What Is The New Covenant? (Part 1)

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

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Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry.

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My name is Mike Abendroth. It is in real time. What day is it in real time? It is

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March 2nd in real time. I guess that means tomorrow is

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Mike, at NoCompromiseRadio .com. You don't have to go through the website, I'll give you a discount, et cetera.

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I think I've got a bunch of bumps left, and I don't know how many Sexual Fidelities.

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Who knows what'll happen with those. We're talking today about Jesus in the book of Hebrews and the

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New Covenant. There was an old covenant, and that covenant was with Israel, and they broke it, and it says in verse 7 of chapter 8 in Hebrews, "...for

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if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second."

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And then he gives a quote, right after he says, "...for he finds fault with them when he says..."

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And then he gives a quote from Jeremiah 31. And last time we were talking a little bit about this New Covenant, and if you want to think about covenants in the

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Bible, you could think about the Noahic Covenant, you could think about the

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Abrahamic Covenant, you could think about the Mosaic Covenant, you could think about the Davidic Covenant. This is the

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New Covenant. You could think about, in eternity past, the Father and the Son, and of course the

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Spirit was there. He applied the work of this covenant. The Covenant of Redemption, the

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Pactum Salutis, the Pact of Peace, I think some call it the Covenant of Creation, no, that's

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Covenant of Works, Covenant of Grace. There are different covenants.

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And this one is the New Covenant. And so people have questions. Who's this referring to?

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There's not a lot of explanation here in Hebrews chapter 8. The focus in Hebrews chapter 8 with this

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New Covenant is not external, but internal, inside the believer, inside the heart of the believer, what

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God is doing on the inside of the person. And that makes it a New Covenant and a Wonderful Covenant.

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The parties of the covenant are God and, of course, His people. And there are negative sides to this covenant and positive sides.

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But when I say His people, then who are the people? So today, just briefly, we want to talk a little bit about the

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New Covenant recipients. And it says in verse 8, Behold, the days are coming, declares the

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Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when

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I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the

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Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, declares the

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Lord, I will put my law into their minds, I will write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

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And they shall not teach each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, Know the

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Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.

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And speaking of a new covenant, He makes the first one obsolete, and what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

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So people want to know, okay, it says the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Who's this for?

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And does it apply to me? And if you're a Christian today, you probably want to know, do

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I get these benefits? Do I have to wait to get these benefits? Are these benefits only for Israel? To what degree do

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I receive any of these benefits, if at all? Because these are wonderful benefits. It would be great to be the recipient, to be on the receiving end of these benefits.

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Well, there are four main views of the recipients of the benefits of this covenant.

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And essentially what we're doing is, how does the church relate to this? That's where we're going. I haven't talked a lot about eschatology here on No Compromise Radio.

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I'll probably talk about it more and more as time goes on, as needed, as appropriate.

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I'm just trying to study a variety of different things, and there are certain things I learned when I was younger, certain things

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I learned in ministry, and then I'm just kind of revisiting certain eschatological systems.

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View one, and J. N. Darby, who's wild, who's kooky, type in Pat Abed and draw

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Twitter J. N. Darby and see what he says about him. Happy birthday, Pat. This covenant is with Israel only.

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And Jeremiah literally understood Israel. Darby writes, quote,

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The first covenant was made with Israel. The second must be so likewise according to the prophecy of Jeremiah. We enjoy indeed all the essential privileges of the new covenant, its foundation being laid on God's part in the blood of Christ, but we do so in spirit, not according to the letter.

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The new covenant will be established formally with Israel in the millennium. End quote, J. N.

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Darby. So for him, it's Israel only, and I don't know how...

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I mean, I haven't studied Darby enough to know, but there's some kind of spiritual way that the church is involved now to receive some of these benefits.

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I don't think Darby would say in an already not yet sense. I would think he would say a spirit sense and a letter sense.

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So letter no, spirit yes, because he'll probably go to Colossians 1, et cetera. So that's the first view that we at No Compromise Radio don't believe.

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The second view that we don't believe either is that there are two new covenants, one new covenant with Israel and one new covenant with the church.

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And so what happens is you look at this and you go, yeah, that's for them. So what about for us? And so for us, then we're going to need something else.

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The problem is that's not what the text says. The problem is if Israel's Mosaic covenant was the old covenant and the new covenant is their new covenant, and the church also gets a new covenant, what was the church's old covenant?

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See? Okay, what kind of power drink is this?

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This is some type of monster drink. I'm sure my listeners are not going to be liking that I drink this.

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But when you have to talk about eschatology, see, that's what happens. Lewis Barry Chafer, Charles Ryrie, and Walvoord all had this view and held this view.

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Pentecost wrote about this view, J .D. Pentecost, Dwight Pentecost, in his book.

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He didn't say it was his view, but he had a long discourse on it. And here's what

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Chafer says. Reference at this point is to the new covenant yet to be made with Israel and not to the new covenant now in force in the church.

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Because he knows, see, that there's these benefits to the church that the church has. And we're going to talk about how we know that the church has these benefits in a little bit, hopefully later this show or maybe next.

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Chafer goes on to write, There remains to be recognized a heavenly covenant for the heavenly people, which is also styled, like the preceding one for Israel, a new covenant.

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It is made in the blood of Christ, Mark 14, and continues in effect throughout this age, whereas the new covenant made with Israel happens to be future in its application.

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See, they're thinking millennial kingdom, right? To suppose that these two covenants, one for Israel and one for the church, are the same is to assume that there is a latitude of common interest between God's purpose for Israel and his purpose for the church.

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See how that works? Here's what I think Chafer is trying to do.

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Well, Chafer, you know, I think ordained as a Presbyterian, grew up as a Presbyterian. He doesn't want there to be continuity with God's people.

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He doesn't want to say anything about Old Testament believers are the church. He can't have that.

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He can't say the promises for Israel are now for the church because that would equate

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Israel and the church or something like that. Therefore, he's trying to make them make distinctions between the two of them.

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Ryrie, Walvert, and others, there's got to be a millennial kingdom where this has to be fulfilled.

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And somehow, though, the church is receiving some of these benefits. So how do we go about doing that? Well, we'll keep the one covenant,

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Jeremiah 31, Hebrews 8, and Hebrews 10 for Israel. And then we'll say that somehow that Israel, even though they're the recipients, the church grafted in, added on somehow, but they're going to have two new covenants.

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You don't want to say there are two new covenants. That's going to not help you in theology.

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If you're going to go say that, then you're going to have to think about what kind of theological presuppositions you have in order to say that.

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So what we're doing here on No Compromise Radio today is we're thinking about the new covenant. This view is a very common view.

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And the third view says that Israel has been replaced as a participant in the new covenant by the church.

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Israel has failed, and now we have the church. Blessings promised

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Israel fulfilled in the church. Lenski writes in Hebrews 8, 8 commentary, right here we have the universality of the

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New Testament. Lost among the Gentiles, in turn Gentile, the gospel goes out to all nations to bring the

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New Testament in Christ's blood to all. O .T. Alice says, the passage speaks of the new covenant.

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It declares that this new covenant has been already introduced and that by virtue of the fact that it is called new, it has made the one which is replacing old, and that the old is about to vanish away.

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It would be hard to find a clearer reference to the gospel age in the Old Testament than in these verses in Jeremiah.

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And so what you're going to do, you're going to say this is the church in the present age. George Alan Ladd said that this section disputes any kind of dispensationalism because it applies the prophecy to the

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Christian church, which in its Old Testament setting referred to Israel. And so now the church is getting this, right?

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Yeah, these are Jewish people receiving this, but this is after the resurrection. And so we have the church, and of course we're going to talk a little bit about the new covenant in my blood that is for the church at Corinth, right?

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Jesus gives the Lord's Supper at the Last Supper to Jewish men, and then he, using new covenant terminology, gives this covenant promise to the church, to those

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Gentiles at Corinth. And Ladd goes on to say, it affirms that the new covenant in Christ has displaced the

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Old Testament cult, which is therefore doomed to pass away. So this is going to be not just for Israel, but this will be for the church.

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That's the third view. And then the people that I run around with, run circles around,

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I'm not just kidding. The people that I know mainly, they're going to say,

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I mean, people that I study are going to have the third view. It's going to be the amillennial view, because I study

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Presbyterians and hang out with them. And the people that I think

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I've been trained under and the people that I run around with in terms of, I don't know, conference speaking or something like that, they'll say this fourth view.

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And I'm going to talk more about the third view in weeks to come. We're just kind of giving an overview right about now.

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There's one new covenant. This is view four. There's one view covenant. View covenant.

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Fourth view, new covenant. Same as the first. Time for some more of this drink,

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I think. You know what? Since this is ADD radio and I want to try to keep you busy,

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I'm thinking, I wonder what Hebrews 8 says. New covenant in the

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Message Bible. I will be their God. They will be my people.

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They won't go to school to learn about me and buy a book called God and five easy lessons. I'm not making this up.

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They'll all get to know me firsthand. The little and the big, the small and the great. I'm going to add this part.

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Okay, ready? This is not the message or this is my version of the message. They'll all get straight A's in class. Summa cum laude.

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Back to the message. They'll get to know me by being kindly forgiven with the slate of their sins forever wiped clean.

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That's true. Let's get with it. Our views.

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The people that are in our circle for the view there. They don't want to see

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Israel's promises fulfilled in the church.

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They don't want to see the church, Genesis 3 church. They want to have

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Israel in the church, but they realize that the benefits of the new covenant are applied to the church.

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They don't want to forfeit the future for Israel. Of course, this gets into studying Hebrews, Romans chapter 11 and Israel.

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Do you take Israel there to be national ethnic Israel? Do you take it to be the church or do you take it to be, as many do, the ethnic elect in Israel?

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You have different views of what do we do with Israel. But what happens is there's an eschatological fulfillment of this new covenant in the nation of Israel.

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That's this particular view, fourth view. But the church in a soteriological salvation way gets some of it now.

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They get to experience it now, not some of it. They get to experience it now. Therefore, this view will also have an already, not yet.

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There's an already, church gets the blessings, and a not yet, ultimately fulfilled in national

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Israel in the millennial kingdom. Therefore, he's wanting to let these people know, okay, you do receive these blessings if you're a

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Gentile, but there's a future for this Israel. So those are really the four view.

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Here it says, on this particular view by David Allen, here's the crux of the issue. The author of Hebrews applies

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Jeremiah's new covenant to the church, and yet the Old Testament connects the new covenant with the house of Israel and Judah in a future fulfillment.

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Already fulfillment, as well as a later full and complete not yet realization. That's what another writer says.

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Well, I think that view one, the Darby view, is

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Cuk's and Barney's. I think view two, the two new covenant view, is Cuk's and Barney's.

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I think view three and view four, those are the two viable views, and of course, it gets more difficult than all this, and my purpose today is simply this.

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It's simply to say, for certain, Christian, you get the benefits of the new covenant now.

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I don't really care which view you take, three or four, amil, premil, that's not my concern.

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My concern for you is that I want you to know that you receive these benefits now. The author of Hebrews is applying the new covenant to people who are believers in the church, right?

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First Corinthians chapter 11, believers in the church. Jesus is the mediator of this covenant now, and you receive the benefits now.

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The better promises are for you. The better covenant is for you, founded on better promises for you.

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Jesus is mediator now for you. Gentile blessings, Jew blessings.

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Hebrews is a Christian sermon for Christian encouragement, and you have to say that the new covenant finds its realization in Christ Jesus, and if you believe in Christ Jesus, you receive those.

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So this is all leading up to me, for me to simply say, I don't really care about your view at the moment.

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I mean, I have my hunches, and I have my thoughts and leanings and all that stuff, but I know we have premil and amil listeners.

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This is for you. If you're thinking, really it's for people who are premil, but very dispensational premil, who somehow think they don't get any of this, and it's just like spirit, letter, confusion.

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This Jesus, this mediator of a better covenant, these benefits,

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Christian, are yours. Dispensational premil person, they're yours. I want you to realize that.

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It's for today. You think about verse six, but now he has obtained a more excellent ministry in as much as he is also mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises.

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This is in effect in the time of the Hebrews writing, when it was written, the present validity of the new covenant.

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If you're going to say that there's no present validity to the new covenant, then what you're going to do is you're going to deny the priesthood of Christ Jesus, the high priest, because this priesthood,

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Christ high priesthood, is superior to the old covenant. And it was established, this old covenant, and it was broken.

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And then now he has obtained a more excellent ministry. 915, for this reason, he is the mediator of the new covenant by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance by the substitutionary death of Christ, penalty substitution, his sacrifice, sins forgiven.

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Correct? Correct. You have this great high mediator, high priest, now, for first century

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Christians and beyond. I just don't like it when people are saying one of the first two views, sins forgiven now.

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So what's happening here on No Compromise Radio is we're getting into the high weeds now, and probably what we need to do is we need to study

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Galatians 6 .16, Israel of God. We're going to need to study Romans 9 .6,

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and we're going to need to study Romans 11 .25 and 26. Some of those are the issues. But either way, if you're historic pre -mill, or if you want to be dispensational pre -mill, if you want to be amill, the promises of this mediated covenant by Jesus are for you.

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If you're in the church, they're for you. This is what it says right here. When the new covenant was talked about in 1

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Corinthians 11, do you think he was thinking about this? He was. He was.

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Paul was as he was giving that. This is the new covenant. So what's happening on No Compromise Radio now is

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I'm going to just look this up here. I was thinking I was going to do something else, but the time goes by so fast.

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Now, when you hear these words, do you think new covenant? Because they're written to Gentiles, a church.

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It says, For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said,

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This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way, he also took the cup after supper, saying,

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This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

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For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Friends, you have to say that's for the church because Paul is giving the new covenant to the church.

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Now, if you want to say this is by application, this is by grafting in, this is by something or other,

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I don't care. I mean, I care. But I care more that you realize the new covenant is for you, church.

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You say, well, it's not really originally intended for me, and it's an already, not yet, and it's this, that, and the other.

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Okay, let me even grant you that. I don't care. You can have that. You can have that and hold on to it.

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I just want you to say today, I'm so thankful for the Lord Jesus Christ. I've got a new covenant.

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And if this covenant was based on my work, I'd never make it happen. But the Lord Jesus, very gracious, very great, very wonderful.

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And he's my high priest, and he mediates this new covenant of which I am part and I have not just fellowship with him, but I have sins forgiven.

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That is a wonderful, that's a wonderful truth. So I think what can happen is if you are too wound up on making sure that somehow you are strictly reading

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Israel and Judah here and say, no, it's just for them and the millennial kingdom, then friends, you're missing out.

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You're missing out. I think what you're doing is you're saying, well, I'm forgetting that Hebrews and 1

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Corinthians are applying these things to the church. And whether that church is full of Hebrews or Gentiles, it doesn't matter.

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It's still the church. So anyway, my name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio. You can write me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com.

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And if you want to order some books for every book that you buy, Sexual Fidelity, No Compromise, 30 short chapters of stuff that I talk to my son about, in an appropriate way, there's nothing kind of weird in the book or inappropriate, then we'll send you a free bump, things that go bump in the church.

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No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible -teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston.

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You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.