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. I'd like to welcome you to our
program today. I'm glad you could join us. And if you'd like to
follow along in your Bibles, I'll be preaching from the book
of Jeremiah, chapter 31. Chapter 31, we'll begin our study
in verse 31 of Jeremiah 31. Jeremiah 31, 31. And what I'm
gonna be talking about is another prophecy. I spoke of this last
week in the book of Jeremiah in another passage. I'm gonna
be talking about a prophecy of the new covenant, the new covenant. And so the title of this message
is A Prophecy of the New Covenant from Jeremiah 31, 31. Now, let
me preface the message this way. You know, when people, and in
the past few messages, I've been talking about how Christ and
the gospel of God's grace in and by him, him as the Lord our
righteousness, I preached on that last week, how the whole
Bible, From Genesis to Revelation is a book of Christ. Jesus Christ,
the Lord, our righteousness, and who he is, what he accomplished
on Calvary in redeeming his people, why he did it, and where he is
now. If you want the answer to those questions, who he is, he
is God manifest in the flesh. That's who he is. He's God-man. The second person of the Trinity.
There's the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. not three
gods, but one God in three persons, and he's every bit God. Christ
is not some kind of a lesser God. It's true that the Father
exercises the sovereignty of the Godhead, the Son is the servant,
and the Spirit comes out from the Father and the Son to give
life from Christ. But in every attribute of deity,
the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are co-equal in every
way. And Christ is God, man. He's God manifest in the flesh.
The Word, which was God and is God, who made the worlds, was
made flesh and dwelt among us. Now His humanity, we have to
understand this now, His humanity was without sin. Now Christ,
in His humanity, He suffered the infirmities of the flesh,
the limitations of the flesh, but not of the sins of the flesh
that we go through. We fell in Adam. ruined by the
fall. We're born dead in trespasses
and sins, void of spiritual life. But Christ was not. Christ didn't
fall in Adam. And His holy humanity didn't
come through the aid of man. It came by the Holy Spirit created
for Him in the womb of the Virgin Mary. And so He was born of a
miraculous birth. So He's God in human flesh. Now
what did He accomplish on Calvary? He accomplished the complete
and full salvation of His people. He did not die in vain for anybody. He wasn't trying to save everybody. He came to save a people whom
the Father had given Him before the foundation of the world,
whose sins were imputed, charged, accounted to Him, and He went
under the wrath of God as a guilty person. Guilty not by sins that
he committed or sins infused or contaminated him. It was sins
imputed to him. The debt of sin imputed him.
And he died a death that paid the debt in full. Satisfied the
justice of God. That's what propitiation is all
about. And he was buried and he arose
again the third day because righteousness had been established. And therefore,
having risen again, he ascended unto the Father, and sat down
at the right hand of the Father, because the work was done ever
living to make intercession for those for whom he died. And he
sends forth the Spirit to give them life under the preaching
of the gospel. And so our concern on this earth,
in our limited view of things, is to seek out the gospel, believe
the gospel. You say, well, some people will
take a fatalistic attitude when they read about God's sovereignty
and God's electing grace. Well, you know what they're doing
when they take a fatalistic attitude? They're trying to play God. But
that's what he did. And why did he do it? He did
it for the glory of the Father, the glory of the Godhead, the
glory of the Son, the glory of the Spirit, the glory of God.
Where is he now? He's seated at the right hand
of the Father, ever living to make intercession for us. Well,
that's what the whole Bible's all about. But when you look
at the Bible, it's important that we approach it in the right
way. For example, when you think about
the Old Testament and the New Testament, if you're thinking
in terms of literature, the Old Testament would include Genesis
to Malachi. That's the Old Testament, see?
And that's what, 39 books. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
Deuteronomy, all the way on through. It includes the history books,
it includes the Psalms, the poetic books, it includes the prophetic
books. And that's literature, the Old
Testament. And then if you think of the
New Testament in the way of literature, then you say from Matthew to
Revelation. And those 27 books. And that
includes histories, that's the four Gospels and Acts, and then
it also includes letters, it includes prophecy in the book
of Revelation, but also, I understand Revelation also includes the
events of today. But that's literature. But now
the term Testament, Old Testament, New Testament, can also be stated
as Covenant. Covenant. And when you can talk
about old covenant and new covenant. Now here in Jeremiah 31, in verse
31, the Lord says through the prophet Jeremiah, behold, the
days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant. Now, sometimes that word is testament,
sometimes it's covenant, they can be interchanged. When Christ
instituted the Lord's Supper with his disciples in the upper
room, he said, when he got the cup of wine, he says, this symbolizes
the New Testament in my blood. Well, it's the new covenant in
his blood. And that's the covenant that
Jeremiah's talking about here, a new covenant with the house
of Israel and with the house of Judah. So you see there, the
new covenant. Now, if you're talking about
the old covenant, Okay? You're not talking about all
the Old Testament, because the Old Covenant is the covenant
that God specifically made with the children of Israel, the Hebrew
children, through Moses on Mount Sinai. And you have a lot of
history before then in the Old Testament, in the literary books.
In the book of Genesis, say, you have the creation of the
world, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Enoch, Noah. You have mainly
the history of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And you know how God
brought Jacob and his sons down into Egypt and put them in the
land of Goshen and all of that, and how Joseph got down in there? And the Hebrew children became
captive slaves to Pharaoh and the Egyptians. And then God raised
up Moses and sent Moses and he led them out miraculously and
powerfully. And they crossed the Red Sea
and then Moses went up into Mount Sinai and that's where God gave
the law, which is the Old Covenant. Now that old covenant was a conditional
law towards the people of Israel. That's what it was. It was conditioned.
In other words, the blessings and the... Now, God bringing
them, God choosing them and using them for his purpose was not
conditioned on them. That was based upon a promise
that he'd made to Abraham 400 years before. So God delivering
them out of Egypt, that wasn't conditioned on them. But there,
and God giving them that land that they possess, the promised
land was not conditioned on them. Because that again was made,
a promise made to Abraham before this nation was ever formed.
So you see that, you gotta make those distinctions. And I know
sometimes it's tough to hold clear in our minds. But when
they got into the land, by God's power and goodness, not by their
own, their prosperity in that land And their keeping that land
and all of that was conditioned on their obedience, okay? And that's why eventually, that's
why they were always in turmoil. That's why they were always upset. That's why they were always suffering. That's why they were always being
conquered. That's why eventually they were
brought into captivity by the Babylonian empire. Here in the
book of Jeremiah, see Jeremiah prophesied in their last days
up to that conquering when Babylon, when Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon,
he came down into Jerusalem and Judah and he took people captive. It was like three waves. And
the last time he came down, he leveled Jerusalem. He destroyed
the Temple of Solomon. because of the sins of the people,
because they broke the old covenant. It was a conditional covenant,
you see. And that old covenant law, which
people talk about the Ten Commandments, I'm gonna preach a message on
that later on. They say, well, they had to keep
the Ten Commandments. Well, that was one of the conditions,
but they didn't keep it. They messed it up. You know why
the law was given to the nation Israel? It was given as a grand
testimony from God of the impossibility of any sinner, Jew or Gentile,
being saved by their law keeping. It was given to expose their
sinfulness, their depravity, and the impossibility of salvation
by deeds of the law. That's why it was given. And
in that law, there was this law of ceremony. And remember the
law of ceremony, that include the sacrifice of the innocent
animals, the blood of lambs and goats, and all kinds of other
sacrifices, that's the book of Leviticus. They had to build
an altar, they had the tabernacle, they had the priesthood and the
high priest, and they had the holy of holies, or the holy place
and the holy of holies. Now all of that was a picture,
a type of salvation by God's grace through the blood of Christ.
But on the whole, Israel missed it. and insisted on seeking salvation,
not by God's grace through the promised Messiah based upon His
blood and righteousness, but by their works, by their deeds,
conditioned on them. Paul writes about that in Romans
chapter nine, when he said, Israel sought after righteousness, but
they did not attain it. Why? Because they sought it not
by faith, but by the law. What is it to seek righteousness
by faith? It's to look to Christ for righteousness. Well, Jeremiah is telling the
nation here that you're going into captivity, you're going
to be conquered, because of your sins, you've broken the law,
you have not kept God's covenant, and you're getting what you deserve,
but he does give them some hope. And the hope is this, that there's
coming a day in which this old covenant will not be your rule,
but there'll be another covenant for God's people, a new covenant. And that's why this is a prophecy
of the new covenant. Now listen to how he puts this. This is Jeremiah 31 and verse
31. He says, behold, the days come,
saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house
of Israel and with the house of Judah. Now you have to understand,
at this time, the house of Israel, that's the northern kingdom,
They had already been destroyed, conquered by the Assyrian Empire
years before, and they'd been scattered. And here's Judah,
the southern kingdom, they're about to be destroyed. But Jeremiah,
God told Jeremiah to tell him, you're gonna be in captivity
for 70 years, but then God's gonna bring you back. And when
God brings them back, they're not gonna be obedient people,
they're not gonna keep the conditions of the old covenant. But what
he's saying is this. The reason God's gonna bring
you back is he has a purpose in mind to save his people from
their sins, not based upon the terms and conditions of the old
covenant, but based upon a new covenant. And that new covenant
is something special. It's a covenant of grace. Now
Israel, you know the name Israel means those who have prevailed
with God. How does a sinner like me or like you prevail with God? Well, the only way I can prevail
with God is to plead the grace of God. Say, like the old publican,
have mercy upon me, the sinner. I don't have any right, I don't
have any entitlement to any of God's blessings or benefits.
I'm a sinner. If God ever gave me what I deserve
or what I've earned, it'd be damnation eternally. My only
hope is the grace of God. Now, where am I going to find
grace from God? Well, the Bible says in Romans
5.21, that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through
righteousness unto eternal life, and here's your key, by Jesus
Christ our Lord. The only way I'm gonna prevail
with God is to plead Christ, plead His blood, plead His righteousness,
plead His merits. He's the mercy seat. That's what
that old publican meant in Luke 18. God be merciful, that word
merciful in the original is propitious. I need someone to take my place
and stand before God as my representative, as my surety and to substitute
himself under the wrath of God for my sins and to drink damnation
dry and to bring forth righteousness unto life. And the only one who
can do that is God's Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
essentially Jeremiah's message. That's essentially the message
of every prophet. That was even the message of
Moses in the law. Remember Christ said in John
chapter five, he said, if you had believed Moses, you'd have
believed me for he wrote of me. That's what this is all about.
So there's gonna be a new covenant. Now Judah, that's where the term
Jew comes from. And what he's talking about here
is spiritual Israel, spiritual Jews. He's talking about God's
people out of every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation who believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't care you say, well, now
wait a minute, I'm an ethnic Jew. I was in the physical line
of Abraham. It doesn't mean anything. It
doesn't now. And you can make a pilgrimage
to what they call the Holy Land and you can get baptized in the
Jordan River till the tadpoles over there know you by your first
name. It's not gonna do you any good. You say, well, they're
gonna rebuild the temple. My friend, the temple is his
church. That's the dwelling place of
God. They're not gonna reestablish or reaffirm the old covenant
law. That was condemnation. I'm gonna
show you that in another passage in some messages I'm gonna preach.
Do you know what the old covenant law was about? It was about condemnation
for sin. And that's why Jeremiah says
God's gonna make a new covenant with the house of Israel and
Judah, his spiritual people who come to Christ. Now listen. Look
at verse 32, Jeremiah 31, 32. Not according to the covenant
that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by
the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which my covenant
they break, although I wasn't husband unto them, saith the
Lord. Now God did choose them in a temporal, civil covenant
ceremonial and God did join himself to them historically, temporally,
temporarily for one purpose. Well, I'd say for the main purpose
of bringing the Messiah through. But he said they broke the covenant.
That's why they were eventually destroyed in AD 70. That's why
the even The second temple, which was
built under Nehemiah, and then it was added to by King Herod
later on, that was destroyed. Remember, Christ told his disciples,
all this beauty of architecture that you see and religion that
you see, that's gonna be gone. That's gonna be gone. The future
temple of which he spoke was the church. the dwelling place
of God. He said, where two or three are
gathered in my name, there I'll be with them. That's his church.
But here he says, he says, even though I joined myself to them
like a husband to a wife, he said they broke the covenant.
Later on, Jeremiah talks about God giving them a bill of divorcement. What that means is that the covenant
that God made with Israel was never intended to be eternal. Somebody said, well it says perpetual,
that means continuing. Yes, for a certain period of
time. But you see, the new covenant is a product of an everlasting
covenant, and it's called the everlasting covenant of grace. Over in Hebrews chapter 13, it
speaks of Christ's blood as being the blood of the everlasting
covenant. You see the blood, The blood
upon which the old covenant was built was animal blood. The blood
of bulls and goats which can never take away sin. They were
only types and pictures and symbols of the blood of Christ. The blood
of the new covenant. And so his blood is the foundation
of the new covenant. It's a covenant of grace. The
new covenant, now listen to this. The everlasting covenant of grace
was made before time, the scripture tells us. Between the Father,
the Son, and the Spirit, where the Father chose his people and
gave them to Christ, placed all of the responsibility of their
salvation upon Christ. That's an everlasting covenant.
Before the foundation, it'll last forever and ever and ever.
Now the new covenant is the establishment and fulfillment in time of that
everlasting covenant of grace. You see, God, before the foundation
of the world, He placed all of the responsibility of the salvation
of His elect, His church, on Christ. Then Christ had to come
in time and become incarnate. God manifest in the flesh, had
to walk the earth in obedience to the law, had to go to the
cross to die for the sins of His people. He had to execute
judgment and justice, judgment and righteousness. and had to
satisfy God's law to enable God to be a just God and a Savior.
Had to be buried, had to be raised again, had to ascend to the Father
to make intercession. You see, the conditions of the
old covenant law were upon Israel. They broke it, he said. Remember
there in verse 32? He says, which my covenant they
break. Although I was joined to them,
I was a husband to them, saith the Lord. Here's what he says
about the new covenant, verse 33. But this shall be the covenant
that I will make with the house of Israel, that spiritual Israel,
those who prevail with God. After those days, saith the Lord,
that's the days of the Messiah, he said, I will put my law in
their inward parts. You know what the inward part
is? That's the heart. That's the mind, the affections,
and the will. You see, the old covenant law,
it was imposed upon them upon an unwilling, rebellious people. Now we're all by nature unwilling
and rebellious. All of us. Not just the Israelites,
but all of us are by nature. So what does God do? He gives
us a new heart. He gives us a new mind. That's
why Christ said you must be born again. And that's what he's talking
about here. I will put my law in the, I'll
write it on their hearts. He's going to give them a knowledge
of it, a desire of it. And he said, he said, I will
write it in their hearts and I will be their God and they
shall be my people. In other words, they're going
to be, that's a, that's a language of a marriage union that cannot
be broken. And it says in verse 34, and
they shall teach no more every man his neighbor and every man
his brother, saying, know the Lord. You see Israel, Amos I
believe said this, he said, God said, my people shall perish
for lack of knowledge. They were religious, they were
ethnic Jews dwelling in the promised land, but they didn't know God.
And so the prophets came along and said, know the Lord, here's
what God is like, here's how God saves sinners, and they rejected
it, which we all would by nature. And it says here in the New Covenant,
it's not gonna be that way. He says, everybody who's in the
New Covenant, for they shall all know me, this is verse 34,
from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord,
for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin
no more. They'll all know me. Christ said
this, he said, my sheep hear my voice. I know them and they
know me. That's what he said. They'll
all know him. Now how are they gonna know him?
They're gonna know him through the gospel. They're gonna know him by the
power of the Holy Spirit through Christ. They're gonna see the
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Now all of this is going
to happen conditioned on what? Conditioned on one thing. The
blood of the new covenant. The blood of the everlasting
covenant. And what's that? That's the blood
of Christ. You see, the new covenant, the
everlasting covenant of grace, its terms and its conditions.
That new covenant, which is the establishment in time of that
everlasting covenant. Who established it? Who fulfilled
its conditions? Christ did. You see, the gospel
is the preaching of the terms of the everlasting covenant of
grace, the new covenant too, which is in time. It's the gospel
that teaches us that salvation, eternal life, all of its blessings
and benefits are not conditioned on me. They're conditioned on
Christ who fulfilled those conditions. And if we believe in him, if
we have this new heart, the law written on the heart, what do
we look to? We look to Christ who fulfilled
the law for righteousness for us. Over in Jeremiah 32, look
at this. In Jeremiah, yeah, chapter 32, Over in verse 37, here's another
statement of the same new covenant. Jeremiah 32, 37, he says, God
says, behold, I will gather them out of all countries, whether
I have driven them in mine anger, that's his wrath, and in my fury
and in great wrath and I will bring them again into this place
and I will cause them to dwell safely. Now there is a physical
application of the Israelites coming out of captivity and going
back into their land, the promised land rather. But the eternal
application is to the church in Christ. He says, they shall
be my people, verse 38, I will be their God, I will give them
one heart and one way that they may fear me forever for the good
of them and of their children after them. Look at verse 40,
and 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. I 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
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today and may the Lord be with you.