is under law. This covenant of law envelops
all works in freewill religion who try to cling to both old
and new covenants. The Old Covenant is an all or
nothing principle, so is the New. You can't have both. There is no mixture of both.
There is either one or the other. It is an all or none principle.
You are either under the Old Covenant of works, or you are
under the New Covenant of grace. But these men that try to bridge
this gap of the two covenants, they say, well, Jesus saved me.
The blood of Christ atoned for my sins. Now then that I am made
holy, I must increase my holiness by obedience to the law. This
is a refuge of lies. Their foundation is not sure. Therefore, they're always trying
to do more, always succeed, always trying to build up, to do more,
because enough is never enough with these people. Paul said, if you be circumcised,
Christ shall profit you nothing. That's just one aspect of the
law. But if you want to add anything else, if you want to add your
good deeds, in the church, your church membership, your baptism,
whatever it is you want to add to the death and resurrection
of Jesus Christ, if you want to add anything, Christ shall
profit you how much? Nothing. Nothing. This type of
worship has an appeal to the flesh, doesn't it? You see them
and they're out there. They're working hard, man. They're
out there banging on doors. They're doing a lot of work.
And it's not bad, it's good work. They're building houses all over
the place. They'll spend ten million dollars
to build one house in a foreign country. They're doing a lot of work.
Jesus said, not everyone that sayeth to Me, Lord, Lord, shall
enter into the kingdom of heaven. But there shall be some that
say, Lord, did we not prophesy in Thy name? And in Thy name
cast out devils? And in Thy name done many wonderful
works? And he shall say unto them, Depart
from me, you that work iniquity, I never knew you." Nowhere in Scripture does it
say, Accept Jesus as your Savior. Nowhere. Nowhere in Scripture does it
allude that Jesus made salvation possible and left the rest to
you. Nowhere. This is not what we who are saved
have come to. We have not come to a covenant
of law. We have not professed to be saved
by Jesus and try to be made perfect by the law. We have come to Jesus,
the giver, the surety of the new covenant. We have come by
a new covenant, not a covenant of law. What is this new covenant? This new covenant, we are told
in specifics in Jeremiah, chapter 31, go over there, Jeremiah,
chapter 31. It's also seen in Jeremiah, chapter 32 and Ezekiel. I believe 31 or 32, but look
in Jeremiah, chapter 31, verse 31. Behold, God says, the days come,
saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house
of Israel and with the house of Judah. First thing I see about
this covenant, it's made with a specific people. He said, I'm
going to make a new covenant with the house of Judah and the
house of Israel. Now, at this time, the nation
of Israel had already been carried away. They had already been gone.
The only thing left was Judah. How is this possible? He's going
to make a covenant with the house of Israel and with the house
of Judah. What does this mean? It means the spiritual Israel. God's chosen elect people. Those that He had made a covenant
for in eternity past. Those that He chose and put in
Christ. These are the recipients of the new covenant. In Romans
chapter 2 and verse 28 it says, For he is not a Jew which is
one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward
in the flesh. But he is a Jew which is one
inwardly, and the circumcision that is of the heart in the spirit,
and not in the law, whose praise is not of men, but of God. We
who believe, we are God's Israel. We are God's Judah. And this covenant is made with
us who are heirs. Heirs not of the law, but heirs
of promise. We who believe are of the seed
of Abraham. Not by generation, but by faith
we are the seed of Abraham. Abraham, before he became a circumcised
Jew, he was a Gentile. He believed the promises of God
before circumcision. And he believed the promises
of God after circumcision, which means that he is the father of
all faithful men, all who believe. Abraham is a picture of all of
us who believe in the promises of
God. We are heirs of a new covenant. Second of all, this covenant
is made, not just made by man. This covenant is not made by
man. This covenant is made by God. God said, I will make a
new covenant. I will make a new covenant. Consider
the author of this covenant, who is God. Now, this is good. This is real good. If I make
a covenant with you and you make a covenant with me, we can be
the best and have the best intentions to fulfill our obligations in
a covenant. But one thing about man is we
are not able fully to know if we're able to finish a covenant.
Many times we have to break the covenant for whatever reason. Men break covenants all the time.
Men break agreements all the time. But God is one that cannot
lie. And when God says, I will do
something, He will do it. Otherwise, He is not God. God cannot lie, and His covenant
is immutable. Simply put, his covenant is unchangeable. The covenant that God made for
us is so set that the throne of God is set on this covenant. In other words, when he could
swear by none greater, he swore by himself with an oath And why should God have to swear?
Well, He swore for your consolation, for your comfort. God decrees His covenant as a
sovereign creator and king, and He says, I will make a new covenant,
not like He made with Adam. Adam, He made a covenant with
Adam. Now, did God come down to Adam and say, OK, Adam, let's
strike a bargain here. OK, now I'm wanting to make a
covenant with you, but I need your input on this. I need you
to agree to this covenant. No, Adam didn't have to agree
to his covenant. God says, I'll give you everything
and you can't have this end of covenant. God decrees covenants. He doesn't ask. He decrees them. Why is it that the world has
not flooded since Noah? Because God made a covenant.
He said, this is how it's going to be, Noah. I'm going to make
a covenant and I'm going to put my bow in the sky so that I am
reminded not to destroy men with water again. God's new covenant is one that's
changeless, that cannot be moved because God established it. God decreed it. The old covenant
of the law was not wrong, was not bad. The law was good. The problem was us. The problem
was our sin and inability to keep that covenant. We couldn't keep the law. We
broke it. But yet, instead of repenting,
instead of turning to God for mercy, we all turn to a refuge
of lies. Is it not something how men would
rather stoop to such stupidity as to believe the world created
itself? Yet men will run to it. Men will
run to anything but to the Sovereign God, the Sovereign Creator. How many people still find comfort
in the idea, well, it's just going to work out all right in
the end? Nobody says that about anything except their soul. Nobody plans a trip and said,
well, it's just going to work out. I don't know where I'm going,
but I'm going to get to this place. Nobody says that. That's stupid. I'm just going to hope for the
best traveling north that somehow I'll get through and get to the
South Pole. Well, that's just stupid. Nobody says that anything but
about their soul. They sit there and they say,
well, is everything going to end up all right? If I just stop
doing this and start doing this, then I'll make peace with God. I'll find peace in my soul. How foolish to think we can make
our peace with God. There's nothing we can do. There's nothing we can say to
make our peace with God. All works and freewill religions
are covenants of death built upon a refuge of lies. But there is a covenant that
is not founded upon us. There is a covenant that's not
founded upon our merits. There is a covenant that is not
founded upon our agreement. There is a covenant that God
made with himself for us. And it is a covenant of free
grace. Free grace. And that covenant he laid is
a cornerstone, he says, I have laid in Zion. A stone, a precious
stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone. He that believeth
shall not make haste. In other words, someone founded
on this stone is not going to be willing to run away from it.
We're not going to be searching for any other refuge. We're not
going to make haste to go anywhere because this covenant was founded
on the promises of God from eternity. It is founded on Jesus Christ,
His Son. This was a covenant that Jesus
came to ratify with His own blood. And this is an immutable covenant
of God. And God says, I will be their
God and they shall be My people. Did God ask you to be His people? Did God beg you to be His people?
I made a covenant. Now, if you'll just sign your
name to it, then you can be my... No, God says, I'm your God and
you're my people. What a great covenant. I never
would have signed on to that. Never. But God willing to show
His great love to me, put my name there. Put my name there. This is manifest to me by the
writing of the Holy Spirit on my heart in the new nature. This
is manifest to me because I believe on Jesus Christ. I trust Him
with all my soul, with all my heart, that He is my only merit,
that He is my only peace with God, that He is my only salvation
and His blood has atoned for all my sins. That's my hope. It's not founded on what I do.
It's not founded on what I say. founded solely on the gospel
of God, the promises of God. God says that I will be your
God and you shall be my people. And we who believe, we know this,
that God says that you shall not teach every man his neighbor.
Say, know the Lord. When I talk of the Lord, are
we talking about somebody different? When I speak of the Lord Jesus
Christ and his sovereign mercy, am I speaking to you of some
different man? Are we talking about the same
man? Every time I preach to you, we
testify of this man. We testify of the Lord Jesus
Christ as our Savior. I know him and you know him.
All I'm doing is telling you what you already know. I'm not
teaching you anything different than you know. You know the Lord
and I know the Lord. It is the same Lord. And one thing about this covenant,
it is a covenant of forgiveness. The Lord says, and I will forgive
their iniquity and I will remember their sins. No more. I am so grateful for this covenant
of grace that God Himself has forever put away my sin. Forever. Again, I was justified from eternity,
but I had not experienced that until an appointed time. When
God saved me and He revealed this new covenant to me, He showed
me His grace, given me faith to believe on Christ, You know,
I know this, that I have the righteousness of God in me, but
I've not yet fully experienced it. Have you? What God can't remember, I can't
seem to forget. Every day, sin, sin, sin, sin,
sin. It's all I do. Everything I do
is mixed with it. My conscience becomes so defiled. I feel so guilty. I feel so ashamed
of my sin. Yet, how can I feel this way?
God has already taken my sin away. What's wrong with me? Nothing's
wrong with you. You're just still in that old
nature. And the conscience becomes defiled. And therefore, God has
given us such great passages as 1 John 1. Look at this wonderful passage.
To you who are sinners, Do you still need mercy? Now, God's
been merciful to me from eternity, but I know this. I still need
mercy right now. I still need his grace now. I
still need forgiveness of sins now. And so John writes this. He says in verse six, if we say
we have fellowship with him, how easy is that to say? How
easy is that? How many people have said that?
We have fellowship with him. Oh, let's see. If any man say
he hath fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and
do not the truth. But if we walk in the light as
He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood
of Jesus Christ His Son, notice this word, cleanseth us from
all sin. That word, E.T.H., present perfect
tense. He has cleansed us. He is right
now cleansing us. And He shall forever cleanse
us from all our sins. If we say we have no sin, we
deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If you say you
have no sin, if you say, well, God, take away my sin, I guess
I don't have any sin. You have made God a liar. Because that's not true. That's
not true. We have sin in this old man. But notice the reprieve, the
refreshment. If we confess our sins, He is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. When the Lord Jesus washed the
disciples' feet, you remember He told Peter, I wash your feet,
and he said, no, Lord, you're not washing my feet. And He said,
if I don't wash your feet, you have no part with me. He said,
oh, Lord, wash my whole body. And He said, no, I don't have
need to wash your whole body, save your feet. What does that
mean? When we walk in this world, our
conscience becomes defiled because of sin, and He must wash our
feet, yet our whole body. In forgiveness, we find refreshment.
We find peace. I'm glad for forgiveness. I trust in his forgiveness now.
This is a new covenant. It's a grace covenant. How can God forgive me of my
sins? He don't need a reason. God doesn't need a reason to
forgive us our sins. This is the new covenant of grace. May God bless us.