God’s New Thing By Paris Reidhead*
If you turn to Exodus Chapter 19 and prepare to turn to Isaiah chapter 43. I shall read the first six verses of Exodus 19 and several verses from Isaiah 43.
“In the third month, when the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai. 2For they were departed from Rephidim, and were come to the desert of Sinai, and had pitched in the wilderness; and there Israel camped before the mount. 3And Moses went up unto God, and the LORD called unto him out of the mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel; 4Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself. 5Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: 6And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.”
Now to Isaiah chapter 43, if you will:
“But now thus saith the LORD that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. 2When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. 3For I am the LORD thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee. 4Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee: therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy life. 5Fear not: for I am with thee: I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west; 6I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth; 7Even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him. 8Bring forth the blind people that have eyes, and the deaf that have ears. 9Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the people be assembled: who among them can declare this, and shew us former things? let them bring forth their witnesses, that they may be justified: or let them hear, and say, It is truth. 10Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. 11I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no saviour. 12I have declared, and have saved, and I have shewed, when there was no strange god among you: therefore ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, that I am God. 13Yea, before the day was I am he; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand: I will work, and who shall let it? 14Thus saith the LORD, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; For your sake I have sent to Babylon, and have brought down all their nobles, and the Chaldeans, whose cry is in the ships. 15I am the LORD, your Holy One, the creator of Israel, your King. 16Thus saith the LORD, which maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters; 17Which bringeth forth the chariot and horse, the army and the power; they shall lie down together, they shall not rise: they are extinct, they are quenched as tow. 18Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. 19Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. 20The beast of the field shall honour me, the dragons and the owls: because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen. 21This people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth my praise.”
And now I turn to I Peter and the 2nd chapter and tie these three Scriptures together I begin reading with verse 9, just verses 9 and 10 of I Peter of chapter 2. I’ll notice the same words used in this 2nd chapter that were used in Exodus 19, but he is now writing to someone else. Perhaps if we go back to an earlier verse in there we will see the picture:
“Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, 2As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: 3If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious. 4To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, 5Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. 6Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. 7Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, 8And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they
were appointed. 9But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: 10Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.”
Now back in your thinking and if you wish in your Bible to Exodus the 19th chapter. There God has gathered this people Israel from Egypt to Himself at the foot of Sinai, where they will have a revelation of Himself, a revelation of His nature, a revelation of His righteousness and His justice, a revelation of His power and of His grace. For here at Sinai, God has chosen to reveal Himself to His people. Moses has gone up into the mountain and for 40 days he has been in the presence of God. There God has given to him the tables upon which He has inscribed the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments. He has given to him also the pattern of the tabernacle and the law of the offerings. For God has desired a people. A people to whom He could reveal Himself, a people to whom He could show Himself, a people with whom He could share all that He plans to do for the nations that are still residing in heathenism and in darkness.
God wanted a witness. And so He called Abraham and from Abraham Isaac and from Isaac Jacob and Jacob’s sons and these out of Egypt now in His delivering power. He’s gathered them to Himself in order that there He might have this people, formerly slaves in degrading service to Egyptian task masters, now to become fellow servants with the living God in His purpose to have a nation to that would show forth His praise. And God’s plan, well, God’s plan was to get a witness through natural generation.
It would be the sons of Abraham. First it was Isaac, the promised son. And then of the two sons of Isaac, He chose Jacob. And then the sons of Jacob and one became a member of this new thing that God was doing by the natural birth, by the will of man, by the will of flesh. And so it was that He had now a company comprising some 2 to 2.5 million persons. There had been a marvelous revelation of His grace as He had drawn His people out of Egypt, drawn them across the Red Sea, and now He has gathered them at the foot of Mt. Sinai.
You see God’s purpose was they— in understanding Him —should realize His presence in their mist. So He gave to Moses, as we’ve said, the law of the offerings and the pattern of the Tabernacle. This, as you understand, was to be the house of God’s dwelling. It was to be a picture of the life of the believer. It was to be a revelation of God’s grace an unfolding of the means whereby men could come into fellowship with God.
Oh it was to be the center of Israel’s life. For there would be in the daytime a pillar of cloud and at night the pillar of fire and from any part of the encampment of the people, they could look up and see God was still in the mist of His people. It wasn’t God intention that this people should abide by His rules, should obey His will and wish, should respect His plan, and should share in His purpose. And so He gave them every reason to cooperate with Him every incentive, every blessing, everything that it was possible for God to do to have a people enthusiastically cooperative God did.
Thus here at Sinai, He has said, if you will obey My voice and keep My covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar people, a peculiar, a peculiarly, a purchased people and ye shall be a kingdom of priests, a royal priesthood, and ye shall be a holy nation. This was what God intended Israel to be, but actually what happen, as we saw last night, in just a few generations that generation that gathered there at the foot of Sinai died in the wilderness. Their bones bleached the path alone which Israel encamped, for God could not fulfill His purpose until that generation of unbelieving men should have died. And then after He did get a company that would follow Him into the land. It was just 2 generations later that they began to serve Baal and Ashtaroth. And so the history of Israel was one of declension, one of bondage and captivity and recovery, and further declension and bondage and captivity and recovery.
Until we come to this 43rd chapter of Isaiah, which we will have to call the continental divide of the Scripture.
Some years ago as a lad, friends took me up to Northern Minnesota and I recall when a relative broke a stick in 2, walked out on a little bridge that the state park service had put in over this little stream. This spring and he dropped the stick as far as he could, one here and one there and as we watched, one began to slowly float to the north and the other to the south. We were to that place called the continental divide and all the water north of that particular spot would then finally go up to the Hudson
Bay or on further north. The water to the south would end up in the Gulf of Mexico. We were to the place where the waters would flow in opposite direction.
So Isaiah 43, in a sense, becomes the continental divide of Scripture. For here God tells this people of Israel of what He has done and then He says, “Bring forth your witnesses.” And show Me where I failed you, bring forth those that’ll testify against Me and say the fault was Mine. Bring Me if you can I’ll accept the responsibility. If I have failed you, I am willing to rectify it. If I’ve not done what I should, I’ll make it up to you, but if the fault is yours then understand that I am going to exact it of you. So here in Isaiah chapter 43 He says something like this, Israel, I am through with you. You’re not longer going to be my prime objective and purpose any longer. I’m going to do something else.
We find this set forth here explicitly in verse 18 as here through the prophet He turns to this nation and says, don’t boast of your past, don’t be so proud of your heritage, don’t rest on what Moses and the judges and the prophets said and did. It’s far too late for that, it’s far too long a time since then. “Remember not the former things and neither consider the things of old.” Don’t look backward any longer. Then He said, “Behold, I will do a new thing.” God is going to do a new thing, an entirely new thing.
What will this new thing be? First He says, “I will make a way in the wilderness. I am going to go to that place that is called wilderness, where no water is, where no life is for only death reigns.” The picture would be of the desert out west of Palestine, that desert in which hardly so much as a cactus could grow. There would be the thought that would come to the minds of the people when they heard the word, wilderness: a place of desolation, a place where no life was only the heartiest of beasts could survive, and man only if he took his provision with him. But He says, I’m going to go into this wilderness and I am going to make a way. And “I’m going to make rivers in the desert” and the beasts of the fields these are unclean these that you have been forbidden to eat, these that you look down upon, these that you call heathen, these that are vile in your eyes and condemned by you. These are the beast of the field will honor Me.
If I can’t get honor out of Jacob’s sons and out of Isaac’s family and Abram’s kin then I’ll find someone that will honor Me. “I’ll make a way in the wilderness and I’ll put a river in the desert. And the beast of the field will come and the dragons,” or those little things that would climb up our walls at our house in Africa, these little lizards “and the owls,” which Israel was forbidden to eat. All of them unclean, the kind of thing that was in the sheet that was let down from heaven that Peter saw. He said, I going to take this that you consider of no value, this that you consider beyond your use, that you’ve been told is valueless and because I give these “waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert to give drink to My people, My chosen.” These the beasts of the field, these the lizards, these the owls, they will drink of this water, they will be changed by the drinking and I will have from them a people formed for Myself. “I will have a people that will show forth my praise.” Here you have the prophetic setting forth of a new thing that the Lord is going to do.
Now, what was the reason for the failure of Israel? I’ll tell you why, because they got into the place the wrong way. They came by the will of flesh. They came by the will of man. They came by way of blood. They were born of natural generation into Israel. They saw the pillar of cloud and the pillar the fire. They were carried down to the court of the tabernacle and inside they could see the badgers’ skin covering the house of God’s dwelling. They were told about the Ten Commandant that resided in the Ark of the Covenant and it was right in the mist of village where they lived or nearby. But do you know something? The reason that Israel is a nation failed was that God was too far from the people. He was too far removed from them. There was too great a distance between them and the consequence of this was that when they turned their back on the tabernacle and the pillar of cloud and pillar of fire and went about their business they forgot about the Ten Commandants, they forgot about God’s presence, they forgot about God’s glory, they forgot about God’s purpose and they became consumed with their own interests and as we saw last night they began to serve Baal and Ashtaroth. They began to seek for things and experience and position. The consequence of this was they utterly failed God.
God said this isn’t going to do. It won’t work. I’m too far away from the people and so I am going to do a new thing. This time however, I’m not going to do it the way I did with Abraham. This time it’s not going to be by the will of flesh, it’s not going to be by the will of man, it’s not going to be by blood, but I’m going to put a river, I’m going to put a stream, I’m going to put a
well of water and the only ones that can be a part of My new thing are the ones who come in their death and drink of that living water and live because they drink.
There’ll be no other way to get in. For they’ll have no heritage to boast up, they will not be able to say look at our past, they will not be able say look we are the people, they’ll have nothing to which to boast. They’re going to have to come each one for himself and each generation for itself and drink personally of that living water for if they do not they will absolutely no part with Me and they will be but beasts of the field, dragons and owls.
And so God has now begun to picture to us something of what He is going to do and He has shown us the failure of what He did. The failure was this that being in the tabernacle a tent of dwelling in the mist of the land was to be too far away from the people. It had to be closer than this. What else did He say? We see something here from Isaiah chapter 43, but if you’ll turn now to Jeremiah 31. You’ll find that God gives a further revelation concerning this new thing that He is going to do. “Behold the days come” I read from verse 31, “Behold the days come saith the Lord, that I will make 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 that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jer. 31:31-34)
You’ll notice He said, “I’m going to make a new covenant,” we’ll find that a little later, but bare it in mind now. This new covenant begins with forgiveness of the past. It begins with the washing away of the guilt of other days. It begins by removing all of the transgressions and the guilt of those transgressions had acquired. It begins by taking one out from the sentence of death. But it doesn’t stop there. He said I’m going to make up for one of the deficiency of the past. There I inscribe the law on a table of stone and put it in the Ark of the Covenant. But when I do this new thing, when I make this new covenant, I’m going to take great care that the law is far closer to the people that are expecting to keep it, than simply on a table of stone. And so he said in that new day I’m going to write My law on their heart. I’m going to inscribe it right there within them, so that every place they go they’ll carry the law with them. And they will not need to look down at a memory card and they won’t need to look up at something that is inscribed on the wall. Because in this new thing I’m going to do, I’m going to put the law right in the center of their being. And I’m going to inscribe it so indelibly and lighten it so clearly wherever they go the law will go with them. There will be no question with this new thing. For the law is going to be right upon their hearts.
And so this implies two things, that those that have been forgiven have had a changed attitude toward the Will of God. I believe that we see in this a picture of Biblical repentance. I believe we see a people that have been in the past been guilty of breaking the law. And now they have come to the place where they have abhorred themselves for their crimes and completely change their mind about them. They’ve decided that instead of going on in their anarchist, their treachery and their rebellion that they have now come to the place that the purpose of their hearts is to please God. And therefore they are intending that everything that they shall do hence forth and hereafter the purpose of their life will be to please God.
This law is not going to be an involved list of 613 deep things to be done as it was in the Old Testimony, some 285 negative things that Israel was not to do and the rest that they were to do. In this new thing is going to be simplified it’s going to be far more extensive, because it is simplified. It’s going to be far more extensive. It’s going to reach in a much wider arch. It’s going to go higher and deeper, because the heart of the matter is going to be in the individual. And it’s no longer going to be a matter of details, but it’s going to be a matter of principle. For I’m going to write a new law upon their hearts said He.
What is this new law? I believe it is the very thing we were talking about this morning. That that person that has come to see the enormity of his sins has seen it thus, that in its essences sin is living to please oneself. That a sinner is a person that has committed his will to the policy and practice of pleasing himself at the expense of God and of others and he lives to this end. This is the reason for his being self-gratification, self-satisfaction, and anyone is a sinner regardless of what his profession he
maybe, regardless of what Scripture he knows or ceremonies he has experiences as long as the intent of his heart is to please himself at the expense of God and others. And a person repents when he comes to the place that he discovers that the Will of God is the government of his life. And the glory of God is the reason for his life. He only has repented who has changed his mind about his reason for being. It is this that the sinner is headed in this direction I am going to do what pleases me. If it pleases me to lie, I’ll lie. Steal, I’ll steal. Swear, I’ll swear. The reason for my being is my pleasure and I am god to decide how to be pleased. In other words, he is committed he is headed in the direction of self-pleasing, but then there comes a time when he see the nature of this he abhors himself and he completely repudiates this principle of life.
So it is an udder right about face from pleasing self to pleasing God. From governing oneself to accepting the government of Jesus Christ. And so it is that there is a new law that is written on his heart. It isn’t 10 items nor 613 items. But it is a new central principle, a new motivational spring board in the life.
Here it had been to please self and here it is to please God. And so there will be a touch stone, a magnetic by which everything can be tested. It will be this, is this to please God, will this glorify God, is this for His honor and is this for His praise. And so there will be a low stone, if you please, by which one can test all of the actions and all of the thoughts and opportunities, all the words and deeds that shall come. For this new people are to be a people with a passion a people whose passion is to glorify Jesus Christ.
And so it is that He says, “I’ll write My law on their hearts.” Not that He is going to have a great scroll that’ll need to be turned or an IBM picture machine that’ll need to be spun. For a person says, Well, now what was I supposed to do when this happened? Oh no, it’s not this kind of a memorizing of the minutia of life, but it is something far, far more effective than that. It is that there’s comes a new governing principle into the life which is the whole reason for my being is to glorify God in Jesus Christ and when one sees this and understands this then they realize why the “Lord Jesus said when he asked which is the first and greatest commandment, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and mind and soul and strength.” (Matt. 22:37)
The essence of love is to seek the best interested of and the greatest good of and the chief happiness of another. In this case, to love God is not to carry a slushy sentimental feeling about Him, a kind of a vaporizing of the emotions. For when you speak of love in the Scriptural context it has no relationship whatever to that that is being merchandising twenty-four hours a day on the radio. No, no it’s not this. It’s not some slushy sentimentality I say at all. Love for God is not in the realm of the emotions, but it is the realm of the volition. It is the committal of the will to pleasing of another. And he loves God whose whole being is committed to this purpose to please, to glorify, to satisfy God.
And this thus the law is written upon the heart. Ten items are written upon tables of stone, 603 other items were prescribed in the writings and all this Israel broke. So He said, “Now I’m going to put a new law in your heart.” It’s going to be this, “Thou shalt seek to please, seek to gratify, seek to satisfy, seek to glorify God with all your heart and your mind and your soul and your strength.” In other words, the focus of your entire personality and your whole being on this end. Then He said, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” (Matt. 22:39) Here again it’s not sentiment, it’s not emotion. Here again it is to seek the best interest of one’s neighbor. It is to seek, to provide, to bring, to do, to have, to say that which will be to the eternal best interest.
Now, as father, it’s my responsibility to seek the best interest of my children and this means that there are times when it’s necessary for me to do that which incurs their momentary displeasure. For instance, when a little child will look into their daddy’s face as Sarah did one day, when she was some old enough to know better, at least. And I said, “Sarah, stop pulling the leaves off mother’s plant.” She smiled at me and pulled another leaf. I said, “Sarah dear, stop doing that.” She smiled and pulled another leaf. I said, “Sarah, stop that or daddy will spank you.” She looked at me and put her little foot down on the floor and said, “I won’t!” Well, she did and I got to the seat of the problem immediately and began to broaden her understanding. And where it was appropriate and so the consequence was, she did. But you see it was necessary for me at that time to incur her momentary displeasure in order to secure her lasting best interest.
So it always is with a parent that their concern is not the pleasure at the moment, but the good for the future. Thus the Bible has said about Pastors, “Reprove, rebuke and exhort.” (II Tim. 4:2) Mind you it’s extremely costly, because most church members would far rather be damned by faint praise then to be saved by helpful criticism. And the consequence of it is, is this an extremely costly part of your ministry, but never the less for your neighbors, for your friends, for your family, everyone you meet to love your neighbor as yourself is to seek the best interest, the eternal best interest, greatest good and highest happiness of all men, including yourself and God.
Now, this is law written upon the heart. It is a simply thing isn’t it? It isn’t a great code of details that you’d have difficulty remembering. It’s a matter of principle that from now on your life is to be committed in the direction of seeking the glory of God and the good of others. Oh, we can see that I think that this is essentially what’s involved in repentance.
I would have called to your attention something that I’m not commending. I am simply using it as a contrast to show you that the church as we know it, the Evangelical church as we know it has not learned this principle. I want to say it again the church as we know it in America, the Protestant church in America has not learned this basic principle of repentance.
There is a group in America that is called Moral Re-Armament. I’m not advocating it, but I must use it as an illustration of the dynamic of this principle when it’s released with nothing more energizing than human personality.
Years ago a man by the name of Frank Buchman, a Presbyterian preacher, established something he called the Oxford Movement after John Wesley’s1 class meetings. It had a short history for some years and then it was dissipated by its own inner weakness. But it had great good in the lives of many and it touched many lives. I meet people all over the country that got started in the direction of reality because of something there, but again, I am not commending or condemning that, it’s just a matter of history that Frank Buchman started Moral Re-Armament, but then it stopped. But then he started the Oxford Movement. Then in Europe, in Switzerland particularly, he became aware the necessity for the release of moral energy in our chaotic world and so he formulated a group called Moral Re-Armament. It had some of the principles of the old Oxford Group movement particularly the four absolutes, but it did not, it wasn’t Christian. It had no recognition of Christ. But it was simply the means whereby there could be the release of moral energy in the world. In Moral Re-Armament the four absolutes are these absolute love, absolute unselfishness, absolute truth, and absolute purity. And this has its appeal particularly to the up and out, to the wealthy, to those that have some influence.
We find that there is out in Mackinac Island an annual gathering for this group and there are papers and publications that they’re disseminating especially in the east. But the essence of it is this, if a person has been living a typical materialist, selfish, sensual life, feels that there is some more, they are approached by Moral Re-Armament. The approach is this, they ask the individual to list all of the things in his life which are contrary to these four absolutes, all selfishness, all hatred, all untruths, and all impurity, list them all. Then in the presence of somebody else verbalize them, say them, say them out loud, and then having done that to make a verbal committal in the presence of others to live the life from that time on governed by these four absolutes, these four principles. And so what it is is a public committal of the hope of the individual to live a life of absolute love, absolute unselfishness, absolute truth, and absolute purity.
Now, it hasn’t gotten very far in America, because difficult to get people to be willing to make that kind of a committal, but there has been a startling success in Europe. For instance, about 12 or 14 years ago, Buchman and his followers went into the Ruhr valley of Germany in West Germany. At that time, about 70% to 80% of the labors, the union members were card carrying Communists and so he had a very difficult field. The Ruhr was in a chaotic condition and the Communists were doing their best to keep it that way, to keep Western Germany from experiencing reconstruction and the return to industrial strength. All they did, the Moral Re-Armament representatives, was to go among these men present this to them and say, look it’s to your advantage. And so they had the union leaders and the union followers, the industrialists, the employers, the owners of the factories and together they make a commitment to absolute truth, purity, love, and unselfishness.
1 John Wesley (1703-1791) Anglican cleric, Christian theologian, and founding the Methodist movement.
Two or three or four years ago, Konrad Adenauer, the chancellor of West Germany, wrote to Frank Buchman and he said, “During the years that you first went into the Ruhr, we have seen a surprising change. For instance, there has been a minimum of work stoppage due to strikes; there has been a maximum of corporation and a minimum of friction and furthermore the Communists interest has decrease tremendously. In fact, today we are happy to report that less than 8% somewhere over just 7% as against the 70% to 80% when you began that are now interested in the Communist cause.”
Some months ago in New York City a film was shown. It was a documentary film. It was called, “The Crowning Experience.” It was made by the followers of Moral Re-Armament in West Germany and in France. You’ll find, I’m sure, at Bethany something that echoes in your heart, when I tell you that people sold their insurance policies, sold their homes, and sold their cars and took their life savings in order that they might produce a picture that could be shown in America, which somehow would get to the root of selfishness, the materialism, and the sensualism of this land.
In every country of the world, in Japan where they had those riots that kept President Eisenhower from going a few years ago, Moral Re-Armament came. And so it was in South America Brazil, and Uruguay, and Venezuela the same thing was true. They would say are you commending Moral Re-Armament? The answer is no. No, I am not. You know why? Because I believe these four absolutes are nothing more than repentance codified. That’s all! But when I tell you that Moral Re-Armament has released into our society energy and power to change conditions, it is the greatest indictment of the church that it’s possible to make. Because the church has this! Plus the Bible! Plus Christ! And still fails to release energy into the society.
What does it mean? It means that our church members have never repented! They picked up a box full of doctrine! They picked up a bag full of theological ideas. But they have never, for the most part, committed themselves to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in repentance and in faith! That’s what it means. They are making Him a means instead of an end. They’re trying to use Him to protect them in their selfishness rather than to save them from it.
I tell today that America is ripe for judgement. I love this land, but as I’ve kneel before God, I can’t bring it into my heart to say, “Oh God, protect America from her enemies.” Because if I have any insight into right and wrong America is absolute ripe for judgement. No nation in history has had the benefits and the privilege and the truth and the light that ours has had. And no nation in history has so systemically and commercially gone about to corrupt the rest of the world. If any of you ever traveled, you know how disgraced you are when you go into a book store and find filth and pornography the rest of the world has refused being pervaded in gaudy covers as against the dignified, intelligent literature of the Communists. The filth that stink to high heaven. Our national export corruption and the world says, “That’s what decadent America is we are not going to go to the west. We’ll go to the east.”
Oh dear heart today if the members that name the Name of Jesus Christ that’ve professed faith in Him and the plan of salvation had ever come to the place that they had been delivered from their past sins and they had a new law written upon their hearts, the law to seek the glory of God and the good of others. Just this to which they had bought the commitment of their human personality and energy, we would not stand back in amazement at the accomplishments of Moral Re-Armament. The church of Jesus Christ would have by sheer weight of just natural force have had far more influence than it’s had and it has to begin here. I believe we have a need for a clarion call to our people to repent from selfishness and to repent from all that which is represented by these four absolutes and to commit ourselves to love and unselfishness and truth and purity. For this is the description and the codification of repentance and this is what He said He was going to do. He was going to write His law upon their hearts.
Has this happen to you? Have you come to the place where the whole purpose of your being is to glorify God? You say, well that’s sanctification. No, no. It’s just repentance. It’s just repentance. To please God is just repentance, because the opposite of pleasing God is nothing but sin, a commitment to sin. Repentance is a change from pleasing yourself to pleasing God in purpose. You need the sanctifying grace God in the power of the Holy Spirit the cleansing of the blood to implement that purpose. I am talking about the purpose now. Has the law been written on your heart? Have you come to that place? Have you come to that level of repentance where you’ve repented? Where you’ve actually come to the place you’ve committed all the
fiber and resource of your being to the end of the glory of God and the good of others? That’s repentance. That’s the law written upon the heart.
Now will you turn to Ezekiel 36 so we’ll see what God had, lest we should for any moment think this is the whole of it. Let us see here in the verse 25 of Ezekiel 36 the implications. As we cry out for our land and as we pray, we must pray, let us pray, “Oh God make America blessable, make America blessable.” Do you know how it’s going to become blessable? Through you. This is a personal matter. An individual matter. This is what God said to Israel. “I look for a man that would stand in the gap and fill up the hedge.” (Eze. 22:30) The whole responsibility is yours. It isn’t they in Washington or they in New York or they somewhere else. This is me. It’s got to be a personal matter. And so we see it’s personal here, verse 25: “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.” Now notice in verse 27: “And I will put my spirit within you, and cause, cause, cause, cause, cause you to walk in my statutes,” I will cause you to do it. He didn’t say I will command you to do it. I will cause you. I will cause you to do it. “And ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God. I will also save you from all your uncleannesses: and I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you.” (Eze. 36:25-29)
Do you see what He has said? I’m going to do a new thing. I’m going to go to the heathens. I’m going to go to these that have no part in the promises. These that you call dragons and owls, these that are the beasts of the field and I’m going to bring a river of living water. They will drink of that and the first thing that’s going to happen is that they’re going to have a new heart and the law is going to be written upon their heart. I’m going to take away the heart of stone, of rebellion. I’m going to give them a heart of flesh, pliable, moldable, directable. And I’m going to cause...I’m going to bring you to a place for the purpose of your heart and life is absolutely contrary to what it was before. Previously, you lived for self-interested and self-gain and self- honor and self-pleasing, but now because of what I’ve done, because you’ve drunk of that water, you’ve drunk at that well that river of living water has come to you. You are going to inwardly an entirely new person, new aims, new goals, new objectives, new directives, new power, new government, and new rule. Do you see?
Then He said in addition to making you want to do what’s right and then leaving you utterly frustrated because you can’t. Oh, I’m going to do something wonderful I’m going to write My law in your heart, repentance. I’m going to take away the heart of stone; you’re identification with Christ and sanctifying power of His grace. You’re not going to have to carry that weight any longer, because I'm going to make possible for you to have deliverance. I’m going to bring you to that place where you’ll be free from that weight any longer. It’s not going to tyrannize you and terrorize you and control you and in addition to that, I am going to put My Spirit with in you and “cause you to walk in my statutes.” There’s the Christian life my dear. There it is. “I’ll sprinkle clean water upon you, ye shall be clean from all your filthiness, from all your idiots will I cleanse you.”
Isn’t that marvelous? The past under the Blood, the past cleansed, the guilt of the past removed, justified, forgiven, pardoned. We don’t have to carry that weight any longer. We don’t have to drag that thing with us any further, because “He’s going sprinkle clean water” upon us. He’s going “to cleanse us of all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit.” How marvelous.
Do I speak to someone tonight that came into this house eaten up by the cancer of memory of your sin, the guilt of the past, the crimes you have committed against God and yourself and others? It’s like a weight.
You know in China, years ago when a man killed another. The sentence was that the murderer had to have the corpse of the man he killed tied on his back until the murderer went down in death with the one he’d killed. And you know many a person has carried the corpse of his sin on his back and on his heart. He thought sin was so pleasant. It seemed to be such a delightful thing and a smart thing and a clever thing at the time. And now when he wakes up in the morning, it’s there. When he goes to bed at night, it’s there. Oh, what will I do?
You remember that Shakespeare said of one that looked into their hands and saw blood spots that no soap could remove. No apothecary’s ointment could take away and in desperation the cry was, “Out, out damn spot! Out, I say!”2 There was no way to take it out. And so there is many a person that has the past just weighing upon them.
Do I speak to someone like that tonight? Oh, there’s a fountain of cleansing. There’s a fountain of living water. There’s a fountain of grace. Can’t you see God’s new thing began with the cleansing of the conscious and the cleansing of the mind and the cleansing of the spirit and the washing away in the flood of crimson tide of Calvary all the guilt of the past? Can’t you see? And that’s for you. Do I speak to someone, who’s come in with a load of guilt? Then I have good news for you, the Lord Jesus Christ went the cross of Calvary and there He was smitten. And out of His side flowed Water and Blood and it became a fountain of cleansing. He died for you; He died in your place and in your stead. He said, “I will sprinkle clean water upon you, ye shall be clean.” But not only that, He is not only going to cleanse you from the guilt of the past, but He asks you to come as the condition that cleansing completely purposing from this moment on to please Him, to glorify Him. He didn’t say you had to do that before you could be cleansed. He said, you had to purpose to do it. You had to want to do it. You had to intend to do it. It had to be the goal and aim of your life and God knows whether this is real or not.
This is what repentance is. That’s why He says, “Repent and believe.” (Mar. 1:15) Change your mind about who’s boss. Jesus Christ is going to be boss from now on. Change your mind about for whom you are living not yourself, for Him, for His glory and the good of others. But I speak to you tonight, dear heart, under a weight of guilt, you come. I speak to you church members that have lived for years under the cover of theology, but you’ve never had your heart exposed. But tonight or in days past you’ve discovered that you have an impenitent heart. Won’t you come tonight to Him? I speak to you dear Christian. You say, oh yes my purpose is to please Him. My purpose is to glorify Him. The law has been written upon my heart. Oh, but I carry the body of this debt, my traits, my tendencies, my natural disposition, and my appetites. These things haunt me, oh, is there not victory? Yes, there is victory. There is victory. For He says, “I will take away the stony heart.”
He took it with Him to the cross that’s why He has taken it away. He went there as you. He went in your place and in your stead. And if you will realize that He died for you and He died as you. That He could deliver you from the domination and the control and the bondage to your tendencies and your traits and your disposition and your nature. And if you will deal with trait, tendency, and disposition and nature as the evil thing it is. And come confessing that you need deliverance not only from what you’ve done, but what you are, and then He will take away that heart of stone. He took you with Him to the cross. And if you will see yourself crucified with Him then God will release the moral victory of Calvary into your life and delivered you from the tyranny of yourself.
That isn’t all, it’s one thing that we’ve said not to do that you shouldn’t. Oh, how can I be “caused to walk in His statutes”? Isn’t there some way that this purpose of my heart can be implemented? Isn’t there some way that power can be released in my life? I know that I ought to give light. I know I ought to illuminate the darkness. But where is that power? I know I ought to witness. I know I ought to speak, where is that release, that freedom, that power? He said, “I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes.”
So tonight the invitation to you is to come to Him and allow Him to deal with whatever needs you have. To put His Spirit within you quick and empowering, covering, baptizing, immersing, submerging, equipping, doing, anointing, until it is no longer you, but Christ living in you. This is His new thing. Don’t you see? A river of living water that would take away filthiness and put a new law in our hearts, taking away the heart of stone and put His Spirit within us. There it is. There it is. And He wants you to come and He wants you to want all that He has provided and all that He’s intended.
I said you’d hear about the new covenant, again. In I Corinthians chapter 11, Paul is writing of what he’d received and he is telling there as it relates to the Lord’s Supper something of what took place. He said in verse 25, “After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” (I Cor. 11:25) And everything that He purposed do in that new covenant He sealed, accomplished, and delivered by His Blood.
2 “Macbeth” Act 5, Scene 1; By William Shakespeare, 1606.
The Blood of Jesus Christ testifies that His new covenant is now in operation cleansing a new heart. His law written upon the heart, the heart of stone removed and His Spirit put within us. And everything that He purposed do in His new thing, His new covenant accomplished and sealed by His shed Blood and the Blood of Jesus Christ tonight is the testimony of the full provision of the new covenant. For “this is the new covenant in My Blood.” If you trusted the Blood of Christ for deliverance from past sins, you can trust the Blood of Christ for deliverance from the tyranny of self and for His sanctifying, heart cleansing, purifying grace you can trust the Blood of Christ for empowering baptizing presence of the Holy Spirit. For it’s all accomplished by His Blood, this is the Blood of the new covenant and it’s all in the new covenant.
Now why should it be? What is the reason? Do you remember what we read in Peter and we see it again. For there in that second chapter of Peter He said, “You are a chosen generation, you are a royal priesthood, you are an holy nation, you are a purchased people, that you should show forth the praises of Him who had called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” And this is why you need the new covenant. This is why you need cleansing from past sins. This is why you need deliverance from the tyranny of the flesh and your nature. This is why you need the fullness of His Spirit in order that “you can show forth the praises of Him, who had called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”
Have you entered into the full heritage of the new covenant? You can. You can. For this is His purpose for you. He will have a people which will show forth His praise. But what if you don’t? What if you refuse? The word that He said then is the same today. If God can’t succeed in getting you to be what He intends and wants you to be all He’ll do is by pass you and turn to others. But He said, “I will, I will, I will, I will do a new thing.” Now you choose whether you’re a part of it or not, but He will do it.
* Reference such as: Delivered at The Gospel Tabernacle, New York City on Sunday Evening, September 29, 1963 by Paris W. Reidhead, Pastor. ©PRBTMI 1963
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Paris Reidhead (1919 - 1992)
Was a Christian missionary, teacher, writer, and advocate of economic development in impoverished nations. A spiritual crisis during this period—as he described two decades later in what is probably his best-known recorded teaching, "Ten Shekels and a Shirt"--left Reidhead with the conviction that much of evangelicalism had adopted utilitarian and humanistic philosophies contradictory to Biblical teaching. The end of all being, he came to believe, was not the happiness of man, but the glorification of God. This theme would recur throughout his later teaching.Since Mr. Reidhead's death in 1992, Bible Teaching Ministries, Inc. continues under the leadership of his wife, Marjorie, and daughter, Virginia Teitt, a dedicated Board, and the many people who have donated time and talent after being changed by God’s Word through this message. The message of the Gospel is reaching an ever-widening audience all over the world.