Series: Great Doctrine
This is another message that you can write out with a pencil. If you want to take a flyleaf of your Bible in the front, in the back, or another piece of paper, and write it down, you can easily do it. Most of all, most of all, it is a wonderful thing if you will get in the habit of bringing your Bible and of turning the pages as the pastor goes through these passages. Now there are many times when you cannot do it because I will go too fast. You see, I mark the places in my Bible; consequently when I turn to a passage, I just turn to it like that, where it is marked. You do not have your Bible so marked, so it would take time for you to leaf through it to find the passage. But there are many times, when in turning to a passage, I will speak on it long enough for you to find it. And this will be a typical morning for most of the passages. Now, we are going to talk this morning about, we are going to talk this morning about The Covenants.
Now I would suppose – and you may turn to the first chapter in Genesis while I begin this introduction, the first chapter in Genesis, and we are going to start at the twenty-seventh verse, Genesis 1:27 – the word “covenant,” I started to say, I would suppose, though I haven’t seen them, I haven’t looked at them, but I would suppose that in any lawyer’s library you would have many, many volumes that are dedicated to covenants, to contracts, to agreements, to compacts. I would think that would be most certainly so. Now, the word “covenant” is used in many, in several different ways. For example, I was surprised in looking in the dictionary at the word “covenant,” one of these Webster Dictionaries, I was surprised to read this as one of the meanings of a covenant: a covenant, quote, “the promises of God revealed in the Holy Scriptures.” That is one definition of a covenant; the promises of God as written in the Bible. Sometimes a covenant is between a man and a man. Sometimes a covenant is between God and a man. Sometimes a covenant is an agreement, mutually agreed upon. Sometimes, in the case of the Scriptures, it is a superior order which is handed down to the creation. As I went through this preparing this message, some of these that I’m going to speak of this morning are what I’d call “true covenants”; they are mutual agreements. Some of them, however, seem to me to be more like what I’d call a “dispensation”; that is, a government, the way God orders a thing, controls a thing, rules a thing in a certain period of human history. But in any event – and I haven’t time because those articles on the covenants are long; you get you a fine Bible dictionary, and look up the word “covenant,” and you’ll find a whole lot of things about it – now, we’re going to follow through, and I hope that in good biblical order we have time this morning to look at seven of them.
And the first one is in the first chapter of Genesis, and the twenty-seventh verse. “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it . . . And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food,” or the old time word, “for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to ever fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat, for food: and it was so” [Genesis 1:27-30]. Now, I want to show you that in the beginning, in the beginning – and by the way, several of these covenants will be right here in the first few chapters of Genesis – and when you look at it, why, you think, “My, my, look at the covenants that are here in the first few pages, and look how few they are in all of the Bible since.” Well really, in time it’s the other way around: the ages and the ages, the years, all the uncounted time that is back here in the beginning, we have no way of knowing. The history of the race since Abraham, who lived 2000 BC is comparatively brief. So these covenants that are so briefly mentioned back here in the Bible, in the beginning, these covenants may have lasted millions and millions of years; we do not know. Whereas these latter covenants are just in the last few thousand years; so don’t be persuaded by the fewness of the number of pages in the Bible, that back there it was very brief, and now these are long; not so, the purpose of the Bible was not to write history or geology, but to follow the course of these covenants, how God chose the family through whom He made a covenant, and how God finally sent the Seed to that family and made this new covenant of grace. The purpose of the Bible is to unfold the plan of redemption, and the history that is in it, not the geology that is in it, nor the biology, all of that is incidental. The great purpose of the Bible is to reveal God’s plan of salvation. And He did it through these covenants.
All right, back there in the beginning, do you see, God made the man and made him a vegetarian? Genesis 1:29, “And God said to the man, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, to you it shall be for meat.” He was not to eat meat; the man at first was a vegetarian. All right, another thing, look at the next verse: when God made this world, all of the beasts and the fowls of the earth were also vegetarians; they ate herbs, “I have given every green thing to you, to the beasts of the field, and the fowls of the air, and the things that creep” [Genesis 1:30]. God made all of this world to be vegetarian in its eating. Now, this world today is mostly carnivorous. That is, the animal life that I see is carnivorous. Ultimately, all human life is supported by herbivorous creatures, herb eating creatures. Big fish have the little fish, to eat them. Little fish have other fish to eat them. And it goes right on down until finally your smallest little animals in the sea live on herbs. Same way with those who walk the earth: the big fellows have the little fellows, the little fellows have the big fellows to eat them; and those little fellows themselves are eating other little fellows; until finally you get down to the herbs. Big fleas have little fleas to bite them. Little fleas have other fleas ad infinitum. Everything eats everything else. That’s the way it is in this world. When you go into the sea, there are those fish devouring other fish. And when you walk on the land, there are those who are superior or more agile or more veracious, they are eating other things, and blood is shed. But God never intended it that way. God never made it that way. God never made this world for suffering, or for bloodshed, or for agony, or for the hurt of any living creature. God made this whole world herbivorous.
Now, in passing may I – and you don’t need to turn to the passage – in passing may I observe to you that when the great kingdom of God comes in power, and when the millennium is here, when the final age of ages comes, our world is going to be again Edenic, just like it was here in this first covenant. It’s going to be herbivorous. Now listen to it: “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid. The calf, the young lion, the fatling, that calf in the stall, they shall all eat together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox” [Isaiah 11:6-7]. God never intended for the fang and the tooth and the claw. The shedding of blood, the slaughter of His creatures, God never made it that way. That came – and as we follow through these covenants you’re going to see it – that came with sin. Pain, and agony, and murder, and bloodshed, and rapine, and pillage, and death, and suffering, and agony, all of that came in sin. But God didn’t make it that way. And in the Edenic dispensation, in the Edenic covenant, all of the animals ate together. They were herbivorous; we were, they were. And some of these days, some of these days, when God’s kingdom comes, there’ll be no more shedding of blood, there’ll be no more tooth of the tiger, or claw of the bear, nor the beak of the eagle; but we’ll all be herbivorous. We’ll eat of the fruit of the fields, and no suffering anymore. Well, that was just in passing. Now in the second chapter of the Book of Genesis, the fifteenth verse, now this is the Edenic covenant:
And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
All right, that’s the first contract, and it is imposed from above; wasn’t mutually entered into, God imposed it from above upon the creature that He made. “You keep My commandment,” says God, “and you will live forever. But you transgress that commandment, you disobey My interdiction, and in the day that you eat thereof thou shalt surely die” [Genesis 2:17, 3:22]. So in the day that they transgressed, they died; their spirits died. Death is separation; it’s alienation. When my spirit is alienated from God, my spirit dies; when my spirit is alienated from my body, my body dies. Death is separation, alienation. In the day that they ate thereof, they were separated from God. How do you know that? Because when God came to visit the man and his wife, they hid themselves; they felt that wall of partition, that great black dark abyss that separates between us and God [Genesis 3:8-10]. A fallen creature, and then the matter of the decay of his body came in time. Now that’s the first covenant.
Now the second one – and we must hurry, real fast – the second one is found here in the third chapter of the Book of Genesis; and this one is the Adamic covenant. They have fallen now [Genesis 3:1-6], they’re sinners; they’re like we are. Now look at the fourteenth verse, “And the Lord God said to the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all the beasts of the field, and upon thy belly shalt thou go” [Genesis 3:4]. Then the fifteenth verse, then to the sixteenth, then the seventeenth. Now let’s take them like God says there. There are three curses pronounced there.
First, on the serpent: “Because thou hast done this, on thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life” [Genesis 3:14]. The serpent was the most beautiful creature God made. Out of the elephants, and the tigers, and the lions, and the rhinoceroses, and the hippopotamuses, and all the other things God made, the serpent was the most beautiful of all of them. But when he was used as an instrument of Satan, to encompass the fall of the couple [Genesis 3:1-6], he was made a loathsome creature [Genesis 3:14]. But, may I say in passing, some elements of the beauty of the serpent are still in him. Do you see that? I have seen, as you have, in some of these unusual snakes, the most gorgeous coloration and configuration, beautiful, beautiful, sparkle and shine in color; that’s just some of the beauty that he one time had. But God cursed him. Originally, I do not know what he looked like; but the serpent was not this, originally. Originally he was a beautiful creature, very smart, and subtle, and astute, and wise. I don’t know what he was like. He spoke to the woman – Satan spoke to the woman through him. I don’t know what he was like, but don’t think that originally a snake was like he is now. God made him beautiful; and after he was cursed, the curse was that he’d slither on his belly all the days of his life [Genesis 3:14]. That was the curse on the serpent.
Now, the curse upon the woman is that she, “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow in conception; in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children.” That’s the first; there are two curses upon the woman. One: in childbirth she should be in agony and in suffering; and the other: “And thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee” [Genesis 3:16]. When God first made them, the man and the woman were equal. But after the curse, the desire of the woman is to be to the husband, “and he shall rule over thee.” And however you have woman’s suffrage, or however you turn this world, it will always be governmentally a man’s world. Now you may have dear Sister Hobby up there in the cabinet as a token to all of the fifty or seventy million women in America, but your government will always be run by the men. God made it that way; and it’s just hard to get around what God does, it’s just the hardest thing in this world. Now God did that.
Now this is the curse on Adam. And [God] said:
Because you have sinned, and you hearkened to the enticing voice of your wife . . . therefore the ground is cursed for thy sake; and in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In sorrow and by the sweat of the brow –
They’re still vegetarians –
And in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return to the ground; out of it you were taken, back to it shall you go.
Then you have the promise – now I skipped over the fifteenth verse – now you have the promise, you have another covenant, look at it: “I will put enmity between thee,” the serpent, “and the woman, and between thy seed and her Seed; It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel” [Genesis 3:15]. Now, I have one thing before I speedily go on. Do you notice the singular in all that? The singular, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her Seed; It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel” [Genesis 3:15]. He is talking about somebody. Who are those “somebodies”? In each instance there, it is singular. The Revelation says that that old serpent, that old dragon is the Devil, it is Satan himself [Revelation 20:2]. Who is the Seed of the woman? And Paul, in the third chapter of the Book of Galatians – and I meant to read it this morning, and I haven’t time – Paul goes to great, great lengths to expatiate upon, as he says, “Not seeds, as of many, but Seed, as of one” [Galatians 3:16]. And all through the unfolding of this promise, as when we get over there to talk about Abraham in a minute, that thing will be “Seed,” as of one. Now I repeat, all of those are singulars: “thy Seed,” “her Seed,” “It,” “Thy,” “Thou,” and “His.” We know what that is. They didn’t back there; for a thousand, maybe a million years, they would read that holy covenant of God, that promise of the Lord Almighty, and they wouldn’t know what it was.
For example, one of the mysteries of those old time rabbinical interpreters was how it was used of the Seed of the woman; for a woman doesn’t have “seed,” it’s the man that has seed. And yet this covenant of God says, “The Seed of the woman” [Genesis 3:15]. Isn’t that a remarkable thing? Back yonder, back yonder, back yonder, almost in the beginning of time – well, we know what that means, today. That One that was to bruise the head of that serpent, crush his head, mash it into hell, that One who’s to shut him up forever with an iron chain [Revelation 20:2-3]: the Seed of the woman; we know what he’s talking about. He was to be born of a virgin[Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23], not of a man. He is to be born of a woman, not of a man. That’s way back here in the beginning, “Thy Seed, as of one” [Galatians 3:16].
Well, now let’s go on real fast, or we’re not going to do anything this morning. The next covenant is Noachian, or Noahic. Isn’t that a funny way to pronounce that? The covenant with Noah – Noah, Noahic, or, Noachian – that’s in the eighth chapter and the ninth chapters of Genesis. Now we’re going to change this world a little. In the eighth chapter of the Book of Genesis, “So Noah builded an altar unto the Lord” [Genesis 8:20], after the Flood; “He took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar” [Genesis 8:20]. Now you remember, when Noah went into the ark, he took two of every thing unclean, but he took seven of everything clean [Genesis 7:2]. Every clean, now “clean” is ceremonially clean; it’s not dirty or washed like we use the word today, its ceremonial clean. He took seven of all of the animals that were ceremonially clean, like a sheep; and they went into the ark, seven of them, seven of each kind. Then he took two of each kind that were unclean, oh, like a creeping thing [Genesis 7:2-3]. So of the clean animals, he took one and offered an offering unto the Lord [Genesis 8:20]. And it pleased the Lord[Genesis 8:21]. Now, we have one, two, three, four; there are four parts to the covenant that God makes with Noah. And these covenants are ours today.
Look at the last verse of the eighth chapter of Genesis: “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease.” All right, that’s the covenant that God makes with Noah. And that covenant is us today, reaches to us today. “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, the seasons, they shall always come, and they shall always go, they shall not cease” [Genesis 8:22]. All right, look again: in the ninth chapter of Genesis and the third verse, “Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things to eat” [Genesis 9:3]. God changed the man there, after the Flood, from a herbivorous animal to a carnivorous animal. In Genesis 9:3, after the Flood, the man was privileged to eat anything of flesh – to shed blood – and to eat it. Until that time, he was a herb eating, a plant eating animal; he was a herbivorous animal [Genesis 1:30]. But after the Flood, he becomes a carnivorous animal also; he eats meat. “Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you, even as a herb has been, so now shall flesh be” [Genesis 9:3]. That’s the second part of it.
All right, the third part: God instituted the law of capital punishment. That’s the only thing that bothers me about these highfalutin, high-flown socialistic theories about doing away with capital punishment. In the sixth verse of the ninth chapter of Genesis, a part of this Noahic covenant is this: “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by him shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made He man” [Genesis 9:6]. He institutes the law of capital punishment. And the only pulling away from that law that I know of in the Bible is in the establishment of the cities of refuge in Israel [Joshua 21:13, 21, 27, 30, 38]. Now if there’s some other, if there’s some other interdiction, if there’s some other change in that law of capital punishment, why, you tell me. I’m learning just as you are; I just read the Book like you do, that’s all. If there’s an interdiction to that law, as you study, you tell me, and I’ll appreciate it. But so far as I know, so far as I know, the law of capital punishment, in the ninth chapter of Genesis and the sixth verse, made in the covenant that God made with Noah, so far as I know, that law still obtains; capital punishment.
All right, now the last part of it was this, in the eleventh verse: “And I will establish My covenant with you; neither shall all the flesh, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there anymore be a flood to destroy the earth” [Genesis 9:11]. That’s the fourth part of that covenant: God is never again going to destroy this world by flood. Now He put a sign for this one; three of these covenants, as I looked at, have very definite signs. The sign of the Noahic covenant is the bow in the cloud:
This is the token of the covenant which I make between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:
I do set My bow in the cloud; and it shall be for a token of the covenant between Me and the earth.
And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:
And I will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature . . . and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.
And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.
Now may I make another passing comment before I go on to the next one? The first time it ever rained was in the Flood. Because the Bible says – and I haven’t got time to do all this – the Bible says that when God watered the earth, He did it with a mist; “And a mist came up and watered the earth” [Genesis 2:6]. When Noah got up there and preached about the destruction of the earth by water, why, they looked around and said, “This man is a downright, slapdab, outright lunatic. How is mist going to destroy the earth? We’re going to have mist to destroy the earth. That idiot!” You think you’re going to listen to him? But Noah preached a hundred twenty years saying, “And God shall destroy this earth by water!” [Genesis 6:3, 7:21-23; 2 Peter 2:5]. And the first time that it ever rained rain, first time this world ever saw water drop out of the skies, rain, was when it rained at the Flood [Genesis 7:17-23]. And God broke up the fountains of the deep, and the great fountains underneath the earth burst open; and God opened the fountains of the sky and water poured out of the sky, water out of the sky [Genesis 7:10-12]. Until that time the earth was watered by a mist [Genesis 2:6]. Heavy dew, I presume. When you got up the next morning, everything was beautifully watered, as though somebody, a gardener had been hired to water the earth in the night. Wouldn’t that be lovely? All of our rainfall fall at night. Why, you could have a picnic every Fourth of July, never, never miss. You could have a Cotton Bowl game every first of January. Why, why, listen, there’s just no end to it. It was great. It was great. And so God, in making that rain, He put a bow in it, He put a rainbow in it; and He said, “That is My token, that is My sign between Me and you” [Genesis 9:13-16]. All right, now let’s go on real fast like. We’re sure having a time going on fast like though.
Now the next covenant is the Abrahamic covenant. In the twelfth chapter of the Book of Genesis, the whole world was idolatrous, and Terah was an idolater[Genesis 12:1; Joshua 24:2-3]. And over there in Ur of Chaldees, down there in the Mesopotamian Valley, down there below Eden, down there the Lord God chose a family [Genesis 11:31-12:1]. And in that family He is going to create a new faith and a new people, a new redemptive plan.
Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee:
And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee: and in thee . . .
In the twenty-second chapter of Genesis and the eighteenth verse, where that promise is repeated, God says, “And in thy seed,” as of one [Galatians 3:16], “and in thy seed shall all families of the earth be blessed” [Genesis 22:18]. Now we haven’t time to talk about that. That’s the covenant God makes with Abraham.
Now turn to the seventeenth chapter of Genesis, and there’s a sign of this covenant. As God made a sign when He made the covenant with Noah [Genesis 9:12-16], now God gives a sign when He makes the covenant with Abraham. In the seventeenth chapter of the Book of Genesis, and the ninth verse, now look at it:
And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep My covenant therefore, thou, and thy seed after thee in their generations.
This is My covenant, which ye shall keep, between Me and you and thy seed after thee; Every male child among you shall be circumcised.
And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt Me and you.
And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every male child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed.
He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.
And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken My covenant.
That is the sign of the covenant of Abraham: circumcision, the old covenant.
Now let me haste to the next one because it also has the sign. And I want you to see it. The next covenant is with Moses. Now turn to the twentieth chapter of the Book of Exodus. Turn to the twentieth chapter of the Book of Exodus. Then turn to the thirty-first chapter of the Book of Exodus, especially the thirty-first chapter of the Book of Exodus. Now, there are three parts to the covenant that God made with Moses, the Mosaic covenant, the covenant of the law. The first part of that Mosaic covenant is the moral law; and it is given here in the twentieth chapter of the Book of Exodus, the Ten Commandments [Exodus 20:1-17]. That’s the moral law of God. “Do this and thou shalt live” [Deuteronomy 4:1]. Now the twenty-first chapter of Exodus through the twenty-fourth chapter is the civil law. That’s the civil law of the old covenant [Exodus 21:1-24:18]. Now, the twenty-fifth chapter of Exodus to the end, to the fortieth chapter, is the ceremonial law of the old covenant [Exodus 25:1-40:38]. It had three parts: the moral law in the twentieth chapter; the civil law in the twenty-first through the twenty-fourth chapters; and the ceremonial law in the twenty-fifth chapter to the end.
Now, the Mosaic covenant had a sign. The Mosaic covenant had a sign. Listen to it. In the thirty-first chapter of the Book of Exodus, God gives a sign for the Mosaic covenant. Now listen to this: and this will settle lots of things in your heart, if you will. You listen to this: beginning at the twelfth verse, the thirty-first chapter of Exodus and the twelfth verse:
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily My Sabbaths shall ye keep: for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you.
Ye shall keep the Sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people.
Six days may thy work be done; but in the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord: whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death.
Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant.
It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel for ever!
The Sabbath day is the sign of the covenant of the moral law, the civil law, and the ceremonial law between Israel and God! “Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel for ever!”[Exodus 31:16-17]. Why don’t you keep the Sabbath day if you are a child of Abraham, an Israelite, a Jew, you must keep the Sabbath day! It’s the sign of the covenant between God and Israel. If you’re not a Jew, you don’t keep it, you don’t keep it. I’m not a Jew. I am a Christian. When a Jew becomes a Christian, he’s no longer a Jew in that sense. The Sabbath day, the Saturday day, the seventh day is a sign of that covenant that God made between Himself and the children of Israel. Until this day, they didn’t keep any Sabbath. They didn’t keep any Sabbath. You have the story of the Sabbath day, you have the story of the Sabbath day in the sense that God rested on the seventh day [Genesis 2:2-3]; but there wasn’t any Sabbath day until Moses, none! [Exodus 31:12-17]. Abraham never observed any Sabbath day. Isaac never observed any Sabbath day. Jacob, Israel, never observed any Sabbath day. Nobody back there observed any Sabbath day. The Sabbath day, as a day of worship, was a sign that God gave to Israel when God made the covenant with Moses! And the Sabbath day is a sign of the Jew; it’s the sign of the law; it’s the sign of the covenant God made between Him and the Israelite. And for a Christian to observe the Sabbath day is to violate all of the new covenants that God has made [Romans 6:14, 14:5]. You’re not a Jew. And for us to observe the Sabbath day is a monstrous thing; it’s just oh, out of keeping with the whole revelation of God.
Well, I’ve got to quit. May I say one sentence? The next covenant was with David [2 Samuel 7:12-16]. And then, I didn’t leave me any time for the last one. The new covenant, the kaine diatheke; “This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for the remission of sins” [Matthew 26:28] . . . “Without the shedding of blood is no remission” [Hebrews 9:22] . . . “For this cause He is the Mediator of the new testament; that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal life. For where the testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator”[Hebrews 9:15-16]. When I write out my will, until I die it has no effect. But if I die, if I die, immediately it takes effect. That’s the new covenant that Jesus has made with us. The old covenant of the law, “Disobey and thou shalt die”; the new covenant under Jesus, in mercy and grace [2 Corinthians 3:6], His blood, His offering, His sacrifice makes atonement for our sins [1 John 2:2].
Now, while we sing blessed old hymn, “Rock of Ages,” somebody you, give your heart to Christ; somebody you, put your life in the church. As God shall say the word and open the door, while we stand and while we sing, and while we make appeal, you come; while we stand and while we sing.
For more sermons by W.A Criswell, please visit www.wacriswell.com