 Okay, welcome back. We stopped off at chapter 7. We completed that. Alright, from now we just go a little bit quicker because we have to also look at the cross and the blood. And so we'll just move a little quick. So now we've established the importance of the old covenant. We established the importance of the new covenant. We established the differences and how the old covenant is, what it brought out and what the new covenant is. So from now, we will just look at a few points, but we'll move a little quick so that we can get to the cross and the blood is well next. Alright, let's go to chapter 8. And we look at the old covenant and new covenant contrasted, just a few points here. So we look at what the old covenant brought forth and the new covenant. Now there are certain similarities and there are definitely there are even differences, right? Both the old covenant and the new covenant were blood covenants. We studied that, right? Old covenant Abraham and Moses, God gave a blood covenant, new covenant the Lord Jesus. Right, the old was given through Moses, the new is given through Christ Jesus. John chapter 1 verse 17 says, for the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Right, the old based on law, the new based on grace. Now I just want to point out a few things here. The law, the word law itself is sounds very legalistic. Okay, you need to follow these rules. Right, so the Lord, so God in the Old Testament, he gave Moses this 10 commandments and then followed up with the different other laws and how to live political laws, personal laws and family laws, so many other laws. And so the old covenant was based on the law. You have to follow these rules. And it was not bad, it was not that, okay, these rules were like bringing them nowhere. No, it brought some order, it brought them closer to God. But the new covenant is not based on the law, which is on instructions, but it is based on grace because of the finished work of Christ. Right, now what does it mean? Does not mean that, okay, because I'm in grace, I don't have to read the Old Testament or I don't have to understand what was written in the Old Testament, no. The way we come into God's presence, the old covenant, it is through the law. We say, okay, God, Yahweh, I fulfilled my law, I fulfilled my side of the covenant, so I'm coming in to give this sacrifice. But in the new covenant, we come in by the grace of God. Lord, I'm coming, even though I have sinned, even though I have failed you, even though I have not kept the commands that you have, even though I may have been disobedient or have fallen short, I still come, not by my own merit, but by your grace, by the cross I'm coming. So that is so powerful. We must understand this difference. In the Old Covenant, they come into the tabernacle, when they do their offering, it was like saying, I'm fulfilling the law, God. Here, I'm saying, God, I haven't fulfilled the law. I haven't, I've not been able to keep all the commandments, but yet I'm coming by your grace. And the wonderful part is, in the Old Covenant, without fulfilling the law, you know, you still could not see God, you could not have this relationship with God because of the sin. But in the new covenant, while we were yet sinners, while we are in sin also, it is a grace of God, and we still have this relationship with God. So it's so much more, you know, wonderful. The Old Covenant brought guilt, but the New Covenant brought brings righteousness. Guilt is something that is, you know, it is something that can bring death in a person's life. Remember Judas? He went, he betrayed Jesus. Probably he thought, okay, they'll just beat him up and beat up Jesus and let him go. Probably he thought about that way, okay, just for the money. I'll take the money. I'll betray him. They'll lock him up. Maybe they'll beat him for a few days. They'll leave him after a week or some after some time. But literally they know that the crowd will say crucify him. That's why he, he, he even when he went to return it, they didn't accept it because of guilt. He committed suicide. Guilt is from the enemy. Guilt can eat us up on the inside. I know of a friend of mine who, you know, his, he had very loving, he has a very loving parents. I also knew his parents also. Very, very good parents, you know, very God fearing parents, but they would always say, you know, change your ways. Go to church. You know, why, why do you have to live like this? Give your life to Christ. Walk in a good manner. Get a job. Do something with your life. But he would, you know, get upset and shout at his parents and, you know, he would really, you know, ill treat them. And all of a sudden his father had a heart attack and passed away. Just when, right? A healthy man had a heart attack. He passed away. This young boy, he was a young man, was filled with guilt all through his college life. He was guilty. He said, I did not look after my parents. I did not respect my parents. Yes, he accepted Christ later on, but that guilt was still there in him. I wish I could see my father. I wish I could, you know, make things right. The Old Testament brought guilt upon the people. Well, the New Testament brings a right standing before God. I remember having this conversation with him. I told him, the Lord Jesus died on the cross. He took your guilt. He took that shame. Now your father will, you know, when he sees you now, he will be so happy. It's all right. We all make these mistakes. But don't let guilt, because it's the work of the devil. Then we are glorifying the enemy. They're saying, okay, enemy come, you know, work in my life. No. So I brought out this whole thing. The Old Covenant brings guilt, but the New Covenant, you have a right standing before God. So you don't have to walk in guilt. You don't have to live a life of, you know, being guilty of the things that we've done. Walk in righteousness, a right standing before God. The Old was written, was a letter of the law. The New is written in our hearts. We saw that earlier on as well. Circumcision of the heart, which is changing of the heart. In the Old Covenant, they probably just had the law, you know, and they would read it. There is no change in the heart. What does John the Baptist rebuke the, you know, the Jews and the leaders? And he says, you brood of wipers. You are, you're just talking about the law, but your hearts are still like stone. And then in the New Covenant, it is, you know, that heart of stone is removed. Heart of flesh is given. The Old was based on human effort, but the New is based on the, on faith empowered by the Holy Spirit. Very important. Human effort in the Old Covenant. God, I'm going to do this. I'll do this. I'll do. It's more of doing things in the presence of God. I will do this sacrifice. I will get this done. I will, I will do the tithings. I will, you know, I'll do the peace offering, the guilt offerings. I will complete all of those. It's more of works, but in the New Covenant, it is faith empowered by the Holy Spirit. We can come. We can be a nobody in this world, but to God, but to the Lord Jesus, we are His child. So we can come into His presence. We don't have to be, you know, a great, you know, a prophet. Of course, it's good to pursue things now. We need to be wise. We need to work. We need to get, be the best in what God wants us to be. But even if we are nothing, I mean, even if we are just doing some, something very small, we're empowered by faith in Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. So we're not coming by works. It's not like saying, God, I've preached these sermons. I've, I've prepared myself. I was 30 years in ministry. I'm coming into your presence. No, you can be, we can be one day as a believer and still come into His presence in the same. It's got, the Lord is going to accept us both in the same way. The old bondage, the New Covenant brings liberty. They were in bondage. Picture this. Maybe they did a sin offering. He said, God, I'm a sinner. They did a sin or a guilt offering. And then they go back home. Where is that feeling? It is still there. Why? Because it's a bondage. It's going to be there with the old covenant. But in the New Covenant, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. There's liberty. Right? Even we sin, I love what the scriptures teach us. And it says, if you confess your sins, he's faithful and just to forgive you. Right? Liberty. And I walk in this assurance that I'm forgiven because I've confessed my sins with all my heart. I've confessed my sins. Right? The old bondage, the New brings liberty. The old was served by earthly priests. The New is a heavenly priest. We looked at that as well. The high priest, the old covenant was a great high priest. He will go in. It was, he was an earthly man. Right? He was somebody who was just representing the people of Israel. But he also had sin in him. There was sin. And now we have a high priest who is sinless and greater high priest, an eternal high priest. The old served a natural tabernacle. And now we are in the eternal tabernacle. I'm sure you're learning this, you're learning in eschatology as well. Or you'll be learning maybe next semester on the end times and how about heaven and how we are partakers of the things that are happening in heaven. And so the old required recurring sacrifices. Right? If you read the levitical offerings, there were many, many, many sacrifices, guilt offerings, sin offering, pain offering and all kinds of offerings. And it had to happen again and again and again. But the New was one offering made once for all. Nothing more was needed. Every believer can enter. The old has been removed and the new is in force. Is it important to read the old covenant? Very much. You know, some of them ask me, why, why should I read the New Old Testament when the New Testament is better? The Old Testament has such powerful principles that we can use in our lives. There's so much, there's so much that we can learn from the Old Covenant as well. Yes, the Old Covenant has been removed and used in force. But there are principles, there are teachings, there are learnings, there are things that we can apply in our lives. For example, if we all know the story of Daniel, we know the story of Joseph, Abraham, all these wonderful men of God, what does it do to us when we read it? It just brings so much of strength. It brings so much of faith in our hearts. It builds us up. So just as how the New Covenant is in force, it does not mean that we don't read the Old Covenant. Remember, the Bible, the reason the Holy Spirit has put it is because every word is powerful. Every word is God's word bringing life to us. So spend time, old, new, spend time reading the scriptures. The New Covenant is an everlasting Covenant. The Old Covenant lasted for a while. The New Covenant is an everlasting Covenant. The New Covenant is a more glorious Covenant. Let's read the 2nd Corinthians 3.9. Paul is writing to the Corinthians. He explains it so wonderfully here. 2nd Corinthians, chapter 3 and verse 9. Yes, one of us, please read that. 2nd Corinthians 3.9. For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory. Amen. Thank you, John. The ministry of condemnation, meaning the Old Covenant, already had glory. How much more glorious is the New Covenant? And Paul goes on to write. He explains to them, why? Moses is coming down that mountain, bringing the Ten Commandments. The people of Israel say, cover your face, the glory of the Lord is upon you. Now, that is the ministry of condemnation. That's the Old Covenant. The people could not see Moses because of the glory of God. How much more is glorious is the New Covenant where you and I are co-heirs with Christ. We are seated with Him. How much more? So Paul is drawing this comparison, saying, Old Covenant, they could not see Moses' face. He said, cover his face. New Covenant is greater than that. It's more glorious. Here's another important point. We need to shed off the Old Covenant mentality. Now, this is something that as a church, when I say church, the body of Christ globally, we need to come out of, right? Not sure about other nations, but in our nation of India, there is so much of this Old Covenant mentality. And when I say Old Covenant mentality, it could be smaller things that cause disruption, that cause differences among people. Remember the people of Egypt, people of Israel? They came out of Egypt. What were they doing? They were very happy. They were blowing their trumpets. They were singing praise God. I'm sure you've heard of the saying, right? It was, it took a moment to, probably a day to come for Israel to come out of Egypt, but it took almost 40 years for Egypt to come out of Israel. Meaning what? Two, three days down the line, they said, I wish I was back in Egypt itself. I would have eaten well. The food was better. At least we were working. We had houses. Now we don't have a place to stay. We are out in this desert. There's no water. Why did I even make this decision? An Old Covenant mentality. You know, there will be times in our ministry and in things that we do, there will be people who will bring accusations against us. There will be people who will say, you know, you're not doing this right. You're not doing that right. It's very important to teach our congregation importance of, you know, the, the, the understandings of the New Covenant. That's why we have a subject called hermeneutics where it takes scripture and put it into context. There are many, many, you know, speaking to this pastor, young man, he was saying, there's division in the church. Why? One group believes that we should not, you know, we should, you should remove your footwear and come in. Now these are urban people, right? These are people who are living in cities, not villages and cities. One group believes that there should be, one group believes that there should have 10, you know, singers. There should be a choir. So that became a problem. There's no choir. But there are already three singers there. No, no, there should be a choir. So all kinds of thing. Another group believe, no, you should not, you know, should not make too much profit in business. So all kinds of, you know, wrong ideologies will come up. Remember that you are part of the New Covenant. It's not just of the law, but you're coming by grace. So there has to be shedding off of certain things, right? And so it's very important to understand, especially as leaders, teach your congregation, right? Teach your congregation. I remember this few people in our church here in Mangalore, they said, we don't believe in women preaching. We don't accept it. Now I had to call them. I made them sit and I began to teach them. I began to share with them. I began to understand first, why do they say that? They said, no, the old covenant God said this, this is in the New Covenant. Okay. So they said, these are the things in the New Covenant. So I said, okay, let's let's look scripturally if it's right or wrong. And then we can make a decision. So they pulled out scripture. I pulled out scriptures. And I pulled out scriptures only from the New Testament. And I began to show them how the Lord Jesus used women to bring the gospel to people. The church in Rome was led by our husband and a wife, Aquila and Priscilla. Lydia was a leader. There were plenty of women leading in the Old Covenant, in the New Covenant. So I had to really teach them. I had to share with them. See, this is what's happening. This is what is in Christ. We are the same. We are on level ground. It's the anointing. It's a grace. It's God's gifts and callings. And so after a couple of months, they began to understand, hey, it's not that only men should be pastors. It's a call of God. God chooses. It's not our calling. And in the New Covenant, God can call anybody. Because remember, the Old Covenant, mostly women were not allowed to do their sacrifices. They were not allowed to involve in too many of these offerings and sacrifice. They were not involved. Look after the household activities, household stuff. But in the New Covenant things changed. So it's very important as leaders to teach your congregation why you believe in certain things. The mistake I made is I thought that they will understand. No, they will not understand. We have to teach them. We have to make them understand through the scriptures. And the Holy Spirit will speak to them. What did the Bible say? The truth will set them free. Right? So now they are so open to women teaching. I made that respected auntie herself to come and share and lead the prayer times. She was so happy. She said, I feel so liberated. So it's very important to get off that old mindset. No, only this is how it should be done. No. And the New Covenant, God can use anybody, any way, anyhow, for his kingdom. Is the New Covenant without law? The New Covenant is called the Perfect Law of Liberty, James 125. But he who looks into the Perfect Law of Liberty and continues it and is not a forgetful hero, but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does. So the New Covenant is with the law, but that law is a law of liberty. So why still read the Old Covenant? God has not changed his heart. His nature has not changed. The power and the glory of God remains the same. We learn from God's workings. We learn from God's dealings. This wonderful aspect. I was reading yesterday from First Chronicles. What a powerful work David did. When David became the king, so wonderful. He first thing he did is he brought the Ark of the Covenant and he put it in Jerusalem and he said, we make a tabernacle here. He said, what we'll do is we'll have worship in this place. So David chose 4,000 musicians, 288 prophetic singers. Now he chose them all and he said, we'll have 24 hours of worship. So those 4,000 musicians, 288 prophetic singers, he divided it into 24 units and each unit had a couple of musicians and singers, a group of musicians and singers. So they were assigned one after the other. This unit go over the morning. This is in the evening. This is in the night. And so David was able to have 24,7 worship in front of the tabernacle for 33 years. 24,7 worship. We learn so many things from the Old Testament. We draw inspiration from the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant, again, it points us to Jesus. The moment we read all of this and we locate, it shows that Portray is Jesus. Can you picture this? Shadrach, Meshach, Obednik go throw it into the fire and the king himself, didn't we throw three, but there's four and the fourth one looks like the Son of Man. The king recognizes such a powerful encounter. There are types and shadows in the Old Covenant. And so many, we did look at it and you look at it even in Christology, types and shadows in the Old Covenant. And then last question here is, what Old Covenant practices still remain? Romans chapter 13 was 8 to 10. Let's read that. Romans 18 verses 8, sorry, Romans 13 was 8 to 10. Romans 13, 8 to 10. Let's go ahead. Any one of us, please read. Oh, no one anything except to love one another. For he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, you shall not commit adultery. You shall not murder. You shall not steal. You shall not be a false witness. You shall not covet. And if there's anything, any other commandments are all summed up in this saying, namely, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does not harm to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. Amen. What a powerful verse Paul is writing here. He ends that whole example. He says, this was what the commandments of the Old Testament says, you shall not commit adultery. You shall not murder. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. You shall not covet. You shall love your neighbor as yourself and all of those. But he ends it up by saying, love is the fulfillment of that law. So, all that was done in all those commandments, all those laws in the Old Testament can be fulfilled just by one thing in the New Testament. That is true love. When we walk in love, we're fulfilling the entire Old Covenant. As I Paul writes very emphatically, he writes this in 1 Corinthians 13. He's making them understand the Church of Corinth. It is very good that you have these wonderful gifts of the Holy Spirit. You're speaking in tongues, prophecy, word of knowledge. Wonderful. But all of that will cease and if you do not, I mean, if you have all these gifts and if you do not operate these gifts out of love, then it's of no use. There's no merit or there's no joy in that gifts. There's no reward when we minister in these gifts without love. So, for example, if I am angry with somebody, upset and angry and just really angry with this person and I'm trying to ask the Holy Spirit to speak to me and I get this prophetic word or I get a word of knowledge, whatever it is. When I walk in that but not out of love, I'm just a sounding gong. That's what Paul writes and he says, I'm just a sound. It has no value. Why? Because when we do not operate out of love, we will fail. Every ministry that we do, every area of our ministry should be out of love. There's no point if we don't love our husbands or wives or our families and we're trying to, you know, build a church. We're trying to start a ministry. Paul, the Lord Jesus says it so wonderfully. He says, if you have a problem with somebody, go make things right with your brother, solve that, make things right, then come and offer sacrifice and it will be your pleasing sacrifice unto me. There are many times, you know, I've gone into the worship, I've gone on stage beginning to, you know, lead the worship and the Lord reminds me of people that I may have hurted or I have, you know, done things wrong and very unlovingly spoken or, you know, ministries, it's hard. There are a lot of things. There's a lot of areas of work and it can get stressful and there are times we may, you know, lose our God but the Lord Jesus reminded me of a time when, you know, many times, especially when I go into worship, I get this person, this person and I say, God, even as I worship you this morning, let that not be a hindrance but Lord, help me to walk in love, help me to walk in forgiveness, help me to, you know, worship again. It's not about the songs, it's not about, you know, is it a fast song, slow song, how good the song tune is, all of that is good but it's more of the heart, right, and when we worship out of love, that's where God is pleased, right, out of the love of God. It shouldn't be just, you know, just because I can play guitar or sing, I'm doing it, no. Everything should done, should be done out of love. We love God, we love the people of God, we love to serve God. Sad to say that nowadays we are seeing people getting into ministry for weird reasons, very weird reasons. There's this young man, I'm speaking to his father, he said, I want my son to be in the ministry. I said, why? He said, no because he can get to travel and I want him to come up with these YouTube videos which I can share with my friends and my friends will know that he comes on YouTube. I thought to myself, he wants his son to join ministry so that he can come on YouTube. You see the wrong reasons, the reason we want to join ministry, the reason we want to be in God's kingdom is because we love the Lord our God, right, and there are plenty of others, you know, some of them want to become rich, some of them want to, you know, they don't want to work. Instead of doing a 9 to 5 job Monday to Friday, let me do something else according to my own will. So these are all wrong reasons and we didn't check our heart and the Lord teaches us that when we love and we walk in love, we are fulfilling the law, right. I think we'll stop here, we've covered about three chapters, we will pick up from next week and we'll go a little quicker from next week, we'll try and do as much as we can and then we'll move into the cross. Again, the cross is also wonderful. We'll see what the cross is about, how the cross has, you know, affected the entire world and how it has, you know, blessed us as His people and what is it that the Lord Jesus achieved when He died on the cross. Of course, all of this is not new to us. We know all of this, but it's always good to reiterate, go back and remember what the Lord Jesus did for us. So we'll close here, we'll pick up from next week. Any thoughts, any questions? Anybody has any questions? Everything okay? All right, so let's close in prayer. Zelle, would you mind just closing in prayer for us, please? Okay, sure, Pastor. Thank you. Father God, we come before Your presence in the name of Jesus. We want to thank You for this wonderful session that we have, Lord. Whatever truth that we have learned through Your servant, our pastor, Paul, Lord, continue on to minister to each one of our hearts, that in You we have a better covenant, Lord God. Thank You for this wonderful truth, Lord. And Holy Spirit continue to remind us, Lord. And Lord, as we disperse from this prayer, that Holy Spirit will continue to guide us, lead us, Lord. In Jesus' mighty name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. All right, thank you, everyone. Have a great day. Have a great weekend too. God bless. Thank you, sir. You're great. I'm great too. Thank you. God bless. Thank you, Pastor. God bless. Thank you, Pastor. God bless.