(Manitoba 2001) the New Covenant in Christ's Blood — Zac Poonen

The New Covenant in Christ’s Blood

Let's turn to a verse in Luke's Gospel, in chapter twenty-two. Luke's Gospel, chapter twenty-two. We just sang about the blood of Jesus Christ. And there's something that Jesus said here about his blood, which I never understood, even sixteen years after I was born again.

And I find that lots and lots of Christians, even born-again Christians, haven't understood. Because the devil has blinded their eyes. We think the devil has blinded only the eyes of unbelievers. The devil blinds the minds of unbelievers, that's true.

But he seeks to blind the eyes of believers also from the full truth of the Gospel. When Jesus was with his disciples at the Last Supper, just before he went to the cross, we know he took the bread and said, This is my body, verse nineteen, which is given for you, Luke twenty-two, nineteen.

Then, in the same way, he took the cup after they had eaten, saying, This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. Now, he never spoke about this new covenant all his thirty-three and a half years, three and a half years of ministry, and he spoke about many wonderful things.

But now, when he was approaching the cross, he said, This blood, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. And as you drink it, you are testifying that you are participating in the blood of Jesus. It is not like the blood of bulls and goats.

It is the blood of an everlasting covenant, we read in Hebrews chapter thirteen, verse twenty. Now, how do I say that so many believers haven't understood this new covenant? Because I see so many believers weary and heavy laden under the burden of the law.

The law was the old covenant. And if someone were to ask you, any of you are believers, if someone were to ask you, what is the difference between the old covenant and the new covenant? I think many of you may not be able to give a proper answer.

You may have a rough idea. I could not have given an answer twenty-seven years ago. Covenant means the same as testament. We know the Bible is divided into Old Testament and New Testament. It is the same as Old Covenant and New Covenant.

But we don't use those words, testament and covenant, so much these days. We use another word, agreement. It means the same thing. There was an old agreement that God made with man. And that's what the law describes.

How man could relate to God. Do this and you will live. Nobody could do it. And to teach man that nobody could do it. God kept Israel for nearly fifteen hundred years under the law to prove that nobody could do it.

And the best people in Israel could not do it. They tried, but they couldn't keep it. But very few were honest enough to admit it. And those who were honest enough to admit it, God led them into the new covenant when Jesus came.

Like the Apostle Paul. He was honest enough to admit it. In one place the Apostle Paul said, According to the righteousness in the law, Philippians 3, he says that, I was blameless. To a high priest once he said in Acts 23 .1, I have lived in a good conscience before God until this day.

He grew up in a God-fearing family and from childhood he had kept the commandments all the way up to his adult life. He lived with a good conscience. And according to the righteousness of the law he was blameless.

But, in spite of that, he says in Romans chapter 7 that when it came to the tenth commandment, he just could not keep it. Because nine of those commandments were dealing with the outside. You could see if a man was not keeping the ninth commandment.

But the one commandment was relating to the inside. Why did God keep that as the tenth commandment? To find out how many people would be honest. You know, if a man steals or kills or commits adultery, that's on the outside, it's visible.

I mean, you can punish him for it. When it came to the tenth commandment which said, you shall not desire your neighbor's wife. How do you find out whether somebody is desiring his neighbor's wife? How can you say, hey, you're doing that?

You shall not desire your neighbor's house. How do you find out that? You shall not desire your neighbor's daughter. That's basically what it means to lust with your eyes. How do you know whether a person is doing it?

It was inside. And when Paul says in Romans chapter 7, when it came to that commandment, he said, I want to be honest, I found all types of desires inside me. Can you be honest like Paul? Then there's deliverance for him.

God has commanded deliverances for those who are honest, for those who will acknowledge the truth about themselves, because he came for, to call not the righteous, but he came to call sinners to repentance.

He did not come for those who imagined that they are healthy. He came for those who knew that they were sick with sin. But he came to establish a new covenant, that that which could not be done under the old covenant can be done under the new.

But how? He shed his blood to initiate that new covenant. The Bible says the God of this world has blinded the minds of those who do not believe. In 2 Corinthians 4 it says that. Blinded the minds of those who do not believe, so that they might not see the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

So that they might not understand this wonderful gospel. So, first he blinds them to the fact of the mighty power of the blood of Jesus to cleanse them from all sin. And then he blinds them to the fact that through the Holy Spirit they can have power over sin.

And a lot of people whose eyes have been opened to see the power of the blood of Jesus, even that they have not seen fully. How many of you know what the blood of Jesus can do? For example, do you know that there is no expression in the New Testament which says I'm covered by the blood?

Christians use it. A lot of Christians use expressions which are not found in the New Testament because their reading of scripture is careless. Covered by the blood is the old covenant. Do you know what the New Testament, new covenant equivalent is?

Cleansed by the blood. What is the difference? Supposing I had a blackboard here on which all your sins were written down from the day you were born and I put a sheet over it, that's covered. But if I took a wet sponge and wiped out that board, it's cleansed.

And there's a lot of difference between being covered and being cleansed. When you put the sheet over it, you can lift it up, it's still there. It's covered, it's like sweeping the dust under the carpet.

It's there, but it's not visible. The Bible says in Psalm 32, Blessed is the man whose sin is covered. That's all that the blood of bulls and goats could do. Cover sin temporarily, sweep the dust under the carpet, sweep the sins of man under the carpet until Jesus came.

It's kept under the carpet, covered. The blood of bulls and goats covered it. But there was always the remembrance of it. See what it says in Hebrews. I believe the problem of many people here is that you have not understood what the blood of the new covenant is.

That's the reason for a lot of depression. That's the reason for a lot of condemnation. That's the reason for a lot of discouragement. Now let me show you in Hebrews chapter 10, and you can be... Once you understood this, you can be free from this condemnation spirit, the spirit of discouragement, permanently for the rest of your life.

It did for me. I used to be a depressed, discouraged believer for so many years till I understood the new covenant. Hebrews chapter 10 says, The law was only a shadow of good things to come. It wasn't a real thing.

Please remember, my brothers and sisters, the law was only a shadow, like a photograph. How much can a photograph of food satisfy your hunger? It will only make you more hungry. You go to these restaurants, and there are these appetizing pictures of chicken and fish and all types of things.

Does that satisfy your hunger? It just makes you more hungry. That's what the law was, a shadow, a photograph of the good things to come. Don't ever seek to be justified by the law, or sanctified by the law, or made perfect by the law, because it is not possible.

Because it says here, They could not make perfect those who draw near. But, in verse 3, In those sacrifices under the law, there is a reminder of sins year by year, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

Cleansing, Forgiveness, and Freedom from Condemnation

Do you remember the sins you committed ten years ago? I don't mean in terms of memory, but you feel sometimes a bit guilty about them. Memory we can never do anything about. Things that we have done forty, fifty years ago, or as long as you lived, you remember because it is in your memory.

But it being in your memory need not make you feel guilty if you are cleansed. I want to ask you whether you feel guilty about sins that you have confessed to Christ more than once. You don't need to confess more than once.

God's got good hearing. If you confessed it once, He heard it. But, we confess it again. We think that the more we confess it, the more God is going to forgive us. Jesus said, when you pray, don't be like the heathen who think they will be heard for their much speaking.

God doesn't hear you because you speak a lot. God doesn't hear you because you confess your sins twenty-five times. Why do you remember with guilt the sin that you committed last week? Shall I tell you why?

You have not understood the new covenant in the blood of Jesus. And you have committed a terrible sin of equating the blood of Jesus with the blood of bulls and goats that could not take away your sin, but reminds you, reminds you.

It says there's a constant reminder. Reminder. Oh, you're a sinner. You've done that. You've done that. That's what the devil does. It says he's an accuser. How do we overcome that? The Bible says in Revelation chapter twelve, when the devil accuses, there's only one way to overcome him.

Revelation chapter twelve, the accuser of the brethren has been thrown down. Verse ten, the last part. Who accuses God's people day and night before God. And they, that's God's people, overcame Satan because of the blood of the lamb, not the blood of bulls and goats.

How do you overcome Satan's accusation? Here it's speaking about accusation. Day and night. Who is the one who accuses you day and night about your past sins? The devil. How do you overcome him? Only by the blood of the lamb.

Not by saying, but I'm gonna do it better in future. No. By the blood of the lamb. And I want you to see the mighty power of the blood of Jesus. Tonight. In a way that you've never understood it before perhaps.

The Bible says in one John in chapter one and verse seven, If we walk in the light as God is in the light, himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin.

Cleanse means it's wiping it out from the blackboard. Wiping it out from that board and you don't even know what was written there before. Erasing it from that videotape. You know, God's recorded on a videotape every single thing.

I mean, metaphorically speaking, as picture language. Everything from the time you were born, a tape's running in your memory of everything that is committed that you ever did. And here is in God's record that which you confess is blotted out.

If you come to God as a sinner. We don't have to confess every single sin that we ever committed in our life because that's impossible. I must have committed a million. How in the world can you ever confess those?

When the prodigal son came back to the father, did he make a list of all the sins he had committed? No, he didn't. You know what he said? Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. That was it.

It was over. Immediately he was forgiven. The ring was put on his hand, new clothes were put on him, and he was made to sit because it was a genuine repentance. He turned around. See, there we see what repentance is.

Repentance is not weeping and weeping and weeping and weeping. Some people weep, and there's nothing wrong in weeping. I believe there's sorrow in repentance, that's included, but that's not repentance.

That may be the result of repentance, but that's not repentance. And some people think that they've got to cry a little more in order to have their sins forgiven because, you see, the blood of Jesus in their mind is not enough.

We've got to cleanse our sins with the blood of Jesus and some of my tears, and more of my tears are there mixed with the blood of Jesus, my sin will be cleansed. That is an insult. You don't overcome Satan with your tears.

You can weep, there's nothing wrong in that. Blessed are those who mourn. They'll be comforted, but your tears don't add one bit to the cleansing of your sin, I'll tell you that. That is 100 with the blood of Jesus Christ.

And what is repentance in the story of that prodigal son? He turned his back on his father and went away to the far country and lived there, using all that his father gave him, just like many of you have done and I have done.

We use the help that God gave us to live for ourselves. We use the eyes God gave us to sin. We use the tongue God gave us to sin. We use the faculties and the money God gave us and the time God gave us to sin.

And that's what that prodigal son did. He took everything that the father gave him and spent it on himself. And a day came when he came to his senses and he turned around. That was repentance. He repented long before he reached his father.

He turned around and he put his back to the far country. He faced his father and he had repented. That's all that repentance means. It's turning around and saying, Lord, it's not saying to God, I will never sin again.

Nobody can ever say that. I can't say that today after 42 years of being a believer. It is saying to God, I don't want to sin again. You see the difference between the two? Not, I will not sin again. That's impossible to say.

But I don't want to sin again. We all know how to walk because we're not babies. We know how to walk. But how many of you can say today, I will never fall anymore in my life? I mean physically fall. Can any of you say that?

You can walk as you go out of this. You can fall down as you go out of this tent. How can you say you won't fall again? That you won't trip and fall? We can certainly say, I don't want to fall again. That I agree.

That's all that God demands from us when we repent. To repent is to say, God, I dishonor you with my sin. I never want to sin again. I've taken all the good things you gave me and I used it on myself.

I lived for myself. I lived for sin. I'm really sorry. There may be tears. There may be sorrow. That's okay. But that turning around, you have repented. And you believe that the blood of Jesus that was shed on the cross cleanses your sin.

God's word says that. And the Holy Spirit witnesses to your heart that that blood cleanses you. That he took the punishment. He took the guilt. And we overcome Satan by the blood of the Lamb in this way, that when the devil accuses me of sins that I've, of my past life, or of the sins that I've committed, which I've confessed to God, I say to him, the blood of Jesus has cleansed me.

You can't accuse me with that. You can't weigh me down. And the Bible also says in Romans in chapter 5 and verse 9, Romans chapter 5 and verse 9, it says, We are justified by his blood. That means God does such a work in our heart by the blood of Christ that it is as though I have never sinned in my whole life.

That's the power of the blood of Christ. And I believe every one of you must know that. Otherwise the devil will condemn you with something in your past life that he'll worry you with and harass you with.

God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, for that the world through him might be saved. The spirit of condemnation is not from God. If you hear a message that condemns you, probably that preacher is not even saved.

Or if he is saved, he's a legalist who doesn't know God as a Father. Or he may be saying it right and you may be understanding it wrong. There could be a number of reasons. But condemnation is never from God.

The Holy Spirit does not condemn. Many people ask this question. How can I know whether that voice in me is from the devil or from the Holy Spirit or myself? Is it possible to know? Yes. The devil condemns.

The Holy Spirit convicts. And there's a lot of difference between these two. It's very important for us to understand. It's like if my little boy is doing his math homework and he got a sum wrong. Condemnation would be to say to him, you are useless.

You're good for nothing. You'll never do anything right. You're always doing your sums wrong. Haven't I told you a thousand times how to do it? A lot of parents will speak like that because they're in fellowship with the devil.

That's how the devil speaks. You're useless. And they call them all types of names and make that poor boy so condemned. You ever hear a voice like that? That's the devil. But how would a loving father...

The loving father wouldn't pretend that math sum is right when it's wrong. He'll say, son, you made a mistake at step number three. Okay? You can do it again. Let's do that again. I'll help you. Let's go back to step number three.

You see there what you made a mistake there? Just correct that. You'll get the sum right. And that boy's got hope. Otherwise he feels I'm useless. I'll never do good in math in all my life. That's the difference between condemnation and conviction.

And because some of us here have, unfortunately, have had fathers or mothers who spoke so harshly to us, we've got this image of God also like that. Now I want to tell you, if your parents were like that, they were a pathetic representation of God.

God's a loving father. He will never condemn you. He'll convict you. Sure. And he'll not only convict you, he's the God of hope. He'll tell you how to do the sum right. He'll tell you how you can come out of that mess you got yourself into.

You think there's some mess you can create that God cannot get you out of? You go outside sometimes on a starry night and see the mighty universe that God created. Millions of stars. And if you were to look at this universe from God's viewpoint, even the whole solar system, sun, moon, stars, all put together, is a wee tiny dot in the universe.

And if you look more carefully at that wee tiny dot, you see a still more tiny dot revolving around there called Earth. That's Earth. And if you look at that planet Earth, look more carefully, you'll still see a really wee tiny dot called you.

And that you, you're thinking, ooh, what big problems I have, which this almighty God cannot handle. You gotta be crazy. Is that really true? That this almighty God who spins universes and planets can't solve that little problem you have?

Ooh, what a mess I made of my life. That's because we don't think God is so great. There's a verse in Psalm 50 which says, God said, You thought I was somebody like you. You thought I was somebody like you.

A lot of believers think God is like them. He isn't like you. He's almighty, all powerful, omnipotent. He fills the universe. This wee tiny dot called you and me moving around in the face of the Earth.

All your problems can be summed up into a wee tiny dot. Don't think this almighty God can't handle it. It's like a small ant trying to carry a wee tiny bit of food and thinking that even a man wouldn't be able to help him carry that weight.

What's that weight? We can just lift it with a little finger. That's about the proportion of God in us is far greater than a man and that ant. But for that ant, for that little ant, that wee tiny morsel of food, which is so small, such a heavy burden.

That's how the devil makes us feel a heavy burden. God's come to help us to cleanse away our sins, to blot out the memory of the past. I want to turn to Hebrews chapter 8 and show you something about the new covenant.

The Old Covenant and the New Covenant

In Hebrews chapter 8 we read, you remember, you know there are two chapters when you get time you must read. Can you remember this? Exodus chapter 20, that's the old covenant, the Ten Commandments. And Hebrews chapter 8, that's the new covenant.

Sometime when you get time, sit down. They're not long chapters. It's just about 15 verses or so in Exodus 20 and another 13 verses here in Hebrews 8. Very small chapters. You can read them both in less than 5 minutes.

But there you see the old covenant summed up under the law and the new covenant. There's a new agreement God has made with man. You know, in India, we were ruled by the British, like you're ruled here in Canada.

But we became independent in 1947 and we became a republic in 1950. So the king or queen of England was no longer our head. And when England ruled us in India, there were certain rules. There was a certain constitution.

And everybody had to follow it. I lived for 8 years under that. And we were ruled by that agreement that Great Britain had made with India, which was one of our colonies. But then, when we became independent in the republic, we made a new constitution, a new agreement.

And what did we do with the old one? What do you think we did with it? We threw it out. And the new one was not a little patch-up of the old one. No. It was not just that we took a few things and passed it on to that old one.

It was completely new. And that's the picture of how God has made an old agreement with man and He's made a new agreement. Now, why would anybody in India today want to go back to that old agreement which was made to the British before 1947?

No. We don't have... We don't need that. We're under a new agreement. I can't understand why people go back to the old agreement God made under the law. I find that even lots of preachers don't know anything about the new agreement.

Now, let me tell you something about the old agreement. Because I tell you, this prosperity gospel and this health gospel, which so many people are preaching, has come out of that old agreement. It's deceiving lots of people.

It's not found in the New Testament. It's found in the Old Testament. And people go to the Old Testament for their own benefit. You know how this prosperity gospel came up? I'll tell you. When many, many preachers became, particularly in the last 30 -40 years after the charismatic movement started, there were many people who preached tithing and a lot of people began to give that tithe and many preachers in the last 40 years became extremely wealthy.

If you read, if you go back to the lifestyle of preachers in the last century and all, they were not rich. Charles Finney was one of the greatest evangelists that North America has ever seen. He wasn't a rich man when he died.

But that's not true for a lot of evangelists today. And Charles Finney had power, which hardly anybody has today. The devil has somehow led people astray. And money became a very big thing. And preachers were delighted that people started tithing and they began to become so rich in the last 30 years at the expense of poor widows and poor believers.

And when they became rich, they had to justify this wealth. And what did they do? They went to the Old Testament to all those promises that God will make you rich and said, this is it. God blessed us because we are serving God and we become very rich.

And that's how this whole deceptive prosperity gospel came. Now I wonder why all these so-called prosperity gospel preachers don't come to the poor villages of India where people eat one meal a day, come and teach them prosperity.

No, they don't come there. They come and charge $10 ,000 a night in places where people are wealthy enough to give such a collection in one night. It's a deception. And what surprises me more is the number of believers who sit with their open mouth and believe all this is from God.

It's not from God at all. Because they haven't understood the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. Where in the world did Jesus say all that in the New Covenant? Where in the world do you find Jesus and Paul and Peter rolling around in such wealth?

Far from it. Paul worked with his own hands so that he wouldn't depend on anybody. That's how he served the Lord. But you know there's a lot of things that can change in our life when we come into the New Covenant.

And a lot of preachers don't like to hear it because it will demolish their financial empires and everything else thoroughly. But... And it will liberate the people from their hold that they have over them.

It will set people free into the glorious liberty of the children of God. If you understand the New Covenant. I know that's what it did for me. It will deliver you from depression, gloom, self-condemnation, feeling unworthy and useless and everything.

Once you understand the New Covenant. OK, now let's go back to Exodus 20. You know what it... The Ten Commandments were basically two statements. Thou shalt. Thou shalt not. That's all. Thou shalt have no other gods but me.

Thou shalt not make any idols. Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain. And thou shalt keep the Sabbath day holy. Thou shalt honor thy father and mother. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not bear false witness.

Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not covet. Thou shalt not... So on. It was all... You must not do this. But you must do this. And you must not do this. And you must do this. And you must not do this.

And you must do this. And the entire Old Testament law was like that. OK? Did it succeed? Today we have churches that don't stop with ten commandments. They've got so many rules. You must not do this.

And you must not do that. And you must do this. And you must behave like this. And this is what you must do. And that is what you must do. And this is what you must not do. And we keep all those laws.

And does it liberate us into the glorious liberty of the children of God? No. It doesn't. There are rules concerning food, rules concerning dress, and rules concerning this, and rules concerning the other thing.

It's back to the law again. Now come to the new covenant. Listen. Hebrews 8. Let's get liberated. Verse 7. If that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no reason, no occasion sought for a second covenant.

If that first covenant was perfect, there was no need for God to make a second covenant. Then why did God make a second one? Did He make a mistake when He made the first one? Not at all. God never makes any mistakes.

It's not like some new model of car that God rolled out because the first one had some defects in it. No. God made that first covenant and kept man under it for 1500 years to teach him, you can't make it this way.

And then when man had learnt that lesson, at least we hoped, God hoped man would learn that lesson, but 2000 years of church history proves that man has not learnt that lesson. Man still goes back under the law even though God said it's finished.

Now read Hebrews 8 .7 onwards. Finding fault with that covenant, He says, the days are coming when I will effect a new covenant. And verse 9, this will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers when I took them out of Egypt.

You know at Mount Sinai, the Ten Commandments, they did, verse 9, they did not continue in my covenant. They could not. Is there any man who's kept the law? No one. They could not keep it. Then God explains the new covenant.

Now this, verse 10, is the new covenant with the old covenant. And I guarantee that some of you are going to see something you've never seen in your whole life. Even though you've read Hebrews 8 so many times.

Please see, what is this new covenant? I want you to see from verse 10 to verse 12. Two words that occur very frequently. I will put my laws into their minds. I will write them upon their hearts, verse 10.

I will be their God. I will, verse 12, be merciful to their iniquity. I will remember their sins no more. Can you see a fundamental difference between Exodus 20 and Hebrews 8 now? Have you seen a fundamental difference between the old covenant and the new covenant?

The old covenant is, you shall, you shall, you shall, you shall not, you shall not, you shall not. And the new covenant, God says, I will, I will, I will, I will, I'll do it. You could never do it yourself.

And when you see that, you'll be liberated. Do you know the last miracle that Jesus did before he went to heaven? You read about it in John chapter 21? It was his last message. The miracles in John's gospel were called signs.

A sign is where the miracle has got a message. That's the meaning of a sign. That last miracle was when the disciples went fishing. One, after the resurrection, John 21, they went fishing maybe six o 'clock in the evening.

And Jesus knew very well that they would never catch any fish that night. Why didn't he come at 6 .15 in the evening and tell them, listen fellas, you'll never make it. You know why he didn't come at 6 .15?

Because they wouldn't have believed him. Then he said, no Lord, we're experts, we can do it. That's why he didn't come. So, they tried. One hour, two hours, three hours, four hours, six hours, it's midnight.

And they've never had such a bad day in all their life. Eight hours, ten hours, four o 'clock in the morning, still no fish. And why isn't the Lord coming? Why is he allowing them to struggle and struggle and struggle and fail and fail and fail, exactly like he kept Israel under the law century after century after century for fifteen hundred years, failing, failing, failing, failing, to teach them one lesson, you can't make it.

Coming to the End of Self-Reliance

Without me you can do nothing. That was the lesson God wanted Israel to learn. And that's the lesson that Jesus wanted those disciples. He said it in John 15 verse 5. They'd heard it. They'd heard it a few days earlier.

Jesus said, without me you can do nothing. But it's one thing to know it in your head. It's quite another thing to experience it and prove that it's true. And that verse, that thing that he told them at the Last Supper in John 15, without me you can do nothing, and which they didn't believe, they thought they knew it.

We all know it, don't you all know, without Jesus you can do nothing? But you still try. And you try hour after hour and day after day and year after year, and you fail, just like those disciples, trying, trying, trying, trying, trying, failing, failing, failing, and when did the Lord stop?

When they had learnt the lesson. When is the Lord going to stop with you, when you've learnt the lesson? They came to the point by about 5 o 'clock in the morning, when they said, we give up. They hadn't come to that point at 2 o 'clock or 3 o 'clock.

They said, let's just, 4 .30 they said, let's try once more. OK, go ahead. 5 o 'clock they said, no, useless, let's go home. Then the Lord came. They had come to an end of themselves. Their confidence in themselves had come down to zero.

That's the time when God begins to work. And then Jesus said, He first asked them a question, who said Jesus didn't have a sense of humour? He asked them, well, fellas, have you got any fish? He knows the answer.

You went out fishing, you thought you were experts at that? Have you got any fish? That honest reply. Have you succeeded? With all these years of trying to overcome your temper and the lust of the eyes and the love of money and bitterness, have you succeeded, boys?