Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. Welcome to our program today.
I'm glad you could join us. If you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I'm going to be preaching from the book of
Jeremiah, the Old Testament prophet, Jeremiah. And I'll be preaching
from chapter 31, beginning at verse 31. And I have two messages
that I'm going to preach on this subject. This will be part one,
and then next week, Lord willing, part two from another passage
in the Old Testament. But today is the new covenant,
part one, the new covenant. And it's found in a prophecy
that Jeremiah gave to the people of Israel or the people of actually
the Southern kingdom of Judah and the people of Jerusalem. Jeremiah was a prophet of God,
as you know, He preached the gospel, salvation by the grace
of God, not by the works or the wills of men, not by the law. Law-keeping could not save us.
That's what Jeremiah told the people, and they had perverted
the law, the law of Moses that was given to them. Next week,
I'll bring this out in the book of Ezekiel, how Ezekiel told
them they had profaned the name of the Lord. because God gave
them the law of Moses, the law of Sinai years before this, and
probably somewhere close to a thousand years or a little more. But that
law was given not as a way of salvation, And this is something
that people need to understand. When God gave the law of Moses,
the 10 commandments, the ceremonial law, which included the priesthood,
the sacrifices, the tabernacle or the temple, all of that, and
many, many other laws, civil laws, dietary laws. When God
gave them that law, he did not give that law to them as a way
to be saved by their works under the law. because it's impossible
for sinners to be saved by works of the law. The scripture tells
us that in so many ways in the Old Testament and in the New.
By deeds of law shall no flesh be justified. And to be justified
means to be forgiven of all of our sins on a just ground and
to be declared righteous before God on a just ground. Well, no
sinner can be saved by their attempting, no matter how well
they do, no matter how sincere they are, attempting to keep
the law. Because sinners by nature and
by practice, we cannot measure up to the standard. That's what
Romans 3.23 means when it says that we have all sinned and come
short of the glory of God. That is, we miss the mark. And
the mark is the perfection of the law, not just the law from
Sinai, but the whole law of God, the Word of God, the perfection
of it, the satisfaction of that law that can only be found in
and by the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the question comes, from
a lot of people, well then why did God give them that law from
Sinai? Why did he give it to this particular
nation, Israel? Well, there's several reasons.
The number one reason is found in passages like Romans 5, where
Paul writes by inspiration of the Spirit in verse 20. This
is Romans 5, 20. He says, moreover, the law entered
The law was given that the offense might abound. What offense? The
sinfulness, the depravity of man falling in Adam into a state
of spiritual death and depravity. That law was given to show the
abundance of our sinfulness, to show us that it's impossible
to be saved by our law keeping. And so he says, but where sin
abounded, grace did much more abound. Salvation has always
been, salvation for sinners has always been by grace and not
by law keeping, not by works, even in the Old Testament, even
under the time of the Old Covenant. And in that Old Covenant, there
were pictures and types and prophecies of Christ, the Messiah, coming
to save his people by establishing the law, not through their obedience,
but through his obedience unto death on the cross, which would
result in his resurrection, righteousness. And so verse 21 of Romans 5 says
this, that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace
reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ,
our Lord. And in that old covenant, as
I said, there were types and pictures. The lambs that were
slain on the altars, that was a picture, a type, a foreshadowing
of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, giving himself as a sin bearer,
having the sins of God's elect, Jew and Gentile, imputed, charged
to him, for which he gave his life shed His blood unto death
to satisfy justice and bring about the perfection of righteousness
which God has imputed to His people. We're saying, for Christ,
Romans 10, verse 4 says, for Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believe it. Now it was the
same back in the Old Testament from the very beginning and it's
the same today. It never has been any other way.
So don't listen to any of these who say, well, God saved them
in one way and then saved us in another way. No, it's always
been by grace. And the law was given to show
the reality of their sinfulness. And they broke the law, but now
don't get puffed up. If we had been under that law,
now we technically have never been under the old covenant law.
The old covenant law has been abolished and I'm gonna show
you that in just a moment from the scriptures. It was abolished
by Christ fulfilling it. And that was indicated by when
he gave up the ghost and died and commended his soul unto his
father, the veil in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom,
indicating that the way into the holiest of all was made pure
and new by Christ. So that law was given to show
them the impossibility of salvation by works. So under that, we need
to understand that that's the old covenant. Well, Jeremiah
prophesied to the people of Judah, the southern kingdom, the northern
kingdom, Israel was already gone and scattered, conquered by the
Assyrian army, the Assyrian empire. So Jeremiah prophesied in the
last days of Judah and Jerusalem, right up to the time that they
were conquered and destroyed by Babylon. And Nebuchadnezzar,
the king of Babylon, this was God's punishment for their sinfulness
and for their lack of worship of the true and living God. They
had turned just like every generation under that law, that old covenant
law, which lasted about 1500 years from Sinai to the cross,
of Christ, and every generation of the Israelites, under that
old covenant law, had perverted it and turned it into a system
of works salvation, whereas they thought that they could be right
with God and forgiven of all their sins by their law keeping. Romans 9 tells us that, how they
sought righteousness but not by faith, not by looking
to Christ. That's what that means. But they
sought it by works of the law. And they stumbled at the stumbling
stone. When Christ came along and told them the truth, he was
a stumbling stone to them and they hated him for it. Well,
Jeremiah is telling them throughout his prophecy that God is going
to punish them. They deserved it. And they might
as well accept it that God was going to do this. But he also
tells them in a prophecy here in Jeremiah 31, 31, that you
need to understand that God still has not forsaken his people. which he has chosen. God chose
a people to save before the foundation of the world and they're called
his elect. They're made up of Jew and Gentile.
And what he's telling them that just because you're being punished
and you're going to go into captivity in Babylon for 70 years, God
is still going to keep His promise to send salvation into the world,
to send the Messiah to save any sinner who comes to believe on
Him, the Lord Jesus Christ. But it's not going to be like
that old covenant law. It's going to be a new covenant,
a new covenant. Now listen to what He says in
verse 31. In other words, he's giving them the hope of salvation,
but not in their law keeping, not in the physical aspects of
the law, not in that Jewish temple, not in the blood of animals.
The book of Hebrews tells us that the blood of bulls and goats
could not take away sin, but the one whom the blood of bulls
and goats pictured, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God,
the sin bearer, the just dying for the unjust, he takes away
sin. And so he says in verse 31, behold,
the days come. So he's prophesying of the future.
Saith the Lord that I will make a new covenant with the house
of Israel and with the house of Judah. Now at this time, Israel
was divided into two kingdoms. The Northern kingdom was called
Israel, made up of mainly 10 of the 12 tribes. And the southern
kingdom was made up of Judah, mainly the tribe of Judah and
the tribe of Benjamin. The tribe of Judah was the royal
tribe, the tribe through which the kings would come. And of
course, it's the tribe which Christ, the king of kings would
come according to his humanity. And Jacob on his deathbed, he
prophesied of this through Judah, his son Judah, when he was pronouncing
the blessings. on his children. And he took them one by one.
When he came to Judah, he made this statement. He said, the
scepter, the king's scepter, the royal reign, would not depart
from Judah, that tribe, until Shiloh comes, Shiloh being peace. In other words, when Christ would
come, that's when any vestige of the tribe, the royal tribe,
the physical tribe, would exist, and then it would be gone. and
Christ would establish his spiritual kingdom, and that's the King
of kings. He's the King of kings. And so,
when he says the house of Israel and the house of Judah, he's
telling them that in the future under the new covenant, there'll
be no division of kingdoms, Israel and Judah, but it'll be one kingdom
and it'll be a spiritual kingdom, not an earthly kingdom. It'll
be made up of spiritual Israelites, spiritual Jews, who are God's
elect, both Jew and Gentile, who are spiritually made subjects
of the kingdom. You know, the term Israel really
means, some people say it means prince of God, and it can mean
that, but literally what it means is those who have prevailed with
God. And how does a sinner prevail with God? There's only one way
that I as a sinner can prevail, can win with God, and that is
to plead the merits of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
what, when Jacob wrestled with the angel, that's what that's
about. He said, I won't let you go till
you bless me. And a sinner who sees his sin
in the power of the Spirit, He'll hold on to Christ for dear life
and won't let go. But that's all work of God. It's
God who has the victory. But the only way that you and
I can prevail with God is to plead the merits of Christ's
blood, His righteousness. And the term Judah means praise. Those who prevail with God through
Christ, praise Him, worship Him. For we are the circumcision,
Paul wrote in Philippians three, which worship God in the spirit
and we rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the
flesh. So he says, in those days, he's gonna make a new covenant.
And he says in verse 32, this new covenant is not according
to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that
I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.
It's not gonna be like that old covenant. That old covenant was
a bilateral covenant. In other words, it was a conditional
covenant where God blessed them. Now, there are a lot of unconditional
things that God did for Israel, calling them together as the
descendants of Abraham and bringing them out of Egypt, giving them
the land of promise, but they're being blessed as a nation. was
conditioned on their obedience from the king on down. But they
didn't obey. They broke that covenant. Bilateral
means it's between two parties. One says, I'll do this if you'll
do that. And Israel didn't do it. They
broke that covenant. And he says that in verse 32.
He says, look at it again. Not according to the covenant
that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by
the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which my covenant
they break. They broke it. Although I wasn't
husband unto them, saith the Lord. God joined himself to them
in a covenant marriage, you might say. I was a husband to them.
And they broke that covenant. And we see later on in the book
of Isaiah and the book of Jeremiah, that God finally gave them a
bill of divorcement. He divorced himself from them.
And that covenant was abolished by way of fulfillment and his
relationship with them in that covenant was over. But I'm gonna
make a new covenant. with spiritual Israel, spiritual
Judah. Believers, that's who that is,
the church, which Christ gave his own blood for. Those who
make up, those who praise God through Christ, they prevailed
with God through Christ and they praise him. And he said, although
I wasn't husband to them, they broke it. Now, listen to me.
You know, a lot of people today, they look back on Israel and
they see their disobedience And they act as if, well, if I'd
lived back then, I wouldn't have been broken. Yes, you would have.
And you know how I know that? Because the Bible says, for all
have sinned and come short of the glory of God. You're a sinner. So am I. If God tells me that
he's going to save me based upon a conditional bilateral covenant,
You know what that does to me? That condemns me forever because
I'm a sinner. But this new covenant is gonna
be different. It's not a bilateral covenant. It's a unilateral covenant
where God says, I will, not if you will, I will and you shall. Now listen to the terms of this
covenant. He says in verse 33, But this shall be the covenant
that I will make with the house of Israel. Now that's spiritual
Israel, and that's proven in the New Testament now, and in
the Old Testament, because it includes both God's elect, both
Jew and Gentile. And who are the elect? They are
those who Christ died for on the cross. He redeemed them with
his blood. They are justified in God's sight
by his righteousness imputed. and they will be born again and
brought to faith in Christ. But he said, I will make with
the house of Israel, after those days saith the Lord, I will put
my law in their inward parts. And what does that mean? He'll
write the law on their heart, on their mind, on their affections,
on their wills, on their conscience. In other words, it won't be just
an outward show of vain religion. It won't be hypocrisy. And the
law here, the word law here means the word of God, beginning with
the gospel. The gospel is the power of God
unto salvation. To everyone that believe it,
to the Jew first and the Greek or the Gentile also, for therein
is the righteousness of God revealed from faith, which is knowledge
revealed, to faith, which is knowledge believed and received
and lived upon. For as it is written, the just,
the justified shall live by faith. So he says, I'm going to write
that on their heart. It's going to become part of
them, this gospel, this word of God, which is a word of grace. It's not a conditional salvation
because in the new covenant, all of salvation is conditioned
on Christ and on him alone. And he as the representative,
the surety, the substitute, the sin bearer, the sin offering,
and the redeemer of his people fulfilled all the conditions
required to secure their salvation unto final glory. Which means
this, everyone whom God chose, whom he justified for whom Christ
died and who are born again by the Spirit shall be saved. There
won't be one person in hell for whom Christ died. That's the
nature of this covenant. So he says, I will put my law
in their inward parts and write it in their hearts and I will
be and will be their God and they shall be my people. And
verse 34 says, and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor
and every man his brother, saying, know the Lord, for they shall
all know me. They're all gonna know the Lord.
They're gonna know the God of salvation. They're going to know,
savingly, the God of salvation by grace. The God who justifies
the ungodly based upon the righteousness of Christ. The people of Israel
under the Old Covenant, the vast majority of them, they claim
to worship God. They went through the motions,
but they didn't really know God. I think it's in the book of Amos
that the prophet Amos said when he was prophesying, he said,
my people, God's people shall be destroyed for lack of knowledge. They don't know the Lord and
they don't seek him. By nature, none of us know him.
Christ said that when he made that great statement, when he
said, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and
I'll give you rest. Well, right before that, in Matthew
chapter 11, he made this statement. And this is something that people
need to really understand, because if you don't understand this,
you don't understand salvation by grace. But he says in verse
27 of Matthew 11, he says, all things are delivered unto me
of my father. And no man knoweth the son but
the father, and neither knoweth any man the father save the son,
and he to whomsoever the son will reveal him. In this new
covenant, God is going to reveal himself to his people. Now he
did that under the old covenant with his elect people. And they're
called the remnant, the remnant of grace. Isaiah spoke of that. He said, although the people
of Israel be as number as the sands of the sea, a remnant shall
be saved. They'll be brought to know God
and to know him saving them. But under that old covenant,
the vast majority of them did not know the Lord. And so the
prophets always came back and said, know the Lord. you need
to know God, you need to seek the Lord, you need to listen
to the Word of God. But under the new covenant, those
who are participants of that covenant, the elect of God, the
justified, the redeemed of the Lord, the born again, regenerated
and converted, they shall all know me. from the least of them
unto the greatest of them, no matter who they are, what station
of life, rich, poor, black, white, male, female, they will all know
God. He will reveal himself to them
in the person and work of Christ. And he says, he says, for I will
forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more. Now,
if you look over in the book of Hebrews chapter eight, we
see that the Holy Spirit inspired the writer of Hebrews to go back
to Jeremiah and show how all that's fulfilled in Christ and
how the old covenant has been abolished and the new covenant
has been established. But let me say this before I
read these verses in Hebrews 8. We'll go to Hebrews 8 in verse
6. But in Hebrews 8, the new covenant
You know, the Bible speaks of many covenants, it does. You
have, I believe, a covenant made with God in Adam, which was a
conditional covenant, and Adam fell. You have the covenant with
Noah, God made the covenant at the rainbow, all of that. You
have the covenant that was made with Abraham, which is a covenant
of grace. The new covenant is only new
as it's established in time. The Bible speaks of salvation
being the product of what is called the everlasting covenant
of grace. And that everlasting covenant
of grace is an eternal covenant, has no beginning, no end. It
was established before the foundation of the world, and it was all
conditioned on Christ, who is the mediator and the savior in
that covenant. And so the new covenant in essence
is the same as the everlasting covenant of grace, but it's new
because it's the establishment in time of the everlasting covenant
of grace made before time. And listen to what he says here
in Hebrews eight and verse six, but now hath he, that's Christ,
obtained a more excellent ministry by how much also he is the mediator
of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.
It's a better covenant and better promises, unconditional promises
that are sure and certain in Christ, 2 Corinthians 1 20. Every
word of that covenant was fulfilled in Christ. And he says, that
old covenant has been abolished, has been moved out of the way
because Christ fulfilled it for his people and so ensured the
salvation. of every sinner whom God chose
and whom God justified and for whom Christ died and who are
born again by the Spirit. That's the New Covenant. And
Jeremiah prophesied of it, pointing sinners to Christ. Hope you'll
join us next week for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, Write us
at 1-1-0-2 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia 3-1-7-0-7. Contact us
by phone at 229-432-6969 or email us through our website at www.TheLetterRofGrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.