"The Lord called to Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting. He said, 'Speak to the Israelites and say to them: 'When any of you brings an offering to the Lord...he is to offer a male without defect...he is to lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him. He is to slaughter the young bull before the Lord, and then Aaron's sons the priests shall bring the blood and sprinkle it against the altar on all sides at the entrance to the tent of meeting....'

" 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" ....

Due to time and space constraints, I did not fully type out all of the scripture excerpts from the texts, so I encourage you to go over them more fully afterwards...

I believe there is som e confusion among today's believers concerning the new covenant, as opposed to the old. Many believe that the new covenant is simply a continuation of the old covenant, with the exception that it is the Sacrifice of Christ that now covers our sins, but there is in fact a monumental difference and a completeness of sacrifice that I wish to deal with here. Under the old covenant, God decreed that the blood of bulls and goats would cover Israel's sins up to the point of the sacrifice, and ONLY up to that point. Then their sins (and the need for additional forgiveness) would again accumulate, and the process would continue, over and over again, year after year after year.

They had to continually offer the sacrifices for whatever sins they would knowingly commit, as well as those sins that they had unknowingly committed. God was pointing them, throughout this process, to the Cross. They had to see the immenseness and the seriousness of their sins, and p unishment for disobedience was swift and severe. The important thing to remember is that it was the CROSS OF CHRIST that the Father was always leading them to...

When Messiah came to His earth, lives a sinless, perfect life, died, and then rose from the dead, the wonderful redemption that He purchased for Israel, AS WELL AS FOR THE ENTIRE WORLD was absolutely complete.

Whereas the blood of bulls and goats merely 'covered' sins, Christ's Precious Blood TAKES AWAY our sin- as the hymn declares, 'My sin, not in part but the whole, is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more'. That alone is glorious beyond words, but God desn't stop there! Our Savior's RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD is the very guarantee that WE will also rise from the dead unto eternal life!- Let's go way back to the garden of Eden... what did man lose on that very day of his first sin? He lost his very life! Remember, God had told Adam and Eve, 'In the day that you eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt surely DIE', and the moment they ate, they surely did. Christ's death on the cross gave us God's forgiveness of our sins once and for all, but without His resurrection, we'd be a bunch of forgiven corpses!

His resurrection from the dead is what gives us life- the life that the first man and woman lost way back in the garden. I'll repeat what I said in a previous message- God never goes only part-way with us! His Love is complete, our redemption is certain, and will be made complete the moment our bodies put on 'incorruption'. 1 Corinthians 15:53 says, "for this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality". Praise God, the new covenant is superior to the old, just as the latter rain is greater than the former rain. We are certainly living in the days of the latter rain. Child of God, look up now, as God is a bout to pour His Spirit out like never before!

En Agape,

pastor Jim Ewing