over in Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy chapter 29. Let me read verse 1 again and
then go down to verse 9. Deuteronomy chapter 29 and verse
1. These be the words of the covenant
which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of
Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant which He made with
them in Horeb, in Mount Sinai. Look down now in verse 9. 9 Keep
therefore the words of this covenant, and do them, that you may prosper
in all that you do. 10 You stand this day, all of
you, before the Lord your God, your captains, your tribes, your
elders, your officers, with all the men of Israel, your little
ones, your wives, and your strangers, that is in your camp, from the
ear of thy wood to the drawer of your water, that thou shouldest
enter into covenant with the Lord thy God, and to his oath
which the Lord thy God maketh with thee this day, that he may
establish thee today for a people unto himself, that he may be
unto thee a God, as he hath said unto thee, and as he hath sworn
unto thy fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Neither with
you only do I make this covenant and this oath, but with him that
standeth here with us this day before the Lord our God, and
also with him that is not here with us this day." Moses was
speaking here, of course we know this, to the second generation
that came out of Egypt. Almost all of the first generation
had died. Moses was left and Caleb and
Joshua and those children that were very young when they came
out of the land of Egypt. And in verse 1 here, he talks
about a covenant, another covenant. He seems to imply that it was
another covenant other than the one made in Mount Sinai. But
I think as you look at this chapter closer, with few exceptions,
very few exceptions, it's simply a renewal of that covenant that
He made with them in Mount Sinai, in Mount Horeb. It adds some
things we see here in chapters 29 through chapter 32, but it's
basically, I think, the same covenant. The first generation
had violated the covenant and all of them had died in the wilderness.
And here in chapter 29 through chapter 32, Moses doesn't add
more laws. I read this and I couldn't see
a single law that he added to what was already given at Mount
Sinai. But what he stresses in these
chapters is the absolute need for obedience. of that law which
has already been given and the consequences of disobedience.
And we have that in this chapter. Now, let me give you an example
here in verses 21 and 25 and 27 of what I'm saying that this
is not another covenant, but it's just a ratification of the
covenant already been given, if you could call it that. Look
in verse 21. And the Lord shall separate him
unto evil, speaking of the man who breaks this covenant, the
Lord shall separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of
Israel according to all the curses of the covenant that are written
in this book of the law. So he is simply saying that if
he breaks this covenant and sins against the covenant, it is the
same covenant of the works of the law that they had back over
in Exodus chapter 19 and 20. Look in verse 25. Then men shall
say, because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord God
of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them
out of the land of Egypt. For they went and served other
gods and worshipped them, gods whom they knew not and whom He
had not given them. and the anger of the Lord was
kindled against this land to bring upon them all the curses
that are written in the book of this law. So it says there
in verse 25, it is the same covenant that God made with their fathers
when He brought them out of the land of Egypt. But one of the
things you see in this renewed covenant here especially in these
next few chapters, you'll see some promises of grace, some
gracious promises mixed with this covenant of works. And you
can see that in chapter 30. Look in chapter 30 in verses
4 through 6. If any of thine be driven out,
and that's what He told them He would do to them if they sinned
against Him and fell into idolatry. And that's what He did. If any
be driven out into the uttermost parts of the earth, From thence
will the Lord your God gather thee, and from thence will He
fetch thee. And the Lord thy God will bring thee into the
land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it, and
He will do thee good, and multiply thee above all thy fathers. And
the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of
thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all your heart, with
all your soul, that you may live. Now, no doubt the Lord did this
to some extent. In Nehemiah's day, in Ezra's
day, when he brought them back out of captivity, they were regenerated. He had circumcised their hearts.
And he does it now to every elect soul, doesn't he? When he brings
them to Christ, he circumcises his heart. Look here, this is
talking about Grace 2 in verse 11. Look at verse 11 in this
chapter, chapter 30. For this is the commandment which
I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither
is it for all." Now this is quoted in Romans 10 and verses 6 through
8. It is not in heaven that you
should say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto
us, that we may hear and do it. Neither is it beyond the sea
that thou mayest say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring
it unto us, that we may hear it and do it. But the Word is
near you, it is nigh you, even in thy mouth and in thy heart,
that thou mayest do it." What did Paul say that was? The Word
of Faith, which we preached, didn't we? See, I have set before
thee this day life and good and death and evil. Life and good. Now what is that? That is the
Gospel, isn't it? Life and good is the gospel.
The gospel, upon believing it, gives us eternal life. The gospel
gives us every good thing that is in Jesus Christ. That's what
the gospel gives us. But look what else he said. I
have set before you life and good and death and evil. Now, what's death and evil? But
the law. That's the law. He says here,
I've set before you life and death, good and evil. And that's the law of Moses and
the gospel. What is the law? Well, the Bible
calls it the ministration of death written in graven in stone. By the law is the knowledge of
sin. The law worketh wrath. So this
law is death and evil. Not in itself. The law is good
in itself, but it condemns us, doesn't it? So here we have the
law and here we have the gospel. In the entire Bible, we have
these two characters. I call them characters. We have
Christ in the Gospel, and we have Moses in the Law. The Law came by Moses, but grace
and truth came by the Lord Jesus Christ. And in the Law of Moses,
there are cursions. In the Gospel of Christ, there
are blessings. In the law of Moses there are
blessings and cursings and you know in the gospels there are
blessings and cursings. Listen to this about the law.
If thou will enter into life, keep the commandments. Now that
is a blessing isn't it? If you will enter into life,
keep the commandments. That man that doeth these things
shall live in them. Now that is a blessing for the
law keepers. But listen to this. Cursed is
everyone that continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law to do them." So you have blessings
promised in the law, but you have curses. But we have blessings
also promised in the gospel. He that hath the Son hath life. Now that's the blessing. He that
hath the Son of God abiding in him hath blessings. He has life. He that believeth in the Son
of God is justified from all things. Nothing can ever be held
against Him. He's blessed with justification.
He that believeth shall receive remission of sins. Now that's a blessing, ain't
it, in the gospel. But you know the gospel carries cursings with
it too, doesn't it? For those who believe not. Just
like the law for those who rebel against it, the gospel carries
awful cursings for those who rebel against it. Listen to this. I think the gospel probably carries
a worse cursing against the unbelief towards it than the law of Moses
does. Let me give you two or three
scriptures, examples of that. Listen to Hebrews 2. If the word
spoken by angels, that's the law, was steadfast, and every
transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of
the How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?
If the law of Moses punished a man for not believing it, how
shall we escape, the writer said, if we neglect so great a salvation?
Listen to Hebrews 10. He that despised Moses' law died
without mercy under two or three witnesses. Of how much sore punishment,
suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy who has trodden underfoot
the Son of God and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith
he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and done despite to the
Spirit of grace." A man despised Moses' law was in trouble. But
he said those who despise the gospel are much more in trouble. Listen to Hebrews 12, 25. See
that ye refuse not him that speaketh, that is Christ in the gospel.
For if they escape not who refused him that spake on earth, that
was Moses, Much more shall not we escape if we turn away from
Him that speaketh from heaven." Somebody said this, if the despising
of justice will be punished, much more the despising of mercy. If the rejection of Moses brings
wrath, much more the rejection of the Son of God will bring
wrath. I do not know of anything that
is more critical for you and I than to rightly divide law
and grace, make a distinction between Moses and Christ, and
with a heart-faith lay hold upon the Lord Jesus Christ as He is
revealed in the Gospel. And the reason I say that in
the Bible Throughout the Bible, we have the Law and we have the
Gospel. That's what we see in these chapters
right here. You're talking about the Law
and then suddenly there's the Gospel right in there. But some
people, because they can't divide the Law from Grace, man, they
look at the Law and that's all they see. Try to work their way
into God's presence other than seeing Christ and His Gospel
in you and believe in Him. Now here in Deuteronomy chapter
29, he spoke here in verse 1 and he spoke in verse 9 of this covenant. Keep therefore the words of this
covenant and do them that you may prosper in all that you do. And I want you to notice here
how serious it is to be under a covenant. It's a serious thing
to be under a covenant. First thing we see here in verse
10, look here how universally binding this covenant was in
verse 10 and verse 11. The Lord made a covenant with
His people. And He said in verse 10, You stand this day, all of
you, before the Lord your God, your captains, your elders, your
officers, and you men of Israel, It even included the little ones,
and your wives, and the strangers, even right down to the hewer
of wood and the drawer of water. Look how universal it was when
He made a covenant with these people. It included everybody.
The mightiest among them, right down to those who drew the water
and cut the wood for them. Universal. Binded. Everybody
was bound by it. And notice how far-reaching it
is in verses 14 and 15. Notice how far-reaching this
is in these two verses. Look in verse 14. Neither with
you only do I make this covenant with this oath, that is, with
him that standeth here with us this day before the Lord our
God, and also with him that is not here with us today. In other words, this reached
into coming generations. This reached to their children,
their grandchildren, and even today, even in Christ's day,
this whole nation was still under this covenant that God made with
their forefathers. And here in verses 18 and through
verse 25, he shows that this covenant was binding upon those
that was to live after this particular generation. Here in verses 18,
look in verse 18. lest there should be among you
a man or a woman or a family or a tribe whose heart turns
away this day from the Lord our God, and go serve God to these
nations, lest there should be among you a root that beareth
gall and wormwood. And it came to pass, it come
to pass, when he hears the words of this curse, that he bless
himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I
walk in the imagination of my heart to add drunkenness to thirst. Now here you got a man and maybe
he lives a thousand years after chapter 29 or two thousand years
or three thousand years and somebody confronts him with the words
of this covenant and our forefathers three thousand years ago God
made this covenant with us. He said that don't concern me.
I'm going to live like I want to live. I'm going to do whatever
is right in my own eyes. I'm not bound to some covenant
3,000 years old. And he says, I'm going to have
peace, though I walk in the imagination of my heart. I'll get drunk.
I'll do whatever I want to do. But the Lord says, no, you're
bound by that covenant that I made with your fathers. You may think
you have nothing to do with it, but he said you're bound by it.
And here's what happens to that man. or that tribe or that whole
nation, verse 20. And the Lord will separate him,
the Lord will not spare him, but then the anger of the Lord
and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the
curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and
the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven. And then you
go on reading about the curses that will come upon that man
or that tribe or that nation. So these covenants were very
serious, they were universal, and they were very binding. And with that in thought, let's
look at some covenants just for a few minutes that the Lord made
with people. The first one is Adam. We all
remember the covenant that God made with Adam. And some people
have difficulty calling that a covenant, It was a covenant
that God made with Adam. He told him the terms of the
covenant, didn't he? Eat of every tree of the garden
except this one tree. The knowledge of good and evil.
Don't eat of that tree. Told him where it was and the
results of him eating. He made a covenant with him.
Adam was bound by that covenant. But you know, everybody else
was too. A man may argue and say that I had nothing to do
with Adam. I had nothing to do with Eve. I had nothing to do
with their sins. But it affected every one of
us. Wayne's been telling us that. It affected us all, didn't it?
When he sinned, it even affected babies. It affected the most
mighty man that lives in this world. Generals, presidents,
kings. everybody. It was universal and
far-reaching. It was timeless. If this world
stands for 6,000 more years, that covenant that God made with
that man will still be affecting everybody that is born into this
world and lives and dies. In Adam all die. In Christ shall all be made alive. I want you to turn over to Genesis
and look at the second covenant that we find in the Scripture.
That is the first They're in Genesis 2. But look in Genesis
chapter 8. Here's another covenant that's
been far reaching. God made with Noah. And all the posterity and all
the animals. Look here in Genesis chapter
8. Look in chapter 8 and verse 20. This is where the flood was
over and Noah and his family came out of the ark. verse 20
of chapter 8 of Genesis is the first thing they did. And Noah
built in that ark unto the Lord, and took of every clean beast,
and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the
altar. And the Lord smelled a sweet Savior, and the Lord said in
his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's
sake, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his
youth, neither will I again smite any more everything that I have
done, as I have done. while the earth remaineth, seedtime,
and harvest, cold, and heat, and summer, and winter, and day,
and night, shall not cease." Now look in chapter 9, look in
verse 8. And God spake unto Noah, and
to his sons with him, saying, And behold, I establish my covenant
with you, and with all your seed after you, and with every living
creature that is with you of fowl of cattle, of every beast
of the earth with you, from all that goeth forth 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 any more by the waters
of the flood, neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy
the earth. And the Lord said, This is the
token of the covenant which I will 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. And it shall come to pass when I bring a cloud over the
earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud. And 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 seen 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. And God said to Noah, This is
the token of the covenant which I established between me and
all flesh that is upon the earth. And all of us realize how important
that covenant is. We still live under the blessings
of that today, don't we? We have the promise because God
made this covenant. water will not come over this
earth and destroy it again. And we got the promise of as
long as this world stands, there's going to be spring and summer
and fall and winter. There's going to be seed time
and harvest. There's going to be day and night. That's the
covenant that God made with Noah and all his prosperity. And it
even reaches down to your time and my time. Look at another
covenant. Look over in Psalms chapter 89. This is the covenant that God
made with His Son in Psalms chapter 89. You see little tidbits of
this all through the Scripture. And even where it doesn't specify
covenant, you can see the terms of that covenant mentioned in
different places through the Scripture. Look here in Psalms
chapter 89 and look in verse 1. I will sing of the mercies of
the Lord forever. With my mouth will I make known
thy faithfulness to all generations. For I have said, Mercy shall
be built up forever. Thy faithfulness shall thou establish
in the very heavens. I have made a covenant with my
Chosen. I have sworn unto David my service. And you can just put Christ in
there, because that's speaking of Christ. And you'll see as
you read this passage, another passage. Thy seed will I establish
forever, and build up thy throne to all generations. Look what
he says in verse 20. I have found David my servant,
with my holy oil have I anointed him, with whom my hand shall
be established, my arm also shall strengthen him, The enemy shall
not exact upon him, nor the son of wickedness afflict him. I
will beat down his foes before his face, and plague them that
hate him. But my faithfulness and my mercy
shall be with him, and in my name shall his horn be exalted. I will set his hand also in the
sea, and his right hand in the river. He shall cry unto me,
Thou art my Father, my God, and the rock of my salvation. also
I will make him my firstborn higher than the kings of the
earth. We know that's not David. My mercy will I keep for him
forevermore and my covenant shall stand fast with him. His seed
also will I make to endure forever and his throne as the days of
heaven. If his children forsake my law
and walk not in my judgments, Poor things as we are, there's
not a one of us that's perfect, are we? If they break my statutes
and keep not my commandments, then will I visit their transgression
with a rod, and their iniquities with stripes, he'll chasten us?
Nevertheless, my lovingkindness will I not utterly take from
him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not
break, nor alter the thing that's gone out of my lips. Once have
I sworn in my holiness, by my holiness, that I will not lie
to David. His seed shall endure forever,
and his throne as the Son before me." You see here just an example
of the terms of the covenant, and mainly all of it is on the
Father's side here, what He is going to do with the Son and
for the Son. And when the Son came, He often told us what He
was going to do. I'm going to give my blood. This
is the blood of the new covenant. That's what he said, isn't it?
And that's what he sealed his part of the covenant with. Lo,
I come to do thy will, O my God. And what was the will of the
Father? That of all which He has given me, I should lose nothing.
It's going to cost me my blood, my labor, my death, but I'm not
going to lose those that the Father has given to me. The Father
made him all these promises. And the Son says, This is my
promise, I will do all your will. And you find these little tidbits
of the terms of the covenant scattered all through the Old
and the New Testament. I love Hebrews chapter 13 and
verse 20, Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead
the Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood
of the everlasting covenant. That's what that covenant was
sealed with. And David said, He's made with me a covenant.
And it's ordered in all things. And it's sure. It's sure. That's
the covenant of grace. I love that covenant. Look here
in another covenant. God makes this with all His elect.
All the believers. Look in Jeremiah chapter 31.
In verse 31. Jeremiah chapter 31. Look in verse 31. Jeremiah 31 and verse 31. It
is on page 859 in your pew Bible. 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 that I took them by
the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. Now this is
a completely different covenant, isn't it? Completely different
covenant. Which my covenant they break
Although I was not a 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 in
their inward parts. And what law is that? Well, there
are several laws He puts in our heart. One is no doubt the moral
law. No believer lives without the
moral law, does he? But what about the law of faith?
What about the law of the spirit of life? What about the law of
liberty? What about the law of Christ's
kingdom? This is Christ's law. He has laws, doesn't he? I'll
put my laws in their hearts and write in their mind, write them
in their hearts, and I will be to them a God and they shall
be to me a people. And they shall teach no more
every man his neighbor, every man his brother, saying, Know
the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least of them
unto the greatest of themselves, the Lord. and I will forgive
their iniquity and their sin. Well, I remember no more. And
look over in chapter 32 and look in verse 37. Chapter 32 and look
in verse 37. While you're there in chapter
31, turn back there just for a second and notice the surety
of this covenant. in verse 35. Look in verse 35. He just revealed to us here the
covenant that He was going to make with the house of Israel
and the house of Judah. And He said in verse 35, Thus saith
the Lord which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinance
of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth
the sea when the waves thereof roar, the Lord of hosts is His
name. If those ordinances depart from
Me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease
from being a nation before me for ever. Thus saith the Lord,
if heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth
searched out from beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of
Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord." In other
words, that covenant is sure. It's sure. Look what he says
now over in chapter 32, verse 37. Behold, I will gather them out
of all countries, whether I have driven them in my anger, in my
fury, in my wrath. And I will bring them again unto
this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely. And they
shall be my people, and I will be their God. And I will give
them one heart and one way that they may fear me forever, for
the good of them and their children after them. 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 heart. They
shall not depart from me. Yea, I will rejoice over them
to do them good. I will plant them in this land
assuredly with my whole heart and with my whole soul. For thus
saith the Lord, lack as I have brought all this great evil upon
this people, so will I bring upon them all the good that I
have promised them." Look in one more place, look in chapter
39. And look in chapter 33, verse
19. And the word of the Lord came
unto Jeremiah, saying, Thus saith the Lord, If you can break my
covenant of the day and my covenant of the night, that there should
be no night, no day, and no night in their season. Now, nobody
has ever broken that out. I mean, it's been day and night
ever since the world stands. And you and I are so sure of
that, then we've got not one doubt. You know what, two hours
from now, two and a half hours, it's going to be night. And we'll
go to bed and get up in the morning because it's going to be light.
That covenant that He made with Noah, as long as the world stands,
there's going to be night and day. Then may also my covenant
be broken with David, my servant, Christ my son, that he should
not have a son to reign upon his throne, and with the Levites,
the priests, my ministers. As the host of heaven cannot
be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured, so will
I multiply the seed of David, my servant, and the Levites,
my ministers, unto me." So those are just a few of the covenants.
And the covenant of grace and the covenant that God makes with
His children. When we come over to the New
Testament, They had some difficulty in these things, and I do too,
and you might too. They looked at these promises
concerning Judah and Israel and Jerusalem, and some of them began
to think, what's happened to God's promises? You know, God
made all these promises to Israel and what He was going to do for
them and to them, and they obviously are not coming to pass. And the
Lord Jesus, instead of talking about, I'm going to bless you,
He said, when I'm gone, the enemies are going to come in and ransack
this place. They're going to tear down the
temple and not leave one stone upon another. And Stephen was
preaching that in Acts chapter 7. God's going to destroy this
place. So they said, are the promises of God or none of that? The Lord said in the Old Testament
that I'm going to bless Judah, I'm going to bless Israel with
a new heart and a new spirit and all these promises. But what
we find in the New Testament, we'll turn over there in just
a second, a couple more scriptures. But what we find in the New Testament
is this, that when you talk about the seed of Abraham and the children
of Abraham, you find out that he's got two children. He's got
one after the flesh. He's got one after the spirit.
He's got these two seeds. His natural seed and His spiritual
seed. And there's two countries that
Abraham was seeking. The Lord promised him the land
of Canaan. But he had another land he was
looking for. And that was a heavenly country.
So all the way through you have these children who were naturally
Abraham's. But then you've got those children
who were the children of promise. And these spiritual promises
are to the spiritual seed of Abraham. Now let's turn over
right quick and just read two or three places concerning that
in Romans. Look over in Romans chapter 9. I looked, and I've talked, and
Larry's talked about this, about when God made that covenant with
Abraham that He was going to give the land of Canaan to them.
We can't hardly find out, is he going to give that to them?
Is it theirs now? What's going to happen there?
Is that the church? We get, me and Larry can't figure
this out, can we Mr. Baker? We're hoping when Wayne
gets over here in some of these places, he's going to help us
out immensely. But look here in Romans 9, look
in verse 1. Romans 9 verse 1, I say the truth
in Christ, I lie not. My conscience also bared me witness
in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continuous
sorrow in my heart, for I could wish myself a curse from Christ
for my brethren, my kinsmen, according to the flesh, who are
Israelites. They can trace their lineage
back to Jacob. To whom pertaineth the adoption,
and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and
the services of God, and the promises? Who are the fathers,
and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over
all God blessed forever? Amen. Not as though the word
of God hath taken none effect, but look at this, for they are
not all Israel which are of Israel. Just because a man is Jacob's
son is no sign he is a true Israelite. Neither because they are the
seed of Abraham are they all children, but in Isaac shall
thy seed be called. In other words, he had those
two wives, didn't he? One was a slave woman. He had
a son by that slave woman. And he was a slave too. Then
he came to Abraham and Sarah and said, I promise you a son.
And that's grace, isn't it? That's grace. And Paul was writing
to the Gentiles and he said, Brethren, you as Isaac was, are
children of promise. So they came to Christ one day
and they said, we're the children of Abraham. He said, I know that
you're Abraham's seed. I know that. You can trace your
heritage back to him. But he said, if you were Abraham's
children, if you were Abraham's spiritual children, you'd do
the works of Abraham. You wouldn't hate me. You would
love me just like your spiritual father. Abraham inherited the
land of Canaan, but you know he also inherited the world.
He inherited the world, and that is the world of believers. Now
look in chapter 11 right quick. He deals with the very same thing
in Romans chapter 11. I can understand why this would
confuse them in this day. The Lord was turning from Israel,
natural Israel, pronounced an awful curse upon them. In verse
1, Romans 11, I say then, hath God cast away his people? God
forbid! For I also am an Israelite of
the seed of Abraham of the tribe of Benjamin. God hath not cast
away his people which he foreknew. Know ye not what the Scripture
says of Elijah, how he made intercessions to God against Israel, saying,
Lord, they have killed your prophets and digged down your altars,
and I am left alone, and they seek my life. But what saith
the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven
thousand who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. Even
so then, at this present time also, there is a remnant according
to the election of grace. And if by grace it is no more
works, otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be works,
then it is no more grace. Otherwise works is no more works.
What then? Israel, natural Israel, hath
not obtained that which he seeketh for, but the election, the elect
of God, even among the Jews, have obtained it, and the rest
were blinded. Israel, after the flesh, has
not obtained what they seek for. What did they seek for? Look
back in chapter 9 again. Look in verse 30. Chapter 9 verse 30. What shall
we say then that the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness,
have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which
is of faith? But Israel, natural Israel, which
followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law
of righteousness. Why? Because they sought it not
by faith. but as it were by the works of
the law, for they stumbled at that stumbling stone. As it is
written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of
offense, and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed."
These things are still very, very difficult for me to rightly
divide. Spurgeon and so many of those
in his time and before him believed that the Lord was going to regather
Israel, the natural Jew, and bring him back to the land. Well,
He's done that, isn't He? Well, He's done it in 1948. But
then they believed that He would send the gospel to them and save
them. But if that's so, if that happens, and I really don't know,
I hope that happens, but if that happens, it won't be because
they're the natural seed of Abraham. He'll be because they're a large
remnant of the election of grace that He's reserved for Himself
in the last days to save them. And I hope He does that. But
if He does, they won't be saved in any other way than by Jesus
Christ and the Gospel. I say that over and over and
over again because we hear on every hand that God made that
covenant with them back there. And now they're going to be saved
in a different way. The temple's going to be rebuilt.
The sacrifices are going to be reestablished again. That cannot
be. That will never be. That's waxen
old. It's vanished away. If he does
save them, Peter said they must be saved the same way the Gentiles
are saved. But these covenants are very
important, aren't they? They're very important. And that Jewish
nation, as a whole with the very exception of a few elects among
the children of Israel to this very day are still under the
covenant of works and they are cursed.