We're gonna open our Bibles tonight, again, Jeremiah 31. We're going to try to review a little bit of where we left off from last Sunday and then actually finish what we started last Sunday before our power went out and we couldn't see anything. Because not only have we seen the faithfulness of God in all the covenants, the old covenants that He made with Adam and Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David, we're going to see His faithfulness again in this new covenant that He describes for us in Jeremiah 31, 31-34. You had your message guide from last week. You could use that one. Or you could use the one that I put out there tonight. It has kind of the same thing. Jeremiah 31. 31 through 34 says this, 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 break, although I was a husband unto them, saith the Lord. But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, saith the Lord, I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin, no more. Now the reason why a new covenant is promised in these verses and other places throughout the Old Testament is because those old covenants were not enough to restore man's relationship with God. And the fault of those old covenants was not with God, but with man. And so all throughout the times of those old covenants that we spent some time looking at on Sunday nights, God kept pointing to what we find here in Jeremiah 31. And that is the very same promise of a new covenant. This is where we started last time, and we're going to review this real quick. And of course, this was a very special promise by God Himself there in verse 31. Behold, the days come, says the Lord. Now, we notice that phrase several times throughout this passage. saith the Lord, saith the Lord, saith the Lord, because God's Word is His bond. What He says is so. And so when He says, Behold, the days come, He means it. And He means that He will make this new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Now, even though this is the first place this covenant is called new, it's not the first place where it's promised. In fact, the very first mention of what would become this new covenant has been already looked at all the way back in Genesis 3, verse 15. That's the very first mention of the gospel in all of the Bible, where God promised a very special seed who would crush that serpent's head. And, of course, that theme is just carried all the way through the Bible. We've seen it through the Old Testament covenants, and we've even seen it in the book of Revelation, as we finished up Revelation 12, where we recognize that this serpent, who is trying to get after God's people, that woman, yet will not be able to reach them because of God's care for His people. But, of course, before all of that could happen, before this seed could be born, before this seed could actually crush the head of the serpent, according to God's own purpose and plan, there needed to be more time. and more events before what Galatians 4 could happen, which is the fullness of time could come. And that was true in Jeremiah's time as well. There still needed to be more time and more events. Again, in God's plan, God's purpose, God's providence, God's prophecies. And it was so that he might increase the hope and faith of his people. And that's why God makes this announcement, this new announcement about a new covenant. that is an unconditional covenant for those who come to the very Lord Jesus Christ that is going to crush that serpent's head. And so we recognize that this increases the hope and faith of His people. And that's one of the reasons why all of God's people, for all time, have always approached the Word of God in their times of worship, because this is where we find our hope. This is how we increase our faith. So when we're down, when we're discouraged, when we're starting to doubt, when it feels like we're being assailed by those floodwaters of the devil, the serpent again, where do we go? we go to the hope and the promise of that new covenant that we find in the Lord Jesus Christ. And, of course, we saw last time from this verse that in this announcement we have a special proclamation. There's that word, behold, that God uses to get our attention, to get their attention back then, and even our attention today. He puts these words in place so that we will actually look and listen to what is going to be said in that passage. Because He knows Our flesh. He knows there are times that we need to be shaken up. We need to wake up. And so he uses these markers to show us this is really important here. If you haven't heard the rest of Jeremiah 31, really perk up here. Behold, he says. It's a special proclamation. And, of course, it's about a special period, when those days come. Now, again, it's not specified, but it's talking about days that are after the days of captivity which the Jews were facing in Babylon during the time of Jeremiah. So, again, it was something that was out there, in the future. It was something that they could set their hearts on, and their hopes on, and their faith in, this new covenant. And, of course, it's all primarily here, initially, for this special people. Even the house of Israel and the house of Judah. And, of course, we mentioned last time that just the way that they're related here shows that the old ways of going to God weren't working. Because they're divided here. We have a divided house, where it used to be one house, and it used to be one nation. Now they were divided. And what, ultimately, was the cause of that political division? spiritual division. And not just with each other, but with God Himself. And so, again, just commenting and just directing this new covenant to this house of Israel and house of Judah, they recognize, oh, we need something new. Because the old ways aren't working. Even the Mosaic Covenant and all of the laws and all the ceremonies and all the things with the tabernacle and the temple that is destroyed at this point, all of those things aren't working. We need something new. And God says, I have something new. Now, it's not new to Him. But it's new to them. It's not new to him because this is something that he planned from the very beginning and even as we see from scripture before the foundation of the world. This is him working out his purpose and his plan for his people. And now he says, what you are needing, I am going to provide. So it's a special proclamation about a special period to a special people because they needed something new and something that would last. And even a new covenant that would be, according to Jeremiah 32, an everlasting covenant. That's what they needed. But then the next thing, the second thing that we find in these verses is the potential of a new covenant. A potential for this new covenant. Because before the Lord describes what that covenant would be like, He wanted them to know what it wouldn't be like. So this new covenant would not be like the old covenant. Again, verse 32, we spent a little time looking at this, but we didn't finish this verse. He says, This new covenant is 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. Now, we mentioned last time that he's not talking about the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the patriarch fathers. He's talking about the fathers that were there at the foot of Mount Sinai who entered into that covenant with God there for their people, for even their families. And so he says, this new covenant is not going to be like that covenant that I made with them when I took them out of the land of Egypt. And again, which covenant, which my covenant, they break. even though I was a husband unto them, saith the Lord." Because when we went back to Exodus, we recognized three times Their fathers, even at the foot of Mount Sinai, having been released and redeemed from Egypt, having gone through the Red Sea, having been provided food and water in the wilderness, when they got there, they committed themselves to God three times, saying, all that you said, we will do. All that you said, we will do. We've got the Ten Commandments. All that you said, we will do. And yet, within just a matter of time, just a matter of days, they broke. the conditions of that covenant. As we considered last time, all this means is that under the coming new covenant, there would be both a new and a better relationship with the Lord. We recognize that. It's not the way that I related to your fathers back then. Instead of dealing with families, I'm going to deal with you individually and personally. We saw that in verses 29 and 30. where they had this proverb going on, the fathers have eaten a sour grape. They're the ones that did it, Lord. So why are now our teeth, the children's teeth, set on edge? We shouldn't be punished for what they did back at Mount Sinai, and yet they fail to remember that they would have been doing the same thing, even as their fathers did. But there's going to be a new and a better relationship for the Lord. God is going to deal with you personally and individually, even through His mercy. There would also be a new and better requirement for that relationship. That relationship would be personal, and it would be based on the sole requirement of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, we know that's not a work, but rather a reception of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, that relationship and that requirement wasn't entirely new. In fact, if you remember their father, Abraham, even before this, he enjoyed the blessings of this new covenant when he, in Genesis 15, verse 6, simply believed in the Lord and His promises, and the Bible says that God counted it to him for righteousness. So Abraham entered into this relationship with God personally, individually, through faith. So really he was enjoying the blessings and the benefits of that new covenant even before the new covenant wasn't ratified by the Lord Jesus at His coming. So even though someone could enjoy those same benefits, even the benefits that we enjoy, They still had to be governed by the restrictions and regulations of that old covenant. So even true believers in the Old Testament looked and longed for the good news. And that's something that we often forget when we're going through the Old Testament. We look at all of these stories and we wonder, where is this new thing? It's there. It's being pointed to. It's being approached in different ways. Several years ago, on Sunday nights, we looked at how the temple and the tabernacle were really living pictures of the Lord and how He would come and how He would live His life for the Lord, for His Father, and would sacrifice Himself. And all of those different elements in the tabernacle and the temple were all things that pointed people to Jesus if they were given eyes to see, hearts to understand, and a will to believe and obey. And so there was that glimpse of that new covenant even in the Old Testament times. And the reason for this is, and this is where we left off last time, because all this promised a new and a better rescue. A new and a better rescue. Again, we have a new and a better relationship, not like the old one. A new and a better requirement, not like the old one. And now a new and a better rescue, not like the old one. You see, the deliverance that God gave to the fathers of Israel, according to this verse, verse 32, was a physical deliverance. It was a temporal deliverance. It was when He brought them out of Egypt, literal Egypt, the country of Egypt, from their literal slavery. Now, it says by the hand, but obviously we know He didn't do it by His literal hand. But He directed them, and He helped them to get to where He wanted them to be. He took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, but implied in God's own words is that there would be a different kind of rescue, and a better kind of rescue under this new covenant, and even their deliverance from Egypt. Now, if you think about the deliverance that God's people had from Egypt, that was an amazing thing. I mean, we think about all the ten plagues that took place in Egypt, and you can read this in Exodus, and how God showed His mighty power over everything in the world, even over the very things that the Egyptians considered to be their own gods. And yet God showed Himself over all of these things. He let them and gave them all of the prosperity of Egypt. The Bible says that He put in the Egyptians a favor for God's people so that they borrowed and they just gave. So they didn't leave Egypt empty. They had so much, and of course God was going to use a lot of that for the building of the tabernacle and things like that, but amazing. They get to the edge of the Red Sea. and they're about to be slaughtered by the enemy, the Egyptians. Pharaoh's bearing down upon them with their chariots, and what does God do? He parts the Red Caesar. They could go across on dry ground. And God is guiding them all the way with that pillar. You know, we've got the cloud and we've got the fire, and that cloud and that fire that would go before Him was even behind them to keep them separate from their enemies. When they get across, He completely destroys the Egyptians. Now, we think that's a great deliverance, but it continues on. When they get over, they're wondering, what are we going to eat? What are we going to drink? And God gives them manna from heaven. It gives them water from the rock. And we know all of these stories, yet they were real and they were actual, and it was a great deliverance that God gave to them. It is something that you find all throughout the Bible, that they would go back to look at that rescue. And yet, we find from this new covenant that there would be a better rescue, a different kind of rescue. Now we're not told specifically what kind of rescue this is going to be, but clearly it's going to be better than even their deliverance from Babylon, because it would be provided after it. Again, verse 31 says, Behold, the days come. So he's saying, even when you get back from Babylon, your deliverance is going to be something better, something greater, something more momentous than any deliverance you've ever had. What kind of rescue is better than a physical one, but a spiritual one? What kind of deliverance is better than a temporal one? Than a timeless and eternal one? It's the deliverance that Linda shared in her testimony from that psalm. That is better and more glorious than the deliverance from Egypt and from Babylon and from any other time and place where they need to be delivered from. Because the deliverance that we have is from our sin. and from our burden, from our rebellion against God. We needed something new. We need something rescued. And God is promising that that will take place once and for all. because the kind of deliverance that we needed is an everlasting life of joy and fellowship with God. And really, all of this is why in the book of Hebrews, that same new covenant is called a better covenant. They needed something better, and God says, okay, I've got something better. I've already planned it, and I've been kind of revealing it to you in stages, but now I'm going to describe it to you and call it a new covenant because it was better, or it's established on better promises, it says in Hebrews 8.6. And of course, who is the one through whom the blessings of this new covenant can be experienced and enjoyed? None other than the mediator of that new covenant, the Lord Jesus Christ. So the potential of this new covenant was just to whet their appetite. And really to whet our appetite. To say, it's not like the old. It is something new. It is something greater. It is something better. A better relationship, a better requirement, a better rescue. But then, when we come to verses 33 and 34, it gets even better, because now we find the provisions of this new covenant, the very provisions of this new covenant, which are as great and as glorious as the giver is himself. You can see what the blessings of the New Covenant are by focusing on what God says He will do. And I want you to look for that word as we read through verses 33 and 34. Look at when God says, I will do this, I will do that, I will do this other. because these are the provisions of the new covenant. God says, but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts and write it in their parts. And I will be their God, and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord. For they shall all know Me. From the least of them unto the greatest of them saith the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. We won't take the time to elaborate on all of those special provisions and blessings, but I want you to just look at what God promises to do, or really promised to do, because now that we are living under this new covenant, this New Testament, we recognize that these things are available to all who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and are saved. And these are unconditional for those who come through His Son. The first thing that we recognize is that God will provide a new house for all His people. A new house. Now, if you remember back in verse 31, He spoke to a divided house. Remember? This is a message to both the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Again, we see that division, that political division, that was based on a spiritual division because they had rebelled against God and they had broken their terms of God's covenant. Well now, He says, I will make this new covenant with one house. the house of Israel. And what we see from this is that those two that were separate, those two that were divided, are now restored into one. And that's a new thing. That's a new thing. And this will even be, through this new house, that all of the blessings of the new covenant will be provided to this world. But then we move on, and we see another blessing of this promise and another part of this covenant. In addition, we find that God will provide, second, a new heart for all of His people. A new heart. Verse 33, again, He says, Of course, this reminds us of those Ten Commandments, right? Back in the Old Testament times there at Mount Sinai, the letters of God's law were literally written and engraved on tables of stone that really the priests had to then bring God's Word to the people so that it might go into their hearts. And so it was from the outside in. instead of the inside out. And so God says under this new covenant, He Himself will put and write not just the letter of His law, but the spirit of His law into the hearts of His people that He Himself has prepared to receive. You see, God knows that apart from His intervention in our lives and making His word, His law, part of us, we would want nothing to do with that law, nothing to do with that word, nothing to do with His will. It needs to be a part of us, and God knows that. And so all of these things that happened in the Old Testament were to show us that we needed something new. And that new thing comes into a new heart. You see, even in Ezekiel, he told his people that he would not only inscribe the law into their hearts, but he would even give them a new heart. So it's not just that we have the old heart that he can then write in a spiritual way the words of his law on, but that heart is dead, that heart is dry, that heart is unresponsive to the things of God. We need a new heart. We need something new. And so in Ezekiel 11, 19, we're told that God will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and He will give you a heart of flesh. This means that God Himself will give you a love for Him and a love for His law, as well as a longing to live for Him according to His law. That's the difference. It's something that He implants in the hearts of every single one who is part of this new covenant. What a difference this new way is from the old way. But even more, we find that God will provide a new harmony, a new harmony between God and man, in that to those who receive God's law in their hearts, look at what God says. This is a phrase that you find all throughout the Old Testament. It says, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. I will be their God, and they shall be My people. This has been God's desire all along, to restore a people to Himself, so that they might be His, and He might be theirs. We sing songs like that. I am His and He is mine. That was the goal, and that is the very purpose and provision and promise of this new covenant. It's a relationship that will be mutual and a relationship that will last forever. But then added to this, God will also provide a new head, we could say. A new head for those who have Him as their God. What else does He say in verse 34? He says, And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, For they all shall know Me. From the least of them unto the greatest of them saith the Lord." This means that God Himself will instill in His people both the ability and the desire to know Him. Now this does not mean that you'll know everything that there is to know about God. We know that God is an infinite God, and we are and will always be finite people, individuals. But we will have an eternity to grow in our knowledge of and in our relationship with Him. What this means is that you will know God directly through no other human mediator except for the Lord Jesus Christ. And then to cap it all off, we have another I will. God Himself will provide a new hope. Look at the end of verse 34. God says, for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more. Now the way this is put, even though it's at the very end, it actually forms the basis for all these other promises. With that one word for. All of these things I will give for because I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more. Now, there was forgiveness available under the Old Covenant, and boy, there was a whole system of ceremonies and sacrifices and all of those things. And yet, even though there was forgiveness provided by God in that, again, focused on Christ, there was also, according to Hebrews 10.3, a remembrance again made of sins every year. So there was not a once-and-for-all forgiveness. It was a forgiveness that was temporary. It was something that atoned for their sin and appeased the wrath of God for a time, and yet we know that the blood of animals cannot remove sin. But under the blessings of this new covenant, God promises to both forgive and forever forget the sins of His people. Now, you think, well, God is omniscient. How can He ever forget? All I can say is what God says. I will remember their sins no more. I don't know how that comports with an omniscient God. But I know that He forgives, and He will not remember it. And that's grace, and that's something new. All of this God Himself provides and promises to provide in this new covenant, and yet sometimes, as we're reading through this, doesn't it all still sound too good to be true? I mean, for those who know Christ, or those who God is prompting to know Christ, it ought to. Why? Why would you do this for me? The sins of my past, the sins of my present, and even sometimes the sins that I don't want to, but I know I'm probably going to mess up again, and maybe in the same way that I've done before. Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Lord, why would you do this? Can you do this? And why? Why would you? Fact is, if you see your need for something new, remember that God can and will provide His promises when you, by faith, go to Him for them through Christ. And really, the whole point of our series on Sunday nights is that God's faithfulness is great. The fact is, God can keep these promises, as hard as it is to believe. God will keep these promises when you just turn to and trust in His Son for salvation from your sin. And He does so, maybe it's not a way that we're going to understand, but He does so because He loves you. Why does He love you? I don't know. Because He does. And He wants to. Because He is God, and there is no other. And so we've already seen, and we're gonna continue to see, God is always faithful to His covenants. God is always faithful to His covenants. Great is thy faithfulness. So tonight, as we think about this new covenant, think about how God shows Himself faithful to these promises, even through what we'll find next week. through the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's close in prayer. Oh Father, I thank you again for the faithfulness that you have expressed and shown to us through all of the covenants that we've looked at so far. And Lord, I know that there's a lot that we can learn about these covenants, but really the whole point of us going through these covenants this year is to really see your faithfulness to them. Because Lord, we know that your faithfulness is the very foundation and the fuel for our faith in you. And so, Lord, when our faith is shaken, or when the floodwaters of the devil's lies tries to cause us to doubt You and Your Word, or even bring us to a point of fear and anxiety, O Father, I pray that You will help our minds and hearts to be directed to Your faithfulness that we have found already in Your Word. Because, as we've seen from Deuteronomy 7-9 and many other places, that the Lord, our God, is a faithful God, keeping covenant and mercy with those who love Him. And so Lord, as we explore how you keep your covenants, how you keep your commitments, how you keep your promises, sometimes it might be in the short run, sometimes it might be in the long run, but Lord, every one of the promises that you've made have been or will be kept. And that faithfulness is sure. That faithfulness, Lord, is the very ground and foundation of our salvation. It's the very ground and foundation of our faith. Because, Lord, we're finding that all of them really point to and will be answered by and finished in, fulfilled through, the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, especially when we look at this new covenant. And so, Lord, as we look at these promises, we look at these provisions, oh, Lord, we needed something new. And maybe there's someone here, Lord, who still needs something new in their life. They realize that the old way isn't working, especially in their walk in relationship with you, and they need something new. Lord, thank You that You've already, from our standpoint, provided that new thing through the Lord Jesus Christ. You sent Him to live for us, to die on the cross for us, to come back to life for us, so that when He goes to heaven, Lord, He might intercede for all who come to You through Him by faith. Oh, Father, I pray that You'll call them into Your own family, into Your own kingdom, into Your own temple, so that they might belong to You. And yet, Father, we know for those who do know You, Sometimes we still go back to those old ways, just like the Israelites did, over and over again. They always went back. Oh Lord, they needed something new. They needed that new thing in their heart. Lord, that's what we need. And so Lord, as we sang this evening, we pray that you'll revive our hearts, that you'll create in me a clean heart. And Lord, we know that that's something that you've already done through the regeneration of your Holy Spirit. We recognize that. But yet, we still need that renewal. because we still are so often tempted to go back to the old ways. Oh, Lord, we still need to be reminded of this new thing. Thank you, Lord, that you're faithful, faithful, ever faithful to keep these promises for your people. So, Lord, when we struggle with our faith, let us see your faithfulness to these promises once again. For it's in Jesus' name we pray these things, amen.