Covenant Inauguration - Exodus 24

Good morning to each of you. It's good to have you come to Faith Bible Church. If you have your bulletins, see what our announcements are for the week. We have a prayer service tonight at six o 'clock.

We enjoy that time together. And then there's also a Bible study on Friday at 530, going through the book of Galatians. And that's an excellent study. And we would encourage you to come out to that. And also take notice, men, at Saturday.

It's the first Saturday of each month we have a men's get together with a men's breakfast. We look forward to that. So we hope you will come out to that and have a good time of fellowship with the men as we come together.

And I think that's most of the announcements. We had a great day yesterday celebrating the birth of the coming birth of the Cho's. And it was a real blessing for all of those who were there, catching up on names with games and so forth.

Things change. You know, when I was younger, only the women got together and we didn't mind that either. You know, for a shower, the men says fine. But it was an enjoyable time. It was really was. So we thank the Lord for the Lord's blessing.

We continue to pray for Lauren as she carries this precious one. We hope that the Lord would give them the wisdom, as my father would say, raise them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And we look forward to a blessing that even this child will have at Faith Bible Church.

I was thinking this week. I've been going very slowly through the book of Ephesians and the first three chapters of Ephesians tells about all that we have because we're in Christ. It says if you are in Christ, if you've accepted his gift, you are in Christ and you're part of the body.

We often talk about the Holy Spirit indwelling us. But if you get into chapter four, it talks about the fact that it says and I'll just read the verse 16. The whole body is joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share and causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

So not only does the Holy Spirit indwell us individually, the Holy Spirit says that we are a temple, a body that he indwells corporately. That he wants to work through each one of us. And he says, the way I do it is I've given each one of you a service that contributes to, and I would say, Faith Bible Church.

And so we look forward to that. And I had written a note years before, and it says we are firmly put together, closely united and solid. Aren't you glad that you are as a church firmly put together and joint together and solid?

And today, as we sing and as we think about this, let's think about the fact that we corporately are worshiping the Lord together with what he has provided each one of us with. And we will look forward to a blessing from the Lord because that he his desire is for us to help each other, to encourage each other.

And I think that's the case, even with yesterday when talking, with getting to know each other a little better. And knowing how we can encourage and strengthen each other, knit together. And it's nice when we get old and decrepit, it's nice to know that we're solid and put together, right?

So that's a good blessing from the Lord. Let's open with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we come to you this morning. We do thank you, Lord, that you have made a plan for us, for the salvation that you have given us and placed us in your body.

We pray that each one of us might do what you have desired us to do, to encourage one another, to strengthen one another. We would pray, Heavenly Father, that as we continue our worship this morning, through the songs, may the words come from our hearts as we worship you.

May we take to heart the things that Pastor has for us from your word. And again, we would pray, Lord, that you would give Pastor the liberty that he desires for the things that you have taught him, even this week, as he presents them to us.

We thank you again, Lord, for a country that you've allowed us to have the freedom to worship. We thank you, Heavenly Father, even in spite of all of our sin as a nation, you still are gracious to us.

We would pray that you would continue to bless us as a nation, and we would thank you for that. Now we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

Good morning, and praise the Lord that we're able to gather together, and let's sing together to our Lord, our Heavenly Father.

Please stand, and please be seated at this time. Good morning. Good morning.

Our shooting for this morning is 1 Corinthians 11, verses 23 through 26. For I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, that same night in which he was betrayed, took bread.

And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, Take ye, this is my body, which is broken for you. Just do it in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, which he had stopped, saying, This cup is a new testament in my blood.

Just do ye as often as ye drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death to re-come. May the Lord bless you to re-hear his word.

I will praise the name of God with a song and will magnify him with thanksgiving. Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Children are now dismissed to the Children's Church as Pastor Edwin comes.

The Church as Christ's Blood-Bought Family

Before we turn to Exodus 24, I would like to thank Faith Bible Church family for your tremendous love and generosity, not just yesterday, but also even before yesterday, in support of me and Lauren and even Micah too, right?

Many of you pray for Micah and are looking forward to seeing Micah. Some of you even say hi to Micah when we see Lauren, even before we say hi to Lauren. But we're just thankful for the family here because in the end, the closest bond we have is because of Christ Jesus, who shed his blood for us.

And that goes beyond the biological relationship, but being blood-bought brothers and sisters in Christ. And we're just thankful that we get to be part of this family. And we're just thankful for all of your generosity and love.

Covenant Inauguration at Mount Sinai

And with that, I would like us to turn to Exodus chapter 24. Exodus 24. Now he said to Moses,. So Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the judgments. And all the people answered with one voice and said,.

And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord and he rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and twelve pillars according to the twelve tribes of Israel. Then he sent young men of the children of Israel who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord.

And Moses took half the blood and put it in basins and half the blood he sprinkled on the altar. Then he took the book of the covenant and read in the hearing of the people and they said,. And Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you according to all these words.

Then Moses went up, also Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and they saw the God of Israel. And there was under his feet, as it were, a paved work of sapphire stone, and it was like the very heavens in its clarity.

But on the nobles of the children of Israel he did not lay his hand. So they saw God and they ate and drank. Then the Lord said to Moses, Come up to me on the mountain and be there, and I will give you tablets of stone and the law and the commandments in which I have written that you may teach them.

So Moses arose with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up to the mountain of God, and he said to the elders, Wait here for us until we come back to you. Indeed Aaron and Hur are with you. If any man has a difficulty, let him go to them.

Then Moses went up into the mountain, and a cloud covered the mountain. Now the glory of the Lord rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud.

The sight of the glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel. So Moses went into the midst of the cloud and went up into the mountain, and Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

Let us pray. Father, we are so thankful that we get to see a glimpse of what happened on that day when you sealed the covenant. Thank you so much that you have delivered your people Israel out of Egypt, and you didn't just leave them hanging in the wilderness, but that you made a covenant relationship with them that you would be faithful to them until the very end.

And thank you that we get to see that as a glimpse of the new covenant that's coming, that you would be faithful to us, to the uttermost, to deliver us out of sin once and for all, that you would not just leave us hanging in the middle.

God Establishes His Covenant Through His Chosen Mediator

Thank you for your grace and kindness. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Now this chapter shows the physical manifestation and the covenantal ritual that seals the deal to Israel's relationship with God. And this whole theme of covenant was so prominent all the way back to Exodus 19.

In fact, when God appeared on Mount Sinai, the Israelites said the same thing. All that the Lord has said we will do. And here they will repeat this phrase twice. And it creates a nice bookend to this whole section on God's revelation on Mount Sinai in order to make a covenant relationship with the Lord.

Now before I begin, I want to redefine what covenant is. A covenant is a legal treaty that defines what kind of relationship two parties are going to have. And the closest covenant relationship we have that reflects that of God and His people is the marriage covenant relationship.

There's this agreement for both parties on what it means to be faithful to one another. And in the similar sense, God made a covenant relationship with Israel after delivering them from Egypt's enslavement so that they may carry on their relationship with the Lord as a covenant relationship.

And the covenant relationship is a giant theme in the whole Bible because that's how God relates to His people. There's no other way in which God relates to His people aside from a covenant relationship.

There are conditions and there are promises that God promises to keep. Now this chapter is divided into two parts. In both parts, at the beginning of each part, God calls Moses up to the mountain alone for special divine revelation.

And at the end of both parts, God visibly appears. First to the elders and Moses in the first part, but the latter, only Moses in the second part. And the people watch God from a distance. Now, although the church is not under the old covenant, the covenant in which Israel entered in chapter 24, this concept is important for us today because it answers the important question of how does God establish a relationship with His people?

How does God establish a relationship with His people? And this may be, frankly, one of the most important questions of our lifetime. Since God exists, how is He going to relate to His people? Right? This means we don't get to decide how we approach God.

He does. We don't get to choose how we worship God. He does. He chooses how His people appear before Him. And we live in a modern world where it wants to be us before the driving wheel. Right? I want to decide how I get to believe God.

I want to decide how many ways there are to God. I want to decide how I worship God, what I think God is like. And in the end, we paint God in our image. Well, I can't think of God that way. I can't imagine God to be that way.

I can't imagine an angry God. I can't imagine a God who demands faithfulness from His people. Well, you don't have to. He exists. So, the main point today is how does God establish His relationship with His people?

How does He relate to His people? First, God establishes His covenant through His chosen mediator. God establishes His covenant through His chosen mediator. When God inaugurates the old covenant, He chooses the mediator out of all the people of Israel to represent His people.

Remember, there are hundreds of thousands of Israelites who got out of Egypt. Out of all of them, He chooses one. Now, He said to Moses, Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron and Nadab and Abihu and 70 of the elders of Israel, and worship from afar.

The first two verses show whom God will deal with when He is establishing the covenant relationship with His people. Now, from the hundreds of thousands of people who left Egypt, the Lord calls the 74 people, the 70 elders, Moses, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu.

Now, we are familiar with Moses and Aaron. They're the two brothers whom God used mightily to perform the signs so that Pharaoh would let his people go. Now, Nadab and Abihu are Aaron's first and second born sons.

They would presumably replace Aaron when the priesthood is set up. Of course, we'll find out later they were not so faithful and they did not quite replace Aaron. Now, these chosen 74 people would represent the 12 tribes of Israel.

Out of over 600 ,000 people of Israel, these 74 will represent Israel and worship the Lord from a distance. Now, verse 2 actually further narrows down the group. And Moses alone shall come near the Lord, but they shall not come near, nor shall the people go with him.

This verse shows that out of the 74, God permits only one single person to directly converse with Him, to approach Him. And this is one of the most prominent distinctions of the old covenant. It is mediatorial.

There is a chosen mediator between God's people and God. God's people cannot directly approach the Lord, but there is a single person or a few people who represent them before God. Israel had a corporate relationship with the Lord.

One could not just approach the holy God without His consent. They encountered God through one person, God's chosen mediator. And this will continue when the priesthood is set up. Only one family can serve as priests before the Lord.

You can't just enter the temple and sacrifice the Lord if you're not the priest. Now, verse 3 shows Moses' mediatorial role toward the people, right? So, Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the judgments.

And all the people answered with one voice and said, all the words which the Lord has said we will do. Just as Moses represented Israel before the Lord, he also represented the Lord to Israel. He was the middleman.

God's will was revealed to Moses so that he could share it with the rest of the nation of Israel. And all the words of the Lord and all the judgments represent the Ten Commandments and all the case laws that we went over in the past previous few chapters.

The Ten Commandments represent the words and the judgments represent the case laws. These individual specific cases in which Israel had to obey. What happens when your neighbor's donkey falls into a ditch?

You have to rescue him for your neighbor's sake. Right? Those individual case laws. Now, Israel was commanded to keep all the laws. And those laws reflected God's righteousness and compassionate characters to the rest of the world.

And here they agreed to uphold them. All the words which the Lord has said we will do. When God made a covenant with his people, it was a two-way street. God did not force his way upon his people, but his people had an opportunity to respond back to God's offer.

Right? They actually agreed upon this. After the agreement of the covenant, verse 4 through 8 detail the covenant rituals that proceeded to seal the deal. First, Moses writes the terms of the covenant down.

And then Moses wrote all the words of the Lord. And this was a normal part of a covenant relationship in the ancient world. Writing it down ratified the terms. Every covenant had a condition. For Israel, they had to obey what God commanded them.

And God would deliver them to the promised land as he promised. Those were the conditions. The second part of verse 4 to 5 show the preparation for the covenantal ritual. And he rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and the twelve pillars according to the twelve tribes of Israel.

Moses built an altar to represent God. Right? The altar represents God because on the altar we sacrifice for our sin. That's where we give to God what is due to God. And the twelve pillars represent the twelve tribes of Israel.

Moses, as God's chosen mediator, will mainly perform this covenantal ritual. Verse 5 shows the religious ritual that was required to prepare for the covenantal ritual. Then he sent young men of the children of Israel who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord.

Now, remember Moses was an old man. He was in his 80s. They sacrificed bulls. Bulls are some of the strongest domesticated livestock in the world. So he had to recruit the young men to help with the sacrificial system.

The two sacrifices that are mentioned are the burnt offering and the peace offering. And for most of us who have never done it, hopefully all of us who have never done it actually, the burnt offering, as we will see more in the Old Testament, signifies the total surrender to the Lord.

To the modern mind, sacrifices seem so backward and distasteful. Why did the animals have to die? But God used the sacrificial system to teach his people how to relate to him, how to have a relationship with him.

A burnt sacrifice, as the name suggests, required the animal, the whole animal, to be burnt. And as you know, burnt animals are actually no good for humans. That's not good for eating. Right? And that was the point.

Burnt sacrifice taught the people of Israel, you've got to give everything to God. You've got to surrender all to God. Right? The whole animal will surrender to the Lord without taking anything back. It symbolized and taught one's total trust before the Lord.

The peace offering, on the other hand, were not burnt up completely. But rather, only some parts of the animal were offered up to the Lord. The parts that were not burnt up were shared among the worshippers, God's people.

So, peace offerings represented a communal commitment to the Lord. Kind of like what Victor read in Ephesians, this communal worship, communal service, communal commitment to the Lord. And these two important aspects, these two important sacrifices showed us, showed Israel, the two important aspects of worship before the Lord.

Right? Under the covenant, a complete surrender to the Lord and communal commitment to the Lord were expected. Right? God's people were marked by their complete trust and communal devotion to the Lord.

That's how we knew, ah, they are God's people and that's how they live. And verses 6 to 8 show the main course of the event. And Moses took half the blood and put it in the basins and half the blood he sprinkled on the altar.

Then he took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people and they said, All that the Lord has said we will do and be obedient. And Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people and said, This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you according to all these words.

For the modern audience, this scene needs to be explained. There are a whole bunch of people that are being sprinkled on with blood. In the ancient world, a covenant was a legally binding relationship with conditions.

They were like treaties. The use of the blood was significant because the blood represented the life force of the animal. The fact that the blood was used to carry out this ritual was hugely symbolic.

It meant may death happen to you. May death fall upon you if either party fails to keep the covenant agreement. You would end up dead if you break the covenant. And the people of Israel and God were the two parties.

And this is why the blood was sprinkled on the altar. As I mentioned, the altar represents God. And then the blood after the agreement again by the people of God is sprinkled on the people. The blood covenant is ratified through this ritual.

And what would occur if the covenant was broken? The party that broke it would deserve death. They would face death. And this impactful ceremony of blood sprinkling does not get repeated in the Old Testament.

Because the Old Covenant is set here and here only. It gets mentioned, but it doesn't get repeated like this. After the covenant ceremony, the chosen 74 from the earlier celebrate the covenant with a meal.

This portion of the text returns back to the same representatives that we started with in verse 1. However, verse 10 describes an extraordinary experience that they've shared after the covenant ceremony.

Verse 10. And they saw the God of Israel, and there was under His feet as it were paved work of sapphire stone. And it was like the very heavens in its clarity. After the covenantal ritual, the selected leaders of Israel get to behold the glory of God.

The glory of the fully living God. Officially now, their God, right? He is called the God of Israel. The words of this verse cannot fully grasp the experience that these men had when they saw the majesty of the Lord on the mountain.

Note that the words cannot describe God's countenance. But rather, Moses is awestruck by the impact of God's presence on the ground. His presence was so exalted that Moses only describes what is under God's feet.

A paved work as it were sapphire stone. With heavenly purity and brightness. And this figurative language is used because it is difficult to grasp God's brilliant presence. Literally. Now consider this.

What we see is just a glimpse of the ground in which God was present in. And Moses writes this with metaphors. Because he can't fully explain, describe it with words. Now consider this part. We humans do not really pay attention to the ground we walk on.

Because it's bland and boring. In fact, we get frustrated when we step on something unpleasant like chewing gum or dog feces because we weren't looking down. Right? We weren't paying attention to the ground.

Why would we? It's boring. It's constant. It's bland. It's gray. But when God showed up, what would normally be ignored became the most awesome and glorious sight. What was normally considered dirty and dull became pure and dazzling.

Remember, they're in the wilderness. They didn't have better looking grounds. God's glory is so magnificent that his platform is of a different caliber than any earthly platform that we're used to. And that is the Lord whom these elders and Moses got to see and behold.

That is who he is. And the Israel elders saw the Lord. And what was the experience? What was the result of this experience? Verse 11 tells us,. But on the nobles of the children of Israel, he did not lay his hand.

He did not lay his hand means the chosen leaders did not die on the spot. Moses has to explain to us the sight was so brilliant and holy and magnificent. He has to tell us they actually didn't die on the spot.

They didn't die from the holiness of God. They didn't die from the pure weight of his glory. Moses has to clarify to us because God showed them mercy. And Moses had to reassure us and maybe even himself that they witnessed such a glorious scene.

They beheld such a glorious being and yet lived to write about it. And hence, Moses repeats the fact. So they saw God. This is not because he forgot. They saw God and lived. What did they do? They ate and drank.

Instead of dying on the spot, they ate and drank. They lived to finish the covenant ritual by sharing a meal together. The covenant ritual ends with a customary covenantal meal only among the leaders.

Now, how does this relate to the church? After all, we are not ancient Israel. Most of us are not even Jewish. Most importantly, we're even under a different covenant, the new covenant. This is important because the aspects of the inauguration of the old covenant is not only repeated, but it's gloriously intensified under the new covenant.

It's ratcheted up. It's escalated. First, under the new covenant, we do have a chosen mediator. Under the old covenant, it was Moses. Moses was the prophet par excellence in the Old Testament. Any prophet who came after Moses, the standard was Moses.

Right? Oftentimes, we think things that come later are better, right? Better iPhones, better laptops. Not so with prophets. It was Moses. Moses set the bar really high. However, the author of Hebrews takes Moses, the prophet par excellence, and compares him to Jesus, the son of God.

And he says in Hebrews 3, 5 through 6,. And Moses indeed was faithful in all his house as a servant for a testimony of those things which would be spoken afterward. But Christ as a son over his own house, whose house we are if we hold fast to the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.

His argument is, yeah, Moses was faithful. Yeah, but as a servant. But Christ, oh, he's better. He's the son. Who can better represent God, the father, other than the son himself? Jesus is better. Jesus is the mediator.

Not only that, because he is God incarnate himself, when we go to the mediator, we go to God himself. You approach God directly. You don't approach Moses, then God. You approach Jesus, who is God. You see the intensification.

Second, there is blood that covers his people. In the old covenant, the blood was that of bulls. And it was sprinkled on the people. And it lasted maybe a little while. But faded away. Because in the end, the blood of goats and bulls do not purchase forgiveness of sins.

It doesn't purify the conscience. In order for the new covenant people, the church, to become God's people, there was one thing that was blatantly in the way. And that was sin. Sin that says, my desire before what God wants.

Sin that says, my will over God's will. Sin that says, my way over God's way. And that was in every one of us. How does the holy God deal with that kind of people? To form a relationship? Well, he had to deal with sin.

And that's why it's not bulls and goats. Bulls and goats' blood do not purchase forgiveness. God himself became man. Lived a perfectly obedient life that Israel failed to do. And carried our sin on the cross and faced the wrath of God that we personally deserved.

That's how he dealt with sin. And those who place their trust in him alone, in Christ alone, are covered in his blood. Purified in Christ's blood. The blood that actually cleanses the soul. Not just outwardly, but internally.

The desire to sin goes away in Christ. We're covered by better blood under the new covenant. Third, a covenantal meal. In this text, a covenantal meal is shared among 74 people out of 600 ,000. Over 600 ,000, because 600 ,000 only counted men.

That's less than 1 by a mile. Who gets to share the covenantal meal under the new covenant? Well, the text that Jim read for us tells us anyone who believes in Christ, that covenantal meal, something to be envied on top of the mountain, shared only by 74 men, now it's opened up to anyone.

If you're a woman, you're welcome. If you're not a Jew, you're welcome. And that's opened because of Christ. It's intensified. Under the new covenant, it takes the background of the old covenant and builds a tower.

God Chooses His Mediator to Teach His Covenant People

Second, God chooses his mediator to teach his covenant people. After the inauguration of the covenant, God calls Moses alone again to the top of the mountain. Come up to me on the mountain and be there, and I will give you tablets of stone and the law and commandments which I have written, that you may teach them.

On the mountain, Moses will receive the tablets of stone with the ten commandments inscribed. And the purpose of this is to teach God's people to live in obedience to him. After all, that was crucial.

The old covenant people had to obey the law in order to stay in the covenant. Or they would have broken the covenant. The commandments are written on the stone tablets so that his people, God's people, would have access to God's law generationally.

After all, stone tablets don't fade away. They're more permanent than leather or papyrus parchments. And God's people were to not rely on their faint memory of their Mount Sinai interaction, but on the law written on the stone tablets.

That's what they were to look to, written by God himself. And it was Moses' job to initially teach the people of Israel how to obey. All of God's covenant people depended on one man to teach the whole people.

Verses 13 -15 describe steps that Moses took before taking a leave to go up to the top of Mount Sinai. Moses tells Joshua the following instruction, Wait here for us until we come back to you. Indeed, Aaron and Hur are with you.

If any man has any difficulty, let him go to them. Moses knows that when he's called up to the mountain, he might be there for a while. And his mind, as a great shepherd, is on the welfare of the people.

So he leaves Aaron, his brother, and Hur, an elderly leader, in charge, to solve any cases that may be difficult for the people. After all, they depended on knowing what God's will was, and only the mature believers would be able to tell them.

And when Moses gets to the mountain, he witnesses the presence of the Lord. Now the glory of the Lord rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day, he called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud.

All throughout the wilderness passage, we have been told that God's presence dwelt in the cloud that led Israel out. And the glory cloud here now dwelt on Mount Sinai. And Moses waited six days just to enter into that presence.

And although Moses experienced God's presence at the closest level, the rest of God's people actually get to see God's presence from afar. Israel did not depend on a testimony of just one single man. Israelites actually got to see God from afar.

It was an evidential religion. Verse 17, The sight of the glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel. That's a scary sight. You're in the wilderness, and all of a sudden, the tallest mountain in the whole wilderness is burning up.

What could be happening there? And this view of God showing up, appearing as a consuming fire is not new. After all, God visibly manifested himself before Moses in Exodus 3 as a burning bush. Right? And for Abraham in Genesis 15, burning torch.

God, the invisible God, visibly reveals himself so that his people may witness his presence. And verse 18 tells us how long Moses stayed up on the mountain to receive God's revelation. So Moses went into the midst of the cloud and went up into the mountain.

And Moses was on the mountain 40 days and 40 nights. In order for Moses to receive God's teaching, he had to stay up in the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights while the rest of God's people watched from a distance.

And this is really important for us to know because that's the characteristic of the Old Covenant. Did God appear to Israel? Yes, but from afar. Did God reveal his word to Israel? Yes, but through a mediator, a teacher.

And that's why when we take a look at the Old Covenant, it is vastly different from the New Covenant that we're under. In fact, the New Covenant is the opposite. According to Jeremiah 31, verse 31 as well, there is a proclamation of the coming of the New Covenant.

And it goes over how it's going to be different from the Old Covenant. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt.

That's this right now in Exodus. My covenant which they broke. We know who broke the covenant. Though I was a husband to them, says the Lord, but this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord.

I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts, and I will be their God and they shall be my people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they all shall know me from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin and I will remember no more.

Three particularly important distinctions of the new covenant. First, unlike the old covenant, the law is not written on the stones. Here we see that God wrote the law on the stone tablets. No more. Under the new covenant it will be written in our hearts.

And that is a supernatural work by the Spirit of God. God takes a rotting, dark, evil heart and makes it alive, gives a new life, breathes a new life into it and writes the law in the heart so that we obey from the desire that is purified rather than just an external reminder from a stone.

Second, God's people will not be taught by other people. Now, this does not mean there aren't teachers or pastors in the church. What it's saying is, in Israel, there were pagans among them because that's what they believed in Egypt.

What did Moses have to do? Teach them. This is not the way. You do not worship any other god. And that's something that the Levites carried on doing, the tribe of Levi, because they didn't know the Lord.

They were marked off just by their Jewishness. But under the new covenant, there won't be a mediating teacher between God and His people because each individual person will personally know the Lord because they will have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ the moment they believe.