This morning, I would like to begin a series that will take us through the next several Sundays. I'm not sure how long, we'll just see how the spirit moves within me through his word. But I want to talk with you about celebrating the new covenant. So take your Bibles, turn to Second Corinthians chapter three--we're continuing to make our way through this epistle. This morning, we will begin to look at verses six through 11. Before I read the text, may I remind you of the context, Paul continues his defenCorinth andhe scurrilous attacks of the false apostles that have infiltrated the church at Corinth, and made all kinds of ridiculous accusations against him. They were for the most part Judaizers, those that were trying to mix elements of the old covenant with the new, trying to impose mosaic aspects of the Mosaic Law upon believers. And in this section of Paul's defense, we find a beautiful summary of certain aspects of the new covenant, which really underscores the amazing blessings that are ours in the Gospel. And in this text alone, we have sufficient revelation to fuel our hearts with celebratory praise for eternity. So let me read it to you. Second Corinthians three beginning of verse six. God also "made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. But if the ministry of death, in letters engraved on stones, came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it was, how will the ministry of the Spirit failed to be even more with glory? For if the ministry of condemnation has glory, much more does the ministry of righteousness abound in glory. For indeed what had glory, in this case has no glory because of the glory that surpasses it. For if that which fades away was with glory, much more that which remains is in glory."

We live in a culture that has no fear of God. And of course, that is indicative of the heart of fallen man. But sadly, we're also witnessing that same dynamic in the evangelical church. Most professing Christians are biblically and doctrinally illiterate. In many ways, they're too ignorant to know they're ignorant, which is sad. They have no concept of the holiness of God, they have no concept, therefore, of the sinfulness of man; they have no concept of the eternal wrath of God that abides upon sinners and his gracious deliverance that is available to all who repent and come to faith in Christ. So for many people, in churches today, the good news of the gospel just isn't really all that good of news. In fact, because the gospel is so offensive, many have opted for a less offensive version of the gospel, to make it more appealing to the masses. And so the emphasis is on how much God loves you, and how God accepts you just as you are, how he died to make you healthy, and happy and successful in life. And so the gospel is all about self-esteem. In many churches, it's all about eliminating guilt. It's all about promoting tolerance, and social justice. And in an effort to validate the subjective feelings of unbelievers and believers alike, the church has largely abandoned bold, exegetical, preaching and teaching, that exposes very clearly the righteous wrath of God against sinful man and exalts the mercy and grace of God that can deliver them from it. And as a result, the church is constantly being filled up with more and more unbelievers. People who are Christian in name only. Satan continues to sow tears amongst the wheat. So even in churches today, wrong has replaced right, worldliness has replaced godliness, hypocrisy has replaced genuine saving faith and deception has replaced truth. Because to the natural man the things of the spirit of foolishness. And like the proverbial frog in the kettle, religious people sit in their churches with a self-righteous grin as Satan gradually and imperceptibly turns up the heat of deception on them until they are utterly destroyed eternally.

You know, many people today in churches are concerned about how COVID 19 is affecting churches and rightfully so. But dear friends, I would submit to you that the horror that is happening, in evangelical Christianity, makes any fear of COVID-19 pale into utter insignificance. We have women preachers; we have homosexual clergy. We have churches blessing animals. We have drag queens reading Bible stories to children, in so-called worship services. We have people lying on the graves of deceased preachers to soak up the, quote, "anointing from the corpse," a practice known as grave sucking. In many churches, there is nothing more than unfettered emotionalism and ecstatic gibberish that they call worship; that frankly, mirrors the type of satanic pagan worship that existed in ancient Corinth, known as Extasia. A friend of mine sent me a YouTube video of a woman preacher, Paula White, who I understand is a spiritual adviser to President Trump, which is frightening to me. And in this video, she says this, "The queen bee is known for her dance, and she starts dancing, fluttering her arms going up and down and twirling around," and by the way, as she says these things in between everything she says, is a rhythmic gasp, to work people like that. And so that's kind of the dynamic here. "The queen bee is known for her dance. She goes into a frenzy to get all the bees activated. And she leads the way by stirring something up. I dare you, Deborah, come on"-- a reference to Deborah I think is possibly the prophetess Deborah in Judges. "I dare you, Deborah, come on, stir it up right now in the name of Jesus, stir up faith in others, stir it up. Do you think I was ashamed to stand on the lawn of the White House in front of the President, the Vice President, the FLOTUS, the nation, and the press and declare in the name of Jesus? I declare right now an end to this COVID-19. What good if I pray some cute little prayer? What good am I if I have some fancy little poem or just talk about the problem? Everybody knows the problem. But who's going to come forth with the solution? Stir them up, stir them up. Come on, Deborah. Stir them up right now. Stir them up. There's a whole lot of food, there is revelation. Come on. Where's my Deborah, where's my Deborah?" Folks, I ask you, how does that in any way point to the glory of Christ? And how can ostensibly evangelical people tolerate that kind of insanity? That kind of blasphemy. And we're worried about COVID-19's effect on the church. Jesus prayed "Father sanctify them in the truth, Thy word is truth." How is that going to sanctify people? Like so many others, she's making Christianity a laughingstock to the entire world. 1000s of so called Christians follow this woman and many others like her, which is not only a demonstration of a lack of discernment, to say the least, But also, I would submit to you, a lack of genuine saving faith. I know of women, even in this town, in the Nashville area, and in other parts around the country who are into the prosperity gospel cult, who will go to the most expensive clothing stores down in Nashville, knowing full well they can't afford anything in there. But they will go there and lay hands on the clothes that they want and claim them in Jesus name. Now what kind of insanity would promote that? No true believer will be deceived for long with such imbecility because the Spirit of Truth dwells within true believers. Jesus said, "They shall be taught by God," John 6:36. And we're all worried about COVID-19 and what it's doing to the church? Yet we're witnessing an unprecedented freefall of apostasy in the church today.

Recently, I noticed a teaching pastor position on an online church staffing website. They were looking for a teaching pastor, nondenominational church, about 1000 people, let me read you part of the job description, "They will be open minded and non-religious." With the next sentence here, "they will have a solid grasp of the principles and values that Jesus taught. They will have the ability to complete a message in a timely fashion, and the ability to deliver it in the 30 minutes or less time allowance." Rules me out, right? They give the name of the church and say, "we're in agreement with Rob Bell, John Shelby Spong and other more liberal leaders, we are an all-inclusive community that welcomes and affirms all, regardless of history or sexual orientation or preference. Our goal as a community church is not to get people," quote, "saved, as they do not need saving." "We believe in the transformative power of love and grace that Jesus offers, but do not believe in traditional punitive models of hell, requiring salvation."

Dear friends, what I just read, finds its source in the father of lies. What I just read is satanic. By increasing numbers, instead of the church being, as Paul said in First Timothy 3:15, "the household of God," literally the dwelling place of God, the church of the living God, the pillar and the support of the truth, the church has become, in many sectors, the dwelling place of Satan, the pillar and support of deception. While many churches do not embrace some of the charismatic error that's out there, or some of the blatantly apostate forms of liberalism, they do embrace just a dumbed down, watered down superficial gospel. Cotton candy, sermonettes for Christianettes. Shallow as water on a plate. Therefore people don't grow.

Now the consequences of a superficial man-centered church is multifaceted, but certainly at the top of the list is a gross misrepresentation and mitigation of the holiness of God. And when God isn't all that righteous, man isn't all that sinful, right? Who needs a savior if God's just kind of our buddy, and he just kind of winks at sin? Well, God knew that this would be part of the depraved part of mankind. He knew that we would be foolish, and that we wouldn't really understand his holiness and the depths of our sin, and our need for a Savior. So what did he do? He gave us his law which is crucial for our understanding of the difference between the old covenant and the new covenant and understanding the text before us.

So let me take you back and help you understand a little bit about the law of God. This is crucial. The Law of God, sometimes referred to as the "Mosaic Code," was the codification of God's holiness. It was the divine standard for righteousness. And as we look at the law, we can see various elements of it. First of all, there was a twofold summarization of the law. Very simple. We are to love the Lord God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength and love our neighbor as ourselves. But then there was a 10 fold summarization of the two fold summarization, which was called the Decalogue, or the Ten Commandments. It was also called the Tablets of Stone; the Mosaic law given to Moses on Mount Sinai in Exodus 19 and 20. It was also called the Old Covenant. Now, under the old covenant, God said, if you will obey what I tell you, I will bless you. If you disobey, if you violate it, I will curse you. As we look at the Decalogue, we see that the first three were basically on how to love God perfectly, then you have the Sabbath, and the rest of them are how to love your neighbor. But then there was also a manifold summarization of the 10-fold summarization that summarized the two-fold summarization, you with me? And the manifold summarization was called the Words of the Covenant Exodus 24:7. In fact, the entire Book of Leviticus is a detailed expansion of the law. And all of this was written down and it was placed in a receptacle next to the Ark of the Covenant. And the Ark of the Covenant, of course, had the tablets of stone inside of them. Deuteronomy 31, verse 26, God said, "Take this book of the law, and place it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may remain there as a witness against you." You see, the purpose of the law was to expose sin; a witness against you. Any breach of the law, any violation of the law, means that you broke the whole law, and the consequence was always death. So it was very oppressive. It exposed man's need for mercy and for grace, for savior, for a righteousness beyond our own.

Now, the law, which could also be understood as the Old Testament scriptures, had three divisions. First of all, there was the moral law that regulated Israel's...the way they were to love the Lord their God with all their heart and love their neighbor as their self, which was based upon the 10 commandments; that was the moral law. And then secondly, there was the judicial law that regulated Israel as a theocracy. And then there was the ceremonial law, which regulated how Israel was to worship. And ultimately, we know biblically, that Jesus fulfilled each division of the law as we read in Matthew 5:17. His sinless life fulfilled the moral law, and his condemnation and temporary judgment upon Israel, whereby they were temporarily set aside as a nation, fulfilled the judicial law. And then finally his atoning work on the cross fulfilled the ceremonial law.

But I want to add, we don't want to forget that while the judicial and the ceremonial laws were fulfilled in Christ and are now obsolete, the moral law is still being fulfilled through the church, through us, because we are united to Christ through faith. For example, the apostle Paul spoke of this in Romans chapter eight, beginning in verse three. Sobering words here, he says, God sent, "His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the requirement of the Law,” catch this, "might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit." And if we look, for example, at the first four verses of Romans seven, Paul reveals to us that because of the fact that we have died in Christ, we've been freed from the penalty of the law. We are now hidden in him, the one who has fulfilled the law, the one who is perfectly satisfied. The justice that God demands in the law, we are no longer in a position of somehow trying to keep the law. However, the law was never intended to save us. Because the law never had the power to redeem anyone from their sin. All it could do, was condemn. Constantly. Obedience to the law was never a means of salvation, Romans 3:20, "By the works of the Law no flesh will be," what?.."justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin."

Now, as we go to Corinth with Paul, these false apostles come in, requiring people to obey certain aspects of the old covenant, which would naturally be a direct attack upon the finished work of Christ, an affront to grace. You see works and grace are mutually exclusive. When it comes to salvation, works will always be the fruit of grace. But it will never be the route of grace. And this is Paul's point here in Second Corinthians three, seven through 11. And here in his defense. We discover five reasons to celebrate the blessings of the new covenant. I'm gonna give you all five, but we're just going to do part of number one today, okay? There's just so much here.

We celebrate the new covenant, because number one, it is the source of eternal life by the Holy Spirit. Number two, it is the source of the imputed righteousness of Christ. Number three, it is the source of eternal glory. Number four, it is the source of courageous hope. And finally, it is the source of unveiled gospel clarity. And I pray that the Holy Spirit will use this to illuminate your minds with these astounding realities that Christ may have an even greater preeminence in your heart.

So first of all, under this first heading that we'll begin to examine today, we see that the new covenant is the source of eternal life by the Holy Spirit. Again, notice verse six, God, "made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." The phrase, "the letter of the law," is a reference to the external requirements of the law that the Jews would try to live by; they would try to obey. And Paul was saying, that kills. It does. It insults your self-righteousness; it exposes your sin. Let me take you to Romans chapter seven to better understand this, beginning in verse nine. Here's what Paul, who remember now was a Pharisee; was a rabbi; He was a fastidious keeper of the law. Here's what he said, Romans seven, verse nine, "I was once alive apart from the Law;" in other words, I thought I was really spiritual, before I really understood the law; I thought I was quite alive, I was doing well and my ignorance, as the old saying goes, ignorance is bliss, right? "But," he says, "when the commandment came, sin became alive, and I died." My what a striking reversal. Think about it. First sin is dead, and I am alive. And then sin is alive, and I am dead. In other words, what he's saying is when I was alive apart from the law, sin was dead and I was alive, sin had not yet provoked within me a true grasp of God's holiness, of his righteousness. I felt like I was doing pretty good. I mean, I was a Pharisee, I was an expert in the law, I was fulfilling all those externals, but not from the heart. I was a self-righteous hypocrite, thinking that somehow, I could justify myself and sanctify myself. But when I truly understood the law, suddenly sin became alive, and I died. You see, when you understand the holiness of God, suddenly sin goes on a rampage within your heart. I remember this, when I first came to Christ, I began to see sin like I had never seen it before. How it was animated within me, within my...even my imagination, I see it like never before. Suddenly, I can see the horror of my guilt. It's running rampant in my imagination; I can't get away from it. Sin is alive, because corruption is lurking within the caverns of my imagination, within the very depths of my soul, and worse, yet, I am utterly helpless to do anything about it. That's what the Lord does. It's almost as if Paul was saying, I was once like the Pharisee in Jesus' parable, remember Luke 18. He went to the temple to pray and verse 11, he says, "'God, I thank Thee that I'm not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax gatherer. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.'" And on and on it goes. But it was the tax gatherer that truly understand the law. He understood it because It exposed the depths of his sin. If we go back to Romans seven, verse 10, Paul said, "and this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me." You see, the law can't do anything to bless an unbeliever by keeping it, because we can't keep it. So he says in verse 11, "for sin, taking an opportunity, through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me." The idea here is that the sin tricked me into believing I was good enough on my own to be acceptable to God, therefore, I didn't need a savior. So this Jesus comes along, he's like, What are you talking about? So obviously, folks, it was not the law that was sinful. I want you to understand that. Nor does it inspire sin; the law is perfectly holy, but the commandment became the occasion for sin, the opportunity for sin, and death becomes the tragic consequence of it. So for this reason, Paul goes on to say in verse 12, "So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good." Yes, because it's illuminating us to see our sin and cry out to Christ, and put our trust in him, and therefore glorify God. So he says in verse 13, "Therefore, did that which is good become a cause of death for me? May it never be! Rather it was sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin by effecting my death, through that which is good, so that through the commandment, sin would become utterly sinful."

Now back to second Corinthians three, verse six, God also, "made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter," not of all those external requirements, "but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." Let me show you how the letter kills. I want to take you back into the Old Testament. Let's be the dear Jewish people that are trying to obey the law, let me give you a sample of what that would have been like. And again, remember that God gave the law to reveal his holy standard, so that people would cry out for a savior. And you're going to see this, as I go through some of this Galatians 3:24, "The law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith." Not by works by faith. "But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor."

So let me give you a sample of what it was like to live under the old covenant. And I want to do this by examining the dominant feature of the old covenant of the Mosaic law and that is the Sabbath, the Hebrew Shabbat, which means rest, which means cessation. So let me begin by taking you to Exodus 31, beginning in verse 13. God says to Moses, "'But as for you, speak to the sons of Israel, saying, 'You shall surely observe My Sabbaths,''" plural, with "''this is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you. Therefore, you are to observe the Sabbath, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among the people. For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there is a sabbath of complete rest, holy to the Lord; whoever does any work on the sabbath day shall surely be put to death.''" You get the idea, friends, that God is serious about his holiness? By the way, the command for the Sabbath is the fourth of the ten commandments, but it is not repeated anywhere in the New Testament, because it belonged to Israel under the mosaic economy. It does not apply to the new covenant economy of the church age. In fact, it is nullified completely in the New Testament. For example, read Colossians 2:16 and 17.

Let me tell you what it was like. Every single sabbath day the Jewish people were reminded of their obligation to keep the two-fold commandments, summarized by the ten-fold commandments, expanded in great detail by the manifold commandments, right? That's what you were to do every sabbath day. The sabbath was again a constant reminder of your need to obey God's righteous law. It was never to be violated or you would be put to death. For example, you could not work on the Sabbath. You might recall in Number 15, the Jews found a guy, well he was gathering wood on the sabbath, and they hauled him before Moses and said, "Moses what should we do?" And Moses said, "The man shall surely be put to death all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp." That's what they did. You see on the sabbath day, all activities were completely suspended. And you will say, well, what did the people do? Very simple. They basically sat and contemplated the depths of their depravity, and their wretchedness and their need for righteousness that was not their own; so that they would cry out for mercy. You also had to stay at home; you could do absolutely nothing at home, you couldn't even cook. Meals had to be prepared the day before. You couldn't even start a fire. This is why if you go to Israel today, they have what's called Shabbat elevators. On the Sabbath day, when you go into an elevator, every button is pushed, you know, like the kids do that make you mad when they get on and just punch all of them, and it takes you forever because it stops at every floor. That's what happens in the elevators in Israel. And the reason for that is because you can't light a fire. If you touch it, there's a spark; violate the law. See how crazy it gets. In fact, Orthodox Jews have timers on their lights in their home so that they won't turn on a light on the sabbath and kindle a spark. You couldn't carry a load. You couldn't buy or sell anything. So it's not like, well, hey, let's order a pizza; no, can't do that. Couldn't post something, what is it, you post stuff on to sell, you couldn't do that. You couldn't order anything on Amazon. I mean, all that's out. Isaiah 58:13 talks about the sabbath, "you turn your foot from doing your own pleasure on My holy day, and call the sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable, and honor it, from your own way." In other words, you couldn't enjoy anything according to your own preference, or he says, "from speaking your own pleasure." So no personal indulgences. Or he says "speaking your own word." So in other words, there was no mindless chit chat. Basically, you did nothing but contemplate the holiness of God and your own sinfulness.

It was a day to be as holy as possible, a day of complete rest, but also a day to celebrate the perpetual covenant that God has made with Israel, Exodus 36:16, which will cause you to "delight in the Lord your God," Isaiah 58:14. So again, folks, what I'm trying to impress upon you is God is serious about his holiness, real serious about his holiness. And God has not changed. Fortunately, he's given us a new covenant, where Christ has satisfied the demands of the law on our behalf, otherwise we would be toast. Right? Now, they're obeying all of these things, in addition to all of the sacrifices and ritual cleansings and celebrations. I want you to understand that the Sabbath, and all of the other feasts and sacrifices and so forth, were the very center of gravity around which the entirety of their lives would orbit. It controlled everything they did. And then you have all of the holy convocations and feasts. Let me give you a little sample of them. These are other forms of sabbath. In Leviticus 23, there's the Passover. That was followed immediately by the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Verse eight says, "For seven days you shall present an offering by fire to the Lord. On the seventh day is a holy convocation; you should not do any laborious work." Then there's the Feast of First Fruits with all of its restrictions, then the Feast of Pentecost; 50 days more of restrictions. Then the holy convocation of the Feast of Trumpets, verse 23, we read in the seventh month on the first of the month, you shall have a sabbath. There's another sabbath, a reminder by blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation, you shall not do any laborious work. And remember, now, during all of this, you're still having to keep the sabbath every single day. Then you have Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, Leviticus 23:27. "On exactly the 10th day of the seventh month is the day of atonement; it shall be a holy convocation for you, and you shall humble your souls and present an offering by fire to the Lord." So we all line up now and we bring our offerings. "You shall not do any work on this same day, for it is a day of atonement, to make atonement on your behalf before the Lord your God. If there is any person who will not humble himself on this same day, he will be cut off from his people. Then verse 33, you have another sabbath, the Feast of Booths, it says in verse 34, "On the 15th day of the seventh month, the Feast of Booths for seven days to the Lord. On the first day is a holy convocation, do no laborious work." By the way, during the Feast of Booths, when you're in Israel, and even in certain parts of the United States with Orthodox Jews, you'll see the people making little huts out in their yard and they will stay there. Verse 36, "For seven days you shall present an offering by fire to the Lord. On the eighth day you shall have a holy convocation and present an offering to by fire to the Lord; it is an assembly. You shall do no laborious work. These are the appointed times of the Lord which you shall proclaim as holy convocations, to present offerings by fire to the Lord--burnt offerings and grain offerings, sacrifices and drink offerings, each day's matter on its own day--besides those of the sabbath's of the Lord, and besides your gifts, and besides all your votive and freewill offerings, which you give to the Lord. On exactly the 15th day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the crops of the land, you shall celebrate the feast of the Lord for seven days, with the rest on the first day and the rest on the eighth day. Now on the first day you shall take for yourselves the foliage of beautiful trees, palm branches and bows of leaves, leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days. You shall thus celebrate it as a feast to the Lord for seven days in the year. It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations; you shall celebrate it and the seventh month. You shall live in booths for seven days; all the native-born in Israel shall live in booths, so that your generations may know that I had the sons of Israel live in booths when I brought them out from the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.''" It's a good way to sign off. Right? "So Moses declared to the sons of Israel, the appointed times of Lord." Boy, talk about a complicated onerous system.

Let me give you a little bit more, in case it hasn't sunk in sufficiently. In Numbers 28, verse 11, we have what's called the New Moon convocation, "at the beginning of each of your months you shall present a burnt offering to the Lord: two bulls and one ram, seven male lambs one year old without defect." Peter would have had a fit in those days right? Then in Leviticus 25, he describes the restrictions for Sabbath years, each seventh year they had to leave the ground alone. Then in verse eight, there's another Sabbath called the Jubilee. You, "count off seven sabbaths of years," seven times seven every 49th year, it's the year of Jubilee. And if you violate any of God's covenant law it's punishable by death. It's interesting they punished a lot of things; God had capital punishment on many things. If you look it up, you'll see that if you were a child or a teenager and you cursed and dishonored and disobeyed your parent, you could be put to death. Be put to death for adultery, homosexuality, bestiality, idolatry, incest, and the list goes on. By the way, there were no prisons in ancient Israel; that didn't come along until the monarchy. You were either executed or enslaved, to make restitution for what you did.

Now you add to all of this, the ridiculous rules that the Pharisees came up with; rules that God didn't ask, but stuff they came up with, I won't even go into it. They are they are ludicrous. And you can see why Jesus said to the people, "Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden." Don't you know they were? I get weary and heavy laden, just talking about it. Just thinking about it. "Come to Me and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle, and humble of spirit and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." This is why the apostle John would say in First John five, three, "His commandments are not burdensome." No, they're not because of the new covenant. The Psalmist said "Oh, how I love your law." Psalm 119:97. Psalm 40 verse eight, I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your Law within my heart." Lord, I know I try the best I can, but I know that ultimately, I'm just dependent upon your grace. By the way Old Testament saints were saved just like New Testament saints, they were saved by grace, through faith; and Christ that had not yet come.

By the way, I hope you understand how absurd it is for some people, like, for example, the Seventh Day Adventists to arbitrarily transport certain aspects of the law and grace, the Old Covenant, into the new. You know, I've talked with some of them before, and they say, Yeah, you know, we keep the Sabbath. Oh really? First of all, which one? And secondly, all of it? You know, which parts do you leave out? Really, you keep the Sabbath? Oh, my, you know, the diet restrictions alone would leave me out. Boy, I love a good pork BBQ sandwich, you know?

Now back to Paul's defense that God made us "adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter"-- not of all those external things that you have to do--but of the spirit, "for the letter kills." Yeah, it kills your hope. It kills your joy; it kills your peace. You're always wondering if you're gonna make the cut. And this is the horror of legalism. Always coming up with another hoop you got to jump through; some external religious hoop to impress God, and somehow make you feel better about your own spirituality. Because after all, you're doing all these things that other people aren't. Talk about hypocrisy; the futile works of sacramental ism and ceremonialism. Romans 10, verse three, "not knowing about God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God." So here in Second Corinthians three, Paul is saying, Look, God did not make me a servant of the old covenant, of all that stuff. I mean, the letter kills, he made me adequate to be a servant of the new covenant, because the Spirit gives life.

And, folks, here's why I would say that number one, we see that the new covenant is the source of eternal life in the Spirit. You must understand that it is the Spirit of God that is the agent of regeneration. Do you realize that by His power, you and I were born again?

Remember, when Nicodemus the Pharisee, this great leader of all of Israel, he was on the governing body of the Sanhedrin; this teacher of Israel at the very pinnacle and prominence of Israel. He comes to Jesus, confessing that he's this great teacher and miracle worker. And, and in essence, what he's saying is, what do I need to do to get into the kingdom? I'm doing all these things, but I need to know what must I do to be saved? And basically, what did Jesus say? Well basically what he said, You must be born again. Got to be born again. Notice what Jesus didn't say, Well, you need to, you need to keep this rule here. And you need to start doing this. And then this and this, quit doing this and start doing this. No. You see, folks under the new covenant, it's all of grace. It's not of works. Jesus said, John three, three, "'Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.'" In other words, what Jesus is saying, and this is why the true gospel is so offensive; and I'm going to give you elements of it right now--what Jesus is saying is that sin has so corrupted and polluted the soul of man, that there is absolutely nothing that he can do to save himself. He is utterly dependent upon God to do a total renovation of his nature. He is saying that all that man is, and all that man does, is fundamentally offensive to a holy God. It is only the Spirit that gives life. That's what he's saying. You can't do certain things and somehow cooperate with God's grace and then save yourself. It's the Spirit that gives life. Jesus repeated this in John 6:63, "It is the Spirit who gives life."

You see in regeneration, we are born according to John 1:13, "not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." In regeneration, man is entirely passive, wholly dependent upon the miraculous work of the Spirit to give spiritual life to a spiritual corpse, because we're dead in sin. James 1:18, "In the exercise of His will," not ours, but his will, "He brought us forth by the word of truth." And of course, Jesus uses this amazing imagery of birth. I mean, think about it, even as a child makes no contribution to his own conception or birth in the physical realm. He’s totally dependent upon the activity of the parent. So too, a sinner who is dead, spiritually dead, totally depraved, and totally dependent upon the sovereign grace of God, can't do anything to contribute to his spiritual birth. It is the Spirit who causes man to suddenly see the horror of his sin. And it is the Spirit that causes us to acknowledge that sin, to cry out for mercy, to repent and to believe in Christ. Even though that is our responsibility, it is the Spirit that causes us to act consistently with what God has called us to do. Jesus said in John three verse eight, back to Nicodemus, "'The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from, and where it is going.'" Then he says, "'so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.'" I like the way John Murray put it, quote, "The wind is not at our beck and call, neither is the regenerative operation of the Spirit," end quote. By the way, this is the danger of altar calls. This is the danger of revivalism. This is the danger of us trying to say "Spirit of God, I'll take over here, I'll do some things to manipulate people. Let's get the music just right, get the stories just right, get everybody kind of worked up. And let's get them to make a decision for Christ." Folks, we give them the gospel and it is the Spirit of God who gives them life. That is the glory of the new covenant. The effectual call of regeneration is pictured in the future regeneration of Israel. Remember, in Ezekiel 37:1 through 11, there the Spirit of God breathes life into a valley of dry bones, my what a picture of man and his depravity, utterly lifeless, unable to respond. Then in Ezekiel 37:12, we read, "'Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves.'" In verse 14, "'and I will put my Spirit within you and you shall live.'" O, child of God, salvation is a gift of grace from beginning to end.

The effectual call of regeneration is also pictured in the story of Lazarus, remember that in John 11? What an amazing story. Jesus stands before the tomb of his friend that's been dead for four days and Jesus cries out, "Lazarus, come forth!" And the text says, and the man who had died came out. Jesus did that with me when I was nine years old. He called me from death unto life. He's done that with you, I hope all of you.

We also see the Spirit giving life in Paul's comparison of regeneration to God's creation of the world. In Second Corinthians four six we read, "For God, who said, 'Light shall come out of darkness,' is the One who has shown in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.'" There he's referring to the Spirit's role in creation, where he spoke things into existence out of nothing, "ex Nihilo," where he said, "Let there be light and there was light." That's what he does in our soul. So indeed, Paul was made a minister of the new covenant, where the Spirit is the source of eternal life, not your own works.

One of my former professors, Dr. Dick Mae who said quote, "In regeneration, God unites the external call of the gospel preaching with his sovereign and effectual call to unto new life, into darkened and dead hearts, he speaks the command, 'Let there be light,' and instantaneously births in us the light of eternal spiritual life, where it had not existed." Oh, dear friends, the blessings of the New Covenant are beyond our imagination. They exceed the bounds of language. You see, in regeneration we have that great bridge of grace that spans man's depravity and the righteous demands of God's law. That is the requirement to enter into the kingdom. But you ask, well, what must I do to be saved? If it's all a work of the Spirit? How can I be held responsible? Well, it's true, that you are responsible; we are responsible to believe in God's sovereignty and man's responsibility is a matter that's perfectly compatible in the mind of God. He doesn't even try to explain it knows we couldn't understand it. And for us, it's an inscrutable mystery. But let me say this. If you truly see the horror of your sin, and you see the righteousness of Christ and the glory of the cross, and you know that unless God does something, you are going to perish in your sins; if you see that, know full well that is the Spirit of God that has quickened your heart and given you that light. He is speaking light into your life. If a person experiences that and they suddenly are crying out to God in mercy, know that it is the Spirit of God that has caused them to do so. Know that it was the Spirit of God that had written their names in the Lamb's book of life before the foundation of the world. Know full well that if that is in your heart, if that is your desire, it's because God elected you to his grace before the foundation of the world; that he chose you in Christ before time began. Never will there be a person who can stand before a holy God and say, Oh, it was just all up to you and you just didn't do what you were supposed to do. And so how can I be held responsible? You say I just don't believe in it that okay? Then you will perish in your sins. But if you want to be saved, Paul says in Romans 10 Nine, "If you confess with your mouth, Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead," what's gonna happen? He says, "you will be saved." "For with a heart a person believes resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation."

You see, dear friends, man's responsibility is to respond to the gospel. And when man responds to the gospel, it is the Spirit of God that has caused him to do so. It is the Spirit of God that is quickening his heart, speaking light into that corpse and life into that corpse. And it is the Spirit of God who then will cause a person to be born again, because we can't "born again" ourselves.

Well, the next time we're together, we'll look at more works of the Holy Spirit. There's just so many great things that we need to understand, especially as it relates to the new covenant. And I pray that today you have a renewed appreciation of the holiness of God, because it is sorely missing in evangelicalism today. And when you don't understand the holiness of God, you'll never be able to sing, sincerely, "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me." Let's pray together.

Father, thank you for these eternal truths that speak so clearly to our hearts. Thank you for the new covenant. Thank you that we are united to Christ, who has fulfilled the law perfectly. And therefore, on our behalf, he has satisfied your demands. This is the glory of the gospel. And we celebrated here today. And Father, if there be one that knows nothing about what it means to truly be reconciled to a holy God through faith in Christ; they know nothing of what it means to have that intimate relationship, that joy, that peace, that comfort, that hope, that faith, I pray that by the power of your Spirit, you will breathe life into that spiritual cadaver, cause them to come alive, cause them to see the horror of their sin and come running to the cross, pleading for a mercy they do not deserve and a righteousness they cannot have on their own, that they might be saved. Lord, I pray this for members in my family, for friends, for people in this church, for our young children, Lord, be merciful and save them. We thank you We give you praise in Jesus name. Amen.