Here is the full transcript of Bible teacher Zac Poonen’s sermon titled “The New Covenant Explained Simply”.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
The Difference Between the New and Old Covenants
Those who have heard me many times in the last 50 years or lesser time, some of you would know that one of my main themes is the difference between the New Covenant and the Old Covenant. I never get tired of speaking on that because that is very little taught in Christendom. And that’s the reason.
And I remember many years ago when I was a young preacher and I began my ministry, the Lord told me to read the Bible carefully and study it carefully, and I did that almost from the time I was born again and baptized. And then He asked me to listen carefully to what all is being preached by the various preachers in Christendom. I did that also.
And the books that were written, I read a lot of Christian books written by different preachers, and the Lord told me to see what were the things you saw in the Bible, particularly in the New Testament, that were not being spoken in the books written by Christian authors or the sermons being preached by Christian preachers in different churches. So as I understood that more, the Lord said, “Those are the subjects you must preach on. Don’t try to be balanced and to preach on everything because there are many people preaching on certain aspects of it. You’ve got to emphasize what’s left out.” And the illustration that came to my mind was a circle on a piece of paper.
Emphasizing the Neglected Parts of the Bible
You draw a circle and divide it into different sectors and then you tell your children to color it different colors, these different sectors.
And then look at the sectors the Lord said which are not colored, those are the parts of the Bible which are not being preached. So a lot of God’s people are missing out on certain aspects of the Word of God. And then as I studied more, I discovered that the reason why some parts of the Bible were not being emphasized by preachers was because they were a little more difficult.
And the preachers, most preachers want to be popular and most preachers want to earn money, they don’t want to offend people in their congregation, pastors, the pastor offends the people in his congregation, he won’t get his salary, they may dismiss him. So there were things like this.
And the other thing I discovered was, at least in the preaching of Jesus, He was simpler even than the apostle Paul or any of the other apostles, Jesus’ preaching was extremely simple. So I decided to pattern my preaching according to the preaching of Jesus, not Paul or Peter. And I saw that Jesus often used illustrations, He called them parables, that made them very simple.
Using Illustrations and Parables
I could picture something and understand it so much more clearly when it was explained in a parable or a story, even though a parable is a big word for little children. But the story, Jesus would tell a story and from that story teach a lesson. So I tried to, when I read the Bible, tried to picture in my mind some illustration, some picture to help me to understand truth, and that’s helped me tremendously.
So I also discovered that the essential message of Jesus Christ is very simple to understand. The Bible says that in 1 Corinthians 1 that God has not called many clever or highly educated people to be among His children. I don’t know why. I think it’s because they are too proud.
You see, when a person gets a little bit of education, he tends to become a little proud that he knows more than others. And then there’s a temptation to impress people with that knowledge.
So when you’re beginning to preach, in the early days as a preacher you have a tremendous desire to impress people with your knowledge and the way you present and all that. The Lord rebuked me on that. As a young person, the Lord said, “Do you want to help people or do you want to impress them?”
Seeking to Please God, Not Men
The Lord asked me a direct question. And those days when I was in my 20s, I started preaching when I was 23. And in those early years, I found it was a tremendous temptation to impress people. And at the end of my sermon, I would wonder, ask myself, “Did people get impressed with what I said?” And the Lord convicted me. So that was a sin, to seek the honor of men.
And I fought that battle all along, and I’ve tried my best to be completely free from it, to speak in such a way to know that, you know, Jesus said, “When two or three are gathered together in My name, there I am in the midst.” And even though we are meeting in Zoom, and we are all in different places, there’s a sense in which, at this very moment, we are in one room.
I look at it like that. I see all of you in one room, and you’re all listening to me, and I’m in the same room as you. And Jesus Christ, our Lord, is in our midst.
Being Honest and Transparent Before God
And I want to keep my eyes on Him and ask Him at the end of the message, “Lord, what did You think of that? Did I speak as You wanted me to speak? Did I say everything You wanted me to say? Did I speak in a way that is simple, like You spoke, so that even children could understand? Was there something I said which is too much or too heavy for people to understand? Did I say something which is not true in my life? Did I preach like a hypocrite?”
A hypocrite is an actor. He speaks about things that are not true in his life, you know, like these Hollywood actors who act like Moses or something like that, but in real life, they are drunkards and divorced so many times.
But when they come on the stage, they act like Moses in some Hollywood biblical movie, and they go home, they live their normal wayward, simple life. That’s acting, a double life, you know. So a lot of Christians are actors.
Walking in the Light
That’s one of the first things we need to help our children to understand. Jesus wants to know you as you are. If you’re to walk in the light, the Bible speaks a lot about walking in the light, and walking in the light just means being transparent, honest.
You know, there are pieces of glass that are transparent. You can see through that, the person on the other side. And then there is frosted glass, where you can’t see through. You sort of see a vague figure of the person on the other side of that frosted glass, but you can’t see his face. A lot of Christians are living like that. They’re not transparent.
The things in their life, you sort of get a vague idea of their being a Christian, but there are things in their life they want to hide. That’s not the way we should be. If you want your Christian life to develop, you must be transparent.
Avoiding Pretense and Hypocrisy
I’m not saying, that doesn’t mean you confess your sins and failures to others. That doesn’t help anybody. What it means is you don’t pretend.
See, there’s such a lot of pretense nowadays. It’s always been there, but in our generation it has become so bad there are men who are pretending to be women. Can you believe that? And women pretending to be men. That’s amazing. How far society has degenerated. This whole man is a great pretender. Pretending to be holier than we really are. And the professor who teaches in the college pretends to know more than he really knows.
Jesus Condemning Hypocrisy
And my dear brothers and sisters, that’s one of the first things we’ve got to get rid of. If you read the Gospels, what was the thing that Jesus condemned the most? He spoke against many sins. He spoke against anger and unforgiveness and all that. But the one thing He spoke against maximum was hypocrisy. And that’s not a word you find much in the Old Testament.
I haven’t checked it out, but I don’t think the word “hypocrite” is hardly ever found in the Old Testament. But very frequently in the Gospels when Jesus spoke, He spoke about it so often. Why does it suddenly appear in the Bible, in the Gospel of Matthew?
A word that hardly ever appears in Genesis to Malachi in the Old Testament suddenly appears in Matthew so frequently. We need to think about that. The word “hypocrite” is not originally an English word.
The Meaning of “Hypocrite”
You know, there are some words in English that have been imported from other languages. And “baptism,” for example. Baptism just is a Greek word, actually. It’s imported into English from the Greek language. All it means is immersion. You dip, the Greek people would put their hand in a bucket of water and say they baptize their hand in the water. That is their language. It’s a Greek word.
But many people haven’t understood it like that, and I pray they sprinkle children and call it baptism. Because they haven’t understood the meaning of that word. So, “hypocrite” is a word which means “actor.” That’s the original word in the Greek language.
Avoiding Acting and Pretending
You know, if you went to Greece 2,000 years ago and asked, “Where are all the hypocrites?” Then say in the stage where they are acting. I mean, today if you ask where are all the hypocrites, you say in the church. But in those days it was on the stage. They were actors, acting. And whenever we act, that is whenever you pretend to be something, you’re a hypocrite. You’re acting.
You know, like a Hollywood actor pretending to be a holy person when he’s something completely different in his private life. So please remember this. Whenever you act before other people to be more holy than you really are, you are one of those whom Jesus called a hypocrite, an actor.
Being Real and Genuine
God does not want us to be actors, particularly in Christianity. That we don’t pretend to be holier than we really are. Particularly in relation to our Christian faith and our testimony before others.
We don’t have to pretend to be holier than we really are. It’s crazy. It’s like, to use an illustration, like a six-year-old boy putting on his dad’s trousers and shirt and it looks so odd on him. It’s so big. He doesn’t fit into it. It’s ridiculous.
That’s how a lot of Christians are. They’re babies spiritually and they’re pretending to be grown-up people. There’s nothing wrong in being young and acknowledging you’re young.
Being Honest About Our Spiritual Age
If you ask a child how old he is and he says five, he’s honest. He’s five. He doesn’t have to pretend that he’s twenty-five. That’s what I mean. And yet, Christians always want to give people the impression that I’m a holy person. I’m better than I really am. Because we are afraid that if people discover what we really are, they won’t respect us. They won’t appreciate us. Or they won’t have anything to do with us.
I’ll tell you, the Lord will have a lot to do with you if you’re honest. And I believe that one of the first, first lessons that we need to learn in the Christian life is what the Bible calls walking in the light. Because in the Old Testament, they never had fellowship with God.
Contacting God Directly in the New Covenant
They would only hear Moses or Elijah or some prophet, Samuel. They couldn’t contact God at all. And when they wanted to know what God was saying, they would ask the prophet, “Can you please find out what God is saying in this situation? What does God want me to do?”
And the prophet would pray and tell you what God wanted you to do. The entire Old Testament was like that. Right from Genesis to Malachi nobody could contact God directly. And this is one of the greatest blessings of the New Covenant. That you don’t have to go to a prophet or a preacher to find out what God wants you to do.
You can talk to God directly, and He will talk to you directly. He does talk through prophets even today, but He also speaks to you directly. And I want to show you one verse in that connection.
If you turn with me to Hebrews in chapter 8. Hebrews chapter 8 speaks of the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, or the First Covenant and the Second Covenant. Covenant just means, that’s also a big word, I want to explain it, an agreement.
The Old Covenant vs. The New Covenant
You know, we make agreements with people. And it’s just an agreement. Sometimes there are written agreements, sometimes there are spoken agreements. If you do this for me, I’ll do this for you. So here’s an agreement. The old agreement was, God said, you keep My laws. The laws were not just the Ten Commandments. There were 613 laws that the Old Testament people had to keep. You read of them in Exodus to Deuteronomy.
And it was very difficult even to remember them. They had people called scribes who would explain to people what the laws were. But in the New Covenant, it says here, He abolished that old covenant.
The Law as a Mirror or X-Ray
It’s gone. Just like you folks who are American citizens, you probably know that over 200 years ago, in the 1700s, America was ruled by the British people. Great Britain ruled America. Until America became independent in 1776, and America became a free nation. So something like that happened when Jesus Christ came. He abolished the law under which people were to live, and brought us unto a new dominion called grace.
The word in the New Testament is grace. The word in the Old Testament is law. So here it says in Hebrews chapter 8 verse 7, the first covenant of law, if it was perfectly right and without fault, there would be no need for a new covenant. That’s the first thing you need to understand. The first covenant was faulty. Not like a car maker that made a faulty car and then improved it in the next version and made a better car. It’s not like that. It’s not that God made a mistake. See, the law was like a mirror that could show you your face, the dirt on your face.
Or to use a more modern illustration, the law was like an X-ray or an MRI, a magnetic resonance image of the inside of your body. You know, you go to a hospital and they take an image of the inside of your body with an X-ray machine or an MRI machine, and you can see the bones and you can see so many things inside that you can’t see in the mirror. So we can say the law was like a mirror that showed you what was wrong with you, or an X-ray showed you what’s wrong with you, but the X-ray cannot cure you.
It only shows you what’s wrong with you. And it’s good to know what’s wrong with you, and many doctors use X-rays and MRIs to first find out what’s wrong. Then he says, “Now this is what’s wrong with you, and now I can treat it.”
But the X-ray itself can’t cure anybody. So the Old Testament was like an X-ray or an MRI showing you what’s wrong with you. The law only could show people what is wrong with them. It could not cure anybody, exactly like an X-ray or an MRI cannot cure anyone. The cure has got to be with some other treatment. And the cure came through Jesus Christ.
So the first government was faulty. Why? Because it could show people what is wrong with them, but it could not help them to be free from their sins.
The New Covenant: God’s Law in Our Minds and Hearts
The law showed people all their sins, not all at least most of their sins, external ones, and never helped them to be free from them. It would put a fear into people that if you commit murder, you’ll be punished. If you commit adultery, you’ll be punished. And that fear would keep people from it, but it did not deliver them from that havoc. So you see, if they didn’t commit adultery on the outside, they’d commit it in their minds, like most men do. But it doesn’t deliver them from it.
And Jesus came to set people free from it. So here, I want you to see, the Lord says here in verse 8, I’m going to make a new covenant. And He’s referring to the days in which we live. And this will not be, verse 9, like the old covenant I made with the Old Testament people. This is going to be a completely different covenant. And in this covenant, He says, I’m not going to write My law on the outside on tablets of stone.
You know, Moses had the Ten Commandments written on two huge pieces of stone. And Jesus and the Holy Spirit says here that those two pieces of stone in the New Testament are replaced by the mind and the heart. Those are the two pieces now.
The Old Testament, it was two pieces of stone. In the New Testament, it is mind and heart. And since that’s in verse 10, “I will put My law into their mind,” middle of verse 10, and then “I will write it in their heart.” Those are the two stones now. What does it mean when God says I’ll put My law into your mind? It means I will give you a desire to do My will.
God’s law is a revelation or an explanation of His will for man. And when He puts it into our mind, it’s not information, He means He’ll give me a desire to do His will to please Him. And I want to tell all of you that if you have a desire to please God, see there are millions of people in the world who have no desire to please God. They just want to live for themselves and live in sin and enjoy themselves. They don’t care to please God. But you all have a desire to please God.
Praise God for that. You know where it came from? I want to tell you plainly, it did not come from yourself. It’s not that you were such a sincere person and you desired to please God. No. You’ve got to humble yourself and acknowledge it was God who put that desire in your mind to please Him.
A lot of people think, “Oh, I had a desire to please God and not like some of my relatives.” Brother, sister, please humble yourself and acknowledge that it’s God who put that desire in your mind, otherwise you’ll be just like your godless relatives and all those godless atheists walking down the street. The first step of humility is to acknowledge if you even have an interest to attend this meeting, that God was created by God.
Don’t think that you are better than others and that’s why you wanted to attend this meeting. No, sir. No, sister. That’s not the reason. It’s because God in His great mercy and grace put His law into your mind and said you want to live a little different from all the other people in the world. You want to live a life that is pleasing to God.
This is the first step of humility. The first step of humility is to acknowledge even the desire to please God came from Him. The Bible says there’s nothing good in man. To please God is a very good desire. It’s not in you or me. God put it into your mind. You received it. I agree. But it is God who put it into your mind.
And the second stone, the mind, and what’s the other one? The heart. So, to have a desire to do God’s will is not enough. You know that. We all know how we have great desire to do certain things, but we don’t do it. In some tough situation, maybe in the office or in a place of work, you want to speak the truth, but you know that if you speak the truth, you get into some complicated situations and you may be fired from your job.
So, you tell a lie. You know in your mind that you should speak the truth and God has given you a desire to speak the truth, but in that very difficult situation you don’t do it. Or you know that to have impure thoughts in your mind about the opposite sex, for a man to have dirty thoughts in his mind about any woman other than his wife, it’s evil.
You know that very well it is evil. It’s an adulterous thought. You know that even if you want to keep your mind pure, you find you’re not able to. You have the willingness that one stone it is written, “I want to please God,” but no ability. So, that’s why the second stone, that is the heart compared to the two stones that Moses, God, the laws written on. In fact, Hebrews 8:10, “I will write it in the heart.”
What does that mean? That means He will give us the ability to praise God. He will give me the desire in the mind, He will give me the ability in my heart. That’s all I need. If I have the desire to do God’s will, and God show me His will, and I have the ability to do God’s will, this solves my problem. This is Christianity.
This is the New Covenant, where God gives us the desire and the ability to do the will of God. And both of these are given by the Holy Spirit. God is a Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The Son is the one who came to earth and died for sins on the cross, Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit, He also came down on the day of Pentecost to the earth, just like Jesus came to Nazareth, was born in Bethlehem. The Holy Spirit came down in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, nearly 2,000 years ago, and came inside 120 disciples who were waiting in prayer, came in them.
That never happened in the Old Testament. That was a completely new experience. In the Old Testament, you read the Holy Spirit came upon people and anointed them, prophets and kings.
David was anointed with the Holy Spirit, Elijah was anointed. It was only external.
The Holy Spirit Dwelling Within Believers
The Holy Spirit never came inside anybody. The first person who walked on this earth with the Holy Spirit inside was Jesus Christ. Even John the Baptist, the greatest prophet, he only had the Holy Spirit upon him.
That was for service, to anoint him, to be a prophet, to speak. But John the Baptist did not have victory over sin in his thoughts. No. That was not possible until Jesus came. So that is the first thing that the New Covenant does. It gives us a desire and the ability to do the will of God.
And in this, God says there’s no difference between young and old. There’s no such thing as only an older person or a clever person can have this. Anybody can have.
Knowing the Lord Personally
So you go to the next part of the New Covenant in Hebrews 8 and verse 11. Please turn to Hebrews 8 and verse 11 and it says here they won’t have to teach everyone the other person saying, “Know the Lord.” This is the wonderful thing, when the Holy Spirit comes in you will know the Lord yourself.
Other people can teach you doctrine. That God appoints teachers to teach us doctrine and the teaching like I’m doing right now. But to know Jesus Christ as a person, to know God as a person, that’s not through doctrine.
The Holy Spirit will come and enable us to know God as a person. It says here they won’t have to teach everyone his brother saying, “Know the Lord.” This is the second blessing of the New Covenant.
That one person does not have to teach another person to know the Lord, they’ll know themselves. And you don’t have to be a great saint of 30 years standing to know the Lord. It says here, listen to this very carefully, “Everybody will know Me,” Hebrews 8 and 11.
Starting not from the greatest, but from the least to the greatest. In the world, the order is from the greatest to the least. In all situations, the greatest to the least.
If there’s a big function, the greatest people are there giving the seats there first, and the least people are way at the back. In all situations, the greatest to the least. In the military, it’s greatest to the least.
In the cabinet of the president, it’s the greatest to the least. But in God’s kingdom, it’s the other way around. From the least to the greatest. That means God reveals himself to the little child first all the way up to the older person, teaching us that it makes no difference if you were born again just yesterday or today or you’ve been born again like me 64 years ago. You have as much access to the Lord as me. In fact, it starts with the least.
God Listens to the Least First
Think of a father sitting around his dining table with all his children. Say he’s got five or six children sitting around his dining table and the youngest child is, say, four years old and the youngest child is, say, 20 years old, sitting around the dining table and the 20-year-old says, “Dad, I want to say something,” and the four-year-old says, “Dad, I want to say something.”
You tell me. Who do you think the dad will allow to speak to him first? What do you think?
The 20-year-old says, “Dad, I want to speak to you,” and the four-year-old says, “Dad, I want to speak to you.” I’m a father, and I had children, and I know who I will. I tell the 20-year-old, “Son, I love you very much, but hang on, I’ve got to let my four-year-old speak to me first.”
I want to tell you that’s how God is. Don’t think that only that great saint, Brother Zach, who’s known the Lord for 64 years, God will speak to him, and you were just converted last week. He’ll speak to you.
He’ll listen to you, my brother and sister. You’ve got to be sure of this. The devil doesn’t want you to know that. I want you to know this. I don’t care if you were born again yesterday. You are very, very precious in God’s eyes.
You may be ignorant of many things. Who knows more at the dining table, the 20-year-old son, or the four-year-old boy, or the three-year-old girl? Definitely the 20-year-old knows much more.
It doesn’t make a difference. The father is interested in the youngest. That’s what it says here, from the least to the greatest in verse 11. That’s the wonderful thing about the New Covenant. It starts with the least. In the Old Testament, it was not like that.
It started with the great prophet, Moses, and then all the way down to the last person. It’s completely the other way around here. God is a God of the least person first. So I say that for the encouragement of any of you who think that, well, I don’t know God so well and I’m not such a mature saint. It doesn’t matter, brother, sister. He wants you and He wants to hear you and He wants to speak to you.
He wants you to know Him intimately. Even little children, few children who are listening to me. Do you know that God is interested in you, wants to talk to you in your heart?
The Story of Samuel Hearing God’s Voice
Let me show you a story in the Old Testament before we go further. Many of you know this story, but turn with me to the first book of Samuel. In the first book of Samuel, we read of a great, very old, experienced high priest called Eli.
He was the high priest in those days. You read about him even in the very first chapter. Eli was the priest in those days. And then, when you come into chapter 2, sorry, chapter 3, there was a small boy, chapter 3, 1 Samuel chapter 3 verse 1. There was a small boy, I don’t know how old he was, probably 7 or 8 years old. This small boy was just serving Eli.
Eli was a man who had grown up sons. He was probably 60 years old. So here was a 60-year-old man who knows the Old Testament laws and priests and all that.
And here’s this 7 or 8-year-old boy serving Eli, you know, doing things for him. And one day, it says here in 1 Samuel 3 verse 4, the Lord calls Samuel. Samuel was asleep at maybe 2 o’clock in the middle of the night.
He heard a voice saying, “Samuel, Samuel!” And he thought it was Eli calling him. He runs up to Eli and said, “Here I am.” Where’s 5? “You called me.” And Eli woke up and said, “No, I didn’t call you.” So Samuel went back to sleep. He thought he was just dreaming.
And as he lay down, he again heard the voice saying, “Samuel, Samuel!” And again he went to Eli. “I heard you.” No, he says, “I didn’t call you.” And it says in verse 8, the Lord called Samuel a third time. “Samuel, Samuel!”
He wakes up and he goes to Eli and says, “I heard you call me.” And then Eli realized, verse 8 last part, that the Lord was speaking to Samuel. The Lord was not speaking to 60-year-old Eli who knew the Bible, who knew so many things, and who was the main priest in that land.
He was talking to this small boy, I don’t know, 7 or 8-year-old, Samuel. And so Eli told him, verse 9, next time you hear that voice saying, “Samuel, Samuel!” Just say, verse 9, “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.”
So the fourth time, the Lord came and said, “Samuel, Samuel!” Verse 10, 1 Samuel 3, verse 10. And Samuel said, “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.”
And the Lord spoke to Samuel just like a man speaks to his friend. Oh, what a wonderful experience! Remember that when we thought of what I said in Hebrew that it’s from the least to the greatest that God speaks.
God bypassed the 60-year-old Eli and spoke to a 7 or 8-year-old child. Because children’s hearts are so simple and purer, the hearts of grown-up people. We have so many anxieties and fears and worries in our mind.
We have so many impurities in our mind, older people with little children don’t have them. So it’s so easy for them to hear. I wish you would tell all your children, you who have small children, I wish all of you children are listening to me, will listen to this.
You know that God wants to speak to you? You know that Jesus wants to speak to your heart? Jesus doesn’t speak only to Zach Poonen and to your parents.
He wants to speak to you, my dear little boy, my dear little girl. I want you to know that. He spoke to little Samuel.
Why won’t he speak to you? The Bible says he’s the same yesterday, today, and forever. And I want to encourage all of you children who are listening to me to have a heart that says, “Lord Jesus, I want to hear you speak to me.”
It is not the voice that we hear in our ears. In our heart, he will speak to you. So, all can know the Lord. That’s the second blessing of the New Covenant. Everybody, least to greatest, can personally know. You don’t have to be 20-year-old to call your father daddy.
That 2-year-old, as soon as he begins to speak, he says, “Dad, Daddy.” So, you don’t have to be a great saint to call God your father. You know, Jesus said, when you pray, if you’re not familiar with that, Matthew chapter 6, verse 9, whenever you pray, he said, pray like this.
“Our Father, who art in heaven.” Nobody in the Old Testament would ever say that. Not even the great prophets.
They would really say, “Oh God, Oh God Almighty.” But here, Jesus came and said, “Don’t say, ‘Oh God Almighty.’ Say, ‘Daddy, Father, our Father, who art in heaven.'”
God as Our Loving Father in Heaven
There are two things there. One, he is our Father, which means he loves you so much. More than any person in the world loves you.
I want you to know that God your Father loves you. And the second thing I want you to know is, he is in heaven. He runs this universe. That means he can do anything. There’s nothing he cannot do. He created this vast universe by speaking a word.
What is there he cannot do? He owns all the silver and gold in all the world. What need of yours is there he cannot supply? It’s wonderful to know a father who loves us and who rules from heaven and rules the whole universe. This is the blessing that Jesus came to give us. To know God intimately.
Do you know God intimately as your Father? Think of your earthly father. All of you have an earthly father. At some time, maybe you don’t feel your father is dead perhaps, but you did speak to your father, how intimate it was. Particularly when you were a child. You could cling to him.
You cross the street, he would hold your hand. Wonderful to know a father like that. I want to ask you, my dear brother, sister, do you know God like that? You know, nobody taught me this when I was first born again. I knew him as God. I would say “Our Father who art in heaven.”
In fact, I repeated that prayer even before I was born again. My parents taught that to me to repeat that prayer every morning.
Knowing God as a Loving Father
But I didn’t know God is a father. It took a long time for me to know God is my father who cares for me. That brought a tremendous security in my life.
Before I knew God as my father, I would feel discouraged. So much of discouragement. My number one sin in my life for 16 years after I was born again was getting discouraged. A lot of people don’t think that it was a sin. They think adulterous thoughts and bad thoughts about others, those are sins. Yeah, those are all sins, but to get discouraged.
It’s a sin because it’s like saying God doesn’t care for me. It’s like a five-year-old saying, “Dad, I don’t know whether you care for me.” Imagine if your five-year-old comes to a dad and says, “I don’t know whether you care for me.”
How the father would feel insulted. My little boy thinks I don’t care for him. My little girl thinks I don’t care for her. It’s an insult to the father. That’s how we insult God when we think that is discouragement. Oh, I don’t know whether he cares for me.
Avoiding Self-Condemnation
And the other problem I had was condemning myself. Oh, this is wrong with me. That is wrong.
I know this is wrong with me, but you don’t gain anything by condemning yourself. You say, “Lord, this is wrong with me, but you will deliver me from it.” He came to deliver us and God does not want us to live condemning ourselves.
“I’m not good enough, I’m not good enough, I’m not good enough.” How will you ever grow if you keep on saying “I’m not good enough, I’m not good enough, I’m not good enough?” No, none of us are good enough, but God loves us.
That’s what we should be saying. I have this little board in front of my table. Let me show it to you. I’ve shown it before many times. You see carefully, this is a “no entry” road sign. And the two roads you must never enter in your life are discouragement and self-condemnation.
Please remember this picture always. It’s a “no entry” road. When you see that sign in front of a road, what do you do? If you go in, you’ll have a collision. When you go into these two roads, you’ll be colliding all the time. Discouragement, self-condemnation.
I want you to know God does not want you to have either of those. Those are “no entry” roads. God says “I love you. I care for you. You have received Jesus as your Savior. You want to turn from your sin. I gave you that desire,” God says.
And you have really wanted to turn. You have sincerely asked the Lord Jesus to forgive you. You believe that Christ died on the cross for your sins. That His blood was shed to cleanse you from your sin. Then there’s no need for you to condemn yourself. Romans chapter 8 is a very important verse.
Verse 1. Romans 8 verse 1. Please remember, it’s easy to remember the first verse of Romans chapter 8. Can you remember that? There are 16 chapters in Romans divided by 2, chapter 8 and the first verse. Easy to remember.
Romans 8:1. “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” When you receive Christ, Christ comes into you and you come into Christ. There is no condemnation. There may be many things wrong in you. You will slowly improve.
A child, for example, does not know how to walk, does not know how to talk, does not know how to eat properly, spilling his food all the time. We’re like that as children. Which father gets upset with his child because he doesn’t talk properly or walk properly or eat properly, spills the food on the table?
If an earthly father can be patient with his children, don’t you think a heavenly father is a million times, yes, a million times more patient with his children who are trying to please him, trying to live a good life like all of you are? Why do you allow the devil to discourage you? Why do you allow the devil to make you condemn yourself?
No entry roles. Discouragement and self-condemnation. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ.
The Three Parts of the New Covenant
Okay, let’s move on. The third part of the New Covenant, Hebrews chapter 8. Please remember what I said.
There are three parts to this New Covenant mentioned here. The first one we looked at, verse 10, was God writing His law in our mind, giving us a desire to do God’s will, and in our heart giving us the strength and ability to do God’s will. The second part of the New Covenant, in verse 11, is knowing Him personally as a father.
Not somebody else explaining to me, but knowing Him personally myself, knowing Him yourself. And here’s the third one. In fact, this is the foundation of it all.
Verse 12, Hebrews 8, verse 12. The Lord says, “I will be merciful to their iniquities,” which is a big word to describe sins, “and I will remember their sins no more.” God says, “I will be merciful.”
Merciful means you don’t deserve it, you’ve done a lot of crimes, so I’m going to be merciful to you. It’s like a judge saying to a criminal, “Okay, because you’re sorry, I forgive you all that you’ve done.” There’s a story Jesus once said about a king whose servant, one of his workers owed him some millions of dollars, and where could he pay for it?
He came to the king and said, “Oh king, please have mercy on me.” And the king said, “I forgive you all those millions of dollars.” Imagine if you had a debt of not a thousand dollars, but not even one million, but one billion.
Supposing you owed somebody one thousand million dollars, and you knew that in your entire lifetime you would not be able to pay it, and you’re in danger of being taken to court, and that man comes to you and says, “Forgiven, here’s my certificate, I have forgiven this man one billion dollars, all that he owes me.” Don’t you think you’ll be jumping for joy? Would you go around gloomy after that?
That’s exactly what Jesus did on the cross for you. With his blood, he wrote, “You are forgiven all your sins.” What do you have to do?
Acknowledge it. Don’t pretend that you don’t have a debt. Say, “Lord, I have a debt.” You know that every sin you’ve committed in your life was like owing God some money. You owe him a debt. Every lie you told, every bad thought you had, every person whom you hurt.
Think of the millions of things you’ve done wrong from our childhood. That’s a debt to God. And God says, “I’m writing it off. Forgiven.” Boy, how thankful we should be. That’s what Jesus said in that story in Matthew 18. Read it sometime.
That man went and caught somebody else by the throat saying, “Hey, you owe me ten dollars, why haven’t you paid it back?” Can you imagine a man who’s forgiven one billion dollars, going and catching another fellow by the throat, who owed him ten dollars? And it says there in Matthew 18, the king heard it, called him back.
Say, “Come here. I forgave you one billion dollars, and you couldn’t forgive that man ten dollars? You’re an evil person.
I’m going to put you in prison now. Not only put you in prison, I’m going to get people to torture you in prison, because you’re so evil.” Read that sometime in Matthew chapter 18, the last few verses. It’s a beautiful story. I want to show you the last verse in Matthew 18. Please turn with me there.
After telling this story, Jesus said, Matthew 18. The king tells this man whom he had forgiven a billion dollars, verse 33, “Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slaves just like I had mercy on you? I forgave you a billion dollars, you couldn’t forgive this guy ten dollars?”
And the Lord was angry with him and handed him over to the torturers. Yes, those torturers today are the demons. You know why a lot of people have a lot of torture in their minds?
I’ll tell you, because they haven’t forgiven somebody. Do you feel tortured in your mind at different times? Ask yourself, is there somebody you’ve not forgiven?
Is that why the torturers are getting at your mind? Forgive that person right now, and forgive all those people right now. The torturers will leave you alone then.
“My heavenly Father,” verse 35, “will do the same to you if you don’t forgive others from your heart.” Not just with words, not just saying to that person, “I forgive you,” but wishing that he will suffer because he did so much evil to you. That’s not forgiving from the heart.
The reason for the heart is, there are a lot of people who have done me harm. God is my witness, I have forgiven all of them, and one way I check up whether I’ve really forgiven them is I say, “Lord, I want you to bless them.” And if I hear something good has happened to them, I want to rejoice.
Praise God, that guy who did me so much harm, he’s being blessed, something good has happened to him, I want to be happy. That’s the way you find out whether you’ve forgiven somebody or not. Can you wish good for them and supposing you do hear some good news about them that make you happy?
Oh, you feel bad. Or you hear that some bad thing has happened to them and you feel a little happy, “Ah, the guy deserves it.” Then you know you haven’t forgiven.
The Importance of Forgiving Others
I’ll tell you this, Jesus said that a person who does not forgive others, God will not forgive them. You see Matthew 6 and verse 15, Matthew 6 verse 15, very, very important verse. I think it’s one of the most important verses of all the things that Jesus taught.
Matthew 6 verse 15, “If you don’t forgive others, your Father will not, N-O-T, not forgive you.” Completely out of the question. He will not forgive you.
And I know there are many, many, many Christians sitting in churches who are born again, they’ve received Christ as their Savior, but they don’t grow in their Christian life because the torturers are torturing them because they’re unforgiving somebody. Right now, get rid of that unforgiving spirit. Some people don’t even forgive their wives and husbands for something wrong that they did.
Some don’t forgive their dead parents. Oh, my parents did such evil to me. Poor father and mother, dead and gone, and you still got all that bitterness against them.
Dear brother, sister, you’re ruining yourself with all those thoughts. Forgive them. Forgive them. And the persons who are living to hurt you, forgive them. And when you meet some of them next time, smile at them. Let them know that you’ve forgiven them.
Let them know that you’re a Christian. Why? Because God has forgiven you so much. You know how many your sins are from the time you were born? That’s a million times more than the evil somebody did to you. So the Lord says, I will not come back to Hebrews 8:12.
The Lord says, “I will not remember your sins against you.
God’s Forgiveness and Not Remembering Our Sins
You don’t remember other people’s… I mean, you can’t avoid in your memory. Of course, we have no control over our memory. Your memory will remember every evil thing that everybody did against you, but you’ve forgiven them.
But God says, “I will not hold your sin against you.” And says, treat other people like that. So these are the blessings of the new covenant. Wonderful. “I will not remember your sins anymore.” Wonderful promise in Hebrews 8:12. That means when you come before God, you can’t think, “Oh, does God remember the terrible thing I did last year?”
“Oh, and that 20 years ago, that terrible evil thing I did, which other people don’t know, I hope nobody ever discovers it, I did such evil.” I want to tell you the good news. God says, “I don’t remember. I don’t hold it against you.
I don’t remember. I know you did that, but I don’t hold it against you. What about that evil thing you did yesterday morning? If you confess it, then I don’t hold it against you.” What a wonderful thing forgiveness is through the blood of Jesus Christ. This is the message of the new covenant.
Forgiven, and the Holy Spirit comes and gives the desire and the ability to do God’s will. That is the reason why God gives us the Holy Spirit. That’s why we must pray.
Once we ask God to forgive us, the next thing we must pray is, “Lord, fill me with your Holy Spirit.” I pray for that, not just every day, but as often as I can remember. “Lord, I want to be filled with your Holy Spirit. I want to have a great desire and ability to do your will.”
I’ll tell you, it has made me a very, very happy person. While the blood of Jesus Christ has blotted out my past, and the Holy Spirit has come in me to give me a desire to do God’s will and the ability to do God’s will, I’m not perfect. I’ve got a long way to go.
But I’m going from first grade to second grade to third grade to fourth grade to fifth grade to sixth grade, seventh grade, ninth, tenth grade, and then going into college. That’s how I’m growing in my Christian life. There’s no sudden jump, but step by step by step. And you can go that way too. It’s a wonderful life. The Christian life is so exciting.
The Proverbs 14:14 in the Living Bible says, “The godly man’s life is exciting.” And I tell you honestly, I found that to be exciting. I was born again 64 years ago, 65 nearly now, 65 years ago, but I find Christian life is exciting.
I’m not bored. I’m excited to the Christian life. I serve the Lord. I don’t serve for money. I don’t get a salary for serving the Lord. My salary is the joy of the Lord.
And you can’t equate that with dollars. The Lord gives me so much joy in serving Him that I’d like to serve Him for any number of years until He comes. Dear brothers, the Christian life is a wonderful life.
There’s nothing to equate on the face of the earth. No billionaire in the world is happier than me. Nobody who accomplishes something great is happier than me. Christ has come into my heart and filled me with the Holy Spirit. And I want to encourage you to go this way. Enter into the new covenant.
The Three Things in the New Covenant
What are the three things? You put a desire in your mind and your heart to desire His will and to do His will. Secondly, He’ll want you to know Him as a Father.
He’ll help you to know Him as a Father, knowing Him personally, Daddy in Heaven. And thirdly, He says, “I will not remember. I will not hold your sins against you.”
What more do you want? What a wonderful life. And on top of that, there are other promises. He says that if you see God’s kingdom first, everything you need on earth will be added to you. I’ll tell you that. When I was 24 years old, that is 60 years old, I’m 84 now, one day God spoke to me from the Bible.
I was a naval officer in India. “Quit your job and serve Me.” I said, “Yes, Lord.” I put in my resignation. They took two years to release me. When I was 26 and a half years old in May 1966, I quit my job.
And I decided I will never ask anybody for money. I will never take a salary to serve the Lord. I will live simply with whatever little I have, whatever little I get. And just like Jesus and Paul. And I will see God’s kingdom first. The kingdom of God, we read in Romans 14:17, is righteousness, peace, and joy.
I said, “Lord, I’m going to seek that: Righteousness, peace, and joy with all of my heart.” And God gave me a wife 55 years ago, for nearly 56 years now, who had the same desire.
And I want to tell you our testimony. In all these 56 years, we have never lacked anything. We never told a single soul our needs. We never sent any prayer letters anywhere of what we are doing. And God has provided all our needs. And He has given us the tremendous joy of serving Him in so many countries in the world and planting churches.
But not planting. He planted the churches. I go and pour the water. That’s all I do. The Lord plants the churches, but He has planted churches all over in so many countries. What a wonderful joy it is.
And we’re not living with all the expensive things that people have. You don’t need so many things to live in this world. You don’t need all the fancy clothes and fancy stuff. But we have never lacked anything. We have had three meals a day, every day, for the last 56 years of our married life. God has taken care of us.
I want to say that as a testimony, that if you honor God, He will honor you. One of my favorite verses is 1 Samuel chapter 2 verse 30. In the middle of that verse, it says, “Those who honor Me, I will honor.”
And I tell people there’s an easy way to remember it. 1, 2, 3, 0. Can you remember that? 1, 2, 3, 0. 1 Samuel 2 verse 30. In the middle of that verse, “Those who honor Me, I will honor.”
And sometimes I pray like this. “Lord, I’m going to honor You in this situation. And if You don’t honor me, that will be the first time in 6,000 years that You did not honor somebody who honored You.”
When I say that, that brings faith into my heart. Say that to God. “Lord, in this difficult situation, I’m going to honor You. And if You don’t honor me, it’s going to be the first time in 6,000 years that You broke Your promise.” It won’t happen. He will honor you.
I don’t care which complicated situation you’re in, my brother sister. You honor God, He’ll honor you. Speak the truth. Never tell a lie. Forgive others, no matter what they do to you. God will honor you abundantly. Ask God to fill you with the Holy Spirit every day.
Closing Prayer
Let’s bow our heads in prayer. What shall we say to the Lord for such a wonderful gospel? Bow your head and say “Thank You, Lord. Thank You for giving us such a wonderful new covenant.” You are so much more blessed than Moses and John the Baptist and Elijah. So much more than all of them.
Even the little children here and every one of us. Brother sister, you are blessed because we received Christ into our life. And we are asked, “Lord, to fill us with the Holy Spirit.”
Heavenly Father, I believe there are many, many hungry hearts here listening. I pray that every one of them will be given an assurance that You can do for them far more than they can ask or even think. Yes, Father, we humbly ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.