Well, we're continuing in Genesis
for a while, the gospel in a rainbow this morning in Genesis chapter
nine and around verse 13. You know, at the moment, as well
as the COVID stuff, there is in this country an awful lot
of talk about a Brexit trade deal, doing a deal between the
European Union and the UK. You might call it a covenant,
a covenant of agreement as to how we will trade now that the
UK has left the European Union. And for many people, for many
people, they portray this, the outcome of this, as a case of
salvation economically versus disaster economically. They talk
about poverty, poverty versus prosperity, all hinging on this
Brexit deal. I'll tell you my own personal
opinion is that if it comes to poverty versus prosperity, it
is far more dependent on how many more of these lockdowns
we have. But anyway, I won't get on a political soapbox this
morning. No doubt, very many aspects of all of our lives in
the UK are going to be affected by whether there is a deal or
whether there is no deal in the next two weeks, because that's
all that's left, you know, it's just a week on Friday and that's
it, we're out, forever, for good, done. As important as that covenant
is, that trade deal between the UK and the European Union, here
is a much more momentous covenant. Do you know there is a... In
terms of having an impact on you and your life, there is a
much more momentous covenant. It's God's covenant of grace. And who is the covenant between?
Be quite clear. It's between the persons of the
Godhead. concerning the salvation of the
elect of God. People don't like that term,
the elect of God, it sounds so narrow. Let me tell you, the
scripture calls it a multitude which no man can number, of every
tribe and tongue and kindred, that God has chosen in Christ,
before the foundation of the world, to save from their sins,
that they might populate the kingdom of God in heaven, that
they might enjoy eternal fellowship with Him. And this covenant is
not just a one-off thing, something that is alluded to in one or
two places. It is described throughout the
scripture. It's the theme of it. And the
Lord Jesus Christ is the very embodiment of it. And I mean
that literally. He became man. He took upon him
a body, like unto our bodies, flesh and blood, as we are, made
in the likeness of sinful flesh, yet without sin. Christ is the
embodiment. of that covenant of grace, God's
covenant of sovereign grace. And all that speaks of Him, for
the Scriptures speak of Christ. These are they which speak of
Me. I determined, said Paul, to know nothing amongst you save
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Christ himself expounded to his
disciples in all the scriptures the things concerning himself,
and all the scriptures that speak of him, all that speaks of him
speaks of this covenant, because he is the covenant. It concerns
your eternal destiny, whether you are in hell or whether you
are in heaven, it's as serious as that. Wouldn't you seek to
find out everything you could? If I told you that, you know,
like one of these... air hunter programs. Do you know
the ones I mean? The H-E-I-R, those who have inherited,
you know, some distant relative, long forgotten, has died and
left some money, and they can't find any immediate family to
pass it on to. And so the air hunters go chasing
it to try and find the one, however many generations removed, is
the beneficiary of it, that they might have that money, and of
course the air hunters take their little percentage, and that's
why they do it. But, you know, imagine that there
is some rich person that has died, and they're looking for
who the fortune goes to. Wouldn't you prick up your ears
and take notice if you thought there was a possibility that
that might be destined for you? Of course you would! Well, how
much more with that which is the eternal destiny of his people. How much more we need to take
notice. So that's the subject this morning. Is God's covenant
of gracious salvation pictured in that first rainbow? Because
the rainbow we read about in chapter 9 of Genesis is the first
rainbow. and it symbolized God's covenant
with Noah. Verse 9 of chapter 9, this is
God speaking, of the cattle of every beast
of the earth with you from all that go out of the ark to every
beast of the earth and I will establish my covenant with you
neither shall all flesh be cut off anymore by the waters of
a flood neither shall there anymore be a flood to destroy the earth
and God said this is the token of the covenant which I make
between me and you and every living creature that is with
you. For perpetual generations I do set my bow in the cloud,
and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the
earth." That is the covenant. That is the covenant that God
made with Noah after he came out of the ark. God's covenant
with Noah pictured gracious salvation, and it was pictured in that first
rainbow. God's covenant with Noah promised
temporal. By temporal, I mean of time. I don't mean temporary, I mean
temporal, of time. God's covenant with Noah promised
temporal, earthly blessings. And do you know something? Have
you thought about this? Everybody on the planet is still
living in the good of those promises God made to Noah all those thousands
of years ago. We're still living in the good
of it now. There isn't another flood. There
will not be another flood. God has promised it. He has promised
that, verse 22 of chapter 8, while the earth remaineth, Seed
time and harvest and cold and heat and summer and winter and
day and night shall not cease. That is what the God of heaven
says to people. Not the woke message of the environmental
extinction rebellion campaigners. No, no, not that. Take no notice
of that. That's just nonsense. God has
promised seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter,
day and night shall not cease. All those earthly blessings which
we still live in the good of, it applies. Temporal blessings,
blessings of time and this earth, they're blessings that we enjoy.
But in exactly the same way as Noah and the seven with him and
all the animals in the ark were saved from the destruction of
God's judgment in the flood, The ark kept them safe. The ark
kept them breathing air. The ark saved them alive from
the wrath of God, from the punishment that He poured out. Just like
that ark pictured salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ, Noah's
covenant, the covenant God made with Noah, pictured the eternal
covenant of gracious, certain, eternal life. That's what it
pictured. This is why this is so important.
This covenant is the guarantee of certain salvation, with not
any dependence on you or me or the believer in any way. It is
entirely of the doing of God. I forgot to mention earlier,
read the bulletin. I've put a couple of pieces in
there. And one is from a sermon of Charles Spurgeon's, which
I took some pieces out of it regarding this. showing conclusively,
clearly, very well, he puts it so well, how much this is entirely
of God, with no dependence on man whatsoever. So then, A reminder,
we saw last week the flood, we thought about the flood of God's
judgment, and we thought about that term that God had repented
him that he had made man. Of course God cannot change,
for God is the same yesterday, Jesus Christ the same yesterday,
today and forever. God cannot change his mind, but
he can and does change the course of salvation's plan. He does
change the course, and because of sin, God changed the course.
Right, now is the point at which I will change the course. And
man, apart from eight, were destroyed. The justice of God fell. The
justice of God against sin, and the sin was this, God saw the
wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination
of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. God
looked down from heaven to see, and that's his conclusion. That's
what he saw. Sin, sin which was such a vile
affront to the character and nature of God. God saw that sin
and it demanded death. Justice, the justice of God demanded
death. In the day that you eat thereof
you shall surely die. The soul that sinneth, it shall
die, it says again and again. And all but the eight who were
saved in the ark from judgment were swept away. The flood came
and took them all away. And in that flood, there were
cataclysmic changes. Literally, I mean literally,
cataclysmic changes. Changes that fundamentally changed
the earth. The geology of the earth was
changed. The climate of the earth was
changed. It hadn't rained before, there
was just moisture in the air, which gave everything living
that needed moisture, its moisture came from that vapor that was
in the air. There was a huge amount of water
held above the earth. The geology of it, the climate
of it, was changed. The longevity of man was changed. You know, before the flood, we
read about them living 900 years or so. After the flood, God says
your days will be 120 years, and it gradually comes down.
And Noah's the last one with any great length of years, and
they come down much more into the 100 plus sort of years. The
longevity of man was dramatically changed. Diet was changed. In what way? Look at verse 3
of chapter 9. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for
you, even as the green herb have I given you all things." Meat.
I enjoy meat. I eat meat. I think all of us
here love meat. We enjoy meat. Why do we do it?
Why do we not follow the woke messages of our day? Because
the God of all the earth tells us here that meat is for you
to eat. The diet was changed as well.
And The flood and the judgment was over. In chapter 8 and verse
15, God said to Noah, come out of the ark, you and all those
with you. Bring them out. Come out. And verse 18, Noah
went forth and his sons and his wife and his son's wife with
him. And every beast and every creeping thing and every fowl
and whatsoever creepeth on the earth, after their kinds, went
forth out of the ark. There we are. We're in this completely
new world. Completely new world. Noah builded
an altar. You see, the justice of God against
the sin of man is satisfied. It's satisfied. It isn't completely,
because look, even of those that were in the ark with Noah, what
does it say in verse 21? The imagination of man's heart
is evil from his youth. That still goes on. They're still
sinners. Noah is still a sinner. And we see that very clearly
soon after he comes out of the ark. In that sense, nothing has
changed, but the justice of God is satisfied in that the vast
majority, and how many there must have been, I do not know,
but it was a huge number. And imagine the scene of them
coming out of the ark. Can you imagine? their feelings,
everything looks different to what it looked like before the
flood came. Everything looks different, completely different.
You can imagine their feelings, can't you? You can imagine their
apprehensions when they have seen, can you imagine the months
that they were in the ark and the waters of the storm of the
wrath of God against man was there on the face of the earth,
completely covered. You know, today scientists are
utterly baffled as to where all of the water came from on the
earth. You know, there's an awful lot of it. There is a colossal
amount. They have theories that some gigantic great ice ball
of comet hit the earth and it was that that melted and that's
why we've got all that water because they can't find any other
rational explanation for why there's so much water. I'll tell
you what I believe. God created the earth with all
that water for one reason. that there was enough there to
cause the flood, to bring about the flood. to carry out his judgment that
he knew would be coming. But you can imagine their apprehensions
as they came out of the ark. You know, you see films of a
post-nuclear holocaust scene where only a handful of people
have survived, and they come out into this desolate world
which is dangerous with radiation. Well, of course, post the flood,
there was no nuclear danger out there in that sense, but nevertheless,
in terms of, well, where's everybody gone? There's just eight of us.
That's it. There's nobody else there. They've all gone. They're
the only ones there. The only ones left. And they
know God is holy. And they know God is just. And
they must know that they're still sinners. Is God going to do it
again? Is God going to bring a flood
again? How are we going to live? How are we going to find favor
with God? How is it that God is going to preserve this world? for people to multiply. What's
going to happen? And we see it there in verse
20 of chapter 8. Noah built an altar and took
of every clean beast and every clean fowl. You know there were
more than just two by two of the clean beasts that went into
the ark. That's why there was enough pairing
for them to replenish the earth afterwards. But he took of every
clean beast and sacrificed. And the sacrifice pictured right
as it did from Genesis 3.24. Right from there, it pictured
the seed, the seed of the woman, promised. Genesis 3.15, God promised
to Eve that the seed of the woman would come and crush the head
of Satan. He would bruise his heel, but
he would crush his head. And that way to God was the way
to the tree of life. The way to the tree of life.
We need life. Life. You know how many times
Jesus said, He who believes in me has eternal life. Believe
in me and you have eternal life. The way to the tree of life.
What is the way to the tree of life? I am the way, the truth,
and the life. No man comes to the Father but
by me. And it pointed the sacrifice
that Noah performed with these animals on the altar that he
builded when he came out of the ark. What are we going to do?
Build an altar. We need to be right with God. I remember before
what I preached about the way to the tree of life. We must
symbolize that. We will only ever find acceptance
with God in the sacrifice. Let's have a sacrifice, believing
on the one that God will send, the seed of the woman who shall
come. When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth
His Son, made of a woman, made under the law to redeem those
who are under the law. We need redemption. Let's sacrifice
to God and symbolize that which He is going to do and seek the
way to the tree of life that we might not be destroyed. And
God saw that and look in verse 21, the Lord smelled a sweet
savor. You know how when you've got
a a nice piece of pork, cooking, or lamb, sorry Ariane, Ariane
doesn't like lamb, but anyway, something like that, cooking
in the oven, and you know, you come into the house and oh wow,
what a glorious smell, oh if you're hungry, what a delicious
savour, a sweet-smelling savour, God smelled a sweet-smelling
savour. Do you know what that pictures?
Ephesians 5, look at Ephesians 5, and verse 2, where Paul's told
them to be followers of God, and walk in love, as Christ also
hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and
a sacrifice, right? Christ is the real sacrifice. that finds favor with God. Christ
is the one who has redeemed us from the curse of the law by
being made the curse for us in our place. He has loved us and
given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God. Look
what it says, for a sweet-smelling savor. It's referring back to
that altar of Noah, right back as they came out of the ark.
Christ is the sweet-smelling Saviour. His death, His shed
blood, is a sweet-smelling Saviour and sacrifice to God for calming the anger, propitiating
the anger of God against sin. And all of God's promises to
Noah, his promises of life, were based on what this altar and
this sacrifice foresaw, looking forward to Christ. This is the
covenant of salvation that God made for his people. Who did
he make the covenant with? With Christ. It's between the
persons of the Godhead that the covenant was made. Christ, we
read in Hebrews 7 verse 22, Jesus, the man, the man. When we read the name
Jesus, it's stressing the fact that God became man, the God-man. Jesus was made a surety of a
better covenant, better than the covenant of works, better
than the covenant of law. Do this and you shall live, fail
to do this and you shall surely die. Cursed is everyone who continues
not in all things written in the book of the law to do them,
but Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. being made
a curse for us. This is a better covenant. He
has been made the surety of a better covenant, the guarantor of a
better covenant. Just as Judah in Egypt with his
brethren stood surety for Benjamin in Genesis chapter 43, so Christ
is the surety for his people, the surety of a better covenant.
And Noah's altar, this altar here, It symbolized our altar. What is our altar? We don't have
a physical altar. I know there are churches that
have physical altars, but they don't understand the scriptures.
If they did, they wouldn't have them. Because in Hebrews 13 and
verse 10, it says that we have an altar, we have an altar, where
those that sacrifice at their made-up altars, they have no
right to eat there. We have an altar, verse 10 of
chapter 13 of Hebrews, we have an altar whereof they have no
right to eat which serve the tabernacle. They which carry
on with their physical altars, they have no right to eat at
this altar. What's this altar? It's Christ and Him crucified. It's the place where propitiation
is made for sin. It's the place where the anger
of God against sin is turned away and appeased. because the
blood of Christ has been shed, paying that penalty. Yes, he has met all of the conditions
of the covenant for his people, and nothing but its blessings
flow to his people. Do you know, unlike what many,
many, most churches preach and teach, is that the covenant depends
so much on the things that you do. The covenant requires you
to grow in sanctification of your own doing. So they teach. It isn't true. It isn't in the
scriptures. The scriptures say that every
covenant blessing, all of it, is satisfied in what the Lord
Jesus Christ has done for his people. Christ's blood answers
the demand of divine justice towards his people. Christ's
blood does that. In Ephesians 1, You get, this
is why when you read the epistles, the Apostle Paul is overflowing
with the blessings and benefits that come from what Christ has
done in the covenant of grace for the people that he represented.
Blessed, verse 3 of chapter 1 of Ephesians, blessed be the God
and Father, blessed, how blessed is God in his grace to us. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us. Who's the us?
The people of His choice, the multitude that no man can number.
His people, His elect, united with Christ from before the beginning
of time in covenant grace. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual
blessings, none missing. in heavenly places in Christ
according as he has chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world. You see, it's just sovereign
grace that we should be holy and without blame before him
in love. How are we holy and without blame? In Christ we're
holy. In Christ. Not that we should
have a good try at making our own holiness, but that in Christ
we should be holy and without blame, having predestinated us
unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according
to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of
his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved. Christ's blood, Christ's blood
answers The demand of divine justice. His blood is Hebrews
13 20 in that doxology at the end of Hebrews. His blood is
the blood of the everlasting covenant. That's the blood. that
guarantees the salvation of the people of God. He is the Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world. He is Christ our Passover. Christ our Passover, says Corinthians
somewhere, Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. The Passover
when the Israelites came out of Egypt, They were given the
Passover. You will select a lamb, make
sure it's perfect, without blemish and without spot. You will keep
it and observe it. And then on this particular night,
when the angel of death is to come through the whole land and
to slay the firstborn of everyone, including the Israelites, accept. where God saw the blood, when
I see the blood. When they painted the blood of
the sacrificial lamb, symbolizing the Lamb of God, Christ our Passover,
when they painted that blood above the doorposts on the lintel
of the door, as the angel of death came through, God says,
when I see the blood, I will pass over you. When I see the
blood, not when you look to the blood, Read Spurgeon in that
article in the bulletin. When I see the blood, is what
God says, it's all dependent on him. And he is the unchangeable
God who has accomplished all. And then he promises not to repeat
the flood. He smelled a sweet-smelling savour
and promised that never again For man's sake, even though he
continues to be evil, but never again will he smite the earth
with a flood. While the earth remains, seed time, harvest,
cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
So what are they to do? They've got this ark which has
landed up somewhere, and you know people are always, archaeologists
of a certain type, are always trying to look for fragments
of the ark so that we can all bow down and worship it. Whereas
you know the right thing to do is what, was it Hezekiah? Was
it Hezekiah? The brazen serpent, in days of
idolatry, the brazen serpent that Moses was commanded to make
when the people were being bitten by serpents, and it was in the
style of the thing that was causing them death, and they were to
look, they were to look. As Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up on
a cross. symbolizing sin, symbolizing that which kills, and whosoever
looks shall be saved. And they were. And what Hezekiah
did was, because it had become an object of idolatrous worship,
he ground it to powder. What were they to do with this
ark? They probably recycled it, so much wood there, and it was
good wood, it was gopher wood, it was non-rotting wood. They probably built shelters
with it, they probably recycled it in some way. Oh, what if God
again? sends a flood. Was that not a
bit hasty? You've heard the expression,
you don't want to burn your boats out of a situation, and they'd
burn their boats perhaps. What are they going to do? Well,
God puts a rainbow in the sky. Verse 11 of chapter 9, I will
establish my covenant with you. Neither shall all flesh be cut
off any more by the waters of a flood, neither shall there
any more be a flood to destroy the earth. And God said, this
is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you
and every living thing. every living creature that is
with you. For perpetual generations I do set my bow, rainbow, in
the cloud and it shall be for a token of a covenant between
me and the earth and it shall come to pass when I bring a cloud
over the earth. It's God that brings the cloud
over the earth. That the bow shall be seen in
the cloud. You know there are lots of dark
clouds come over the earth and our experience in the earth.
but God sets his covenant, the sign, the symbol of the covenant
of his grace in the clouds. I will remember my covenant which
is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh
and the water shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh
and the bow shall be in the cloud and I will look upon it that
I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every
living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. This
is the token, he said to Noah. We all love to see a rainbow. As we were packing up our caravan
yesterday morning down in the New Forest, there'd just been
heavy rain and the showers were coming through and the sun rise
was coming up quite nicely. And there was an absolutely beautiful
full rainbow in the West. As the sun came up in the East,
there was this beautiful rainbow against the dark cloud in the
West. It was so graphic. It was one
of the best ones I think I've seen in a long, long time. We
all love to see a rainbow. It's white sunlight, the mixture
of all the colors, all the different frequencies of electromagnetic
radiation. White sunlight refracting and
reflecting through the raindrops and splitting into colors, because
the colors have all got different frequencies and so they get bent.
to different degrees, which is why the colors get split up.
All the colors of the visible spectrum, as we used to say,
Roy G. Biv, red, orange, yellow, green,
blue, indigo, violet, the colors of the rainbow. Before the flood,
because it had not rained, nobody had ever seen a rainbow. And
now, at this time, out of the ark, I wonder if God's going
to do it again. No, He's given His promise. How do we know?
Now God, listen, God signs His promise not to repeat the flood
with a rainbow. The rainbow, God says, this is
effectively saying, this is my signature in the sky to you,
that I will not send another flood to destroy the earth. Imagine
the fear of Noah's family. when they heard thunder or saw
rain. Oh no, another flood's coming!
And the ark had been repurposed for other things and wasn't available
to save them from another flood. Ah, there's the rainbow. What
did God say? I will never again send a flood upon the earth.
It's more than just a promise not to repeat the flood, because
you see, in it, it foreshadows, it speaks of, it symbolizes sovereign
grace, covenant grace in salvation. This is a bow. A bow? What's
a bow? A bow is a bendy thing. You know, the weapons of war
would have been bows and arrows, for example. And there's a bow.
And the bow is a weapon of war, not of peace. But this is a bow
of peace. It speaks of covenant grace.
It speaks of peace. It's not a bow of war. As God
says via Isaiah, Isaiah 40, Verses 1 and 2, Comfort ye, comfort
ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem,
to the people of God, the believing people of God, and cry unto her
that her warfare is accomplished. No more warfare. Her iniquity
is pardoned. How is her iniquity pardoned?
She hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins. What has she received? She's
received a double. A double? A mirror image. She's
received the exact payment for her sins. There's no more warfare.
God is angry with the wicked every day, but he's taken the
wickedness of his people away in the blood of the Lamb. And
then, The gracious depictions of God that we have in Scripture
show a rainbow involved in it. In Revelation 4, verse 3, when
John is bidden to come up into heaven and he sees a throne,
and it says in verse 3 of chapter 4, a rainbow around the throne,
a complete circle around the throne, in sight like unto an
emerald, green in that it speaks of life, and continuing life,
and that which continues. in chapter 10 of Revelation in
verse 1, the figure which is clearly Christ coming, the angel,
the mighty angel with his little book. And a rainbow was upon
his head, a symbol of grace, a symbol of peace with God. His
face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire.
Ezekiel chapter 1 verse 28, visions of God, says Ezekiel, as the
appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain,
so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This
was the appearance of the lightness of the glory of the Lord. This
rainbow was an emblem of peace. This rainbow was an emblem of
reconciliation in God towards man after the flood. It symbolizes
the covenant that God will never break. He cannot break His covenant. He is the God who never changes.
You know we've been looking in Galatians in recent weeks and
in chapter 3 we read of a will and a testament. The covenant
of grace is a will and a testament from one who is bequeathing something,
salvation, to a people who are the inheritors of that. It's
a will and a testament that accomplishes redemption from the curse for
a multitude. United with Christ. The multitude
united with Christ, it accomplishes redemption from the curse for
them. On what basis? On the basis of Christ's righteousness
and his blood. You know how, if I sign a piece
of paper, if I sign a last will and testament, my signature itself
accomplishes nothing. In itself, it's just some squiggles
with ink on a piece of paper. But what that symbolizes in law,
the strength of that in law, gives that signature real meaning. It symbolizes everything that
the signatory, the one doing the signing, is. God has signed
His covenant. God who cannot change, God who
cannot lie, God who will never be found falling short of His
promise. He has promised, and He will
keep His promise. The rainbow is God's signature
on the covenant of accomplished salvation, and nothing can change
it. Hear what God says via Isaiah
again in chapter 54, just after chapter 53, which speaks of the
way in which redemption is accomplished. In the lamb slain, as the sheep
before, he shears his dumb, so he opened not his mouth. He bore
the transgressions of many. With his stripes we are healed.
And then chapter 54, verses 9 and 10. For this is as the waters
of Noah unto me. For as I have sworn that the
waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so have I
sworn, and he swore it and he signed it with a rainbow, so
have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, I would not
be angry with you, because my anger's turned away because of
what chapter 53 says, nor rebuke me. For the mountains shall depart,
great cataclysmic things will happen, and the hills be removed,
But my kindness, the kindness of God, shall not depart from
thee. Believer, do you trust the living
God? Is your hope for eternity set on Christ? Do you walk with
him and talk with him as Enoch walked with God? Is there any
element to which you walk with God? You walk after the Spirit,
knowing the living God. Well, your kindness, he says,
his kindness shall not depart from you. Neither shall the covenant
of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee.
Christ has undertaken for his people to provide everything
the covenant demands of them. Just as God said in Job, He said
this, He said, deliver him. Who? The sinner. Job 33 verse
24. Deliver the sinner from going
down to the pit, because that's what the sinner deserves. Why?
How? How can justice be satisfied?
How can God be just and deliver the sinner from going down to
the pit? He says, I have found a ransom, and the ransom is the
Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world. So Christ has done
all And Christ is all that God requires in the covenant of His
grace. And what blessings flow from
it. I'll be quick. 2 Samuel 23, these are the, amongst
the last words of, well he says in verse 1 of 23, these are the
last words of David. And he says in verse 5, although
my house be not so with God, it was a mess was his house because
of his sin of adultery and murder, yet he, God, has made with me
an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure, for this
is all my salvation and all my desire. That was David. That was the blessing that he
knew. We've already read in Ephesians
and in Galatians and in the epistles, look again for yourself. All
of the covenant blessings that flow to the people of God on
the basis of what God has done, and he cannot change it. It's
immutable. As immutable as God is immutable,
the covenant is immutable, and therefore its outcome is unchangeable. It cannot be changed. It cannot
be lost. You cannot be defrauded of it.
It cannot be. It's impossible. It's independent
of His people's faithfulness. Again, read that article by Spurgeon
that I put in the bulletin. It doesn't depend on His people's
faithfulness. There's nothing woven in of our
doing into the material of God's covenant of grace. He says in
Ezekiel 16 verse 60, God says, I will remember my covenant with
thee in the days of thy youth, and I will establish unto thee
an everlasting covenant, and thou shalt know that I am the
Lord. This is the way to God. Christ
is the way, the only way to God. And on the strength of this covenant
of grace, all creation, and this world that we're living in today,
Think of it, this world, this very world that you think cannot
get more bonkers every time a day goes by and some more news comes
out, you think whatever next, this world, all creation is being
governed for the good of the elect. It says in Psalm 73 verse
1, truly, truly, truly, God is good to Israel. He's good to
his people. How we as believers, how I as
a believer need to keep this truth at the front of my mind,
of our minds, in these days of such worldly turmoil, of such
fear, of such hopelessness. Don't ever forget, everything
is being governed, that the outcome of the promise of God in the
covenant of His grace should be fulfilled for those whom he
has shown the truth and the light of grace in this gospel. Romans
8, 28. And we know that all things work
together for good to those who love God, who are called according
to his purpose. Even these things in these days. God's covenant is certain. He
cannot change it. He will keep it. His people will
be with him in glory. Amen.