Will you please turn to the book of Hebrews?
But now hath He obtained a more excellent ministry, by so much as He is also the Mediator of a better covenant, which hath been enacted upon better promises.
For if that first covenant had been faultless, then would no place have been sought for a second.
For finding fault with them, He saith: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 lead them forth out of the land of Egypt;
For 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 on their heart also will I write them:
And I will be to them a God,
And they shall be to Me a people.
And they shall not teach every man his fellow-citizen,
And every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord:
For all shall know Me,
From the least to the greatest of them.
For I will be merciful to their iniquities,
And their sins will I remember no more.In that He saith, A new covenant, He hath made the first old. But that which is becoming old and waxeth aged is nigh unto vanishing away.
Will you please turn also to the Gospel according to Luke?
And the cup in like manner after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in My blood, even that which is poured out for you.
Let us have a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, we want to thank Thee for giving us this opportunity that we may gather together into Thy name. How precious is Thy promise: where two or three are gathered together into My name, there am I in the midst of them.
We thank Thee for Thy presence with us. We tell Thee that we are now in Thy presence. Dear Lord, we want to remove our shoes, standing on the ground of bondservants today, and say, “Lord, what hast Thou to say to us? Speak, Thy servants hear.”
We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters, this time when we gather together before the Lord, I feel in my heart to share with you something which is very fundamental, very essential; and that is new covenant living.
You know, brothers and sisters, we all feel that we are now in the days of great shaking.
As we find in Hebrews 12, we are told that God will not only shake the earth, but He will also shake the heaven. Everything that can be shaken will be shaken, so that the eternal kingdom might remain.
I believe we all agree that we are now in such a time. While everything is being shaken, I think it is time that we should re-examine our foundation.
You remember in the Sermon on the Mount, after our Lord Jesus had shared with His disciples all these important words of the kingdom, He concluded His message with a parable. We are all building a house. If you build upon a rock as foundation, then when the wind blows and the rain falls, that house will remain. But if it is built upon sand, when these things happen, the collapse is total.
Brothers and sisters, I believe we are living in such a time of great shaking, as if the rain is pouring down and the waters are flowing. Whether we can stand or not, whether we are able to endure, whether we will receive that eternal kingdom, depends upon our foundation.
So, to me, I feel it is time that we re-examine our foundation. It may be very simple, but thank God, these things are most essential to our Christian living.
When you read the Bible, one thing that probably will surprise you is that our God loves to make covenants.
Now, covenant simply means contract. So far as God Himself is concerned, there is absolutely no need for Him to make a contract with man, because He is the faithful One. What He says, He does. He never goes back upon His own word. His word stands forever.
So far as God is concerned, there is no need for Him to make any covenant or contract with man.
I remember when I was a boy, my grandfather was a contractor. He built houses, and during that time, when they made their business transactions, they never made a contract. It was by their word. When they said something, they would do it; and even to their damage, they would still keep what they had spoken.
But not today. Today, everything has to be with a contract. You buy a house, you buy a car—everything must be contracted. Why? Because man is so undependable. Our words mean nothing. We may promise something, but we never fulfil it.
Because of our unfaithfulness, you find the need today for everything to be written down as a contract, legally binding us so that we may do what we have promised.
In a contract between two people, you lay down everything concerning the responsibility, the duty, and the privilege that you will enjoy. Being a legal document, it has legal power. If you do not do it, you will be charged, and you will be forced to do it. That is because man is so undependable.
So the question is: Why is it, as you read the Bible, that you find God seems to love to make contracts with men, to make covenants with men?
It is not because of Himself. It is totally because of us. He wants to encourage our faith. For this reason, He condescends Himself to our level and puts Himself under a legal binding, as if we would hold Him responsible.
So I think it is one of the most wonderful things in the Bible.
You know, when God created man according to His own image and after His own likeness, He put man in the Garden of Eden. He gave man dominion over the fowls of the air, the beasts of the field, and the fishes of the sea.
Today we do not have that power anymore. Even with a little bird, you have no command over that bird. We have lost it. But God had promised it.
Then God said, “Be fruitful, and multiply.” God put all kinds of trees in the garden for man to enjoy. But God also gave man responsibility. He gave man every privilege, but at the same time He gave man responsibility.
Even though, when you read Genesis 1–3, the word “contract” or “covenant” never occurs, when you go to Hosea 6:7, you find that the word “covenant” is there: “They, like Adam, have transgressed the covenant.”
So, as a matter of fact, in the very beginning of human history, God made covenant with man. But unfortunately, man broke it.
Because of the sin of man, God had to destroy the earth. Noah found favour in the sight of God, so Noah and his family of eight were kept through the flood.
After the flood was over, Noah came out of the ark and offered sacrifices to God. When he did that, God made a covenant with him, with his children, even with the animals and with every living thing.
I think if we had gone through a flood like that and had just come out of the ark, even though we were safe, we would not feel secure. We might still be trembling, wondering when such a thing might happen again.
So God knew Noah’s heart. He comforted him and made a covenant with him. God said that He would never again destroy the earth with a flood.
To encourage him, as it were, God put the bow in the sky. Whenever there is rain, you find the rainbow there, as a symbol to man that God will not destroy the earth with water again. That is the covenant with Noah.
As you read on, you find that God made a covenant with Abraham.
Abraham rescued his nephew Lot from the four kings. He defeated the four kings, rescued his nephew, and came back victorious. But after a great victory, a kind of reaction set in.
Yes, by the grace of God, he had a great victory; but then he was surrounded by all these people. What if they all attacked him? What would happen to him?
This is usually what happens. Whenever you have a victory, there will be a kind of letdown, as if fear begins to come in.
So, in Genesis 15, God comforted Abraham and said, “Fear not. I am thy shield.”
You can see Abraham’s faith at that time. When God said He would bless him, Abraham said, “I have no son. How are You going to bless me?” Where was Abraham’s faith at that time?
So God took him out in the night and showed him all the stars in the sky. “Thy seed shall be as the stars of heaven.” Thank God, Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.
Then God said, “I will give thee the land.” Again, you find that Abraham could not believe it. So God had to make a covenant with him.
God asked him to kill the animals, put them on two sides, and pass through the pieces. That was the way they made a covenant in the old days, in order to assure one another.
In Genesis 15:18, I think, you find the word “covenant” appearing. That was God making covenant with Abraham.
Of course, as God led the children of Israel out of Egypt, He brought them to Mount Sinai. There, in Exodus 19, you find that God made a covenant with the children of Israel.
God said, “I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto Myself.” If they would keep His word and His covenant, they would be His people, and He would be their God.
So there, at Mount Sinai, God made a covenant of law with the children of Israel. I think we are all familiar with the Ten Commandments.
After the children of Israel came to the border, on the eastern side of Jordan, in the land of Moab, before they entered into the promised land, God made another covenant with the children of Israel. You find it in Deuteronomy 29:1.
It is a covenant of law with mercy, and it is by that covenant that the children of Israel entered into the promised land.
After that, when David was made king, he was in his own house and he thought about God. He said, in effect, “I live in such a nice house, and God is still staying in a tent.” So he had the intention to build God a temple.
When God heard it, on the one hand He was very pleased. But on the other hand, because David had shed so much blood, God’s house could not be built by David’s hands.
So God promised to build him a house, and his kingdom would continue forever.
After the children of Israel had really entered into the promised land, they were unfaithful to God. They did not keep the Ten Commandments. They violated that covenant.
Eventually, God decided to judge them. They were carried away into Babylonian captivity. But before God did that, He gave them another promise.
In Jeremiah 31:31–34, God said, “I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.”
So we find throughout the Bible that there are a number of occasions when God made covenants with men.
Now, brothers and sisters, a question may arise. Of all the covenants recorded in the Bible, we find two that are most prominent.
One is the covenant of law at Mount Sinai, and the other is the covenant promised in Jeremiah 31. These two covenants seem to be most prominent as we read the Bible.
They not only have regard to the children of Israel, though they were contracted with the children of Israel; but we, as Gentiles—the nations—are also under the good of these covenants. Why is this so?
God has not made a covenant with the nations, with the Gentiles such as we are. Why is it that we are under the old covenant of law and also under the new covenant of grace?
This is because, when you read Romans 2, there you find that God says the nations, even if they do not have the law given to them, yet the things of the law are already in their hearts.
The work of the law is written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness with them, and their thoughts one with another either accusing or else excusing them. This is according to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
So, brothers and sisters, even though we are Gentiles, God did not make that old covenant of law with us directly, and yet the things of the law—the natural law—are already written in our hearts.
Therefore, we too are under the old covenant of law. That is the reason why all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. That is why we find that we are all sinners in the sight of God, because we have violated the very things of the law of God.
But thank God, even though the children of Israel, up to the present time, have not enjoyed the new covenant of grace promised by God for them in Jeremiah 31, we as Christians have entered into its blessing.
God said that one day He would make such a new covenant with them. But even today they have not enjoyed that covenant yet.
Most likely, the time for the nation of Israel to enjoy that covenant will be during the millennial kingdom, when our Lord Jesus shall return and the whole nation returns to the Lord and repents.
During the millennium, they will be a nation of priests. They will go out and preach the gospel to the nations.
But what about us? Thank God, on the night of the betrayal of our Lord Jesus, as He was having the Passover feast with His disciples, He took the bread, blessed it, and said, “This is My body, which is given for you: this do in remembrance of Me.”
Then after supper, He took the cup and said, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood: this do in remembrance of Me.”
So, dear brothers and sisters, every time when we have the Lord’s table, when we take the cup and drink of it, it is a reminder to us that our Lord Jesus and God have made a new covenant with us, sealed by the precious blood of our Lord Jesus. It is sure and certain.
So, dear brothers and sisters, we need to thank the Lord that even before the children of Israel enjoy this new covenant of grace, we as Christians are already in the good of the new covenant.
Our relationship with God is all based upon this new covenant.
When God makes a covenant with His people, He deals with His people according to the covenant. Even His people, when they go to God to deal with God, do so on the basis of that covenant. Otherwise, they have no ground before God.
A covenant that God has made with man is the way in which God governs man, and the way in which man deals with God. That is the only basis of our relationship with God.
So, dear brothers and sisters, we need to understand what the new covenant is, because it is the ground by which God deals with us and by which we deal with God.
All our dealings with God, and all God’s dealings with us today, are based upon the new covenant.
To put it another way, outside of that covenant, there is no legal relationship with God. If God has anything to do with us today, thank God, He does it because of the new covenant of grace.
If we have any dealing with God, when we go to God, on what ground can we go to God? It is also on that same basis—the new covenant.
So we can say that outside of the new covenant of grace, there can be no dealing with God. Everything that is outside of that covenant is outside of God’s relationship with us and our relationship with God.
This is how important it is that we understand the new covenant. Brothers and sisters, we are people of the new covenant.
But unfortunately, we find among God’s people that even though we are saved by Christ, yet in our daily life we still seem to live under the old covenant of law.
We do not know how to live under the new covenant of grace.
I think this is our foundation, and we need to examine it. We need to be before the Lord to see whether we are truly living a new covenant life.
You know, the old covenant of law was written on stone. You have to read it. It has to be read by people and explained by people, because everything is outside. Nothing is inward.
But when you come to the new covenant of grace, you find that it is just the opposite. Everything is inward. Nothing is merely external.
So, dear brothers and sisters, there are two very different kinds of living. Whether you are living outwardly under the covenant of law, or you are living inwardly before God under the new covenant of grace, there is a line of demarcation there.
I am afraid that most Christians today, even if we are saved, are still living under the old covenant of law.
Put it another way, the old covenant of law is all “Thou shalt” and “Thou shalt not,” and then, “I will,” or “I will not.” In other words, the responsibility is upon man.
If you do this, if you do not do that, then I will do this and that to you.
But when you come to the new covenant of grace, you do not find that. You find that it is all, “I will, I will, I will.” Because I will, therefore you are.
So it is the covenant of grace. There is a great difference between these two covenants.
In the new covenant, you find that there are only three articles. It is not like the Ten Commandments, with all the statutes and ordinances—hundreds and thousands of them. With the new covenant, there are only three articles. Very simple.
You find them in Jeremiah 31 and in Hebrews 8. What are they?
The old covenant with the children of Israel was like a father holding their hand to bring them into cleanliness and to help them live a life before God.
But unfortunately, you find that the children of Israel were like little children. Sometimes you see a father or mother holding the hand of a child walking on the street, and suddenly the attention of the child is attracted by something in a window. The child struggles out of the hand of the father or mother and goes to the window to look at it.
The children of Israel were just like that. God held their hands, but they struggled out of the hands of God and did their own will. God said, “Because they continued not in My covenant, I regarded them not.”
But the new covenant is different. It is no longer something outward. Even though it is very close, it is entirely something inward.
Because it is inward, it is there in you. It cannot be separated from you.
So, dear brothers and sisters, we call it grace. Grace is what God will do.
Oftentimes we think of grace as something given to us freely, unmeritedly. This is grace. But the word “grace” actually means three things.
First, grace means that the object you are looking at is gracious. God is the gracious One. When you look at God, He is grace itself. The origin of grace is God.
The second meaning of grace is the way grace is given. It is given freely; it is given unmeritedly. This is grace.
But there is a third meaning of grace. Because grace has been given to us, it transforms us and makes us gracious as God is gracious.
That is God’s grace, really. Thank God, when you come to the new covenant, you find that it is grace upon grace.
When you read Jeremiah 31 or Hebrews 8, especially Hebrews 8:10–12, you find these three articles of the new covenant.
The first article is found in Hebrews 8:10:
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 on their heart also will I write them:
And I will be to them a God,
And they shall be to Me a people.
That is the first article of the new covenant. God will write His law into our hearts. It is not on stone; it is in our hearts.
Not only that, He will be our God and we will be His people. In other words, He will be the very power, the power of life, within us, so that we may keep the law of God.
That is the first article.
The second article is verse 11:
And they shall not teach every man his fellow-citizen,
And every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord:
For all shall know Me,
From the least to the greatest of them.
In other words, know the Lord. This knowing of the Lord is not being taught from outside. This knowing of the Lord is knowing Him inwardly.
It is from the least one to the greatest one. It is born within. We know the Lord inwardly, not outwardly.
Then the third article is verse 12:
For I will be merciful to their iniquities,
And their sins will I remember no more.
In other words, there is forgiveness and even forgetfulness.
These three laws, so far as God’s purpose is concerned—the first article is God’s purpose. God’s purpose is that He will be our God and we will be His people. That is God’s purpose.
But so far as our experience is concerned, we begin first with verse 12. We know forgiveness first, and then we grow into knowing God as our life and our power.
It is just like the tabernacle. When God commanded Moses to make the tabernacle, it was in three sections.
The innermost section was called the Holiest of All. In the Holiest of All there was nothing but the ark and the mercy seat upon it. This is where God dwells. This is where God would speak to His people.
Then there was a veil, a heavy veil, between the holy place and the Holiest of All. In the holy place, there were three things: the golden altar of incense, the golden candlestick, and the table of showbread. This was the place of the priests, where they came and served God.
Outside the tabernacle proper, you find the outer court. In the outer court, you find the brazen altar and the laver. That is where the people were.
The way you approach God is from the outer court, then into the tabernacle, the holy place, and finally into the Holiest of All. The high priest, once a year, would offer sacrifice and go into the Holiest of All for the redemption of the children of Israel.
So, brothers and sisters, so far as our experience goes, we would begin with the outer court. Then, by the grace of God, we become priests unto God and begin to serve in the holy place. Finally, we live within the veil.
That is our spiritual experience.
God willing, we would like to use the following three mornings to share together how these three steps relate to our spiritual living. How should we live before God? How do we enter into this matter of forgiveness and even forgetfulness?
You know, oftentimes we experience forgiveness, but we cannot forget. But thank God, He forgives and He forgets. That is the beginning of our Christian life.
From there we will go on into the holy place, where we know the mind of God. Eventually, we will live a life so that God will indeed have what He desires.
So, God willing, that is what we will be sharing together during the last three days. I would just like, this morning, to put this outline before you all for you to consider, and pray that the Lord will really lead us.
Now, this time we are not, in a sense, approaching this matter from the doctrinal standpoint, even though that is the basis from which we cannot depart. This time, we would like to approach it from our experience.
How do we experience this Christian life—new covenant living? This is the only way that we can live to please God. That is true.
Lord, our hearts bow in worship, because Thou dost love us to such an extent that Thou art willing to condescend Thyself to make this new covenant with us.
It is even sealed by the blood of Thy beloved Son. We do thank Thee, Lord, that Thou hast covenanted this covenant with us.
We pray that by Thy grace we may know how to live that new covenant living, that our lives on earth may please Thee and may fulfil Thy purpose, to the praise of Thy glory.
We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.