Hebrews - Part 22 New Covenant Prophesied (Hebrews 8:8-12, Jeremiah 31)

Well, we are still in Hebrews chapter 8, and last time we looked at verses 6 through 13 from one perspective, kind of a more general perspective, and now I want to look specifically at the prophecy from Jeremiah that the Hebrews author quotes. In verse 80 says, for finding fault with them, he says, behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when I will complete a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, for they did not continue in my covenant. And I did not care for them, says the Lord.

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, says the Lord, I will put my laws into their minds. And upon their hearts, I will write them. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen and everyone his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for all will know me from the least to the greatest of them.

For I will be merciful to their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more. So this quote from Jeremiah 31 is worth investigating. So if you go to Jeremiah 31, there is a lot more text. If you even start back in Jeremiah 30 and read into Jeremiah 31, you can see a lot of prophecy here. If you go back to 29, 28, I mean, like, you know, you can go back pretty far for context.

But when Jeremiah is prophesying, he has said a lot of very hard things to the Israelites. And so this prophecy and the prophecy even before this one in Jeremiah 31 are very hopeful prophecies in many ways. It predicts a future for Israel that is distinct from where they're at. So if you consider Jeremiah tells them you're going to be in Babylon for a lifetime, so just make yourself at home there.

But then he goes on to say that the farmer and they who go about with flocks will inhabit the cities, that the Israelites will one day leave Babylon. That's verse 24 of chapter 31 of Jeremiah. And there's a few other indicators there that one day Israel won't be enslaved anymore and in captivity anymore. And in Jeremiah's perspective, of course, at the time, it's very clear that he sees this as a national Israel thing, for the most part.

He sees the deliverance of the people from Israel as in view here, which, of course, it is, to some extent, was in view for some of these prophecies. but then when we get to the new covenant portion where the hebrews author quotes it in the context of teaching about jesus christ the great high priest we have to ask the question when he says in verse 8 of hebrews 8 8 i will complete a new covenant with the house of israel with the house of judah does this mean it's only something for national israel that this covenant has been made for people who are descended effectively from jews or is this a more general fulfillment that is for the whole church and that god always had a plan for the remnant of israel his church and this new covenant was always for her and so that's one of the reasons i encourage you to read jeremiah 30 and 31 on your own because there's more there's more than we'll be able to go through and uh it's really just so beautiful but if you look at jeremiah 31 25 i want to start there just for the sake of of not belaboring these things for too long in jeremiah 31 25 god says for i satisfy the weary soul and fill up every soul who wastes who wastes away and that is just such a sweet thing for God to say he satisfies the weary soul and fills up every soul who wastes away or I fill up every soul who wastes away and there's this verse in Matthew 11 where Jesus comes and he says come to me And he says all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest He says, I satisfy the weary soul in Jeremiah. He says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I am gentle and humble in heart.

He says, and you will find rest for your souls. Jesus Christ proclaims himself to be the one fulfilling the satisfaction of the weary soul you have in the New Testament Jesus saying blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied god has always had a plan for his people and that plan always includes to some extent at least the the depiction we get in the pilgrim's progress of the pilgrim realizing his burden of sin, not just an earthly burden, but realizing the burden he carries of his sin, the punishment that's deserved for his sin and the atonement that needs made and the struggle to try to find the solution. And the struggle starts with well it may not always start this way but often it starts with a desire to atone for oneself there's there's an idea that we can work we can do good things to make up for our bad i don't think it's entirely horrible for somebody to have that thought i think the idea that a human being is realizing they have sin, facing it, and then looking for a solution that's better than simply denying it altogether.

And so what we end up with is you end up with people who like Pilgrim and Pilgrim's Progress trying to climb Mount Sinai. You end up with trying to keep the law. And then what the law does is the law heaps more condemnation upon you as you continue to fail to keep it. And so this idea of rest for weary souls is novel in Christianity. There is no religion that offers true rest except Christianity.

There's religions that offer basically sedation. So you're not really resting. You're just sleeping while everything's happening around you. you're ignorant or willfully ignorant of the reality of your sin but true rest comes for those who come to Christ and who let him give them rest they take his yoke upon them the yoke he carries and they learn from him and he's a gentle and humble leader and they find rest for their souls and so i just in my reading about the new covenant i i found this and i just was overcome with it matthew henry says this is an app this is applicable excuse me this is applicable to the spiritual blessings God has in store for all true penitents, for all that are just and holy.

Okay, speaking of the rest, he says, they shall be abundantly satisfied with divine graces and comforts in the love and favor of God. The weary soul shall find rest in the sorrowful soul joy. And so there's just a wonderful joy in knowing the Lord and finding rest. So coming from that, Jeremiah 31, 26, Jeremiah says, at this I awoke and looked, and my sleep was pleasant to me.

So Jeremiah was able to find peaceful rest, pleasing rest at this time. The idea here is that this prophecy was given to him in a dream. And he then wrote it down when he awoke and it was pleasing. He's called the weeping prophet. He had a lot of hard things he had to say to people. and he suffered a lot for his burning desire to stand for God. And so for Jeremiah to have pleasing sleep is quite a grace from God and quite a gift from God.

But so now in Jeremiah 31, 27, we have a repeat of the prophecy effectively, but let's read the Old Testament version. He says, Behold, days are coming, declares Yahweh. he says when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man with the seed of beast and it will be that as I have watched over them to uproot to tear down to pull down to destroy and to bring calamity he says so I will watch over them to build and plant and to plant declares Yahweh. Something's going to change.

Days are going to come when just as Yahweh has effectively pulled down and torn down Israel and brought calamity upon them because of their sin because of their covenant breaking the day is going to come that he going to watch over them to build into plant So there's going to be some kind of renewal. This is what's being predicted. This is exciting for Jeremiah.

Verse 29, he says, in those days, they will not say again, the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge. Okay, so we have some kind of proverb there. And then he explains it. He says, but everyone will die for his own iniquity. Each man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth will be set on edge. And so we're given this picture of fathers eating sour grapes, but then the children suffering the bitterness of that. and it's the it's a proverb meaning that children are being punished for the sins of their parents and this was a claim that people would make that they didn't deserve the punishment that God was sending upon the nation because it was their fathers who had sinned and walked away from God and God's perspective on this is that none of you are innocent.

In that day, people will not blame their parents. They will realize that this is a just society and God's punishment upon us is due to us for our sin. So if you think about the new covenant as well, each person is personally responsible for their sin before God. They will be punished for their own sin, or they will be punished upon Christ for their sin.

There's no way that a person in the new covenant is saved because their father was a decent person or even a Christian. And if fathers are going to commit abominations and children repent and trust in Christ, those children will be forgiven and they will be part of the Christian kingdom. So each man will die for his own iniquity. Now in verse 31, we have the beginning of the quotation, behold, days are coming to clear Yahweh when I will cut a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant, which I cut with their fathers in the day.

I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, he says, but I was a husband to them. So a couple things. One, he says, but I was a husband to them here. And in Hebrews 8, he says, and I did not care for them. so we have a quotation but then we have a change in the quotation and there's some theories about this because there's some different meaning and one of the things we assume about a new testament author when he quotes the old testament is that he quotes it correctly he gives the true sense of it and if he modifies it in some way, that's God's prerogative to explain himself with further revelation.

And so what we see in Jeremiah 31 is the promise of a new covenant, and he talks about how they broke the covenant even though he was their God. and so you have this sense where him being their God the God of those people wasn't sufficient for these people they needed more than just to be a nation that was called out by God because he was a husband to them and they still didn't obey they broke the covenant and what God is letting us know in this passage is that he didn't care for them. This covenant was not one that was made in such a way that it couldn't be broken. And so it's indicative of the old covenant that it was a rigid law that must be kept.

And unless the person has the spirit of God in them, they won't be able to keep it. And so in the new covenant, we're going to see that contradiction. John Gill says about this verse, and I regarded them not, or I did not care for them. the words in Jeremiah 31 32 are very differently rendered in our translation although I was a husband unto them and so it becomes an aggravation of their sin of ingratitude in not continuing in his covenant there's a number of other variations here of how people have interpreted these different words simply put God was their God of that nation and they had a covenant to keep and they didn't keep that covenant although God did in fact take care of them but in the end God didn't do all for them for all of them what he would do for all those in the new covenant and we'll see that now oh and then he says i will cut a new covenant with the house of israel with the house of judah and in 33 he says but this is the covenant which I will cut in the house of Israel after those days Jeremiah 31 33 In Romans 2, we have some interesting teaching about Jews and circumcision.

Romans 2 verse 28 he says for he is not a Jew who is one outwardly nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh he says but he is a Jew who is one inwardly and circumcision is that which is of the heart by the spirit, not the letter, and his praise is not from men, but of God, or but from God. So according to Romans 2, there's more to being a Jew than being circumcised. Being circumcised is, of course, a good thing in the sense that you were brought into the nation of Israel, and you were considered part of that covenant community but circumcision did not have the ability to actually make somebody able to keep the covenant and that's the weakness of being a jew outwardly only in jeremiah 9 25 we have similar language behold the days are coming again declares Yahweh.

He says that I will punish all who are circumcised and yet uncircumcised. He says Egypt and Judah and Edom and the sons of Ammon and Moab and all those inhabiting the desert who clip the hair on their temples. He says for all the nations are uncircumcised. But then he says in all the house of Israel are uncircumcised of heart. God is always looking at the hearts of the people.

And so when Jeremiah refers to the house of Israel and the house of Judah, yes, there is a truth that this prophecy will be, of course, fulfilled for many Israelite people. But there were many Israelite people that died apart from Christ. But if we take this to be that Jews are those who are not Jews only outwardly. In fact, if you're only a Jew outwardly, Yahweh is going to punish you according to Jeremiah 9.

But Jews are those who are Jews inwardly, who are circumcised of the heart. And then we can see that this prophecy, this new covenant was never meant only for national Israel. It has always been meant for those whom God would include in the covenant. And this covenant would be a better covenant. So in verse 33 of Jeremiah 31, he says, but this covenant, which I will cut with the house of Israel after those days.

All right, this new covenant, the one we're talking about in Hebrews, the one that Jesus is the high priest of, the mediator of a better covenant. This covenant, he says, declares Yahweh, I will put my law within them. And on their heart, I will write it. And I will be their God and they shall be my people. So now we have a major change. Instead of the law being outward, you know, stone blocks, the Ten Commandments, the law is in the hearts of people in the new covenant. the law being written on your heart in a unique way from the way the law is written on the hearts of all people in a sense is what is one of the major differences to the new covenant you have a law written on your heart because you're a human being so there is a knowledge of God's law that he has provided.

This is described in Romans 2. We'll start in verse 12. He says, for all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law. And all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. But he says, for it is not the hearers of the law who are just before God, but the doers of the law will be justified. He says, where we have a knowledge of God.

This is why it's preposterous that people think boys are girls or boys can marry boys or it's okay to murder babies. You know, most societies, these kinds of things don't flourish. And a society that does great evil eventually meets its demise. So we have a law written on our hearts, but it's not enough to cause us to want to obey it it's just enough to give us the knowledge of it in the new covenant God promises to put his law within them I think in conjunction with saying I will be their God and they shall be my people Jeremiah 31 33 what we see is that God's going to actually give us the desire for his law so rather than the law being something I'm knowledgeable of But yet I still hate by the power of regeneration and the indwelling Holy Spirit.

Not only will I know the law in my heart, I will have a desire to obey it. I may not always have the strength to obey it. But I will. will be for God's law. Additionally, when he says his law is going to be within them, we have to understand that the author of Hebrews has already explained to us the ceremonial laws were a type and shadow of Christ, and these things would never bring about salvation, and that these things are now going away because of the new priesthood.

But now that he's talking about a law still you'd have to ask well what law is he talking about then is he saying he's going to put his law that dealt with the judicial way of handling israel in the hearts of people in the new covenant that the specific laws about about how to you know take care of your home and some of those things are are what he's putting on the hearts is he talking about ceremonial laws that He's already explained to be abrogated or is he just talking about his moral law here? And I think it's his moral law. I will put my law within them.

The block of the Ten Commandments being considered the law that we should love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and love our neighbors ourself. That is what is now written on the hearts of all those who are believers. He says, I will be their God and they shall be my people. I think there's quite a nice distinction here, especially in Hebrews 8, between him not caring for them in Hebrews 8, 9, and I'll be their God and they shall be my people in Hebrews 8, 10.

It is one of the major differences between the covenant of works that Israel was under that was a different covenant that they failed to keep that caused God to effectively say, you are not my people. And the covenant of grace, whereby God says you're my people, and that can't be changed. and so let's read a little more about the qualities of this new covenant he says and they will not teach again each man his neighbor and each man his brother saying no Yahweh for they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them in the new covenant which people will enter by faith in Christ there will be nobody that doesn't No God. So it's not like ancient Israel's old covenant, the Mosaic covenant, a distinct and different covenant in its substance and the way it was administered, whereby a person entered the covenant simply by being born to a Jew.

You were expected to keep it. Just because you were born in it. It was a national level covenant with the nation of Israel, physical people, not with a spiritual people. The new covenant, people will enter it on their own by faith in Christ, and everyone will know him. So this is one of the verses we use as Baptists to support what we call regenerate church membership.

We do not believe that we should let people into membership. who don't have a profession of faith. That it is not up to us as parents to baptize babies and bring them into a covenant community. That those babies who will suffer for their own iniquity, not their father's, it is up to them to exercise faith in Christ and enter the church. and so we baptize those who have a profession of faith in Christ and then we deal with them appropriately once they enter the church but they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them it's not like there's going to be special priest level people and then there's going to be your lay people and your your people that aren't quite people in your mind everyone's just going to know Yahweh in this new covenant.

And he says, for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will remember no more. So the promise of the new covenant is God will be your God and you will be God's people. And it will not be based on your nationality of birth. It will be based on whether or not you've been placed into the covenant. That happens through faith in Christ. The covenant will be made with you in such a way that rather than it being a breakable covenant, that human beings will inevitably break because of our weakness and because of our sinfulness.

But even the best human being with the best intentions is too weak to keep them. and the mark of it is that rather than this being a covenant where you have a law to keep, and if you keep it, you'll inherit the reward, and you'll suffer the consequences of even everyone else not keeping it in one sense in the national covenant. this covenant is a covenant that will be kept by God with the mediator Jesus Christ as your federal head mediating on your behalf and because he's already done all the work necessary to keep both sides of the covenant Jesus Christ suffered and died for people he paid the penalty deserved by sinners he was the propitiation for our sins he rose again he defeated death he accomplished all the good things that he could do on this earth he did everything right all the time he was the perfect man he was pleasing to God He entered into God presence and he himself is the high priest for all his people And so now you have an unbreakable covenant because he said, I'll be merciful to their iniquities, and I'll remember their sins no more. in verse 12 of Hebrews 8. In Jeremiah, he says, for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will remember no more. If your sin is forgiven, you can't break the covenant.

In our minds, we think, well, okay, it was forgiven, but what if I sin tomorrow? If your sin is forgiven, you can't out sin it because God's already forgiven. Jesus Christ made the way for all those in the covenant of grace, the new covenant, that God was cutting with his people a covenant which he would keep on their behalf. Because if you come to him and place your yoke upon him or take his yoke upon you, he will do all the work necessary. his burden is light his yoke is light find rest for your soul so coming to god in the new covenant means all your sins are forgiven he will remember them no more so you cannot once you're placed into this covenant because the basis of entering the covenant is that christ has already purchased redemption for all those in the covenant.

Since the basis for it was already completed, it's already been established, he's already done everything necessary to keep the covenant as your representative, you can do nothing to break it. Similarly, you could do nothing to get out of the covenant you were in with Adam as your federal head. It's not like you could be born and live some kind of wonderfully sinless life like Pelagians think and you can say well I'm I'm really not guilty of Adam's sin I've done what I could and now God can be pleased with me you couldn't escape the covenant you were in under Adam because he had already broken it as your representative and you can't escape you wouldn't want to escape the covenant of grace because Jesus Christ has already paid for every one of your sins, and God promises to forgive them and remember your sin no more.

So this is a better covenant, and one of the reasons it's better is that it's unbreakable, so the promises are guaranteed. And another reason it's better is that God in the old covenant gave people the law outwardly. And he showed them what was right and wrong. But in the new covenant, God writes his law on our hearts in such a way that we actually have that desire.

It's not just a pure knowledge bomb in your heart. This is God knitting your heart in such a way that your natural inclinations and affections will be toward goodness rather than toward evil. It makes the covenant more enjoyable. It makes keeping his law a delight rather than a chore or something we just do just to try to get the reward at the end that in a covenant of works we inevitably failed at anyway.

So one of the exciting things in Jeremiah 9 going back there is when God says the days are coming he's going to punish all who are circumcised and yet uncircumcised he says all the nations are uncircumcised in verse 26 and the house of Israel are uncircumcised at heart we go back a couple verses and Paul quotes this in first Corinthians verse 23 let not a wise man boast in his wisdom let not the mighty man boast in his might let not a rich man boast in his riches so basically if you have all the good things in this world strength wisdom prosperity those things are not worth boasting about so all the earthly things that we can really get that are the best things you could have in verse 24 he says but let him who boasts boasts in this that he understands and knows me that i am Yahweh who shows loving kindness justice and righteousness on earth for I delight in these things declares Yahweh so if you're in the new covenant if you've been saved by grace through faith alone you have the work of the law written on your heart so you know what right and wrong is like you understand the truth you see what's going on around you you see the sinfulness of the world the wickedness of men everywhere. Do not grow haughty. Your excitement and your boasting before men and before God is that, hey, I know God.

And the only reason I know God is because God chose me. And God, by his grace, bestowed some knowledge upon me and wrote some things in my heart and gave me his Holy Spirit and sent his son to die for me. And I can't brag about any of those things because I didn't produce any of them. My wisdom, my might, and my riches couldn't produce any of it. So the call to Christianity is a call to humility It a call to set aside all boasting in in self and to boast in christ alone so i will stop there and i will allow you to comment or question am i on you are okay i wasn't sure how to unmute myself for a second um yeah yes thank you for delivering it this morning and just struck with like how cohesive the bible is just over the time it was written.

We were reading Genesis 3.15 last night, which is just right there at the beginning, talks of Christ and the promise of that. And to see that promise fulfilled in the New Testament and to be living in the new covenant, It's like an amazing mercy and grace. And that bid in Jeremiah about giving us comfort, just knowing that God did it all. we're reading out of the confession last night London Baptist Confession chapter 20 it's saying the gospel is the only outward means of revealing Christ and saving grace and it is abundantly sufficient for that purpose yet to be born again brought to life or regenerated those who are dead in trespasses must have an effectual irresistible work of the Holy Spirit in every part of their souls to produce in them a new spiritual life without this no other means will bring about their conversion to God just fully placing our salvation in the hands of God um and speaking to people about election we talked about that a little bit last night too just you know that age-old well you know struggling with well how can god you know willingly send people to hell or whatever and And it's like coming at it from the wrong side, thinking from the wrong side of things, where it's like, well, we're all rightly deserving of condemnation.

And it's the fact that he saves any of us that's amazing. And then the fact that he had to do the work to save us, to make us righteous before him, just blows you away. And knowing that it's not up to me to keep my salvation, that God keeps it for me. good stuff amen yeah the the cohesiveness of the bible the one story throughout is is always exciting to see you know something else you just made me think of was that you know god said i was a husband to them when they broke the covenant so we had that picture but in the new covenant jesus is the husband to this church and that one won't be broken and so it's really you know god has shown us these pictures over and over and in some cases he showed us pictures of things where things got broken and things didn't work you know david Solomon, all these kings that people hoped might be the deliverer, the ultimate deliverer.

And then we get to Jesus, the perfect prophet, priest, and king, and our husband, right? And then for clarity, when he talks about I will put my law within them, or write it on their hearts. I always assume that that was like all men inherently understood that, whether they rebelled against it or not. Were you saying that that's like written on the hearts of the elect?

Yeah, I think that's one of the promises of the new covenant is that unlike unlike but i don't want to say unlike so there's there's a way that the law is written on the heart of all men and i believe it's been written on us since adam and that they're that people have some obvious knowledge like like people all around the world even without a Bible, they can figure out, you know, that marriage is just like one guy, one girl. I mean, this isn't like a novel idea. People figure out we shouldn't murder.

There's such a thing as property rights so we shouldn steal People know what telling the truth and telling a lie is That all built into us and can be perceived through watching nature Even setting aside time for worship is clear from nature. Which day exactly could be, that's a positive law we need the New Testament for and Old Testament, but people understand these things inherently, that there's a God that's worthy of worship and that he probably would define worship. that stuff's all obvious to us from nature but by writing it on our hearts i think what god's saying is in the new covenant instead of the law just being this outward thing you know like you're driving down the highway and the ten commandments are on the billboard you know instead of this outward thing i'm actually placing in you that changed affection and desire to keep my law So this, you know, otherwise you don't have any hope to keep it still. It's just this standard that you can't keep.

And so I do think that for that to be a promise of the new covenant, and for Romans 2 to say that the Gentiles showed that the law is written on their hearts, we have to understand the promise of the new covenant to be something more significant than, oh, I'm just going to do the same thing in Romans 2 I say I do for everybody, you know. Yeah. And so that's one of the reasons why when when we think about a new Christian and we think about baptizing someone or when we evaluate a Christian, we're, you know, we're asking them, what are your desires?

Like, why, why do you keep doing the thing you're doing? And if they show repentance for sin, we start to think, well, maybe in their heart, they really they really hate the weakness of their flesh and they really hate the difficulty and the struggle of it. whereas if a person just continues in unrepentant sin, we just start to think, man, you don't, you don't appear to have had that heart change. You know, these things are wrong and you're now you're denying it or, or you're continuing in it, even though you admit, you know, you shouldn't do it.

That, that doesn't seem like a person who's been changed. So yeah, that, that's what I would think that, that that's saying. okay and some people take it to mean there's no outward law at all now so now you don't have any ten commandments uh you don't have any law uh at least not an old testament one that was given to israel ever and it's you know christians christians just follow their heart now um because the law is there and you know the heart is exceedingly deceitful yeah i'm not sure it's a good um i'm not sure that's a good method i think we i think the christian heart is is no longer exceedingly deceitful um because if it was we couldn't get saved yeah so i think the christian heart has some new creation going on in it so but but it still has corruption that it's dealing with in your flesh and you still have you still have a difficulty and your heart can can still pull you in a direction that isn't right often just because of lack of knowledge or maybe sometimes because you're just following sin and so we have to always want to we always want to check what the word of god says about everything right but i think that's one of the hopes in the new covenant is if if what you're doing outwardly seems to accord with God's law. If you're not doing anything sinful, let's say you say, I want to buy a new house.

You check the Bible. Is it wise to do what you're trying to do? Is there a reason you shouldn't biblically? And then after a while, it's like, well, if that's what you want to do, maybe this regenerate heart of yours is just desiring a good thing. Yeah. And we're actually pleased to have this idea that somewhere in us, the Holy Spirit is directing our thoughts and directing our hearts and oftentimes moving us in ways providentially that we have no idea about.

And so whether we choose to, so as long as what we're doing isn't sin, we can do it to the glory of God, as long as it's not clearly, you know, defined sinfully. yeah it's a good thing it's one of the reasons you want the salvation of your children i think especially as a baptist but probably any kind of christian but is that i i don't want my kids to just learn how to outwardly obey rules now I want them to learn how to outwardly obey rules our society will be better off if more kids did that and my kids will be better off if they know how to do a lot of that but what I want is my kid to have some pull inside him that maybe he can't even explain that's actually pulling him to do what's righteous in a given situation, even if he doesn't exactly know why. Okay, so just like a kid might like cheeseburgers, but hate chicken. I mean, it's not like he has some logical explanation for that.

One just is pleasing to him, and one isn't. And so when you ask your kid, well, what do you want for dinner? They're going to cheeseburger. Well, don't you want chicken tonight? No, I just want a cheeseburger. It's not like he's thinking like one is good, like he just wants what and what you want is to have a heart that's been changed by God in a way where its natural inclinations are just more toward righteous things because it's it's a pure heart and then you shower it and bathe it with the word of God so that you have more knowledge of what are pure things what are good things what are lovely commendable things and then and then you can inform your heart with with good things and you can make good choices and so you know it's one of the hopes we have for our kids is if they get born again asking them to obey certain things we ask them to obey we like to hope we can appeal to more than just hey do this or there's a punishment okay that's old covenant right right do this whether you like it or not and there'll be a punishment if you don't do it and i'll just try to make the punishment so terrible that your desire to do the thing i don't want you to do will at least be less than you know how bad you don't want the punishment right right but what's better is hey do this because it's the right thing and because you have a heart that wants to do the right thing that's that's what the new covenant is is for that's what the new covenant's providing for us.

So, well, let's stop there. Let me pray, and I'll let you guys get to work and all the things you're going to do today. Father in heaven, your word is the light to our path, and we thank you for it We thank you that we have hope because Jesus Christ fulfilled all that was necessary on our behalf please help us to rest in that that we may find rest for our weary souls We thank you for the gift of the new covenant.

We thank you for placing us in the new covenant. We ask that you bring many more. You would save people that we have evangelized, that you would save our nation of the United States, that you would save people from every tribe, tongue, nation, and people, that you would increase the kingdom of God on earth by saving more and more people by your grace, putting them in the new covenant, and allowing the work of your law written on their hearts to affect the way we treat one another, that we may be able to provide righteous and good things for those around us that we may be able to live in a more just society.

And Lord, if you choose not to do these things, we pray that you would keep us faithful and help us to keep our testimony of Jesus Christ no matter how tough things may get. In Christ's name I pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you for listening to Be a Berean with your host, Michael Coughlin. I am a writer at thingsabove.us and I also have a personal website michaelcoghlan.net You can contact me by emailing me michael at thingsabove.us I hope that you have been encouraged to search the scriptures.