What Is The New Covenant? (Part 2)

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

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. 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 King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and it is real-time March 2nd, and here I am in beautiful downtown West Boylston. I think we have 6 ,500 people here in West Boylston, and boy, it�s cold.

I have to zip this coat up, and I�m here on a snowy day wondering when I�ll make it out of Logan to the Shepherd�s Conference. So if you�re at the Shepherd�s Conference, we should have a No Compromise booth there.

I think it�s supposed to rain. What kind of light is this? It looks like my head just goes into the clouds. Look at that. Online here for the radio listeners, I�m doing a Facebook Live, and you can be part of that if you care to.

I kind of learned this idea from Todd Friedle just because he just is recording. I guess that�s what they do now. Sports talk shows, they have a camera in there. Anyway, my name is Mike Abendroth. It�s No Compromise Radio.

You can write me. The glory lighting, Stephen�s right. Look at my head. It just is there, and then it goes up into just look, it just look, I have no forehead now. I have no head. There, that�s perfect.

Right there. Look at that. That is just absorption. This is a new movie. This is what are some of the science fiction movies that are out there? The Strain. Well, I just did a couple shows, and boy, that is really messed up, isn�t it?

That�s crazy. I just did a couple shows that weren�t on because I just didn�t make it happen, Facebook Live. But I�m talking about the New Covenant. So if you have a Bible, Hebrews chapter 8, and last time you were talking about who receives the benefits of this New Covenant, and really there are four main views.

The first two are the kooky ones, that this is for Israel only, and it�s Darby�s view, and that Israel receives these benefits, and the church gets some by the spirit, not the letter. That�s what Darby said.

And so there�s not much that Darby says that I like, including that. Hi, Wendy. Good morning to you as well. Let�s see. What�s the second view? The second view is by Chaffer and Ryrie and Walvard, and they basically said there are two New Covenants.

And so the New Covenant from Jeremiah chapter 31 that�s found in Hebrews 8 and Hebrews 10, that�s for Israel because there�s a future millennial kingdom for Israel, and then how does the church receive benefits?

And they know that the church receives benefits because even in Hebrews, since that�s a Christian sermon, they receive benefits. And of course at Corinth, if you want to argue that the recipients of the letter of Hebrews were all Hebrews and therefore they weren�t really of the church, that doesn�t work either.

But let me just give you this, Paul writing to the church at Corinth that you would all know is Gentile, this cup is the New Covenant of my blood. And so we have this New Covenant that certainly applies to New Testament believers.

And so that view that there are two New Covenants, that�s a bad view because if Israel�s Old Covenant was the Mosaic Covenant, their New Covenant is Jeremiah 31, if the church has a New Covenant, then what�s the church�s Old Covenant?

See where that goes? That doesn�t go anywhere. The third view is more of an all-millennial view, and that is the church is taken over for maybe you don�t want to say taken over but the church receives the blessings of Israel.

And when you think about Israel saved, and all Israel saved, and the Israel of God, Galatians 6 and Romans chapter 9 verse 6, and then Romans 11, 25 and 26, you can either take that Israel there as ethnic national Israel, you can take it as the church, or you can take it as some all-mill folks take it as ethnic Israel, but not as a nation.

But that view, two New Covenants, bad view, letter-spirit bad view, all-mill view, is similar to, in this respect, the other view that most people probably that listen to No Compromise Radio would believe in, in that it�s kind of an already-not-yet.

There�s a current benefit for the church that will be ultimately realized in the Millennial Kingdom in Israel, and of course, the passage does talk about Israel and Judah. So I�m not going to tell you which one is my view, because here�s the point.

With one and two are out, three and four, here�s the issue. The issue is you, Christian, receive the benefits. I don�t want you to somehow get so caught up in am I historic pre-mill, dispensational pre-mill, ah-mill, post-mill, pro-mill, pan-mill, chick-fill that was for Stephen.

Jesus, the mediator of this New Covenant man, this is so bugging me. This is weird. Look at that. That�s how that�s working right there. See? I�ll just hunch down. This is for you, Christian, because you have this high priest.

This high priest, Jesus, he�s for you. He�s the mediator right now of a better covenant, and you have your sins remembered no longer based on this perfect high priest. And therefore, when you start getting bogged down into all these issues of which one are you, ah-mill or historic pre-mill I just want you to know, you have this high priest.

It�s okay. It�s okay for you to just take a deep breath and say, �Oh, this is good. This is good. These promises made back in Jeremiah 31, I receive the benefits of. I receive those. Isn�t that good? When I think of how great this passage is, what if this was not for you, Christian, and it says, �I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.

What if that�s just millennial kingdom? What if you don�t get that now? What if you�re not receiving that benefit right now? I don�t know what kind of hope we�d have. I have no idea. And so it says in chapter 8, verse 7,.

�For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been faultless. When all else fails and you can�t talk, here is the message translation, and this is the new covenant. �They won�t go to school to learn about me, or buy a book called God and Five Easy Lessons.

�They�ll all get to know me firsthand, the little and the big, the small and the great. �They�ll get to know me by being kindly forgiven with a slate of their sins forever wiped clean. Now the nuance of the text is actually right at the end, but they don�t have to buy a book.

They don�t have to buy Evangelical White Lives. Here�s the thing, whatever your eschatological view is, Jesus mediates this covenant now. When he talks about the new covenant of my blood in Matthew before he dies, he�s getting ready for his death, and it�s the last supper, and he inaugurates the Lord�s Supper, he�s talking to those Jewish men, and then now he�s talking to, through the Apostle Paul, to the Gentile Corinthians.

This new covenant is for you, Christian. You get the benefits. Therefore, I don�t really care if you�re grafted in, or you now are Israel. It doesn�t matter to me either way. I want you to just take a deep breath and think all those sins that actually you remember, God doesn�t remember.

He doesn�t unknow them, but he chooses not to hold them against you. That�s what forgiveness really is. Of course, he knows. He can never forget. He�s omniscient, but he decides to not hold them against you.

He held them against Jesus, and then Jesus paid for them, and he now is the high priest for you. He now is interceding for you. You now are receiving all the benefits of the new covenant. That�s great news.

Don�t get bogged down in all this other stuff. Study the other stuff. That�s important. It�s important to understand that Darby and the chafers of the world are not right. It�s important for you, if you�re historic premill, or maybe even dispensational premill, to understand the issues with Galatians 6 and Romans chapter 9 and Romans 11.

Your friends, your amillennial friends, are not dumb to have these views. But regardless, I almost said irregardless, regardless, these things are for you. I remember Nathan came to David after David sinned, and he said that God is going to put these sins away.

He�s going to put them away. I wonder if David ever thought, �I wonder where he�s going to put them. Where is he going to put them? And he put them on the Lord Jesus. And Wendy�s right. God meets us at the mercy seat.

The Lord Jesus is our mercy seat. That�s exactly right. And so, you receive, Wendy and Stephen, and the other four viewers that remain anonymous, you receive those benefits today. You receive those. You don�t have to wait for a millennial kingdom or anything like that.

See, Wendy, you said �our but you talk like I do, because Nebraska people say �our. Our country is, if we�re not careful. The first covenant, the Mosaic covenant, was faultless. Was it? No. Not in and of itself.

It had a built-in obsolescence, right? It had a built-in functionality in terms of time, because it was pointing to the Lord Jesus. But the reason why there was fault found with the old covenant is because the people disobeyed.

All that the Lord has commanded, we will do. I�m going to totally obey you. And of course, they didn�t. And the new covenant says the opposite of the old covenant. The old covenant says, �Do this and live.

And the new covenant says, �By faith, look to the Lord Jesus, the great high priest, and he is the one who is obeyed, and he is the one who has died for sins, and he is the one that�s raised, ascended, mediates now, exalted, and you�ll live because of the work of another.

The first one is inadequate because the people were disobedient. The first one was inadequate because the sacrificial system God had ordained could never permanently take away sins because it was all pointed to the Lord Jesus Christ.

The old covenant was weak. The old covenant was ineffective, and even Hebrews 7, 18, and 19 talks about that. My big problem is when people want to say, �All these great benefits found in the new covenant, we don�t even get those, or we get a smidgen of those, or we just get a little echo of those, or we just get a little Shekinah glory halo of those.

No. You get those. Christian, these are for you. He mediates that covenant now. That�s the language. That�s the present tense language of Hebrews. Jesus dies. Jesus is raised from the dead, and he mediates this covenant for you.

God remembers your sins no more, and this covenant is not based on your obedience. This covenant is based on God�s obedience alone. Hebrews 7, 11, �Now if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood, what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek

The first one couldn�t work. The first one couldn�t establish anything. The fault was with the people. Of course, God�s law is good and right and all that, but nothing could be made perfect from the law because it didn�t have an intention to make those things perfect.

What the writer does, the writer of Hebrews, he quotes from the New Covenant found in Jeremiah chapter 31. Now, it�s kind of cool if you study Jeremiah 31, you�re going to see some similarities between the recipients of that letter and the letter of Hebrews, and so you can kind of think to yourself, �Okay, how do I encourage people that are going to go under massive trials or are under massive trials

Of course, the recipients of the letter of Hebrews, they were getting their land stolen, their houses stolen, persecuted, probably would end up dying for the faith. Well, back in Jeremiah, you�ll see the similarity of the time of imminent destruction is at hand.

Isn�t that imminent and destruction at hand? Hey, by the way, tomorrow is Pat Abendroth�s birthday. I think he might turn 50. I�m nine years older, and I�m going to be 59 in a couple months, and so I think that makes him 50 years old.

Can you imagine? A 50-year-old younger brother, that�s amazing. The Babylonian armies are on their way. They�re marching through Judean territory. They�re capturing cities. Strong walls of Jerusalem are going to be destroyed, and now the writer, Jeremiah, writes to try to encourage, and he�s looking forward, and he�s trying to tell those people, �Listen, there�s going to be a time.

There�s going to be a better time. There�s going to be a future time, and right now, you�re going to have to trust God. You�re going to have to walk by faith. You�re going to have to trust in Him, and so while there�s times of adversity, we always have to pull out a card, don�t we?

Right now, today, on this channel, friends, is the Find Strength Through Adversity card, and this one I just pulled out of the rabbit�s hat, not Kreskin, but let�s just see what this says, because we need to take a break from this heady new covenant.

Is it spirit, letter? Is it Israel? Are we Israel? Should it be Israel? Future for Israel, millennial kingdom for Israel, and so this is adversity for Israel. I bit down, by the way, on some kind of sour thing the other day, like hard candy.

Chip, off to the dentist. You need a crown, I thought. I need somebody to crown me in the head if I ever try to chew on hard candy again. Who do I think I am? Happy birthday, Pat. She became a Hollywood legend, but $20 a week was Joan Crawford�s salary as a dancer in a road show that closed two weeks after it opened.

Joe Osteen in this game says, �Talk about an instance where you failed to succeed due to a case of poor timing. Well, how about I�m trying to get out of town and try to get on this flight tomorrow, but JetBlue won�t waive the $500 fee yet.

Why? I talked to the lady. I appealed to her. I said, which is true, two days ago I got a cortisone shot on my knee and I need to extend my knee out in the aisle. I tried everything. Well, could we try this?

Maybe the New Covenant Babylonian armies are on their way, or a spiritual Babylonian army are on their way, and maybe you feel like the Jews scattered. Maybe like the Jews, you have an acute case of despair and despondency, and you need some help.

I don�t know what would help you. Now, think about this. That�s all going to happen to these Jews. And so, what does the writer say? �By the way, make sure you obey or you�re smoked. Let�s take you back to Mosaic Covenant.

See, that�s not going to be helpful because they realize Israel failed, David fails, Lot fails, Noah fails, Adam fails. That�s not going to be helpful. Could there be a covenant in the future that it depends on God keeping the covenant as covenant keeper because we�re covenant breakers?

Neil Diamond dropped out of college due to taking a songwriting job. The job lasted four months. After eight years of submitting songs with no success, he met two successful producers who encouraged him to sing his own songs.

Can you remember some good advice that helped you turn things around? Speaking of songs, by the way, I just heard a story that because somebody knew that I used to be a punk rock disc jockey, and they said to me, �Mike, why do you have a halo head

No, they said to me, �Did you ever hear the Smoking Popes And I thought, �I�ve never heard the Smoking Popes, but I�ll look them up. And he said, �Here�s a good story about the Smoking Popes. Because I thought, �By the way, that�s a great title, Smoking Popes.

That�s as good as what I don�t know, but that�s a good name, Smoking Popes. Well, according to this guy, the Smoking Popes lead singer got saved and then became the worship leader for James MacDonald and Harvest before there was a falling out.

So there you have it. You can pull up the Smoking Popes. I know more to the story, but I don�t think radio is going to allow me to say it. In my opinion. So you�ve got a new covenant, and these recipients of the original new covenant in Jeremiah chapter 31, troubles coming, Babylonian armies, uh, Wendy just said, I write the songs.

Oh, outside of Boston, you know, because Boston with the Red Sox, Sweet Caroline, you know, everybody�s singing that song and they�ve kind of claimed it and everything else for the Red Sox and Boston stuff.

So you drive into Boston and you�re getting close to Logan. You have to go under the water, under the harpa to get to the airport, to get to Logan. And JetBlue has a little sign there, �Sweet Air O-Line, Ba-Ba-Ba.

There you go. The covenant that you need is the covenant that God makes and God fulfills, right? That�s the covenant you need, because what if you had to fulfill the covenant in the time of trial and stress and difficulty?

That even makes it harder. I mean, when things are going well, it�s difficult enough to obey God, right? Impossible. But if things are going poorly, then what do you do? So this new covenant was needed, and I want you to know, church, that you receive the benefits of this new covenant.

And I don�t want you to focus on, well, I�m Premil, I�m Amil, I just want you to know you get these. And if you have ears to hear, you probably have figured out where I�m leading you, but that doesn�t matter at the moment.

Take a look at verse 8. �For he finds fault with them when he says, �Behold, the days are coming declares the Lord, �when I will establish a new covenant. By the way, in this whole section, you�re going to see, �I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will.

It�s God�s initiation, right? Mosaic covenant, here�s what you need to do, and they thought they could do it. All that�s written in the book of the law, we shall do. You know, it�s like a chant, we�ve got spirit, yes we do, we�ve got spirit, how about you?

But God is going to be the one who has to say, �I will, I will, I will. Because if there�s hope for anybody, if there�s any hope for future reconciliation, if there�s any hope for standing before God, it�s got to be God�s doing.

And Jesus is the one who�s the mediator of this covenant, and that�s what the whole book of Hebrews has been so far. �With the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers, on the day when I took them out by the hand see the tender kindness of God, �I led them out by the hand, out of the land of Egypt, for they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them declares the Lord.

The problem wasn�t with the Lord, the problem wasn�t with God�s law, the problem was with the people. And therefore God could have just blown them up to smithereens or smithereens, have you ever seen the, isn�t there a band, the smithereens, I think maybe they couldn�t sing to start with when they get older and you can�t sing all the more?

God had to intervene. The new covenant, it�s the God-centeredness of the new covenant that makes it shine, that makes it wonderful, because it�s God who is going to do the work, and God is the one who keeps his promises.

Jeremiah announces, �Hey, the captivity�s going to happen, but we can look to the one who has our future in his hand, and there�s going to be a great day when that�s all happening. Alright, so what else do I have here?

I have one more adversity card that I�m supposed to read. His book was rejected by 13 publishers with comments like, �Too slow, confusing, and too long. Hey, that�s the first six books I wrote! But Frank Herbert and his agent persisted.

Frank Herbert. Is this Dune? Let me think. �Dune went on to win the two highest awards in science fiction writing and sell over ten million copies. Now, here�s where we�re going to turn. Talk about a time when persistence paid off for you.

�Well, I was trying to get in the nightclub one night, and I tried to break in the back, and I just kept pounding until my buddy came and let me in. What are we doing? What kind of� You know what? I don�t even think he wrote these cards.

I think somebody said, �Listen, let me put your name on this game. We�ll make a quick hundred grand with a bunch of dumb people who will just go, �You know what? We just can�t play a regular game, so we have to play, like, a Christianized game.

By the way, I will never play Bible trivia with any of you. Why? Because I can�t win. I�m in a no-win situation. If I win, actually, the game, you�ll think, �Well, he�s the pastor. And if I lose, you�ll say, �He should have won.

So, Bible Pictionary, I will play. Bible Trivia, I�ll just try to be very professional and say, because of the Bible, there�s nothing trivial about the Bible. How about that? That�s better. Hosea 11, �When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.

The more they were called, the more they went away. They kept sacrificing to the Baals and burnt offerings to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk. I took them up by the arms, and they did not know that I healed them.

I led them with cords of kindness and with bands of love. And I became to them as one who eases the yoke of their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them. I mean, that is the kindness of God. That is the goodness of God, as He loved Israel and what Israel do.

So, I mean, you want to have a little picture of what we�re like and our rebellious hearts. You think about when we were saved, what God had to do to get us saved. We, like Israel, need the New Covenant, and that�s why the New Covenant is for Christians and for Jewish people.

It�s for the church, right? Because you get to receive all these. Hebrews is a Christian letter written to the church with Jesus as the mediator. Nobody would deny that. And this Jesus, the high mediator, has a covenant, and what�s it say right now?

�For you today, this covenant I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, declares the Lord, I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

That is amazing. Where did they keep the law back in the old days? In the temple, in the Holy of Holies, in the Ark of the Covenant, and now where does God keep the law? Wow! I mean, that is so cool.

�I will put their laws into their where. So, where do you keep the law? Okay. In the Holy of Holies, in the Ark of the Covenant, with some of the manna, with Aaron�s rod, and there�s the law. The law is kept in there.

That�s where we keep it, in the sacred place. Once a year, the high priest can go in. And you know what? You do the wrong thing, you�re in trouble. Now where does God keep the law? God is the one who says, �You know what?

I�m going to put my law in your heart. Wow! In my heart, in your heart, in everybody else�s. Where do you go? You see what He�s trying to do? The intimacy, the closeness, the new kind of covenant for you, Christian.

My name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio. We�ll see you soon. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. 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.

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