June 30, 2000

• JMac - Luke 1

   

  

             

  Zachariah's Song of Salvation: The New Covenant, Part 1

  Luke 1:67-80

  The great event of world history that rises above everything else like Everest is the event which has been most profoundly influential, most impactful, most shaping of all human history and that is the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, God in human flesh into the world to provide salvation and eternal life for sinners.  That is the greatest event in history.

  Zacharias is praising God because he knows the Messiah is about to be born.  The forerunner to the Messiah, his own son John, has just been born about a week earlier.  Mary, the mother of the Messiah, the mother of the Savior of the world, the mother of the God/Man Jesus Christ is already pregnant and he knows that because she has just spent three months living with them.  So he knows that the Messiah is about to arrive, the forerunner has been born, Messiah is only a few months behind.  It won't be many years, Zacharias is sure, until the Messiah will launch His great ministry and as he says in verse 68, redemption will come to Israel, redemption will come to Israel because a great powerful Savior, a horn of salvation is to be born.

  Zacharias understands that this fits in with Old Testament promise.  There are three great covenants in the Old Testament that relate to salvation.  One was made to David, one was made to Abraham and one was made to the nation.  There is the Davidic Covenant, the Abrahamic Covenant, and what we call the New Covenant because that's exactly what it's called in Jeremiah 31 where it is explicitly laid out.   God promised to the nation Israel some day they would have a Kingdom and a King would come in David's line.  God promised to Abraham and the people who came out of his loins, namely the Jewish people, that some day they would possess the promised land and that it would be a time of great and immense blessing and they would serve the Lord in the midst of that blessing so as to be not only blessed but become a blessing to the world. 

  They hadn't yet had the Kingdom God had promised to David.  They hadn't yet experienced the greatness of the Davidic promise and sovereignty and a great King out of the loins of David who would not only rule in Israel but rule with a rod of iron and extend that rule over the whole earth.  They hadn't experienced that yet.  That was to come when Messiah came. 

  They hadn't experienced the fullness of Abrahamic blessing.  They did not possess their land.  They were occupied at that time by Romans. They had been occupied by Greeks.  They had been under the power of Medo-Persians, under the power of the Babylonians in captivity.  They hadn't received their land and the greatness of blessing that God promised them.  And they hadn't yet become that great blessing to the world that God had pledged to Abraham.  And all of that because they hadn't yet received the forgiveness of sins.  How many times had they sinned?  How many times did they defy God?  How many times did they apostatized or defected from God?  How many times had they followed after idols?  How many idols had the bowed before?  And they had not yet been forgiven for all their sins.  There was a generation alive at the time of Zacharias that was apostate, had defected from the true God and was following a path of self-righteousness rather than a path of true repentance and faith and justification.

  Zacharias was like the rest, waiting for the redemption of Israel in Jerusalem, waiting for the Messiah to come and come to deliver them from their sins and then to give them the fulfillment of Davidic and Abrahamic promise.  And when he realized that the son who was his own son miraculously conceived John was now born, he knew because he was the forerunner of Messiah, the one who would announce Messiah that Messiah wasn't far behind...yes, even now was being formed in the womb of this young girl named Mary.  And so he is rejoicing over what is coming to pass.  He speaks of David in verse 69.  He speaks of Abraham down in verse 73 because he realizes the Davidic promise, Abrahamic promise, is tied to the arrival of Messiah.

  As Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, we've gone over that in the past, it says that he said, "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for He has visited us and accomplished redemption for His people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us."  In other words, God is going to send the Messiah who is going to save us and bring about the redemption that has been promised.

  Then in verse 69 he introduces the Davidic Covenant.  The Messiah, the Savior will come in the house of David, His servant, as he spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets as of old.  And he's going back to 2 Samuel chapter 7, back to 1 Chronicles chapter 17, back to Psalm 89 and back to 40 other references in the Old Testament to the Davidic Covenant and saying...This is it, folks, the King has come.   After all, when Gabriel announced the birth of Messiah to Mary back in verse 32, the angel Gabriel said that He will be not only Son of the Most High, but the Lord God will give Him the throne of His Father David, He will reign over the house of Jacob forever and His Kingdom will have no end.  So that heightened anticipation. 

  Surely Mary had informed Zacharias that that's exactly what Gabriel had said, that the Messiah would be not only Son of God, Son of the Most High, but Son of David, the promised King and He would establish His eternal Kingdom, a Kingdom without end.  That's what the angel told Mary.  I'm sure that's what she passed on to Zacharias.  So he's anticipating this.  This is it.  Israel, attacked through the centuries, deported, Israel occupied, stripped of sovereignty, stripped of self-rule, under Gentile domination would some day have its independence, some day have its own kingdom, some day have its own great King and some day that King would not only rule over Israel but over the entire world.  The government of the world, Isaiah 9 says, would be upon His shoulders.  Zachariah 14 and verse 9 promises the same thing.  He would establish the Kingdom that is indicated in Revelation 20 to be a Kingdom of a thousand years on earth.  They were waiting for this.  This was great deliverance from their enemies, and that's what verse 71 says, deliverance, or salvation, from our enemies and from the hands of all who hate us.

  So the Davidic promise had to do with the political entity of the nation, with the national entity of the nation.  That is to say they would be free.  They would be sovereign.  They would be ruled by Messiah who would deliver them from all oppression, all occupation, all enemies, so much so that the Messiah from Jerusalem would reign over the entire world with a rod of iron, exercising great and instantaneous power.

  That's what he expected to happen because Messiah was coming.  He also expected fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant, verse 72, also he was rejoicing because mercy was coming, mercy which God had showed toward their fathers in the promise that He gave the holy covenant, the oath which He swore to Abraham.  Now remember, that was a promise of the land and a great nation and blessing on that nation like no nation had ever known and through that nation blessing to the world.  That was the heart and soul of the Abrahamic Covenant.  Not just a Kingdom, but all the land originally promised, and blessing, and to be a blessing to the world.  That hadn't happened.  That would require the Messiah to come.  That couldn't happen until they were delivered from their enemy.  So he says in verse 73...or verse 72, "The Lord has now going to show us the fulfillment of His holy covenant, the oath which He swore to Abraham, our father, to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies," which was part of the Davidic Covenant, "shall now be able to serve Him without fear in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days."

  They were going to enter in to a time of peace.  They were going to enter in to a time of prosperity, a time when without fear of attack or assault or evasion or occupation they would serve the Lord.  It would be a time of holiness.  It would be a time of righteousness, as well as a time of peace.  The Abrahamic Covenant was basically given in the book of Genesis to Abraham, Genesis 12 verses 1 to 7 and in that promise that you'll have a great nation, and your nation will be the source of blessing to other nations and you'll have a land that I'll give to you.  It was reiterated again in chapter 15, reiterated again in chapter 17 of Genesis, and reiterated again in chapter 22, as we told you.  This was the promise of profound and far-reaching and permanent blessing on the nation Israel.

  And God, you know, sealed that Covenant.  We didn't get into it but I'll just refer to it.  God did an interesting thing to seal that Covenant, to ratify that Covenant.  In Genesis chapter 15 it says that Abram asked God, "How am I going to know this is going to happen?  How can I be sure this Covenant will come to pass?"  And God did something to make it clear.  God said to him, "Now you go get three animals and cut them in half...a heifer, a goat and a ram.  You get them and just cut them in half and lay them opposite each other with a path in the middle and then go get a pigeon and a turtledove and don't cut them in half, they're small enough to start with.  To cut a bird in half, all you get is a pile of feathers, so don't cut those, just put the pigeon over here and the turtledove over here so you have corresponding pieces of the three animals and corresponding dead birds lying on the ground and a path in the middle." 

  Strange thing that God is asking Abram to do but he really doesn't argue about it, he doesn't hesitate to do it because it was a somewhat familiar enterprise.  Why?  Because in the Old Testament era, during the time of Abram, people made covenants, they had ways to ratify or to legalize those covenants.  One of the ways they did it was by blood, blood signifying the seriousness with which this pledge was being taken.  An animal would offer its life, there would be death and the shedding of blood to show the seriousness of this pledge, and so they would cut an animal in half and the two people making the covenant would walk between the pieces, therefore signifying the sealing of that covenant in a dramatic way.  And that's essentially what Abram is doing.  He understands this. 

  But God does something very interesting in Genesis 15, God anesthetizes him.  God puts Abraham out, He puts him into a deep sleep and then when he's in a deep sleep and completely out of the picture, God Himself comes like a smoking oven and like a burning lamp and passes through the pieces Himself.  The Abrahamic Covenant was unilateral, the Abrahamic Covenant was irrevocable.  It was a pledge that God made to Himself.  It was not dependent upon Abram.  It was God covenanting with Himself, but He ratified it with bloodshed.  Interesting that the Abrahamic Covenant was ratified with bloodshed, so was the New Covenant, namely in the blood of Jesus Christ. 

  So Zacharias like all the rest of the Jews is waiting and he's waiting, as it were, with baited breath for the arrival of Messiah so they can enjoy the fulfillment of the Davidic promise, they can have their own nation, their own King and from that they can rule the entire world.  He's anxious for the blessing that God promised to Abraham, that the nation would be blessed, that God would shower them with blessing and that they would then become a blessing to the whole wide world.  That's what was in his heart.

  He says then, "Having been delivered," verse 74, "from the hands of our enemies, we're going to be able to serve the Lord without fear," that is that there's not going to be any enemy that can overpower us, or overtake us.  We're going to be able to serve the Lord without fearing any repercussions because the Lord will rule the whole world.  And then he adds, "And we're going to do this...in verse 75...in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days."

  You know, short-term obedience was something Israel had rendered in the past.  That's true.  Short-term devotion, short-term worship but never long-term.  It went on for a little while and they defected.  It would go on for a little while and they defect.  They'd have a little bit of a revival and then they'd fall back again.

  But there's coming a day when their service to God will be without fear and when it will be in permanent holiness and righteousness.  And, folks, that is what the Abrahamic Covenant intended, that they would be blessed because they were righteous.  They would be blessed because they were holy.  They would be, therefore, a blessing to the world because of that holiness and because of that righteousness.  And it would be permanent all our days.

  And Zacharias understands this.  When the Messiah comes that's what's going to happen, deliverance from our enemies and we're going to be all that God wants us to be, blessed by God and a blessing because of that to the whole world.  We'll have our land.  We'll have our great nation.  We'll have our great blessing.  We'll have holiness and righteousness to pass to others across the face of the earth.  Messiah would bring that.

  But there was another covenant essential to that, and that's the one I want to address briefly this morning, that's the New Covenant.  It starts in verse 76.  That was just a little review because you need to kind of get the flow here.  Verse 76 all of a sudden turns to the New Covenant.  It's not named as such, but it's clearly identified, as I'll point out in a moment.

  Verse 76, "And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go on before the Lord to prepare His ways, to give to His people the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins because of the tender mercy of our God with which the sunrise from on high shall visit us to shine upon those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide our feet into the way of peace." He is talking about the New Covenant.  He mentions in verse 77 that salvation which comes from the forgiveness of sins. 

  Deliverance or salvation is a big word and it could refer to being delivered from your enemies.  It could refer to being delivered from occupying forces.  It could be used to refer to being delivered from attacking forces.  It could be used to refer to any kind of earthly deliverance.  And that was involved in the Davidic Kingdom.  It could be used to being delivered from depression, from famine conditions, from bad social situations, from all kinds of things.  It could be inherent in the Abrahamic Covenant, delivered from anything that steals blessing...being delivered mainly from curses that have come upon you because of your sins.  Certainly the Davidic Covenant talked about a political deliverance, and the Abrahamic Covenant talked about a kind of social deliverance where life would be filled with blessing, as well as having their own Kingdom.  But here is the spiritual issue, this is the spiritual blessing that is critical and essential and it's indicated because here is the knowledge of the kind of deliverance that comes, verse 77, by the forgiveness of their sins.

  Now we're getting down to the spiritual here.  This is not just societal, it's not the universal rule of the Davidic Kingdom or the national prosperity of the Abrahamic Kingdom, it's the personal work of God in the forgiveness of sin in the individual heart.  The New Covenant is a personal one.  As I've been saying to you, the Davidic Covenant is global, if you will, it's universal.  The Abrahamic Covenant is national.  And the New Covenant is personal.  Zacharias' psalm of praise goes to the personal because he knows they're not going to have the Davidic rule, they're not going to have the Abrahamic blessing unless they come to salvation personally.  As I've been saying all along, the only people who are going to enter into the Millennial Kingdom where the Son of David will rule with a rod of iron on a throne in Jerusalem and rule the whole world, the only people who are going to enter into that Kingdom are those who have come through the New Covenant forgiveness, the cleansing that is provided by the death of Jesus Christ on the cross where He ratified the New Covenant.  The only people who are going to enter into the Millennial blessing promised to Abraham who are going to dwell in the land and enjoy the blessings and prosperity that God has pledged to be fulfilled in that Messianic Kingdom are those who are those coming through the New Covenant.  The only people who will be there will be New Covenant believers, those who have been cleansed from their sins, forgiven by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  Of course Zacharias wants to make this very clear. 

  As he launches into his discussion of the New Covenant,  he begins by looking at the child probably holding in his arms, this little eight-day-old prophet son named John and he says, "You, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High."  Most High, El Elyon, God Most High, meaning sovereign God.  It's a wonderful term referring to God as sovereign.  And he's saying to his little boy, and what a proud moment it must have been for that father, "You will be the prophet of God, you will be the prophet of the One who comes as God in human flesh, you will go on before the Lord to prepare His ways."  He knows that Mary's baby is going to be the Son of the Most High.  He knows that Mary's baby is the Lord.  He knows that.  And he also knows there hasn't been a prophet for 400 years and here was a prophet, his own flesh and blood, his own little boy.  This prophet would be great and he would...as it says back in verse 17...make a people ready, prepared for the Lord.  He was thrilled at the prospect of what his son would do.  His son, he probably knew, was the fulfillment of the Old Testament kind of closing promise, Malachi 3:1, "I'm going to send My messenger and he will clear the way before Me."  And then chapter 4 verse 5, right at the very end of the Old Testament, "I'm going to send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord."  And Zacharias may well have realized that his son is the fulfillment of that promise in Malachi 3:1, he is coming, he is the one coming to be the messenger to announce the arrival of Messiah.  He is the one who will be like Elijah.  He will come in the spirit and power of Elijah, as Gabriel told Zacharias back in verse 17.  So this is an exciting moment as he looks into the face of this little eight-day-old boy.

  But his message is to prepare His ways...to prepare His ways.  The Lord is coming and you've got to get everything ready for His arrival.  Ways...meaning the paths along which He will come.  You are the one to get everything ready for His arrival.  John in John 1:23, John the Baptist, this same child said,  "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way of the Lord,' as Isaiah the prophet said."  He was the fulfillment of Isaiah chapter 40 verse 3.  He came as the voice in the wilderness, crying out for people to get ready for the Messiah. 

  Did he say..."  Folks, get on your fancy duds, you know, get on your gold and silver, put on your jewelry, put on your fine garments, get ready for a party because the King is coming and we're about to launch into a great Kingdom?"  Is that what he said?  No.  Did he say, "Folks, put aside all your future insurance policies, put aside all the funds and all the things you've stored up for the difficulties of the future, shed all your anxiety and all your fear and all your worry because Messiah is coming and with Him will come Abrahamic prosperity, with Him will come the land and all its riches and all the blessing of God will be poured out on us?"  Did he say that?  No.

  When John came preaching, what was the first word out of his mouth?   Repent...because no one would enter in to Davidic fulfillment or Abrahamic fulfillment unless their sins were dealt with, and no one would receive the forgiveness of sin who didn't repent and seek it.  And he prepared the way for the Lord by bringing people to repentance.  That's what he did.  He preached repentance, that was his relentless message.  Matthew 3, "In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea saying, 'Repent for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.'"  But you're never going to receive it, you're not going to enter into Davidic or Abrahamic blessing without repentance.  And then Matthew even adds that he was the one referred to by Isaiah, "The voice of one crying in the wilderness, 'Make way...make ready the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.'"  And he continued to preach repentance and he even questioned the legitimacy of those who repented.  You remember, remember he questioned whether the religious leaders' repentance was genuine and said to them, "You better bring forth fruit unto repentance."  But that's the kind of preacher he was.  He was so convicting that they cut his head off.

  The people were looking for a Messiah who would be a national hero, a monarch, a king like David and set up a throne.  They were looking for a Messiah who would be literally a provider of a welfare state, who would provide all the blessings that they thought were inherent in the Abrahamic Covenant.  That's why when Jesus fed the multitudes and created all the food, they immediately wanted to lift Him up, they wanted to exalt Him as their Messiah and their King because they would see that as the fulfillment of Abrahamic promise, blessing.  But before any of that could happen, there had to come the terms of the New Covenant. 

  They didn't have any understanding about their true situation.  They thought that because they were Jews and because the Covenant of God to David and to Abraham was irrevocable, unalterable, the gifts and callings of God being without repentance and God being faithful, they rehearsed that again and again and again that God is faithful to His promise and never breaks it, they assumed that therefore it was just a matter of the Messiah showing up and they would get it all.  They knew they needed to be redeemed from paganism.  They needed to be redeemed, as it were, from Roman occupation and Roman oppression.  They knew they needed to be redeemed from the difficulties of life, the struggles of life, the difficulties that they were incurring in their life, they...they thought that when the Messiah came He would just take care of all of that based on Abrahamic and Davidic promise.  What they didn't know was they needed to be redeemed from sin. 

  And that was the issue and when John came preaching sin, they killed him.  And when Jesus came preaching sin, they killed Him, too.  And when the Apostles picked up the message and kept preaching sin, they killed them because the one thing they would not acknowledge was the true heart condition and the necessity for the application of the New Covenant which was promised in the Old Covenant and provided in the death of Jesus Christ.  So secure they were in the Abrahamic, so secure they were in the Davidic that when John came and started confronting their dangerous deadly self-righteousness, when he brought the conviction of sin and exposed their guilt and their true shame and that the judgment of God to fall, they wouldn't hear it.  They executed him.  But his way of preparing them was to preach repentance.  And some heard him and some were ready.

  Verse 77 then comes to the New Covenant, this is where we'll stop cause our time is gone.  Verse 77 says, "And when the Messiah comes He's to give to His people the knowledge of salvation that comes by the forgiveness of their sins."  This is not theoretical.  This is not the kind of salvation that is theoretical or theological or abstract.  This is not the kind of deliverance that is political.  This is not the kind of deliverance that is societal.  This is the kind of deliverance that is connected to the forgiveness of their sins.  That's the issue.

  You see, that was...that was the bone in the throat of Israel.  They choked on that one.  They would be happy if Jesus had established the Davidic Kingdom and if He would have unfolded all Abrahamic blessing, wouldn't have been a problem.  But when He introduced this issue of the necessity to recognize your sinful condition and repent and be forgiven, it was intolerable to their self-righteous hearts.  But this is the New Covenant and the only way that Israel will ever be saved, Romans 11 says, "So all Israel will be saved," the only way that the Jews will ever be saved is when they embrace New Covenant forgiveness and New Covenant forgiveness requires that they acknowledge Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord because there's only one sacrifice for sin, right?  And that's Jesus Christ. 

  It isn't only a question of understanding that Jesus was born of the line of David and He is a son of David therefore He's an heir to David's throne.  It isn't only understanding that Jesus Christ is a son of Abraham, born from the seed of Abraham therefore is the son of Abrahamic promise.  It is also the fact that Jesus Christ though son of David and son of Abraham fitting the qualifications of Messiah, also has to be the Savior of sinners.  He has to be the substitute, He has to be the lamb slain for sinners.  That's what they couldn't accept.  They couldn't accept that they were sinners and they couldn't accept a dead Messiah.  Even after the Apostles began to preach this, they executed them. 

  Some day Israel will be saved.  Some day God will save Israel.  Some day He will remove their blindness.  Some day they'll look upon Him whom they've pierced.  Some day they'll embrace the New Covenant sacrifice in Jesus Christ and they'll realize that Jesus, son of David, son of Abraham was also the Lamb promised as a sacrifice for sin.  And when they recognize that, when they look on Him whom they've pierced, they mourn for Him as an only Son, then...says Zechariah...a fountain of blessing will be opened to Israel.  Romans 11 will come to pass, all Israel will be saved and in the future when all Israel is saved, then Jesus returns, then He returns to establish the promised Kingdom with all its Davidic, Abrahamic and New Covenant blessing.

  And as I've said all along, you'll be there and I'll be there, even if we're raptured before the time of Tribulation.  We'll come back down when Jesus returns to set up His Kingdom.  For those people who are saved during the time of Tribulation, they'll go into the Kingdom in their normal human form and occupy that Kingdom with Christ and with the saints that have been glorified and returned from heaven.  But the only people who will go into that Kingdom when it is inaugurated are those who have come by way of the New Covenant.  And then even those of us who are Gentiles because we all participate in the salvation provided in the death of Christ, we also will enjoy the Davidic Covenant blessing and the Abrahamic Covenant blessing as well.

  The specifics of this I'm going to get into next week and you'll find them fascinating.  We'll start in Deuteronomy 29 and 30 and march through Jeremiah on into the New Testament where Jesus says, "This cup is the New Covenant in My blood." 

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  Zachariah's Song of Salvation: The New Covenant, Part 2

  Luke 1:67-80

  When the Messiah comes, He's going to bring the fulfillment of the New Covenant, first of all, that in verse 77 is to give His people the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.  The main feature of the New Covenant, which is not included in the Abrahamic Covenant, not included in the Davidic Covenant, and certainly not included in the Mosaic Covenant, or Sinaitic Covenant, the law given at Sinai, is the forgiveness of their sins.  This will come because of the tender mercy of our God with which the Sunrise on high shall visit us to shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death to guide our feet in the way of peace. 

  The New Covenant is the Covenant that brings the forgiveness of sin.  The New Covenant is the Covenant that brings the personal experience or personal knowledge of salvation.  The New Covenant is the Covenant that extends God's tender mercy or grace to us.  The New Covenant brings the Sunrise that shines on our darkness and delivers us from the shadow of death and leads us in the way of peace.  This is all New Covenant language.  And so we've come then in our study of these three covenants to the New Covenant.  

  One truth that the Bible makes abundantly clear, one truth the Bible makes unmistakably clear is that all men are sinners...all men are sinners and that their sin is not just a behavioral problem.  It is not just an attitudinal problem.  It is a deep-seated flaw in their nature.  It's not a matter of just how they act, or how they speak.  It's a matter of what they are.  Just as we have five senses physically, we have some non-physical components...emotion, thought, will, and sin.  It's endemic, it's systemic, it's in the fabric of man by virtue of the Fall.  In Adam who sinned, the whole race was plunged into sin because Adam was cursed and passed on that curse to all who came from him.

  So, man is sinful and it's not just a minor problem.  Jeremiah 17 says he's deceitful above all things and desperately wicked...desperately wicked.  That tells you the depth of his wickedness, the breadth of his wickedness defined in Romans 3, "There is none righteous, no not even one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks for God.  All have turned aside, together they have become useless.  There is none who does good. There is not even one. Their throat is an open grave.  With their tongues they keep deceiving. The poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their paths and the path of peace have they not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes."

  In Romans chapter 7, Paul calls this presence of sin, and it's important to follow this, the law of sin...the law of sin.  He says there is a law in us called the law of sin and it's in me...he says...it's in my flesh.  Now let me use that metaphor "law" to help you to explain the issue here.

  Paul does use the term "law" metaphorically because it expresses something with power, something with authority, something that controls so that the law of sin, or the word "law" is used not so much as we normally might use it when we talk about a law written on a book, but more the way we talk about it when we talk about an operative principle such as the law of gravity.  When we say the law of gravity, we're not talking about something that is a standard to be lived up to, we're talking about a force and that's the way the apostle Paul uses the term "law."  Sin is a force that is in us.  It is a law that is in us.  And I think it's important to understand that.  It's an operative principle.  It's not just a moral rule that's sort of out there, it's not just a moral rule that is established externally.  We're not talking about that.  It's not just the idea that somehow we fall short of that standard.  It is that there is in us a force, there is in us a power like the law of gravity, it bends us, it draws us, it pulls us toward itself. 

  In that sense hunger is a law because it has the power to drive us, to compel us.  Thirst is a law, it has the power to drive us and compel us.  Sexual desire is a law because it has the power to drive us and compel us.  Fear is such a law.  Anger is such a law.  Sorrow is such a law.  Because they impel us, they bring a force to bear upon us that ends in a certain kind of behavior.

  Indwelling sin is that kind of force.  It entices us.  It pushes us.  It manipulates us.  It bends us.  It dominates us.  It controls us.  And the law of sin doesn't work from the outside like other laws, it works from the inside.  We have a lot of laws on the outside, they're all around us, all kinds of laws.  Laws in the Bible that God has established, laws in society, standards and rules in our careers and our business and our work place and schools or wherever else we live out our daily lives, standards that we adhere to in our home, we have a lot of external demands, commands, laws, rules, standards, and so forth.  We're not talking about that.  We're talking about a principle that is a force that is in us.  In Romans 7 Paul says, "The law of sin is in me...it is in me...it is living in me...it is in the fabric of my humanity." 

  And listen to this, no promises from God however good they are, no promises from God however often they are repeated, no promises from God no matter how attractive they are, no promises from God no matter how clearly understood, no promises from God at all can overpower the law of sin.  Did you get that?  That's very important to understand.  They can't do that.  And let's turn it over.  No threats from God no matter how powerful, no matter how formidable, no matter how frightening, no matter how fearful, no matter how permanent, no matter how deadly, no matter how eternal, no threat from God can overpower our disposition to do evil.

  You can take the whole law of God, the whole Mosaic Law, the whole righteous standard that God laid out in the Old Testament, take the book of Exodus, take the book of Deuteronomy, list everything there that God requires, put it in front of your face, read it, memorize it and it will have no effect on you because it cannot from the outside overpower the force on the inside.  Or take the Ten Commandments, just reduce it like Dr. Laura does and holds it up in front of society...here it is, folks, here's the ten, you may agree with them, you may think they're good, you may think they're helpful, you may really desire to keep them...forget it, you can't, because even though it is the Law of God, even though it is written by God Himself, even though it comes with divine authority, divine clarity, and divine precision, you can't keep it.  Or maybe you'd like to just reduce it to the simplest point and that's the first and second commandment, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength...and your neighbor as yourself," which in effect is the fulfilling of the whole law...hang that in front of your face, memorize that, believe that and try to apply that...can't be done.  No sinner can do that.

  When God gave the promise to Abraham and said, "I'm going to bless you, I'm going to give you the land, I'm going to bless you, I'm going to make you prosperous, I'm going to bless you and through you bless the whole world, I'm going to make your life rich beyond any other nation," when God made that promise to Abraham, that promise in itself had no ability to make those people obey so that they could receive that promised blessing.  And when God made the promise to David and through David to the nation Israel that some time Messiah would come and He would be of the line of David, the royal seed and He would take up the throne in Jerusalem, He would establish His rule in Jerusalem, and He would bring peace to Israel, He would destroy all their enemies and He would rule over Israel and they would have the Kingdom, the glorious wondrous Kingdom promised.  Not only would they be ruled by Messiah, but the Messiah ruling over Israel and through Israel would rule the entire world and that His Kingdom would be everlasting, when God hung that glorious promise out in front of them and asked them to obey, it was impossible for them to do that no matter how wonderful that promise was, no matter how glorious it would have been to receive all of the promises of Davidic blessing and Abrahamic blessing.  There wasn't anything in the Davidic Covenant and there wasn't anything in the Abrahamic Covenant that could overpower the force that was in them.  There was nothing that could cause them to live their lives in a way that would bring them into the place where they would be able to receive those blessings.

  You say, "What about the Mosaic Covenant?"  No, the Mosaic Covenant was even worse because the Mosaic Covenant just heightened their sinfulness.  God laid out all of the laws.  The law told them to obey.  The law says if you will obey I will bless you, if you don't I'll curse you.  They couldn't obey because they had a force within them.  They had the law of sin operative within them.  And all the law did was serve to demonstrate their inability to obey.  All it did was show the depth and hopelessness and pervasiveness of their sinful hearts.  And it showed that what they really needed was mercy and grace and forgiveness, which, by the way, was not provided in the Mosaic Law.

  So, when God made promises to David that there would come the great King in the line of David, from David's royal line, that the great King, Messiah, would come some day and set up the glorious throne of royalty in Jerusalem and He would set aside all the enemies of Israel, He would bring Israel freedom from all its enemies, a Kingdom like no kingdom had ever been, a Kingdom from which Messiah would rule the entire world and He would never relinquish that rule again, He would rule for a thousand years on the earth and then establish the eternal Kingdom from which He would rule, over which He would rule forever and ever, when He promised that, they were thrilled to death about that, they wanted to see that happen.  They longed for that to happen.

  The problem is, they didn't have the ability in their own hearts to meet the conditions to bring it about.  And when God promised to Abraham a great nation and a land and a people and prosperity and peace and blessing to them and through them to the world, they wanted that.  They longed for that.  And they associated that with Messiah and that's why Zacharias gets excited because he sees the Messiah coming and with the Messiah is going to come Davidic fulfillment, Abrahamic fulfillment.  But, you see, before they could ever receive the promises made to David, or the promises made to Abraham, they had to deal with one huge issue...they were on God's bad side because they kept violating the Mosaic Covenant. 

  They couldn't keep His law.  No matter how great the promises, and no matter how frightening the threats, external promises even from God and external threats even from God can't overpower the bent of the human heart.  And the Mosaic Law just made it clear that they couldn't do what God wanted them to do.  No matter how severe the threats, or how glorious the promises, threats and promises even from God cannot break the power of the more compelling law of sin.

  Would they never receive those promises then?  Would they only receive those threats?  Were they doomed to curses and never blessings?  Is that how it was going to be?  Was there any hope?  How were they ever going to receive the promises of God?  Was there a hope that somewhere along the line two things could happen..one, they would be forgiven for their violations, they would be forgiven for their inability to keep the standards of God, they would be forgiven for breaking the law of God, forgiven for not being able to meet the conditions for Abrahamic and Davidic fulfillment?  Would there ever be a time and a way to be forgiven?  Secondly, would there ever be a means by which they could obey?  Would there ever be a means by which they could obey?  What they needed was another covenant.

  The Davidic Covenant gave them great promise.  The Abrahamic Covenant gave them great promise.  The Mosaic Covenant at Sinai, or Horeb, both the same place, the Mosaic Covenant just damned them.  If they were ever going to inherit what was promised to David and Abraham, then the sins, the violations of the Mosaic Covenant were going to have to be forgiven.  And, secondly, they were going to have to be changed on the inside so that they possessed another force that could overpower the force of sin.

  Bottom line, they were looking for a covenant, another covenant that could do two things...forgive their sin, and change their heart.  Got that?  If you understand that, you understand the ground work for the New Covenant.

  Now go with me back to Deuteronomy 27.  And if you think I'm going to finish this today, you are whistling through the cemetery, it's not going to happen.  But I'm going to finish what I want to say to you today...but I'm going to leave a few verses for next time, at the end of this chapter.  Twenty messages on chapter 1 and there are twenty-four chapters in Luke.  This has to change somewhere down the line.

  All right, Deuteronomy 26, 27 and 28.  But what can I do?  What can an expositor do but exposit, huh?  Deuteronomy 26...now Deuteronomy is a word really from the Greek deutero nomos, deutero , means "second," nomos means "law."  This is the second giving of the law.  So you have in the book of Deuteronomy a very, very careful giving of God's Law, the Mosaic Law.  All through the first part of this book is God's Law laid down.

  Now come to chapter 26 verse 16, and this really sets the stage.  Chapter 26 verse 16, "This day the Lord your God commands you to do these statutes and ordinances.  You shall therefore be careful to do them with all your heart and with all your soul.  You have today declared the Lord to be your God," and these people were well-intentioned, and they declared, "that they would walk in His ways and keep His statutes, His commandments, and His ordinances and listen to His voice."  That was what they did.  They made this...you can go back to Exodus 24 where they did the same thing.  In fact, they had a big slaughter, they slaughtered all kinds of animals and they said, "God, we promise to keep Your law, we promise to keep Your law, we'll walk in Your ways and just to show you how serious we are, we've sacrificed all these animals."  They collected all the blood in great big flat basins and then they decided that they would sort of act out their covenant, as was often done, as I told you before.  And so they took some of the blood and they dumped it, sloshed it all over the altar, that symbolizing God's side of the covenant, and the rest was the people's side and they took these big sort of flat pans full of blood and they sloshed the crowd with them...and just sloshed them with blood. 

  That was their affirmation of the fact that they were going to keep the law of God.  You have the same thing here in Deuteronomy 26.  You've said that you're going to do it.  You're going to walk in His ways, you're going to keep His statutes, His commandments, His ordinances, you're going to listen to His voice.  You're going to do that.  "And the Lord has today declared you to be His people, a treasured possession as He promised you and you shall keep all His commandments and He'll set you on high above all nations which He has made for praise and fame and honor."  In other words, you'll get the Davidic promise and you'll get the Abrahamic promise, all of that is going to come to pass if you're obedient.  And you said you'd be obedient.

  Problem...they can't do it.  They can't do it.  But verse 1 of chapter 27, they certainly were well-intentioned, "Moses and the elders of Israel charged the people saying, 'Keep all the commandments which I command you today.  Keep them all.'"  And when you get over there in the promised land, you're going over there, you just make sure you hang on to this law.  "You set up some large stones and coat them with lime and write on them all the words of this law.  When you cross over put it in some permanent place so that you enter the land which the Lord gave you, a land flowing with milk and honey, the Lord, the God of your fathers promised you, and you get over there, you want to remember the Law.  Build that altar to the Lord your God, offer your offerings...verse 7...and write on the stones all the words of this law very distinctly."  You set that law right there in the land when you get there and you keep that law. 

  Then in chapter 27 verse 9 there's an interesting thing.  "Moses and the Levitical priests spoke to all Israel saying, 'Be silent and listen, O Israel, this day you've become a people for the Lord your God, you shall therefore obey the Lord your God, do His commandments and His statutes which I command you today.'"  I think they're getting the point, don't you?  I mean, he just keeps saying it over and over...obedience, obedience, obedience, obedience.

  Now, that's the issue, obedience to the law of God.  Here's the illustration.  He says in verse 11, and charges the people, Moses does, "When you get over the other side I want some of you to go to Mount Gerizim, six tribes of the twelve go to Mount Gerizim, six of you...verse 13...go down to Mount Ebal."  Those were two mountains separated by a valley in which Shechem existed and it might have been that the priests were in the valley and the Ark of the Covenant was in the valley as well.  Put six of you on one mountain, six of you on the other side, Ebal was the mountain that expressed the curses and Gerizim was the mountain that would express the blessings.  And so they were to dramatize the situation. 

  And here were the promises and the threats...blessings and cursings...promises and threats.   "Keep My Law," God says, "and I'll bless, I'll bless, I'll bless."  And the blessings were recited from Mount Gerizim.  They're not recorded in this chapter, some surmise they're not recorded because the people never kept them, so they weren't recorded for that reason.  We don't exactly know, but the curses are given here as they were recited from Mount Ebal.  So in a dramatic thing if six tribes on one mountain, six tribes represented, six tribes on the other, people all gathered in the middle, the whole...the Ark of the Covenant is there representing the presence of God, the priests are there.  It's all a great scene.  And they start shouting blessings from one place and curses from the other.  And the idea is God is pouring out promises in one hand and threats on the other.  And as you go down through chapter 27 you see starting in verse 20....or verse 15...curse, cursed, cursed, cursed...all the curses if you disobey, all the curses.  You come in to chapter 28, it starts to talk about "if you obey, if you obey."  Verse 3, "Blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed."  And the rest of chapter 28 deal with blessings and cursings.

  If you obey, God will bless you.  If you don't obey, you'll get cursed, as you see in verse 16, 17, 18...in fact, the whole chapter just goes on and on like that until you come to verse 68, you come to verse 68.

  Now we get the scene.  God's given the Mosaic Law.  God has already laid out Abrahamic promise to them, Davidic promise will come later.  But in order for them to receive the blessings that God has included in the Abrahamic promise, in order for them to receive the blessings that God will include in the Davidic promise, they have to be obedient.  And so God recites again and again how important it is for them to obey.  They make a very overt expression as a nation that they're going to obey the law of God.  God seals the importance of this by promises to incite them to obedience and threats to warn them against disobedience, that's the scenario. 

  And when that's all said and done, folks, they've got a problem because no matter how hard they tried they couldn't obey.  "By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified, or made right in God's sight."  They couldn't do it because even the promises of God and even the threats of God couldn't break the power of the law of sin, the force that is in you.  They needed something else.  They needed another covenant, a covenant that incorporated two things, forgiveness and a new heart...a new capacity.  That would open the door to Davidic fulfillment.  That would open the door to Abrahamic fulfillment.  And that's where we come to the New Covenant.  You understand now how it fits?  Its importance?

  And so, in Luke chapter 1...you can stay in Deuteronomy, don't go back there because we're going to stay in Deuteronomy for a minute, but in Luke chapter 1 when Zacharias shifts gears coming out of the Abrahamic Covenant and says, "The Messiah is going to come to give His people the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of sins," he's now gone beyond Abrahamic, beyond Davidic and beyond Mosaic Covenants and he's talking about the New Covenant...cause it's the New Covenant that provides the forgiveness of sin.  It's the New Covenant that sheds light on darkness and liberates us from darkness and the shadow of death, it's the New Covenant that takes us out of the way of death and takes us into the way of peace.  Everything Zacharias said is New Covenant lingo.

  These dear Jewish people standing there that day on those two mountains and int he valley between trying to figure out how they were going to...how they were going to manage to avoid the curses and receive the blessings of God when there was a force for sin in them, how they were going to be able to overpower that were in a difficult situation, the same situation any person is in who tries to achieve God's standard of righteousness on his or her own.  And with that you come to chapter 29 verse 1 in one of the most notable verses of all.

  "These are the words of the Covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the sons of Israel in the land of Moab besides the covenant which He had made with them at Horeb, or Sinai."  Oh listen to this, we have a new covenant here.  This is a new covenant.  This is a covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the sons of Israel to give to the sons of Israel besides the covenant which He made with him at Horeb.  Aren't you glad about that?  Cause if all they had was the covenant at Horeb, they're all damned, right?  Cause they can't keep the law so they're all under its curse.  Galatians 3, break one point of the law and you're guilty of all of it.  They needed another covenant.  They needed another covenant beside the covenant at Sinai cause they couldn't get saved by keeping the law.

  Folks, that's why the New Testament makes such a monumental point about the fact that you can't be saved by works.  That's why every false religious system in the world can be known because they have a salvation by works...religious, or moral, or both.  Moses is here introducing a new covenant, not like any other covenant.

  Now go to chapter 30 and he spells it out...he spells it out.  Chapter 30 verse 1, "So it shall be when all these things have come upon you, the blessing, the curse, which I have set before you and you all them to mind and all nations where the Lord your God has banished you."  Now there's a good indication of how they're going to do on keeping the commandments, they're going to end up banished.  That's right.  So obviously they're not going to receive the promise of the Abrahamic Covenant if they're banished because the promise of the Abrahamic Covenant was the land.  So history is going to indicate just exactly what is stated right here that they're banished. 

  "But the day is going to come...verse 2...when you return to the Lord your God and you obey Him with all your heart and soul according to all that I command you today, you and your sons. Then the Lord your God will restore you from captivity and have compassion on you and will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you."

  I know Israel has reconstituted a nation in 1949, I know that the Jews have gone back to the land, a great many of them gone back to the land, that is not the regathering spoken of here because they haven't yet returned to the Lord their God or obeyed Him with all their heart and soul, have they?  If there's any secular state in the world, it's certainly Israel.  But the time is going to come when the Lord will regather them and they will worship Him and the Lord says, "I'll have compassion on you."  Verse 4, "If your outcasts are at the ends of the earth, from there the Lord your God will gather you and from there He will bring you back."  I think this is a Kingdom regathering, this is the future millennial regathering.  "And the Lord your God will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed and you shall possess it and He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers."

  You see what he's saying to them?  He's saying...Look, I've given you all this instruction, and I've threatened you if you don't obey, I've promised you blessing if you do obey.  Frankly, you're not going to be able to do it and I know that and you're going to wind up banished and you're going to wind up scattered."  Folks, that is the history of Israel, is it not?  "But some day in the end, I'm going to bring you back, I'm going to bring you into the land and I'm going to give you all the fulfillment of Mosaic promise."

  How is it going to happen?  Verse 6, "Moreover, here is the essence of the New Covenant, the Lord your God will circumcise your...what?...your heart."  Wow, you're going to have a spiritual surgery that is going to cleanse the inside.  "And the heart of your descendants so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul in order that you may live."

  And then the Lord your God is going to afflict all those curses on your enemies and those who hate you.  And you...verse 8...shall obey the Lord and observe all His commandments which I command you today.  And the Lord your God will prosper you abundantly in all the work of your hand, and the offspring of your body, and the offspring of your cattle, and the produce of your ground.  The Lord will again rejoice over you for good, just as He rejoiced over your fathers if you obey the Lord your God to keep His commandments and His statutes which are written in the book of the law, if you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and soul.

  What he is saying is blessing depends on turning to the Lord with all your heart and soul.  Listen, turning to the Lord with all your heart and soul depends on God giving you a new heart.  This is New Covenant truth...New Covenant truth.  Verse 6 is the key, "God, the Lord your God, will circumcise your heart.  He'll cleanse your heart."  Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Zephaniah, Zechariah, Malachi, in the New Testament certainly the apostle Paul all speak of this ultimate salvation of the nation Israel.  Remember now, this is a national promise.  Davidic Covenant was a national promise with universal implications.  The Abrahamic promise was a national promise that also had wide implications.  The New Covenant is a personal promise that has national implications because salvation being personal, it's personal, but some day the persons who are saved will constitute the nation Israel.  So the prophets anticipated the fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise, Davidic promise and this new covenant promise when God would circumcise the heart.  That's the New Covenant.

  There wouldn't be any way to keep the law of God unless you had a different heart.  There wouldn't be any way to keep the law of God and to avoid the threats and accept the blessings if...if there wasn't a way to overcome the power of sin, the force, the law of sin that operates in your flesh. 

  Turn to Jeremiah 31.  Jeremiah 31, when anybody talks about the New Covenant they always go to Jeremiah 31 because this is its most explicit rendering.  This gets us right in touch with where Zacharias was.  Jeremiah 31, the prophet Jeremiah, verse 31, quotes the Lord, "Behold days are coming, declares the Lord...here it comes...when I will make a...what?...New Covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah."  You know something, folks?  By the time of Jeremiah they desperately needed a New Covenant.  They were in a hopeless situation.  He said, "I'm going to make this new covenant with the house of Israel, I'm going to make this new covenant with the house of Judah..."  The same one that was talked about way back in Deuteronomy chapter 30 when their hearts are going to be circumcised.

  Now look at verse 32.  "It's not like the covenant I which I made with their fathers the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt."  Now that was the Mosaic Covenant.  That was made at Mount Sinai, or Mount Horeb.  It's not like that.  It's not a covenant of law and judgment.  Oh, this is...this is not how it is.  It's not like the covenant I made with their fathers the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke although I was a husband to them, declares the Lord.  But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord.  Listen to this, I will put...oh I love this...My law...where?  Let's take that word "law" again.  What did I tell you the word means?  What does law mean?  Give me a synonym.  Force...that's right.  I will put My force within them.  I will put My power within them.  It will cause them to bend My direction.

  When God says I'm going to put My law within them, He's talking about a righteous force in the life of His people.  Boy what a great truth that is.  "And on their heart I'm going to write it and I'll be their God and they'll be My people."

  Well what did we say...what did we say we desperately need if we're going to avoid promises and threats?  We need to have a two things...forgiveness for our violations and a new heart, right?  So that we can obey.  Now watch this.  "I am going to put My law, My force within them, on their heart I will write it, I will be their God, they'll be My people and they're not going to teach again each man his neighbor and each man his brother throughout Israel...you won't have to go around teaching each other saying know the Lord, know the Lord."  Why?  "Because they'll all know Me from the least of them to the greatest of them, declares the Lord."  And listen to this one, "For I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will remember no more."

  Isn't that what we said we needed?  The only hope for Israel to receive Davidic hope, Davidic promise and Abrahamic promise is that they would have a new heart that could obey.  The only hope for Israel that they could avoid the judgment, the just and righteous judgment for their violation for the Mosaic Covenant is if they were forgiven.  And so whatever this New Covenant is, it needs to do two things...it needs to empower us to obedience by putting a force in us that is greater than the force that is already there, namely sin, and it needs to be able to deal with all the violations that we have committed against the law of God by the forgiveness of sin and that's exactly what the New Covenant does.

  Now this again is a unconditional, unilateral, eternal, irrevocable covenant from God...as are the other ones.  This is what is necessary.  God promised a future to Israel in the land with blessing and prosperity and through them to bless the world.  God promised a kingdom to Israel and a King, Messiah reigning in Jerusalem over Israel and over the entire earth, ruling with a rod of iron in a Kingdom that will never end.  But they can't receive those things because they can't ever get to the point of obedience so as to receive the blessings.  And on their own, it's hopeless. 

  Israel has a great future, beloved, a great future.  There's a King coming to rule over Israel.  There will be a King, Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.  He will set up His throne in Jerusalem.  He will rule over the land of Israel.  And they will have peace and safety.  And they will have Abrahamic prosperity and blessing and they will possess their land to the max, to its fullest, sweeping far into the Middle East, as we call it.  They will also be blessed by God to be a blessing to the entire world.  They will all know God.  They will all have new hearts, able to serve God and overpower the force of sin that is in them.  They will all have their sins forgiven.  That is to come.  But, folks, it hasn't come yet because Israel is still trying to avoid divine threats and receive divine promises by their own efforts to keep the law, or they've given up all together and become pagan.  It's not going to happen until they receive the new heart that comes with the New Covenant.

  Ezekiel spoke of this in Ezekiel 36 and I would really be remiss if I didn't point you to that passage because it's another critical passage in linking this together.  Ezekiel 36:25...verse 24 says the Lord is going to bring all these Jews from the nations, gather them from all the lands, bring them into their own land, getting ready to fulfill the Davidic and the Abrahamic promise.  And then verse 25, here's the New Covenant salvation, "I'll sprinkle clean water on you, you'll be clean.  I'll cleanse you from all your filthiness," that's like circumcising your heart.  "I'll give you a new heart, I'll put a new spirit within you, I'll remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  I'll put My Spirit within you and I will cause you to walk in My statutes and you will be careful to observe My ordinances."

  That's New Covenant stuff.  I'll give you a new heart and I'll put My Spirit within you.  So two things are going to happen.  I'm going to forgive all your sin and I'm going to give you a new force, a new law, a new power within you to obey Me, namely the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit working with a regenerated spirit.

  Let me close this whole discussion by having you turn to Luke 22.  Now when I read to you about the New Covenant in Deuteronomy 30, Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36, it didn't say anything about the means by which the New Covenant is activated.  It doesn't say anything about that, it just says there will be a New Covenant.  It just says that New Covenant will involve the forgiveness of sins, remembering your sins no more and that it will involve a new heart, a new force in you.  It doesn't say how that's going to happen.  We know how it's going to happen by coming to the New Testament, Luke 22:20.  It's the Passover that night, the Last Supper.  Jesus is with His disciples, takes the cup of wine after they had eaten He says, "This cup which is poured out for you is the New Covenant in My blood."

  What is it that produces the new heart?  What is it that produces the Spirit coming to dwell on the believer?  What is it that circumcises the heart?  What is it that enables God to write His law on the heart?  In a word, it is the New Covenant made real through the blood of Christ, right? 

  Simply stated...when you acknowledge Jesus Christ as your sacrifice for sin and the only sacrifice for sin, and the only way of salvation, when you acknowledge Jesus Christ as the one who bore in His body your sins on the cross, when you acknowledge Jesus Christ as the one who knew no sin but was made sin for you, when you acknowledge Jesus Christ as the Lamb, the sacrificial substitute provided by God who died in your place to bear your sins, when you acknowledge Him as your Savior and your Lord, you have met New Covenant conditions and God in His great grace will circumcise your heart, give you a new heart...to use the other metaphor, to use a third one, write His law on your heart, plant His Spirit within you.

  Until Israel does that, they will not and cannot receive the Abrahamic or Davidic blessing.  It's a long time since Zacharias got excited that day, two thousand years.  Zacharias probably figured...well, Messiah will be here in a few months, He's just a few months behind the birth of John, probably they won't engage in ministry until they're in their...maybe in their late teens or early twenties they might begin their ministry.  And so it's probably about 20 years from now and then all Davidic promise and all Abrahamic promise comes to pass.  Twenty years from now, folks...we're two thousand years from then and it hasn't happened.  And it won't happen until Israel, in the words of Zechariah, 12:10, "Looks on Him whom they have pierced and mourns for Him as an only Son."  In other words, until they see Him as their crucified Messiah, until they see Him as the Lamb of God slain from before the foundation of the world, until they see Him as the One sacrificed forever taking away sin, the One who by the offering of Himself perfected forever those that are sanctified, until they see Him as the spotless, unblemished Lamb who died in their place, there will not be a new heart, there will not be the Spirit planted in them and there will not be the fulfillment of all Old Testament promise.

  In the meantime, the New Covenant truth is applied to every one who believes, Jew or Gentile.  Is that not true?  In fact, this is just a footnote, we'll say more about this next time, everybody who has ever been saved has been saved by the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ.  Even people way back in the patriarchal time, even Abraham was counted righteous before God because He believed God, he didn't know about Christ, but he believed God and even though Christ had not yet died, God forgave Abraham's sin and imputed Abraham's sins to Christ who would one day die for them and imputed Christ's righteousness to Abraham, though Christ had not yet even lived that righteous life.  But there's no such thing as time in God's economy and that's why He speaks of the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world.  In the purposes of God the Lamb was slain before anybody was ever created and the application of His death made the first time anybody believed God.  So all of us have come to the place of having a new heart and the Spirit planted in us and having the law of God written in us, all of us are able to obey the law of God, we're able to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind and strength.  It's not perfect, obviously, because we still have our unredeemed humanness.  Our new heart and the Spirit within us and the law of God which we love is still incarcerated in unredeemed humanness and until we get out of that unredeemed humanness, entering into the presence of the Lord and receiving a glorified body in perfect new body, we'll always have the battle but the joy of it is we can win the battle, we can obey the law of God, we can enjoy the promise of blessing.

  But the New Covenant had unique application to the people of Israel.  We're all New Covenant believers.  Everybody who has ever believed has been saved by the terms of the New Covenant, that is by the sacrificial blood atonement of Jesus Christ on the cross.  Everybody who has ever been saved through all of history has been saved by the death of Jesus Christ.  But the New Covenant as a special pledge to the people of Israel has not been fulfilled because Israel as a nation has not believed.  But they will. 

  God made a promise to David, didn't He?  That some day he would have a Kingdom and he will.  And that is an irrevocable promise.  God made a promise to Abraham, Israel would have a land and blessing and they will.  That is an irrevocable promise.  And God made a promise in Deuteronomy to the nation and reiterated again in Jeremiah 31 through the prophet Jeremiah that some day, some day a fountain of blessing would be open to Israel and some day they would be cleansed on the inside and some day they would have a new inside, their hearts would be circumcised or on their hearts would be written the law of God, or they would receive a new heart, they would be changed on the inside and then it wouldn't be a matter of going around telling other Jews that you know the Lord because everybody would know Him.  That too is an irrevocable promise.

  The salvation of Israel, the blessing of Israel and the Kingdom of Messiah in Israel are all irrevocable promises made by God.  In the meantime, they have spiritual implications.  The earthly element of the Davidic kingdom hasn't come, but listen to this, Christ is your King and mine, isn't He?  We have inherited the spiritual essence of Davidic promise.  He is your Lord and your King.  Not only that, the Abrahamic blessing hasn't come in its earthly features, but we are literally flooded with spiritual blessings.  Ephesians 1 says we are blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ, and we don't have an earthly promised land, but we have a heavenly promised land, don't we?    A city whose builder and maker is God.  And Israel has not yet come to New Covenant salvation as a nation, but we have entered into that and we have been given by God's grace a new heart.

  Well, see, old Zacharias, old priest, all he could see was historical fulfillment.  He thought it would come right away.  He was right, it was irrevocable, and it would come...just not then because of unbelief.  Every time we have communion, every time we lift up the cup we are...we're doing what 1 Corinthians 11:25 says, "He took the cup after supper saying, 'This cup is the New Covenant in My blood, do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of Me.'"  Every time we take communion we remember that God made a New Covenant and He'll keep it...He'll keep it. 

  There's no question about the future of Israel.  The future of Israel is they're going to be saved, they're going to receive a new heart.  The Spirit is going to be planted in them.  They're going to know God.  And when they know God they're going to enter into the fullness of all the promises of God made to David and Abraham.  The New Covenant is unconditional in the sense that it will happen.  It is unilateral in the sense that it depends only on God.  It is irrevocable.

  You say, "Well what about all these years of breaking the law, breaking the Mosaic Covenant, violating the Mosaic Covenant?"  That's why essential to the New Covenant, essential to planting the Spirit, essential to getting a new heart is the matter of the forgiveness of...what?...of all those sins.  The New Covenant would be pointless if God couldn't forgive sin. 

  So old Zacharias he had it right, he knew what the New Covenant was all about.  Going back to Luke 1, it was all about the knowledge of a salvation that comes by the forgiveness of their sins, verse 78, "Because of the tender mercies of our God."  It's all because of God's...what?...mercy.  And so, you see, the reason I've taken five and will take six messages just to get through this song of praise is because all the Old Testament Covenant threads just come and weave together here.  To understand what's going on here is to understand the Old Testament as well as the New Testament, as well as the flow of redemptive history.

  ---

  

  Zachariah's Song of Salvation: The New Covenant, Part 3

  Luke 1:67-80

  You cannot understand the flow of redemptive history, you cannot really get the clear picture of the relation of the Old Testament to the New unless you understand the significance of the term "covenant."  God made certain covenants with Israel, pledged or promised in the Old Testament to be fulfilled later on by what is accomplished in the New Testament.  It's sad to say there has been tremendous amount of misunderstanding about the covenants.  There's an awful lot of, I think, needless dialogue about what the covenants are, what the covenants mean, how we are to understand the covenants, what their nature is, whether they've been revoked, or whether they're permanent, how they're going to be fulfilled, are they literally to be fulfilled or are they figuratively to be fulfilled, what are the actual covenants and so forth and so on.

  While David is mentioned, and Abraham is mentioned, the name of this third covenant is not mentioned but it is the New Covenant and we know that because of its component parts.  Starting in verse 77, after that brief address to the child John in verses...in verse 76, he comes in to verse 77 and introduces the New Covenant.  And here is the nature of the New Covenant, "God has promised to give to His people the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins."  There's no issue of forgiveness in the Davidic Covenant, there's no mention of forgiveness in the Abrahamic Covenant, but it is the New Covenant in which God promises the forgiveness of sins in which verse 78 God expresses tender mercy.  It is the New Covenant, verse 78, that brings the Sunrise from on high which shall visit us to shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death and it is the New Covenant that guides our feet into the way of peace.

  When I read that, first of all, it didn't strike me that that was all New Covenant, but when I began to take those phrases that are used here, those references to forgiveness, tender mercy, the Sunrise on high shining in the place of darkness, the shadow of death and guiding our feet in the way of peace, when I went to the Old Testament to find the source for that, it was all New Covenant context.  This is, in fact, the third great covenant, the New Covenant.

  When God made the promise to David of a coming King to establish the glorious throne of royalty in Jerusalem, bring Israel freedom from all its enemies, bring them sovereignty and autonomy and a Kingdom like no other kingdom that ever existed, a Kingdom that would literally spread itself across the whole world and that the Messiah would reign over with a rule of iron...with a rod of iron, a Kingdom that would never end, that would be eternal, that was an amazing and thrilling promise the Jews had long awaited its fulfillment.  And when God promised Abraham a great nation, a great land, great prosperity, great blessing and the righteousness and holiness and all of that, that was a great and thrilling and amazing promise and they long waited for that.  But they hadn't received either fulfillment and they still haven't received them today. There's a barrier, the barrier is disobedience.  They couldn't please God.  They couldn't keep the Mosaic Covenant.  They couldn't keep His law.  They were disobedient.  They were sinful so consequently the nation has been cursed.

  There has always been a faithful remnant who saw their inability to keep the law, who came to God, confessed their inability to keep the law, recognized their sin, pleaded for mercy, pleaded for grace, asked for forgiveness and were forgiven.  There's always been a penitent remnant even today.  But as a nation, the nation continues to be in an unfulfilled condition.  They have never yet received the fulfillment of Davidic and Abrahamic promise because as a nation they have never repented and believed.  They're still cursed by their inability to keep the law.  Throughout all, however, all of this history, there have been individuals...individuals who have believed God, seen their sin, cried out for mercy and who have been forgiven on the basis of the death of Jesus Christ, even though they lived before He died.  That's why the Bible calls Him the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world.  God applied the virtue of His death, the substitution of His death for sinners, to sinners even before He died as well as sinners since His death.  So there's always been a faithful remnant. 

  There is today.  There are in this congregation many Jewish people who have seen their sinfulness, repented, come to God, asked for mercy and put their trust in Christ as their Lord and Savior.  But as a nation, they have not repented and the barrier of disobedience is still there.  They're trying to earn their right to Abrahamic and Davidic fulfillment rather than realize they can't earn it, fall on their face with a Beatitude attitude and cry out for forgiveness and grace provided through Jesus Christ.

  You can take all the promises to Abraham, take all the promises to David, you can take all the threats that came through Moses, all the threats of cursing and terrible devastation to those who disobey, add up all the promises, add up all the threats, dump them on people and they can't change the heart.  They can't change the heart.  There's nothing in the Davidic Covenant that can save the sinner, there's nothing in the Abrahamic Covenant that can save the sinner, there's nothing in the Mosaic Covenant that can save the sinner, there has to be another covenant that can change the heart and that's why God gave a New Covenant cause all the threats and all the promises cannot break the power of sin.  They cannot forgive sin.  They cannot create a new heart.  So in verse 77 we're introduced to the New Covenant.

  And what is its nature?  "To give to His people the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins."  Not a theoretical knowledge of salvation but an experience of salvation that comes by the forgiveness of sins.  Now we read that New Covenant material in the Old Testament two weeks ago, Deuteronomy 29 and 30, particularly chapter 30 verse 6, it says, "The New Covenant...here's how the New Covenant works...you get a new heart...you get a new heart."  We saw that it involves the forgiveness of all sin.  We went to Jeremiah 31 verses 31 to 34, we went to Ezekiel 36 verses 25 to 27 and what did we find?  The New Covenant is this, God promises a new heart, a new spirit.  He promises to write His law on your heart.  He promises to forgive all your trespasses.  He promises to plant His Holy Spirit in you.  That's New Covenant promise.  That's what the sinner needs.  And Israel will never experience the promises to David, never experience the promises to Abraham being fulfilled until they come to the promise of God in the New Covenant, the promise of forgiveness and put their trust in God for forgiveness by virtue of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ in their place.  And we as Gentiles, therefore, will not enjoy that same Kingdom, we'll be there receiving also the promises to David and Abraham, that's not going to happen to any of us until Israel comes to New Covenant faith.

  The New Covenant is what John preached.  Look at Luke 3...Luke chapter 3, this is just kind of a preview of what we're going to see in a little bit.  But in Luke 3 we get the picture of what John preached.  John didn't come preaching Davidic promise being fulfilled, that would come if they believed.  He didn't come preaching Abrahamic Covenant fulfillment, this is what he said, he came into all the district, verse 3, Luke 3:3, "Came all around the Jordan where he had been, growing and maturing," as verse 80 of chapter 1 tells us, "and when he came into his ministry and started it, he stayed in the same district around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins." 

  He was a New Covenant preacher.  He was not preaching the Mosaic Law, that can't save.  He was not preaching Davidic promise and Abrahamic promise are going to come to pass no matter what, he was preaching the message of repentance and the forgiveness of sins.  In fact, down in verse 8, some of the Jewish people were...they didn't like his message.   And so, he says to them, "You better bring forth fruit in keeping with repentance and don't begin to say to yourselves..." he knew what they were saying, "We have Abraham for our father."  That's not going to do you any good.  You're not going to have any blessing promised to Abraham unless you come to repentance and the forgiveness of sin in the New Covenant.  It's not going to happen.  They were hanging on somehow to the fact that because they were Jews God was mandated to fulfill promises to David and Abraham no matter what.  And John came saying the way to Davidic blessing, the way to Abrahamic fulfillment is through New Covenant forgiveness.

  The New Covenant was ratified by the death of Christ.  The reason God can forgive sin is because Jesus paid its penalty.  That's why Jesus took the cup that night Luke 22:20 and said, "This is the New Covenant in My blood."  What makes the New Covenant possible, that is to say why God can fulfill the promise of forgiveness, is because Jesus has paid the price for sin.  Jesus died for your sins, died for my sins, satisfying the justice of God.  He paid the penalty.  He took our sentence.  He was executed for us.  Therefore God can forgive those who come to Him penitently and ask for it.  First Corinthians 11:25, Paul says when you take communion, realize the cup is the cup of the New Covenant.

  So what is the New Covenant?  It is a promise by God unilaterally made by God, irrevocably made by God, it is an eternal promise by God by which He will change sinners' hearts and forgive their sins.  He'll do it for anyone, some day for the whole nation Israel.  Originally the promise was made to Israel.  It was the New Covenant given to the nation Israel.  But actually the New Covenant is personal.  The Davidic Covenant is universal, it's the Kingdom all over the world.  The Abrahamic Covenant is national, it's their land full of blessing.  But the New Covenant is personal, it has to occur in an individual heart.  Some day will happen, all Israel will be saved.  Some day they will look on Him whom they've pierced, mourn for Him as an only Son, that's the Messiah, and a fountain of cleansing will be open to them and they'll be washed from their sins.  That's what Zechariah promised.  This is the New Covenant.  The writer of Hebrews says it's a New Covenant, he says it's a better covenant than any other covenant because it's the only covenant that can forgive sin.  It's the only covenant that can deal with disobedience.  It's the only covenant that can change the heart.  It's the only covenant that can make things right with God. 

  So what comes in the New Covenant?  Grace, a new heart, a new spirit, the indwelling Holy Spirit, the forgiveness of sin, eternal fellowship with God, that's the New Covenant.  And that's exactly...go back to chapter 1...that's exactly what Zacharias understood.  He understood exactly what was going on, that this coming of the Messiah brings the fulfillment of the salvation that is actually experienced by the forgiveness of sins.  This is a personal covenant.

  It can't come by accumulation of merit.  It can't come by works.  It can't come by religious activity.  It comes only by God's grace active in justifying the ungodly, as Paul said in Romans.  Only when sinners repent of their sin, only when sinners recognize they have violated the law of God, only then when they come to God in penitence and ask Him for forgiveness and grace and mercy will their sins be forgiven.  And only when they're forgiven will they then have a new heart, a new spirit, dwelling in...the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and the promise of all the blessings promised to Abraham and David then come to pass.  That's available to any sinner today anytime.  It's available to any sinner at any moment.  And some day all Israel will embrace that.  Romans 11 says, "Some day all Israel will be saved."  But until that time, anyone can receive New Covenant salvation, the forgiveness of all their sins, a new heart, the law of God written in them, a new spirit, and the indwelling Holy Spirit, redemption, forgiveness and grace.  What a blessing, nothing like it.

  Why would God do this?  Verse 78, Zacharias understood that what the Old Testament said about God was...and it said it very often...was the motive for everything because of the tender mercy of our God.  It's because of God's mercy.  That's all you can say.  What is God's tender mercy?  It's splanchna eleos, and I use those words because splanchna means something in your middle, sometimes translated bowels.  It's something down deep inside of you.  And eleos literally means merciful.  It is the deep-down mercy of God.  The reason offered a New Covenant, God could have just turned His back on impenitent wicked sinners and left them cursed, but He didn't because there's a deep seated desire for doing good, there's a deep seated feeling of mercy, there's a deep seated attitude of compassion that causes God to show favor to wicked sinners.  It's a glorious attribute, by the way, and it's celebrated all throughout the Old Testament, most notably maybe in Exodus 33, Moses says, "I want to see You, God, I want to see You, I want to know what You're like."  And God says, "Okay, get over there in that rock and I'll let My glory pass by and you'll see My mercy."  That's what God is like. 

  `He's a God who shows mercy to thousands.  He is a God known as a pardoning God.  The prophet said, "Who is a pardoning God like You?"  He is motivated by mercy and loving-kindness.  "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." Down deep in the nature of God, in the essential fabric of His being there is a compassion and a tender-heartedness and a goodness that He longs to extend to hopeless, helpless sinners in the midst of their miserable fallen rebellious condition.  That's what's behind it.

  Zacharias knew about it.  He understood it.  He understood the mercy of God, the tender-mercy of God.  The word "tender" is that splanchna, that deeply felt mercy of God.  And that God because of that deeply felt mercy desired to forgive sins.  But that's not all.  He understood more than that.  We saw last week in Jeremiah 31, we saw it in Ezekiel 36, those two passages that describe the New Covenant, we saw the issue of the forgiveness of sin laid out.  That's part of the New Covenant.  But I want you to look, this morning, at verse 78 and 79 because I want you to see the next statement and how critical that is to the New Covenant as well.

  He adds another dimension, and again this isn't whimsical, this isn't off the cuff, this is right out of the richness of his grasp of New Covenant teaching in the Old Testament.  He defines further the New Covenant as that which...in which the Sunrise from on high shall visit us to shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death. 

  Why did he pick that metaphor?  Well because that's explicitly Old Testament New Covenant language.  Verse 78, as he further describes this great fulfillment the Messiah will bring to the New Covenant, he describes it as the fulfillment as the Sunrise from on high visiting us.  The word "sunrise," literally in the Hebrew is "rising."  It doesn't identify the body that rises, whether it's the sun or the morning star or the glow of dawn that precedes the sun as it's just below the horizon.  He simply is talking about the rising...we could even say the first light, the dawning.  He is saying the New Covenant is the dawning from on high.  Now where is on high?  Where's that?  Where's on high?  Heaven.  Now in the morning the sun rises, of course, from the sky and so there's a clear metaphorical connection, but he's talking about there's going to come a great light from heaven, not the sun, not the morning star, not the glow of dawn that precedes the sun, not the first light of the day physically, there's coming from on high another Sun, a Sunrise who will shine on those who will sit in darkness and the shadow of death.  And he's quoting right out of Isaiah chapter 9.  He's referring to the first light of Sunrise that breaks the spiritual darkness of the world.  He's speaking about the dawning of the heavenly Son, S-o-n, the Son of the Most High, the Savior who is the divine light who will break into the world's deep darkness and end the soul's night.

  This old priest, one old verse he knew in the Old Testament was that verse in the last chapter of the last part of our Old Testament, the last prophet, Malachi, gave the last words and the last words of hope and promise that he gave were these, Malachi 4:2, you can see it, it's in the last little six-verse chapter of your Old Testament.  And what did Malachi say?  He said, "Get ready, folks, get ready, the Sun of righteousness...s-u-n...the Sun of righteousness will arise with healing in His beams, get ready the Sun of righteousness will come."  It's 400 years since then, at least, and the Sun of righteousness hadn't arisen and it was darker than it had ever been.  Where was the Sun of righteousness? 

  Well, when Zacharias heard that his son was the forerunner to Messiah and that Mary was pregnant with the Messiah, and knew the Messiah was coming, he says the Sunrise from on high shall visit us.  He knew exactly what this was.  This was the fulfillment of Malachi 4:2 and he knew it. 

  And such a magnificent metaphor, such a magnificent designation for the Messiah is picked up by other New Testament writers.  In fact, 2 Peter 1:19 describes the time when the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts, when the darkness of your heart is dispelled, when the blackness of sin's night is ended as the dawn takes place as you put your trust in the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ who is the light of the world.  Jesus Himself, Revelation 22:16 said, "I am the root and offspring of David, I am the bright Morning Star."  Whether the Morning Star, the glow of dawn, the Sunrise or as Zacharias used the word the rising, the dawning, all...it refers to the same thing.  He sees the coming of Messiah as the promised dawning that would break the darkness of the nation Israel, the darkness of the world, the darkness of sinful hearts.  It was a saving visit.  Messiah was coming and He would shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death. 

  The Bible talks about darkness in two ways, intellectually and morally.  Intellectually darkness means ignorance.  Morally darkness means sinfulness.  Man is pictured in moral darkness, intellectual darkness, literally under the shadow of eternal death.  Darkness is used, for example, to describe matters unknown, matters hidden.  Darkness is used to describe ignorance and error.  Darkness is used to describe sin and wickedness and iniquity.  Darkness is used to describe the presence of Satan.  Darkness is used to describe hell which is outer darkness.  So here, metaphorically, is the whole world of unconverted people sitting in the depth of darkness and the shadow of death.  And in that condition waiting for the light to shine and as Zacharias anticipates the coming of Messiah, he remembers the words of Isaiah chapter 9 verses 6 and 7, "A child will be born, a Son will be given and that child, that Son," referred to in verses 6 and 7 of that chapter, in verse 2 is referred to as the light that shines on those who sit in darkness in the shadow of death.

  God, says 1 John 1:5, is light and in Him there is no darkness at all.  Consequently when the Messiah comes, the light comes...the light comes.  The people, wrote Isaiah, who walk in darkness will see a great light.  Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine upon them. 

  So, Zacharias knew that the coming of Messiah was the coming of the light.  Turn to Isaiah, for a moment, with me.  I'm going to refer to one, turn to Isaiah 59 and I'm going to wrap up with this.  But in Isaiah 42, just another comparative passage, again I'm so thrilled by the way in which Zacharias pulls the Old Testament in to this, he in verse...verses 1 to 7 of Isaiah 42, the Lord introduces My servant, the Messiah.  Behold My servant, the Messiah.  Later on identified as the suffering servant.  "My servant whom I uphold," Isaiah 42:1, we'll get to chapter 59 in a minute, "My servant whom I uphold, My chosen one in whom My soul delights," that's how God refers to the Messiah, "I have put My Spirit on Him."  He's introducing the Messiah in Isaiah 42. 

  But further, I want you to go down to verse 6, if you happen to be there.  Just listen, "I am the Lord, I have called You in righteousness, I will also hold You by the hand, watch over You, I will appoint You as a covenant to the people, as a light to the nations to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the darkness and those who dwell in darkness from the prison."  That's God talking to the Messiah.  I have called You in righteousness, I will hold You by the hand, I will watch over You, I will appoint You as a covenant to the people.  What kind of covenant?  What kind?  A New Covenant.  As a light to the nations to open blind eyes, to bring prisoners from the dungeon, and those who dwell in darkness from the prison.  Isaiah 42 then views the coming of Messiah as light as part of the New Covenant.

  But most notably go to chapter 59 and I'm going to try to do this as rapidly as I can in the next few minutes.  There's a problem in Israel, we've been identifying the problem.  We've got Davidic promise, they've got Abrahamic promise, it isn't being fulfilled.  It still isn't being fulfilled.  What's the matter?  What's the deal?  Is the Lord impotent?

  Chapter 59 verse 1, "Is the Lord's hand so short He can't save?  No, the Lord's hand is not so short it can't save.  Does it not understand the problem?  Does He not hear us?  Is His ear so dull it can't hear?  Neither is His ear so dull it cannot hear."  The problem is not with God.  It's not that God is impotent and it's not that God is indifferent.  The reason Davidic promise hasn't been fulfilled, the reason Abrahamic promise hasn't been fulfilled is not because God can't or doesn't care.  The problem is in verse 2, "Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear."

  People say, "Well why did God do this?"  And, "Why did God do that?"  "What's the problem with God?"  "What's wrong with God?"  That's not the issue.  It's not that the Lord is impotent and it's not that the Lord is indifferent.  It is that you are iniquitous.  And he goes on to describe this horrible sin.  Your iniquities have separated you from God, your sins have hidden His face from you, your hands are defiled, your fingers are full of iniquity, your lips have spoken falsehood, your tongue mutters wickedness, every part of your anatomy is wicked.  You sue each other, you're not honest, you're confused, you trust in confusion, you speak lies, you conceive mischief, you bring forth iniquity, you hatch adder's eggs and weave the spider's web.  In other words, you try to poison and ensnare others.  You can't hide.  You can't cover yourself.  The web you weave for yourself doesn't fit and doesn't work as clothing, doesn't cover you.  Your works are works of iniquity, acts of violence in your hands.  It just goes on and on like this.

  That's the problem.  Look at the middle of verse 9.  "We hope for light.  Where's the light in the midst of the darkness?  Oh, behold darkness.  We hope for brightness but walk in gloom.  We grope along the walls like blind men.  We grope like those who have no eyes.  We stumble at mid-day in the twilight."  To show you how blind we really are, we're like dead men, verse 10 says, we're as good as dead, we can't see anything, groping in the dark, groping...

  It's not that God can't save.  The New Covenant, listen, New Covenant salvation is always available.  It's available today, it was available in Isaiah's time.  It's always been available.  If you repent and believe God and trust in Him and ask for forgiveness, He will do that.  It's always been available.  The problem is not God.  God is not limited to save.  It is your iniquities that have created the problem.  You want light, you can't find it.

  Verse 15, look at the middle of the verse where the paragraph starts.  The Lord saw, the Lord looked down and saw the situation.  It was displeasing in His sight that there was no justice and He saw that there was no man and was astonished that there was no man to intercede.  Point?  If somebody is going to solve this problem, it has to be Him.  Nobody can do it.  No human leader can do it. 

  So, I love this, verse 16, "His own arm brought salvation."  He said, "I'll do it Myself.  I'll go down and save them Myself.  And His righteousness upheld Him."  So you know what?  He puts on His battle clothes, verse 17, this is where Paul borrowed his language in Ephesians 6, "He put on righteousness like a breastplate.  He put on a helmet of salvation on His head.  Put on garments of vengeance for clothing.  Wrapped Himself with zeal as a mantle."  He got ready to go to battle to save sinners.  It was God Himself.  He said there's no man to do it, I have to do it Myself. 

  So you know what He did?  He provided an intercessor.  He provided an intercessor, according to chapter 53, someone who would intercede for the transgressors, someone who would bear the sins of many.  He provided a Savior, an intercessor, the suffering Servant, Messiah.  I love this, verse 20, Isaiah 59, "God determined this...a Redeemer will come to Zion and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob," those are two references to Israel, "a Redeemer will come and He'll come to those who turn from their transgressions."  He'll come to the penitents, He'll come, He'll come.

  Why?  Why does God do this?  Why is God going to do this?  Verse 21, here it is, has to be this way, "As for Me this is My covenant...this is My covenant."  Here's the New Covenant again.  The language here is New Covenant language.  Again if you go back to verse 9 and 10 you see the darkness waiting for light, you see this passage again as the other passage in Isaiah where light, the coming light of the Messiah is connected to the fulfillment of New Covenant promise.  This is My Covenant, My New Covenant, the Covenant that spells this out, My Spirit is upon you, My words I have put in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth or the mouth of your offspring, nor the mouth of your offspring's offsprings, says the Lord, now and forever.  It's an eternal covenant, I'm going to change the heart, I'm going to change the words that are written in the heart and in the mouth and I'm going to put My Spirit in you.  That's all New Covenant language...New Covenant.

  And notice immediately verse 1 of chapter 60.  And there's no chapter divisions in the Hebrew text.  And notice again it's connected with light.  Zacharias knew all these connections.  He knew this passage well.  The New Covenant involves this, I'm going to fulfill My Covenant.  How is it going to happen?  Verse 1, "I'm going to rise, shine for Your light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon You."  That's the rising of Messiah.  "For behold, darkness will cover the earth and deep darkness the peoples but the Lord will rise upon you and His glory will appear unto you and nations will come to your light and kings to the brightness of your rising."

  Old Zachariah, as he goes through his paean of praise there at the end of the first chapter of Luke and as Luke records it, they both knew and they knew well that the Sunrise from on high not only fulfilled Malachi 4:2 but it also was connected directly to New Covenant promises.  And they knew the New Covenant was being fulfilled through the coming of Messiah and only by virtue of its being fulfilled could they receive the blessings promised to David and Abraham.  By the way, that's the millennial condition.  When the light has come, Israel's been saved and the glory of the Lord has risen on them and the light shines forth from them so that the nations come to their light and kings to the brightness of their rising, verse 4 says, "Lift up your eyes right about and see," they all gather together, they come to you, your sons will come from afar, your daughters will be carried in the arms then you will see and be radiant, your heart will thrill and rejoice.  That's all the salvation of Israel.  Israel will be saved and enter the Kingdom and the light will be fully shining on them and through them, it will shine all over the world.

  It will go on even after the Millennial Kingdom, that's a thousand-year earthly Kingdom.  Go down to chapter 60 verse 19, well, end of verse 18...end of verse 18.  "You will call your walls salvation and your gates praise."  I mean, that's all there will be is salvation and praise for salvation.  And then verse 19 describes the New Jerusalem, the eternal state in the new heavens and the new earth, "No longer will you have the sun for light by day, nor for brightness will the moon give you light, but you will have the Lord for an everlasting light and your God for your glory, your sun will set no more, neither will your moon wane, for you will have the Lord for everlasting light and the days of your mourning will be finished.  Then all your people will be righteous, they will possess the land forever.  The branch of My planting, the work of My hands that I may be glorified."  That's the eternal condition.  According to Revelation 21 and Revelation 22, the New Jerusalem has no sun and the eternal state has no stars, has no moons, it only needs the light of the glory of God as its light.

  So, you see, the New Covenant is connected to the coming of the light, the Son, the glorious dawning of salvation and millennial glory and eternal glory.  Who is this Messiah?  The Jews are still not believing it's Jesus. 

  Go to chapter 61, very quickly, you look at verse 1, here's the message He brings when He arrives.  "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me."  That's right.  "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon the Messiah."  Whoever it is the Messiah chooses.  As we read earlier, the Spirit of the Lord is going to be upon Him because the Lord has anointed Me.  How are we going to know the Messiah when He comes?  Because He's coming to bring good news, the gospel to the afflicted.  He's coming, being sent by God to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to prisoners, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.

  When the Messiah comes, that's what He will do.  He will have the Spirit of the Lord God on Him.  He will be anointed by God.  He'll bring good news to the afflicted, bind up the broken-hearted, bring liberty to the captives, freedom to prisoners and proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.  Whoever does that is Messiah.

  Luke chapter 4, verse 14, we're early in Jesus' ministry.  We need to carefully look at verse 14, remember it said that whoever comes, the Spirit of the Lord God is going to be upon Him.  Look at verse 14, Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, just as Isaiah 61:1 said.  The news about Him spread throughout all the surrounding districts.  He began teaching in the synagogues, was praised by all.  He came to Nazareth where He had been brought up, as was His custom, entered the synagogue on the Sabbath and He was asked  to stand up and read.  The book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him...how interesting, how providential.  And He happen to open the book and found the place where it was written, He found chapter 61, this is what He read, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor.  He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those that are down-trodden, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord."  Exactly out of Isaiah 61:1 and 2, quoted it to the letter, closed the book, gave it back to the attendant, sat down and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him because they wanted to hear what He said.  And He began saying to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."   Whoever fulfills Isaiah 61:1 and 2 is the Messiah.  And they said, "Isn't this Joseph's son?"

  In Isaiah 61, how does He come and save us?  Verse 10, "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul will exalt in my God."  Here's how He does it, "For He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with the robe of righteousness."  Folks, that's justification...that's imputed righteousness.  He covers us with His own garments of righteousness.  He covers us with His own garments of righteousness.  It's just so thrilling, so thrilling.  He does it by the glorious blessing of imputed righteousness.  He covers us with garments of salvation.

  So Isaiah 62:11, the prophet says, "Lo, your salvation comes.  Some day they'll call you the holy people...verse 12...the redeemed of the Lord."  That's New Covenant language, New Covenant promise.  God promises the New Covenant forgiveness, light dawning to dispel the darkness, light that will light the millennial glory, the earth and shine forth from a redeemed Israel to the world and a light that will eternally shine in the glories of the new heaven and new earth so that there will be no sun, or moon, or stars, but only the light of the glory of God shining in the face of Jesus Christ and through all of us who share that glory.

  Zacharias knew all that.  He knew that this was New Covenant fulfillment, forgiveness, mercy, the Sunrise bringing light to the darkness, all of that came right out of those New Covenant passages in Isaiah.  And one other, 79, the end of the verse, he throws this in, not whimsically, he says the last feature to mention about the New Covenant is that it will guide our feet into the way of peace.  Oh so long they had no peace...peace, peace and there is no peace...peace, peace, where is that elusive peace? 

  In Isaiah 59:8 they didn't know the way of peace.  But the New Covenant promised peace, personal peace, world peace, eternal peace.  Listen to Isaiah 54:10, he knew every New Covenant passage, he just pulled them all out.  Isaiah 54:10, "My loving kindness will not be removed from you...I love this...and My covenant of peace will not be shaken, says the Lord who has mercy on you."  In the covenant of mercy and the covenant of compassion there was the promise of peace so that he even calls it "My covenant of peace."  That's the New Covenant.  What an immense, rich, profound insight we get from just three little verses.  Forgiveness, a new heart, a new spirit, the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, the knowledge of God, the law of God implanted, light shattering the darkness, and peace in place of turmoil, peace forever...all that Zacharias anticipated would come in the Messiah, all would come in the Messiah.  And it did, but not until Israel comes through the New Covenant will they know the Davidic and Abrahamic fulfillment.  You and I when we believe Christ and receive New Covenant salvation, we receive blessings now that are like those that will come through Abrahamic fulfillment, and we receive the rule and the sovereign reign of Christ in our lives personally like will come in the Davidic and earthly Kingdom of Christ.  But the real promise fulfillment won't come until Israel repents and just(?) say(?) pray for the salvation of Israel for in it lies their only path to blessing.

  And then the curtain falls on John in verse 80, all it says about his life from eight days until the time he launched his ministry is, "He continued to grow physically, become strong in spirit...he grew spiritually...he lived in the desert around the Jordan area, the hill country of the Jordan area, the hill country of Judea, until the day of his public appearance to Israel."

  

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