A New Covenant, New Heart and New Sign | Dr. Conrad Vine

It's a pleasure to come and share with you tonight. Um, I've just had a wonderful couple of days with my wife. We've been visiting some of you in your homes and we looking around the island. And you live in a truly beautiful part of the world. And you might say that a natural healing from God is the beauty and peace of Maui.

And my wife and I, we went up to that big mountain behind here um, two nights ago when it was a clear day. And we drove all the way to the top and there was no clouds going all the way up. And we sat there on this little over overlook and the sun was going down in in the west there on top of the clouds and for a few moments it looked like there was an atom bomb going off in the distance. It was this this orange plume. It was a stunningly beautiful and we took some pictures of it.

And so I think one of the ways that God heals our our souls is actually giving us the beauty of nature. And uh we see we hear the sound of the water and we see the beauty of Hawaii. And uh I just thank the God thank God that God is a God of beauty. So tonight we're going to talk about this is the title of our talk tonight. It's called a new covenant, a new heart and a new sign.

And so um I'm going to be talking about the old covenant and the new covenant and what is this covenant and what does it mean for us today and the sign of this new covenant that God gives us. So, as we begin, I invite you to bow your heads with me and invite the presence of the Holy Spirit. My dear heavenly father, we thank you for the the blessings we've enjoyed today. Lord, thank you for that health nugget. Thank you that you've given us in our own pantries, our own kitchens, and many natural healing remedies.

And I pray, Lord, that we will recapture this knowledge uh before we need it. I pray, Lord, I thank you for the gift of music that you bless us with this evening. And I thank you, Father, that we all have full stomachs here. That in a world of want and a world of hunger, um each one of us has a full stomach and a bed to go home to tonight. Father, for all these small mercies, we thank you now, Lord, as we discuss this question of the new covenant.

I pray that you will speak through me and for me. I pray that you will speak to every heart that is bowed here today and to those watching online, wherever they may be. May your Holy Spirit work in our lives in a beautiful and a powerful way. We ask this mercy in Jesus' name. Amen.

Let me ask you a question. Is modern society healthy or is modern society kind of sick? What would you say? Sick. All right.

I used to work in Britain in the health care system. I was a hospital manager, which you know, most people's minds put you somewhere between like like a rat and a ro and a mouse or something because in Britain hospital managers always denying people care. That's their job. And I was working as a hospital manager. And sometimes I go down to the ER on a Friday night or on a Sabbath night.

And the ER is where you see the reality of society. Particularly at the weekends. You see people coming in, those road traffic accidents. Um there there's wounds from violence. There's people coming in who've had accidents because of drunk driving.

You see drug overdoses coming in. You see self harm cases coming in. And if you want to know whether your society is healthy, go and spend a weekend in ER and it will give you a very clear picture of how healthy our society really is. So our society really is not that healthy. We have many challenges around us.

And so I want to talk first about God's diagnosis of um how we got into this condition. Then we're going to talk about God's solution. Then we're going to come to the heart of the matter. And then we're going to come to our conclusions. But let me say this, a society without a clear sense of moral values will inevitably degrade and eventually collapse.

And without a moral compass in society, inevitably we are thrown into a state of moral confusion and social chaos. And we live in a society today where Disney tells our children to follow your heart. And Disney tells our children that you can be whatever you want to be, but nobody can tell you what to do. And so our children are raised with the idea that follow your heart, follow the inclinations of your heart, do whatever you want to do, but we've lost the ability in society. We've lost the moral courage to say this is right and this is wrong.

And so what is God's diagnosis of our situation? Well, Proverbs 28:26, written by Solomon, maybe the wisest man that ever lived, he says this, "He that trustth in his own heart is a what? Is a fool. So if you follow the inclinations of your heart only uh the Bible says that you are a fool and a fool saith in his heart but we read elsewhere that there is no God. So if you trust in your own heart it means you're going to lean on your own understanding trust in your own wisdom.

You don't know the future. You don't know the consequences of your actions but you're going to trust your faulty deceptive heart and before you know it you're going to be in deep trouble. The prophet Hosea put it this way. He said they sow the wind and they shall reap the what? The whirlwind.

So let me how [clears throat] this work in our society. So we sow the winds of violence in Hollywood and we reap the whirlwind in the glorification of violent crime in segments of our society. We sew the winds of immorality in our movies and we reap the whirlwind of family breakdown. We sew the winds of explicit content online and we reap the whirlwind of sex trafficking and the abuse of girls and women nationwide. And so when you sew to the wind, you really do reap the whirlwind as the as the Bible says.

Now at the end of the book of Revelation, the middle of the book of Revelation, this is the last book of the Bible, we read about a coming judgment. And it says there, "Then I saw another angel flying in midheaven with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those live on the earth, to every nation, tribe, language, and people. And he said in a loud voice, fear God and give him glory, for the hour of his what has come?" Judgment has come. And worship him who made the heaven and the earth, the sea, and the springs of water. And if you ask yourself, well, when there is a judgment, there's always a standard against which you are judged.

Is that fair? you always are judged against the law in some some way one way or another. And uh so this the standard of God's judgment is what we call the ten commandments the the decalogue as theologians call it. So I'm going to put on the screen just look through our the ten commandments here and on the left hand column I'm going to list them out one by one and we view these we call them the ten commandments but actually in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 5 verse 22 it doesn't call them the ten commandments it calls them in the Hebrew davarim which means words but a better translation is promises. So have you have you all heard of the ten commandments?

Yes. Okay. Have you ever heard them referred to as the ten promises? Yes. Okay.

But if you look in Deuteronomy 5:22, it refers to the ten commandments as the 10 davarim, which is words or promises, not necessarily commandments. So if you call these the ten promises, does that put a different tone on your understanding to if you call it the ten commandments? Absolutely it does. So let's look at the first commandment here. The first commandment is you shall have no other gods before me.

And uh what is the blessing of this? Well, we are called to the worship of the one true God, the creator, our creator. It means we have no divided loyalties. So we don't follow animism or materialism or paganism. We don't have divided hearts.

We we our worship is solely towards our creator god. The second commandment is this on the left hand side. You shall not make for yourself an idol whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow to them or punish them. And uh so that's a restriction against making idols.

Do people have idols around our world today? Yes, they do. I've worked in many countries and whether you work in the west or in parts of Africa or in the Americas or in Europe or Asia, everywhere you go, people have versions of idols and people will bow down and worship them. Well, um what is the what is the promise that goes with this commandment? I've put it there.

This is a call to re reject idolatry and idolatry is the worship of demons. And if this is calling us away from the worship of demons, says if you don't have these idols in your life, you're going to free yourself from the destructive power of demons in your life. 1 Corinthians chap 10 20 and 22 talks about the pagans. They they they sacrifice to idols, but they're actually sacrificing to demons. And we've spoken about demons last week.

Demons are real. Idols are manifestations of demons. When I used to work as a missionary in India, you'd go to um a religious festival and you know these um Hindu temples with all the gods lining the walls, these statues of various um beings. One of them is called Ganesh. He has the head, the body of a man with multiple arms and the head of a truck elephant.

You've seen that one. And what happens at these religious festivals is those stone or wooden stone or those wooden statues become to life. They come down, they dance around the fire and the holy men known as devas, they are filled with those spirits and they tell the secrets of the entire community and at the end of the festival those statues go back to the walls of the Hindu temples and and everybody goes home. So people pay a lot of money to the devtors the the Hindu holy men in order for their secrets not to be spoken out in public. But the second commandment not making yourself any idols, not bowing down to it.

God is saying if you don't have those idols in your life, I'm going to protect you from the power of demons in your life as well. I say praise God for that. The third commandment, you shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God. For the Lord God will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. Well, the blessing of this commandment is that God is calling us to purity of speech and thought and to live lives that bring honor and glory to God.

You know, I was discussing with somebody the other day. When you leave a room, what do you want people to remember you for? Do you want people to remember you for how stylish your clothes were? Or do you want people to remember you for the nobility of your character and the purity of your speech? So, in following this commandment, we're living lives of purity, lives of honor, lives that bring honor and glory to God.

What that does is it increases your social standing. People know they can trust you. You are a trustworthy person in the community. The fourth commandment, remember the Sabbath day, which is the Saturday, to keep it holy. ix days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.

You shall do no work, you your son, or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. Why? For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them. But he rested the seventh day. Therefore, that God blessed the Sabbath day and he consecrated it.

What this version, what this commandment tells us in terms of a promise is that we are called to worship God as our creator. That is, we don't live in a random universe. We live in a cosmos. We're not random collections of chemicals. We are moral beings and we're accountable to God for how we treat others.

So if we all worship God on the Sabbath day and we are reminded that we are creatures with a creator and he has revealed morality to morality to us in the scripture that means that we are less likely to bring violence upon our neighbor or to hurt our neighbor in any way. Why? Because we have to answer to our creator for how we treat our brothers and our sisters. The fifth commandment, honor your father and your mother so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. Well, [clears throat] what does this what's the promise with this commandment?

This commandment, God is seeking to pro to protect your family bonds, to foster family unity and respect. This commandment values the wisdom that the elderly bring to life. And we live in a society that's dominated by young people today. Would you agree? We value youth and energy.

But actually, if you want to listen to wisdom, you need to listen to people with a few gray hairs. because they've they've been around the block a few times. They've gone through cancer. They've raised kids. They've survived a bankruptcy.

They know what it is to to mend a broken heart and heal a disturbed marriage. Those are the people you need to that you want in your society that you can turn to them when you have a challenge in your generation. The chances are the previous generations have already been there, got the t-shirt, and they know how to fix the problem. And so this commandment here, God is valuing the wisdom that that gray hairs bring to a society. The uh the sixth commandment, thou shalt not murder.

Imagine a society where there was no physical violence. Can you imagine that? That you could walk down the streets of any city, any district of any city in the world and have no fear of any physical violence, no rape, no kidnapping. No muggings. I've been mugged a few times in my life.

It happened so quick you don't realize it's happening. Actually, one guy in London put a knife in my face and the next minute I knew I didn't have my wallet anymore. And I'm grateful I got away without a knife stab because these days normally the knife stab comes with the taking of your wallet. But the the sixth commandment, you shall not murder. God is saying that he wants us to create a society where there's no violence that nobody live in fear of violence that you can let your kids go outside and play on the lawn and do whatever they want and no harm is going to come to your children.

Can you imagine that kind of society if we followed the sixth commandment. The seventh commandment um is thou shalt not commit adultery. What does that mean? Is that God is saying if you all followed this commandment and adultery is a broad word. It covers all forms of sexual immorality.

If you avoid all forms of sexual immorality, that's going to protect every marriage out there. And if you and if you're rejecting all forms of sexual immorality, that's going to protect every marriage. Can you imagine what that does to the children who would otherwise go through a divorce? How many children's lives get messed up because their parents went through a divorce? And this goes from generation to generation.

It's not the children's fault. Sometimes it's not really the parents fault, but it's a reality of life today. But in this in this commandment here, God seeks to protect families. He seeks to protect your your marriages and thus he's going to protect the next generation from what happens in this generation. The eighth commandment is you shall not steal.

This commandment protects private property and it rejects burglary, extortion, kidnapping and God is protecting the fruit of your labors. So God is clearly not a Marxist. Okay? Because private property is abolished in Marxism. And so thou shalt not steal also applies to the government.

You know that the government owns all the means of the production. And so God is not a Marxist in the eth commandment there. The ninth commandment's on top of the screen now. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor, against your wet neighbor. That means God wants to protect your reputation in society.

And God wants to promote truthfulness in social interactions. Do we find that on the internet today? Well, this is how the internet goes. You post a picture of a nice apple and you say, "I love apples." Within minutes, somebody is typing in the comment section, "Apples? Are you orange phobic?" I'm literally trembling with anger and beside myself, I am triggered that you don't like oranges.

You're an orange phobic. You're a hatefilled individual that what what did I say? I just said, "I like apples." But the internet is an irrational place where people they pick something up and it goes all around the world at the touch of a button and before you get out of bed you've been smeared from here to New Zealand and back and you have no way of undoing that damage. But the ninth commandment, you shall not bear false witness. God wants to protect each of our reputations in society and that requires truthfulness in our social interactions.

And then the final commandment is this. You shall not coveret your neighbor's house. shall not cover up your neighbor's wife or male or female slave or ox or donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor. What does this protect against? It protects against envy, against greed and property crimes.

Allows us to enjoy the fruit of our labors without fear or loss. So, let me ask you the question. Those ten commandments, which you can also call ten promises in the Hebrew of Deuteronomy 5, are these ten commandments pretty good rules for society? They're very good rules for society. Those ten commandments, if applied to any society on earth, would lead to an imu an immediate improvement.

And so there [clears throat] was a man who was uh hitchhiking in Scotland and there was a big football soccer game going on. And the soccer games in Scotland tend to be drunken drunken affairs, lots of violence in the streets between the opposing sets of fans. And um there's no place to stay in town. So he goes to the police department and he says, "Um, where do I find a place to stay?" They said, "We'll put you in a cell for the night. You're a you're a visitor." Said, "I don't want to go in a cell." He says, "Look at the window.

Look at those big bars on the window. I don't want to go in a window." And the police officer says, "Well," he says, "You know, it's up to you, but if I were you, I'd sleep in that cell tonight." So he goes into the police department. He sleeps down goes puts his head down in the cell. And about 8:00 at night, the football hooliganism starts and the fighting starts and the throwing of bottles and the knifinger goes on in the streets. And that man looks up at those iron bars or steel bars on the window and he says, "Thank you, Lord, for those steel bars.

Thank you that they are protecting me from what's out there." And the Ten Commandments function like that. To the extent that I and you and we honor and uphold the moral law of God, the Ten Commandments, we create this halo effect of blessing around us in our lives and in our community. And if every community and every member of our community were to uphold the law of God, society would be a dramatically better place. But the Bible says this, "Do not be deceived. God is not mocked.

For whatever you reap, that whatever you sow, that you shall also reap." So there is a cause and effect. When we reject God's moral law, we shouldn't be surprised when we have social breakdown. And that is what we have all around our world today. Social breakdown. There was a a famous Christian apologist.

He was speaking in Australia was to a large group of students a famous university and this apologist who was a Christian evangelist was speaking about the law of God and some student stood up in the audience. He says please say I got a question. He says like this this law was written by Moses. It's over 4,000 years old. He said um don't you think we've evolved in the last 4,000 years?

Like why do we need to why do we need to listen to these ten commandments? Haven't we improved as society? Look at all our learning. Look at all our knowledge. Look at all our computers.

Look at all our wisdom. Look at the philosophy of the ages. Haven't we improved as global humanity? Why should we listen to something that came from a shepherd who scratched himself in the dust in the Arabian desert? Why do we need to listen to this?

And the evangelist said, well, he said, let me just just let me ask you a simple question. He said, "Uh, when when you came here tonight," he said, "Did you lock your front door?" And the man said, "Yes." Well, said the evangelist. In that case, we haven't changed much, have we? The fact you had to lock your front door tells me that we're still dealing with the same problems today. Thou shalt not steal still applies today.

And you're afraid of theft. That's why you lock the front door. So, this is this is the challenge we're facing. So what is God's solution to the challenge we're facing? Well, in the Bible, we find that God makes covenants.

A covenant is an agreement between two parties and it lays out the rights and responsibilities of both parties. Now, we all enter into covenants today. Uh has anybody here got a cell phone? Raise your hand. Yes.

Okay. Do you have like a monthly plan? Okay. So, that's known as a covenant. That's a legal contract that outlines your rights and your responsibilities.

You pay your money, you get access to certain benefits. Um, does anybody here have a rental agreement or a mortgage agreement? Yes. Okay. So, you have entered into a covenant.

If you lease a car, if you sign up to go to school and you agree to pay certain school fees, if you get married, these are all covenants. We enter into covenants all the time. And actually, we base our lives on the security that those covenants provide. If you if there were no covenants in society, you wouldn't be able to rent or buy a house. You wouldn't have a phone in your pocket.

You'd never be able to get married. Life would be pretty hard. Yes. The only advantage of not getting married is no mother-in-law. But in general, a society without covenants is going to be a miserable place.

Now, in the Bible, God enters into multiple covenants with humanity. I'm just going to give you a few on the screen here. Genesis 1:es 26- 27. Won't look at the text tonight. Genesis 2, God gave us dominion and shared stewardship of the earth.

And that covenant was with Adam and all of humanity at creation. So today, we are stewards of Maui. We don't own Maui. We are stewards as far as God is concerned. We are responsible for nurturing the environment and passing it on to the next generation.

The second covenant we find in the scripture is Genesis 3:15. Um that was the promise that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent's head. That's a promise of a savior for all of fallen humanity. And um that the covenant partners were everybody in the human race from Adam onwards. In Genesis chapter 8, at the end of the story of the flood, God enters into an everlasting covenant that the world will never be destroyed by a flood again.

And what is the sign that God puts in the sky as a confirmation that the world will never be destroyed by a flood again? The rainbow. So when you see the rainbow, which is caused by light going through water, it's a reminder that God will never cause the world to be flooded again. Have we had a flood in the last 4,000 years? Yes or no?

Not a global flood? No. Maybe in your basement, but we haven't had a global flood in the last 4,000 years. Has God's promise come true to humanity there? Yes, it has.

Then Genesis chapter 12, we see that God made a covenant with Abraham, uh, through whom all the families of the earth would be blessed. And the covenant partners with God were Abraham, Abraham's biological families, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and so forth. And through him, every family on earth. And then you have 2 Samuel chapter 7. This is a covenant between God and King David that God would raise up from King David's family a ruler who would rule an everlasting kingdom.

That would be the Messiah. And the covenant was made between God and King David. And it pointed to Jesus as the son of David who will establish an everlasting kingdom. So God keeps making covenants with people as we go through the scriptures. And uh the most famous covenant is what one you see on the screen now.

He made it at Mount Si. This is Exodus chapters 19-23. This is that when Moses went on to Mount Si was given the ten commandments. And the covenant was this that if Israel would be God's people, it would be his treasured possession, his priestly kingdom and a holy nation that God would be their God. And who were the beneficiaries of that covenant?

was not just the people of Israel at Mount Si, the descendants of the 12 tribes of Israel, but it's anybody who wanted to join themselves to Israel at that time. There's a woman in the book of Deuteronomy, it says, I forget the text now, but you can look it up. It says, um, she was a daughter of Pharaoh, but her name was Bethia. And you say, well, so what? Well, in in Hebrew, anything ends in Yah means short for Jehovah, like Elijah, Eli Yah.

Um, so Yah is short for Jehovah. And Bith is is uh is the same as Bath, which means daughter like Ba' Sheba had committed adultery with David. So this daughter of Pharaoh, her name is now daughter of Jehovah. That's what the name means. It's a beautiful change.

you've seen her whole life. You see it there in the book of Deuteronomy that this daughter of Pharaoh who was a pagan and worshiped all the gods of Israel, she's joined herself to God's people and she's taken a new name which means daughter of Jehovah. It's a beautiful name Bethia and Bith is is um Hebrew Beth Bath Bith is it means a daughter in Hebrew and so this is the most famous covenant of all. Now we call this the old covenant and God made it with Israel at Mount Si and at the heart of that old that old covenant or the Mosaic covenant were the ten commandments. The problem is this covenant failed.

We read about this in Hebrews 8. It says God finds fault with them when he says the days are surely coming sayaith the Lord when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah not like the covenant that I made with their ancestors that is at the at Mount Si on 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 so I had no concern for them. And why did that covenant fail? Very simply this is the reason when God gave them the covenant it says all the people answered with one voice and said all the words that the Lord has spoken what we will do. So the people of Israel entered into a covenant with God and basically they thought it was a matter of external obedience and not a matter of the change of the human heart.

They said we'll do everything but there was no attempt to change the heart. And so when Jesus came and he discusses the sermon, the law of Moses in the sermon on the mount, Jesus shows that the law of God wasn't just be about externals. It was about to be a change of the human heart. And it says Jesus said, "You have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery." That's the seventh commandment. Then Jesus says, "But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart." And so in the sermon on the mount, Jesus takes the law of Moses and basically says the reason it failed was because God's people thought it only mattered that God only wanted external obedience.

And they didn't realize that what God wants is a change of heart. And um that change of heart is what's most important to God. God is, yes, concerned about, you know, if you're going to be his covenant people, you're going to be obedient to his will. What God really wants is a change of heart. He doesn't want grudging obedience.

He wants loving, joyful obedience. And so, God promises to make a new covenant. Well, there's [clears throat] the text there, Hebrews 8:10-13. And I'm just going to break it down in this way for you. The new covenants that Jesus wants to bring about in each of our lives is found in Hebrews 8:10 through13.

And there are four components to this new covenant that God wants to make with you and I when we follow Jesus Christ. The first promise is this. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. What does this mean? Means that God will put his law in our hearts.

Not so not so not that we have this grudging external obedience but that we actually delight to do the will of God because his law is now written upon our heart. You know, there's a big difference between, you know, if you've got a son and you say, "Hey, son, could you mow the lawn for me today?" And you have, you know, half an hour of back and forth negotiation over it. Eventually, he does it and you can see the scowl on his face that he may get the lawn done, but you will both end up with like a sour feeling in that relationship. But if you say to your son, "Hey son, have you got half an hour of freed? Hey dad, I see the garden needs mowing.

Can I help you out today?" Think, oh, praise the Lord for a son like this. Yes. And that relationship is much stronger. And after the the lawn has been cut, the relationship between father and son is much stronger than if you've comp if you compelled obedience. And so the first component of the new covenant um which we enter into when we follow Jesus is that God promises to write his law on our hearts.

We call that theolog in theological terms sanctification or to be made holy. The second component of the new covenant that God wants us to enter into is reconciliation. And the text says, "I will be their God and they shall be my people." Now, isn't that pretty amazing? I think that's really profound that I'm in a covenant relationship with the creator of the universe. So, according to the, you know, on under in the US federal government, I'm just a number in the social security system.

Yes. President Trump doesn't know me by name. The administrator for social security doesn't know me by name. from the Department of Health and Social Services. They don't know me by name.

Well, the book of Isaiah chapter 43 says, "I I've called you by name and you are mine and you are precious to me." Isaiah chapter 43, the first couple of verses. So, when we enter into this new covenant with God, God says, "If you will be my child, my son, my daughter, I will be God unto you." And so, there's a personal connection with God in the new covenant. The third component of the new covenant is listed there on the screen. The text says, "They shall not know, they shall not teach one another or say to each other, know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest." What this tells us is that when we enter into the new covenant with God, that we actually engage in witness and mission. We tell other people about the w the covenant we're in with God.

How many young ladies if they get married and if their if their fiance gives them, let's say, a diamond ring, do young ladies tend to hide that under a glove for the next few months? What do they do on social media? The whole world is going to know that, you know, I'm now engaged. Okay. And um I'm grateful it's not a nose ring that they put in, you know.

But anyway, they they put a ring on their finger and you see these pictures on Facebook and they may be kissing and there's their hand is up like this and you see the ring there. Um when somebody gets engaged, they want the whole world to know about it. Yes. When you're in love, can you hide the fact that you're in love? No.

Being in love is like having a really bad case of body odor. Okay. No matter how much you try to hide it, you can't cover it up. Okay. If someone has body odor, can they cover it up?

Yes or no? No. No. It doesn't matter how many clothes they put on, you know, they they there's a study once in Europe that said that the French have the highest per capita use of odilelet and the lowest per capita use of soap. And the English have the lowest per capita use of wa twelet and the French and they have the highest per capita use of soap.

And so, um, when you have a bad case of body odor, no matter how much you try to cover it up, it still leaks out. Yes. And when you fall in love with somebody, can you hide it? You may pretend you're not in love, but it leaks out like body odor. Okay?

It's people are going to sniff it out. They're going to, okay, we see see that there. And when you are in love with God and you're in a covenant relationship with God, it's like that diamond engagement ring. You're going to let people know that you're in a covenant relationship with the creator of the universe. It leads to witness.

And then the final component of the new covenant says, "I'll be merciful towards their iniquities and I'll remember their sins no more." Uh technically that's known as justification or to be declared righteous by God. And this this fourth components of the new covenant, God says, "I will remember your sins no more." I think that's amazing, don't you? that you enter into the new covenant with Jesus Christ and I will remember your sins no more. That your family may remember, they may not let you forget. Your kids may remember, they may not let you forget.

Your spouse may remember and hopefully hopefully they will actually let you forget. But God says, "I will not even remember your sins anymore." That's amazing. He says, "I will declare you innocent. I will declare you righteous." And we'll come on to that in a bit more detail in a few more moments. But these are the four components of the new covenant.

And you say, well, when do we enter into the new covenant? Well, there is we find this Jesus refers to it in Matthew 26. This is the Lord's supper. Says, "And as they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed it and break it and gave it to the disciples and said, take, eat. This is my body.

And he took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them saying [snorts] drink ye all of it for this is my blood of the what? New testament which is shed for the remission of sins. Now uh if you look in your average Bible we call the first twothirds of the Bible we call the old what? The old testament and the last third of the bible we call the new testament. Okay.

And that word testament um a testament is a legal will. Yes. Like um it's like a will. And so some some versions say covenant and some versions say testament. It's essentially the same thing.

And so the old covenant which we found with the law of Moses onwards is most of the old testament. But when Jesus comes along because the old covenant has failed, God gives us a new covenant. And we enter into that new covenant when we are baptized. Number one. And secondly, when we celebrate the Lord's supper, because when we celebrate the Lord's supper, Jesus says, "This is the new this is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for the remission of sins." When we celebrate the Lord's supper together, we're looking back with with faith in what Christ did for us in Calvary.

And we're looking forward to the day when we'll celebrate with Jesus in the marriage supper of the lamb when we all get to heaven. So, it's both backward-looking and it is forwardlooking. And so, we're entering into a new covenant. And that is why the Lord's supper is is an essential part of the Christian experience. We are affirming that we are in the Lord's supper in the new covenant.

It's a bit like a marriage ceremony. Um it's like signing for, you know, in in in secular terms like signing for the mortgage, signing for the rent, signing for the car, signing for the phone, whatever it is. But spiritually when you celebrate the Lord's supper, you are affirming before the world and the watching universe that you are in a covenant relationship with the creator of the universe. And that body that was broken, it was broken for me and for you. And that that the drink, the the the grape juice that we drink, that represents the the shedding of that blood, it represents the forgiveness of my sins.

And the breaking of the body means that his body was broken in my place. And the shedding of the sins means he died in order to bring me forgiveness for all of my sins. And we're ac we're accepting accepting that by faith. So this is the new covenant. It's a beautiful thing.

Yes. I've noticed in many churches that attendance goes down on Lord's supper. Like people don't like come to Lord's suppers. I want to encourage you to be a regular attendee at Lord's Supper Services because that's where you affirm before the watching universe that you are in a covenant relationship with the creator of the universe. It's a bit like it's a bit like saying to your wife this year we're not going to celebrate our wedding anniversary.

Wife can say what we're not going to celebrate the wedding anniversary today. And it's like saying to the kids, "I know it's your birthday next week, but we're no longer celebrating birthdays in this family." They say, "What's wrong with you?" And then it's like your parents calling your uncle and your aunt and your grandparents a week before Christmas and agreeing on the phone and you're listening in as little kids and they're all agreeing, let's just agree on no presents this year. And the kids all feel short changed by that. Has anybody That happened to me a few times. So I remember that.

But um these these events are important in our lives and when we celebrate the Lord's supper, we're affirming before the watching universe that we're in a covenant relationship with the creator of the universe. So what is the heart of the matter when it comes to that new covenant? Well, let's go back to that message of God's judgments in Revelation 14. This is known as the first angel's message. Revelation has got three angels messages.

Numbers 1, 2, and three. This is the first angel's message. Says there, "Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven with everlasting gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth, to every nation, tribe, language, and people. And he said in a loud voice, fear God and give him glory, for the hour of his judgment has come. And worship him who made the heaven and the earth, the sea, and the springs of water." So this this uh this uh announcement of God of the hour of his judgment draws our attention to the fact that we are to worship God as the creator of the heavens and the earth, the sea and the springs of water.

And if the the moral law is the standard of judgment and we we are judged um against the moral law, particularly against God as creator, there is only one part of the ten commandments that deals with God as creator and that is the fourth commandment which is the Sabbath day. Because it says there in red, six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath, the Lord your God. But then it goes on to say, why do we worship God on the Sabbath day? In the bit at the bottom, it says, for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. And so the reason that we we honor the Sabbath day is a memorial of God's creation.

It's a recognition that I am a created being. I'm a moral being. I'm morally accountable to my creator and I'm grateful for the gift of life every single morning. You know, uh I was joking with somebody today. How do you know you're getting old?

Like when you bend down in the morning to do your shoelaces, you look for other jobs to do while you're down there. Okay. Does anybody else have that same experience? or you struggle to get you can get one foot in your underwear but not the other foot and you kind of stand there kind of like doing like a performance trying to get your underwear one. Um uh my uncle used to do that in front of my aunt and she was really upset with him cuz he turned it into a real performance.

And so the the Sabbath day is is the is the um is the memorial of God's creation. It's a reminder to us. It's a reminder to us that God is good, that God is love, that God's creation was very good, that all good gifts come from God, and that God wishes to have time with us. God created in the first place a perfect world. We live in a broken world.

We see that around us. But the original perfect world was infused with the presence of God's love of all that is good and wholesome, uplifting, lifegiving, life sustaining, and lifeful. It was never God's purpose for death, disease, dismay or despair, despair to inhabit our world. And the text says there at the end of the creation week, it says there, "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all their multitude." Genesis 2. And it says, "And on the seventh day, God finished the work that he had done.

And he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it because on it God rested from all the work that he' done in creation." So in this passage here, three times, you see it in the red there. Three times the Bible is emphasizing the seventh day, the seventh day, the seventh day. So for days 1 through six, God was making the physical world. But the climax of creation was nothing physical.

It was time, holy time. It's the capstone of creation. So days 1, 2, and three, God creates the physical environment. Days four, five, and six, God creates the animals, the birds, the bees, the fish, and and the birds. And on the sixth day, he creates Adam and Eve.

So days 1, and three are paralleled by days four, five, and six. But the capstone of creation is nothing physical. You can't put it in a bottle. You can't sell it in Walmart. The climax of the creation is something known as holy time.

And it doesn't matter what part of the world you live in. Doesn't matter how rich or poor you are. Doesn't matter what your zip code is. Doesn't matter what color your passport is. Everybody gets the same 24 hours of holy time every week.

It's available to all people equally in equal measure. Nobody can buy more Sabbath. Nobody can sell their portion of the Sabbath to somebody else. The Sabbath is a cathedral in time for everyone here tonight to fellowship with God regardless of who we are or where we've come from. Now, you probably noticed a few times I've got lost when it comes to time up here.

Yes. I I said on Monday night, I said something like, "It feels strange that it's already Tuesday." My wife said to me later, "No, Connor, it's only Monday." But have you noticed that if you don't take a day off in the week, what happens to your concept of time? It gets all blurred. Yes. After a while, you're saying, "Now, what day of the week is it?

Is it Monday? Is it Tuesday? Is it Thursday? I really don't know." So we live in such a busy world, such a busy busy world that if we just if we just keep working, working, working, working, and we don't stop on a regular basis on a Sabbath day, we end up like rats on a treadmill. And after a while, we don't know what day of the week it is.

And it's very disorienting. It's very disorienting when we slow down on Friday night. Sabbath comes in at Friday sunset according to the Bible. When we slow down, we create time for that which is most meaningful in our lives, our relationships with our spouse, with our children, with our members of our local community. We tend to think that life is about the acquisition of possessions.

It's not. God has made us to be human beings, not human doings and not human acquirings. God has created us to be able to sit and think and reflect about the purpose and meaning and where have I come from and where am I going and do I have any assurance of that. And the Sabbath is this moment in time on a weekly basis where we can get off the never-ending treadmill and leave the rat race and we can reset all those relationships that bring honor and joy to each one of our lives. You know, you've probably heard of Charlie Kirk.

Yes. He wrote a book on the Sabbath and said, "Stop in the name of God." And he spoke there about the immense blessings that came when he and his family on Friday afternoon would switch off their cell phones and switch off the TV and switch off the internet and just have a straight 24 hours just with the loved ones. And how his kids came to love the Sabbath day. It was like a weekly Christmas, Thanksgiving, and birthday party all rolled into one. And he spoke about the profound blessings of keeping the Sabbath day.

Somebody else who's high profile is Ivanka Trump. You know Ivanka Trump, she converted to Judaism from whatever she was before and she keeps the Sabbath day as according to the fourth commandment that she and her husband Jared Kush they switch everything off and they just have that 24 hours is sacred and so many people are trying the Sabbath day and it's a bit like I've heard of like angel fruit but I came to Hawaii. I never tasted angel fruit before but I come to Hawaii and I taste ang is it angel fruit? No. Dragon fruit.

Okay. Dragon fruit. You know what I'm talking about. It's this red stuff. Yes.

Red thing with little bit little black pieces in it. I'd never heard of this stuff. I'd never eaten it before, but when I came to Hawaii, I taste it for the first time. Now, there's a verse in the Bible, Psalm 348, that says, "Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good." And you can hear about the Sabbath, but until you taste and see that God is good, unless you actually slow down and stop on a Sabbath day and switch everything off and disconnect from the stresses of this world and the stock market and the war in Iran and everything else, you will not discover for yourself how good the Sabbath blessings really are. So, I want to encourage you if you're not keeping the Sabbath already, the heart of the new covenant is God writing his law in your heart.

And part of that law in the heart is giving God a 24-hour date. It's known as the Sabbath. You're going to connect with your creator and remember once again that you are a human being created in the image of God rather than just a human a rat in the human rat race. And you may say, "Well, the Sabbath is a Jewish institution." Well, no, it's not. The Sabbath was given in creation in Genesis uh 2, long before the Jewish people even existed.

The Sabbath was given for all of humanity as God's blessing to all of humanity. Jesus said in Mark 2:29, Jesus says, "Then the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore, the Son of Man is Lord even of the So Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath." He doesn't say anywhere else in the Bible, he's not Lord of Monday. He's not Lord of Tuesday. He's not Lord of Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.

The only verse in the Bible that says which day Jesus is the Lord of is the Lord of the Sabbath day. And you look through the gospels, particularly John's gospel, some of Jesus' most powerful miracles were done during the the Sabbath hours to set people free from Satan's clutches. Did Jesus keep the Sabbath? Luke 4:16 on the screen there. Yes, he did.

It says, "When Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the which day?" The Sabbath day as was his custom. So Jesus kept the Sabbath. He said, "He is the Lord of the Sabbath." Sabbath comes from the creation story long before the Jews existed. So, it's not a Jewish institution. It's a it's a blessing for all of humanity.

Jesus kept it. Jesus healed on the Sabbath and he's the Lord of the Sabbath. And when Jesus spoke to the disciples, he said, "When I'm gone and the Romans surround Jerusalem with their armies," he said, "you need to flee." But Jesus said to his disciples, "Pray that your flight may not be winter or on the what? Sabbath." So Jesus assumed that his disciples will be keeping the Sabbath long after he's left, gone back to heaven. And so the Sabbath was not turned to Sunday because of the resurrection.

Jesus didn't teach that. The apostles didn't teach that. Nor did they practice it, Jesus said to his disciples after I'm gone. And 40 years later or 30 years later when the Romans surround Jerusalem as they did in AD66, he said that pray that your flight will not be on the Sabbath. And so Jesus assumed that his followers are going to be keeping the Sabbath after his resurrection.

And Isaiah chapter 66 takes us through to the new heavens and the new earth. And we discover there that when we get to heaven, we're not going to be worshiping from Sunday to Sunday. The Bible says from new moon to new moon and from what to what? Sabbath. All flesh shall come to worship before me, saith the Lord.

So the Sabbath exists in the Garden of Eden. Jesus kept the Sabbath. Jesus healed on the Sabbath. Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath. Jesus taught his disciples to pray their flight from Jerusalem would not be on the Sabbath.

And the Bible promises that when we all get to heaven, we will worship God from Sabbath to Sabbath. Do you get it? Is there is there a theme throughout scripture here? Yes, there is. Now, we'll explore maybe tomorrow or I think tomorrow night, we'll explore a bit more about the end time significance of the Sabbath.

But there is another reason why we keep the Sabbath. Not just because of creation [clears throat] is this and Deuteronomy 5 has is the the ten commandments are listed twice in the Bible, the book of Exodus and also in the book of Deuteronomy. And the only difference between those two versions, the ten commandments is the fourth commandment, the Sabbath day. And the bit that's different is the bit in red. Um so we to remember the Sabbath day and to keep it holy and so forth.

But now the rationale has changed. In Exodus, we keep the Sabbath day because God is our creator and he made the heavens and the earth in six days and he rested and he blessed and he hallowed the seventh day. But in the book of Deuteronomy, we keep the Sabbath day for an entirely different reason. It says there, remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. So in this reason for the Sabbath, the Sabbath, we keep the Sabbath not just as a memorial of creation, but it's a celebration that God delivered us from slavery to sin.

It's a celebration of deliverance. It's like having a wedding anniversary meal with your spouse. It's a celebration of what God has done for you through all the years. Well, hopefully it's a celebration. Okay, not through gritted teeth at least.

So, you know, um I'd like to go to Taco Bell, but you know, that's not that's never happened in our wedding anniversary celebrations. But anyway, um this the Sabbath is a celebration that God has set me free from sin. We're affirming that God delivers us from slavery to sin to become his people. It's an opportunity to celebrate God's deeds in our life. It affirms our faith in salvation past.

It affirms our trust in salvation present as affirms our faith in salvation in the future. The Sabbath affirms that we look to Jesus lifted high and dying in our place trusting in God's provision for our salvation to deliver us from death to life. The c the Sabbath is celebrated not because we want to be saved. It is not the means of salvation. It's a celebration of the fact that God has saved us in the past and he's saving us every single day.

Just as you cannot have a wedding anniversary meal without first being married. Yes. So the Sabbath is a celebration of what God has already done for you in your life. And you don't have a wedding anniversary meal in order to get married. You have a wedding anniversary meal to celebrate what God has given you.

And so we celebrate the Sabbath. And this commandment here, we are celebrating God's salvation. As the Bible says, one of the most beautiful verses in the Bible says, "It is by grace that you have been saved through faith. And this not from yourselves. It is the gift of God.

And so we're celebrating the fact that we are saved by grace rather than by our own human works. And the Sabbath then becomes a sign between God and his people. It is a covenant sign that we that we bear the name of Jesus Christ. And tomorrow we're going to look more at the end time significance of the Sabbath in the final crisis of conscience that is coming upon our world. But the book of Ezekiel says this, "Moreover, I gave them my Sabbaths as a sign between me and them, so that they may know that I, the Lord, sanctify them, and hallow or make holy my Sabbaths.

They may be a sign between me and you, so that you may know that I, the Lord, am your God." And so the Sabbath is a sign that we are God's people, that we belong to God, that we're his treasured possession, that he is filling us with his spirit and turning us into a holy priesthood, that God has entered into a perpetual covenant with each one of us. The Sabbath is my affirmation to God that I want to be changed. I want to be recreated. I want to be a new creation. I'm grateful for the salvation he's given me, and I'm asking him to more fully restore his image within me.

You say, "Well, why do most Christians worship on Sunday?" Well, the original [clears throat] Christian church, you might say, in the from the 5th to the 15th centuries, was the Catholic Church, the papacy. And if you read in their writings, they'll tell you why most Christians worship on the Sunday. It's not because Jesus rose on the Sunday. This is the Catholic Encyclopedia. It says this, "The church after changing the day of rest from the Jewish Sabbath or the seventh day of the week to the first, that's from Sabbath to Sunday, made the third commandment referred to Sunday as the day to be kept holy as the Lord's day." So, a couple of comments here.

If you look at the original ten commandments, how many commandments are there in the Ten Commandments? 10. If you look in the Catholic Bible, they've changed the ten commandments. They've eliminated the second commandment which is not making any graven images, no idols because Catholic churches are filled with idols. They've taken that commandment out.

So the fourth commandment about the Sabbath becomes the third. Hence it refers to the third commandment up here. And they took the final commandment, the 10th about not envying your neighbor's wife, oxy maid and so forth and they just split it in two. So the Catholic Church actually changed the law of God which is really an act of blasphemy. It's not in the Bible.

So the Catholic Church says that they actually changed the day of rest. And in that when they say this, they're actually saying that they chopped out the second commandment completely and they split the 10th into twos. They've still got ten commandments, but it's not as it's written in the Hebrew Bible. This is from the um the converts catechism. This is an official publication of the the Catholic Church.

The question, which is the Sabbath day? Answer. Which day is the Sabbath day? According to the Catholic Catechism, Saturday. Yeah.

Now, if the Catholic Church who promotes Sunday worship all around the world says in their catechism, Sabbath is the Saturday. Saturday is the Sabbath day. You got to take note. Question. Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?

Answer. We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church and the Council of Leodysia transferred the semnity from Saturday to Sunday. What this says is that the Bible says remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. And rather than the church being subject to the scripture like the scripture is over us and we're obedient to scripture, what this says is that now we can change the scriptures for ourselves and determine for ourselves what the Bible now says. That we're in control of scripture rather than us being subject to scripture.

Then the final quotes I show you tonight, these are all official Cath Catholic publications. This is the Catholic Press newspaper Australia. It says there, "Sunday is a Catholic, by which I mean Roman Catholic institution, and its claims to observance can be defended only on Catholic principles. From the beginning to the end of scripture, there is not a single passage that warrants the transfer of weekly public worship from the last day of the week to the first. Not a single passage of scripture according to the Catholic Church warrants shifting from Sabbath to Sunday worship.

And that kind of tees us up for tomorrow night when we're going to talk about the final crisis of conscience that's coming upon our world. Much like COVID, there's something coming down the pike which is much bigger. It will be on a global level and the issue will be true worship. So the solution in in conclusion tonight, the solution to our human brokenness is to enter into the new covenant with God. We do that when we go through the waters of baptism and when we celebrate the Lord's supper.

We take the that we eat the bread that represents the fact that Jesus' body was broken in my place for me. And we drink that grape juice that symbolizes the fact that his spilled blood brought forgiveness for my sins. Now I'm in a covenant walk with God. We ask God to write his law upon our hearts and we ask Jesus to live within it within us. And the sign of that covenant, the last two slides here, the sign of the covenant is the Sabbath.

As the Sabbath is an eternal memorial of God's creation, and it calls for a response of worship. The Sabbath in Deuteronomy 5 is an eternal celebration of God's salvation, and it calls us to proclaim his saving ways. what God has done in my life and in your life. And the third reason is the Sabbath is a sign of God's covenant relationship with his people. And it calls us daily to talk and walk with him.

I want to encourage you today, if you're not keeping the Sabbath, why don't you try it this coming weekend? Just try it. Taste and see whether God is good or not. Slow down on Friday. Switch off those phones.

Avoid the internet. Don't worry about Iran or the stock market or whatever is whatever else is on the news. And make the Sabbath in Hebrew on neg it means a delight. It's like you plan for Thanksgiving. You plan for a wedding.

You plan for Christmas. Plan for the Sabbath day that it will be a delight for you and those nearest and dearest to you. And do it on a weekly basis. And you will find that you have energy for the rest of the week. You'll find you're not lost in the endless rat race.

You'll find that the relationships that are nearest and dearest to you are flourishing once again where previously you were just lost in the rat the rat race of life. And you will indeed taste and see that God is good. In the French Revolution, they decided to put all the animals they went everything went metric or decimal. And so they said all the animals must now work nine days and have the 10th day off rather than working six days and have the seventh day off. And within a few weeks, that scheme came to an end because the animals refused to work on the Sabbath day.

They knew there's a seven there's a 7-day cycle. The animals, the horses wouldn't pull the carts. The cows wouldn't work in the fields. We we we were raised with dogs on every Sabbath morning. They just stayed in their beds.

They knew it was the Sabbath day. The animal kingdom knows about the Sabbath day. The Sabbath is a memorial of God's creation. It's a celebration of our salvation and it's a sign of our covenant walk with God. It's ultimately a sign that we've asked Jesus to live within each one of us.

My favorite verse in the Bible says, "It is no longer I who live, but it is a Christ who lives in me. The life I now live in the flesh. I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me." When we enter into that new covenant, that deal, that agreement, that bargain with God, that I will be his son and I will be his daughter and he will be my God, we're not just entering into a covenant with God. We're asking the creator of the universe. We're actually asking Jesus Christ to live within us and to change us from the inside out and to do more for us and with us and sometimes despite us than we could ever imagine for ourselves.

It's an incredible experience with God. It's the new covenant. And so this Sabbath day, we're going to celebrate. I think we have some baptisms tomorrow and on Sabbath and maybe in a few weeks time, we're going to celebrate as people are entering this new covenant with God. It's a beautiful thing to see.

It's a beautiful thing to be a part of. I want to encourage you today that if your walk with God has kind of wandered, maybe it's like a marriage has gone very dry, um to rekindle your walk with God, celebrate the next Lord's supper that comes along and claim this promise of scripture for yourself. It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And as of today, I want Jesus to live within me. We sing that song, live out thy life within me.

This is what that song is singing about. The life I now live in the flesh in Maui in 2026. I live my by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. It's a beautiful promise. It's a beautiful covenant.

And it's my prayer that each one of us will enter that new covenant with God. That will allow him to write his law upon our hearts. That we will be his people and he will be our God. That he will remember our sins no more. as far as the east is from the west, so far he's removed our transgressions from us.

And that um as he puts his law on our hearts, we will experience, we call it holiness, that we'll experience the blessings that come from living according to the will of God. God has done incredible things in my life. I'm still a work in progress. But if God before me, who can be against me? And if God be for you, who can be against you?

The Apostle Paul said, "Of this, I'm confident that the one who began a good work in you will bring it to completion by the day of the Lord." It's my prayer that when Jesus comes again in the clouds of glory, we will realize that God has done an incredibly good thing in each of our lives and we'll be ready for eternal life. May God bless us as we walk in this new covenant, experience that walk of joy with God, and look forward by faith that glorious day when all things are made new again. Amen. So, tomorrow um the health nugget will be on fried potatoes. Is that right, Kim?

No. Roast potatoes, baked potatoes, mashed potatoes. No. What is our health nugget on tomorrow? Real eyes.

Real eyes. Real eyes. All right. Something about eyes and thinking. All right.

So, we look forward to that tomorrow. These talks are always creatively titled and I look forward to them. And so, uh, tomorrow, um, I'll be speaking about the end times in the book of Revelation, what we have to look forward to before Jesus comes again. Uh you you might say as a summary, we need to buckle up, but if you know the end of the story, you can get through to the end of the story. And uh then on Sabbath, we'll have our worship service in the Kihei Church Adventist Church in Calvary Chapel.

We'd love to see you there. I think it's just a worship service because of the baptism at 8:30 down in the beach. And then the worship service at 11:00. Then our last night together will be this Sabbath night here at 6:00 on Sabbath. We look forward to seeing you all here and I'm going to speak about the second coming of Jesus Christ and what that means for us.

So the blessed hope that we have within us. So until then have a blessed evening and go with God and go in peace.