Are you glad to be in God's house
today?
Amen.
Here at Times Square Church, we love the
Word of the Lord.
We make plenty of time for the Word
of God.
I'd like everybody, let me illustrate that to
you, I want everybody in the annex from
Times Square Church, and everybody in this building
has your Bible, just take it and wave
it at me right now, and take a
look around folks, you'll see Bibles everywhere.
This is a Bible church.
Praise the Lord.
We love the Word of the Lord.
Would you turn to Isaiah please, the 55th
chapter.
Isaiah 55.
God wants to make covenant with you, is
my message.
God wants to make covenant with you.
Isaiah 55, reading through verse 3, beginning at
verse 1.
I'll wait until the leaves stop rustling.
I hope you found it.
Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the
waters, and he that hath no money, come
ye and buy and eat.
Yea, come buy wine and milk without money
and without price.
Wherefore do you spend money for that which
is not bread, and your labor for that
which satisfieth not?
Hearken diligently unto me, hearken diligently unto me,
and eat ye that which is good, and
let your soul delight itself in fatness.
Incline your ear, and come unto me, here
in your soul shall live, and I will
make an everlasting covenant with you, even the
sure mercies of David.
Heavenly Father, without the Holy Spirit, this Word
falls in front of me.
It has no impact, it has no power,
and I ask you, Holy Spirit, the same
Spirit that had been with me all this
week, the same Spirit that prepared this Word,
the same Spirit that abides in us and
among us today, Holy Spirit, come upon me
and let these words be under the unction
and anointing of your own Spirit, O God,
the Spirit of the living God.
Lord, I thank you that you're beginning to
open our eyes and beginning to understand the
glorious promises and the covenants.
We thank you, Lord, for your faithfulness, your
utter faithfulness to your people.
Now, Lord, I acknowledge I need you today.
I need you to come upon me.
Lord, I'm not looking for loudness.
I'm not looking for speed.
I'm looking for anointing.
And, Lord, you've got to give these people
that hear me an ear to hear.
The same Spirit that anoints me must anoint
the ear to hear.
So do it, we pray, in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Now, we've been studying and preaching about the
covenant here at this church for over a
year now.
We're studying the new covenant in particular.
Now, for those of you who have not
heard those messages, let me, in a capsule
form, give you what I believe explains the
covenant very, very simply.
God has made an agreement, an absolute agreement,
an act of mercy, whereby He's given us
exceedingly great and precious promises, incredible promises to
do for us what we can't do for
ourselves in the flesh.
He has made an agreement to supply by
His Holy Spirit in us all the resources,
all the peace, and all the power we
need to fulfill every commandment He's ever made.
That's simply put as the covenant.
It's His oath.
It's His sworn oath to do in us
what we cannot do for ourselves by our
human efforts.
It's an everlasting pledge to keep us from
falling.
It's an everlasting contract to give us all
the resources that we need to break the
dominion of sin in our lives.
That's that simple.
And this covenant was made in eternity, and
when it was made, it was signed and
went into effect when Jesus died, and He
signed it with His own blood.
And underneath the signature were these words, I
believe, God cannot lie.
God cannot lie.
Omnipotent, almighty God didn't have to make any
agreement with us.
He didn't need to make any covenant with
us at all.
It was nothing in any of His attributes
that demanded, not His justice, not His holiness,
no attribute of God demanded that He make
an agreement with us, and just out of
His sheer mercy to make all these promises
to us.
He could have saved us.
He could have done what He pleased, but
there was nothing that demanded this.
It's acts of sheer mercy and love on
God's part that He would do this, because
He knew how frail our faith is.
He knew that we're bent on unbelief, and
God came to us as if He could
not be trusted, so to speak, and He
made these incredible promises to us to anchor
our souls, to anchor our faith, God knowing
that His hands are tied and shackled by
unbelief, and He makes an oath.
He swears by a power no greater than
Himself, because there's no power greater than Himself.
And He makes this pledge, these marvelous promises
under the new covenant that we've been studying.
And rather than rebuke us for our unbelief
and cut us off, He lovingly gave us
these promises in a covenant.
He gave us a revelation of His eternal
purposes so that we could have a strong
consolation, the Bible says, so that we don't
have to walk in fear, that we can
live all of our days of our life
without fear, the Scripture says.
This is God telling us, Here's what I
want to do for you.
This is the new covenant.
Here's what I want to do for you.
Here are all my great and precious promises.
I want you to enjoy them.
I want you to, I want everything that's
in these covenants to be something that you
experience and live in the power and the
anointing of.
Now, the old covenant, there are two covenants
mentioned in the Bible, in Hebrews especially.
Now, there are other covenants.
We'll continue with the old and the new
covenant.
The covenant was made with Israel, God's people,
the first church, the church in Israel.
This covenant was made to Israel and this
covenant contained many glorious promises, wonderful promises.
In fact, you'll find almost all the promises
made in the new are found in the
old.
God said, I'll be a God to you.
He said, you're going to get to know
me.
I'm going to defeat all your enemies.
I want to give you a good new
heart.
I want to cleanse you.
I want that you should know me in
fullness, but I want to be God to
you.
You'll find all of these in the old
covenant as well.
He was saying to Israel, I want you
to enter into my rest.
I have a land, a place of rest.
Now, folks, when you read about Canaan and
all of this, that's not the rest that
God had because they got there and never
did find that rest.
The rest is in Jesus Christ through the
covenant.
He said, I want you to be my
people and I want to be your God.
All your enemies will not stand before you.
I'm going to be your only resource, your
only source of supply.
And he said, I want you to understand
that with me, nothing is impossible.
This should be your life.
This should be what is uppermost in your
mind.
With God, nothing is impossible.
That was what he was trying to get
into the minds of the people under the
old covenant, but the Bible said they limited
God and that word limited there in the
original means they marked him as a liar.
They marked him as unfaithful.
They questioned every promise.
Every time God did something new and they
wanted something better, they had a need, they
said, can God do it?
They questioned God at every point.
And they angered God and they broke the
covenant.
They broke the old covenant.
It's very clear the scripture said they turned
back and tempted God and limited the Holy
One of Israel.
They tied his hands with their unbelief.
For Israel transgressed the laws, the scripture said,
changed the ordinances and broke the covenant.
Isaiah 24, 5.
Hosea, God speaking through this prophet said, but
they like men have transgressed the covenant.
They've dealt treacherously against me.
Now, God had another covenant in waiting from
the very beginning of the world, before the
world was founded, before the world was begun,
when world and creation was just a thought
in God's mind.
This universe was just a thought in His
mind.
There are many universes, but our universe, before
it was even in His mind, when God
was contemplating this, when He was thinking about
creating man, far back the Bible said, before
the world began, He had a plan.
He had a plan that should man break
this first covenant, He would make a new
covenant that would be unbreakable, everlasting.
And it would not depend upon man's obedience.
It would depend upon something He does by
the power of His own spirit.
Now, there's an amazing thing when you begin
to understand what the cross is all about
when you're studying the goodness of God in
His covenant.
He's going to make this new covenant.
It's a decision God made by Himself to
send His own Son to be a man
among men.
He's going to come in our humanness, and
He was going to come to illustrate the
covenant.
He is saying, in essence, the old covenant,
generation after generation, would not heed My word.
They would not listen to Me.
But now I'm going to take My word
and put flesh on it.
I'm going to create a man in your
own likeness.
I'm going to create a man.
I'm going to create a human being just
like you, and He's going to come and
live among you, and He's going to fulfill,
I will fulfill in Him all My promises
so that you can not only hear My
word, but see it and feel it and
touch it.
The Bible said of Christ, He's the mediator
of a better covenant which was established upon
better promises.
It's a better covenant because it is made
with Christ and not with man.
It's a better covenant because Jesus Christ is
going to come down, and all of these
promises are better because they're going to be
fulfilled in Christ first as an illustration of
what God wants to do for all of
us, we being in Him.
Now I'm trying to make this as simple
as possible, but follow me, you'll begin to
see it as we go.
Now think of what God really did in
sending His Son among us in human flesh.
He's so determined to build our faith.
He's so determined to get us to trust
Him.
He's so determined that we will understand and
be convinced that He cannot lie.
He's a mediator of the new covenant the
Bible said.
Now we have this idea of Jesus standing
between us and the Father and trying to
mediate for us before the Father, and that
in essence is part of what is being
said here.
But it's not the whole picture.
The whole picture is that Jesus Christ is
coming as a mediator on God's behalf to
us.
In fact, the Scripture makes it very clear,
in fact the word here for mediator is
enunciator.
It comes from a Latin word nuncio.
The Pope has an ambassador that travels around
representing the Vatican.
He's called the nuncio.
Jesus came, the mediator is an enunciator, an
announcer, one who comes and His life and
His message illustrates the will of the Father.
We don't have a Pope.
We have a King of Kings and a
Lord of Lords who has come to this
earth as an ambassador of the Father to
say I want, if you can't understand the
covenant, look at Jesus, look at Christ.
You're going to look at His life and
see that every promise I've made to you
in the covenant I will fulfill in Christ
right before your eyes so that you can
believe for yourself that I will not lie
to you.
God sent His Son.
He said past generations have doubted everything I've
said.
They've shackled my works by their unbelief.
They've ignored my warnings and refused my promises.
But today I am determined this last day
people will come into my rest.
God was not about to lose all of
mankind.
He was not about to allow the devil
to destroy His work.
He said I am making now an everlasting
covenant for a last day people.
He sent His own Son in the midst
of us and He says to mankind, He
says to you and to me, He says
now look at my Son.
Look unto Jesus the author and the finisher
of your faith.
Look and see what I do through Him.
I've made you a promise that I will
put my Spirit in you and my Spirit
in you will give you all power over
all temptation and all lust.
Everything the devil throws at you I will
empower you with my Spirit.
Now He said that in Isaiah.
He said it in Ezekiel.
He said it in all the prophets and
man didn't believe it.
So God says now I'm going to give
you an illustrated sermon.
I'm going to give you an enunciator.
He's going to enunciate it.
He's going to illustrate it.
His life is going to be a pattern
for you and so what does the Father
do?
He said I'm going.
I have promised in the new covenant that
I will send to you.
I will put in you my Spirit.
So what happens when Jesus comes on the
scene?
The Holy Ghost comes as a dove and
comes upon Him and possesses Him and fills
His innermost being and what happens?
He's taken then into the wilderness and the
second part of the covenant is fulfilled before
us.
All power over all dominion of the devil
and suddenly you see the covenant in action.
The very thing God has promised you and
me.
He's promised to send the Holy Ghost.
Put the Holy Ghost in your innermost being.
Not that you can brag and boast that
you have something better than anybody else or
you're more holy.
The Holy Ghost is given to you to
witness to the whole world and to the
devil and all the powers of hell that
the Holy Ghost in you is stronger than
all the powers of hell.
And so Jesus is taken into the wilderness
and the enemy comes and we see it
and we can read about it.
It's there in front of our eyes.
Those around us can see and feel and
touch the covenant.
And what happens?
The devil comes and throws everything he has
at him and he is tempted as no
man has ever been tempted but the Spirit
of God came in him and gave him
the living Word of heaven of his Father
and Jesus came victorious out of the wilderness.
Hallelujah.
The devil didn't prevail and the gates of
hell did not prevail against him.
Hallelujah.
Jesus was living out the covenant.
God was saying everything that I have, all
that I've promised, all my resources I have
placed in him.
And folks, none of the promises of God
come to us except through Christ.
None.
You don't receive any promise except it comes
by and through Jesus Christ.
Oh, hallelujah.
Another glorious covenant promise is I will be
merciful to your unrighteousness and your sins and
iniquities will I remember no more.
That's one of the new covenant promises.
God says I'm going to be merciful to
your sins.
Now you can hear that.
They heard that.
God was just as merciful in Old Testament
as he is in New Testament.
Some people get the idea that somewhere along
the line God just got a hold of
some extra mercy in the New Covenant or
the New Testament.
No, he's always been a God of mercy.
God cannot change.
He was a merciful God in the Old
Testament.
And you can hear this.
I will be merciful to your unrighteousness.
I'm going to be merciful to all your
iniquities.
I'm going to forgive you when you repent
and I'm going to forget your sins.
But now once at the end of the
world hath he, Christ, appeared to put away
sin by the sacrifice of himself.
And now you look at Jesus on the
cross dying and bleeding for us.
And this is God saying to you and
to me I told you I cannot lie.
I told you that from the foundation of
the world I would redeem you.
I would never let the devil possess you
and never let him have you.
And no matter how the devil comes at
you no matter what temptation comes at you
I'm going to keep you to the end.
I'm going to deliver you and save you
as my people and I'm going to bring
you into my rest.
So what does he do?
This was agreed between the Father and the
Son before you and I were ever born.
Before the world was created.
This was God's fail-safe plan.
The Father said will you be my lamb?
Will you be my sacrifice?
Jesus said you've presented, you've given me a
body.
I've come to do your will Father.
And he agreed.
All the scripture proves that he agreed before
the world was created to take all the
sins of all mankind upon himself.
All of them charged to his account and
he bore those.
If you can only see it that's what
the cross is all about.
Jesus didn't need to be taught something.
He didn't come for his own behalf.
He didn't need to be chastised.
He didn't need to be trained.
There was nothing in Christ that demanded that.
What's it all about?
What's the point of it?
It's Jesus saying look at the cross.
Look at the mercy.
I've laid the sins of the whole world
on my own son.
Now look I've given you my oath.
I've given you my word.
Now I've given you my son.
Now you believe I can't lie.
Look at the mercy.
This is the mercy I want to show
to you.
This is what I want you to know
about my covenant.
I have made a promise.
I made my son a promise.
If he would go to the cross I
would be with him.
I would bring him back to glory.
And he's saying to you and to me
no matter what temptation, no matter what trial
you go through, if you will trust me
and my word that I cannot lie.
If you'll look to Jesus, the author and
the finisher of your faith, there's no power
on earth, no power in heaven or hell
that can keep you.
Forgive me for screaming.
I get a little excited about what I'm
hearing here.
I look at the cross and I look
at what Jesus is doing, his sacrifice.
He's once again enunciating covenant promises of mercy
toward my sins.
And when Christ cries out it is finished,
it's God saying, I have shown you, I've
illustrated to you, I have enunciated through my
son every promise I've made to mankind has
been fulfilled in him.
The Bible said the covenant stood fast with
Christ until the very end.
Meaning the covenant was confirmed or enunciated to
him until the very end.
Everything was fulfilled in Christ.
Every covenant promise that God made to mankind,
to us in the last days, he gave
it to Christ first.
He promised the Holy Ghost.
Christ was the first to receive the Holy
Ghost in filling.
He was the first to be filled with
the Holy Ghost.
He was the first to show us how
the Holy Ghost gives us dominion over sin
in the wilderness.
You find it in everything that he did.
He said, I can't do anything except by
my Father.
The Holy Ghost was given to him without
measure.
And everything you see in Christ, everything he
did was an illustration of God saying he's
the mediator of the new covenant, he's the
enunciator.
Watch him, look at him, see what he's
doing.
This is what I want to do for
you because you are his children and you
are in Christ.
He's the head, you're his body.
And what I do for the head I
will do for my whole body.
You can't do anything with your head that
you can't do.
Your body's going to follow everything your head
does.
I dare you to separate your head and
put it over here and let your body
run its own way.
We're connected to the head, folks.
For their sakes.
Folks, you've got to understand why God is
going to such measures, such incredible measures to
get us to believe, to get us to
trust in that we can say, I know
my God cannot lie, my God gave me
a word and God is going to fulfill
that word and to fully trust in him.
The new covenant was conceived in the councils
of heaven for one reason and it was
enunciated by Christ and revealed in his manhood
for a reason.
The very same reason he said he sanctified
himself.
For their sakes I sanctify myself.
He didn't need to be sanctified.
He said for their sakes I sanctify myself
that they also might be sanctified through the
truth.
It's all done for our sakes, the Bible
says.
All for our sake.
I want you to turn to Isaiah 59.
You should be open to 55.
Turn to the right to chapter 59.
Folks, before I tell you where to go
in this chapter, look this way for just
a moment.
Do you understand, are you beginning to understand
that when you're in Christ Jesus you're his
seed?
The Bible said there's one seed, the seed
of Abraham is one seed.
It's not many seeds, it's one seed, that's
Christ.
The seed of Abraham is Jesus Christ.
There's only one seed, there's one man.
God said only one man stands before me.
And the only way you can stand before
God is being in Christ.
You're in one man.
We're all gathered up in one man in
Jesus Christ.
He's the seed.
When you're in Jesus Christ, you're the seed
of Christ.
You're the seed.
The word says seed, it means child.
You are in Christ Jesus.
Now look at, if you will, at verses
20 and 21 of Isaiah 59.
Are you ready for this glorious word?
And the Redeemer shall come to Zion.
That's Jesus.
And unto them that turn from transgression in
Jacob, saith the Lord, as for me, this
is my covenant with them, saith the Lord,
my spirit that is upon thee, and my
words which I have put in thy mouth.
Now this is God speaking to his own
son.
As for me, this is my covenant with
them, saith the Lord, my spirit that is
upon thee, upon Christ, and my words which
I have put in thy mouth, that's in
Christ's mouth, shall not depart out of thy
mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy
seed, nor out of the mouth of thy
seed, seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and
forevermore.
The same spirit that quickened him, the same
spirit that gave him dominion over the powers
of hell and every temptation, the very same
spirit that went into the grave and raised
him from the dead, is the spirit that
is here this morning, abiding in you and
abiding in me.
Settle down, David.
All right.
Oh, hallelujah.
Look at it.
He says the Redeemer is coming to Zion.
He's coming to Zion, and unto them turn
from transgressions in Jacob.
Jacob, here is the New Testament church, saith
the Lord, and as for me, my covenant.
He's saying, what I've done for Christ, I'm
going to do for you.
I'm going to do it in you.
For ye are the children of God by
faith in Christ Jesus.
You're the children of God by faith in
Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3.26. Galatians 3.16. Not to
the seeds as many, but as one, and
to the seed which is Christ.
And you being in Christ are his seed.
Now, if you're in Christ, you have all
the rights to the covenant.
It's one thing to have the rights, though,
and it's another thing to appropriate them.
And there are many, many people don't know
how rich they are in Christ Jesus.
They don't know the inheritance that God has
left to them.
They're like people who've been notified and they
have had an official legal notification that they
are inherited, have inherited a great, incredible sum
of money.
More money than they could ever spend in
their lifetime.
But they don't believe it.
How many of you...
It's almost like those who get this, you
know, you've just won ten million dollars in
the sweepstakes, and we just throw it away
because, you know, we know you can't throw
this away.
This...
You've got a legal notice right here that
you have inherited all the blessings of the
covenant that were in Christ.
Because you're in Christ, and Jesus said the
fullness of the Godhead, all the fullness of
Godhead is in Him.
The covenant was made with Christ and His
seed.
But you see, we are very slow to
appropriate it.
Can you imagine somebody inheriting great wealth and
not being able to pay their rent, and
they're three months behind, and they go to
the grocery store, and they're buying dog food
because they can't afford beef?
That's the way a lot of Christians are
living.
And they're just not writing out a check.
They've been given a checkbook, and they won't
write out a check.
It's too good to be true.
And this is what we think of the
covenant.
It's too good to be true.
How can it be that God has promised
to come down and do for us what
we can't do for ourselves?
How can it be that God could do
such a thing?
They can't believe it.
This brings me to my text again.
Go back to 55, chapter 55.
Now, folks, this chapter, chapter 55, begins with
a loving call to all become exhausted by
terrible, awful strivings under the old covenant.
...verses have to do with those who are
trying to serve God under the old covenant.
Now, look at it for just a minute.
We've said it before.
We'll say it again.
The old and new covenant represent two ways
to come to God and serve Him.
You're either going to come to God through
your own power, your own human resources, and
try to appease God or please Him by
your own home and efforts, making promises, sweating,
striving, I mean, biting the bullet.
All of these clichés that we use about
our trying to get to God and overpower
our sins, and we do it for a
month or three months or a year, and
there sin is always crouched and comes back
in greater fury than ever.
And it leaves you debilitated and bankrupt.
It leaves you absolutely helpless.
And that's what the old covenant is meant
to do.
The law is meant to bring you to
the end of your own integrity, the end
of your own human efforts.
Now, listen to what happens under the old
covenant.
Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the
waters, and he that hath no money, come
ye by and eat.
Yea, come by wine and milk without money
and without price.
Wherefore do you spend money for that which
is not bread?
You labor for that which satisfies not.
Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that
which is good, and let your soul delight
itself in fatness.
Now, look, he's talking to people now that
are absolutely bankrupt.
They have tried so hard, they've become exhausted
by their strivings.
Here's the people spiritually thirsty.
They've not been satisfied.
They're spending and laboring all in vain.
They are working and striving in their flesh.
They're fighting sin and lust in their own
power.
They are hungry, the Bible said.
They're running around looking for some kind of
inner resource or money, some kind of coin
with which to deal with God.
That is so clear to me that this
is the old covenant.
These are people now, he says, you've tried
to bring me money.
You've tried to bring me something that is
of your own work.
It's something you've earned.
You've earned money.
You brought your money.
You brought your efforts to me, and it's
left you bankrupt.
You're hungry.
You're thirsty.
And he said, ho, listen.
Listen up.
Hear me.
All of you that have come to the
end of yourself, the new covenant is for
those who have come to the end of
their hope.
To which end?
Oh, I've made God a thousand promises.
Oh, how I've tried.
How I've hated my sin.
I've wept a river of tears.
I've done everything that I know to do.
I've counseled.
I've prayed.
I've wept, and it's still there.
And that's when the Lord says, ho, you.
You thirsty man.
It's left you so dry and empty.
It's left you so bankrupt.
He said, you don't need any money.
He said, you're striving for the milk and
the wine and the honey of the Holy
Ghost and all these covenant blessings.
Wine and honey always represent the blessings of
God, and that's the covenant blessings of God.
And he said, you're coming out trying to
purchase it with your own ability and power
and strength.
Let it go.
He said, the price has already been paid.
Come on.
No money.
No works.
No human coin.
You come to me by faith.
Why do you spend money for that which
is not bread and labor if that doesn't
satisfy you?
You've never been able to satisfy God or
yourself in all that you promised and tried
to do and all the sweat you have
sweated.
And then when we try so hard and
win a little tiny victory, we come to
the Lord saying, Lord, I know you've got
to forgive me.
I know you're going to keep me.
I know the Holy Ghost is going to
come because you see what I did?
The Bible said that you dare not boast.
God will not let you boast in your
human flesh.
Not at all.
He said, not money, not human works.
He said, you come by faith to me
right now.
You come to the Holy Spirit and you
drink of my promises.
Hallelujah.
Not by works.
Are you seeing it?
God said it's time to open your spiritual
ear.
Come to me.
Let me give you the resources you need
to overcome.
Now look at verse 3.
This is the heart of my message.
Incline your ear.
He said it's time to listen now.
Folks, look at me please.
You've been hearing a lot of covenant preaching
if you're from Times Square Church.
He's saying now it's time to come down
to the issue.
He said, incline your ear and come to
me here in your soul to live.
And I will make an everlasting covenant with
you, even the sure mercies of David.
Now folks, that should read Christ.
That is not the proper translation.
David's already dead.
And the next verse says, behold, I have
given him for a witness to the people.
And that again is the enunciator.
I have given him for enunciator to the
people.
I gave him as an illustrated message of
my covenant promises.
A leader and commander of the people.
Behold, thou shall call a nation that thou
knowest not.
And nations that knew thee not shall run
unto thee.
Now they couldn't run to King David.
This is Christ.
Clearly it's Jesus Christ being mentioned here.
And Jesus says, now look this way if
you will please.
Remember what Jeremiah said.
A day is coming when I will make
a new covenant with the house of Israel.
And we have been taught very clearly now.
We don't believe in replacement theology.
We pray for Israel.
We build a church in Israel.
We are those who love Israel.
God still has a covenant with them on
the land.
God still, if any Jew comes to Christ,
he's going to come the same way you
did through faith in Christ.
He's not going to come through animal sacrifices
again.
It's not going to be because another temple
is built in Israel.
If that temple is built there, nobody is
going to be saved there.
Unless the Holy Ghost comes down and Jesus
is manifested in there.
Unless Jesus takes over.
Away with the lambs.
Away with those sacrifices.
God said I have no pleasure in them.
There are Christians, Jewish Christians now even believing
that the sacrifices are going to come back
again.
And they've got to be pleased in it.
No, no, no.
There's only been one sacrifice.
It's all settled.
He's crucified once and that's it.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you.
Even the sure mercies of David, of Jesus
Christ.
Now Jeremiah, the scripture said, Jeremiah said in
Jeremiah 31, 31.
Behold the days come, saith the Lord.
I will make a new covenant with the
house of Israel and with the house of
Judah.
Beloved, this is the house of Christ.
But Christ is the son of his own
house.
Whose house we are if we hold fast
the confidence in rejoicing in the hope firm
to the end.
Now, as I said, you are legally under
the covenant.
You're in Christ.
All the covenant rights are yours.
All the covenant promises and provisions and peace
belong to you and belong to me.
But they have to be appropriated.
And so now we hear, through Isaiah the
prophet, we hear God coming to say, Now,
now that you have seen, now that it's
been enunciated to you, now that you've heard
the message, I want you to enter into
it.
I want to make that covenant with you
because it's with my son and his seed.
He said, I want you to enter into
the covenant now.
You say, well, I've lived all these years
without understanding the covenant.
I'm okay.
Why should some new truth come?
This is not a new truth.
This is an old, old truth.
This is old as eternity.
It's an eternal truth.
You say, why do I need it?
Because the Bible says times are going to
get so difficult.
There's going to be such turmoil that men's
hearts are going to fail them for fear.
Just watching the things coming on the earth.
Just looking at the horrifying things that are
going to happen.
And they're beginning to happen.
Economic troubles.
Too many things I can't even begin to
describe.
You know and you've heard all about it.
And he said, in the last days, I'm
going to have a people at rest in
this storm.
They're going to enter into my rest.
They're going to be living on my covenant
promises.
I'm going to keep them.
There is going to be a flood of
iniquity.
There is going to be a moral landslide.
If you think what you see and hear
now is evil, just wait for the next
five or ten years to Jesus, Terry.
And what is going to happen in America,
in this world.
And you are going to have to have
something in you of faith and confidence in
God.
You've got to lay hold of this covenant
to keep you in this dark hour that's
coming.
If Jesus needed it, how much more do
you and I need?
I can only see.
Oh, by the way.
In Psalms 89, I want you to listen
to this.
God said to the seed, Christ told it.
If you break my laws and forget to
keep my commandments, I'll visit your sins with
the rod and your iniquity with stripes.
Nevertheless, my loving kindness will I not utterly
take from you.
I will not allow my faithfulness to fail.
My covenant I will not break.
I will not alter the thing that has
gone out of my mouth.
God said, I have made you an everlasting
covenant.
I will not break it.
You can't break it.
It's an everlasting covenant.
God said, I will not allow it to
be broken.
Hallelujah.
I'm not going to alter, ever alter the
thing that's gone out of my mouth.
Now, in closing, I can only name two
things.
I can only see two things that can
keep you and me from entering into this
covenant.
When God says, come now, I want to
make covenant with you.
I want you to, by faith, enter into
this.
There are two things.
First of all, an unwillingness to give up
a particular besetting sin.
Usually the only thing standing between the Christian
and entering into this glorious new covenant where
you have all the resource and peace and
power is an unwillingness to lay down a
bosom sin.
One particular thing God's been dealing with you
for a long, long time.
Now, I've got a question for you.
And I want you to listen closely because
the Spirit of God made this so powerfully
clear to me.
Let's take a, let's think for a moment.
You don't have to name it out loud.
But you know what it is.
That one thing in your life God's dealing
with.
And you've tried and tried and you can't
get to victory, you say.
You've cried, you've wept, you've said, I just
can't get free.
But let me ask you a question.
Think about it a moment.
If you had the power and the ability
through the Holy Ghost to break that chain
that holds you, that power of sin, would
you want it?
Would you go for it?
Oh, I've heard many, many people say, I've
tried everything, I've tried everything.
But you see down deep inside when they
really get honest with themselves they say, oh
yes, I've cried about it, I've prayed about
it, I just go to church and I
worship and I praise the Lord and I
know that thing is hanging on me, I
know there's some black spot in my soul,
I know that there's a stone there God's
trying to remove and I just try to
push it out of mine and my conscience
bothers me and I worry about when I
stand before the judgment seat of Christ and
I know it's there, but I just can't
seem to break it.
But then when they get honest, now here's
what you've got to come, you've got to
come to a place of honesty.
If you're willing to do this, say, Lord,
I don't have the will to lay this
down.
I've prayed about it and all that, yes,
I've gone through all the motions, but deep
inside I really have learned to live with
this, it's comfortable to me or I enjoy
it.
It could be a lust, it could be
almost anything that's standing between you and walking,
accepting this invitation to enter into the covenant.
Now listen closely, if you're willing to be
honest before God and say, Lord, I have
to tell you in all honesty, I don't
think I have the will or the want
to lay this down.
That's where you begin.
The scripture says so very, very clearly, work
out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
You say, well, that's just opposite to everything
you said, we're not to work out our
own salvation with fear and trembling.
But read the next verse, it says, for
it is God which worketh in you both
to will and to do His good pleasure.
He's saying you can work out your salvation
when the Holy Ghost is in you and
you're trusting and believing in the Holy Ghost,
but He said it's God who causes you
to will.
Well, how can I get God to cause
me to want to will this thing out
of my life?
How can I get Him to do that?
Well, here in the 55th chapter of Isaiah,
God, the very breath in which He says,
I want to make covenant with you, the
very next, the same breath He says, verse
6, seeking the Lord while He may be
found, calling upon Him while He's near.
Go to Him in prayer.
Lay before Him and say, God, in all
honesty, I don't think I want to let
this go.
I think this has my heart and I
don't want to cry any more tears and
no more tears left.
I want to make no more promises.
God, you said the works won't work.
I want you to put a will in
me to do it.
I will cause you, God says, to will
and to do it.
How?
Seek His face.
He said, the day you seek with all
your heart, you'll find Me.
And I believe that that's what the covenant
is for, it's for those who have a
sin sickness for sin and a heart that
says, I will cry out to God.
God has made me a promise.
I'm not going to let Him go until
He fulfills it.
I'm going to lay hold of that promise.
God will put a will in my heart.
He will cause me to will and to
do of His good pleasure.
Folks, there are testimonies by the millions now
all over the world of saints who have
prayed through on this and God has put
a will in them to do His perfect
will.
Hallelujah.
The only other thing that could keep you
out of the covenant and entering in is
unbelief.
Now this, the Bible says the covenant of
peace is a covenant of rest.
They to whom it was first preached entered
not in because of unbelief.
Now folks, there is a peace for you
that is beyond any human understanding.
The Lord says, My peace I want to
give to you.
That was the peace of the covenant.
It's a covenant of peace, the Bible says.
They could not enter into this covenant because
of unbelief, Hebrews 3.19. Now, this sounds
so simple, just believe, but it's difficult, it's
a difficult step to take.
The Bible said, By faith Abraham obeyed.
It wasn't by his words, but by faith
he obeyed God.
He learned how to obey God.
Let me tell you, and with this I
close, how I finally, I believe the Lord
has allowed me to enter in and lay
hold of His covenant.
I heard His invitation.
I heard God say it's not enough to
just pass it by, hear it and enjoy
the message.
The Lord says, No, I want you to
get in it.
I want you to come under the covering
of the covenant.
And I want you to enjoy the blessings
and the provisions of the covenant.
I don't want you to walk around with
guilt and shame and fear.
I want you to be a free man,
to rejoice in the Lord and not live
under the bondage of a guilty conscience.
I want a conscience clear before God.
You know it can clear your conscience through
the covenant promises.
And the only way you do that is
to cast yourself completely on the promises of
God.
Where you just go to Jesus in His
outstretched arms and say, Come on, I want
you to come in the covenant and just
throw yourself into His arms.
Literally throw yourselves into the arms of Jesus
and say, Lord, I don't even know how
to explain faith, but I come to you
and I give you.
I believe your word is true.
I believe that you cannot lie.
And I'm coming now to cast my whole
future, my eternal future, my living, my dying,
everything I am and all that I have,
I cast it.
I leap into your arms, Jesus.
Now it's up to you and the Holy
Ghost.
It's up to you.
I have asked for the Holy Ghost.
I believe the Holy Ghost abides in me.
And I trust the Holy Ghost now to
lead me and guide me.
Oh, folks, thank God for the Holy Ghost.
This is a Holy Ghost church.
You are to be a Holy Ghost people.
And if we're a Holy Ghost church and
you're a Holy Ghost people, it's not just
about talking in tongues or prophesying.
Thank God for all these gifts.
It's power in you, not just power to
lay hands on the sick.
It's power to give you victory over the
devil and all the powers of hell.
I've accepted His word and I believe it.
And I risk everything I am and all
I have.
I say, Lord, put your faith in me.
I want it to take me to the
judgment seat.
Hallelujah.
I believe His covenant word.
Come into the covenant.
Take a look at your sin now and
say, Lord Jesus, I'm honest about it.
I want deliverance, but I don't know if
I really have the will.
I don't believe it's in me.
Go to Him in absolute seeking of heart.
Hallelujah.
Don't go just weeping.
Go with faith and seek Him with faith.
Lay hold of His promises by faith and
I promise you according to this work, this
book, you are going to walk in freedom.
Hallelujah.
Will you stand, please?
Hallelujah.
We're going to sing in just a minute,
I am free, I am free.
Jesus broke the chains of bondage and I
am free.
Hallelujah.
Will you hold steady for just a moment,
please, every head bowed.
Holy Spirit, if I have preached your mind,
if I have preached the word of God,
you promised to confirm it in the hearts
of the people.
Oh, Jesus, I thank you.
Thank you for your presence.
Holy Ghost, thank you for your conviction.
Thank you for your love, oh God.
There are many here right now, Lord, that
have been so bound up, so bound.
They need to be set free.
If you're here this morning, in the annex,
wherever you're hearing me, listen closely, please.
God doesn't want you to walk out of
here the way you came in.
God wants you to walk out of here
with a leap in your feet and a
joy in your heart and a peace that
passes all understanding.
God said, I'm going to put my spirit
in you and cause you to walk in
my ways.
I will cause you to do it.
I'll put my will in your heart to
do it and to obey me.
I'm going to teach you.
No man can teach you what I'm going
to teach you.
You're going to open a book and God
says, I'm going to open up that word
to you.
You're going to see it and you're not
going to have to have a preacher show
it to you.
You go and when you go, the preacher
is only going to confirm what the Holy
Ghost has already said to you.
God said, I'm going to be merciful to
your sins because you've been honest with me
and you really have been asking and praying
that I have the will to obey.
The will to do and obey.
Hallelujah.
I'll cause you to will and to obey.
Who will?
God says, I will.
As some of you are here now and
need a moment of honesty, brutal honesty.
We don't look for numbers here.
You can't join this church because we don't
have a membership.
We have nothing to sell.
You have nothing to promote.
But to us, this is life and death.
If you can honestly say, Pastor David, I
need freedom.
I've been bound.
I've been captive.
And I want to be free today.
I want to take a step of faith.
I want God to take all the unbelief
out of my heart.
Some of you are not even saved.
Some of you don't know Jesus.
Some of you have backslid.
Some of you are living in sin.
Sin has a hold of your heart and
it has a death grip on you.
If you're honest enough to say, God, I
don't even know if I have really wanted
victory, but I'm coming down now to seek
your face and I want you to put
a will in my heart.
I want to take this sin in me
to the point that God will deliver me.
I want you to get out of your
seat, up to the balcony, go to either
stairs or down any aisle.
The rest of you in this auditorium come
here.
And in the annex, if you just go,
please.
I'm going to have to have Pastor Cesar,
will you go up there quickly, if you
will, please, to the annex?
If you will, please.
Pastor Cesar will be there in just a
minute.
We'd like you to go up, not to
the screen, but between the screens.
Just step forward.
If you will, just step forward.
And Pastor Cesar will be there to pray
with you in just a minute.
In fact, I'm going to pray with you
first, and then there'll be somebody there to
lead you into a room where we can
speak to you more personally.
But here in the main auditorium, please move
in close, make room for those that are
coming.
Amen.
Let the Holy Spirit deal with you right.
Don't come unless the Spirit draws you, but
the moment the Spirit draws you, you come
here now and say, Jesus, I can't walk
out the way I came in.
I want to be clean.
I want the Lord to touch me today.
And all these matters.
If the Holy Spirit spoke to you during
the message, you obey him.
Up in the balcony.
That's it.
Just go down the stairs on either side,
and you can come down any aisle.
Hallelujah.
We're not ready yet to sing I'm free.
We'll sing it after we all get free.
Hallelujah.
Yes, Jesus.
Blessed be the Lord.
Blessed be his name.
The Holy Ghost is here.
Amen.
Now, in the annex and here, you can
still come while I'm talking.
But look this way for just a moment.
Why would God send his own son?
Why would he allow the whole sins of
the world to be, sins of the whole
world to be placed on him if he
didn't love you and me?
It was all an act of love.
Why did God make such incredible promises to
us?
Because he loves us.
Look at me, please.
Can you say to your heart, can you
convince your own heart now by the, with
the help of the Holy Ghost, I am
loved?
Jesus loves me.
My heavenly father loves me.
God is not mad at me.
How could God send his own son to
a world that he was mad at?
He's not mad at you.
He's here to lift this burden from your
heart.
You've carried it long enough.
Hallelujah.
How many of you came forward one of,
you came forward because you want to absolutely
be free from any bondage of the enemy?
Raise your hand, please.
You want to be free?
Hold it there right now.
Just raise your hand and hold it there
right now.
Pray this prayer with me right now.
Jesus, I come to be free.
And I can't free myself.
I've struggled and I've tried.
And I've failed.
I come to you now, Jesus, to your
word.
You cannot lie.
You have made me promises.
You've put your spirit in me.
And I ask for the Holy Ghost to
come right now and fill me.
You said you give the Holy Ghost to
those who ask him.
I ask for the Holy Ghost to come
now, live in me.
Give me power over all the power of
the enemy.
This is your promise, and I accept it.
I come by faith now to appropriate and
to move in to the promises and the
provisions of the new covenant.
You've invited me, Jesus, and that's why I'm
here.
I've accepted your invitation.
Deal with my sin.
Put a will in my heart to hate
it and to turn from it through the
power of the Holy Spirit.
Lord Jesus, I thank you.
I have repented.
Give me a godly sorrow.
And now, Lord Jesus, I accept my freedom
through the covenant you promised in the name
of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Hallelujah.
Thank you, Lord.
You said I'm more willing to give than
you are to receive.
How anxious the Lord is to get you
and I to trust him and believe him.
That you may have an anchor for your
soul, he said.
He said, I've sworn, I've made an oath
that you could anchor your soul and that
I could give you a strong consolation that
you would have such hope.
You would have such power in you.
You could just, you could say, Lord, it
sounds so simple, doesn't it?
Just believe God.
You have to come by faith.
Without faith, it's impossible to please him and
they that come to him must believe that
he is and that he's what?
He's a rewarder of those who diligently seek
him.
He said, seek me.
It's all there in 55th chapter of Isaiah
that I just read to you.
So come, all you hungry and all you
thirsty and all of you who've been laboring
in vain, he says, lay down your labors.
Come freely now and drink.
Drink into the Holy Spirit.
The milk and the wine and the honey
of the Holy Spirit.
Hallelujah.
Church, are you free?