(congregation sings "Christ Returneth", led by MMJ)
You think these are cunningly devised fables we're talking about? Peter says, "We haven't followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of the Lord Jesus, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty", saw a preview. You talk about a preview, that's a preview of the glorious return of Christ. That's when He's coming back to earth and I'm coming with Him, and all saints are coming with Him. May the Lord help us.
That's the day that Abraham saw. He not only saw Christ ... He not only saw Christ dying on the cross but he also saw Christ as the King raised to reign. Now, let this ... [referring to a chart of the covenants] the red represents Christ's death, the red represents Christ's death for sinners, and Abraham saw that. But God had also said, "Abram, I'm going to make you a great nation". So, Abraham saw the nations, the green, saw the nations.
Now you and I as Gentiles. as to ur salvation and the Jew as to their personal salvation, are perfectly taken care of by this. This is the individual sinners part of the Abrahamic covenant. This is the Jew's part of the Abrahamic covenant. In other words, this is what?
(answer from audience) New Covenant, New Covenant.
Yes. Now that should help you ... I mean this illustration is according to the truth. The red part has to do with redemption of the sinner's soul.
Now somebody might be saying, "Now wait. Didn't the Lord say on the night He was betrayed, to the disciples. He took the cup and said, "This cup is the New Covenant in My blood which is shed for many for the remission of sins"?" Now that's confusing if you read it hastily and don't compare it with other scriptures. Many people tell us, "If you don't believe the New Covenant is for the church then you don't have any salvation because Christ said the night He was betrayed, "This cup", Matthew 26, "this cup is the new testament in My blood which is shed for many for the remission of sins". Now if you don't have the new testament, the New Covenant, then you don't have any remission of sins because you haven't the blood of the new testament."
Well I asked ... I mentioned the other night more than once, and I'll mention again, on what was the basis ... some boy or girl under 16 tell me what was the basis of this covenant? What was the basis, of this covenant?
(answer from audience) Blood of bulls and goats.
The blood of bulls and goats. Well did the blood of bulls and goats actually take away sin, man's sin? It was just pictures, inspired pictures of the One or types of the One who was going to do it. Just like the wooly lambs were slain and his physical blood was poured over the doorpost back here, he wasn't really the lamb that took sinners sins away was it? He was actually the Passover lamb. The first boy or girl under 12 that finds 1 Corinthians 5:7 read it please... all right, David.
(David reads from audience.)
Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us.
Who is our Passover? Who is our passover?
(David from audience) Christ.
Yes. Christ is our passover. Well He's the lamb all right isn't He? What did John the Baptist call Him? Some boy or girl under 16, what did the Baptist call Him?
(answer from audience) Lamb of God.
The lamb of God. Back here they had lambs, each Jewish family had a lamb, male lamb of the first year without blemish without spot, and they killed it, put the blood over the door, each father had a ...
(gap on tape)
... blood of His dear Son applied to our heart by the Holy Spirit, then He passes over us and says, "Well they're dead. They're dead".
Diane, can you quote, you read this morning Galatians 2:20, can you start it? "For I ...
(Diane from audience) "For I am crucified with Christ."
"Nevertheless."
(Diane from audience) "Nevertheless I live ...
... and yet not I."
(Diane from audience) "Yet not I but Christ liveth in
me."
That's fine. Now watch. "Christ our passover sacrificed for us. Christ our passover sacrificed for us." Now don't forget that. A little bit more and then I was going to stop for some testimonies, confessions, whatever you want to give.
Now Abraham looked forward through the telescope of promise and prophecy. God said, "Abram, I'm going to make you a great nation, and in thy seed", which is Christ, we read in Galatians 3, "and in thy seed," which is Christ, "shall all nations be blessed". The person under 16 who finds Galatians 3:6 read there, maybe 3:6-7 ... all right David's got it.
(David reads from audience)
Even as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness ...
... Wait just a minute. I want to ask something before you finish it. What was it ... what was it that God said to Abraham about him? "Well I'm just going to count that, righteousness. I'm just going to count that, I'm going to, I'm going to recognize that, I'm going to call that something else. I'm going to count your belief, you believing Me, Abraham, your taking My word for what I said, I'm going to count that for something to you. I'm going to count it." What did He count it?
(David answers from audience) For righteousness.
For righteousness. Abraham wasn't righteousness, he was a
child of Adam, he was born in sin and he sinned. But when he believed God ...
well what brought sin into the world, somebody under 16?
(David answers from audience) Disbelief.
Disbelief. Well when Abraham believed what God said, "Abraham, your great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson's going to take your sins away". And Abraham believed and God counted it for righteousness to him. God counted it ... made him righteousness right then. Now stand and start it, and I won't interrupt you now. Galatians 3:6.
(David reads from audience)
Even as Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.
Yes...
(answer from audience)
Next verse?! You read it then. Fine, you got another boy here reading. 3:8.
(reads from audience)
And the Scripture ...
... "Foreseeing."
(reads from audience)
... foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.
Fine. And later on down he said, "In thy seed, and He didn't say seeds, as of many, but as of one, which is Christ." Now, the Scriptures foreseeing, and let's let this telescope be the way by which he foresaw the Scriptures foreseeing or God promising with that there that God's going to justify the Gentiles, declare them like, "By faith preached before the gospel unto Abram, ... saying, Abraham, in thy seed, which is Christ, all nations will blessed". And Abraham believed God.
Now that part was concerning Christ's death, he preached the gospel, the gospel is that Christ died you know for our sins and buried. So ... the part of the telescope that we're using now is this red part. Abraham looked forward and He saw Christ dying and he believed that, that's the gospel.
But God also promised, "I'm going to... make you a great nation. If you can count the stars Abraham you can count your children." Well that's what's going to happen in the Millennium when the Jew... the descendants of Abraham ... somebody stop right now and tell me how many children, different classes of children did Abraham have or does he have?
(answer from audience) Four.
Four. What's the first one?
(answer from audience) Ishmael.
Ishmael. Somebody else, what's the second?
(answer from audience) Isaac.
Isaac, or his descendants, through Isaac, the Jew, Israel. What's the third?
(answer from audience)
The Lord Jesus after the flesh, Christ. Who are the fourth group of children, like the fourth group of children?
(answer from audience.) All Christians.
All of us that are saved here, children of Abraham by faith. Abraham's the father of four children. Now that's important and it's very clearly taught in the Word.
Now the green part, green representing God's promises regarding earth and His earth people, the children of the kingdom, the Jew. So included in the Abrahamic covenant are promises for the Jews as a race. But we Gentiles... we have the Abrahamic covenant that has to do with personal salvation. We don't have any promises of part in the Millennial earth, we today. We're children of Abraham, but we don't have the New Covenant. (That's further off the other way.) We don't have the New Covenant, we don't need it! Does this take care of our salvation? Romans the 4th chapter makes it very plain. Galatians the 3rd chapter makes it very plain. Now we'll read directly some in Galatians the 3rd chapter.
And I hope that by my having these... disconnected and my taking this off and then proving that I have a right to do that, that you'll see clearly why the New Covenant isn't for us, we don't need it. Our Salvation was perfectly taking care of before God mentioned the New Covenant, as the New Covenant in contrast with the Mosaic ... now what I'm going to do ... Robert, if you'll ... maybe next Sunday up in San Luis Obispo or maybe Wednesday night if we have a meeting, I may use this, but in the meantime I'm going to make ... I didn't ask brother Ted Madison ... I called him on the phone and he said he was a great architect and so he planned this, and, my, it's magnificent architecture ... he had about 5 minutes in which to do it, but he did it for me. But anyway, I didn't ask him to make another one, but I've been thinking later on, that I mentioned this morning and last night, I think up in San Luis Obispo I'll have another section and let it represent the Ten Commandment covenant, and I'll have it dark maybe like this, maybe black, black or very dark gray, and I'll have that Ten Commandment covenant up over this, kind of like this. And the Jews, they've still got the Abrahamic covenant because God said ... in some book in the Bible, boys and girls, under 16, the Lord said in some book in the Bible, "That covenant that I made with Abraham, the law, which is how many years later? Boys and girls ...
(answer from audience) 430.
Four hundred and thirty years later, look here. Here's Abraham. God made a covenant with him, and confirmed or cinched that covenant in Christ, Abraham's great-grandson. Now if a covenant's made and confirmed we're told in the Bible no man can disannul or add thereto. All right, now here's the covenant that guarantees through the blood of Christ, see, through the blood of Christ is guaranteed personal salvation for all believers.
Now let's take up this now not as green but as a black, the Ten Commandment covenant. But Abraham's great-grandchildren ... now Abraham didn't have this Ten Commandment covenant, his great-grandchildren at the foot of Mt Sinai ... Listen, "All the Lord tells us to do we'll do". And Moses said, "Lord, did You hear that?" The Lord said, "You build a fence round the mountain, Moses. Build a fence round the mountain, sanctify it", that's what 'sanctify' means, separate, "build a fence round the mountain", Exodus 19, "and sanctify the people, and don't let man or beast touch that mountain". If they do, what will happen to them?
(answer from audience) They'll die:
They'll die, they would die. "Now after three days, Moses, I'm going to come down". And He called Moses up into the mountain, but before He began to speak, the tightening begin to flash and the thunder rolled and the mountain's on fire and the earth quaked, and then God spoke out of the midst of the fire, but by that time the children of Israel were trembling, the Bible says, and drawing away. You're scared now. That terrible phenomena that was exhibitions of God's mighty power caused them to ... all the starch went out of their sails, the wind out of their sails and the starch out of their self-righteousness and they were scared now.
The Bible says they were weak. And then God gave the Ten Commandments.
Now I'll have the black put over ... I won't let it black out this Abrahamic covenant because this covenant, having to do with the red, Christ dying for sinners, that covenant was confirmed before of God in Christ. And this covenant which was 430 years later, it can't disannul nor make this covenant none effect. "Well then wherefore serve the law?" Paul said. Well it was added because of transgression; people didn't want to be staved by promise in the coming Christ, they want to work! And so God gave them the Ten Commandment covenant (now think of this as black), here's the Ten Commandment covenant. Abraham didn't have it; Abraham's over here. He looked forward and he believed God and he was saved. He didn't have to do any Ten Commandment keeping to be saved or even told to do it. He believed and was saved. His faith was counted for righteousness.
But now here's this black covenant, ministering death, was imposed. Well did it knock this one out? No, but the Jews that had it they had to go through this awful school. And oh-h, that school said do and don't and do and don't and do and don't and bring blood sacrifices, all ... meats and drinks and different baptisms, carnal ordinances, and you have priests that'll come every day, day after day after day with the same sacrifices that can never take away sin. "Restless, restless, restless," Jeremiah said, "we labor and have no rest, we labor and have no rest".
And so ... but David under this covenant, under this black Mosaic covenant (forget it's green now; we don't have black one), David said, "Open Thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law". And he said, "Sacrifice and offerings Thou wouldst not, and burnt offering and offering for sin. A body Thou hast prepared Me. In the volume of the book it is written, I come to do Thy will, O God." And that's quoted over in Hebrews 10 as referring to Jesus Christ. Now look, let this represent the Ten Commandment covenant, so when David has his eyes open and saw the meaning of this Ten Commandment schoolmaster, in the language of Galatians 3 (now I don't want to lose you, listen carefully), in the language of Galatians 3 we’re told that the Ten Commandment was a schoolmaster, it was a schoolmaster. Think of this as black now, the Ten Commandment covenant is on the throne, ministers death because it demands perfect obedience of unsaved children of Adam. And unsaved children of Adam can't give perfect obedience to the perfect law, and so it ministered death. The wages of sin is death, the transgression of the law is sin, and if you disobeyed the law, death penalty.
All right, here's this black Mosaic covenant over the children of Israel, but David said ... now watch, I think the Lord said, "David, I've shown you, seeing this black covenant, "By the law is the ..."
(answer from audience) "... knowledge of sin".
"Knowledge of sin." Think of it now for a moment as Ten Commandments being ten ... a measure ten feet high, the law, ten parts, ten commandments. And God said, "The man that I will accept must be ten feet high, morally". And David got up against the standard, "Ah-h, I'm short". And all the other Israelites got up against the standard, and at Romans 3:23 we're told, "There is ..."
(answers from audience) "... none righteous."
Give the first part of it.
(answers from audience) "There's none righteous." "They're all unrighteous."
"There's no difference", maybe it's 3:22, "There's no difference ..."
(answers from audience) "For all have sinned."
"For all have sinned, and ..."
(answers from audience) "Come short of the glory of God."
"Come short of the glory of God." But no different if you come short a foot and a half, you're short. And if your neighbor comes short six inches, he's short. And if another neighbor comes short one inch, he's short. And if another neighbor comes short a half inch, he's short. And God said if you keep the whole law and, what?
(answers from audience)
Offend in one part, you're guilty of it all, because you're short. So, "There's no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God".
Well God said, "Now David, I have opened your eyes and have shown you by the Ten Commandments that you're short". Now look. "Now look to the covenant that 1 gave to your father Abraham." And David said, "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow". David said that. He said, "Thou desirest truth in the inward parts". "Create in me a clean heart, 0 God." David, you see, finally looked through the Abrahamic telescope on the basis of the Abrahamic covenant which was the covenant of promise that everybody that would believe in Abraham's great, great, grandson and His work on the cross and coming out of the grave with the keys of death will be saved. And then David said ... will the person who finds Romans 4:7 and 8 read it please. The first boy or girl under 16 that finds Romans 4:7-8 read it. All right.
(comment from audience)
Is that 6? Thank you. We'll begin with the 6th verse.
(reads from audience)
Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered ...
"Even as David also." Now David lived... look, lived along in here in the field of the law, under the law, and he was in that stern school ... the law's our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. The Lord said, "David, David, you have learned your lesson. You've learned that you can't keep the Ten Commandments. You've learned that you're short. You've learned that the law works wrath, and the law written and engraven on stones ministers ..."?
(answers from audience) Death.
"Death. And so you turned from your efforts to... save yourself, and you said, "Thou desirest truth in the inward parts. Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew in me a right spirit. Purge me with hyssop ..." well that's what they used back here to put the blood of this wooly lamb... over the door, hyssop. Physical hyssop dipped in a physical blood ...
Listen carefully please. It's not accidental that I missed these beautiful truths for years and years and years and years here. I'm exposed to them, but I've let Little things take my mind away. I didn't gird up the loins of my mind. I didn't set my affection on things above as I should have. And so I'm an overgrown baby comparatively. I would be comparatively a giant tonight if I had studied the Word of God humbly and obediently since I was saved. Compared to a baby I'd have been comparatively a giant. And I'm jealous for you that you won't waste any more time. I've wasted a lot.
Now watch. Where was I? Abraham ...
(answers from audience) Hyssop.
Thank you, hyssop, thank you. They used hyssop down here, but it was physical hyssop, a weed that grew around everywhere. So they could all get hyssop down there. And everybody had faith enough to call on the Lord if their hearts are humble because Christ has called them, enlightened them, and drawn them. Given them enough faith if they want to be saved. All right, Hyssop was available down there. So they took hyssop and they dipped it in the blood of a lamb, and lambs were available too, see, if you wanted to bring one, so they had a male lamb referred to without spot and blemish, killed it according to God’s order, took hyssop, dipped it in the blood, and sprinkled that blood ... physical blood of a physical lamb with physical hyssop over the physical door to save them from physical death.
But David said, "Oh-h, now I see." He had said, I'm not putting these verses exactly as they appear in the Psalms, but the doctrinal order, "Open Thou mine eyes," he's under this.. dark death dealing Ten Commandments, troubled him, and he knows he can't keep it, it's miserable.. He said, "My sin is ever before me, I make my couch wet with my "tears. " But he learned it's lesson at the law school, the schoolmaster. He learned its lesson. And he said, "Now I see that You don't want physical sacrifice as of bull ... blood of bulls and goats and water baptisms. Who is this, O God, that I spoke about as the Holy ... Thy Spirit spoke through me?"
Psalm 41. I told Bob Thompson when he first landed here after coming out of the army, three years in the service, I don't know how we happened to be downtown, whether I picked him up... but anyway, we stopped, it was after 6:00, we stopped between 5th and 6th on Spring, I don't know why I should remember that... Bob and I talking about that the other day, and way back ... what year was that, anyway, several years ago, because it was... just after Bob ... shortly after he married I guess; Dwight was a Little baby then. But anyway, I said, "Bob, I want to show you the most glorious truth I've seen in 15 years. And it all stemmed from the 41st Psalm. "Sacrifice and offering and burnt offering and sacrifice for sin Thou hast no pleasure in. Then I said, Lo, I come to do Thy will."
You think David, when the Holy Spirit gave him those words ... suppose, Ric suppose you're working for the Western Union messenger company and you’re riding a motorcycle to receive and deliver messages. And the girl, lady that takes the report down from the ticker, whatever it is, and transcribes it for the typewriter, and gives you the message to deliver to Fred Foster. "But say, your name's in this." "What", Ric says, to the Western Union lady, "what... my name?" "Yeah, look here." And Ric reads there, "Ric Bentley, you are a lawbreaker. And you can't keep the law. But if you don't keep it, you'll go to hell. But I come to do the will of God." Ric says, "Wait a minute. One minute he's talking about me, next minute somebody else is saying that he comes to do the will of God. Who's that?" That's the picture, a parallel to it in Psalm 41.
(Brian Kerr from audience) Psalm 40:6.
No.
(Brian Kerr from audience) I got it right here.
(Brian Kerr reads from audience)
Burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of ...
... I'm going to resign if that's 46 that I’ve been ...
(Brian Kerr from audience) 40, Psalm ...
Psalms 40 verse 6, thank you.
(laughter from audience:.)
I beg your pardon sir. I beg your pardon, you can walk on my toes if you want to. Well I knew it wasn't Psalm 46. All right, Psalm 40 verse 6, thank you Brian, Psalm 40 verse 6.
Sacrifice and offering and burnt ... thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I come, now watch, just imagine David under the Ten Commandments, now think of this as black representing the Mosaic Ten Commandments that ministers death, and David has been trying to keep it, trying to keep it, and he knows he can't, and he's got a bad conscience ... a sense of guilt, and he says, "0h, what am I going to do, bringing those sacrifices and burnt offerings and sacrifice and burnt offering for sin, because I keep breaking the law, but these burnt offerings, really they don't give me a good conscience", we read that in Hebrews 10. They don't give a good conscience concerning sin, they got to be repeated and repeated and repeated, and so David says, "Oh, wretched man that I am. I don't know what to do". And directly the Lord says, through David!, the word comes, Psalm 40 verse 6, "Sacrifice", I think I'll remember that now, next time you hear me give it, I'll give it right, "Sacrifice and offering and burnt offering, that's not what I want". David said, "Lord, what do you mean?" "In the volume of the book it's written of Me, I come to do Thy will." "That's not I talking because I can't do it with ... He desires truth in the inward parts and I can't do it! Behold I was shapen in iniquity and...
(answers from audience) ...in sin my mother
"...And in sin did my mother conceive me," that's 51, I think.
(Brian Kerr from audience.) Yes, 51:5.
That's ... thank you, Brian, that's 51:5... that David said, "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. I can't do His will." Psalm 40 verse 6 and 7, who's talking now? "I delight to do Thy will." Well over in the 10th chapter of Hebrews it's quoted. and interpreted as being Christ. Well David, now watch this dark, black ... this black thing, not green, this black Old Testament covenant was a schoolmaster to bring David, and everybody else under it, to bring them where?
(answers from audience) To Christ.
To Christ. So David said, "Oh-h Thou, Thou who's going to come to do God's will, and You won't want sacrifices and burnt offerings for sin brought by us. Lord what's the meaning?" "Look here, look through Abraham's telescope David. Why this covenant, David, I had to impose upon your forefathers, Moses, and then on you, it didn't make this covenant of promise of none effect, it just was a severe schoolmaster to teach you that you couldn't keep the Ten Commandments. Now have you learned your lesson David under this severe Old Testament schoolmaster?" "Yes. Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew within me a right spirit. Thou desirest truth in the inward parts. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean." Then as quoted in Romans 4:6, "Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth righteousness ..
(answers from audience) "Without works."
"Without works." Not the works of the law, but the... Galatians 3...
(Jack Potter from audience) "Hearing of faith."
"The hearing of faith." Not the work of the Ten Commandments, this is a black one now, not the works of the law. Said he tried that for years and years and years, and ho, was restless and defeated until he heard the hearing of faith. "Why somebody's coming to do God's will. I can't do it. Somebody's coming to do it. Who is it?" "Uhh David, you've ... you've taken the stone down now, you've finished that ... that dark covenant, you've come through that school right up to the gray ready to die, now look ... now look to this." "Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will impute righteousness without works. Blessed is he whose sins are forgiven. This poor man cried and ..."
(answers from audience) "The Lord heard him."
"The Lord heard him." And what would He do?
(answers from audience) Delivered him.
"Delivered me out of all my bonds."
Now, you never heard me teach this as simply before in your life because I never got it, never seen it, as simply ...
Now back to the green. The green, the New Covenant, the New Covenant is the Jewish part of the Abrahamic. Today, as I said awhile ago, god's through with the Jews for this whole dispensation, and the New Covenant is taking away just like the kingdom was taking from Israel. And there's no place anywhere today for what God calls the New Covenant. It was to be made with the people that the lord took by the hand one time and led them from somewhere. Some boy or girl under 12, under 12. The Lord took somebody one day by the hands to lead out of ...
(answer from audience) Egypt.
Out of Egypt. And who was it that He took by the hand?
(answer from audience)
Nope. Look out now. Stop and think again. The Lord delivered somebody else out of Egypt. The people that He made a covenant with. And He said, "I'm going to make a new covenant with the ... ", Egypt? Now, you know better than that. Stop and think now. "I'm going to make a new covenant with ..
(answer from audience) The house of Israel.
Good! The house of Is... I was pretty sure he knew. The house of Israel. I had a hand back there but I want to... jerk his mind and recall. The house of Israel and the house of Judah. "Behold, saith the Lord, the days come I'll make a new covenant with the house of Israel and 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 out of Egypt, which My covenant they brake. But this is the covenant I'll make with them, after those days I'll write My law in their hearts and they'll be My people and they" ... they'll all be saved as a nation, and save them as a nation, make them a national kingdom, and it'll be the nation born ...
(answers from audience) In a day.
In a day, nation born in a day.
Now, I'm going to stop, maybe not take all the rest of the time unless you want to ... But, but isn't this a little bit clearer than you ever heard me on the subject of the covenants. It's clearer than I ever saw, I mean, simply... the covenants... I've seen the main truth, and most of you have too. But anyway, to go over these things again.