John, pt. 60 | John 10:1-10

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April 28, 2024 Covenant Reformed Baptist Church Pastor Jeff Rice Tullahoma, TN

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John, pt. 61 | John 10:1-10

John, pt. 61 | John 10:1-10

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If you will at this time, take your copy of the Scriptures and turn with me to the
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Gospel of John, chapter 10. We will consider verses 1 through 10 over the next couple few weeks.
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Not really sure yet. The Gospel of John, chapter 10, 1 through 10.
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This is our 60th message in this glorious Gospel. Let me open us in prayer.
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Father, I do trust that you will, by the power of your
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Holy Spirit, speak to your people from your word through your manservant this day as I attempt to proclaim the excellency done by your will through the hand of Christ and the power of the
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Spirit. Lord, they have not gathered to get today to hear from me.
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They have gathered to hear from you. Please speak in Jesus' name, amen.
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Let's begin with the text, John, chapter 10, verses 1 through 10.
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Jesus speaking, truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, this man is a thief and a robber.
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But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.
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To him, the gatekeeper opens, the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
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When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them and the sheep follow him for they know his voice.
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A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him for they do not know the voice of strangers.
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This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
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So, Jesus again said to them, truly, truly, I say to you,
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I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.
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I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.
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The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy.
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I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
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In our theme for this Lord's Day, we have a test. You ready for the test?
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The test of spiritual sight. Has God given you the eyes to see?
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Remember, we're coming off of the heels of Jesus healing a blind man on the
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Sabbath day by spitting on the ground and with his hand making mud and applying it to the blind man's eyes, anointing his eyes, telling him to go and wash in the pool of Siloam.
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This man came back seeing, but not only did he receive physical sight as we see in John chapter nine, but as you get on into the latter verses, we see that he believed that Jesus is the son of man, that Jesus is deity.
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So therefore, he has also been given spiritual sight. This man received physical sight and spiritual sight.
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And as we saw in the beginning of John nine, these Pharisees who were questioning him, that they had physical sight.
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And as you walk through that chapter we saw, but they were spiritually blind.
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And I mentioned that better to be born physically blind than to die with spiritual blindness.
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And so the test is the test of spiritual sight. And this may be our theme for a few weeks.
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And my proposition is this, Jesus Christ has always been the only way of salvation.
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There has never been another way of salvation, and there will never be another way of salvation.
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We sometimes feel like that we could be in the last days of the last days.
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But if the Lord does tarry 1 ,000, 2 ,000, 10 ,000 years from now, there will never be another way of salvation.
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It is always and will always be Jesus Christ and no one else. As Paul Washer says, heaven has sent to us its champion.
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Heaven is not going to open up and send us anything else. And if it was, it would lack in comparison.
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It would not be good enough for us to trust in in order to be welcomed into the arms of God, in order to become a child of God.
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This test of spiritual sight has to do with this. Are you trusting in the wall of the law or are you trusting in the door of grace?
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Ask yourself that. Are you trusting in the wall of the law? Are you trusting in Moses?
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Is that your hope? Is that where you find comfort? Is that where you lay your head or are you trusting in the door of grace, which is
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Jesus Christ? For the law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
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What we have in John 10 is a word picture, a figure of speech, the text says.
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It's a word picture. You should be able to, which I'll be honest, it's been really difficult.
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But as you're reading this, we should be able to connect the dots. And this chapter is a lot like the book of Revelation.
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I would say the book of Revelation is a more detailed. In the book of Revelation, you'll read something where it'll say something like candlesticks.
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And then when you read it, you're like, okay, well, I don't, I really don't know what this candlestick is, this lamp stand.
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And as you continue reading, it says, oh, the lamp stands are the churches, right? It gives you the interpretation.
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You're reading it and you see that in chapter 12, that this serpent, this dragon has vomited up water, vomited up, is that correct?
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That's probably not correct. Has thrown up water in order to trap and destroy the woman who just gave birth to this son.
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You keep reading and you find out that the water is nations, languages, and people who are against the people of God, right?
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So it gives you this, it tells you what's, it gives you a word picture, but if you keep reading, it gives you the interpretation.
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Well similar to that is this chapter, except for not everything is answered.
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It gives you the word picture, but it doesn't give you the interpretation of the word picture.
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Now some of this was what's been said as we, as we read this, you saw that it mentioned Jesus, it mentioned a door and Jesus says that he is the door.
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So it does do that, but not with everything that's laid out here in this word picture.
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Jesus here, in the way that Jesus does, is speaking plainly to reveal to us a mystery.
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Three mysteries to be precise. So in our outline, I want us to look at this section in three ways.
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The first way is the mystery of his covenant. The second is the mystery of Christ.
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And the third is the mystery of his kingdom. Point number one, the mystery of his covenant.
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Point number two, the mystery of Christ. And point number three, the mystery of his kingdom.
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And as we transition in John chapter nine, we witness together three things done by the
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Pharisees. The first, if you will turn over to chapter nine, verse 16, they denied that Jesus was from God.
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Look at the beginning of verse 16. Some of the Pharisees said, this man is not from God.
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I wonder why they think that. Well, keep reading. For he does not keep the Sabbath.
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Also, in verse 16, is the second point, is that they denied that Jesus healed a man who was born blind.
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Look at the latter part of that verse. But others said, how can a man who is a sinner do such a signs?
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They were denying that Jesus healed this man. They denied
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Jesus healed a man, and they also denied that Jesus, well, they denied
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Jesus. Look at verse 28. And they reviled him, speaking of the blind man, saying, you are his disciples, disciple.
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But we, speaking of the religious, pharisaical group, we, the
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Pharisees, are disciples of Moses. You're his disciple.
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We are disciples of Moses. They denied Jesus. And in verse 40, these
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Pharisees ask a question. The question is, are we also blind?
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This question, this question that's asked from them comes from what Jesus said in verse 39.
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Look back at verse 39. Jesus said, for judgment
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I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.
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And last week, we saw that Jesus is the judgment, right?
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The scripture tells us that Jesus did not come to judge, but in that same paragraph, it tells us that light has come into this world as judgment.
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And Jesus is the light of the world, and if you follow him, you will never walk in darkness. We come to the conclusion that what you believe about Jesus matters, amen?
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If you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, that is the foundation upon which the church is built.
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You are a Christian, and when you die, you will be in the presence of God, dancing where angels tread.
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But if you do not believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, when you die, you will not be in the presence of God, where the angels dare to tread.
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You will be in smoke and torment. There is a reason why
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John is stressing here about who Jesus is. This gospel is a proclamation of who
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Jesus is and what you believe about Jesus matters. This blind man recognizes that Jesus is the
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Son of Man, that Jesus is deity, that Jesus is God, and he was given spiritual sight in order to see this.
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And Jesus says what he says in verse 39, and these Pharisees, they're thinking physical.
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They're thinking, this man, is he saying that we're blind? I can see him. I can tell you what he looks like.
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I can give you the description of him. So they're thinking physical blindness, and Jesus is speaking about spiritual blindness.
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Look at verse 31. I mean, excuse me, not 31, 41. This is where he answers their question.
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And Jesus said to them, if you were blind, you would have no guilt.
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But now that you say we see, your guilt remains.
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And last week I gave you a rendering of this verse of how
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I would interpret this verse, but I did so in a sentence that would fit in this reading.
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And I would say if I was to interpret this for you, it would say, verse 41, if you were blind to the word of God concerning me.
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Now, as you know, Pharisees knew the word of God. But as you walk through the gospel of John, even though they knew the word of God, Jesus kept telling them, you really don't know the word of God.
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You know the words like you can recite them to me, but you don't know the word of God because they speak about him and they were denying him.
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But since they knew the word of God, as by way of they were able to recite these words of God, they have sinned, they're guilty.
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And so my interpretation was if you were blind concerning the word of God.
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So right here, he's recognizing that they do know the word of God. But as you read in the other chapters, chapters five, six, seven, he points out that they don't really know it, but they do, but they don't.
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He says you would have no guilt. But since you say we know the word of God concerning the
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Messiah, your guilt remains. They're guilty because they know the 300 and something prophecies of the
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Messiah. They could recite them to you. And yet you have God in the flesh standing before them, the
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Messiah who fulfills all these prophecies and they deny him. They deny him.
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And so he says your guilt remains. Now concerning chapter 10, to say that this has been an easy chapter this week to look over would, it would be very, very false.
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So it starts out with me, Monday night, opening up the Bible, you know, you know, you have this, this thought beforehand, like I remember being in chapter one thing,
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I cannot wait to get to chapter 10. I know chapter 10. And then
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I get to it, I'm like, I don't know anything about this chapter. Like it had me in a headlock.
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I even called my wife into the room, I was like, man, am I just, what's going on here? And I might read it to her because she's like this big old brain or whatever, like, like she, like her, my common sense is better, but she doesn't have any of that.
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But her just being very intellectual, like, like it's, it's up there. Like she's got a doctorate degree, right?
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Yeah, like I'm not, I'm not that guy, right? I tell people quite often if, you know, if you're looking for a church where the pastor is this really intelligent man, then this might not be the church for you.
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But if you don't mind someone with dyslexia and stutters and twitches when he speaks, come on in.
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You might fit in here, right? And so I'm calling her into the room, I'm trying to figure out this thing.
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And I'm like, just kind of like, am I missing something? I'm like reading it to her, walking through some of this stuff, and she's even confused.
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And so we have this guy, you know, like with Open Earth Theology and all these guys that I talk to, we're doing this
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FaceTime, we're arguing with one another, we're giving interpretations, I'm shooting them down and, and I'm giving interpretations, they're shooting them down like this has been really hard.
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You have like five different pastors and we're like, man, this is rough. This is a hard chapter.
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And everyone came at this with a presupposition of what they thought it was, and we all walked away the first night not knowing anything about this chapter.
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But we kept on and kept on and we were arguing and we were fighting. So all five of us come to an agreement.
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And I'd say that's through the Holy Spirit, right? And they're upset with me that I'm able to preach this chapter and then they're not able to preach it because they're not in the
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Gospel of John. And so now they know it so well that they want to just stop everything that they're doing and just preach on John chapter 10.
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And I'm like, haters are going to hate, you know, so it is what it is. Now I want to approach this chapter very carefully because like I said, this was,
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I thought I knew something. And God, like God does, he always shows me that I really don't.
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And in doing so, I want to make some interpretive claims at the very beginning. And as we walk through this throughout the weeks,
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I'll come back and fill in those gaps. So at lunch, if you ask me, what do you mean that this is what it means?
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I'm not answering any questions, okay? Keep coming back. It's like they say in AA, in AA, right?
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. All right, so after careful study, I believe the sheepfold is simultaneously the covenant of grace and the kingdom of God.
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I believe the thieves and robbers are represented as the religious leaders, and in our text we pointing to the
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Pharisees. The door is Jesus. The another way is
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Moses. The shepherd is Jesus. The gatekeeper is the
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Holy Spirit. The sheep are the elect of God.
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And the strangers are also religious leaders, at this time the
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Pharisees. And some of these things can make application for our time. Some of them can, some of them cannot.
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Well, let's look at point number one, and this will be the only one that we'll cover this week. I stretched it out to 10 verses at first, thinking
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I'd probably be lucky to get, I mean, I needed some verses to make sure I got, you know, 45 minutes, however long it is that I'm up here.
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And as I'm walking through it, I really don't even get past verse one. So to God be the glory.
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Let's read verse one again, and the first point is the mystery of His covenant.
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Verse one, Jesus speaking. Truly, truly,
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I say to you, He's speaking to the Pharisees, who asked the question, are we also blind?
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He who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs in by another way.
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This man is a thief and a robber. Now, remember,
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I believe that the sheepfold here is simultaneously the covenant of grace and the kingdom of God, but right here at the very beginning,
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I just think it's speaking about the covenant of grace. In His covenant,
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Jesus, the covenant of Jesus, His covenant is the covenant of grace, which is the new covenant in His blood.
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Amen? The covenant of grace. Come on, Baptists. The covenant of grace is the new covenant in His blood.
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Covenants in Scripture are not like covenants that we enter into as human beings.
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You and I, when making a covenant, we must come to terms of agreement, right?
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We must agree upon something before we covenant with one another. Take a marriage, right?
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When a man and a woman, they enter into marriage, they have these vows that they agree to before coming into the covenant.
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This is not so with God. God does not make covenants that we agree to.
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God imposes, which means forces, God imposes His covenants on man and then tells us the terms by which we must keep.
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We don't agree with these covenants. We don't say, yeah, well, can we work out this little point right here?
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Can we talk about this? No, we don't have that kind of authority with God. God imposes covenants.
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He forces covenants upon us. With Adam, in the
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Adamic covenant, we see a covenant of works. Adam was given something to do as well as something not to do.
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That's what it means with works. He is told what to do and he is told what not to do.
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The covenant made with Adam was to be fruitful and multiply to fill the earth and subdue it and to have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.
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That's what Adam was supposed to do. The prohibition that which he was not to do was he was not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for in the day that he eats of that tree, he will surely die.
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And church, if you ever want to learn about covenants, please listen up. This is your day.
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If the covenant of works was a coin, each side of that covenant would represent a different aspect.
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Each side of that coin would represent a different aspect of the covenant. On one side would be the inscription, do this and live.
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And on the other side would be the inscription, do this and die or do this and be removed from the land.
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That's what the covenant of works represents. If you keep the covenant, you live, whether long life or in the land, you break the covenant, you die, or you will be removed from the land.
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Adam, as our first representative, broke the covenant and brought into the world sin and death.
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Romans 5, verse 12 says this, therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man's speaking of Adam, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all have sinned.
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We are sinners, amen, or all have sinned.
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Why are we sinners? Why do we sin? Because Adam broke the covenant.
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We naturally take after our first federal head. God's covenant with Noah was a recreation covenant.
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When you understand the Noahic covenant, it helps you to better understand how the Edimic covenant is actually a covenant.
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Very similar things take place in the Noahic covenant. Noah was told to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
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The prohibition was that which not to do. He was not to eat the blood of a beast.
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He was not to drink or eat the blood of a beast, for life was in the blood, and he was not to, or they were not to shed man's blood, or their blood will be shed.
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And I would argue that this covenant stands alone from all the other covenants of works in the
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Old Testament, because this covenant is still for today. Don't eat blood, okay,
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I shouldn't have to tell y 'all that. Don't drink blood, don't make you a glass of blood and drink it, and don't kill anybody.
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Don't murder someone, or you should be killed.
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If you shed man's blood, your blood should be shed. The covenant was made with Abraham, and the
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Abrahamic covenant had to do with the establishment of an earthly kingdom people, the Israelites.
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Abraham was told to walk upright before the Lord, and I would also say that this goes for Abraham's descendants in this covenant.
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Whatever's told to the one that's given the covenant, this covenant that's imposed upon him, it also goes for his descendants.
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Abraham was told to walk upright, and Abraham was to circumcise, and his descendants were to circumcise their male offspring as a sign of that covenant made with Abraham.
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The prohibition, that which they were not to do, right, if one of his descendants did not circumcise their male child, they would be cut off from their people, removed from their people.
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If you refuse to give the sign of the Abrahamic covenant, you were removed from the people.
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God's covenant with Moses was the giving of the law. This covenant, according to Galatians chapter 3, was added to the
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Abrahamic covenant. The physical descendants of Abraham were to keep the law in order to live in the land of Canaan, which is now what we would call
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Jerusalem, Israel. The prohibition was if they broke the
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Mosaic law, the covenant, they would die, or they would be removed from the land, depending on how they broke it.
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If they blasphemed, committed adultery, worshipped another god, so on and so forth, they would be stoned to death.
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If they committed other sins, there was a sacrificial system put into play that would help them out in that.
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But like we see when it comes to the Babylonian captivity, they did not keep the
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Sabbath year for 490 years, and so God put them into captivity for 70 years.
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One year for every seven years they disobeyed. They were removed from the land.
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You have to keep the covenant of works, or you will die, or you can be removed from the land.
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The covenant made with David, the Davidic covenant, had to do with the throne of David. God through the prophet
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Nathan promised to raise up a son of David to sit on his throne.
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The covenant had to do with this son of David keeping the law covenant in order to do so.
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They believed that someone was going to be born that could keep this law that they were unable to keep.
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And if he had done so, he would sit on this throne forever, the scripture says. You can imagine in their mind what this must have looked like.
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Someone was going to come and never die? He would be on it forever?
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The prohibition was if he could not keep the law covenant, he would be prevented from sitting on the throne by his death.
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We see this first with Solomon. Solomon, a son of David, crowned king, the wisest man in the world, but he could not keep the covenant.
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You say, well, how do you know? He died. He died. He did not keep the covenant and his body is still in that tomb.
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As they would say of David, ashes now, but still none the same, right? He's still in that tomb.
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You could find the tomb of Solomon. Notice all four of these covenants carry the inscription, do this and live.
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And on the other side of that coin, do this and die or do this and be removed from the land.
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Now turn with me, if you will, to Genesis chapter three. I'm really kind of proud of myself right there.
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As I was going over this, I kept saying Galatians when I met Genesis, so the fact that Genesis came out of my mouth, that's pretty good.
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Genesis chapter three. In Genesis chapter three, we're going to see the promise of the covenant of grace.
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Now, as a reformed Baptist, I would say that this covenant of grace is revealed in this chapter by way of promise only.
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And it was inaugurated by Jesus during his time of the crucifixion.
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I would argue that the covenant of grace is the covenant of redemption made between the
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Godhead. Second, that the covenant of grace is the sum of all the covenants of works seen throughout the
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Old Testament fulfilled by Christ, him keeping the covenant. And lastly, that the covenant of grace is the new covenant in the blood of Christ.
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We celebrate that every week by partaking in the
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Lord's Supper. Adam was to have dominion over the livestock, over the beast of the field.
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And in Genesis three, we find out that there was a beast from the field that took dominion from him.
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Let's look at verse 14 and 15. So the serpent has already deceived the woman.
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The woman has deceived her husband. And they have both pointed, well,
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Adam pointed to Eve and Eve points to the serpent. And this is what
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God says to the serpent. The Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, speaking of deceiving the woman to deceive her husband, cursed are you above all livestock and above all the beast of the field.
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On your belly you shall go and the dust you shall eat all the days of your life.
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I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring.
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He speaking of her offspring will bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.
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Notice with me that there was no covenant made.
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There is no do this inscription. There is no do this and live.
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There is no prohibition that which not should be done. Do this and die or do this and be removed from the land.
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Right here in verse 15 is where we see the promise of the covenant of grace.
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And it is this. I will put enmity between you and the woman and between you, between your offspring and her offspring.
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He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. There is no do this and live.
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There is no do this and die or do this and be removed from the land.
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It's not there. It's not in the text. This is definitely one of the first mentions.
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This is definitely the first mention of the gospel. That's definitely the first mention of this covenant, this covenant of grace.
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However, there is no inauguration of the covenant. So therefore, the covenant of grace that is revealed is in promise form only.
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Now notice what we can take from this. The covenant of grace. This covenant revealed to Adam as a promise was a curse placed upon the devil.
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Turn with me to John chapter 12. This is another chapter
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I cannot wait to get to, but I'm afraid that when I get to it, it's going to wreck my brain and I'm not going to know what to do.
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John chapter 12. Look at verse 31. This is coming close to the time of Jesus being betrayed and crucified.
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He says this in verse 31, now is the judgment of this world.
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Now the ruler of this world will be cast out. Who's the ruler of this world?
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The devil, the devil right here. He says now the judgment has come and the ruler of this world will be cast out.
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Turn with me to Hebrews chapter 2 and look at verse 14 and 15.
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Verse 14. Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he, speaking of Jesus himself, likewise partook in the same things, that through death, speaking of his death, he might destroy the one who has the power of death.
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That is the devil. So in John chapter 12, when he says, now's the judgment.
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Now the ruler of this world will be judged. It's speaking about what's going to happen to him on that cross.
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And on that cross, when Jesus died and the wrath of God was satisfied, right?
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What did he do? He destroyed the one who had the power of death. That is the devil.
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I will put enmity between you and the woman, between her seed and yours.
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He will bruise your head while only bruising his heel. This crucifixion that took place was the bruising of the heel.
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And in his death, he defeats Satan. God does not make covenants with devils.
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I'll give you a word picture since we're dealing with a chapter about word pictures. I want you to imagine that there's a glass or there's a windshield or there's just a large piece of glass, and this glass, this window, is covered in mud.
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And you cannot see anything out of it, okay? And I want you to imagine that my thumb was
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Mr. Clean, and I just put my thumb to that window. And I moved it, and you can see clearly out of that one spot that my thumb touched.
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But this window is still muddy. Like if you moved your head and you looked around, all you would see is mud.
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But if you could look directly into that thumbprint, you'd be able to see something.
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And my argument is that in Genesis 3, that's what took place.
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God took a muddy window, and he touched it. He's given us something that we can see.
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And we should be able to follow this seed of the woman all throughout the lineage of Christ.
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And as it goes from the woman to Abraham and from Abraham to Isaac and from Isaac to Jacob and from Jacob to David, God is cleaning the window.
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And then whenever we get to the New Testament and we see the words of Jesus and the death, burial, and resurrection, and we hear from the apostles of what all this means, we have a clean window that God himself has un -muddied.
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But when you get to Genesis and you read this seed that's going to bruise the head of the serpent, we don't really know what's going on here.
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It's not that clear. And so we rely on all of Scripture to interpret
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Scripture. And that's what God is using so that we can see clearly.
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It was promised to us. But during the writing of the
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New Testament, because we have this book that we are able to see clearly of what these covenants represent and what the covenant of grace truly is.
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And also mention that the covenant of grace is the covenant of redemption. And I want to say that the covenant of redemption is a blood covenant.
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God the Father purposed to save a people, right? You've heard me say this hundreds of times. He purposed to save a people.
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This is election. He chose you for the foundation of the world.
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He purposed to save you because you are fallen in Adam. You deserve His wrath.
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God does not want to give His elect sheep His wrath. So what does He do?
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He sends His Son, Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ accomplishes this purpose of saving a people.
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How does He do that? Through His life, death, burial, resurrection, ascension.
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And I would add when He's in His second coming, the
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Holy Spirit is to apply this purpose. But the Holy Spirit cannot apply this purpose if people are not preaching the gospel.
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Right? He applies the purpose through the message that is preached. How can someone believe if there is no preacher?
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How can they hear if there is no preacher? We have to preach this message. The message of Jesus Christ, Him coming and redeeming the people in order for people to be awakened from their spiritual blindness.
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In order for them to have spiritual sight, they have to hear this message. And the blood covenant part of it is that Jesus dies for our sins.
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That's the message that we should be preaching. And as we preach this message, when me and Red were out yesterday was preaching this message, our hope was that the
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Holy Spirit would apply that purpose of them being saved. I mentioned that the covenant of grace is the
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Christ's covenant, that is Christ fulfilling the covenant of works. Christ as the
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Son of David kept the law covenant, which in Galatians chapter 3, the old covenant was only until Christ.
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That's what it says, Galatians chapter 3. It says it was only until Christ. That old covenant is no more.
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Hebrews says it's vanishing away. At the time when Paul was preaching that letter and Luke was penning it, he says the old covenant is vanishing away.
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It's about to not even exist anymore. And Galatians tells us it was only until Christ.
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This old covenant that Christ kept. Why was it only until Christ? Because someone kept it in our place.
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We talk about him living the life we could not live. He kept it. All these years that these Jews were looking to a son of David who could keep the law and sit on the throne forever had come.
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And yet he died, but he did not stay dead.
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Because those who knew the words did not know the scriptures. Because this was prophesied that he would die for a people, that he would be crushed for their iniquity, and that the chastisement of their sins would be placed upon him, but that the father would prolong his days.
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It's sometimes easy to know words. It's not so easy to know the whole story.
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Ladies and gentlemen, I think we fail as a church with that. Jesus Christ is the seed of the woman who would bruise the head of the serpent while only bruising his heel.
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And I want you to think Revelation 20 and the binding of the serpent. When Jesus Christ was crucified, he took the power of death from the devil, and he bound him.
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Book of Revelation says a thousand years. I believe it's from first Advent to second
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Advent, right? Or right around second Advent. There's going to come a day where this devil is released to wreak havoc for a short time, short period of time.
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Could be three days, could be three minutes, could be 30 years, could be 300 years.
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We don't know what this short period of time is. But right now, Satan does not have the power of death, and that's talking about he's unable to keep the gospel from going forth.
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He's unable to deceive the nations to keep the gospel from going forth. When he's released, guess what he's going to do?
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Deceive the nations. He's going to try to keep the gospel from going. But right now, he has been defeated.
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We also believe that the new covenant is in the blood of Jesus. Matthew 26, verses 27 and 28 says this,
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And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
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Now, I'm pretty sure most of you do not have your copy of the confession. I want to read to you chapter 7 so that you will know that what
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I've been saying from the scriptures aligns with our covenant, I mean, our confession.
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So chapter 7, paragraph 1, The rational creatures are responsible to obey
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God as their creator. The distance between God and these creatures are so great that they could never have attained the reward of life except by the voluntary condescension,
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God's voluntary condescension. He has been pleased to express this through a covenant framework.
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Since humanity brought itself under the curse of the law by its fall, it pleased the
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Lord to make a covenant of grace. In this covenant, he freely offers to sinners life and salvation through Jesus Christ.
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On their part, he requires faith in him that they may be saved and promises to give his
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Holy Spirit to all who are ordained to eternal life to make them willing and able to believe.
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Paragraph 3, This covenant is revealed in the gospel.
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It was revealed first of all to Adam in a promise of salvation through the seed of the woman.
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After that, it is revealed step by step, cleaning that window. Step by step,
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God cleaning that window. Each covenant that came to us, we see that that seed has passed through.
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To Abraham, he would bless the nations and inherit the land.
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To Judah, he would be the one who receives the scepter and would rule the world. And we see that fulfillment come through David.
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If you pay attention, God, as you read the Bible, he's cleaning that window. He's revealing this covenant of grace.
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Step by step until the full revelation is complete in the New Testament.
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This covenant is based upon the eternal covenant transaction between the Father and the
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Son concerning the redemption of the elect, the covenant of redemption. Only through the grace of this covenant have those saved from among the descendants of fallen
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Adam obtained life and blessed immortality. Humanity is utterly incapable of being accepted by God on the same terms on which
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Adam was accepted in his innocence because we cannot force
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God to have a covenant we want. We can't tell
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God what to do. God gave us covenants, and he tells us what to do.
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And as we see in the New Covenant, Jesus kept the law.
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He kept the covenant. And the prohibition was for all those that couldn't keep the covenant, they must die.
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Jesus keeps the covenant, doesn't deserve death. You and I cannot keep that covenant.
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We deserve death. This is where the grace comes in. Jesus dies in our place.
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So why did Jesus die? I thought that if he kept the covenant, he wouldn't die. He died in the place of those who could not keep the covenant.
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That's what the covenant of grace is all about. This covenant of grace is for the sheepfold.
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And only his sheep, whom he will not lose, is in this sheepfold.
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These Pharisees in John 10 were trying to enter into the New Covenant, the covenant of grace, by another way.
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And that other way was through the law. It was through Moses. And my dear friends, as they're trying to enter, their biggest thing is they want to take
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God's elect, and they want to teach God's elect, and in doing so, not to truly follow
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God by believing in the Messiah. The law was the wall that was made to keep them out.
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That's why it says that they try to climb in over the wall.
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The sheepfold was only for the righteous. Now turn with me to Romans 10.
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I know there's a lot of information being given here. Next week, we'll go a lot smoother because we'll have this foundation, but we won't have to revisit too much.
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Romans 10. You're going to see in Romans 10 these religious leaders climbing the wall.
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Look at verse 1. Paul writes, Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God is for them, speaking of his
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Jewish brothers, these religious zealots, that is, that they may be saved.
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For I bear witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
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For being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own righteousness, they did not submit themselves to God's righteousness.
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Verse 4 tells you what God's righteousness is. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
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Christ is the end of the law. And these religious zealot
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Jews, instead of entering in through the door, they're using
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Moses to get over the wall. The law had, well, they had taken what
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God had given them, speaking of the law, and they have misused it. The law had become their tower of Babel to reach
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God. They are thieves and robbers. We'll dive more into that next week as well.
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But ladies and gentlemen, there's only one way to the Father, and that is through the same door as the sheepfold.
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That door of grace, that door is Jesus Christ. Real quick, turn back to our chapter.
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As we close, look at verse 1.
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Truly, truly I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs in by another way, right?
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The door being Jesus, they're trying to climb in by the other way. These sheepfolds only had one door.
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The other way was a wall that was built around it. And so we're given this word picture of this.
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They're climbing in by using another way. And what is that other way? Look over here at verses 28 again, and we're going to read verse 29.
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And they reviled him, saying, You are his disciples, but we are disciples of Moses.
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We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.
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This other way was Moses. This wall that they're trying to climb over is the law.
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They're trying to use the law to get to God. They have established their own righteousness.
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They're not using the door. They're not entering into the covenant of grace by the only door given to them.
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And we'll pick up more on that next week as well. Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation.
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Amen? Is there another way? Is there something else we're looking forward to? Are we waiting for something else to happen?
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Are we waiting for heaven to open and send us something less than what is already sent? Absolutely not.
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Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation, and if you're looking for another way, you're not going to find it.
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If you try to use the law, you're not going to get there.
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You're cursed. You're cursed, and that covenant is over with. You cannot use the law to get to God.
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And my dear friends, if you have not come to Christ, the Bible says that today is the day of salvation.
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Jesus Christ lived a life that you and I could not live, fulfilling the prophecies concerning what must be fulfilled in order for the covenant of grace to be inaugurated.
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And he died the death that you deserve to die, taking your punishment. You broke God's law, but instead of you receiving
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God's justice, God placed your sins upon Jesus Christ and crushed him in your place.
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We are available to anyone who wants to talk. Let's pray. God, Lord, we love you, and we thank you for the covenant of grace.
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We thank you that through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, we have entered into that covenant.
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You have given to us faith to believe, and Lord, I pray if there's any here today that does not have the faith to believe, that you will give them faith right now and that you will add them to the body of Christ.
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Lord, I pray right now for this meal we are about to receive. Lord, I pray if there are any here who has been living in sin and they're unrepentant,
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Lord, that you will keep them from partaking in this table. Lord, all of us have sinned, and Lord, I pray that you will give us the ability to confess our sins to you, knowing that you are gracious to forgive us so that we may partake in this meal with a clean conscience.
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Lord, I pray that you bless it, and I pray that you use it to grow us into the image of Jesus Christ.