Hebrews 8:8 For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah:
9 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.
10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
11 And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.
It is not hard for God to find fault in any person. The Bible declares that we are all born as lost sinners. We are all headed for an eternity in hell and the lake of fire. It is God’s mercy and grace that provides an alternative to this doom.
God shows us in the book of Hebrews that He provided a covenant with the nation of Israel. That covenant provided the means for Israelis to become saints. It was not through law keeping, but rather in understanding the need to trust in the holy God Who gave them that covenant.
Abraham trusted in God. His trust was not absolute. God’s law was and is absolute, but man cannot abide by His law in the flesh. The book of Exodus shows us the rebellious nature of the children of Israel. They suffered for a number of years under the ruthless rule of the Pharaohs. They suffered for a short time under the Pharaoh as God was revealing Himself to him and the nation of Egypt. God also showed His greatness in Israel at that time. He separated the land of Goshen from the rest of Egypt and the last plagues did not affect them. The nation of Israel had no patience with God. They demanded deliverance immediately and they demanded an imagined utopia. They failed God, not the other way around.
In our text God declared that He would make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. At that time Israel was still a divided house.
In verse 9 we see that the new covenant would be different than the first covenant. In the first covenant God was very involved in the physical life of the nation. He led them by the hand. He demonstrated His power in dividing the waters of the Red Sea and giving the nation a dry path across the Sea bed. He closed the waters over Pharaoh and his armies and they drowned in that Sea.
God led the nation of Israel through the wilderness for 40 years, even though the majority of the older generation constantly complained and rebelled against Him and His leadership. The nation of Israel did not continue in His covenant. They did not allow the priests to teach them the true purpose of that covenant. They just rebelled against it. They did not see the blessings of God falling into their lap and they were discontent. Even when God provided the Manna for them, they complained about it. All they had to do was go and gather it, but they complained.
I listened to a preacher talk about the Democrat party in the U.S. He stated that for a long time his community of people had trusted in the Democrats to help them. He stated that under that “trust” they did not have any businesses nor any factories, etc. That preacher revealed a major problem in his own heart. He was depending on government to provide for them. As a preacher, he should understand that first of all, true help comes from God. Secondly, he needs to be a saved man to appreciate that help. Thirdly, he needs to get out and do something worthwhile with his life, which he was obviously not doing. He was a trouble maker, not a God-fearing minister of the Gospel.
The children of Israel were following trouble makers like the sons of Korah, rather than God’s appointed leader, Moses.
God did not have respect for the rebels. He wiped an entire generation out, except for 2 men. The children of that generation proved to be no better. They too were born as lost sinners and thus they also rebelled in the land of Canaan. The book of Judges shows us how they rejected God’s law and found themselves in deep trouble over and over again.
In verse 10 we read that the new covenant would be put into the minds of the people and it would be written in their hearts. In verses 10-12, God directed the writer to quote from Jeremiah 31:31-34. Jeremiah was an Old Testament prophet. He was directed to remind the people then that God was going to bring a new way. That way was through the Lord Jesus Christ. The first covenant pointed forward to His coming. The Ten Commandments were there to lead people to faith in God’s promised Messiah. The nation of Israel could not keep them. There are many people today who still claim to live by the Ten Commandments. The fact is that no one can keep them perfectly. They were never designed to save anyone. They showed the need to trust in the true God Who gave the Ten Commandments.
In verse 10 of our text, God declared that He would be Israel’s God and they would His people. This still has not happened but it will happen. There are saved Jews today, but the nation is far from God. Mr. Netanyahu is still trusting in his own abilities and in his advisors and his armies as well as “allies” to keep his nation safe. He is spending billions of dollars on defences that cannot keep them safe. So far, enough people in Israel are willing to put up with the precarious situation in the hope that they will defeat their enemies. They are deluded. Eventually they will bow to the lies of the antichrist and face the worst 7 years of their history. At the end of that time, the remnant of the nation will turn to God and they will accept Jesus Christ as their Messiah, Saviour and King. He will lead them into the Millennium.
In verse 11 of our text we see that because God’s new covenant will be in the mind and heart of the people, there will be no need to teach the people to know the Lord. They will all know Him. Jesus Christ will be in their midst and they will not reject Him then as they did in His first coming.
By extension, we are reminded here that when a person is saved, God changes their heart. The saved person is different than he was when he was lost. The Holy Spirit indwells the saved person. He is not on the outside working to convince the person of sin. He is now residing inside to teach the person the understanding of the Word of God. He is also there to enable the saved person to do the will of God. Those who are truly saved give evidence of that fact. There are many today who are willingly deceived and they will be shocked when they find out they chose the wrong path. They can know that now, but they choose to believe lies rather than the truth.
In verse 12 God declares that He will be merciful to their unrighteousness. Even though God will write His new covenant in the heart of the Jews in that day, they will not be without sin. Until we enter heaven, the old man is still there to try to interfere with the new man. We, those who are saved, do not always follow the new man. We allow the old man to raise his ugly head at times.
God is speaking prophetically here of the nation of Israel and He declares that in the Millennium, they will acknowledge Him as their God and when they sin, He will be merciful to them.
God’s Word tells us that through Jesus Christ, those who turn to God and put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation, are forgiven. We are given a new nature. We are changed. However, we still sin. When a saved person sins, God is merciful and He provides the means of forgiveness of the sin.
I John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
God’s forgiveness of sin is not automatic. The saint must acknowledge his sin and confess it to God. The Catholics try to rob God and tell their people to confess their sins to a lost, sinful priest. That man cannot even forgive his own sins, let alone help anyone else.
Jesus Christ is the Saviour. When a saint sins, he or she must go to God and ask forgiveness of sin through the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible teaches that when a person is saved, Jesus Christ also becomes the Lord of their life. He is the Master. He, through the indwelling Holy Spirit opens our understanding. He also gives us a new desire. That new desire is to please Him. The motivation for the child of God to please God comes from within. It comes from the heart. The Word of God shows us what is truth. The true local church will remind us of the importance of following the truth. The work of changing takes place in the heart of the saved person. It is a work of God. The saved person cannot live in resistance to that work. He has been changed by God and his desire is to please His heavenly Father.
Pastor Bartel
