...one of the Times Square Church Pulpit Series.
It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times
Square Church in Manhattan, New York City.
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Beloved, we're going to take just a few
minutes tonight and go to Hebrews chapter 8,
a thought on my heart that I'd like
to share with you, which I believe is
from the heart of God.
Now, Hebrews chapter 8, beginning at verse 1,
Father, I just thank you for the unction
of the Holy Ghost.
Lord, I am so dependent on you, and
I thank you for that place of dependence.
I thank you, Lord, that you are well
able to quicken me and take me beyond
the realm of mortality, take me beyond all
of the natural man, all of natural strength.
And my God, I thank you for the
privilege of reckoning these things dead, that I
may live and preach under the unction of
the Holy Spirit.
Holy Spirit, exalt Jesus through me tonight.
I ask this in Christ's name.
Now, Hebrews chapter 8, the writer begins in
verse 1 by saying, Now, of the things
in which we have spoken, this is the
sum.
In other words, this is the total.
We're talking now the total of chapter 1
to chapter 7.
If you've been attending these studies, you know
the things that have been spoken about Christ,
whose voice is more powerful than the prophets
and all these other things, who is the
one who is going to fold up the
universe one day, has the power to fold
up our sins.
We've heard about him being a city of
refuge.
We've heard about him being one who has
a better sacrifice, better covenant, made upon better
promises.
The writer says, Now, this is the sum
total of what we've been speaking about.
We have such a high priest who is
set on the right hand of the throne
of the majesty in the heavens.
Now, you remember in one of our sessions,
we talked about Jesus being sat down.
It's a finished work, an absolute finished work
at the right hand of almighty God.
He sat down just as God finished, the
writer of Hebrews says, on the seventh day
from his work.
So the Son of God entered into his
rest and sat down and finished his works.
And so when we come to Christ, beloved,
we have to have the knowledge that we
are entering into a finished work.
The victory was won.
Sin was defeated.
The power of God was released to all
of humanity to whosoever will now can be
a partaker of the divine nature of almighty
God.
Through the promises, the apostle Peter said that
are given to us through Jesus Christ.
Verse seven says, If the first covenant, that's
the Old Testament covenant of the law, had
been faultless, then should no place have been
sought for the second.
But finding fault with them, he said, Behold,
the days come, saith the Lord, that I
will make a new covenant with the house
of Israel and with the house of Judah,
not according to the covenant that I made
with their fathers in the day when I
took them by the hand to lead them
out of the land of Egypt, because they
continued not in my covenant and I regarded
them not, saith the Lord.
Now stop there just for a moment.
God said, There was a day when I
took a people and I literally, God says,
I took them by the hand.
Isn't that what God did to Israel who
were in Egypt?
And I took them by the hand and
I led them out and I made promises
to them and they made promises to me.
You remember the Old Testament when the Lord
said, If you will do this and if
you will do this, then I will do
this.
And the people, remember under Moses and Joshua
said, Yes, he is God.
We will live for him.
We will serve him.
But they very soon found out that their
promises had no weight behind them.
They made promises they couldn't keep.
So foolish to make promises to God.
I think it's foolish to make promises to
anyone because you and I, in and of
ourselves, have no power to keep the promises
that we make.
And God was saying, Essentially, even though I
held them by the hand, they had no
power to walk with me.
And many, many, many of us coming into
the kingdom of God remember the days when
we tried our best to walk with God.
And even though we knew he was holding
his hand, we could sing it, Truth takes
me by the hand.
Precious Lord, take my hand.
We could sing all the old hymns and
all the choruses.
But yet within ourselves, we could not find
the power to walk with God.
We could make all the promises we wanted
to make.
I have very real difficulty with any organization
that says that we should be making promises
to God.
For I know my promises are worthless.
I can't keep a single promise I make
to anybody.
The only strength I have now is because
I have the power of the Holy Spirit
residing in my life, imparting to me as
it is the very nature of Jesus Christ.
And God said, I took you by the
hand, but you had no strength.
I took you by the hand, but you
had no power.
And so he said, so this is the
covenant in verse 10 that I will make
with the house of Israel after those days,
saith the Lord.
I'm going to make a new covenant, God
says.
I'm going to put my laws in their
minds and write them in their hearts.
And I will be to them a God,
and they shall be to me a people.
And in verse 10 says, they shall not
teach every man his neighbor and every man
his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for all
shall know me from the least to the
greatest.
God said, I'm going to do it a
new way.
I'm going to make a new covenant.
I'm going to put you to sleep, in
a sense, and put you out of the
picture just like I did.
Abraham wanted to walk with me, and I
made great promises with Abraham.
But before anything could be fulfilled, I had
to, as it is, put Abraham out of
the picture.
And I had to walk through the pieces
as it was, what were the types of
that covenant.
I had to walk through it all alone.
And God says, this covenant is going to
be fulfilled not by your strength, it's going
to be fulfilled by my strength.
I'm going to look for people whose hearts
are open.
I'm going to find the people who want
me.
And not only am I going to take
them by the hand, but I'm going to
indwell them.
I'm going to come and live inside of
them, and I'm going to give them the
power to be everything that I've called them
to be.
I'm going to speak precious promises into their
lives.
And by these promises, if they reach out
in faith, trusting that they can't do it,
but I will do it through them.
If they will for it, if they want
it, I will come in the power of
the Holy Ghost, and I will work out
the very things in them that I have
promised to them.
I will be to them a God, and
they shall all know me.
There will be no more people saying, in
the church as it is, know the Lord,
for they shall all know me.
The word know really has the context of
an intimacy.
They shall all be intimately acquainted with me
in my house.
They shall know who I am.
I will come upon a people that I
set apart from myself, and they will know.
I will not only take their hand, but
I will indwell them.
I will be God to them.
I will lift them out of their weakness.
You heard it tonight in the pulpit.
I had this message on my heart, albeit
in a much longer form, but I had
this on my heart.
And you heard it tonight.
Pastor Patrick stood here, the Holy Spirit so
confirming what God had put on my heart
to say tonight.
It's the Holy Ghost came up.
How many times did you hear that?
And the Holy Ghost came upon this young
man, and he stood up and spoke.
And the Holy Ghost came upon this young
woman, and she had the power to go
to the flagpole as it is and be
a testimony of God's grace.
And another girl, the Holy Ghost came upon
her in a prayer meeting.
Folks, God says, this is exactly what I'm
going to do.
The Holy Ghost is going to come upon
you.
You're going to be turned into another person
as it is.
I'm going to write my nature in you.
I'm going to come and live in you.
I'm not going to ask you to make
promises to me.
I'm going to ask you to receive my
promises to you.
And you know, many people have a question.
The question is just simply this.
Okay, if I'm under the new covenant of
grace, and if my old man is dead,
and I am brand new and alive in
Jesus Christ, then why the purging?
Then why this season that we're having in
the church where God seems to be pointing
out sin?
If sin is gone, if it's not imputed,
if it's done away with, then why?
You see, beloved, here's the issue.
The old man is dead, but he has
a tendency to want to be resurrected.
He wants to come back to life.
He loves to put on religious clothes and
come back and say, Here I am, and
even call himself by the name of God.
He has many names.
He can be called pride.
He can be called self-ambition.
He can have many, many forms, and he
can come back and try to manifest himself
as the glory of God.
But God says, I love you so much.
I'm so jealous for the work that I've
begun to do in your life.
I'm not going to let the old nature
come back and begin to rule you again.
That's what it's all about.
That's why God will time out a church
as it is, and the Holy Ghost will
begin to speak just as He began to
speak to us sometimes when we first got
saved.
And we look back and say, What's this
all about?
Hey, I've been walking with you for 15
years.
I know the new covenant.
I know the power of God.
But God says, Yes, but you don't fully
understand your old nature.
You don't understand the power of that hidden
nature that's in you that is still alive
and still wants to be resurrected, wants to
control your life, wants to crowd out the
power of God and bring you exactly back
into a position of powerlessness where you are
the one making promises to God you can't
keep.
And God says, I don't want you rising
up.
I don't want you making promises to Me.
I don't want your old nature resurrected.
I want you to understand that I have
a people that I will be glorified in
when the power of the Holy Ghost comes
upon them.
It's not by might.
It's not by power.
It's by My Spirit, says the Lord, that
you will become everything that I have destined
you to be.
Hallelujah.
I thank God.
I've been saved 24 years, I guess it
is now.
I've been preaching a good part of those
years.
But I thank God for the times of
purging.
I thank God that He still speaks to
my heart.
I thank God He will not let this
carcass that wants to rise up and reign,
I thank God by the power of the
Holy Ghost, He will not let that happen
in my life.
And you better thank God that He won't
let it happen either because it would be
very detrimental to you and to your walk
with God if this is the word that
you're listening to.
And so, beloved, we're so thankful for the
dealings of God.
We're so thankful that He loves us so
much that He draws us in and begins
to speak to us and begins to tell
us, I've made a covenant with you and
I will not let you live again.
I will not let you rise and take
the preeminence one more time because that will
lead you into defeat.
There is no other way to victory in
the Christian life but to lay hold by
faith of that work which Christ alone finished
on Calvary.
And you know, folks, that's why we will
all know Him, the Scripture says.
There will be no big guys and little
guys in the body.
We will all know Him because everybody has
equal access to the new life that He
promises through Jesus Christ.
That's why there are no limitations by education
or by culture or race or class, language,
social status.
There are no limitations.
The veil was torn.
Equal access is made to all to the
throne of God.
You can be everything that God called you
to be tonight.
Hallelujah.
Thanks be to God.
There's a flagpole in my life, and I
want to go there, whatever that might be.
I want to go to the flagpole.
Maybe that should be your prayer tonight.
God, take me to the flagpole, whatever that
means.
It could be the water cooler in your
place of work.
It could be the local corner where people
hang out in your neighborhood where there's a
flagpole in your life somewhere that God by
His power will take you to.
And then when people begin to ask for
a reason, He by His power again will
open your mouth and give you the words
that you need to speak.
He will do it.
He will do it, folks.
He will do it every time we stand.
He'll give us the grace we need to
be what He has called us to be.
Hallelujah.
He says in verse 12, I will be
merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and
their iniquities.
I will remember no more.
First John 1.9 says if we confess
our sins, He is faithful and just to
forgive our sins and cleanse us from all
unrighteousness.
Now, we have a tendency in the church
to say that verse so fast that we
don't see there are two actions in there.
Number one, He says, I will forgive their
sins.
If we confess, God says, I will forgive
you.
As a matter of fact, if you're a
Christian, you were forgiven even before you confessed.
If you are a true follower of Jesus
Christ, the Bible clearly says, God says, I
will not impute sin to you.
Because I know your heart.
I know you want me.
I know you don't want to walk in
failure.
You're not playing games with me.
God says, yes, we need to confess because
the Bible says if we do, we need
to clear the record.
We need to get the relationship back in
order again.
Confession is not so that we get saved
every time we make a mistake.
Confession is to keep our relationship in right
order.
And God says, if you confess your sin,
I'm faithful and just to forgive your sin
and cleanse you from all unrighteousness.
Now, that really means, and I will deal
with the source of, if it's in your
life that caused this un-Christ like this
to rise up in you.
God said, I will forgive you.
But then, I'm going after the source.
I'm going after what leads you to the
bar.
I'm going after what takes you to the
theater.
I'm going after what motivates you to lie.
I'm going after what causes you to be
proud.
I'm going after what causes you to take
easy offense when somebody does something you don't
like.
Yes, I'll forgive your sin, but I'm going
to go after the unrighteousness.
I'm going to go after it.
That's what the Holy Ghost does.
Hallelujah.
Thanks be to God He goes after the
unrighteousness in our lives.
He goes after it because He loves us.
Hallelujah.
He goes after it because I'm saved.
Not to save me, but because I'm saved.
He goes after the unrighteousness in my life.
I thank God for that with all of
my heart.
I thank God for the faithfulness.
The Holy Spirit loves me.
He loves you.
He will not let unrighteousness begin un-Christ
-likeness.
Really is what it means.
Develop in my life.
He will forgive me.
Peter, if I say something to you and
offend you, and I go to God and
say, God, forgive me, He will forgive me,
but then He will go after what's in
me that caused me to say it to
you in the first place.
He will go after it.
He will forgive my sins and cleanse me
from all un-Christ-likeness, unrighteousness.
And the last verse in verse 13, in
that He sat the new covenant, He has
made the first old.
Hallelujah.
God says, I consider that which used to
be gone.
I consider yourself effort history.
I consider it worth removing and getting out
of the way.
Because my desire is to be God to
you.
I want to be God to you.
I want to be so God to you
that you have nothing else to say when
people ask you.
I want to be so God to you
that you're busting in your inward parts to
let that river of life that's in you
begin flowing out of your mouth.
I want to be God to you in
your neighborhood, your home, your workplace.
I want to be God.
Hallelujah.
I want to bring you to the place
where you will stand and not be ashamed,
not be triumphed over by fears and hard
looks and all these other things that the
world and sin will throw against the Christian.
And He says, now that which decays and
waxes old is ready to vanish.
Thank God that that which is unlike Christ
in me, God says, is ready to vanish.
Hallelujah.
You're seeking me so everything unlike me, everything
you leaned upon that was old is ready
to vanish.
It's like sitting in an airport terminal.
It's got a ticket and it's gone.
There's no way out.
God says, I'm going to take it out
of your life because I have established a
new covenant with you.
You have now a high priest in heaven.
You have the Holy Ghost now in your
life.
There's no longer an excuse to live in
sin.
There's no longer an excuse to be encompassed
and surrounded and defeated by weakness.
God says, now the power of eternity is
within you.
The power of God is in your life.
And that which is old, let that get
in your heart tonight.
That which is old is ready to vanish
away.
When you look in the mirror and you
go home tonight and say, Oh, you rotten
attitude of heart.
You lying tongue.
You backstabbing deceitful worker in the office.
You're going to vanish.
You're done because I'm seeking God.
You're finished.
Hallelujah.
And all you empty promises, look at yourself
and talk to yourself.
It will do you some good.
All you empty promises that you've made, promises
to God and promises to your family, your
history, your history.
You're vanishing away because the power of God
is coming into my life.
Hallelujah.
Beloved, don't be satisfied.
Don't be satisfied until you are filled with
the fullness of God.
Don't be satisfied to live a second-rate
Christian life.
Don't be satisfied with anything but the full
life that God has promised us through Jesus
Christ.
This is the sum total.
We have a high priest in heaven who's
made a new covenant, and he said the
old things are going to vanish away.
Father, thank you tonight.
Thank you, mighty God, for this wonderful gospel
of truth, wonderful gospel of great liberty and
power.
Mighty God, a gospel where you make the
weak strong and you take the foolish and
make them wise.
You take those who sit in dunghills and
place them among princes.
You do everything that you said in your
Word that you were going to do, and,
my God, we want it in our lives
tonight.
We want to be a church that truly
is a lighthouse.
We want to be Christians who truly stand
for truth, who truly have a voice that
must be reckoned with in our generation.
We thank you, Lord, for what you're doing
in our children, but we ask, oh, God,
do it in us too.
Do it in us, God, in everywhere we
go and all that we are.
Do it in us, and, God, let that
which hinders your life vanish.
Let it be history.
Let it die.
Let it not rise again.
Father, we thank you.