On Israel

"I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him" (Deut. 18:18,19). These words were spoken by God to Moses, and they were about Jesus. Moses was a likeness of Jesus in many ways, but today I want to focus on the fact that Moses was the mediator of the old covenant, like Jesus is the mediator of the new covenant. The covenant that was mediated by Moses was the law of God that he received from the Lord at Mt. Sinai, after he delivered the children of Israel from Egypt (Exd. 24:7,8). That same law was taught by Moses, as well as by the priests and Levites to Israel for forty years while they wandered in the wilderness. At the end of that forty years of wandering in the wilderness, God informed Moses that he would be taken away and not be allowed to enter the promised land with the children of Israel (Deut. 4:21,22). Now the last act of Moses before he went up to Mt. Nebo to die was the preaching of a sermon to Israel, and that sermon was the book of Deuteronomy. The word Deuteronomy itself means "a repetition of the law," or "a summary of the law." So the point here is that the last act of the mediator of the old covenant before he was to be taken away was to preach a summary of the law that God had given to Israel, which law itself was the very constitution of the old covenant; meaning that it was what the old covenant consisted of. The reason for this being Moses' final act is evident. He was the mediator of the covenant, the law WAS the covenant, and Israel's prosperity and continuance in the promised land was wholly dependent on their knowledge of and obedience to that law. That was what mattered, and so that was what was needed; a repetition of the law that had been taught to them for forty years. And after this final act Moses was taken away and Israel went into the promised land by means of that same law and covenant. Sadly, Israel corrupted themselves not long after going into the promised land, because they forsook the law that God had given them (Judg. 2:7-13). They added idolatry and their own traditions into their worship and diluted and polluted themselves in the process. After several hundred years of sending prophet after prophet to bring them back to the law, God cast his people out of the land that he had given them because they rejected the prophets and refused to return unto the law that he had imparted to them, and the covenant that he had made with them (Jer. 16:9-13).

In like manner, the gospel began to be preached by John the Baptist, whose job it was to introduce Jesus the mediator of the new covenant to his people of Israel. John's message was very simplistic, to the point, and all about Jesus and what he was coming for: "And [John] preached, saying, There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost" (Mk. 1:7,8). When Jesus began to preach, he naturally carried the same message: "Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel" (Mk. 1:14,15). You may ask, how is that the same message that John preached?" This is how: The kingdom of God is defined by the scriptures one time, and it says, "For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy IN THE HOLY GHOST" (Rom. 14:17). So again, the gospel message was all about Jesus making the way for men to receive, or be baptized BY HIM with the holy Ghost. When he sent his apostles to preach, the gospel message remained exactly the same (Mat. 10:7). So after preaching this message for over three years, Jesus died, rose again, and was ready to go back to heaven. But like Moses, he had one final act before going away; and like Moses that final act was a repetition or summary of the gospel that he had been preaching for more than three years: "And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me. For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence... And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight" (Acts 1:4,5,9). There it is, the original and ONLY gospel message, unchanged from the very beginning of the gospel. And after Jesus was taken away he sent back the PROMISE of the holy Ghost which took his followers into the promised land of the kingdom of God. And the only blessed state of God's people is wholly dependent on abiding in that gospel message, which sadly has not been done. The truth is, the baptism of the holy Ghost imparts the same exact law that was received at Mt. Sinai by Moses, into the hearts and minds of true believers under the new covenant (Heb. 10:15,16; II Cor. 3:3). And therefore the holy Ghost IS the new covenant which is mediated by "Jesus the mediator OF the new covenant" (Heb. 12:24). One need only observe all of the religious traditions and doctrines of men that have been 'added' to this glorious truth, to see why God's people have come to such a place of division, confusion, affliction, weakness and derision. Like Israel, the body of Christ has diluted and polluted itself with all of its 'additions' to the worship and service of God. We must forsake everything that is apart from the power, the love, the holiness, and the truth of the Spirit of God, if we expect to come back to the homeland of the pure joy and peace of the kingdom of God. Amen.