We're going to be in the book
of Hebrews, if you'd like to turn there, Hebrews chapter 8.
Hebrews chapter 8. The fault The fault of all men
is their doing. Their doing. Their doing to try
and achieve something spiritually. Doing to try to achieve something
spiritually. See, doing makes one proud. Makes
one feel entitled. Makes one feel deservant of something. I had a fan that was sitting
on the the- counter at the house and that fan stopped working.
My wife really like that fan was like a farmhouse little deal
that she wanted for a long time we got it and then it didn't
last very long. So I got a another motor off of a different fan
and I read that thing up. Twenty different ways I got it
working. I fix the fan. It doesn't I'd fix the fan. It made her
happy. It made me happy. I'm proud of
this fan when I walk in the room. I did that. That fan right there,
I did that. That was me. The fault of all
men is they try to do that spiritually speaking. That's the fault. We
are by nature prideful. By nature, the Lord's given us
the ability to do things with our hands to have that gratification
or have that that feeling of being valuable, that feeling
of accomplishment. There's nothing wrong with having
a feeling of accomplishment, nothing wrong at all. But pertaining
to spiritual things, something wrong. In thinking you can do,
and in doing you say, I did that. Not in salvation we didn't, did
we? Not when it pertains to spiritual things we didn't, did we? We
don't look and say, we, look what we've done to this church. Look what I have done in this
church. Look what we've been able to
do in buying, we did that. We don't do that to, God did
that. Look what the Lord has done for
us. Look what the Lord has enabled
us to do. See the difference, the different
lingo, different words altogether, different meanings. The fault
of all men is they think, I can do this, or I don't do that. And it's called self-righteousness. It's called iniquity. Iniquity. God hates it. Pride is the root
of it. If God's not pleased to reveal
Christ to us, And you and I will live our life that way and think
that we have pleased God or that we can do something to merit
his salvation. And we will find ourself one
day just as the rich man lifting up our eyes in hell, if we're
left to ourself. Now this iniquity mentality,
this doing, that's as old as time, isn't it? Adam, first thing
Adam did whenever he sinned, him and Eve, They didn't come
running to the Lord saying, Lord, have mercy on us, the sinners.
We've sinned. We've sinned against you. You're
going to have to have mercy or we're going to die. No, they
sowed fig leaves together, didn't they? We can fix it. We can fix
it. We can sow fig leaves together.
And all men by nature are still fixing it. They think. They think. But all that that is is called
iniquity. Iniquity. Did you know the Lord
in Psalm chapter 5, verse 5 says these words? He hates all workers
of iniquity, all workers of iniquity. That's pretty straightforward,
isn't it? He hates all, if he hates you, he doesn't love you.
See, God loves with the perfect love, he hates with the perfect
hatred. And you and I think of hate, we think of disdain, we
think of loathing someone, but his hate is perfect. His hate
is pure and holy, just as his love is. I love to think I love
because we know we've been persuaded to know that if he loves me now,
he's always loved me and he's never going to stop loving me
because his love is everlasting. So the Lord. In mercy. Killed a lamb and showed Adam
takes the blood. Takes the blood you need a covering.
Not of your own works. but you need the spotless lamb
to cover you. Then he made a covenant later
on with the children of Israel called the covenant of works,
covenant by the law, covenant that required sacrifice that
could never take away sin, but it was the ordinance ordained
of the Lord in order for them to be able to worship God. This
is what he made, the covenant of works. Now the deeds of the law, What
they do is they really reveal our need. Our need. We realize we can't keep the
law. Now, some do believe that they keep the law, but they can't.
They can't. I actually know some people I
spoke to recently. They try to honor the Sabbath
day. under the law they try to do
what they try to do the ordinance of keeping the Sabbath now I
don't know if you know what all that entails but they one thing
was they can't go any farther than so many feet they can't
cook anything any any kind of work whatsoever they can't do
it and they believe that they are keeping the law did you know
that that truly is just It's blasphemy because the Sabbath
represents Christ. They're taking the place of our
substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ. When they do that, Christ is
our Sabbath. He is who we rest on. Men believe they can keep
the law, and it's not true. It's not true. This covenant
was never given to save anyone. The covenant of works was not
given to save. It was given to reveal we need
grace. We need mercy. We need salvation
to come to us, not us get to salvation, we can't. Yet men today still exercise
this covenant of works in vain. This law was unto death, not
unto life. The law never made anyone alive,
did it? It had no life to give. It was
a mirror, if you will, reflecting, showing what we are, showing
our sinful state. The Lord in mercy gave it and
said, this is what you are. You can't, this is who I am. And it was mercy that he did
that because otherwise we would have had no idea we were sinners
if God didn't tell us. God doesn't show you you're a
sinner, you won't believe that you're a sinner. It's the gift of grace,
isn't it? Well, this covenant of works,
it's a faulty covenant. A faulty covenant because it's
dependent upon man. And you and I are flawed. Every
one of us are flawed by nature. Because he is God, because he's
sovereign, he knows all things, before time ever began, he made
another covenant. The covenant of grace. The covenant
of grace far surpasses the covenant of works. Far surpasses the law. The covenant of grace is completely
dependent upon the Lord doing. The Lord doing. Now, I've titled
this message, The Faultless Covenant. And both of these messages this
morning kind of go together. The second hour, we're going
to be looking at when the Lord said, I will. And it has to do with his covenant
again. If the Lord doesn't say, I will, you and I have no hope. It's not based upon what we say
and what we do and what we will. God's the only one with the power
to say. God's the only one with the power to redeem. So we're going to look at the faultless
covenant of grace. I've titled this message the
faultless covenant. Let's read our text. Hebrews chapter 8. We're going to read 6 through
13. But now hath he, the Lord Jesus Christ, obtained a more
excellent ministry by how much also he is the mediator of a
better covenant, a better covenant, which was established upon better
promises. For if the first covenant had
been faultless, and that's our evidence that the first covenant
was not faultless. It says, if it had been, then
should no place have been sought for the second. For finding fault
with them, he said, 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 I will
make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord.
I will put my laws in their minds. I will 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, 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 iniquities I will remember no more. In that he saith a new
covenant he hath made first old, now that which decayeth and waxeth
old is ready to vanish away. Scripture says this, the law
came by Moses, but grace and truth came by the Lord Jesus
Christ. Grace and truth came by the Lord
Jesus Christ. Here we have two covenants. There's
only ever been two covenants with God. There's only ever been. It's the covenant of the law
and the covenant of grace. Covenant of works, covenant of
rest. The covenant of do and the covenant
of done. These are the two. The covenant
of purpose and the covenant of performance. performance-based
covenant or purpose-based covenant Now how you approach God which
covenant you approach God with that's where he will meet you
He will meet you if you approach him by the law For your righteousness,
he will meet you there, but it would be unto certain death Certain
death if you approach him with the law If you approach him Come
looking at yourself and examining yourself and you approach Him
with yourself, your works, your righteousness, you'll receive
eternal damnation. But if you come, if you come
pleading the blood of Christ alone, you come pleading the
blood of Christ alone, begging for Christ alone, needing grace,
needing His saving grace alone, you'll in no wise be cast out,
the scripture says. Because you come, not based upon
your merits, but the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you come, it's because God
gave faith to come to him. Faith to believe. Faith to receive. John 6.37 says, all that the
Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me
I will in no wise cast out. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. I say this a lot, but I like saying it.
I can't mess that up. If I'm his, I'm gonna come to
him. I can't mess that up. He's going to cause me to come
to him. How does he do that? Well, he tells us, no man comes
to the father, but by me. It's by his choice. It's by his
calling. It's by his drawing. What did
he say? If the son of man be lifted up,
he'll draw all men unto him. That word alls represents of
every nation, every kindred, every tongue, all men. It doesn't
matter the creed or the blood of the man or woman. It's all
of Christ. He draws. He's telling us, you
and I will come. We'll not come unless enabled,
unless caused to, unless made to, unless made to. Somebody
said, well, you sound like that you're just saying we're a bunch
of puppets. I would love to be the Lord's puppet, wouldn't you?
Couldn't you? If that's what they think, they
can think that all they want to. If I'm his puppet, that means
I'm his. I'm perfectly fine with that. Lord, let me be your puppet.
String me up. Control my thoughts. Control
my ways. Control my actions. Don't leave
me to myself. If we're unable to come to Christ,
it's evidence of being his. Not the cause of it, but the
evidence of it. Faith is always the evidence.
of salvation, not the cause, not the cause. But men make,
they go back to the law with faith, did you know that? They'll
take the faith and the law and try, yeah, well, we know that
it's grace, you're saved by grace through faith, but you have to
exercise the law by faith. What? No, that doesn't make any,
faith looks to Christ. Faith looks to Christ, it doesn't
look to the law at all. No, it's the opposite of faith,
then it becomes a work. It's the mentality of the Old
Covenant. The Old Covenant promises were conditioned upon human nature.
They were conditioned on human nature, the flesh's obedience
for their realization, and it's not possible that any would be
saved by obeying the law. It's not possible. But in this
new covenant, the only condition for salvation of God's elect
is solely based upon the merits and the work of the Lord Jesus
Christ on the cross of Calvary. That's the new covenant, the
new covenant of grace. Not our doing, His. Not our works,
His. Not our sacrifice, His sacrifice. This is the difference in the
two covenant. Understand something the two covenants cannot be combined
They are opposites They are as far as the east is from the west
They are opposites like oil and water. They don't mix They are
light and darkness It's works in grace. It can't be both and
the scripture says it's disallowed by God. He won't have it He won't
have it. He can't do both That means if
I believe in grace preaching which we do here. We believe
that we're saved by grace alone. It's what we believe. But yet
I slip in just a little bit of work somewheres. We've knolled
and voided the entire message. Can't be 99% good and 1% poison. Would you eat something that
had 1% poison in it? I would think not. Possibility
of it killing you would not be good. But that's what men do.
They're poisoning themselves, they don't even know it. Because
they've made a covenant with death, they think. With hell,
they're in agreement. Turn with me there to Isaiah
28. Men take the covenant of grace
and they turn it into the covenant of works by making their own
covenant. They preach, they say they believe
grace, they say they preach grace. I was listening to a man There's only, there's two things
that make me want to preach. I've heard Greg Elmquist say
this, I'm not taking credit for it. Good preaching and bad preaching. That makes me want to preach.
And I heard bad preaching this morning from a man, I typed in
the word grace on sermon audio, I was curious to see, and there's
a guy on there that, don't go listen to it. I'm just going
to tell you, don't do it. You won't get anything out of
it, it's not good. But he had like 38,000 views.
I thought, my goodness, man, this must be a really good message.
So I clicked on it for a second. I listened about five minutes
of it. And he said, faith is the gift of God. I was like,
OK, yeah, I agree with that. He said, grace is the gift of
God. I said, yeah, I agree with that. He said, and you're saved
by grace through faith. That was his text. And his title was
Saved by Grace. And he kept talking. And I was
like, OK. He said, well, the Lord gives
faith only to his people. I thought, OK. All right, maybe
this guy knows something. Maybe he was getting kind of
excited, encouraged a little bit. And then he said, if you're
doing anything to be saved, you're not saved. I thought, okay, yeah,
that's right too. And then he said it. Then he
took everything that he said, and he just flushed it. It's
gone after he said these words. He said, now after you're saved,
what does that faith look like in your life? Have you examined
your life to see how faith is working in you? Have you put
your faith to work? Nope, you lost me. Nope, nope,
faith looks to Christ. Faith comes from Him and it believes
on Him. And if I'm looking at my faith,
I'm not looking to Christ. When Paul said examine yourself
to see if you be in the faith, what Paul meant was examine yourself
and see if you're clinging to any part of the old covenant.
Examine yourself and see if there be anything in you whatsoever
that you're believing right now other than the Lord Jesus Christ.
Examine yourself. He didn't say examine yourself.
to see if you be in the faith by your works. Are you doing
the right, are you living right? That's not what he's talking
about. He's saying, look inside and see, Lord, if there be, and
that's what David prayed, if there be any uncleanness in me,
give me a new heart. Lord, cleanse me, wash me, I
shall be whiter than snow. That's the prayer of the believer.
Lord, don't allow any evil in me, even though we know we're
full of it, but you understand what I'm saying. Lord, cause
me to have to have Christ alone, nothing else. Don't allow me
to come to that old covenant, that covenant of works. It calls
me to cling to Christ. Now here in Isaiah 28, let's
read this, verse 15 through 18. Here's what these men do. Because
you have said, we have made a covenant with death, And with hail are
we at agreement. When the overflowing scourge
shall pass through it, shall not come unto us. For we have
made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourself.
Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, behold, I lay in Zion for
a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone,
a sure foundation. He that believeth shall not make
haste. Judgment also will I lay the line, and righteousness to
the plummet, and the hell shall sweep away the refuge of lies,
and the water shall overflow the hiding place. And here's
what the Lord says about their covenant. Your covenant with
death shall be disenrolled, and your agreement with hell shall
not stand. When the overflowing scourge
shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it. What is the agreement that men
have made with death and hell in their mind? What is the agreement? Look at my life. Look at what
I'm doing. Look at what I'm not doing. They're
making an agreement with hell and death. I don't deserve hell.
And we'll go back all the way back to the fan from the first
part. I look at that fan. I'm proud of that fan. That's
what men do spiritually. And it's dead. It's dead. It's
not alive. It's not lively works. Good works
looks to Christ. That's what the good works are,
is looking to Christ, and He causes us to do unto Him by faith. These men, they fixed the fan,
didn't they? They fixed the fan, their spiritual
fan. Look what I've done, look at my fan. God says, I'm going
to disannul your covenant. No, it won't stand when the overflowing
scourge comes. You're going to be consumed.
Don't fool yourself. God's not mocked. Whatsoever
a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Men and women look at their
own self-righteousness. They examine themselves. They
justify their intentions. You ever been around somebody?
Drives me crazy, being around people like this. I think we
all do it at some point. But they'll intend to do something. but they don't do it at all,
the way that they said they were going to, and you were counting
on them to do it. And then they say, well, you know, I tried
really hard, and you should understand how difficult it was, and put
it on you like it's your fault that they messed up. They're
justifying their intentions. But then whenever you mess up,
oh, it's, they don't have any forgiveness in their heart. They're
like, well, you shouldn't have done that, and you this, and
you that. You ever been around anybody like that? I have. They
justify their intentions, but they condemn your actions. That's
what men do by nature. That's what men do spiritually.
They justify their intentions. But Lord, but Lord, we've cast
out demons in your names. We've done all these wonderful
works in your names. I've donated money. I've donated
time. I went on missionary trips. I
did all these wonderful things for you, for you. And the Lord says, no, you didn't.
I'm gonna disannul your covenant. You were working for salvation
according to the law and it can't happen. You were looking at yourself. That covenant's disannulled.
Depart from me. I never knew you. I never knew you. Those that justified their intentions
and condemned others, the Pharisees were the best at that. I guess
I should say the worst at it. They did it really well, didn't
they? They would go around looking at others. woman caught in adultery,
they brought him unto the Lord. They were always trying to get
him, get the Lord caught. Just like men do today, they'll
try to catch you. If you have any, if you have any joy whatsoever
that the Lord's given you because of his gospel and you start talking
to somebody about it, they'll want to argue with you or they'll
want to, it just seems like they want to just take that joy right
away from you. I don't know, that's just how the adversary
works, I guess. They tried to catch the Lord,
and they said, this woman was caught in adultery. According
to the law, she must die. According to the law, she must
die. Do you know what we need to understand? This is so important.
The wages of sin is death. One sin, deservant of eternal
death. That's God's standard, one sin.
That's it. But they look at circumstances. Men look at how bad you are based
upon what you do. That determines your status.
That determines whether you are a believer or not. And that's
not true. God came to save sinners. Thank God He came to save sinners.
And as they're accusing this adulterous woman, she needs to
be stoned, the Lord said, okay, the one among you that has no
sin, you cast the first stone. And he knelt down and he began
to write. And there's, I've heard men talk about maybe what he
was writing, but when the Holy Spirit is silent on something,
we must be silent. Whatever he wrote was exactly
what he needed to write because he's God, first of all, but it
pricked their hearts. Now it wasn't unto repentance
and faith, but their conscience got to them. Every man has a
conscience. That conscience started burning and every one of them
walked away, starting with the oldest down to the, and he looks up
and they're all gone. He looks at the adulterous woman and said,
where are thine accusers? And she says, they're gone. And he
says, neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more. So many times
the Pharisees would point fingers. Lord, I thank thee that I'm not
like that person. I'm not like that person. I do this and I
do this. They're just going to that old
covenant, that covenant of the law, that covenant of works that
cannot bring salvation. They're offering their self unto
the Lord. And brethren, what I must stress
this morning is we cannot offer ourself unto the Lord. We cannot
offer ourself unto the Lord, unto salvation and expect him
to save us. We look and come to the, we come
to the Lord by Christ. We come to Christ, his merits. We look to the same thing that
God looked to, and that's His Son. These Pharisees, they're
alive and well today, did you know that? They're not called
Pharisees, I call them Pharisees, but they're in every church that's
non-believing. There's probably some Pharisees
in believing churches too, we just don't know it. They believe
they establish the law, they establish the old covenant. In
so much, they justify themselves. I've done this, I'm justified.
Now, understand what justified means. That means that you're,
it's not that just if I had never sinned, it's you've never sinned
one time. That means sin has been put away.
That's what justified is. That's why it's so important
that we understand we're justified freely by the grace of God because
of his work. Nothing we can do can justify
us in the sight of God, nothing. Not one thing. Christ Jesus is
the justification for his people. And yet, there are those who
continue to take the old covenant of works and try to apply it
to the covenant of grace. They mix it in. It's impossible.
It can't be done. Paul says this in Romans 11,
6, if it's by grace, then it's no more works. Otherwise, grace
is no more grace. But if it's works, it's no more
grace. Otherwise, work is no more work. It can't be both, can it? It
cannot be both. It's one or the other. It's one
or the other. Either God elected His people,
Christ died for His people and redeemed them on Calvary's cross.
Father was satisfied, justified His people, resurrected the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now the Holy Spirit regenerates
the Lord's people or nobody's going to be saved. It's that
simple. God had to do it all. Our flesh will not come to Him.
Our flesh is so prone to say, look at my fan. Look at my fan. I did that and try to do it in
spiritual things. But the flesh can't do anything
according to the spirit, not to gain spiritual things can't
happen. Thank God the Old Covenant has
vanished. There remaineth a rest to the people of God. There remaineth
a rest to the people. Who is that rest? Our Sabbath,
the Lord Jesus Christ who successfully redeemed his people according
to the New Covenant of Grace. Now understand something. The
New Covenant in no way is established, is altered, or is founded by
the Old Covenant. The covenant of grace was founded
because the Lord said, I will redeem them by my grace. And he made a covenant. The covenant
is made to each elect individually. And I love this. I love this.
It's not collectively as a whole. This is I have loved you with
an everlasting love. You. That's personal. It's personal. Jacob. Have I loved? It's personal. He loves you.
And he tells us why. He tells us why. Instead of you must know God
and do good on his side, it's now my people will know my power.
He tells us why he loves us. Turn to Jeremiah 31. Just over a few pages. Jeremiah 31, look at verse one
through four. This is the covenant of grace.
At the same time, saith the Lord, will I be the God of all the
families of Israel? That's his chosen people. That's
his elect. He's not talking about the nation over in the Middle
East. He's talking about his spiritual people, Israel, and
they shall be my people. Thus saith the Lord, the people
which were left off the sword found grace in the wilderness.
Even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest, The Lord hath appeared
to me of old, saying, yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting
love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee. Again I will
build thee, and thou shalt be built. Boy, I like that, don't
you? I'm gonna build you, and you're gonna be built. O version
of Israel, thou shalt again be adorned with tamarits, and shalt
go forth in the dances of them that make merry. This is the
covenant of grace. This is the covenant of redemption.
Look at verse 11, the covenant of redemption. For the Lord hath
redeemed Jacob. That's past tense. He said, I
will, and then he says, I have. Don't you, don't you like that? I'm going to, he's saying, I'm
going to tell you what I'm going to do. Then I'm going to do it.
Then I'm going to tell you what I did. That's what our Lord does
all throughout scripture. Verse 11, for the Lord hath redeemed
Jacob and ransomed him from the hand of that of him that was
stronger than he. Now who is that? Well, it could
be our adversary. You and I both know that you
and I, this flesh that we have, we're the problem. He ransomed
us from the man that was stronger than we are. Our will, our fleshly
will, Always chooses fleshly things always chooses physical
things always takes care of itself Lord. We need a new nature Need
a new nature, and he says I will I have That's what the Lord says
This covenant results in eternal joy for the Lord's people This
is the salvation of the elect accomplished by crushing the
enemy's head the scripture says this covenant Because of what
the Lord's done, it results in eternal joy. Look at verse 12
through 17. Therefore they shall come and
sing. You only sing when you're happy. They shall come and sing
in the height of Zion and shall flow together. To the goodness
of the Lord for wheat and for wine and for oil and for the
young of the flock and the herd and their soul shall be as a
watered garden and they shall not sorrow anymore at all. They won't sorrow anymore. This
covenant's unto eternal joy, isn't it? What is that? that
he's talking about the weed and the wine and the oil. Well, that's
the body and blood of Christ, is it not? And what's the oil
of gladness? That's the spirit that is anointed on the Lord's
people. It's all right here. This is
why it's under joy. He gives us everything we need. Verse 14, I will satiate. I will
satisfy. I will satiate the soul of the
priest with fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness,
saith the Lord. Thus, saith the Lord, a voice
was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping, Rahel weeping,
for her children refused to come to be comforted for her children,
because they were not. Thus, saith the Lord, refrain
thy voice from weeping and thine eyes from tears, for thy work
shall be rewarded, saith the Lord, and they shall come again
from the land of the enemy, there is hope in thine end. There is
hope in thine end. Sayeth the Lord that thy children
shall come again to their own border. There's hope in our end.
It's a covenant unto eternal joy. It's the covenant unto eternal
hope. We have hope in our death. Why?
Because he tasted death for his people. He conquered death, hell,
and the grave. That's why we have hope in our
end. Why do we rejoice? Because our
warfare has been accomplished. Because He's given us double
for our sin. He took them out of the way,
nailing them to His own cross, put them away by the sacrifice
of Himself. It's gone. The sin is gone. That's what this new covenant
accomplished. This new covenant was not contingent
based upon what you do or what I do. This new covenant was between
what the Lord was going to do, the business that had to take
place on the cross of Calvary. And he successfully redeemed
everyone that he died for on the cross. This covenant is a covenant of
mercy that assures repentance and recovery to the child of
God. Repentance and recovery. Every child of God is going to
repent and be recovered. Lord Jesus Christ is the doer
of it. Last thing I want to tell you is that no matter the trial
or affliction that you face, no matter the trial or affliction
that you face, this covenant is the covenant of grace and
His grace is sufficient. Look at verse 18 through 21.
I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself. Thus, thou hast chastised
me and I was chastised. As a bullock, unaccustomed to
the yoke, turn thou me and I shall be turned, for thou art the Lord
my God. Surely after that I was turned,
I repented, and after that I was instructed. I smote upon my thigh.
I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach
of my youth. Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a pleasant child? For since I speak against him,
I do earnestly remember him still. Therefore, my bowels are troubled
for him. I will surely have mercy upon him. Sayeth the Lord, set
thee up, waymarks, make thee high heaps, set thine heart towards
the highway, even the way which thou wentest. Turn again, O virgin
of Israel, turn again to these thy cities. This is the blessed,
faultless covenant where the Lord does all the saving, all
the calling, and He turns us back to Him. He keeps us. That's
what He's saying here. Ephraim represents the Lord's
people. He just keeps turning us back to Him. He keeps saying,
seek ye my face. Oh, I'm ashamed of my sin. I'm
ashamed of my guilt. I'm ashamed of what I am and
what I do. The Lord says, come unto me again. The Lord says,
come unto me and I'll give you rest. I've put those sin away. I've put all of it away on the
cross. This is what the covenant of grace has accomplished. God
has performed every aspect of it to ensure the eternal redemption
of his people. He's prepared everything for
his people, met every need. Think about this. And some of
this is too high. The scripture says, the writer
was saying, it's too high. I can't attain to it. Every single
crumb that you will ever eat was ordered by God before time
ever began. Every single drop of water that
you'll ever drink was purposed before time ever began. Every
step that you're ever going to take, every heartbeat, every
hair of your head was determined before time ever began. And being
the Lord's people, he says, I did all this because I love you.
I love you, but Lord, why is all these others? Why did you
do the same for them? The Lord lets it rain on the
just as well as the unjust for the benefit of the Lord's people.
The benefit, it's all for the Lord's people, his bride unto
the glory of Christ, the glory of Christ. He's prepared everything
for his people, met every need, and he will keep us in Christ
until we awake in his likeness. That's the finish, isn't it? To awaken his likeness, be made
just like him. What a glorious day that'll be.
No more is it do and live. We don't go back to that old
covenant anymore. It's not do and live. We go to the covenant
of grace that says it is finished. It is finished. Rest. This is
why it's the faultless covenant. not dependent upon me and you
that's why it's dependent upon God and God successfully fulfilled
every aspect of this covenant a faultless covenant of grace
let's pray father calls us to rest in your truth bless this
to our understanding according to your will in Christ's name
amen let's take