Alright, good morning. Let's
turn in our Bibles to the book of Hebrews chapter 13. Hebrews chapter 13. Sometimes I'm amazed at the Holy
Spirit in His dealings with us Charles Elder Cooper
could not have brought a more appropriate reading fitting into
what I have to say today to you than he did this morning. And I will refer to those passages
in just a moment. Hebrews chapter 13, beginning
with verse 20. Now, the God of peace that brought
again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, That great shepherd
of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant.
And that's what I want to talk with you about today, the everlasting
covenant. Now, let's read verse 21. This
is a passage that many years got me in trouble. Verse 21 makes
you perfect in every good work to do his will. Now, who's going
to make you perfect? That's right. He's going to make
you perfect in every good work. Where do your good works come
from? From Him. From Him. In every good work
to do His will. So, He causes you by working
in you to do His will. Is that right? So you don't get
any glory even when you do His will, right? Because actually
doing His will is His work in you. Working in you that which is
well-pleasing in His sight. Think about that. Nothing is
well-pleasing in His sight except what He works in you. Any work
outside of God working in you is a disobedient work. It's not
a good work. Only good works are those that
God does in us. And He gets the glory for it
through Jesus Christ to whom be glory forever and ever. Now,
we're going to dig just a little deep. I hope you'll stay with
me and I hope I can be plain today. The everlasting covenant. This is it. This is the full
gospel. This is the foundation of salvation. The everlasting covenant. everlasting
covenant. God deals with us in covenant,
and we with Him in covenant. Adam was under a covenant with
God in the Garden of Eden. God was in covenant with him. The covenant, though, between
Adam and God was broken very quickly. Do you remember? That covenant still exists and
God will deal with men in keeping His part. God's going to keep
His part of whatever covenant He makes. It's the covenant of
works. The covenant that God made with
Adam in the Garden of Eden was a covenant of works. And he deals
with the whole race of men as they were represented first in
Adam. Adam flunked the test. And therefore,
you and I did also because Adam was our representative. You say,
well, I don't want anybody like that representing me. I can represent
myself. Sorry. But I would tell you this,
there is another representative that you can be happy about representing
you. When God comes in judgment, in
all of his terror, he will smite with the sword of his might,
according to the covenant made on Mount Sinai, which is, do
this, old man, and you shall live. Disobey, and you shall
die. That was the covenant that God
made on Mount Sinai when He gave His law. But if He comes in the
splendor of His grace to save, He still comes by covenant. Now
we're talking about a different covenant when we talk about God's
grace covenant. Two covenants. But God will deal
with His elect in the covenant of grace or the everlasting covenant. Namely, the covenant of Zion. Let's real quick go over to the
book of Galatians chapter 4. And we'll begin with verse 21. Paul, of course, dealing with
those folks who came to the churches of Galatia and said, you have
to be circumcised to be saved. And so they came preaching another
gospel. Ours is the gospel of grace. We don't talk about the
covenant at Sinai. We don't go back to Sinai. We
go to Mount Zion, which is the mount of God's amazing grace. Look at verse 21. Tell me you
that desire to be under the law. Don't you hear the law? Those
of you who want to be saved by works, don't you hear what it
says? You've got to keep the commandments inside and out.
You not only have to obey the commandments on the outside,
but your motive has to be right. You have to be as clean as a
houndstooth, inside and out. Now, you can look good on the
outside, but what you do on the outside many times is because
you want to boast. You give the appearance of being
good, but on the inside you're full of dead men's bones. There
is none good, no, not one. Your motives aren't right. Now
look at verse 22. For it is written that Abraham
had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a free woman. But
he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh, that is,
in the ordinary course of nature. But he of the free woman was
by promise. Ishmael was born by Abraham and
Sarah coming up with their little plan that backfired on them.
And now we have the Ishmaelites, or the Arabs, who hate the Isaacs. Right now, that's still going
on. The Ishmaelites are the Arabs who hate Israel, who hate the
Jewish folks. But there was this child born
by promise. God said to Abraham, 120 years
old, and Sarah 90 plus, you're going to have a baby. And they
laughed. I would too. And so time went
on and they didn't have a baby, so Sarah says, God needs some
help. My friend, God never needs help.
And whatever God promises, He will always do. Anyway, so Sarah
agrees and Abraham, he went along with it too. He likes her plan. Take Hagar, my young handmaid,
and lay with her so that we can help God have this baby that
He promised. What a mess. Any time you're
helping God, any time you think God needs your help, you're off
base. God doesn't need you or me. And so, anyway, that happened. Look at verse 24. Which things
are an allegory for these two covenants The one of Mount Sinai,
which gendereth to bondage, which is Hagar. For this Hagar is Mount
Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem, which now is, and
in bondage with her children. One of these covenants leads
to bondage, but the other leads to liberty. If the Son sets you
free, you're free indeed. For this Hagar is Mount Sinai
in Arabia. All her children are under bondage.
Verse 26, But Jerusalem, which is above, is free, which is the
mother of us all. For it is written, Rejoice thou
barren that bearest not, break forth and cry thou that prevailest
not. For the desolate hath many more
children than she which hath a husband. Now we, brethren,
as Isaac was, are the children of promise. In the covenant of
grace, God has elected a people, given them to Jesus Christ, and
entered into this covenant. We are children of promise. The
birth of Isaac was a miracle. So is yours. The new birth is
a miracle. You were not born in the ordinary
way. It was an extraordinary way in
which you were born. You were past having life. You
were dead in sins and trespasses. But you were a promised child.
You know why I keep preaching? Because I know there are more
promised children out there. More promised children. More
little Isaacs. It's interesting. Verse 29, But
as then, he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that
was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. People hate the
doctrines of grace. People hate the covenant of grace.
And the covenant of works people persecute those of us who say
it's all by grace. They say things like, predestination
was hatched in hell. Oh, Clark, all he believes is
grace, grace, grace. Yes, yes, yes, and that's right.
But they don't like to hear it. That salvation is all of God.
What they want to hear is Sinai, not me. I don't want to go back
to thunderings and lightnings and earthquakes when God gave
His holy law. So remember, two covenants. One
we're talking about today is the everlasting covenant. The
covenant of works was not everlasting. It was temporary. Temporary covenant. One of these days, that covenant
will go kapunk. It'll be over. God's going to
wrap it up. No more covenant of works because
he will judge and that covenant, that agreement will be over. So we're talking about an everlasting
covenant, though, today, a covenant By the way, in this everlasting
covenant, there is, in one sense, we also have a covenant relationship
with God, a covenant of gratitude. Once you find yourself to be
under this covenant of grace and are born again, you find
that you make, you want, you desire this covenant of gratitude. Christ is all to me. I love Him
because He first loved me. I give myself away to Him freely,
not grudgingly. I don't serve the Lord because
I have to. I serve the Lord because I want to. That's because He's
done a work in me. And the way that covenant agreement
between God and I is sealed is through baptism. We seal the
covenant when in baptism we unite with His church. And when we
come to the Lord's table, breaking bread, we renew our vows. We
say to the Lord in baptism, I love you. I'm a new creature. I commit
myself to you. I give myself away to you. But it's out of gratitude. We're
not baptized to get saved. We get baptized because we love
the Lord. And we believe that He saved us in the gospel, in
the death, burial and resurrection. He saved us by His grace. The truth is we don't even know
how to pray. We can't pray. We can't have
personal intercourse with God except by His grace. So I want
to talk to you about the covenant of grace, which leads to a personal
covenant between us and God. It's the covenant of grace. It's
not the covenant of works. It cannot be because the covenant
of works was not an everlasting covenant in any sense. It was
not an everlasting covenant. It was not eternal. It was made
in the Garden of Eden. It had a beginning. An everlasting
covenant has no beginning. I'm going somewhere. I hope you
just stay with me. I know this is a little deeper, but stay
with me. You will shout when you understand
this. The covenant of works had a beginning
and that covenant was broken by man, violated and continues
to be violated. God says, if you do this, thou
shalt live and be blessed. If you don't, you're going to
die. Cursed is everyone that doesn't keep the law. How many
lawbreakers? Holy Law. How many lawbreakers
do we have in here? The rest of you are liars. All
of us in here are lawbreakers. Not only lawbreakers one time,
but continually. You've already broken God's holy
law today. When you got up, you grumbled
about the storm that's coming. You were not grateful and thankful.
Right? You didn't thank God for your
breakfast. Complaining. So. The covenant of grace, the
everlasting covenant. A covenant. Which ran along these
lines, if you, old man, will be obedient, you shall live and
be happy, but if you will be disobedient, you shall surely
perish. And in the day you disobey, you shall surely die. You read
that in scriptures in the book of Genesis. What if Adam had
obeyed? Well, I believe we would, every
one of us, have been preserved. But he didn't obey. He broke
the covenant. And you and I, down through time,
continually break the covenant of works. But Elder Cooper read
that there's a day coming when that covenant of works is going
to be put away. And it's going to be put away
through a new and better covenant. The old King James says, there
is a glory that excelleth. The old glory of the covenant
of works. Oh, it was glorious on Mount Sinai. When God came
down on Mount Sinai, the whole mountain shook. Because a holy
God was there. A just and righteous God was
there. Meeting with sinners. and giving
His thou shalt covenant arrangement. But the covenant of grace eclipses
the covenant of works. It's more glorious. It's more
wonderful. The covenant of law is not meant here in Hebrews
when it talks about the everlasting covenant. It's not talking about
Sinai. So just kind of wipe that out. He's talking about This covenant
of grace that we make much of here so many times from the pulpit. The covenant in our text was
made before the foundation of the world. This covenant was
made before the foundation of the world. And it was made between
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Say
amen. Okay, good. Long before the day
star knew its place, Before God had spoken existence out of nothing,
before angels' wings had stirred the unethical, before a solitary
song had disturbed the solemnity of silence in which God reigns
supreme, He had entered into a solemn council with Himself,
with His Son and with His Spirit, and had in that council decreed,
determined, purposed and predestinated the salvation of His people.
That's the solid foundation. He in the covenant arranged the
ways and means and fixed and settled everything which should
work together for the effecting of His purpose and His decree. If each of us could, if we could
let our souls fly back, winged by our imagination, and by faith
and look into the mysterious council chamber and by faith
we behold the Father pledging Himself to the Son and the Son
pledging Himself to the Father while the Spirit gives His pledge
to both. And so this is a divine compact
long to be hidden in darkness. It is completed and settled,
the covenant which in these latter days has been read in light of
heaven and has become the joy and hope and boast of all the
saints." Say, well, break that down for me, what you just said.
What I just said was, in the Old Testament, we saw shadows
of the covenant of grace. There was a lot of bloodshedding
of goats and bulls, which could never take away sin. And then
as time rolled on, The Lamb of God came. God came to earth. Was there a plan or did he just
kind of decide one day, I'm going to go to earth because this is
a mess. Oh, no, there was an everlasting council. There was
an everlasting covenant made before the foundation of the
world. Now, real quick, I want to Try
to point out the stipulations of this covenant. First, and
then I'm going to try to illustrate. I'm going to choose some of you
all to help me. I think I'll do that now. Greg, I want you
to come. You're going to represent God
the Father. Don, it may be a poor representation,
but you can represent God the Son. And Joy, I want you to come. You can represent the Holy Spirit
because the Holy Spirit's a comforter. And women do a much better job
of comforting than men. Yeah, come up here. All right. Now, here we have the Trinity,
right? I just want you to go home today thinking about the
everlasting covenant. All right? So, Greg representing
God the Father. And here's what God said. I wrote
this out so I could read it to you. I, the Most High Jehovah, do
hereby give unto my Only Begotten and Well-Beloved Son a people
countless beyond the number of the stars, who shall be by Him
washed from sin, by Him preserved and kept and led, and by Him
at last presented before my throne without spot or wrinkle or any
such thing. I covenant by oath and swear
by myself, because I can swear by no greater, that these whom
I now give to Christ shall be forever the objects of my eternal
love. Them will I forgive through the
merit of the blood. To these will I give a perfect
righteousness. These will I adopt and make my
sons and daughters And these shall reign with me through Christ
eternally. Now, Greg, I want you to pick
five people out of this audience. They're going to be the elect.
And you've got to come up and get behind Greg. You won't have
to say anything, but... Yeah, go get them. Because they
won't come unless you go get them. There we go. Just four or five. All right, that's good enough.
That looks like the elect. All right. Now, I'm getting just a little
out of order, but just stay with me. The Holy Spirit also, as
one of the high contracting parties on this side of the covenant,
gave his declaration. This is the Holy Spirit. There
you are, Joy. I hear by covenant that all whom
the Father giveth to the Son, I will in due time quicken. I
will show them their need of redemption. I will cut off from
all groundless hope and destroy their refuge of lies. I will
bring them to the blood of the sprinkling. I will give them
faith whereby this blood shall be applied to them. I will work
in them every grace. I will keep their faith alive.
I will cleanse them and drive out all depravity from them,
and they shall be presented at last spotless and faultless.
This is the side of the covenant which is being fulfilled every
day and scrupulously kept. See, now we're on the other side
of this. We're living in time. So the Holy Spirit has agreed
and coveted together with the triune God that he will go or
she will go after the elect and bring them to repentance and
faith. Now, Jesus Christ, His part in
eternity past. My Father, on my part, I covenant
that in the fullness of time I will become man. I will take
upon myself the form and nature of the fallen race. I will live
in their wretched world, and for my people will I keep the
law perfectly. I will work out a spotless righteousness
which shall be acceptable to the demands of your just and
holy law. In due time I will bear their
sins, all the sins of my people. You shall enact their debts on
me. The chastisement of their peace
I will endure, and by my stripes they shall be healed. My Father,
I covenant and promise that I will be obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross. I will magnify your law and make
it honorable. I will suffer all that they ought
to have suffered. I will endure the curse of the
law, and all the vials of your wrath shall be emptied and spent
upon my head. I will then rise again. I will ascend to heaven. I will
intercede for them at your right hand, and I will make myself
responsible for every one of them, that not one of those whom
you have given me shall ever be lost. But I will bring all
my sheep, of whom by your blood you have constituted to me the
shepherd. I will bring every one of them
safe to you at last." Father, Son, and Holy Ghost can say it's
finished. It is done. And so can all the
elect today. We rejoice in this everlasting
covenant. Not a conditional covenant, but
an unconditional covenant. a covenant of grace and mercy. All right. Now, Greg, you're
going to give all of the elect over to the Son. Stand over here
so the elect can come over. All right. Here we go. Here we
go. So, we read in passage of Scripture,
like in John 6, all that the Father giveth me shall come to
me. Right? I pray not for the world,
but for them which Thou hast given Me out of the world. Thine
they were, and Thou gavest them Me." John 17. Right? Alright. Now, in time, the elect are born,
having been chosen by the Father, given by the Father to the Son
before the foundation of the world. The Son has died on the
cross, been resurrected the third day, is now in heaven. But the
crazy, stupid sheep. I want you all to go and sit
in one place out there. Sit in a row. Just go out there
because the Holy Spirit has to go get you. This happens in time. Yeah, you
can sit right up front there if you want. They're born into
the world. They come into the world. And
they come into the world children of wrath even as others. They're
silly sheep. They go astray. They come forth
from the womb speaking lies. They are dead and active toward
God. They have no idea that they've
been loved with an everlasting love. They're hiding out in their
loady bars, in the hood, in the crack house, in the whore house,
wherever they are, maybe in the church house even. The Holy Spirit
goes to some churches for the first time just to seek out one
sheep. That's right. All right, Holy
Spirit, go get them. There's a day come when God the
Father says, seek them out of their lodibar. And makes them willing. Right? Let's see. Are all the sheep
here? One, two, three, four. They're
all here. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. In the last day, Jesus shall
say, Lo, I am the children which thou hast given me. My sheep
hear my voice, and I know them, and I give unto them eternal
life, and they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them
out of my Father's hand. My Father which gave them me
is greater than all. This is the everlasting covenant.
All right, you can sit down. So I hope today you will go home
thinking this way. Wow. It is true. For whom he did for love, he
also did predestinate. And whom He predestinated, them
He also called. And whom He called, them He also
justified. And whom He justified, them He
also glorified. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? If you get this, you will begin
to see that God is a God of purpose. That God has a plan. And God
is determined to bring that plan to pass. And there are a number
of people that no man can number are going to be in heaven. Because
God chose them. And God was determined to save
them. Think about this. Even though you were as stubborn
as an ass's coat, God was determined to save you. And you bucked and
snorted and didn't want to be saddled and rolled and broken.
But God would not let you go. Because He loved you with an
everlasting love and then drew you with tender kindness to Himself. Let's stand together and praise
our God.