We are going through the book of Ezekiel chapter by chapter as is our custom to do with various books of the Bible here in our preaching services. We encourage you to bring your Bible along so that you may follow with us and see the things that God has placed for us in his precious word. Next Sunday morning we'll be in the 37th chapter, which is a very famous chapter from the book of Ezekiel, although many people do not equate the theme with Ezekiel 37. They are familiar with the song of Ezekiel and the dry bones and the head bone connected to it and on down the line. Our sermon next Sunday morning will be about the valley of dry bones. when Ezekiel was called of God to preach to the valley. But before God called him to preach to the valley of dry bones, he asked him to preach to the mountains. And so that's what the 36th chapter is all about, preaching to the mountains. Now, our message this morning is entitled, The New Covenant. And we're going to have a rather long introduction to the book of Ezekiel this morning. You have a little graph in your Bible, in your bulletin. I'd like you to take it out and be able to use it as we go through the message this morning. You find on this six different dispensations. The first one is left off. You might like to put it on there before conscience. We have the dispensation of innocence. You see, the Bible is divided into various economies and tests under which God has judged man down through the ages. From time to time I run across people who rebel at this division that we find in Scripture. There are those who say, I don't believe there are such things as different divisions or dispensations in the Word of God. I rebel against that, and I do not accept these divisions that you give us. Well, these divisions are not mine, certainly. Many Bible students have studied the Word of God and have seen these divisions and have come up with these general titles for the various divisions or economies under which God has dealt with man. Beginning with the economy of innocence, we go to the economy of conscience, human government, promise, law, grace, the tribulation, and eventually a coming kingdom here on earth. Now a man said to me, I don't believe in dispensations. I believe that all of the Bible is for us. I believe that all of the Bible is for us too. But I do not believe that all of the Bible is to us. I believe that we need to understand the parts that are to us and distinguish from them the parts that are not to us today. I said to this gentleman who spoke to me about this, he said, I believe that all the Bible is for us today and to us today. I said, well, now wait a minute. Let me ask you a question. Do you believe that there is a difference in God's dealing with man today when we compare it with his dealing with man there in the Garden of Eden before the fall? Do you believe that the things that God said to Adam in the Garden of Eden are for us today? Do you believe that we are to rule over the world and to keep the Garden of Eden and to till it and take care of it? Do you believe that our relationship with God is the same as it was then?" Well, he said, no. No, of course not. Well, I said, then you have two divisions, don't you? Well, he said, yes, I guess I do. I have two. But he said, I'm not. I'll go along with that. Well, I said, you're a dispensationalist. You have two different economies. Now, I said, let's ask another question. Do you think that heaven and the future, the eternal state, do you think that it's going to be just like it is now? No, of course not. Well, I said, good, now we have three. You're not a dispensationalist, but you have three different economies. I said, do you still bring your lambs down to the church and your pastor slight cut his throat and does he ever put it up there in the pulpit and burn it for you when you committed sins? Well, of course not. Well, then we're doing things a little different today than they did then, aren't we? He said, that's right. Well, yes, we are, of course. I said, well, now we have four. I said, you see, you are a dispensationalist. You are. When you read in the word of God, bring your lamb down to the temple and have the priest put it on the altar, you know that that's not to you today, don't you? Because this is a new age. This is a new era. God has a different economy and test under which he is dealing with man today. Now, the tragedy of the Bible is this, that when we read through these various periods in God's dealing with man, we found that under every economy that God gave man up to date, man failed under that economy. Under the economy of innocence, man failed, and so he was put out of the garden, and he was put out of the presence of the Lord. Under the economy of conscience, he failed again, and God brought a flood and destroyed mankind. Under the economy of human government, he again failed. God gave us the story of the Tower of Babel and God's judgment against a world that had rejected Him. Under the economy of law, he again failed. He crucified God's own Son. Now we are today under the economy of grace, and let's evaluate with our own eyes, with our own intelligence, how is man dealing with God in the world today? Is man serving God on the whole, or is man serving sin and self in this world in which we live today? And of course, the answer If we're honest, it has to be that certainly there is not much indication that man in this age of grace is really putting God first in his life. We notice that along with the different economies and tests that God gave man down through the ages, that also the Bible reveals to us that God has given to man various covenants. I think it's important for us to know this. As we study through the Bible, we find that God has given to the mankind eight different covenants. Eight different covenants. And all of these covenants were given during the period and during the time of the Old Testament. But many of these covenants apply to us and directly affect our lives and our world today. All right? Now let's look at these covenants as we see them in the Word of God. And the first covenant is not listed on your paper there. I don't know how we happen to leave it off, but you can add it right there, right before the Adamic covenant. It's found in Genesis chapter 2, verse 15, and it's called the Edenic covenant, or the covenant that God gave to man in the Garden of Eden. Now let me just say a word right here. What is a covenant? And a covenant is a sovereign pronouncement of God. Let me say that again. A covenant is a sovereign pronouncement of God by which He establishes a relationship of responsibility between Himself and an individual, or between Himself and a nation, or between Himself and a family, or between himself and mankind in general. We find it is a commitment that God makes, a pledge, a contractual agreement that God gives unto man. As we study these various covenants that are found in the Word of God, we find that they all fit together. And we find that in many cases the conditions of one covenant are not abrogated by an addition of a following covenant. But the conditions of the covenants carry right on through. We find as we study these covenants that only one of them is a conditional covenant. That was the covenant of the law. God said to the nation of Israel at Mount Sinai, if you will do this, and if you will obey me, and if you will keep my commandments, then I will do these things. All of the other covenants are unconditional covenants, where God simply said to man, I will do this, no matter what you do. God said to Abraham, Abraham, I am going to covenant with you that I will make a great nation of you. I will give you children and descendants that will number as the stars of the heavens and as the sand of the seas. He said, I will bless the nations that bless you, and I will curse the nations that curse you. And this was not conditioned upon Abraham's response or obedience. God simply promised it, and God did it, you see. Now let's look at the covenants, first of all. In Genesis chapter 2, we have the first covenant that God made. In verse 15, And the Lord God took the man, and put him in the garden of Eden to keep it. And the Lord God commanded of man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou mayest not eat. For in the day that thou eatest thou shalt surely die. And then as we would go on there, we would find the further development of this covenant. God put man there in the garden of Eden And God made a covenant with man, and he said, I will bless you here, and I have given to you a place here in this world. But the Bible reveals to us that man didn't obey God, and God cast him out of the garden. And when God cast him out of the garden, man was ashamed, and he was afraid to come into the presence of God. And God came down into the Garden of Eden in the cool of the day after man's rebellion. And God said, Adam, where are you? And Adam was hiding. And finally he called out and he said, well, here we are. We're hiding. And God said, why are you hiding? He said, because we're naked. And God said, who told you that you were naked? The answer came back and he said, well, we've eaten the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We've done that which you told us not to do. And God said, why did you do it? And Adam spoke first, and remember what he said? He said, it's your fault. You see, that's the ready response of the rebel. It's never his fault. It's always somebody else's. It's always somebody else's. And Adam turned to the Lord and he said, that woman that you gave me, she made me do it. The important thing to note there is it's not the woman, but it's the woman that God gave him. You see. And then Eve, the Lord turned to Eve and He said, What about you? And she said, But a serpent made me do it. And God says, Well, things are changed. He said, You were innocent, but now you're sinners. He said, I'm a holy, righteous God. I can't fellowship with sinners. He said, There's a gulf between us now. Why, he said, if I would take you into my presence as sinners, why, he said, we would be totally incompatible because, he said, I cannot abide where sin abides. And he said, you can't do anything but produce and generate a climate of sin and rebellion. And so, therefore, there's a gulf between us. We're spiritually separated. You're a sinner and I'm holy. And then God said, but I'm going to make a covenant with you. And in Genesis chapter 3, verse 15, we have that Adamic covenant that God is speaking now to men who have sinned. And God says to the mankind, I'm going to give you a second chance. You know, that's a wonderful thing to know that God has given to man a second chance. And so the Adamic Covenant gives to us that promise. In Genesis 3.15, God says, I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. Who is He speaking to? He's speaking to Satan here. And He's saying to Satan, He said, listen, you have succeeded in corrupting the human race. But He said, I want you to know that I'm going to redeem man. And I'm going to produce one day, through the seed of a woman, a Redeemer. And when that Redeemer comes, He's going to crush you. You will bruise his head, his heel, but he will bruise your head. So God said to the human race, you've sinned, you've disobeyed me. But God said, I'm going to give you another chance. Why did God do that? Because he's also a God of love as well as a God of righteousness. God said, I'm going to send a Redeemer. He didn't tell Adam here that that Redeemer was going to be God Himself. He didn't tell him that here. He's going to reveal that to us as we read further in the book. But He said, I'm going to send you this Redeemer someday into the world. You know, God hasn't given everyone a second chance. The Word of God tells us that the angels sinned. The Bible tells us that the only future that is ahead for the angels that fell and rebelled against God is eternal judgment. But for man, God has a future. There is opportunity for salvation. Thank God that the Bible reveals to us that there is hope, that there is salvation for sinners who are lost. That salvation was promised to us right there in the very beginning of man's sin, when God made a covenant with Adam. He said, Adam, I will send a Redeemer. And God was faithful to that promise. And 2,000 years ago, when Jesus came and died on the cross of Calvary, God fulfilled His covenant with Adam. We go along and we find in Genesis chapter 12 that God made a covenant with Abraham. The world had turned away from God. We missed one in chapter 9, the covenant with Noah. The world had turned away from God and become filled with sin. So as God looked upon the world, he saw that there were none that followed after him save one man in his family, and that was Noah. So we have the story of Noah and the ark and how Noah went in the ark and God destroyed the rest of the world. And then one day Noah came out of the ark with his family. And as he came out of that ark, God met with him and God made a covenant. And he said, Noah, I'll never do this to the world again. He said, look up in the sky, and there was a rainbow. And He said, that rainbow is a sign that I've made a covenant between you and man, that I will never again destroy all of men, as I've done with this judgment of the flood. You know, every time I see a rainbow, I rejoice in the fact that God is a God who makes covenants and keeps His covenants. When I see a rainbow, I don't think of a pot of gold. I think of Almighty God and His faithfulness to His covenants. He said, Noah, from this time forth, I'm going to put the judicial taking of life into the hands of man. He said, Noah, from this time forth, you are to rule the world for my righteousness. He said, Whoso taketh man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. And so God gave to us the judicial taking of life in that covenant that He made way back there with Noah. And then in Genesis chapter 12, we have Abraham. And once again, the world had turned away from God. They failed again. And so God met with Abraham, and he said, Abraham, I want you to come out from your family, from your country. I want you to come out from this land of idolatry, and I want you to follow me. And Abraham, I'm going to do something with you. I'm going to make a nation out of you. I'm going to make a nation in which all the nations of the earth will be blessed. In other words, he said, Abraham, I'm going to send through you and your descendants a Redeemer for mankind, a Savior for the world. And he said, Abraham, the nations that bless you, I will bless. And the nations that curse you, I will curse. You know, God made that covenant with Abraham. Way back there, before there was a nation of Israel, and no matter what Abraham did, God had made a covenant, and God was going to be faithful to that covenant. And then, in Deuteronomy chapter 30, we have the Palestinian covenant. And in the Palestinian covenant, God spoke to the nation of Israel, and He said, you see this land that I gave to Abraham? He said, you remember, as far as Abraham could see to the north, and as far as he could go to the west, from Dan to Beersheba, From the mountains of Lebanon to the river of Egypt, not the Nile, but the river of Egypt, another river. From the Mediterranean Sea to the banks and plains beyond the river Jordan, God had said, this land is yours. You know, we as Americans like to sing a song, this land is your land, this land is my land, from California and wherever else it goes. From the Gulf Stream waters to the redwood forest, this land is made for you and me." Well, that's a wonderful song, but it's not true. It ain't necessarily so, as the songwriter said. I can say that, you know, I don't say otherwise, but that's what the songwriter said. It ain't necessarily so. You see, America doesn't have a claim on this land. Nor does the Indian have a claim on this land. There isn't any nation in the world today that has a claim on a piece of ground, save one. And that's the nation of Israel. And let all the nations of the world be aware of the fact that God made a covenant with that nation. And there in Deuteronomy chapter 30, God said, that land is your land. It belongs to you. God tells us here in the book of Ezekiel that the nation that tries to keep you from it, they may get you out for a while, but God says the day will come when I will judge those nations. that seek to keep you from possessing your land. And so the Israelite can say, with the authority of the Word of God, as they stand there in the middle of the land of Palestine, this land is my land, this land is our land. From the River Jordan to the Mediterranean coast, from the Lebanon forest to the River of Egypt, this land belongs to you and me. I haven't recommended that as a national anthem for Israel. But nevertheless, that's God's promise. That was God's covenant to that nation. And then we have the covenant that God made to David. It's found in 2 Samuel 7, verse 15. And this covenant is a covenant whereby God promised to David that he was going to send into the world a Redeemer, a son, a descendant of David, who would be an eternal king over the throne of Israel. And he promised to David an eternal dynasty. He said, David, your dynasty, your descendants will rule and reign over the nation of Israel for how long? Forever! Forever. And God was faithful to his covenant. For as we look into the book of Luke and the book of Matthew, we find there the genealogies of Mary and Joseph. And we find that Joseph was a direct descendant of David. And we find that Mary was a direct descendant of David. We find that Joseph and Mary were more than a carpenter and a young wife. They were a prince and a princess. They were the rightful heirs to the throne of David. And Jesus was born the King of the Jews. And Jesus is alive today, and He's coming back one day to assume the throne of David. And God is faithful to His promise that David's dynasty is an eternal dynasty. God made a promise to David. He made a covenant with David. We had the covenant of law that we spoke about in Exodus chapter 19, where God said to the nation of Israel, I will save you, I will forgive you of your sins, if you will obey my commandments, if you will offer these sacrifices, and if you will follow after me, then I will forgive you your sins, and I will heal you of your sins, and I will bless you as a nation. That covenant was conditional. Then we come to the last one. And that's the one found in Jeremiah chapter 31. That's the first place we find it mentioned. Who is Jeremiah? He's a contemporary of Ezekiel. Ezekiel is prophesying from the land of captivity. He's in Babylon. But Jeremiah is back in the city of Jerusalem during the same period of time. And Jeremiah is prophesying during these perilous days. And he knows that things look bleak. But he said, listen, he said, no matter how bleak it is today, as the armies are around us and we're about to go under, he said there's a new day coming for the nation of Israel. And in chapter 31, verse 31, he says, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with 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 bring them out of the land of Egypt, which my covenant they broke, although I was in husband unto them, saith the Lord. For this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days. I will put my law in their inward parts. They won't have to obey the law as a condition of salvation. I will put my law into their hearts. I will perform the miracle of making my law their law. I will change their hearts. That was the new covenant that Jeremiah spoke about. And that's the new covenant that Ezekiel is talking to us about here in the 36th chapter. You see, that's the long introduction that we had today. We're going to look at the new covenant that Ezekiel talked about. The last of the covenants that God has made unto men. An unconditional covenant. A covenant in which God says that all who will come and believe Me and by faith confess Me and trust in Me as their Savior, God said that I will give to them the miracle of new birth. This is the covenant that the Lord Jesus Christ was speaking of when he spoke to Nicodemus. He said, Nicodemus, you've come to talk to me about salvation according to the law. But he said, Nicodemus, this is the day when a new day is about to dawn. He said, Nicodemus, He said, the message now is this, that except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. He said, Nicodemus, salvation isn't by the law. Salvation isn't by human effort and human work and observance of ceremonies. But he said, Nicodemus, salvation will be by faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ. And he said, when you by faith will receive me as your savior under the terms of the new covenant. He said, Nicodemus, you're going to be born again. You're going to get a new heart. Let's talk about it a little bit later as Ezekiel begins to bring it out to us. Jeremiah brings a new covenant to our attention for the first time in scripture. And then Ezekiel amplifies on that new covenant and tells us more about it here in chapter 36. In verses 1 through 7 here of chapter 36, he says, Ezekiel, prophesy to the mountains. In chapter 37, he's going to speak to a valley of dry bones. In chapter 36, God says, preach to the mountains. And what is his message to the mountains to be? Oh, you mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord. Say, Pastor, do you think he meant the literal mountains here? I do. Some of these things in the word of God are used symbolically. But you have to study the context of the chapter. And as you study the context of this chapter, it becomes obvious that God is asking Ezekiel to speak to the literal mountains and rivers and valleys of the land of Palestine. And he said, prophesy to the mountains and say, Hear the word of the Lord, thus saith the Lord God, because the enemy has said against you, Aha! Even the ancient high places are ours in possessions. Therefore you prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord, because they have made you desolate, because they came and swallowed you up on every side, because these heathen nations have come in and possessed you. He said, You say to the mountains, Therefore saith the Lord, Say to the mountains, to the hills, in verse 4, to the valleys, the desolate waste, to the cities that are forsaken, say to the Lord, surely in the fire of my jealousy I have spoken against the residue of the nations, and against all Edom, and have appointed my land into their possession. with the joy of all their heart, and with despiteful minds to cast it out for a prey. You say unto them, and say this to the mountains, and to the hills, and the rivers, and the valleys. Thus saith God, I have spoken in my jealousy and my fury, because ye have borne the shame of the nations. Therefore, thus saith the Lord, I have lifted up my hand. Surely in the nations that are about you, they shall bear their shame." God said, I'm going to keep my covenant. God says, the nations that curse you, I will curse. The nations that bless you, I will bless." And all through the history of man, as we view the nation of Israel, we find that the nations that had lifted their hands against Israel have in every case paid, and paid bitterly, and paid deeply. And the nations that have blessed Israel and have been favorable to the nation of Israel, those are the nations that God has blessed. Why? Because God made a covenant with that nation. And God said, I will bless the nations that bless you, and I will curse the nations that curse you. And let the Arabs and the nations of the world today be aware of the fact that God made this covenant, and it has never been abrogated, and it will not be abrogated, and any nation that lifts its hand against the nation of Israel will pay a penalty. Almighty God has made a covenant with this nation. Now, the next thing that he says is this. He said, there's going to be a time of restoration. There's a great day of restoration coming to the nation of Israel. In verse 8 he says, He mountains of Israel, you're going to shoot forth your branches and yield your fruit to my people of Israel, for they are soon to come home. He said, one of these days the nation is going to come back. And He said, when it comes back, He said, you mountains, you're going to blossom forth. He said, I'm going to send the rains upon you. The Bible speaks of the latter rains that are going to fall upon the nation of Israel. And the Bible speaks to us of a day when the nation of Israel will blossom forth like a rose. It'll be a land that'll be similar to the land that they went into. You see, at one time the land of Israel was a land that was watered by the rains of heaven. And when the Israelites stood on Kadesh Barnea and looked across, the spies went into the land and they found that it was filled with milk and honey. But God also, as He took away the people of Israel, because of their sin from that land, God allowed the land to dry up and to be barren. and destitute, and to be a veritable wilderness. About 50 years ago, my father received Jesus Christ as his Savior. He didn't find Christ until he was about 26 years of age. He was born and raised in the hill country of Lake County. Shortly after his conversion, he went back to his home stomping grounds to tell people what Jesus Christ meant to him and of the changes that had come into his life. One of the men that he talked to was a man by the name of W.P. Fuller. W.P. Fuller had a paint company that he had established. He was selling paint all over the country in those days. You probably remember that company, the Fuller Paint Company. I don't know if it's still in existence today. And W.P. Fuller was talking to my father, and my father was telling W.P. Fuller of what Jesus Christ meant to him. And W.P. Fuller said, listen to me, Arthur. He said, I want to tell you that the Bible is a bunch of foolishness. And my father said, W.P., how did you ever come to such a conclusion? Why, he said, Arthur, he said, I have just returned from a world tour and trip. And he said, one of the places that I stopped at was the Holy Land. Palestine. He said, that is the most barren and dry desert that I have ever seen. Why? He said, I don't think you could grow a straw there. And he says, doesn't your Bible say that that land is going to blossom like a rose and flow with milk and honey? And Dad said, well, it surely does. He was just a new Christian, but he says, I'm sure it says that. Well, W.P. Fuller says, well, right there is enough for me. He said, you may as well throw the whole thing away. And that ended the conversation. I wish that W.P. Fuller was alive today. You see, Israel is beginning to bloom. It's beginning to blossom. Through the means of irrigation, that desert is beginning to produce like no other piece of land, as well as any piece of land that ever produced on the face of the earth. But you know, folks, as I said before, you haven't seen anything yet. You wait and see what the land of Israel is going to look like when God once again sends a rain and sends His blessing and His favor upon it. Yes, the Bible says, Ezekiel, you preach to these mountains and say, O mountains, you're going to be dry and barren. But he said, O mountains, one of these days, when God's time comes, He said, you're going to grow and you're going to bring forth fruit. He said, you're going to blossom. in great abundance. And he said, the land is going to be filled with Israelites. Why? He said, I'm going to send lots of babies. For behold, I will turn you, and ye shall be tilled and sown. I will multiply men upon you, and all the house of Israel, and all that are in it, and the city shall be inhabited, and the waste shall be built. And I will multiply man and beast, that they shall increase and bring forth fruit. And I will settle you according to your old estate, and you will do better unto you than at the beginning, and ye shall know that I am the Lord." God says, when you come back this time, it's going to be better than it ever was. That hasn't been fulfilled. As we look at the history of the nation of Israel, we see that they came back into a rather meager possession of the land following the Babylonian captivity. But they never came back to the power and prosperity and glory and beauty and zenith that they enjoyed in the days of Solomon and David and Uzziah. The days of Solomon were never approached. But God said, Ezekiel, I want you to tell the nation of Israel that when I bring them back, it's going to be better than the days of Solomon. It's going to be more glorious than the days of David. David possessed the land, but when my king comes, David's son, the Lord of lords and king of kings, he's going to possess the earth. There was food, there was wealth in the days of Solomon, but when the future king comes, there's going to be wealth such as man has never dreamed of or imagined. There's a great day coming, and then he goes on and he talks about it and he says, Neither will I cause men to hear thee in shame." Well, he talks about it further here, and he gives to them the reason as to why he's going to do this. Some people say, why does God favor the nation of Israel? Well, God had to choose some nation through which to send his son. They say, well, it isn't fair. God likes Jews more than he likes other people. Not true. The only reason that God chose the nation of Israel is because he needed one nation to bear his name and through which to send his son into the world. And with the choosing of the nation of Israel, there was a tremendous responsibility. And because they failed in that responsibility, they paid with a tremendous price. There has never been a nation of people, over such a prolonged period of time, for literally thousands of years, they have been scattered. They have been hunted. They have been persecuted. They have been hated. They have been put to death. They have been despitefully used and treated, and yet they still remain without a home of their own for 2,000 years, a national entity. Why? Because God made a covenant with Abraham that he would raise up a nation after him that would remain in existence. Because God made a covenant with David that his nation would be in existence, that his dynasty would be eternal. Can you imagine any other nation stayed in existence for over 2,000 years without a home of their own. Yet there they are, and today they're going back into the land. God says, the reason I'm doing all of this is because, in verse 21, that my name might be glorified in the earth. that men might see my love, my mercy, my grace, my holiness, my salvation, my omnipotence, my glory. I had pity for my holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations to which they went. Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, I do not do this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for my holy name, which ye have profaned in the midst of them. And the nation shall know that I am the Lord, saith the Lord God. when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes. For I will take you from among the nations, I will gather you out of all countries, and I will bring you back into your own land." There we are back to that Palestinian covenant. God hasn't forgotten it. I will bring you out of all the nations. I will bring you back to your own land. And when you come, you will come under the terms of the new covenant. You won't come back under the terms of the law. This time you'll come back in glory, and this time you'll come back in redeemed wonder and experience. He said, when you come back, I'll give you a new heart. I'll give you a new spirit. I will put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. Under the old covenant, the covenant of the law, the Israelite saw the law not as a friend and not as a savior, but he saw the law as a schoolmaster. The law was there to condemn him. He lived. He did things. And the law of God was there to say, it's not enough. It's not enough. The apostle Paul tells us in the book of Galatians that the law was a schoolmaster to reveal our unrighteousness. The law was not a savior, but it was a taskmaster. It was something that was depressing. And as the Israelite looked at the law, he saw his sin, and so he brought his sacrifices. But God says, under the new covenant, I'm going to perform the miracle of new birth. And here is a new birth in the Old Testament. The new birth is not just a New Testament truth. But Ezekiel tells us about it through the prophetic ministry of Scripture, way back there in Old Testament times. Ezekiel said under the terms of that new covenant, he said, I'm going to give to the man a new heart. Many times people have said, you know, Pastor, I'd like to be a Christian, but I don't think it's any use for me to become a Christian because I know that I couldn't live the life. I couldn't make it. I couldn't be perfect enough. And you know, I've said that's absolutely right. You're correct. You can't do it. Man of himself is impossible in himself finds it impossible to please God and to obey God and to live for the righteousness of God. The Bible says without faith in Jesus Christ it is impossible to please God. But praise God the moment you as a sinner confess your sin and receive and believe on God's Son the Lord Jesus Christ in that moment you receive a new heart you're born again. If any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. All things are passed away, and behold, all things become new. And I've said this over and over again to people. I said, listen, don't try to get good enough. Don't believe that you're going to have to live the Christian life in your own strength. But understand that the moment you by faith believe Jesus Christ is your Savior, that we today are operating under the terms of the new covenant. that Jesus Christ has died on the cross of Calvary, His blood has been shed, and when men and women by faith confess Him as Savior, they get a new heart. Unfortunately, the old one is still there. But praise God, they have the new one. And if they will yield to that new heart, they will find that fellowship with God and the ability to serve God and to obey God and to please God is now a reality within them. The Apostle Paul expressed this beautifully when he said, I'm crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet it's no longer me. But now that I'm a Christian, Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me. and gave himself for me." That's why Jesus said, Nicodemus, I'm telling you something brand new. He said, it's not the law that you must obey to be saved. He said, Nicodemus, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. He said, Nicodemus, we must be born anew. You need a new heart. You need a new conscience. You need a new desire. And that's the new covenant. Ezekiel said, when the new covenant comes into effect, he said, men are going to have new hearts. They're going to have hearts that want to serve God. They're going to have hearts that can serve God. And then he said something else that Jeremiah didn't tell us. He said, I'm going to take away the stony heart and give you a new heart. And then he said, I'm going to put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes. He said, Ezekiel said, when the new covenant comes into effect, the moment a person believes, he said, not only will he get a new heart, but his body will become the temple of the Spirit of God. The living God will come to live and dwell in him at that moment. The New Testament tells us that the moment we by faith believe on Jesus Christ as our Savior, that in that moment our body becomes the temple of the living God. I like to listen to the news on KCBS, and on the weekends they have a black man that gives the news, and every time he closes his sportscast, he always says these final words, and remember this, the body is the temple of the spirit, but he uses it as reference to the human spirit. What he doesn't understand is when the Bible says the body is a temple of the Spirit, it's giving to us this profound and astounding and marvelous truth that when we by faith believe on Jesus Christ as our Savior, under the terms of the New Covenant, we are born again. And under the terms of the New Covenant, our body becomes a temple in which Almighty God Himself comes to live. How thrilling this morning to be a temple for God to dwell in. In the Old Testament, there was a temple at Jerusalem in which God dwelt among His people. And they came and made contact with God in that temple through the ministry of the priest. But in the New Covenant, there is no need for the priest. But every believer is a priest, and every believer is a temple in which God dwells. We don't go to Jerusalem to make contact with God, but God lives within us under the terms of the New Covenant. Who was the new covenant given to? It was given to the nation of Israel. Jeremiah 31 tells us that the new covenant belongs to Israel when they will be gathered back and when their king will come and a new nation will be brought into existence. The book of Hebrews talks to us about this new covenant, and as we close, I would turn with you there to Hebrews chapter 8. You know, the wonderful thing about the new covenant is this. It was given to the nation of Israel, but praise God, it's already in effect today. It's already in existence. In verse 7 he says, If the first covenant had been faultless, then no place should have been sought for the second. For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. And then he quotes that passage that I read to you from Jeremiah chapter 31. In verse 13 he says, A new covenant he hath made, the first old. Now that which decayeth and groweth old is ready to vanish away. And then in chapter 9 he goes on and he says that the New Covenant is a reality in its terms and in its experience today because of the fact that Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of the New Covenant, has come and he's died on the cross for our sins. This message has been brought to you by the Santa Rosa Bible Church. Our mission is to see the lost reached and believers transformed by Jesus. You can find out more information about us at our website at srbible.org. Or you can visit us in person at 4575 Badger Road in Santa Rosa, California. You can also reach us by phone at 707-538-2385.