Is the New Covenant for Israel or the Church? Jeremiah 31 Explained

Hello, and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. Good to have everybody back, and we'll just continue on where we left off in that last program. We just finished with the promise to Abraham that the covenants would continue, not through Ishmael, but through the promised son, Isaac. And again, for our television viewers, we realize almost every day that people are seeing the program for the very first time. And so we always have to remind people that this is just an informal Bible study. That's why the coffee cups are out here, and a lot of people don't realize, I've got to give my little wife credit where credit is due. All day Tuesday she bakes cookies, about 240 or 250 of them, just for this afternoon of taping and the breaks. I haven't heard anybody in over the 5 years we've been doing this complain about her cookies, so I'm just going to give her the credit for it. For those of you watching on television, we're just an informal Bible study. I am not a theologian, I've never claimed to be, and I do not claim to be. Just as I have to explain to the phone all the time, I'm a full time rancher, and all of this that the Lord has given me is just extra. I tell people constantly, the Lord has given me the best of both worlds. I love my ranching business, I love my herds, and I've got good cattle, I'll have to admit that, but I love to teach the Book. So He's made it possible that we can go down the road almost every night of the week, and hearts are being blessed, and now the television thing is just beyond what we could have ever dreamed. So we just give the Lord all the praise for it. Let's just keep right on where we left off, and I'll make some further announcements in the next program. Let's pick up this covenant situation that Paul makes reference to in Romans 9.4, that to the nation of Israel were given the covenants, never to the Church, but to the nation of Israel. We looked at the one in Genesis 12, and 15, and 17. Now let's pick it up as this covenant promise is repeated to Isaac, the son of promise, now in chapter 26 of Genesis. Now let's just drop in at verse 2, where the Lord appeared unto him, that is unto Isaac, and said, Go not down into Egypt, dwell in the land that I shall tell thee of, and I will be with thee, will bless thee, for unto thee, and unto thy seed, I will bless thee. Now you want to remember, Jerry and I were just talking, Jerry is the one that does the transcribing of all this, and he says once in a while his wife Lorna says, I wish Les would just finish a verse. Well I just can't teach that way, so maybe I'm unique that we stop in the middle of a verse and make a comment, and then hopefully it'll come through. But here it is, right in the middle of the verse, that Abraham and Isaac are still dwelling amongst all the Canaanite tribes that were there when Abraham came in. They haven't got the whole land, it isn't theirs, they are still dwelling in the midst of the Canaanites. But see the promise is, the day is coming when they won't have to put up with the Canaanites, God's going to give them the land. Now read on again in verse 3. I will give thee all these countries, and I will perform the oath which I swear unto Abraham, and I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries, and in thee shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. You say, well how can God say nations if He's dealing with Israel? Well are you getting the picture? Everything has to come through this one little nation, and as I said in the last program, every word of this Book came out of the nation of Israel. All the writers of Scripture, yes I think Luke, were Jews, and Paul makes that so plain in Romans chapter 3. What advantage then hath the Jew? And what was the answer? Much in every way, but especially or chiefly, that unto them were committed the oracles or the word of God. Plain as day. And so this is what makes this Book again totally unique from any other religious Book on this planet. So the Abrahamic Covenant comes in here, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because Abraham obeyed my voice, kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws. Well of course if you come all the way on over now to chapter 46, and now we're going to deal with the next one in the line, Abraham, Isaac, and now Jacob. Now we're going to deal with Jacob. Jacob of course has gone up to Haran and married his wives, and he comes back with 11 sons, and then Rachel had Benjamin, so that made the 12, and Joseph ended up down in Egypt by virtue of his ungodly brothers selling him into slavery. But again Joseph when he met with the brothers, he said, ìDonít blame yourselves, God did it.î And as we go further in chapter 9 of Romans, we're going to see how that is so true in every aspect of God's dealing. He's sovereign, He's holy, He's righteous, and we dare not question anything He does because He is sovereign. So here the sovereign God has set it up so that Joseph would end up in Egypt. He sent the seven years of good years in order to be ready for the seven years of famine. That whole famine was set up in order to bring the whole tribe of Jacob down into Egypt. Now here we are, and remember what we just read, what God said to Isaac, ìGo not down into Egypt, sojourn in this land, the land of promise, but now look what He tells Jacob.î Verse 1 of Genesis 46, ìAnd Israel, or Jacob the man, took his journey with all that he had, and he came to Beersheba, down in southern Palestine, down in the Negev, and offered sacrifices unto the God of his father Isaac. And God spake unto Israel in the visions of the night, and he said, ìJacob, Jacob ,î And Jacob said, ìHere I am, now look what He says in verse 3, ìI am God, the God of thy father, fear not to go down into Egypt.î Now that was a change wasn't it? Because here God had been telling Abraham, and he told Isaac, ìDon't go into Egypt.î And when they tried it, they got in trouble, until they hightailed it back to Canaan. Now God tells Jacob, ìDon't be afraid to go down into Egypt, for there in Egypt I will make of thee a great nation .î And that's exactly what happened. After some 215 years of the children of Israel in Egypt itself, Moses leads them out now a company of anywhere from 5-7 million people. So for that period in time, it was the biggest nation in the then known world. Not by our standards, but for those standards they were. They were the greatest number of any one nation that was in that part of the world. So there that Abrahamic covenant is repeated to Isaac, and then again to Jacob, and then of course we have the covenant of the Law, and I don't have to rehearse that with you. God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, and He comes down off the mountain and gives the Law to Israel. And now I'd like to have you stop at Deuteronomy 30, where again we have yet another covenant that God makes now, primarily of course with Moses and the nation of Israel. We call this for sake of memory, the Palestinian covenant, in other words it's a covenant that originates with God that no one will ever be able to break. Now we know tonight that the Arab world outnumbers the little nation of Israel somewhere between 40 and 50 to 1. Now when I first taught Genesis and I made some of these points, I had a dear Arab call me from one of our major cities who had watched the program, and he of course was furious that I was making the claim that the land of Palestine belongs to the Jew. Well I want the Arab folks, if they're listening to me, to understand that God loves them just as much as He loves me, or as He loves you. God's offer of salvation goes just as much to the Arab as it does to the Jew, but the covenant promises belong to the nation of Israel. Now British Israelism, far out in left field as you can get when they claim that you and I of America, and Great Britain, and some of the Scandinavian nations are now the recipients of the promises because we're the offspring of the ten lost tribes. Don't you believe it! We're offspring of lost tribes. Why our European ancestors were as lost as they could be, and they still are, and we still are, but the promises belong to the nation of Israel. Here we have yet another covenant in Deuteronomy chapter 30, verse 1. God is speaking, and no one can circumvent God's Word, and it shall come to pass when all these things are come upon thee, the blessings, and the curse which I have set before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath driven thee. Wow! What have you got? A prophecy! It hadn't happened yet, but what did God know? That the nation of Israel would be dispersed more than once. God knew the nation of Israel would become what we call the wandering Jew, without a homeland, persecuted, driven from one place to the other. But God says, and here it is in the next verse, "...and shall return unto the LORD thy God, and thou shalt obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul." Now verse 3, here's the promise, the covenant if you please. "...that then, after they have been dispersed for centuries, that then the LORD thy God will turn thy captivity, have compassion on thee, and will return, and gather thee from all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath scattered thee." Now I'm sure that many a Jew had lost sight of that promise, and a lot of them didn't. But oh, we've seen it in our own generation, that God's Word is true. He's bringing them back from every nation under heaven. I've made the statement on this program more than once, that at one time it was documented that there were Jews now living in Israel who had come from 133 different sovereign nations in the world. They have been driven everywhere, and they're coming home all the time. You'll read of another nation where there is no longer a Jew amongst their citizenry. I think Albania is one of the later ones. There are not a Jew left in Albania, that little nation across the sea from Italy. There are only a few hundred left in Syria, and a lot of the nations of the world have hardly any Jews left. The main two, of course, are Russia and America, where we still have large numbers. But for the most part, the Jews have been going back to the little land of Israel, based on God's covenant promise to that nation. Let's look at the next part of this Abrahamic covenant, and I always like to go to 2 Samuel chapter 7. We may have looked at it in recent weeks, but just in case we didn't, we've got to hit it again. 2 Samuel chapter 7, and here we have what we call the Davidic covenant. Remember all these covenants are surrounded by the Abrahamic covenant. Every covenant that God made with Israel is within the bounds of that Abrahamic covenant. Now look at this one. He's dealing with David, King David, and of course David had already committed the sin of adultery, and Bathsheba had now become his wife, and he now has Solomon and Nathan. And so now God is looking at this royal family that's going to begin with David, come on down to Solomon, and then as we pointed out I think down to the two sons of Bathsheba and David, Nathan and Solomon, and then the genealogy just goes all the way down through history until we come up to our New Testament and Joseph and Mary. Once or twice it looked as though that genealogy was going to be broken. I call it the wasp neck, and that was during the Babylonian captivity where there was only one man left in that kingly line that could still have a son. And it almost looked like he wasn't going to make it, and it all would have taken just a little snip and it would have been done. But God prevailed, and the genealogy continued of course until Christ was born. But here's where that covenant begins, II Samuel chapter 7, where he speaks to David through the prophet, and he says, II Samuel 7:"When thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers." Now look who's speaking. God says, I will. Not David, but God will. II Samuel 7:"Set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy innermost being, and I will establish his kingdom." Now it isn't so much the 40 years of rule and reign that Solomon enjoyed, but rather that royal bloodline that's going to carry all the way up or down through history, however you want to use the term, until we get to the New Testament. Now here is the covenant promise. Verse 14, God says, I will be his father, and he shall be my son, if he commit iniquity. And then of course the book of Hebrews makes it so plain that a good earthly father will do what with his children? He'll discipline. God is going to do the same thing with His Son, the nation of Israel. And so He says, I will be his father, and he shall be my son, if he commit iniquity. How will He do it? With other nations, with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men. Now what's the first word of verse 15? But no matter how far Israel falls short, no matter how unbelieving the nation of Israel can be at various times, but God says, My mercy shall not depart from them. And all you have to do is look back in history, and God has chastened them time after time after time, but they're still under His thumb. And as I have mentioned over and over to people, this little nation that sits over there in the east tonight, is still that nation of Israel which is one day yet going to be the apple of God's eye. Oh they're not tonight because they're in unbelief. And there again I have to constantly remind my class people, don't expect that government in Jerusalem to be godly, don't expect that government to be any more righteous than any other government. They are secular. They are just ordinary human beings doing what they think is right for their particular circumstance, and they are just as much under the control of the God of this world as Washington D.C. is. I think a lot of people think, well Israel if they're what the Bible says, nothing evil should come out of that Knesset in Jerusalem. Don't expect that. They are just as much under the God of this world tonight as any other nation on earth, but there is this exception. They are still God's covenant people, and right now they've been set aside. They're spiritually blinded for the most part as a nation, but God's not through with them. He is yet going to pick up where He left off, and this is exactly what He's talking about. My mercy shall not depart away from Him. I think that's enough with the covenant promises until we get to Jeremiah 31. This is pretty much the final covenant that God gives to the nation of Israel, and of course it's as yet future. It is not appropriate to put Israel under this covenant promise tonight, but they will one day enjoy it. Jeremiah 31, verse 31, "...Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant..." And it will be with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah. Now far be it from me to argue with the theologians, but I think most of you are aware that a lot of theologians claim that you and I as believers in the Age of Grace are under the New Covenant. If I read my Bible in plain English, that just can't fly, because to whom is God going to make this New Covenant? Israel! And no one but. So how can we be in a covenant that God makes with Israel? We can't be, but like I said in the last program, we're enjoying the benefits of everything that God did to fulfill this covenant with Israel. In other words, the work of the cross, the power of His resurrection, the coming of the Holy Spirit, and all these blessings that we enjoy in this Age of Grace, but it's not a covenant relationship. We are members of the Body of Christ, He is the Head, and we're in the Body, but we're not in a covenant relationship. So God is going to make a New Covenant with the house of Israel. Now verse 32. "...and not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand, to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which covenant they broke over and over again, and I brought them out of the land of Egypt, which covenant they broke, although I was a husband unto them, but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the LORD." Now here it comes, here is the New Covenant. God says, "...I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts. I will be their God, and they shall be My people." Now that isn't going to be a choice of Israel. That company of Jews aren't suddenly going to say, Well we've decided to follow God. No, no. But when Christ returns and sets up His Kingdom, that remnant of Jews that He has kept through that tribulation period, will see Him coming in the clouds of glory. They're going to believe in a moment, in fact we might as well look at it in Isaiah 66. Yes the nation is going to be born in a moment, that remnant that Paul is going to be dealing with in Romans 9, 10, and 11, but all that nation of Israel is going to be born in a day spiritually, and then this New Covenant will become a reality, and God is going to put His Word, His commandments in their heart. They're not going to have to teach their kids the Law. They're not going to have to have a priesthood to preach them the commandments. They're going to know them. Now in Isaiah 66, verse 8. Isaiah 66. Now such a thing, who hath seen such things, shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day, shall a nation be born, at once, absolutely, absolutely, at the coming of Christ. That remnant of Israel will suddenly see Him for what He is, and to the last Jew that's in that remnant, they're going to say, My Father, My God, and God's going to say, My people. Now you know it's been a long time since He said that about the nation of Israel, but He will when that day arrives. Okay, now let's go back, how much time? Three minutes, Romans chapter 9, verse 4. We can probably cover the next one in the three minutes we have left. The Giving of the Law. Now you all know the setting for that. We've already covered part of it. Israel came out of Egypt under Moses, and Moses is led to take them down to Mount Sinai, and as of course they're camped around the mountain, God calls Moses up into the mountain, which was of course on fire, and smoke, and everything else, and that's what He referred to. What other nation has ever experienced anything like that? But while Moses is up there for 40 days and 40 nights, God wrote on the tables of stone the Ten Commandments, and that is basically now what we refer to as the law, the moral law. Those Ten Commandments. But in order to bring in the religious system of the Law, God also had to add to those Ten Commandments all the rituals. In other words all the regulations, and the rules, and the commandments of dealing with each other, which we call the civil law, and then all the stipulations for the priesthood, which we call the ecclesiastical part of the Law, and then of course God gives Moses the instructions for building the tabernacle, and they accomplish all that while they're yet down there in the wilderness of Sinai. And as the tabernacle is finished, and the Shekinah glory comes down upon it, then every time the glory lifted and moved, they took down the tabernacle and they followed it. And so that was the giving of the Law, and they took it on in after the 40 years of wilderness into the Promised Land. And for years it just sat up there as a temporary little tent north of Jerusalem, until finally God gave David, and then through his son Solomon, the permission to build a permanent dwelling place for their God, and that of course was Solomon's Temple. Now that was all part and parcel of the giving of the Law to this nation of Israel. It's all part of their heritage. The Law was never given to the Gentiles. The Law was given to the nation of Israel, and no one else. But as we've seen over and over in Romans chapter 3, even though the Law was given to Israel, who else did it cover? Well the whole human race, but the Law as such was given only to the nation of Israel, and let's never lose sight of that. And so as we'll see in the next part of that verse, the service that was connected with it, the practice of the Ritual, and we'll be looking at that in our next program, that we Gentiles have no part in. That was strictly for the nation of Israel, as a total part of the giving of the Law. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. If you would like more information about the Les Feldick Ministries, a Bible study in your area, or about this program, write to Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, OK, 74552. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, OK, 74552. Through the Bible with Les Feldick is viewer supported, and your gift is appreciated. Thank you, and be sure to tune in next time, for Through the Bible with Les Feldick.