Unfathomable Riches in Christ - Freed from the Law - Part IV

What we have been going through and kind of the bigger picture here is we have in Christ freedom from the law. We've been freed from the law and so as we were freed from the law As we are freed from the law, a number of different passages come into play.

And then, as we started to bring up last week, we'll bring it up again this week, there is this term that shows up in both the Old Testament and the New Testament called the New Covenant. So what is the Church's relationship to the New Covenant is one of the things we will be looking at. Put it in summary, one of the passages that is key is the one in the middle of page 1. And so I'll read that just so that we have a common starting point here and as a point of reminder.

Jeremiah 31.31, by the way, that makes it easy to remember the starting point.

Jeremiah 31.31, if you can remember that, that's a good place to start in looking for this new covenant and what does that mean.

So, Behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.

My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them, declares the Lord. But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my law within them, and on their heart I will write it, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they will not teach again each man his neighbor, and each man his brother, saying, Know the Lord. For they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more." So what were some of the things that we observed and concluded from reading this passage?

Who is the New Covenant about? Israel. And at that time, this was when Israel was the northern kingdom and Judah was the southern kingdom. So the nation of Israel was geographically divided. So the house of Israel, the northern kingdom, and the house of Judah, the southern kingdom, So it was not like the covenant made with the forefathers. How is it different? How is the new covenant different from the covenant made with the forefathers, the one that was begun by Moses? How is the new covenant different?

They have the law in their heart. Okay, so the New Covenant, they have the law in their heart. Didn't they have the law in their heart with the Old Covenant? No. The law was on what? It was on stone and it was on paper, or a scroll made out of animal skin, right? So the law was something written and external. Did everybody know it by heart? No. Did you need somebody to teach you the law? Yes. 613 laws. Do you remember that number? 613. 613. You got it? 613 individual laws. Do this, don't do that.

All those laws, they had to study it. And you had to have somebody teach you. And somebody who taught you was called a rabbi. So then, so what we have there, with the old covenant, you had the Law of Moses, and you had to have somebody teach you, and did you have the Holy Spirit to help you to carry it out? No. And so that's one thing, is there's a law, and as Paul wrote in Romans chapter 7, the Law of Moses is holy, righteous, and good.

But, what's the problem with the law? We are not up to it. So sometimes Christians will get into a mistaken mode of bad-mouthing the law. The law of Moses and saying those 613 laws, that's all bad. That's not true. It's inspired by God. In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul himself said, holy, righteous, and good. But we're not up to it.

How many laws, by the way, does it take for a human being to have trouble with the law? Just one. That's the example he gives in Romans chapter 7. So, the question then is what's our relationship to the new covenant? Or do we have one? And people have come up with different answers to that question. Can you think of what are some of the different answers that people have had? By the way, hold on, this is important. So if you're just joining us, you will need last week's handout to follow along with us. Okay? So, anyway, you were about to answer.

That we replaced Israel? Okay. One is that we replaced Israel. When you say we, who does that mean? So one idea is that we in the church replaced Israel. So that's part one. And what else? Some of it we share with them and some we don't. Some of them we share with them and some we don't, so there's kind of a mix and match idea.

One of the things that they taught back in seminary is they said that we're beneficiaries of the new covenant with Israel. So that was one of the things they taught. So that was a different idea. How about another one that gets taught is that the law is written on your heart. Is that true? So you've got different things are taught about the New Covenant and about the law and person's relationship to those things. Question. What's that? Just a question. Yes.

How about progressive dispensation? Do they have a position about the covenants? Yes, they do. It's a bit more complex than we can go into in detail, but it is another viewpoint and they also tend to have mixtures of a lot of these different teachings among them. So the answer is yes, they have a position. It's almost the same spectrum as What's that? Yes, and let me quickly address that because Roy brings up a big point.

In recent decades, primarily since about 1980, A lot of seminaries, Bible colleges, have been kind of having a mixture of ideas, both the idea that there's a future kingdom, as well as a present kingdom, and mixing that. And for example, where is Christ right now? Where is Christ right now? So the Bible would say that if you see at the right hand of the Father, and see at the right hand of the Father, is he in a place of authority? He is in a place of authority, that authority will be extended to earth in a way that's not true now, when Christ comes again.

But the rest of the dispensationalists would say that Christ is now sitting on the throne of David. And there tends to be a mixture then of the law and grace thing fairly easily. So what they've essentially done is they've mixed up the heavenly throne of the Father and the throne of David, which is an earthly throne. A heavenly throne and an earthly throne.

Yes. OK, one of the things they talk about is the difference between a heart of stone and a heart of flesh. That's in the New Covenant, he changes the heart of stone to the heart of flesh, right? What exactly does that mean? Oh, say in the New Covenant? OK, so the heart of stone, what is that talking about?

Stubbornness, unbelieving. Yeah, in other words, if you look at it, there's two things on stone. What is it? One is I got the law in the Ten Commandments written on stone, right? So there's that stone. And then the other thing is the stone characterizing the heart.

Which is, how lively is a stone? Not. Right? A stone is not. So part of what that's talking about is, yes, I got the law written on a stone, or at least the Ten Commandments written on a stone. But also, a heart of stone is a heart that is not living and responsive. Right? What's that? Hard. It's hard.

What else does stone change? shape and color and context and content easily. No. Stone is stuck. It does not change easily. So it is hard, but also not a stone. A stone is dead. And that's why, in contrast, we would be talked about in the New Testament as living stones. So it's a real change of word pictures there. But yes, good point.

So now, one of the things that we see here, backside. page 2 of the handout from last week. This has the New Covenant with Israel at the top, a New Covenant timeline. So the New Covenant with Israel is for the coming Millennial Kingdom. It is there in place, set up for Israel in the coming Millennial Kingdom because we in the Church and Israel have a common need, can they live out righteousness on their own? People of Israel, no. Can we live out righteousness on our own? No. So what good does it do to have us say, what would Jesus do? Not going to work, will it? Because we cannot live out righteousness on our own.

So God answers that common need. And this is where people get confused. Our need is in common. He answers both in the church and for the Jews in the coming one kingdom. He answers the common need by having the Holy Spirit indwelling. empowering, enabling, and energizing us to live out righteousness by the very life of Christ. And enabling the Jews in the coming millennial kingdom to live out the righteousness, the good and righteous law by the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. meeting a common need by entirely different means that has in common that the Holy Spirit indwells us in the Church and Jews in the coming One New Kingdom.

Yes. So neither the Old nor the New Covenant applies to the Church. That's correct. Neither the Old Covenant nor the New Covenant applies to us in the Church. Very good observation. Good way to state it. So the tendency is for people to try to take the old covenant and or the new covenant and pull it into the church when it's for the Jews.

The old covenant was given exclusively to the Jews. A fellow writing in about the fourth century, it's called Eusebius of Caesarea. So Caesarea, this is the place that we're going to end up in today's Acts passage. Eusebius of Caesarea wrote, he said, the law was given to the Jews, and it's only to be lived out in the land.

You really can't live out the law as a Jew outside of the land very well. Because there's all kinds of things that relate to the land. So even then, he observed that this wasn't for anybody but the Jews. And even for the Jews, it was written to be lived out in the land and not elsewhere.

OK, so we have the New Covenant timeline. So here are the Old Testament and some New Testament passages. You see that first column says a covenant promised. And we give as examples Isaiah 59-21, Jeremiah 31-34, which we just read and is on the first page of the handout, and Ezekiel chapters 37 and 38. Are those the only passages out of the Old Testament that apply?

Not at all. First of all, we've got to look at the third column. And then that today's handout, which is one page. And we won't be going into it, probably, because we don't have time. But you're free to study it on your own. So as a generalization, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel are the three books, for the most part, that have insight about the New Covenant for Israel. But here is the middle one, and this is where many people get confused.

The New Covenant is confirmed in Luke 22.20 and 1 Corinthians 11.25. Jesus said of the cup of wine, which was diluted wine, the cup of wine, he said, this is the New Covenant in my blood. Well, so, you read that passage, does that passage about this New Covenant in my blood, does that give you anything about promises by itself? No, it doesn't. There's no content in that, so you have to say, what does this mean? And by the way, also, was that cup of wine his blood? Was it his blood? Literally his blood. No. So this was symbolic.

And what it was was symbolic of a sacrifice that ratifies the covenant that was made. So when he said, this is the new covenant in my blood, they all knew what that meant. They knew what the new covenant was because it was in Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and the passages we've referenced here. and other passages in mostly those books. And what he was talking about is this wine symbolizes the sacrifice that I'm going to make to ratify the new covenant, which will be fulfilled later.

Yes. But it also means other things, right? That's one thing that it means, but that's for the Millennial Kingdom. But it also has meaning for the Church. So it's actually got a double meaning, right? I'm sorry, say that again? It's got a double meaning. So here's the point and the distinction that helps keep people from getting confused.

And this is a very important point, and I'm glad you brought up this question. what happened on the cross was not just one thing. Oh yeah. Right? So let's, I mean, we won't be majoring in it, but let's think about what were some of the things that took place on the cross? And so what was one of the things that happened on the cross? Forgiveness of sins. Okay, so the provision for forgiveness of sins was made because Christ died for the sins of everybody with the last name Peterman. Right? No. Christ died for the sins of whom? Of everyone on the planet from Adam to the last person to be born in the coming millennial kingdom. Right? Christ died for the sins of everyone on the planet for all time.

So did he die for the sins of Noah? Yeah. Did he die for the sins of the people who were going to sin during the tribulation period that hasn't started yet? Yeah. He died for the sins of the whole world. So we can look at that in a large picture and we can also take it personally. Did he die for my sins? Yes. So everybody on the planet could say, Christ died for my sins.

Now the ones who will believe it, that's a different picture. Yes. But the key there is the provision. Yeah. The key is the provision. So from that standpoint, every single person on the planet is savable. Yes. Right? From that standpoint. Is everybody going to get saved? No. Not happening, right? Because they must believe in order to be forgiven and they must believe in order to be saved. Which means in the Old Testament they had to believe also that he would do this. Yes.

So let's look at Abraham. Let's think about Abraham. Here's Abraham who was a select Gentile. Wasn't Abraham really just a select Gentile? Yes. who would be a proto-Jew, if you will, a select Gentile who would be the beginning of the Jewish nation. He was selected out. Yes, Deidre? This is a little bit offside, I'm sorry.

Do Jews consider Abraham a Jew? They don't, and they call him the father, but they don't consider him a full Jew. And why don't they consider him a full Jew? Because he didn't have circumcision. Well, he was given circumcision. However, you don't have Jews until you have what? So you have to have Jacob in the picture and be a descendant of Jacob before you have the Jews. Even here's Abraham. Did Abraham have other descendants aside of those through Isaac and Jacob? Yes. We talk about the 12 tribes of Israel. How many tribes did Ishmael have?

12. Isn't that amazing? But are they Jews? No. So simply being descended from Abraham genetically, that's not enough.

Now, did we answer your question? Yes, thank you. OK. So now, you look at it going down the line here. So here are the Jews. They're taken out of Egypt. There, as 1 Corinthians chapter 10 says, baptized into Moses in the cloud and the sea. Right? Baptized into Moses. They're given the law. Were they given all the laws by the time Moses was done? Yeah, they were given all the laws.

And as a matter of fact, Deuteronomy, Deutero means what? Two, it's the second giving of the law. So Moses says, OK, look, you guys, we need to review everything. So that's what Deuteronomy is. We're going to review everything. Here's the second giving of the law. And Moses gets done. And God says they're not going to do it. So now, let's get back to, here is Christ died on the cross. He died for the sins of everyone on the planet for all time. What does that say? What does that say? He died for the sins of everyone on the planet for all time.

He died as a substitute for you and me. He died instead of me. The song says it very well, especially the chorus. Instead of me. He died in my place. Is that all that happened on the cross? What else happened? One is identification. Now identification with Christ's death on the cross applies to whom? Who does that apply to? Does Noah get that? Does Isaiah get identification with Christ and his death? No. So it's Christ in his death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding, and it starts in its application to whom?

Church. The church which begins in? Pentecost. Pentecost, which is recorded in Acts chapter 2. There the church begins, right? And people from that day on to what day? Ever, forever. It includes today, right? On to the rapture. The rapture, right? People who believe within that time bracket, those people are identified with Christ in his death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding. So the death is what starts those five things. So there is identification with Christ, and those people have a new history.

Correct? Now, what else? I'd love to spend years and years of time going over the history, our identification with Christ. But what else? Ephesians chapter 5, that they're going to be coming just later this year. than the other elective. I used to point down, but that's not right anymore. They meet over there. So Ephesians chapter 5 talks about the four kinds of love of a husband for a wife.

And it gives us a picture of Christ in the church. And the first of those is Christ expressed sacrificial love. And as we saw in Acts chapter 20, He paid the purchase price of a flock, Acts chapter 20, and he paid the purchase price of a bride. So what purchase price did Christ pay for us in the church? The bride price. You know, we don't have, in our culture, we don't have any of that concept. That was well understood in biblical times, especially among the Jews. And when I talked to Hassan about it, he understood it right away.

It's called dowry, isn't it? Pardon? How about dowry? Well, okay, so bride price, and actually dowry can be something different. Is it? Yeah. Dowry can be something different. So I use those terms separately. So a dowry was often a term used for giving the bride something of value to take into the marriage was different from the price that the groom paid for the bride.

So Hassan had to pay for Juliet, three cows, four goats, and I forget the number of chickens. But it wasn't going to happen until then. As a matter of fact, somebody said that Hassan became engaged when he was here. He talked to Juliet over the phone while he was here in 2010 about getting married to her. But someone here said, Hassan and Juliet were engaged. And he said, no. They were not engaged until Hassan paid the bride price about a month before they got married.

So is there a dowry there? The dowry is something different and it's not quite carried out the same way as it was done in biblical times where it was actually a gift from the bride's father to the bride for her to take with her into the marriage. Yes. Wasn't it a provision for her in case her husband died or they were divorced? Yeah, it was kind of an insurance policy. Yeah, that wasn't his money. Right, it wasn't his money, it was her money. So it's interesting, there's different customs there and they're not quite the same. But to get back to the point we're making here, Christ paid the bride price, which was his own life, for you and for me. And by the way, did he pay it reluctantly? No. For the joy set before him, he endured the cross. He paid the bride price.

Hebrews 12. Alright. So, anything else? Do we forget anything? Yes. Okay, he was given dominion and became a high priest, right? Okay, yes. He was. Was that an accomplishment on the cross? Well, it was because of the cross. Okay, so it is an outcome from the cross. He would not have been qualified as a high priest were that not to have taken place, right? So that would be a qualification for that. That he died on the cross, and all the things were accomplished on the cross.

When Nancy and I were married, the church where we were married, at Penicillin Bible Church, they had two large pieces of redwood heartwood up at the front of the church. And on one side, it says, you knock your own, in large letters engraved on the piece of wood. The other half of that said you were bought with a price. And so this purchase was looked upon as a purchase as a slave. You're not your own, you've been bought with a price. And what was that price?

Christ's death. So what you have is Christ's death on the cross accomplished multiple things. In addition to all those things, it was also the ratification, a sacrifice to ratify the new covenant that God made with Israel to be fulfilled in the coming Millennial Kingdom. One of the reasons we point that out is very important for us to get clear. Here is Abraham as recorded in the book of Genesis. Abraham has a covenant with God. By the way, that covenant that God made started in Genesis 12 verses 1-3. That covenant got expanded upon and restated later to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob.

How come it didn't get restated to Ishmael? He wasn't the son of promise. Yeah, he was not the son of promise. Did God make promises to him? Yes, but not the particular one that applied only to the Jews. And talking about the land that I will show you, that wasn't for Ishmael. So here is Abraham. Abraham has the promises made to him. Did he get to see any of those promises fulfilled? Jim's shaking his head. And why are you shaking your head? Because the land was the promise. He didn't know the land at all.

Yeah, and he went there. Did the Canaanites all say, hey, here's the deed to everything. It's all yours. No. As a matter of fact, at certain places he had to go and make a deal, a land deal, to get, for example, the cave at Makpala. But the promise was not fulfilled. Did he get to see that his descendants would be as the sands on the seashore? Did he see that? No. In fact, he says, this is getting awful skinny here. I'm getting awfully old, and my wife as well.

And we don't have a descendant that God's going to pass on the promise. And how many descendants did he have who received the promise? How many? One. So it wasn't, he didn't get to see the descendants as the sands of the seashore. He got to see one. Yes? The promise wasn't made to him. It was made to his seed. So the promise was ultimately about the seed. So he ultimately saw this, did not see the fulfillment of any of it. It was all for later on and others to see and to be fulfilled. So let's ask this question.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, will they be in the Millennial Kingdom? Yes, they will as resurrected saints, but not of the church. Jesus talks in the Gospels about sitting at table in the kingdom with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They will see the fulfillment of it. Yes.

So here's Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They didn't see it, but what did Abraham do once God made a promise? He did what? One, he believed God, very important, and he ratified those covenants that God made with what? A sacrifice. So what you will find, a covenant has a content, The content of the promise, and this is why when Jesus says, this is the new covenant in my blood, that's not enough by itself, because where's the content? Well, the content's in the Old Testament. The sacrifice was made later, but the actual fulfillment was not until way later, which is the same case with Jesus ratifying the new covenant in his blood. The fulfillment of it is yet to come.

Just like it was with Abraham. OK? Just like it was with Abraham. The Bible is very consistent in these things. Very consistent. Yes, go ahead. Fitting this all together, the sense that Abraham sought for a city whose foundation is God, and he didn't see that city. That's part of this picture. So he's going to see that city, which is... And that's something we're going to have to pass on for now. That's a whole expansion of what does that passage mean.

We won't have the time to get there. But you bring up a good point, and that is there is a fulfillment that he never saw. And that's the big picture takeaway, is that God made promises to Abraham that he never got to see. Has God made promises to us that we haven't seen yet? Yes, he has. Most certainly has. Yes. But Abraham will see those promises fulfilled during the Millennial Kingdom and the Eternal Kingdom. Yes.

The key point in this, as we look at this, is that God made Christ's death on the cross a connecting point for lots of very important things, and they're not all the same thing, are they? Christ's death on the cross accomplished a great number of things, but they shouldn't be lumped into one, because they're all very different things. Are they all exceedingly important? Absolutely. Was it a single death? Absolutely. How many people that day looked at Christ on the cross and understood all those things?

Nobody. Nobody. Can you imagine, here's Mary, she's looking up, there's my son, and he's being crucified. She had no... I mean, to her, my son is being crucified. All the different things that took place that day. In his crucifixion, she had not a clue. She, however, is listed along with her other sons in Acts chapter 1. And it's very clear that she and her other sons went into the church age, and imagine here is Mary identified with Christ in his death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and receiving. We don't know if she ever understood that. She may have, but we don't know that she ever did. So this would be one of these things where that's something she would discover afterwards, perhaps.

To me, one of the things that the cross, as far as Jesus was concerned, was the fact that he experienced separation and he also experienced death. Yes, he experienced physical death, he experienced separation. When you say separation, what do you mean? What do you mean when you say separation? From the Trinity, from the relationship. Separation from the Father. Had Jesus ever experienced separation from the Father?

No. It had never happened in all of eternity past. It had never taken place. That was something he had never experienced with a great, imperfect fellowship with the Father. He'd never been through that. By the way, had their father experienced that separation? Never, never before.

It appears to, from everything that's recorded in scripture, have taken place over a period of about three hours of earth time. And numerous extraordinary things took place there. Not only the things we just talked about in terms of what was accomplished on the cross, But the tearing of this temple veil, the darkness, which is inexplicable by any natural means, but it's recorded even among secular historians. That darkness that took place, an earthquake, which is recorded in the sediments in the Dead Sea, all these things that are confirmed as taking place in multiple records. They took place just completely inexplicably. They definitely took place. The one thing that is only recorded in scripture is the separation between the father and the son, the separation of fellowship during that period of time. Let's look at the middle of page 2 there.

It says God's covenant with Israel which has fulfillment in the coming Millennial Kingdom. We see the first one is the covenant with Abraham and we list only there Genesis 12, 1-3. In fact, we could go through dozens of restatements and expansions of the covenant with Abraham. Restated and expanded not only to Abraham but to Isaac and to Jacob as well.

Again and again and again. It's made very clear. We have the covenant with Moses which was the law covenant. This is the one that the Apostle Paul gave further insight. The Jews were baptized into Moses in the cloud and the sea. Next, we have the land covenant. Here's the land. So that's given in Deuteronomy 30, the first 10 verses, as well as other places. And finally, the covenant with David is recorded in 2 Samuel 7. And is that the only place it's recorded? No, but that's one place it's recorded. So a lot of these, when you see the definitive passage, it's not the only passage, but it is one where it's very clear. Yes?

So the land covenant, I'm not familiar with that very well, but... Is that what they broke, because they didn't arrest the land after that? Yeah, so let's talk about that, because you asked a very good question. Here are the Jews. They're to go into the promised land, right? And what are they to do in the promised land? Conquer.

So the conquer, in specific times, they did things like they did at Jericho that only applied to Jericho, that you go in and walk. They go everywhere and walk. around every day and then blow the trumpet. No, that was only done at Jericho. When they went to Ai, it was a different plane, which they blew at the outset. But the big picture was not to go around and kill them all, drive them off. That's the big picture. Many people lose track of that. Drive the inhabitants out.

Did they do that? No. As a matter of fact, it wasn't until the time of Solomon that they got the Canaanites out of Gaza and it's only because the king of Egypt did it and gave it to Solomon as a wedding present. So they did not fulfill the land covenant. And that was the key part of the land covenant. You guys need to go in here and drive out the inhabitants and take occupation of it.

And one of the things we find is, except for Jesus as an infant going down into Egypt, Jesus went to different parts of the land during his earthly ministry, whether that land had been occupied by Israel or not. Yes? When they were to take the land, should it have been the whole area that you've shown in that other map where it shows the... That's much bigger than what Israel is.

Yes, they didn't take the land that they were supposed to. And in fact, included in that was Tyre. We'll be talking about it this morning. Tyre was one that they never did take. Even during the times of David and Solomon, they never did take that. And the Philistines, they continued to be a problem for centuries. They never did take it. Dan was assigned a certain tribe, and they didn't occupy the land and so they moved to the northern part of Israel to the city of Dan, to what is now Tel Dan, because they didn't occupy the place they were supposed to. So they didn't fulfill the land's covenant. And that's one problem with the Jews and the law is they didn't carry everything out. They didn't live out the law. They didn't fulfill the land covenant, right?

And so God says, well, that's it. I'm forgetting everything about you guys, right? No. Why didn't he just say, I'm bailing on these people and turkeys, right? Why didn't God just, was that it? He made a promise, and God's going to fulfill it regardless. And by the way, Stan brought up earlier, the church replaces Israel, has God rejected His people Israel? Romans, chapter 9-11, has God rejected His people Israel? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. He will be faithful to his promises, even if everybody else is unfaithful. He will be faithful to his promises.

Alright, so one of the things to point out here, so what's a covenant? A covenant was a promise with a sacred character, either because it was made by God, or God was called as a witness, or in some cases, prophet. In Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, God promises a new covenant. God's new covenant with Israel is unilateral. God made the promise categorically. He didn't say, now if he Israelites will do the right thing finally, and get your act together. He didn't do it that way, did he? He said, I'm going to make a unilateral covenant, and this is it.

Those entering into the Millennial Kingdom, who will all be Jewish believers, among the Jews, will all be Jewish believers. We'll all have this new covenant before us. Then we have the making of a covenant. We have examples that go all the way back to the time of Noah there, and on into Genesis, on into things we see laid out in the book of Hebrews. So let's look at page 3. or we have very little time. See, there goes the buzzer. Do you hear that, or am I coming down with tinnitus? OK. So here we go. We have a chart at the top on the right.

And so we have the old covenant in the first category, Israel and the law, not empowered and earthly. The middle part, we have grace. There's no covenant. Church, grace, empowered, heavenly. And then the New Covenant, Israel, law, empowered, earthly. So with that, you see the category there? So the Old Covenant's with Israel. The New Covenant's with Israel. The Old Covenant is law, not empowered. The New Covenant is law and empowered.

In both cases, it's earthly. Israel will be obedient and therefore will be blessed in the coming millennial kingdom in earthly ways. Will there be spiritual blessings? Yes, which they will experience here. Under the old covenant, Deuteronomy 28, Moses said, if you guys will obey the law, you'll be blessed. You will be healthy, you won't have any of these diseases, your crops will be fantastic, your livestock will be fantastic, you'll have abundance here in the land, and everything is going to be great. But if you don't, what happens? curse, including the land will spit you out. And so guess what happened to Israel? The land spit them out, right?

Under the new covenant, there is empowerment to know, no teachers, no rabbis, to know how many of the laws? 613 laws by heart and be empowered to live it out. That's radically different from what you see now or what you ever saw with Israel before. Because Israel has a common need with us.

We can't pull it off. So God says, for Israel, I'm going to pull it off by putting the Holy Spirit with them to know and live out the laws. With us, he says, I am going to crucify you with Christ. You will die to the law and you're going to live out righteousness, not by the laws, Even though it's holy righteousness, you can live out righteousness because Jesus lives inside you. And you are empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Put that into action. Yes. So in other words, it seems like, I always thought the church age was basically entirely focused on the Gentiles and the church, etc. But that doesn't seem to be necessarily true because it's also a period of time when God is building the nation of Israel back. and is beginning to fulfill the promises that he made to Israel. So it's a period of time that a couple of things are happening, right? Yes.

Here is Ephesians 1.10.

Ephesians 1.10. God is managing, and I'm paraphrasing here, God is managing all of history to the end that everything will be summed up in the Christ, the Messiah. By the way, almost three dozen times the book of Ephesians has the Messiah. That's the first one, Ephesians 1.

God is managing all of history, including who's president today in the United States, including who the different world leaders are, and who's going to fall, and who's going to rise, and all that. Everything is being managed to the end, that everything will be summed up in the quest.

So don't worry and fret about how the next election's going to turn out, even the midterms. Will anything happen? Will anybody get elected or fail to get elected? Will there be any referendum passed or failed that will stop Jesus Christ from being the summary point of all of history? Absolutely not. You don't need to worry about it. Not even if Russia interferes. What's that? Not even if Russia interferes. It doesn't matter who tries to interfere or do what.

Nobody, because God's managing all of history to that end. Nobody is going to thwart God's ultimate plan to have everything summed up in Christ. Absolutely everything. You just took away the job of all the politicians? Yeah, I see. Politicians can make promises, but none of them is as good as God's. Right? Can you tell me how soon that's going to happen? Sure. It'll be at least seven years from now.

Thank you Lord for your word. Thank you that in the midst of a crazy, mixed up world, it seems to be getting worse in many ways. And in the midst of a crazy mixed-up world, we can count upon that you will in fact sum up everything in your blessed Savior, and you will begin as soon as seven years from now this new covenant with Israel that we looked at this morning. Thank you for your faithfulness. We depend upon it and look to you, and we await your coming. We hope it's today. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.