We were talking last week about prayer, but this week we are going to go back to the discussion on the covenants. We are going to try to understand some of the things that the Bible has to say about the covenant. We cannot go wrong if when we read that word, we think, “the Gospel,” or we think, “the Word of God,” or we think, “God’s Law”, which is the whole Bible, and the covenant has to do with that.
In Galatians 4, I am going to read from verse 21 through the end of the chapter. It says in Galatians 4:21-31:
Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman. So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.
Here God is referring to the covenant and He says that there are two covenants. It is interesting in verse 21, in leading into the whole discussion of the two covenants, it says:
Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?
With this kind of a statement, we would expect to go back to the Law Book that God had Moses write down, and to find a list of commandments, “thou shalt not,” and God’s Laws. But actually, God says, moving the Apostle Paul to write, “Do ye not hear the Law?” Then He goes into an historical account that we find in the book of Genesis with Abraham and his two wives, Sarah or Sarai and Hagar. Hagar was a concubine, but she was still his wife.
It is amazing how God puts these types of examples in the Bible. Yet so many theologians and Bible teachers today who are in the churches and congregations just do not understand how God wrote the Bible. They do not “hear the Law.”
For instance, what I mean is that God says, “Do ye not hear the law?” Then we are directed to this history in the book of Genesis, and yet God says in Galatians 4:24:
Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants;…
You might get kicked out of class, if you went to a theology class and the professor was instructing you on how to understand the Bible, the proper Bible hermeneutics, and you start talking about allegories and parabolic meaning. “Without a parable,” the Bible says, Jesus did not speak unto us, which is the deeper spiritual meaning of the Word of God. They will shoot you down quick. They will say, “No. We do not ever do that with the Bible. We look for the plain, historical meaning and the moral teaching, but you should never try to come away with a deeper spiritual meaning, what God calls an allegory.” Yet God just did it. If anyone went to a class in a seminary and they were told to write a paper and they wrote a paper and they went in digging for spiritual meanings, they would definitely get a failing grade. Yet this is how God is telling us to understand the Bible. “Do ye not hear the Law?”
It says in Galatians 4:22-24:
For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants;…
This is God’s own definition. This is God’s interpretation of several chapters of history in the book of Genesis and He is wondering, “Why do you not understand?” “Why do you not hear?” “Why do you not comprehend what was written in those chapters of Genesis?” This is just like when Jesus would speak and people would not understand because He was speaking in parables.
So God is definitely giving us insight into how to understand the Bible; yet still, there are all kinds of people who say, “Oh, spiritualizing gets you into trouble and you get way off,” and yet they are not hearing the Law.
If you do not hear the Law, you are in deep trouble because remember that “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” If you do not hear the Law, you do not have “ears to hear.” You do not have faith. You do not have salvation. Do you not hear what the Law was saying?
So we know, in other words, that we are on the right track when we are understanding Babylon to represent the church and Judea to represent the church and that when we read, “Let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains” or “Come out of her, my people,” that God is speaking about Babylon. This is all Scripture that we need to understand the spiritual meaning of, and we know that we are doing it properly because God has guided us in coming to the spiritual meaning of these kinds of verses and these kinds of commandments.
Well here, it is speaking of two covenants and it goes on to say in Galatians 4:24:
…the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
What happened at Mount Sinai? That is where God gave the Law. You can read about this in Exodus 19 and 20. “Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke,” and God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses and Moses gave it to the people. This is the “one” covenant “which is Hagar.” Hagar represents that covenant. This is what God’s Word says.
God has made this particular understanding easy for us because He is just coming right out and telling us that Hagar is a type and a figure of the Law as God gave the Law. This is why it says, “which gendereth to bondage,” because anyone who is trying to get right with God by keeping the Law of God in any way, whether it be circumcision for the Jews or whether it be baptism for Christians or observing the Lord’s Table or accepting Christ, because “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ” is a Law, these are all laws and anyone who is trying to get right with God through keeping the Law, it genders to bondage. This is why Hagar was an Egyptian maid because Egypt is the “house of bondage.” This is why God is using her as a figure of those who are in bondage to the Law and her son as one who is brought forth from that covenant:
…the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
Then we read in Galatians 4:25-27:
For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth…
Or corresponds:
…to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.
Who is this talking about? This verse is not easy. Who is this talking about?
Galatians 4:27:
…the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.
We were just looking at Sara who is the free woman and who gives birth to Isaac, and Hagar who is the bondwoman who gives birth to Ishmael. These are the two covenants, and they are still in view in verse 27:
…the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.
But this does not make sense because they were both married to Abraham. They both had a husband. Why is God saying the “desolate,” which has to refer to Sara because she is the one whose son came forth “by promise,” has more than she which has a husband? We know that God greatly blessed Abraham and Sara and said that their seed would be “as the stars of the sky in multitude,” so why is Sara called desolate? This is really what we have to ask. Why does God call her desolate?
Galatians 4:27 is a quote from Isaiah 54:1, where we read:
Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith JEHOVAH.
So this quote is picked up in Galatians and we wonder why God is calling Sara “desolate”?
I think that we can understand this, or at least we will understand it a little bit, when we go to Romans 4. This is referring to Abraham, and we read in Romans 4:19:
And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb:
We also read in Hebrews 11:12, another place where Abraham is being referred to:
Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable.
God is likening Abraham to being dead. He was “as good as dead,” and this is the same thing with Isaac a little further in Hebrews 11. Abraham counted that God would be able to raise him up and receive him “in a figure,” as it says in Hebrews 11:19:
Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.
This is referring to Isaac who was a type of Christ, and so this was a spiritual picture. It was “a figure.” Likewise with Abraham; he was so old that it would take a miracle for him and his wife to have a child. He was “as good as dead.” And if your husband is dead, what does that make you? It makes you a widow, desolate, someone who is desolate, someone whom God is likening to having no husband.
This is why it says in Galatians 4:27:
…for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.
“She which hath an husband” is Hagar. Hagar is married to Abraham and yet we know that she represents the Law. Who would her husband be but the Law of God? So she is still married, but the Law cannot bring forth children. You cannot produce fruit or have the elect people of God come to salvation through the keeping of the Law; it is only by grace.
So God gave the two covenants: the one of works, which Hagar represents, and the one of grace, which is entirely by God’s mercy and which Sara and Isaac typify. This is why there are only two covenants. As far as man’s relationship to the Gospel or man’s relationship to God, there cannot be any more than two. There has to only be two. Either someone is going to try to get right with God by keeping God’s Law, which is an impossibility, or someone does get right with God by God bestowing His grace on them. This is why there are not three in view in Galatians 4. There are only two covenants and they are really picturing either man’s relationship to the Gospel or man’s relationship to the Law of God.
We began a few weeks ago in Hebrews 8, from Hebrews 5 and 6, into Hebrews 8. Let us go back to Hebrews 8. When we read about the covenant in Hebrews 8, it is from a different angle. It is from a different perspective than Galatians 4. We read in Hebrews 8:1-5:
Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: we have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man. For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices: wherefore it is of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer. For if he were on earth, he should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law: who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount.
We will stop reading there for a moment. In Hebrews, from chapter 5 all the way through, there seems to be a detour. God wanted to speak about Melchisedec but He said that we were not ready, “Ye are dull of hearing.” Then He went into the discussion of Hebrews 6 that we were looking at for a few weeks, of going on “unto perfection” and leaving the first principles and growing in grace and knowledge.
Then in Hebrews 7, He goes back to Melchisedec. Melchisedec was a figure who suddenly appears in the book of Genesis. Abraham gave him tithes after destroying the kings that had raided Sodom and Gomorrah and had taken Lot captive. Then God tells us that Melchisedec had no father or mother, that he had “neither beginning of days, nor end of life.” Obviously, he was not a man. He was God making an appearance as a figure of a great High Priest, Melchisedec. In Psalm 110, God also refers to Melchisedec as a great High Priest.
So the discussion then gets into the two priesthoods. There is the earthly priesthood from the tribe of Levi and all their sacrifices and ceremonies that God laid down, and then there is the second greater priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ who is “a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.” Jesus was legally a High Priest so that He could perform the duties of the High Priest in taking upon Himself the sins of His people and offering Himself up once for their sins and paying the penalty, which is what the earthly priesthood pointed to.
So these are the two covenants. There was the covenant of the earthly types and figures and shadows that was given to Old Testament Israel, which were again and again portraying the great High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, “after the order of Melchisedec,” who would one day enter into the human race and fulfill all the shadows and figures and types that God laid out in the Old Testament. God laid out the priesthood basically in the Old Testament Scriptures and that was pointing to the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ. When Christ came, it was Melchisedec or one in the “order of Melchisedec.” It was that heavenly spiritual priesthood that the Old Testament prefigured and pointed to—Jesus fulfilled it all.
So we could say that since Christ’s priesthood is outlined in the New Testament, the Old Testament priesthood was the first covenant. This would be all of the Old Testament Scriptures. The New Testament priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ is the second covenant. This is all referring to the Bible, the complete Bible. The Old Testament and the New Testament are these two covenants.
Then it says in Hebrews 8:6:
But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.
God gave the Old Testament and it was the Gospel of grace. Grace was portrayed again and again and again. “Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.” God saved Moses by His grace. So the Old Testament was not a different kind of Gospel at all. It has always been the same Gospel. But in the pictures and in the revelation that God gave, He did not come right out and spell it all out. He had them go through ceremonies. He had them slay untold numbers of animals and shed their blood, picturing the second priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
So when Christ came, it was “a better covenant…established upon better promises.” And promises have to do with the Word of God, because God’s Word is full of promises. It is “better promises” because we get to see the great High Priest of His people, the Lord Jesus Christ, actually fulfill all the prophecies of the Old Testament that pointed to Him. It is as plain as day that Christ was the promised Messiah, that He was God in the flesh, that He had come to fulfill God’s salvation plan, and so it is “better promises.”
Then God completes the Bible. At the end of the book of Revelation, God finished His Word. He completed His Word. This is why in the last chapter of the last book He says, “If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book.” There is never to be any further divine revelation. Because of this, we know that tongues are not correct, that they are not of God. Dreams or visions that anyone thinks they are having are not true. They might be having them, but they are not coming from God. It is not the same type of revelation as when God moved all the writers of the Scriptures to record.
So we are very safe and secure in knowing that God is through communicating. He finished the Book. If we want to hear Him, we turn to the Bible and we listen. Wherever we turn, that is God speaking to us. So it definitely was a “better covenant…established upon better promises.”
In Hebrews 8:7, it goes on to say:
For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second.
What was the fault of the first covenant? We understand that it was the earthly priesthood; it was the Old Testament. Is God finding fault with His Word? No. Is God finding fault with the Gospel? Did He give a Gospel in the Old Testament of works? No; they fell into that error. They made the mistake of thinking that if they were circumcised or if they go to Jerusalem three times a year, whatever they thought—we do not really know too much about what was in their minds—but if they fell into that error, it was not God’s fault.
He says in Hebrews 8:7:
For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second.
Meaning that it was shadowy. It was veiled. It was hidden.
So then the second comes, the “better promises,” the “new covenant.” It is the “new covenant.” It is the New Testament, and it is all laid out. We see the virgin who would bring forth the son. Of course, just read Luke 2 and tie those two together; they fit perfectly. We see the promise that the Son would be the Everlasting Father. Of course, the Lord Jesus Christ is Almighty God, and on and on and on. A lot of the Old Testament references—for example, how Isaiah 53 laid out the work of the Messiah—we see very clearly in Christ. Psalm 22, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” There it is; Jesus on the Cross. We see all kinds of references. Even more than that, the Apostle Paul says, “How that by revelation He made known unto me the mystery…that the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ by the Gospel.” So “better promises” and more revelation and a lot clearer to where we can understand it.
Then it says in Hebrews 8:8:
For finding fault with them, he saith,…
And this is how it should be written. This is exactly how it should be written. There have been some translations that say, “For finding fault, He saith to them,” but that is not right. It is:
For finding fault with them,…
This is the Greek word order:
For finding fault with them, he saith…
It should not be any other way.
So what was the fault of the first covenant? It was not the Word. It was not the Scriptures themselves. It was the lack of clarity. Okay? So He gives a second covenant, “better promises,” finding fault with them, both now, with both of them, “He saith.” Again, there is no fault, there is no error, and there is no mistake of any kind with the New Testament Scriptures that God has given us. It is perfect. It is pure. It is holy. There are no mistakes in the original Greek whatsoever of any kind. This is not what God is saying. The problem is a lack of clarity, a lack of clarity on faith. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” This is not too clear and it makes it sound like I can do a little bit. I can believe, and if I do, I am saved. Also, Mark 16, but we have to read this one because it is so easily misunderstood. In the Gospel of Mark, in chapter 16, actually the whole passage, but in Mark 16:16:
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved;…
Now is that clear? Sure it is. I accept Christ. Dunk me; I am saved; I am a child of God.
There are a lot of variations of this. It is not that direct with a lot of people. They imply a lot of this, where baptism and the Lord s Table can somehow mysteriously impart grace and so forth, and so it is not clear. Faith is not clear. Repentance is not clear. Baptism is not clear. We are learning that the resurrection is not as clear as we thought. Eternal judgment is not as clear as we thought. So God has found fault with both.
You see, we need a lot of help. We need a lot of help. God gives us His Word in the Old Testament, and we need all kinds of help to understand it. He gives us the New Testament, which helps explain the Old Testament. We see a little bit better, but we still need a lot of help by the Spirit of God. God has said in the Gospel of John that He will give us His Holy Spirit who will lead us into all truth, “all truth,” the truth that He is going to reveal. He has also told us that “the Words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end,” which is implying in a big way that the New Testament church did not know a lot of things. So we are now finding out the end of the Church Age information, as well as the timeline of history, and that the world is going to end in 2011. All kinds of information is coming forth in this hour.
And again, Mark 13 says to not premeditate on what you will say “in that hour.” Let us go to Mark 13:11:
But when they shall lead you, and deliver you up, take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate: but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour,…
This is the “hour” of judgment, the Great Tribulation. It continues:
…that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost.
God definitely, without question, has planned on speaking “in that hour.” So the Holy Ghost speaketh and we are to listen for His voice from Heaven.
How does the Holy Ghost speak? “Comparing spiritual things with spiritual,” we read in 1 Corinthians 2, “the Holy Ghost teacheth.” This is the methodology that has really been drummed into us, again and again and again. Make sure that we search the Scriptures, comparing this verse with that verse. Then, finally, we have to harmonize our conclusions. Once we do this in a diligent and correct and proper way, the Holy Ghost is speaking.
This is why people are blaming an individual for bringing up these things, like the end of the Church Age. Can you imagine people blaming a man because God just so happened to use him to bring forth truths. It is really an insult to God. It is an insult to God. “They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected Me,” God said to Samuel.
When we are studying the Bible, using God’s methodology to find truth, and we are discovering truth and sharing it with people, if they want to point the finger at us, they really have to deal with God. They have to take it up with God because He is claiming full responsibility for everything that will come forth “in that hour.” If we do not like it, then really, we do not like the Word of God. We do not like the Word of God because doctrine is sanctified by the Word of God and truth.
I remember bits and pieces of verses and rarely the whole verse, but in this passage of 1 Timothy 1-5 [note: speaker is referring to 1 Timothy 4:1-5], God is referring to the change in doctrine when He made the unclean meats clean, pointing to the Gentiles coming in. He says in 1 Timothy 4:4:
For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving:
God told Peter, “Rise, Peter; kill, and eat.” But Peter said, “Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean.” This was the way it had been in the past, but God said, “What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.” If God is making a change, if God is saying that it is now time to eat those once unclean animals, then sit down and eat because this is dealing with His salvation plan and this is His Word.
It goes on to say in 1 Timothy 4:5:
For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.
So if God, for His own reasons and for His own purposes, suddenly opens up that Hell is not a place of conscious suffering forever but that it is just being totally destroyed where you will come to the end of life, where you will be no more and will cease to exist, if it is sanctified by the Word of God, then who is anybody to say, “Not so, Lord.”
This is man’s stubborn will. This is man’s pride and his arrogance. This is man’s own understanding. But if God has made this change then the attitude in the heart of each child of God, of each believer, is to say, “Whatever you say, Lord. Okay, if the Church Age is over, then I had better get out of the church. All right, whatever truth is coming forth, I just want to obey. I just want to keep your commandments.”
So the believer does not get upset. Well, he could for a little while. But at some point, he is going to have his will bent and broken towards the will of God and he is going to obey.
So this is where we are in history. We are in the Great Tribulation. Now let us go back to Hebrews 8 and we will find out what God is doing in verse 8. It says in Hebrews 8:8:
For finding fault with them,…
This is referring to the Old Testament and the New Testament, in that they were not clear enough:
…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:
I said a couple of weeks ago that this is a third covenant, but I think that this is a wrong way of looking at it. I appreciated John’s question on this because when you come down to Hebrews 8:13, it says:
In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.
Why did it not say the first and the second? Because we are understanding the “new covenant,” which I said was the third and that was wrong. You could look at it this way, but that would not be correct. We have the Old Testament. We have the New Testament. That is the Bible. That is the two covenants. But this is where this word “make” in verse 8 is important. We read in Hebrews 8:8:
…the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant…
Remember that when Mr. Camping taught this, he said that this is the word “finish.” It is the word “finish.” It is sunteleo; sun is a Greek word for “with”; teleo is a common word for “finish” or “end.” It is only translated as “make” here.
If we go to Luke 4:2, we read:
Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended,…
That is sunteleo. It is the end. It is when you finish something.
In Luke 4:13, we read:
And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season.
This is the same Greek word.
If we go to Romans 9:28, we read:
For he will finish the work,…
This word “finish” is sunteleo. Also, you have probably heard that the Greek word for “work” is better translated as “word,” which ties in with the covenant. Romans 9:28 continues:
For he will finish the word, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short word will the Lord make upon the earth.
He is going to finish the Word. He is going to complete the covenant.
How does He do this? Well He is not going to move men to record any revelation, but He is going to open up the Scriptures that were sealed. He is going to finish the covenant.
This is what Hebrews 8:8-13 is saying:
For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will finish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: 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. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,…
This is a clue phrase pointing to the Great Tribulation. It continues:
…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: 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. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.
This is God’s salvation plan. He is going to finish revealing the Word and giving us an understanding to where it will be a perfect understanding, like we were reading in Hebrews, “leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection.” Not knowing everything in the Bible, but knowing the fullness of the measure of knowledge that God has measured out for His people to understand.
This kind of perfection, whatever God wants us to know, we are going to know during these last few days of the Great Tribulation. At the same time, God is going to save a “great multitude” whose sins and iniquities He will “remember no more.” He will forgive them their sins.
This is where Genesis 17 comes in. God made a covenant with Abraham and told Abraham that he had to be circumcised as well as all of his house. Abraham was circumcised when he was 99 years old, and God makes a point, a special point, of letting us know that Ishmael was circumcised when he was 13.
Now 99, if you break it down, is 3 x 3 x 11, which is God’s purpose, doubled, x 11. This points to the first coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, after 11,000 years of history. Ishmael was 13 when he was circumcised, and circumcision has everything to do with salvation. It is a picture of salvation when our sins are cut off by the blood of Christ, by His shed blood. Ishmael is circumcised at age 13, pointing to the completion of the covenant.
Christ came nearly 2,000 years, ago after 11,000 years of history, and makes a “better covenant…upon better promises,” but it is not completed until we get to 13,000 years of history. Then Ishmael, the “wild man,” is circumcised, pointing to God’s fulfillment. This is one of the things that points to this “great multitude” whom God is intending to save, and it is interesting that Ishmael’s name means “God will hear.”
Remember when Hagar was in the wilderness, God came to her and said, “I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude” and “Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because the LORD hath heard thy affliction.” And King Solomon, at the dedication of the temple, in the feast of the seventh month, when they were opening up the temple, he kept saying, again and again and again (read 1 Kings 8), “Hear thou from heaven.” [Transcriber’s note: the actual quote is “Hear thou in heaven.”] This is repeated at least eight to twelve times in 1 Kings 8 and 1 Kings 9. And in the same context of “hear thou in heaven,” it says, “and forgive”, “and forgive”, “and forgive.” So when God said to Hagar, “call his name Ishmael,” which means “God will hear,” he will be circumcised at age 13. When God hears a prayer, there is forgiveness; there is mercy.
Lord willing, next Sunday we will go from Hebrews 8 to Genesis 16 and 17 and look a little bit more at the promises of the Word of God concerning His covenant and His salvation plan.
1st Question: Matthew 10:19-20 says:
But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.
Chris: Yes, that is the idea in that it is a very unusual thing for God to tell us because what does the Bible normally say? Study to show yourself approved, be ready to give an answer to anyone who might ask. Except here, and these are the chapters with the Great Tribulation, God says do not premeditate. And that same word is “meditate upon these things that thy profiting may appear before all.” Do not meditate, do not think before what you will say. What has happened during the church age is that no one obeyed God’s command and they premeditated about the hour of Great Tribulation and the end of the world and what happened? Was anyone right? Was anyone in history correct who could have foretold through the Scriptures and laid this all out this whole end time scenario that we are learning? No one, no one. Really it would have saved a lot of theologians even some very faithful theologians a lot of grief and a lot of time. But of course that command itself was also sealed up where they could not recognize it or understand it and God is saying that He will instruct us. As it says in Luke 21:14-15:
Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to meditate before what ye shall answer: for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist.
Again God is going to give us a mouth. He is going to put words in our mouth, not in the sense that He did with the prophets, but in the sense that He is going to reveal truths to us and we will speak them. We have to do that kind of talking; we have to do that type of teaching. Yet again and again and again, God takes full responsibility for what is said in that hour. Really it is a real dangerous thing when people start calling others heretics, who are just using the Bible alone and have a very high regard for the Bible, and really have shown humbleness where they bow before the Word of God—to start using language like they are heretics, or it is of Satan. Well, what does God say? I am not saying this is so; what does God say about blaspheming the Holy Ghost? It really is a dangerous thing because it is not you that speaks, it is not any of us. It is not me, it is not Mr. Camping, believe it or not. It is not any man, but God—God the Holy Spirit that is doing the teaching. Some people, really, they should be very afraid if they are speaking evil of these things. By the way, blaspheming the Holy Spirit—we know that the Pharisees committed that sin in their day. But in Jeremiah which is a book dealing with our time, God says, “pray not for these people.” Pray not. In 1 John 5 where God says, there is a sin that someone commits for instance you are not to pray for them because that is a sin of blaspheming the Holy Ghost. If anyone were to do it (and actually that sin is also related to the institution of the church and its leaders that are refusing to obey God’s Word during this time). The Pharisees, the rulers of Israel committed the sin of blaspheming the Holy Ghost. They refused to believe that Jesus was of God, “He hath Beelzebub” they said, and so their church was cut off. Was there ever again salvation in the synagogues, in the nation of Israel? No, and so likewise when we get to the New Testament time of the end of the church age and people say, “Oh that is heresy that is of the devil that is of Satan” and they are teaching their congregations this and they are refusing to come out even though God has left the church, there is no salvation there. So we are not to pray for the work of the ministry of the church as we are instructed in Jeremiah. We can still pray for individuals but we are not to pray for the outreach of any congregation because there is no sense in doing it. God is not going to hear that prayer. Pray not for these people—and so the sin of blaspheming the Holy Ghost can be a little expanded that way.
2nd Question: Luke 12:11-12:
And when they bring you unto the synagogues, and unto magistrates, and powers, take ye no thought how or what thing ye shall answer, or what ye shall say: for the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say.
Chris: Again and again that hour phrase ties it in. Babylon in one hour is thy judgment come. The hour is the Great Tribulation and so we can expect just from these verses that God would give us information from the Bible.
3rd Question: In Revelation 18:4 compare that to the teaching you had this morning on Galatians 4:27 in Revelation 18:7. In Revelation 18:4 I have a two fold question-in Revelation 18:1 it says, I saw another angel, and in verse 4 it says, I heard another voice, are these two separate things or is this another voice coming from this angel because in verse 1 it appears to be a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ this angel that has a light and the earth was lightened with his glory.
Chris: Well in Revelation 18:1, it really ties in with what we have been talking about:
And after these things I saw another angel…
Or messenger:
…come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.
The Apostle Paul speaks of when the mystery was revealed to him that he was enlightened, so that is the idea that is in view at the time of the Great Tribulation. God Himself will enlighten the earth. He is going to open up our understandings so what follows about Babylon and the command “come out of her” can be understood, and will be understood by God’s people. Again the prior action is in heaven, it is God’s doing. As a result we who have the Bible, the Word of God, and believers have been reading these same passages for centuries, suddenly put two and two together. “Oh, Babylon is a type of the church, and it is a similar command in Matthew 24.” We begin tying things in, come out of her my people, must mean we have to leave the church because it is under God’s judgment.
4th Question: That was very interesting to find out that Ishmael’s name was “God will hear.” Now God heard his mother’s cry when they were in the wilderness. Does that name mean that God heard the generation of Ishmael? Ishmael means or he stands as a picture of those that are not saved because he was not saved but does that mean that in the last days God will hear the cry of the people who are from his bloodline as you may say and will save them is that how we can understand his name as “God will hear”?
Chris: Lets read some of the verses in Genesis 16 Hagar runs away because Sarai dealt hardly with her (which means she afflicted her) because after she was able to conceive, then that really showed that the problem was with Sarai and not Abraham. So Hagar got a little prideful because she was able to conceive and Abraham and his wife Sarai had been trying for a while to have a baby. So Abram at this point said to Sarai go ahead deal with her as you will, and she afflicted her. We do not know how, but she chastened her and then she fled into this wilderness by a fountain of water and it says in verses 7-12:
And the angel of JEHOVAH found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur. And he said, Hagar, Sarai’s maid, whence camest thou? and whither wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai. And the angel of JEHOVAH said unto her, Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself…
That is the same word as dealt hardly:
…submit thyself under her hands. And the angel of JEHOVAH said unto her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude.
Sounds very similar to Revelation 7 the great multitude:
And the angel of JEHOVAH said unto her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael;…
God will hear:
…because JEHOVAH hath heard thy affliction. And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.
Then later Abram does name him Ishmael, so she must have gone back and said God appeared to me and He heard my affliction; this is what God said his name would be and Abram agreed and they called him Ishmael. And then in Genesis 17 with God coming to Abraham and speaking about the land of Canaan as an everlasting possession and the covenant being an everlasting covenant, then God says everyone must be circumcised and any not circumcised will be cut off. Well, then in Genesis 17:15-20:
And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her. Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear? And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee! And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him…
That is the covenant of grace:
…for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee:…
Again, God will hear, “O that Ishmael might live.” That is pointing to salvation—that is life when we become saved. So then it goes on and he is circumcised, his name means God will hear. It is a promise, God will hear, and yet the promise is not fulfilled until he is circumcised at age 13. Circumcision has everything to do with salvation. After 13,000 years of history, God will hear. Now God moved in the lives of these people Hagar and her son. Ishmael was not saved and Hagar does represent the covenant of the law and those in bondage to God’s law who do not experience salvation. But spiritually it is pointing to this day when God is going to save a great many all over the world, and we can gather that many of them will be Arabs. They will be Muslims, they will be as we read in Isaiah 60, the flocks of Kedar and the rams of Nebaioth which were the two sons of Ishmael. In that context God is gathering them in and that is what is going to happen.
5th Question: The other part of my question is the Lord had said to Abraham, the seed is with Isaac but I will also bless Ishmael and make him a father of many nations?
Chris: He also made Ishmael a father of 12 sons who are called 12 princes very similar to Jacob and his 12 sons. So we can gather from this information that God is going to finish the covenant. It is after 13,000 years when the covenant is finished. That is when Ishmael, coincidentally, was circumcised—at age 13. It says in Genesis 17:24-26:
And Abraham was ninety years old and nine, when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. And Ishmael…
God will hear:
…his son was thirteen years old, when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. In the selfsame day was Abraham circumcised, and Ishmael his son.
So God wants us to remember and He is locking it in.
6th Question: That is very interesting because Ishmael stands as a picture of a ruler of the world but yet in the last day the Lord will save people from all over the world is what it looks like to me is what all this is saying am I right?
Chris: To give the rest of us hope some people I can tell when they hear God is going to save a great many Muslims and Arabs well what about the Hindus and what about the Buddhists and what about the people from all these other lands? Well keep in mind that we also read in Revelation 7:9:
After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues,…
So it is of all nations and various kinds of people, various kinds of languages and so forth. It is everyone out there outside of the church qualifies—every individual who is not a part of the church. And it is only because God is not working in the church that anyone within the congregations cannot be saved. But anyone else anywhere in the world could potentially experience the latter rain or the second jubilee and could become saved.
7th Question: Hebrews 8:10 are we to understand when it says:
For this is the covenant that I will make…
Are we to understand this to have the same meaning as verse 8 even though it is a different Greek word for make?
Chris: Well it is interesting that God quoted here from Jeremiah 31 where God says, I will make a new covenant, that is the word make in the Hebrew or cut, I will make a new covenant, but in the Greek here in that one verse in verse 8 where it says, when I will finish a new covenant, God changed the word. He changed the word from a word that means make to a word that means finish as He was quoting it, which is His privilege to do, because it is all His Word. This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days saith the Lord, it is just basically describing salvation and it is going into a little detail about how God saves and gives someone a new heart and a new spirit. I do not think we have to understand that any further. We know He is not going to make another covenant. He is going to complete the one He is already given.