The Old Covenant Law does not on its own make anyone righteous; rather, its primary purpose is to reveal the universal nature of sin, holding every person accountable to God. The Old Testament itself, however, points forward to a New Covenant. This new promise is not based on external rules but on an internal change, where God writes His law on our hearts and all may know Him personally. This covenant is made possible by the one, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice of Jesus Christ, whose death provides a complete atonement for sin, offering total forgiveness to all who come to Him in faith.

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:00] I wonder whether you’ve ever had the happening to you when you went to go to the movies and you pulled out your card that normally gets you in the door and discover that they’ve changed the system. And the one you have is the old one and, no, you better pay the normal money as though you don’t have any special card because the new system is, well, you’re not covered. Actually, there’s lots of things in our human life, in society, that you find the same is true. You’ve got to keep up to date. And when we come to the scriptures, we have a question that’s all about the fact that we’ve got an Old Testament and a New Testament. And are you a person who’s training up as a Christian, was largely in the Old Testament, or are you a person who’s realised that there is a graduation that’s happened

[00:00:59] in the pages of the Bible to the New Testament? Now that’s not entirely true because the fact is that as Christians we accept both the revelation of God in the Old Testament and New Testament and that is the common position that Christians take that we have one Bible but it’s got Old Testament and New Testament. we believe both contain the word of God so we’re not just people who throw the Old Testament away it’s not quite the same as having your movie card the latest thing that the theatres have put together that you have to be in but it is something that God has done for another reason there is something to be learned about the Old Covenant having been superseded by the New not superseded in the sense that the old was ever wrong but the times have changed and we need to understand that

[00:01:56] now to do that we look at our verse on the screen you’ve got in Romans 3 the book of Romans is a terrific book because it’s Paul’s writing to the people in Rome so they could understand a little bit about the difference between Jews and Gentiles and the Jews were the ones that the Old Testament Covenant was for but what about the people in Rome who consider themselves not Jews and how much of that Old Testament still had application was the question Paul needed to write an answer so in chapter 3 he begins to talk about it and the first thing he’s getting into here well it’s not the first thing because it’s in chapter 3 but what then are we Jews any better off because they’ve got the Old Covenant or I better more accurately say they had the Old Covenant but are the Jews better off

[00:02:51] now it is understood by people who are Jews that their Hebrew Bible is the one that counts and they don’t necessarily accept the New Testament as we Christians do but we don’t reject the Old Testament but we believe there’s something to be learned and Paul is getting his finger on it but he says are the Jews any better off because they were covered under the Old Covenant And he says, No, not at all. For we already have charged, he’s talking about his writing and his teaching and his being an apostle, all that he had to say, that all both Jews and Greeks are under sin. There is something more permanently true than the case of being under the old covenant or the new covenant because of the problem of sin. And all of us are under sin. and what does it mean to be under sin?

[00:03:45] I don’t know whether we should be looking to see what’s about to come from the skies or not but under sin is more a question of what is controlling you or what has got your subservience or to what are you committed and indebted? And the Bible’s teaching both in the Old Testament and the New Testament is that we the human race who are made by God to be perfect and to be made in relationship with him, we sin, we the human race right at the beginning and even if you didn’t accept the literalness of the story, I do, I take it just as it’s written but there are some people who would say it’s getting across a general truth and maybe the historicity is something we’re meant to take as a little less than literal. Those questions don’t worry me because the truth of what that Old Testament’s telling us

[00:04:34] as you read the first chapters of Genesis is indeed how sin came into the world and you don’t need very much looking around to be convinced of that. You’d have to be blind, I believe, not to recognise the presence of evil and not to recognise that we human beings are not exactly the victims of the evil only. We’re often the originators of it. The Bible has this strong current and it’s both in the Old Testament and in the New that we’re a part of the problem. The problem is there because as the New Testament says for all have sinned and all are fallen short of the glory of God and as far as the Jews are concerned having the Old Testament didn’t make them really any better off certainly not from today and why didn’t it make us any better off? Because he goes on to say why because none that’s no people

[00:05:30] doesn’t matter Jews or Gentiles none are righteous and how we were made in the first place to have a purity of person under God’s creation we were made to be people who reflected his glory and we were little mirrors of what he was like and to some extent you can still see that that is so about human nature. I find it amazing when you deal with people even some when you meet them when you go to jails and talk with folk even though they may confess to you some of the things that they got wrong yet you find something in any person that shows the majesty of how we’ve been created. Don’t let anybody give you a picture of humanity as that we’re a bunch of like demons or something. We are in our essence how God has made it there’s still lots of little parts of us that shine out the glory of how we are made to be

[00:06:27] and I discovered something that you can say the same about castles. Listen to my little picture of castles which I discovered going through Scotland some of my forebears come from Scotland I was glad to go around and have a look and when you look at some of the castles one of the biggest things that hits you in the face is most of them are ruined and they’re not exactly pretty when you see whole walls half broken down and you see a lot of creatures live in them and the birds have made terrible mess and some of the beautiful castles that the literature tells you where to go to see a wonderful castle around the lake, the one with the big monster in it supposedly there’s this castle that’s written up in the literature, it’s absolutely wonderful and walking around that castle, all I saw was just a complete ruin.

[00:07:22] But at the same time, I have to tell you, there’s something in me that admired the design of it and just the fact of it once something absolutely wonderful that people lived in. Humanity is actually like that. We’re like something, like someone once said, we’re like a building that’s been bombed and gutted and been made useless for living in. But you can still admire a beautiful castle for what it was. Well, human nature’s like that. At the one hand, we still show little glimpses of the image of God in what is humanity. And I challenge you to get to know people, some of them who are rogues and even people who might be swindlers who do you out of your money. They still have got aspects of life that when you listen to them, some of the ones that ring up and are trying to get your money out of you,

[00:08:19] you should hear the stories they tell. I don’t want you to hear the stories they tell because they’re trying to convince you how true is their offer. But the truth is that they’re people. I take opportunities to witness to these people because they need to hear what the Bible has to say, that God made them, that they’re sinners, as the Bible decrees they are, but they need the Saviour, the same one I’ve got. The one of the Bible, of the New Testament, particularly, they need Jesus. And so we need to understand humanity, not just as something bombed and gutted and useless, but also something that’s got the signals, got the somehow glimpses of the beauty with which we were made in the first place. And there’s something in the way that people’s makeup is,

[00:09:06] that they know they’re really built for something more than what presently our society gives glimpses of. And the more you watch the media, the more you see the rottenness of the, you know, I was talking about going to see films, I have a trouble knowing what’s worth going to, to be honest with you. I actually love going to movies, but I want to tell you that I don’t always know what to go to and exactly how to handle if it disappoints me in terms of what they present. And the gradual change of the morals of Australia, as you see what’s presented in the medias, as to what is like good, here’s the hero, and they’re busy, you know, killing people or something. How do you swallow being, how to put on you that this is a hero?

[00:09:56] I can understand in warfare, if I were, if there were to be a big warfare and I would call up, I would not be someone who would not be able to pull the trigger. You know that in World War I, particularly, when that conflagration happened that dragged a lot of nations in, there were many people in our country and in Britain and America who were called up to go, but when they got in the front lines, they didn’t find that they could pull the trigger. Some of them got shot themselves because they didn’t get in first. Because there’s something in us that knows it inherently wrong. If you’re a policeman and you’re involved with stopping a crime, there’s a moment when you have to pull the trigger. And we sometimes hear stories of there being violence breaking out in the shopping centre.

[00:10:45] I’m thinking of one in particular where the police girl, I think it was, had to just chase down and kill the people who were committing it to stop another person being killed. So there can be times when you’re called upon to do something that’s bad, but that’s a part of what’s on our generation and what’s on our society. We can’t get away from this fact that God has made us good but we’ve become evil. We find it ourselves. I’ve had times when I’ve been asked because of our travels to different places, sometimes there are people of the church who ended up in jail and what was absolutely, it used to really shock me but I found that some of them were good people from church but fell into a temptation. Got caught out and ended up in jail. And when you hear them speak about what has happened

[00:11:39] then you realise that there’s something that’s, although God has been busy to help us to be different, nonetheless we still have the problem of sin. In this statement, none is righteous, no not one, that’s true of you. No one understands. It’s written in a way that’s like a little bit of, not an exaggeration but it’s saying the major point it’s making about acknowledging the other side I was just mentioning of but no one seeks for God. There are people seeking for God but this is talking about the fact that in the deepest part of who we are we’re very quick to pick up a way to think we’re getting near God and it’s not the real way, not the way that he’s laid out as possible for us by coming to Christ. And there’ll be people, you know, rather than listen to the Christian gospel as to what God has done

[00:12:27] to make the door open for us to come to him, they want to find another way that might sort of make them feel a bit better about themselves. Actually, it’s a real hassle when churches fall into a trap and give a cross to people that if you’re good enough then you can come and be with us because the truth is no one’s good enough. The truth is that none is righteous. That’s a straight statement from God. No, not one because we all have got sin. There’s nobody who’s not in that conclusive remark of God. No one understands, has got the understanding to realise that the depth of our problem is that all of us are so sinners that there’s no way you’re going to church and becoming a better person by going to church or you’re taking on a course of self-improvement

[00:13:13] or you’re doing something that is a good thing that you recognise, there’s a flood that goes on for example and you go out and help the people whose houses are all muddied up and you do some sweeping and you go home and think you’re a pretty good person but you’ve done the right thing but that doesn’t mean that this is not true of you No one understands no one seeks for God This passage is one of those passages that I know it’s saying in the extreme I’ve only got the negative side but it says All have turned aside together they’ve become worthless no one does good Not even one. That’s why, listen to me, that’s why Jesus died for all the world. There wasn’t anybody that did not need Jesus to die for them. Their throat is an open grave. It is saying at an extreme and we don’t all have to let the sin in us develop

[00:14:07] to this becoming what’s visible. Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. their mouth is full of curses and bitterness it’s an overall description of society as it’s always been now it’s really dealing with the case are the Jews better off because they’ve had the law and they’ve become a better nicer people I don’t think you can watch the news these days these days and conclude that the Israeli race are any nicer than anybody else now we know that whatever the law says this is the Old Testament law on which the old covenant is based on Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

[00:14:55] The Old Testament covenant and the truths that it has are still true. And the statement of the old covenant about all the world being sinful and need to somehow have an atonement for that sin, that is a way that God can find a way to forgive us by his justice being satisfied. We all need that atonement for God to find for us. For by the works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight. So even if you decided to ship off to Israel and to become a Jewish person and take on board the burden of the law and you were able to somehow put it into practice, this verse is telling us that because of the fact of the presence of sin in our own make-up, we would find out that we still didn’t keep it all properly.

[00:15:47] The law brings to the surface the facts that you can’t get justified by the keeping of it because none of us manage to do it. Since through the law comes the knowledge of sin, that’s saying the purpose of the law is to make so visible that we’re all sinners. so if you were to take a course at self-improvement or if you were to take a religious decision that you’re going to improve yourself and you started with the Bible I’ve met people who’ve done this I find it rather interesting because they say I’m going to read through the Bible and do what it says they start with Genesis and they’re going strong on there there’s so much in the Old Testament it’s a lot bigger than the New but they go an awful lot of reading and usually give up but the fact of the matter is that all of that learning that they get

[00:16:35] is only going to make clear what God’s standard is and they’re going to come to the place of knowing that it’s saying to them that they’ve failed it. And that’s the purpose that God gave the old covenant. And the demonstration people that the Jews were was to make the demonstration to all of human beings that we are sinners and the law shows how sinful you are. And any time anybody takes that task of reading through the Bible it’s a fairly long read to do and has to go through all the Old Testament and learns about the Old Covenant the thing that’s going to be good for you doing that if you manage to get that much reading done is it’s going to get you to the spot where you say yeah I admit it I know I’ve broken the law of the Old Covenant somewhere or other that’s the purpose and parts of that law

[00:17:25] that was particularly Jewish about sacrifices and about certain things that applied to their nation that may not apply to us who are not Jews for yet the central part of the law which is the Ten Commandments they come working on us to make so absolutely clear that we don’t fully get there meaning we don’t keep it. And even if you think you’ve kept it if you look carefully Jesus in his discussion about the old laws talked about the facts that we’re meant to keep it completely and if you break down in one spot you’re found to be guilty of having broken the law. No one comes out clean. If you lean upon the old covenant to get you close to God it’s not going to work. The Jewish nation were given away to handle that and that was through the sacrifices that were done in their system. But the sacrifices weren’t done

[00:18:19] because the actual animals that gave their blood and all the rest did the job. They were but a picture of how God was going to deal with sin once and for all and that’s what the New Testament is talking about. Well, that’s the old covenant and how easy it would be to think that it was good and made the Jews better than the rest. But Paul was just saying here, the Jews are no better off than us. We all have the same measurement of us as sinner that comes about as a result. Well, I want to move to another verse and it is in Jeremiah 31. I always use this in the morning. We’ll just put it on the screen. Jeremiah 31, 31 to 34. And this is a prophecy in the old covenant. If ever you think, well, we have a choice. I could become a Jew and have the old covenant

[00:19:08] or I could become a Christian and have the new covenant. The Bible doesn’t work like that because God is the same God between the old covenant and the new covenant. And in the old covenant, there’s a prophecy that’s going to happen in time. This is a prophecy written up in the Old Testament. Jeremiah is an Old Testament book. For behold the days are coming declares the Lord when I will make a new covenant look at who it’s with, with the house of Israel, the house of Judah, the two parts of the Jewish nation at a certain time in history it’s split into the two parts, with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not the covenant that I made with their fathers, the new one that he’s going to make, not the covenant I made with their fathers on the day that I took them by the hand and to

[00:19:53] bring them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant that they broke, they didn’t keep that old covenant. The Jews that wander through the wilderness they kept doing the wrong things by it. Though I was like a husband. There’s no word like in the one that the screen’s got up but other versions have a like. Though I was like a husband to them, declares the Lord. For this is a covenant that I will make. A prophecy within the old covenant of the coming of a new covenant that I’ll make with the house of Israel after those days. Look and see, it’s a Jewish covenant. Oh, you say, I thought the New Testament was for us and the old covenant’s for the Jews. No, the new covenant was promised for the Jews, but the difference is that the entrance is for everybody who will put their trust in Jesus.

[00:20:43] And that the result will be that you won’t be accepted by God because you’re a Jew at all anymore. You’ll be accepted by God because of how Christ died for you and how he achieved an atonement that actually was the real atonement, all the pictures of the temple of them slaughtering beasts and having blood. And the way they used to do it was that the slaughtering part was the public could watch that. But then the high priest would take that collection of blood that came out of the slaughtered beast and take it on his own. No one else was allowed into the Holy of Holies. And even only once a year the priest would go on there do a special thing, but the things of the slaughtering of the beast and the bloodshed was sprinkled all over to bring what was called an atonement.

[00:21:28] The atonement is when God gets satisfied. He’s got wrath and anger because of human sin, but when there’s bloodshed and payments made, then those sins are atoned for. But the truth is, the book of Hebrews tells us you can’t really get sins atoned for by some poor beast being slaughtered at all. It’s just a picture to teach the Israelites that their whole business in the old covenant really was looking forward to their being made with them a new covenant, but the new covenant wasn’t going to depend upon all the heifers and all the lambs and all the birds that had their necks wrenched and made as sacrifices in that gory era of the old covenant, not because of them at all. that was the picture that there needed to be a payment for sin but there’s only going to be one payment made

[00:22:18] that would be necessary and successful and you’ve guessed it it was when Jesus shed his special blood special because he was the eternal son of God having taken on humanity and in his humanity walked before his father in a way that human beings have to walk to be sinless that he would be capable of volunteering to be a person who would take on the payment for human sin and because of the person that he was and the fact that his personhood came from eternity and the fact that he’s the son of God and the fact that you could use the metaphor to say his blood was too precious to ever be too much. The shedding of Jesus’ blood was sufficient to atone for God the Father to be satisfied against all sins done against his righteousness by Jesus shedding his blood he atoned for every sin that ever happened

[00:23:19] all the time back in the past all the time in the future all the sins you may yet do even though you become a Christian and slip up and do something wrong Jesus when he died and his blood was shed that was sufficient to atone your sins and the Bible talks about the atonement as no longer a matter of the priest going into the holy of holies and tipping out some of the blood from the sacrifices had to be done in special moments and only that high priest was allowed in. They had to be kept holy all the time. That was all a picture of the drama that actually was going to happen when Jesus Christ, having died for our sins, having shed his blood on the cross, he was put into the grave and he rose again and after 40 days went back to heaven and went into the presence of his Father

[00:24:03] and presented himself as a sacrifice complete the Bible says he took his blood as a I don’t know whether it’s a metaphor and he actually had a whole container full of the blood that was shed on the cross I don’t actually think that I think it’s a picture of the fact that his blood was shed he took as a resurrected person into heaven and before the Father presented his successful death on the cross for your sins that your sin has been atoned totally that’s why the bible talks about what he did is once and for all never needing to be done again and to have any religious system that wants somehow to dramatise Christ as being killed every time you have communion as some groups do or to have some need for the person who wants to be atoned to whip their backs, you know that film that has this bloke

[00:24:59] the blonde haired guy and he’s whipping his back because he’s somehow thinking he’s got to do some bad things or he’s done some bad things and he’s got to have some pain in order to atone for it all of that is so completely against the gospel because the gospel is that what jesus did was enough it was not only once and for all but it was totally sufficient and when he died on the cross for the sin of the entire world listen the good news of the gospels included yours he died for you his blood was shed the atonement for your wrong and your wretchedness and your sinfulness and the times when you’ve disobeyed God, God all of that was weighed on him. That’s why he cried out in those hours of darkness, actually as he came out of the hours of darkness, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me

[00:25:50] or how you have, how thou hast forsaken me because here in those dark hours was bearing your sin and he finished totally making the atonement for all sin and now God, the holy God, could invite sinners, guilty sinners to come back to him and be restored to relationship with him. That included Jews and on the first day that announcement was made was the day of Pentecost where Peter proclaimed the sermon. Not only had the idea of this gospel been mentioned earlier in many different ways back in their history, but this was the first time the call was made that you could come now and people ran over to Peter when he was finished preaching and men and brethren, they said, what shall we do? He only said two things, repent, which means change your verdict,

[00:26:47] reverse your direction, get right with God instead of running away and the second one was receive the Holy Spirit because then you come and get reconciled to God. Then God gives you his Holy Spirit to live in you and to do what actually is going to happen in this new covenant prophesied. Look down at verse 33 there on the screen. For this is a covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. It’s made with the Jewish people. They all had to come under the new covenant to get properly forgiven. You see, the Old Testament religion was that the law was outside of them. It was on two stones and then in written in their writings. But they were people not with the law pressed to them from inside out, but from outside in. But the promise of the new covenant was that when that era came,

[00:27:45] then God would have that law by the Holy Spirit coming into people’s persons to be bringing his law inside. So one of the features of being a Christian that when you bow your knee to Christ and receive him as your saviour, God’s Holy Spirit comes to your person and brings that spiritual knowledge of the law inside. the new covenant is one that it comes and operates from the inside and when you take a step wrong suddenly your conscience talks very loud to you because the law of God has come by the Spirit inside you and the ability to take the very standard of God and know the depth of its meaning in you is something the Spirit does sometimes it’s hard to become a Christian because thereafter you suddenly discover or certain things you’ve been doing all the time or have been wrong all the time.

[00:28:41] And you don’t sometimes, some people give up at that stage because they’ve suddenly realised it’s pretty difficult to be a Christian. But listen, God understands that difficulty. And through what Jesus did on the cross, there’s available to the Spirit of God in you to forgive and cleanse you. That’s why that verse in 1 John 1.9 says, if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness and the indwelling of the Spirit, the moment you agree with God about it, he restores you and you know you are a forgiven person, you’ve been cleansed and you walk on with God because of the possibility of all of that happening to you. That is a fantastic thing. For this is a covenant I’ll make with the house of Israel after these days declares the Lord,

[00:29:34] I’ll put my law within them. And it goes on to say, I’ll write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people and no longer shall each teach his neighbour, each his brother saying, know the Lord, know the Lord because they will all know me. And it’s one of the features of being a Christian that’s received Christ as their saviour and had the atonement applied to them. That when you meet up with another Christian you usually recognize it when you’re a young Christian maybe not as quick as you do but the older you get as a Christian it’s very visible when you meet someone even if they’re of another denomination and a lot of what they do and theirs is not what yours does but it doesn’t matter you can tell you have an instinct when you meet a brother who really knows Christ

[00:30:21] and that’s a fantastic thing that happens to you and you get a whole lot of people I believe that Being interdenominational is a good idea because it recognises that there’s Christians in other groupings and it doesn’t really matter what group they come from but if they really know Christ and you really know Christ, your brother or brother and sister or your whatever but that’s something God does as a result of the new covenant. The Jews are no better off now than us and we’re not any better off than them. Any person who’s come to Christ and come to the Atonement that Jesus’ blood has made possible, has got the lot and has no other grouping who’s better up the ladder than they, whether or not they’re whatever they may be or whether they’re people who say they’ve got special gifts

[00:31:10] and you don’t know if you’ve got the Lord Jesus. You’ve got the gift, Jesus, who’s come to you by the Holy Spirit and brings his forgiveness and cleansing and his power all to be inside you. And I love this last little bit. From the least to the greatest, doesn’t matter whether you’re a baby Christian or someone who’s not known to do anything or whether you’re one of the very famous missionaries or someone like Billy Graham who’s already gone to heaven but well, he was alive. He’s no better off than anybody. Declares the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more. Anybody here find yourself to have that longing that Jesus has forgiven you? I will never forget my day of coming to Christ and the sense of peace, the sense of being filled I had on that occasion.

[00:32:17] other people don’t have quite the same feelings because they’re all different depending on your personality or depending on the other things in the whole system but I want to tell you that there is nothing like the Bible calls it the peace that passes understanding and it will keep your hearts. the peace that passes understanding will keep your hearts and so all the things in society where previously you’d be really annoyed and angry because you got discriminated against or because people held something against you or because of what, all of that gets swept away. It’s a very beautiful thing to see people when they come to Christ and across the next months and years discover the totality of the new life they have. For I’ll forgive their iniquity, this is God speaking, and I will remember their sin no more.

[00:33:15] And that’s why we don’t, you know, I don’t mind a good sound sermon on judgment. It’s exciting because to have a sermon on judgment doesn’t make me afraid but I’ve met people who when they hear a sermon on judgment they absolutely get annoyed as anything because you’ve disturbed their peace. But when Jesus is yours, he is your peace. I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sins no more. That’s the new covenant and because of that the Jews aren’t any better off than us. They need to come. In fact, they did. When Peter first preached the first gospel message they had an opportunity for you to step into the result. There were mentions of the gospel earlier but only at the day of Pentecost was the first Christian availability for people to come and know this experience. Peter gave it on the day of Pentecost

[00:34:16] and there were 3,000 people who said yes. Most of them, there were some from outside nations but most of them were Jews. not that the Jewish religion hadn’t been a help to them but the new covenant was like the new arrangement. You know how I started with the illustration of going to the movies and you’ve got the old ticket and it doesn’t get you any free movies at all because there’s a new system set up where the new covenant is the new system and any person can come. You don’t have to be a Jew. In fact, being a Jew just means that you look a bit different or other things, differences are made in your body but it doesn’t mean anything other than the fact that you still need to come to Christ. So if you’re here tonight and you’re a Jew, I welcome you to the new covenant if you’ve not already gotten in

[00:35:09] by coming to Jesus. Isn’t that a fantastic thing? I’ve got friends who are Jews and they love Jesus too and it doesn’t make any difference. If there’s a group that will discriminate against you because they only accept Jewish people, then don’t join that group because the real group that now counts is the new covenant and whether you’re a Jew or not doesn’t count in that because that which is the good part of the Jewish law is still true for everybody and that which is the available part of the new covenant is not just for the Jews. It’s what the whole New Testament is walking about. I told our church a few months back of the discovery I made that when you read about the Last Supper and I was used to it talking about in the New Covenant like this and I discovered some of the translations use another word, testament

[00:36:05] and we have a Bible, I’ve got an old King James Bible and it’s got Old Testament and New Testament but when I looked up, where does the word testament come from? I discovered it’s just a different translation of the same Greek word, dihake, and some versions choose to translate it and say covenant Some versions choose to say testament, but having an Old Testament and a New Testament is just putting visible we move from the availability of what God will give you through the Old Testament to the New Testament. Whereas we Christians believe the Old Testament is the revealed word of God, it’s not where that progressive revelation has finished. The New Testament is showing what is available now and how you get in. Have you gotten in because of the shed blood of Jesus and the forgiveness of Christ?

[00:37:03] Jesus talked about him being the Son and he said, if the Son sets you free, you’ll be free indeed. And the setting free that does the Son is how he, that’s not the Son in the sky but the Son, Jesus, Son of God. The Son that he did by dying for your sins and rising again and available to be your personal saviour. And when you come and say Jesus I want you to be my saviour and you let him be that for you, you get the lot. And that is so fantastic. I would also say as a little piece at the end and I’ll tell you no better thing to do of your time to have as your career if God would let you is telling people this very message I’m telling to you tonight. I consider myself one of the luckiest people in Australia because what I’m called to do is to tell the greatest message in Australia. We all are as Christians

[00:38:11] and when you take on board that the gospel is the most precious message because it’s about the most precious saviour who died the most successful payment for sin and rose again from death early to be the one that will help others in one day when needed, be given the new body or raised to the new life in glory. Jesus. And I had some other verses I was going to give you but I’ve said enough for you to get the message. Don’t stay around just in the old covenant only who recognise you’re welcome to know the blessings of the new covenant and whether you’re a Jew or a Gentile makes no difference because all have to come the same way by accepting Jesus as their personal Lord and Saviour. We’ll have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for our service and how it was led to tell us we’re here to worship you

[00:39:10] and we praise you for the thing that you have done in allowing us to have a Saviour. And we had some blessings from the old covenant. It certainly made us aware of our sins if we actually read it carefully. Some blessings in a lot of illustrations of how to walk with God there. But most of all you’ve given us a New Testament that has in it the record of what Jesus has done for us and what Jesus is available to be for us. And if the Son sets you free, Son Jesus, if he sets you free, then you are free indeed. Thank you for the truth of that. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.