Open your Bibles with me this
morning to the 23rd chapter of Jeremiah. Our Scripture reading
is going to involve two portions of Scripture
out of this prophecy of Jeremiah, and then we're going to turn
over to the 8th chapter of Hebrews. I'll preface this by quoting
for you. the first verse of Psalm 119,
which says, blessed are the undefiled, the unadulterated, unhypocritical,
the pure in the way who walk in the law of the Lord. Blessed are the undefiled in
the way who walk in the law of the Lord. And now we're going
to focus on the 23rd chapter of Jeremiah. I wanted to pick a chapter that
depicts graphically the condition of the nation of Judah, that
Jeremiah's ministry was directed by God to proclaim and prophesy
against his own nation. And this chapter tells why God's
so displeased. The scriptures tell us, woe be
unto the pastors that destroy or cause to wander away and perish. and scatter, literally dash in
pieces, the sheep of my pasture, saith the Lord. Therefore thus
saith the Lord God of Israel, against the pastors that feed
my people, ye have scattered my flock and driven them away,
and have not visited them. I will visit upon you the evil
of your doings, saith the Lord. And I will gather the remnant
of My flock out of all countries, whither I have driven them, and
will bring them again to their folds, and they shall be fruitful
and increase. And I will set up shepherds over
them which shall feed them, and they shall fear no more, nor
be dismayed, neither shall they be lacking. saith the LORD. Behold, the days come, saith
the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous branch, and
a king shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and
justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved,
and Israel shall dwell safely. And this is his name, whereby
he shall be called the LORD our righteousness. Therefore, behold,
the days come, saith the LORD, that they shall no more say,
The LORD liveth which brought up the children of Israel out
of the land of Egypt. That's the old covenant. But
the LORD liveth which brought up and which led the seed of
the house of Israel out of the north country and from all the
countries whither I had driven them, and they shall dwell in
their own land." Now the Lord turns His eyes toward
the prophets of Judah. "'My heart within me,' Jeremiah,
overwhelmed with the Spirit of God, prophesying from Him, "'My
heart within me is broken because of the prophets. All my bones
shake. I am like a drunken man. and
like a man whom wine hath overcome, because of the Lord, and because
of the words of His holiness. For the land is full of adulterers,
for because of swearing the land mourneth. The pleasant places
of the wilderness are dried up, and the course is evil. and their force is not right. For both prophet and priest are
profane. Yea, in my house have I found
their wickedness, saith the Lord. Wherefore, Their way shall be
unto them as slippery ways in the darkness. They shall be driven
on and fall therein, for I will bring evil upon them, even the
year of their visitation, saith the Lord. And I have seen folly
in the prophets of Samaria. They prophesied in Baal and caused
my people Israel to err. I've seen also in the prophets
of Jerusalem an horrible thing. They commit adultery and walk
in lies. They strengthen also the hands
of evildoers that none doth return from his wickedness. They are
all of them unto me as Sodom and the inhabitants thereof as
Gomorrah. Therefore thus saith the Lord
of Hosts concerning the prophets, Behold, I will feed them with
wormwood and make them drink the water of Gaul, for from the
prophets of Jerusalem is profaneness gone forth into all the land. Thus saith the Lord of Hosts,
Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto
you. They make you vain. They speak
a vision of their own heart and not out of the mouth of the Lord. They say still unto them that
despise me, the Lord has said, ye shall have peace. And they
say unto everyone that walketh after the imagination of his
own heart, no evil shall come upon you. For who has stood in
the counsel of the Lord? and hath perceived and heard
his word, who hath marked his word and heard it. Behold, a whirlwind of the Lord
is gone forth in fury, even a grievous whirlwind. It shall fall grievously
upon the head of the wicked. The anger of the Lord shall not
return until he have executed, until he have performed the thoughts
of his heart. In the latter days, ye shall
consider it perfectly. I have not sent these prophets,
yet they ran. I have not spoken to them, yet
they prophesied. But if they had stood in my counsel,
and cause My people to hear My words, then they should have
turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their doings.
Am I a god at hand, saith the Lord, and not a god afar off? Can any hide himself in secret
places that I shall not see him, saith the Lord? Do not I fill
heaven and earth, saith the Lord?" I have heard what the prophets
said. that prophesy lies in my name,
saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed. How long shall this
be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies? Yea, they
are prophets of deceit, of the deceit of their own heart." A
word from the Hebrew that means fraud, betrayal. causing to fall. They are the prophets of the
deceit of their own heart which think, and this word from the
Hebrew means they plot or contrive, to cause my people to forget
my name. By their dreams which they tell
every man to his neighbor as their fathers, and have forgotten
my name for The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a
dream. And he that hath My word, let
him speak My word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat,
saith the Lord? Is not My word like a fire, like
as a fire, saith the Lord, like a hammer that breaketh the rock
in pieces? Therefore, behold, I am against
the prophets, saith the Lord, that steal my words, every one
from his neighbor. Behold, I am against the prophets,
saith the Lord, that use their tongues and say, he saith. Behold,
I am against them that prophesy false dreams, saith the Lord,
and do tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies and
by their lightness. Yet I sent them not, nor commanded
them. Therefore, they shall not profit
this people at all, saith the Lord. And when this people, or
the prophet, or a priest, shall ask thee, saying, What is the
burden of the Lord? Now the word burden is used synonymously
with what is the prophecy of the Lord. Because most of the
time in the word burden means from the Hebrew a foreboding
message. Because most of the prophets
prophesied of doom to whatever. If they prophesied to Babylon,
they prophesied of its doom. To the Syrians and us Syrians,
they prophesied, the prophets of the Lord would prophesy. That's
the burden of the Lord. And the question is, what is
the burden of the Lord here for Judah? And Jeremiah is instructed,
Thou shalt then say unto them, What burden? I will even forsake
you, saith the Lord. And as for the prophet and the
priest and the people that shall say the burden of the Lord, I
will even punish that man and his house. Thus shall ye say
every one to his neighbor and every one to his brother, What
hath the Lord answered? And what hath the Lord spoken? And the burden of the Lord shall
ye mention no more. For every man's word shall be
his burden, his burden. For ye have perverted the words
of the living God, of the Lord of hosts, our God. Thus shall
thou say to the prophet, what hath the Lord answered thee?
And what hath the Lord spoken? But since ye say the burden of
the Lord, therefore thus saith the Lord, because ye say this
word, the burden of the Lord, and I have sent unto you saying,
ye shall not say the burden of the Lord. Therefore, behold,
I, even I will utterly forget you and I will forsake you and
the city that I gave you and your fathers and cast you out
of my presence. and I will bring an everlasting
reproach upon you and a perpetual shame which shall not be forgotten." Okay, now let's turn over to
the 31st chapter of Jeremiah. We're going to be focusing on this very prophecy that comes
to us out of verses 31 The Spirit of God, through the Word
of God, as written from Jeremiah 31-31, 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. 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, although I wasn't husband unto them, saith
the LORD. But this shall be the covenant
that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith
the LORD. I will put My law, My law into
their inward parts. and write it in their hearts,
and will be their God. And they shall be My people.
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, 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." Now turn with me, if you will, to the epistle of Hebrews and read with me verses 7 to
the end of the chapter, which is what, which text we're
going to be focusing on this morning. Hebrews 8, beginning
at verse 7. which says, �For if the first
covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been
sought for the second. For finding fault with them He
saith, that is God saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord,
when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and
with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that
I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the
hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they continued
not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For
this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, saith the LORD. I will put My laws into their
mind, and write them in their hearts. And I will be to them
a God, and they shall be to Me a people. And they shall not
teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying,
Know the LORD, for all shall know Me, from the least to the
greatest, for I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and
their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. In that he saith, a new covenant
he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth
old is ready to vanish away. May God bless the reading of
His Word to our hearts this morning. As we approach the latter half
of Hebrews chapter 8, we recognize that it refers to the fulfillment
of an Old Testament prophecy out of the book of Jeremiah.
This prophecy was proclaimed roughly 606 years ago, or years
before Christ, when Judah as a nation was about to be severely
judged by God for its gross disobedience and unfaithfulness. The Mosaic
Covenant, with its law, was originally cut and confirmed by God in the
newly formed national presence that he made of the children
of Jacob, whose name he had changed to Israel. These earthly fallen
children of Israel would become the end time type who would reflect
God's eternally saved elect." So once again we're talking about
the types of time that reflect the reality of eternity. The holy covenant that God cut
with Israel at Mount Sinai, and it was a holy covenant. It was
also under the leadership of Moses. It bears His name. It's the covenant of Moses. With
all of its laws and all of its tabernacle rituals, that were
to be rigidly and religiously observed so that they as a nation
might be preserved by God. This covenant was disobediently
and most unfaithfully broken. And the nation as a whole had
become divided and then fragmented by its rebellion. until what
we have in the time of Jeremiah is only Judah as the only recognized
national presence on the earth of the mighty nation of Israel
under King David that they once were. The nation of Judah, however,
having also fallen into the same sinful scenario of unfaithfulness
and disobedience, they too broke their holy covenantal relationship
with the Lord God. Israel had done it before them.
The ten tribes, the rebellion had taken place. And the ten
tribes, and they became known as Ephraim because that was the
largest tribe, the most numerous tribe. But Ephraim and Israel
were synonymous as a national presence and God judged them
and they lost their national presence to the Assyrians a hundred
years before what happened to Judah takes place. But Judah fell into the same
sinful scenario and unfaithfulness and disobedience. Disobedience
to the law of the Mosaic covenant. And now God, being completely
just and righteous, and at the same time completely fed up with
all the misleading of the nation's false pastors and prophets and
priests, and according to His perfect timing, He destroyed
Judah also from being a nation on the earth. They had miserably
failed at keeping the covenantal Mosaic law, and God judged them
accordingly. Now the historic condition of
Judah is strikingly parallel with our own national state and
condition today. Our nation is replete with unfaithfulness
and disobedience to the pure truth of the gospel of the glory
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And God has not changed. from when He judged Judah until
now. He hasn't. He hasn't changed
that we should think that we can escape His like judgment
with our being the way that we presently are any more than the
nation of Judah. So, understanding this reality,
therefore, let's now turn to the Scriptures and look to that
which is brought forward from Hebrews 8, verses 8 through 13. Now this whole section here,
this final section, we really should include verse 7, but it
will become evident as we progress. Verse 8 starts out by saying
conclusively, For finding fault with them, he saith, That is
for finding blame with them, literally, with the whole system
of the old covenant. That's the them. That's Israel
and their covenant relationship with God. This is obvious because
verse 7 told us, for if the first covenant had been faultless,
and it wasn't, Therefore, does verse 8 go on to declare, He
saith, that is God saith through specifically His written word
through the prophet Jeremiah 31-34, which we read in our scripture
reading. It's quoted here in this section
of Hebrews. Behold, the days come. Literally,
this should be the days are coming. Because at the time that Jeremiah
prophesied this, The days that He's prophesying about are the
days of the God-man, the days of the eternal Son of God incarnated
into the human form of the Lord Jesus Christ that He is presently
abiding in at the present time. The days are coming, saith the
Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah." That is literally where the word
make is concerned. What is being said here is, I
will eternally ratify a new covenant, or I will fully and eternally
complete a new covenant, or again, I will cause to be fully and
eternally realized a new covenant with the house of Israel." Israel,
the type and time of all the eternally elect in Christ and
with or as regards to the house of Judah. Judah is also a type
and time of the eternal household of the Lord Jesus Christ. from
where he sprang, as chapter 7 of Hebrews tells us, onto the human
scene. He came out of Judean lineage
as the eternal Son of God. And then this section goes on
to clarify by saying from verse 9, "...not according to the covenant
that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by
the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they
continued not in My covenant, and I regarded them not, saith
the Lord." First of all, what the Lord God and only Governor
of Providence is saying here is this. His new covenant is
not going to be according to the same structure and stipulations
as that old first covenant that He made with their fathers in
time, in the day of the historical event of Israel's exodus out
of the land of Egypt under the leadership of Moses. For you
see, this new covenant is not going to be like the old. Why? Because they, the children of
Israel, continued not, the Lord says, in My covenant. Literally,
this phrase is saying, they proved to be unfaithful to Me. They did not persevere in My
covenant with them. And then the Lord says, and I
regarded them not. These are strong words. Literally,
what He means is, He loathed them. Now the Lord is saying
this, I'm not. This loathing of Israel by the
Lord God is the perfect just and right demeanor for holy God
to have toward anyone and everyone that continues not in the law
of Moses to do according to all that it requires with faultless
perfection. This loathing by God is the just
and righteous eternal reality and recompense of all who infract
the law of sin and death. Next, God makes it and states
it quite plain. He says from verse 10, For this
is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after
those days, saith the Lord. Remember, this is originally
being said 606 years before Christ. So it's always pointing to Christ. These days have come and gone
that they're referring to as yet in the future. And literally
what this verse is saying here in this phrase, for this is the
covenant that I will make with the house of Israel, is this. This is the covenant which I
will covenant." It's a play on the same word. He takes the noun
and turns it into a verb. This is the covenant that I will
covenant with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord. In other words, a new covenant
is about to be declared as having been cut. For you see, It's God's
remedy for His people's broken covenantal relationship with
Him due to disobedience and unfaithfulness to Him to reveal and cause to
be realized that a covenant has been eternally established already
through the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the eternal Son of God
and Son of Man. who has also been sworn by eternal
God to be the eternal High Priest, who is accountable to maintain
this new eternal covenant relationship with all of His eternally saved
ones. Through one man's disobedience
shall the many be made righteous. And this will be a new covenant
according to a new law, not the law of Moses, but the law of
the Lord, which law will be perfectly performed and strictly enforced
through the person and work of once more God the Son, the Lord
Christ Jesus. And the following statements
of verse 10 are what the law of the Lord dictates. He says,
I will put my laws into their mind and write them in their
hearts. This is new. It is Psalm 40 verse
8 that descriptively declares the holy character and nature
of the Lord Jesus Christ, our sovereign and eternal Savior
and substitute. From this Psalm, it declares
that the Christ of God says, Unto God, I delight to do thy
will, O my God. Thy law is within my heart. Or in other words, the law of
the Lord, which is contained between these two covers of this
Bible, and all that's therein is, the law of the Lord is not
written on the two cold and lifeless tablets of stone that can only
condemn without compromise, only condemn sin without compromise,
and never provide a remedy for the sin that it exposes. But
the law of the Lord is the law of Christ Himself, the eternal
Son of God. in His perfect vicarious obedience. And it's written in the mind
and in the heart of every single saved one that Christ went to
the cross for. And because every one of God's
elect is from eternity, in eternity, and for eternity placed in Christ
by God's direction through His election, the law of the Lord
is put into vibrant and God the Holy Spirit quickened and regenerated
minds and hearts. the minds and hearts of all those
chosen and placed in Christ. And the Bible plainly declares
that this act has already been performed by God in Christ in
eternity. May I remind you of this blessed
text, Ephesians chapter 1, verses 3 through 6. Blessed be the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as
He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. having predestinated us unto
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."
And then verse 10 in Hebrews chapter 8 goes on to descriptively
say, And I will be to them a God and they shall be to me a people. In other words, what God is saying
here, I will enter into an everlasting heavenly and holy new covenant
relationship with them as their God. And they will have an everlasting
heavenly and holy new covenant relationship with me. Next, there
is described the impact that the law of the Lord of this new
covenant relationship, the impact that it has on the true chosen
recipients of this sovereign grace. It says, verse 11, And
they shall not teach every man his neighbor and every man his
brother, saying, Know the Lord, for all shall know Me, from the
least to the greatest of them. Or in other words, every genuinely regenerated child
of God shall be thrust into the lifelong learning experience
of growing in the grace and knowledge of their Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ. You see, the first use of the
word know that is used in the first statement of this text
And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man
his brother, saying, Know the LORD." This word for know from
the original is a word that points to the learning experience that
is ever ongoing while one is here in this world. It is the
eternal purpose of God and it is an integral aspect of the
true believer's life and walk through this world that he be
always hungering For the word of righteousness, and consequently
by God's Holy Spirit of grace, He is always going to be fed
and filled with the word of truth, that bread from heaven, that
meat that does not perish. And no longer shall we be teaching
each one, know the Lord. Because the second word for know
that's in the phrase, for all shall know Me, from the least
of them to the greatest of them. is a word from the original again
that points to that which has been truly learned and will not
ever be forgotten. It is the truth that by the grace
of the Holy Spirit has been well received and therefore is well
understood and perspectuously perceived. It's a word that denotes
firm belief and dogmatic knowledge. You know without a shadow of
a doubt. They shall all know Me, God says,
from the least of them to the greatest of them. When regeneration
through the Word of God and by the Holy Spirit of God truly
happens, even though you are a babe in Christ, You are assured
of the genuineness of what has just happened to you by the revelatory
realization that has been bestowed upon you in your regeneration
experience. And it is then that you embark
on this lifelong journey I was speaking of that goes all the
way through this world. You're being led by the Spirit
and walking in the Spirit and growing in this grace and knowledge
and understanding that truly has changed your life. And it
is the substance of this knowledge and understanding that becomes
the most important thing in your life. It becomes that which continually
revolves through your thoughts day and night. Why? Even because the Word of God
or the Law of the Lord is the source and the Holy Spirit is
the seal of your ever-increasing and growing spiritual understanding
of what? That the Lord God Almighty, through
the person and work of the eternal Son of God Almighty, has eternally
redeemed you and saved you from all your sins. This leads us
right up to the wonderful declaration of verse 12, which says, for
I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and iniquities,
and iniquities, perversions of the truth, will I remember no
more. You see, it is the divine delight
of holy and almighty God, according to scripture. for Him to show
and bestow mercy upon His children. It is in this manner that He
reveals unto you that you truly are one whom He has blessed. Turn with me to Micah, chapter
7. A little prophecy of Micah. Jonah, Micah, Nahum. We're going
to look at that which the whole prophecy of Micah has crescendoed
into. Micah 7, verses 18 through 20. In this section, this final closing
section of the prophecy of Micah, Micah addresses God in this manner. He says, verse 18, Who is a God
like unto Thee, that pardons iniquity or that pardons perversion
of the truth, pardons it and passes by the transgression of
the remnant of his heritage, or that passes by literally the
rebelliousness of the remnant of his heritage. Who is a God
that does things like this? None other, but our beloved savior
God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. And then Micah continues
by making five inspired, wonderful, descriptive statements about
this God, which are, number one, he retaineth not his anger forever
because he delights in mercy. Now we just read the 23rd chapter
of Jeremiah, and we saw where that's absolutely not what God's
been intending for Judah at this juncture in history, in their
history. He's planning to literally, as was previously prophesied,
be like a dishwasher, and they're the dish, and He's going to wipe
them clean. Wipe them out. His wrath was going to not return
until he had executed completely his thoughts toward them. But here we see the way that
our God treats his children. He retaineth not his anger forever.
Because why? He delights He desires with great passion
in mercy. The second statement, He will
subdue our iniquities, it says. What's this talking about? Well,
literally the word subdue means to subjugate and vanquish. When it speaks of our iniquities,
it means that God will subjugate and vanquish, conquer, all the
errors and omissions of our flesh-fostered and false personal opinions that
are wrong, that are not in line with the pure truth of the gospel. He will subdue our iniquities. Third, and thou wilt cast all
their sins into the depths of the sea, This is diametrically
opposite to what we read in Jeremiah 23, where the last phrase of
verse 39, God says, and I will cast you out of my presence. I think that's one reason why
the Lord Jesus Christ made such a point of the matter when he
declared, all that the Father gives to me shall come to me,
and him that comes to me I will in no wise cast out. The only way we can escape being
cast out is through Christ our sins have to be cast into the
depths of the sea. He can't do anything but cast
us out if we're left in our sins. Fourth, the fourth statement
says, Thou will perform the truth to Jacob. Thou will perform the
truth to Jacob. And then it says, and mercy to
Abraham. Why does Micah then direct us to Jacob before Abraham
when we know that Abraham came before Jacob? Well, I think Jacob,
again, is the stark example, object lesson, if you will, of
what regeneration truly does, the impact that it has on us.
If you've truly been regenerated, you've had a Jacob experience,
a Jacob revelatory experience. Jacob was transformed into Israel. Jacob who couldn't tell the truth.
Our God performs the truth unto Jacob. Psalm 57 says, Thou God
who performeth all things for me. And then it says, and mercy
to Abraham. There we have the grand object
lesson of the grace of faith. Abraham had grown old and come
to the end of himself where the promise of God was concerned. There's no way that it could
possibly be fulfilled from his fallen perspective, his and Sarah's. Sarah was past the manner of
women, of being able to bear child. But God was merciful. She experienced a resurrection
of sorts in her body and gave birth to Isaac. Then the final
statement, which thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days
of old. Now this descriptive statement
is not unlike what the Word of God refers to when it speaks
of the oath that God has sworn that divinely declares the eternal
Son of God is our eternal High Priest forever. Thou art a priest forever after
the order of Melchizedek, that mysterious king of Peace, king
of righteousness, these are synonyms of the king of kings himself. And the appointment of Christ
to the priesthood before God is not by legal mandate from
the law of Moses that can't be kept by fallen man, but it's
by oath. a swearing from Him who cannot
lie. Holy God. Now, it comes down
to this. If it is the delight of Holy
God to bestow mercy upon His children, then certainly the
delight of the true child of God has to be the law of the
Lord, like Psalm 1-2 says. But His delight is in the law
of the Lord. And in His law doth He meditate
day and night. It is the law of the Lord that
explicitly and accurately and purely declares, without reservation,
this grand and glorious truth of the everlasting mercy and
eternal salvation of all of God's elect. All of this, having been
descriptively declared from Hebrews 8, brings us to a statement of
conclusion that bears the stamp of divine and glorious finality. And this statement is communicated
from Hebrews 8.13, which verse tells us, In that He saith, A
new covenant He hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth
and waxeth old is ready to vanish away. Or literally that which
is wearing out and ready to be declared as being obsolete by
virtue of its aging is ready also to just disappear. Now what's this make of the Old
Covenant? This makes the Old Covenant not
unlike everything else in this fallen world. Completely and
totally temporary. It's not everlasting. Which in
time historically, the Old Covenant priesthood and its sacrificial
system was technically completely ended when? At the cross. At the cross. For it was there
in history at the cross that the sacrifice to end all sacrifices
was represented. And the law of the Lord is that
which judges the sacrifice of the Lamb of God to be the aim
or goal, the end, if you will, of not only all of redemptive
history, but also of eternity. For He is the Lamb slain from
the foundation of the world. Herein lies the complete and
eternal expiation of all of the sins of God's elect unto eternal
salvation. And the law of the Lord also
declares it to be absolutely just to resurrect the holy Christ
of God, who gave His life as the eternally acceptable sacrifice
for our sins, to resurrect Him back from the grave. How's that? because the wages of sin could
not justly hold Him in its dreadful grip. It could receive His death
as payment, but praise God, it could not hold Him. And the resurrection
of the Lord Jesus Christ is that which the Scriptures tell us
eternally secures the justification of all of the saved. Praise the
name of the Lord. Not to mention, historically,
that the Old Covenant completely vanished out of sight with the
Roman destruction of the temple at Jerusalem in 70 AD. The Roman
army literally made the temple to vanish away. Like Jesus said,
not one stone will be left on another. They raised it to the
ground. Why? Why did that happen? Because
time had completely run out. where God's judgment upon the
broken old covenant is concerned. But understanding that the new
covenant is that which is also called the everlasting covenant
from the text that we ended on last Sunday, Hebrews 13.20, Now
the God of peace brought again from the dead, our Lord Jesus
Christ, that great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of
the everlasting covenant. Understanding that that's how
the frame of reference is made from the scriptures, this points
us to a comparison, once again, of the right now, in time, entire
age of sin and death with the eternal new age that is certain
to contain a new heavens and a new earth that we look forward
to, wherein dwells righteousness and holiness under the eternal
sovereign rule. of the law of the Lord. We're
going to be ruled by the law that graphically and purely depicts
and declares and describes our eternal redemption and salvation
through Jesus Christ. This righteous governing rule
will take place in the heavenly, eternal, abiding presence, literal
presence of our Lord Jesus Christ. whose unveiled, unrivaled, and
undiminished glory will literally make this entire dark age of
sin and death to completely vanish away and disappear forever. Praise His name. Amen.