When New Began To Be — Fred Tomlinson

Well, hello, my name is Fred Tomlinson, and it's a pleasure to be able to share with you today. My mind has gone back to the Old Testament as a starting point, and I have found myself thinking about the remarkable faith of so many of those men and women who lived under the Old Covenant.

Abraham's Faith Under the Old Covenant

Their faith was utterly remarkable, and at the same time, as we read it and we read the accounts and the stories, we find it to be profoundly challenging to our own hearts. You know, just to give you an idea, I was thinking about Abraham as an example, and you all know the story, I won't take more than a moment to refer to that, but the setting that I read about in the 22nd chapter of the book of Genesis, and it starts out like this, it came about after these things that God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, and he said, here I am, and he said, take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will tell you.

So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey. And the verse continues, but I'll stop there. I'm talking to you about stunningly remarkable faith in God, that God would bring this before Abraham as a challenge, as we're told there in the text, a test that we just can't even begin to enter into its depths.

It's been suggested that maybe, and no one knows for sure, but maybe Isaac, he could have been in his 30s somewhere at this time, and God issues the statement to him and defines what is required of him.

And the thing that strikes me so much, we read through the first two verses, which I've just read to you, and then we come to verse three, which starts off like this, so Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his ass, and so on.

David's Faith Before Goliath

Truly amazing faith in God. Or I could be thinking of David. I'm thinking of that moment when he has come to see Goliath challenging the children of Israel. And we read about that, I'm thinking, in chapter 17 of 1 Samuel.

And the text reads like this,. Then the Philistine came and approached David with the shield-bearer in front of him. And when the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was but a youth and ruddy with a handsome appearance.

The Philistine said to David, Am I a dog that thou comest to me with sticks? And the Philistine cursed David and his gods. The Philistine also said to David, Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the sky and to the beasts of the field.

Then David said to the Philistine, You come to me with a sword and a spear and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have taunted. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I will strike you down and remove your head from you.

And that text continues. Again, a young man with such remarkable, remarkable faith in God. Or, I'm thinking of another young man, his name was Daniel. And his story is a wonderful story. I'm just breaking into this also in the same way I've done with the other two.

Daniel's Resolve and Esther's Courage

And without trying to tell you why this came about, I read in the first chapter of Daniel, when he's required to do a certain thing, which is too detailed to mention now. But here's Daniel's response.

Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat. And so on goes that story. Just men here who are totally given over to God and with faith, amazing faith in God.

And then I'm thinking of one more. I'm thinking of a woman, her name is Esther. And in Esther, I read this on the 16th verse of chapter 4. Where, as a result of certain events, she has decided that she's going to go into the throne room of the king and speak with the king.

And that would be a fearful thing to do. To approach the king was to risk her own life. And she says, and thus I will go into the king, which is not according to the law. And if I perish, I perish. Wonderful.

The Faithful Witnesses of Hebrews 11

These are some of the people of God in the Old Testament. People living under the old covenant. It's interesting, the apostle writing the book of the Hebrews. And in writing, he's countering the unbelief with the necessity of radical faith in God.

And he drives home his powerful message and powerful challenge by saying to them in the first part of the chapter. Imagine yourselves living out your lives in a huge arena. And imagine that you're surrounded by the hosts of witnesses.

And he brings then a catalogue of these faithful old covenant saints. He said, just imagine being in that arena, you're living out your life and you're surrounded by these kinds of people. I'm not suggesting that this is happening literally, but the picture he brings before his people and before us is striking.

We ourselves, me, myself, you, yourself, we're living out our lives to all intents and purposes as we choose to express ourselves and involve ourselves. But this inspired apostles saying, just picture this, just picture this crowd of saintly people who lived under the old covenant.

We're all watching you, watching how you live, watching how you behave and how you react to your various situations. And in this 11th chapter of Hebrews, which you will be familiar with, I'm sure. He moves through a number of people, one or two that I've alluded to already.

But he moves on in the second half of the chapter. And in the second half of chapter 11, he speaks of these who suffered, I don't know, just breathtaking suffering that they passed through. But nevertheless, they're catalogued here.

Some of them died the most gruesome deaths. But they're catalogued here with those who are of faith. They died in faith. It didn't appear that they won some great victory. They perished in a dreadful manner.

But the Spirit of God has inspired the apostles. Put them all together here. Catalogue them together. And in that great chapter, which perhaps I'm encouraging and inspiring you to read, the apostle breaking in on that later list of names.

He pauses and he's clearly moved deeply in his heart as he's mentioning these people. So much so that he adds a parenthesis in his sequence of statements. And in verse 38, he makes this statement. He says, of whom the world was not worthy.

I mean, it just reads like this to give that even more significance. And others had a trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonments. They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword.

They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth. Listen to this now.

And all these, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise. God, having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. How remarkable. And I think, you know, in the flow of the chapter, I only read to you several verses, but in the flow of the chapter, as we're caught with the feeling, and I think the emotion of an inspired man of God as he works through these accounts, and then he comes to what is in our Bible, the 39th verse, and it's like there he just adds the, I don't know, the ground slam, as it were, when he says that all these, in spite of their great faith, in spite of these remarkable lives that were lived before God and by faith in God, they receive not the promise.

And then the 40th verse again, where he says, God, having provided some better thing for us. I think before moving on, I want to just add this, and we must note this. This doesn't mean that they miss out in the end.

The people of faith mentioned there will be where we will end up if we're faithful to God, and so on. But nevertheless, there's the stories referred to, there's their faith alluded to, and then there's this enormous challenge.

They receive not the promise, God, having provided some better thing for us. And then the writer has said something else in the fourth chapter of this same epistle. The chapter starts off like this, he says, Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.

The Better Promise in Christ

And that's the challenge, that's my starting point here with you in this session. We're surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses, these great saints of faith, and yet they could not experience what God has made available through the redemptive work of Christ for you and for me.

And this apostle is saying here, you really need to be afraid. You really need to face this challenge, that God has left something, that they, in spite of everything, and their great faith, they couldn't experience, they couldn't enter into, and God has made it available for you.

It's in the light of that kind of challenge we remind ourselves that there are so, so many today who are professing believers in the Christian gospel, but their life seems to display anything but that radical faith that we're referring to here, that was found in the Old Testament saints who could not experience what we may experience.

The tragedy is added for us today because I think so many people today, they give little or no thought to how their own lives are going to work out in the future. In other words, what I'm saying is they give little or no thought to the fact that a judgment day is coming.

We don't like to think about that, we want to get on with, you know, change the channel, go to another speaker, let's hear some other more dramatic message or something. This is too challenging, but this is real, this is the word of God.

God's Promised New Thing

And, you know, in the unfolding of the Old Testament, and we know this very well, don't we, that God provided prophets, and they brought many different words and many different statements from the Lord were prophesied.

But you remember that there was one particular theme that comes through time and again through those Old Testament prophecies, and it's this, it's God speaking, he says, I will do a new thing. And for the people who heard the prophecy at the time, for them, of course, it would perhaps have particular significance and meaning and encouragement for them with the idea that God was going to deliver them from Babylon's captivity or what have you.

But in reading those prophetic statements, we sense that there's a depth of significance wrapped up in those passages. Somehow, they seem to speak to our hearts because of the position in history in which we stand.

In other words, we're standing on this side of that cross that my brother was singing about a few minutes ago. Standing on this side of the cross, we look back at those prophecies and we understand things that the people who heard the prophecies at the time could not possibly have understood.

They would apply them to their immediate situation. They had an application to their immediate situation, but we look back and we think of the ultimate deliverance that would be brought about by the promised Messiah.

John the Baptist Announces the Messiah

And then the man who is referred to as the greatest of the prophets, and I quote Jesus, was John the Baptist. And John the Baptist pronounced, this is he of whom I speak. Another verse of scripture we find is where we read that John saw Jesus as he was walking and beheld him and said, behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.

This is he of whom I speak. Glory to God. There have been questions people have asked and they'll continue asking, I'm sure. What did Jesus mean when he spoke of John the Baptist as the greatest of the prophets?

What about Isaiah? What about Jeremiah? What about Ezekiel? And so on. But the fact is, each of those earlier prophets, they were able to bring the word of God as God quickened it in their own hearts and understanding.

But the fact is, they could not do what John the Baptist did. John the Baptist was the only one of the prophets mentioned that could actually point to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and say, this is he.

What Isaiah would call the new thing that God would do has come about. The new had come. And John the Baptist said, this is he. Amen. You know, as I continue reading and thinking over the scriptures, I find myself thinking about one particular man.

Peter Steps Into the New Covenant

A man, he's clearly not the only one, but he's a man who steps, as it were, through the new gate into the new covenant. He stepped into the better thing, as the writers of the Hebrews called it. You know, Jesus, as he set out with his public ministry, he called the various men to be with him, to be his disciples.

And he called 12, as you know very well. And none of them appeared to be particularly remarkable. They were just common garden men who were going about their particular business. They were all workers.

God only calls people who are already working. That's the testimony of the entire scripture. But they were working men. They were engaged industriously in what they were doing, what was their particular trade or whatever, and so on.

But beyond that, there was nothing remarkable about them, it would seem. And in calling them, there was never a suggestion that anyone would be the leader of the 12. But having said that, there's one interesting thing that has occurred to me, and that is, in the four lists of the disciples that I can find, in each case, Peter is the first in the list.

We also know that he was one of the three that were privileged to have several experiences that were very remarkable. But we won't digress to talk about those things. But Peter certainly seems to hold a particular place.

That's all I want to say. I don't want to raise him higher than I should. But there's some reason why his name was first in each of these four lists that I've mentioned. But what we also know about Peter is that he's portrayed in scripture as an impetuous man.

He's always speaking out of his mind. He's an open book. He just, what he thinks, he says. And that wasn't always good. But he acted on impulse. And then we are only too aware of the latter part of the Gospel story regarding Peter.

Not the end, but the later part where we hear him actually blaspheming and betraying the Lord Jesus three times. I mentioned that. I mentioned a couple of things. I'm saying there was nothing remarkable about him at all.

He's probably a wonderful fisherman and a wonderful husband and father maybe. He was married. We know that. But, you know, he's just a man. He's a man with some terrible flaws and failures. And betraying Christ was, in our mind, would rise to be top of the list, I'm sure.

But, you know, watch him carefully as the story unfolds. And as we do, just ask yourself a question like this. Am I currently experiencing and enjoying all that has been promised for me as a child of God?

Peter's Pentecost Transformation

You know, I see Peter. This is where I turn my camera on, as it were, with him. And I see him enter a crowded public square. And he calls the attention. It's a feast time. The city is thronging with people.

I'm in the city of Jerusalem. And somehow or other, he manages to call their attention. He doesn't have a loudspeaker system. But somehow he calls their attention. And that in itself was no small task, I'm sure.

But here's this man, virtually a nobody. He's a fisherman from miles away up country. Yet somehow his life is just aflame. He's got no theological qualifications. He's never done anything like this before.

He doesn't stand there with some kind of crafted exposition of the sacred text. And yet his preaching is devastating. His preaching is powerful. It's a prophetic proclamation that he brings to the mass of people that are listening to him.

His words cut like a razor. His words cut to the quick, to the heart. And these devoutly religious people are smitten in their hearts. Picture this. And they say, what shall we do? You know, this moment, this activity, these responses, they transcend all things that are merely natural.

Something supernatural is taking place here. I'm remembering how Jesus spoke to Peter earlier. And in the context of a broader statement, which I won't quote, we find these little phrases. He said, you are, you shall be.

This was a prophetic statement from Jesus. You are this, Peter, but you shall be something else altogether. And I find that sort of being expressed here. We know what Peter was so far as the limited accounts are concerned in the text of Scripture through the Gospels.

And now we're seeing him here. We're in Acts chapter 2, of course. That's what he was. This is what he is today. Amazing. I hope I'm helping you to catch a glimpse of something that I think so few actually grasp.

And perhaps even fewer actually experience. You be the judge. But what I'm bringing before you just now is huge. An entirely new element has come into play. And this fisherman Peter has stepped into it.

He's stepped into the new thing. The new thing has taken over his heart and his life. This man has been transformed by something outside of himself. He's been transformed by God. If we were, you know, just imagine, perhaps I'm stretching things a little too far here, but imagine that we're with Peter back then.

We've just listened to him preaching. We've seen the response, which is remarkable. We've found a moment somewhat quietly where we can just ask a question and we say, Peter, what happened to you? You know what I think he'd say?

The Holy Spirit and the Birth of the New Generation

Of course he would answer in the words of the King James Bible. He would say, the Holy Ghost has come. You know, that which John the Baptist prophesied about when he said that we will be baptised with the Holy Ghost and fire or the Holy Spirit and fire, it happened to me.

That which Jesus promised, that which Jesus called the promise of the Father, he said it's happened to me. He said, did you hear me when I was preaching? Do you remember the phrase I used when I said this that's happening?

Because everyone was saying, what's going on? People thought we were all drunk. Do you remember how I responded, says Peter? I said, this is that which the prophet spoke of. Amen. Today, Peter would say, I received the Holy Spirit of God, Jesus, by the Spirit of God, is here.

He's transformed me. Glory to God. This is huge. On that day, a new generation was born. Matthew refers to it right at the beginning of his Gospel. This is how he starts, the book of the generation of Jesus Christ.

The new thing had come. The Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, he lived out his life. He presented himself to the will of God and suffered at the cross. His blood has been shed. His blood has been presented in the most holy of holy places.

It's been received by his Father. The Holy Spirit has come. And lives are being transformed by it. This is the better thing that the Old Testament saints, in spite of all their great faith and their love for God, they could never have experienced because it was not available at that time.

But it's available to you and to me today. A new creation began to be. Amen. Let me put it this way. Suppose, should the Lord cause your journey to converge with a true new covenant man or a true new covenant woman, you'll quickly observe their radical abandon to God.

Mind you, they will never be arrogant. Without exception, they will walk with a limp. God having touched that area of self in their lives. I think back to Jacob, remember. But the presence that they carry is undeniably not of this world.

They bear in their body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Their lives are being lived out from a different songbook, as it were. They're commonly out of tune with the most popular choirs. And they have little concern for conventional norms.

Their delight is in the fellowship of the saints. But should it be required of them, they're prepared to walk alone. Should you hear them preach, you'll detect a distinction. Their preaching will carry that certain sound.

Clearly not the product of academia. They're not cut-and-paste preachers like so many today. They're not theological technicians. They are, as Paul puts it on one occasion, ministers of God. They teach with boldness and with authority, yet ever manifesting the tenderness of the Lamb, of God.

A New Covenant Example and the Call to Leave the Old

I was personally so privileged to meet such a man, just six miles away from my home. Little did I know at the time the life-long impact that meeting would make upon my life, my entire life. You know, he introduced God to me.

I've listened to the Bible. I don't despise the days by any means. I'm thankful to God for them. But from my childhood, I learned the Scriptures. But that man introduced God to me as I'd never known him before.

He showed the way. He lifted up a standard. He showed the way of God more perfectly. He was a new covenant man. You know, at some point, we have to be willing to break rank with those who content themselves with making do with the old.

Entering the New Thing God Has Promised

Beloved, the new has come. That text from Isaiah that I'm quoting, it goes on to say, shall you not know it? In other words, is it possible that you will miss it? The new has come. Will you miss it? And that's the question for you this morning or this afternoon or this evening, whatever time it is where you are.

The new has come. Amen. And I wonder today, will this day be the day in your life when the new begins to be? Will you? Your eyes are opened and your heart is open to the new covenant, to the new promises, to the new thing that God promised he would do and is currently doing, to the new heart, to the new spirit.

To the Holy Spirit. I quote from Ezekiel 36. My dear friend, open to it. Open to this truth, beloved. And may the Lord succeed in making you to be a minister of God. I'm quoting 2 Corinthians 6 and verse 4.

You can find it there. May the cry of your heart and all of our hearts together ring out in harmony as a prayer. I quote him from Amy Carmichael, I believe. Don't let me sing to be a clod. Make me thy fuel, flame of God.

Prayer for the Fullness of Blessing in Christ

Let me pray. Father, we are totally dependent upon you and your Holy Spirit. To speak into our individual hearts. Even when we read the scriptures, even when we share them as we are enabled and within the limits of our abilities.

Ultimately, it must be you that speaks, Lord. You spoke through Peter on the day we thought of together. Lord, when you speak into hearts of those that are listening now and will listen in the future.

Lord, and wake up men and women to these great realities. To this great challenge that there is that you have purchased and made available for us to know and for us to experience. Let us fear, lest any one of us seem to come short of it.

Wake us up, Lord, we pray. And bring your people into the fullness of the blessing which is in Christ. And we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Before I go, can I just say... Excuse me. If you'd like to continue to walk with me, to walk together, travel together, I wonder if you'd do a few things for me.

If you're not there already, will you visit the YouTube channel which has the title Turn to the Scriptures with Fred Tomlinson? Click on the subscribe button. Add a comment. And maybe you'd like to visit the McKenzie Fellowship which a link is right there for you.

I'm having to hurry up because my voice is going. We are also in the process of making audio versions of these messages available as podcasts. You can find the links on my channel and on the Fellowship channel.

I know they're in a number of locations. I don't understand all this. Other people have led me into this arena. I hope there's no wild beasts here. Anyway, may God bless you and take us all in Jesus' name.

Amen.