THE COMING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

Jeremiah 31: 33, 34

A Pentecost sermon by:

Rev. G.R. Procee

PUBLISHED BY THE
PUBLICATIONS COMMITTEE
OF THE
FREE REFORMED CHURCHES OF NORTH AMERICA.

(April 2008)

LITURGY:

Votum

Psalter 427: 6, 8

Law of God

Psalter 323: 1, 2

Scripture Reading: Acts 2: 1 – 11

Jeremiah 31: 31 – 34

Text: Jeremiah 31: 33, 34

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.”

Congregational Prayer

Offerings

Psalter 237

Sermon

Psalter 384

Thanksgiving Prayer.

Psalter 117: 1, 3

Doxology: Psalter 402: 6

Congregation,

When we forgive someone Many years ago God chose Israel from all the nations and established His covenant with them. At Mount Sinai all the people of Israel heard the voice of the living God speaking to them: I am the Lord thy God. God led them out of the house of bondage, out of the slavery of Egypt. He carried them as on eagle’s wings. He was entitled to their honour and worship. He desired of them a grateful heart, a heart that would follow the Lord and obey His commandments. Israel had to be a people that were dedicated to the Lord.

This is what we call the Covenant of Grace, established prior to this with Abraham and later with Moses and Israel at Sinai. This covenant was not perfect, as we read in Hebrews 8:7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. How was this covenant not perfect? It still did not have the full revelation of the Mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ. He was present also in the O.T. Covenant of Grace, but still in the shadows. Israel was unable to keep this covenant. They transgressed this covenant. All this called for the coming of Christ. It was still the era that emphasized the law. Paul writes in Gal. 3:24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ.

The people of Israel did not keep this covenant. Israel did not reach its destiny. Instead of being dedicated to the Lord, they went astray. They could not obey the Lord. Their hearts were not right. This broken covenant called for another covenant, it called for the coming of One, who could keep the Law, One, who could live in God's covenant. That is why God gave rich promises in the O.T. of another covenant.

This is what our text refers to as the New Covenant. Jeremiah may proclaim this. Jer. 31: 31-33 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.

It is like when you have an old machine and it does not work properly. It is broken. It needs maintenance and you wonder what to do? To throw it away and buy a new one, or to fix it. We easily throw things away.

God could have cast Israel away, but He did not do that. He did not choose another people. He did not say that He had suffered so much of them, that He would throw them out. No, He remained faithful to His people of Israel. He would renew that same covenant. That is why it is called a new covenant.

Christ would come. He would fulfill all the demands of the law. All that His people of the Old Testament could not do, He would do. On top of that He would lay down His life as the ransom price for sin. The Old Covenant always called for sacrifices and every day these sacrifices had to be offered. It was never enough. But now when Jesus came, He brought the one and only sufficient payment for sin, once and for all.

The Law of God remains valid, but will be placed in the light of Him who has fulfilled the law for all His people. The Lord says something very beautiful here in Jeremiah 31: He will carve His law into their hearts. No more shall God’s law be carved on tables of stone. The Holy Spirit shall come and He shall teach God’s people to obey God’s laws, and to delight in these laws. The Holy Spirit will curb their desires and their will so that they desire to walk in all of God's commandments. He will enlighten their mind and understanding. He will renew them and give them strength to do God's will. He grants them a heart that loves the Lord. No longer shall his covenant be a mere external matter but something that is applied to the heart. It becomes an internal covenant.

The intervention of a priest and sacrifices on earth are no longer needed. No longer will God’s people even need to be taught what God's will is, for they will all know God's will. They are taught inwardly by God's Spirit. It will be a matter of love and dedication to the Lord. Their sins will be forgiven. God shall be their God. The Old Covenant uncovered to sin and the New covenant grants remission of these sins and teaches God's people to obey the Lord.

This is nothing else than the promise of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit of God was to be poured out. This internal covenant was established when God sent out His Spirit on the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem. The 120 disciples, men and women were together and then the sound of a mighty rushing wind. The Spirit of God descended upon them. The ascended Christ seated at the right hand of God had poured out His Spirit. This was the fulfillment of Jeremiah 31. The words “after those days, saith the LORD” from our text refer to the days of Christ. After Christ had come, when the Messianic Kingdom would be established, after those days, the time of the New Covenant would come. Now God's Spirit would live in people’s hearts and the people of God were now ushered into a new period.

We meditate on: The Coming of the Holy Spirit. This leads to: 1. Instruction 2. Adoption 3. Knowing God. 4. Remission of sin.

1. The text says: I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts. The Lord used to instruct people by the law, through external teaching. The law used to be carved on two slabs of stone. Now it will be inwardly taught by God's Spirit. No human teacher can teach inwardly. But God's Spirit carves God's laws upon the hearts of His people. They will know the will of God, they will know God's laws. Under the Kingdom of Christ none shall be blinded with ignorance, but the Lord will give them faith and knowledge of God. The Holy Spirit instructs inwardly, powerfully and personally and changes the heart, and enters the most hidden parts of the heart. He gives a new heart, new longings and desires. This instruction does not even come so much by the ministers of the Word but by the power of God's Spirit. Isaiah 54:13 And all thy children shall be taught of the LORD; and great shall be the peace of thy children.

All this does not dismiss us from being under the regular preaching of God's Word. We are to make use of the means because God does not work in a manner that discards means of grace. The Lord makes use of preaching and books and witnesses but the real teaching is done not by men but by the Spirit of God. The Lord will write His law in their hearts. The Finger of God shall write His law in the hearts of His people just as the Finger of God carved His laws into the two tables of stone.

It is not that the Lord issued a new law. He issued the same law but now in human hearts. He teaches them to observe God's law, to love it, and to delight in it. They have God's law in their hearts. They know what God asks them to do. The Spirit enlightens them. No longer could they be at ease with an outward obedience. They knew they needed internal obedience. This law was now written upon their hearts and carved into their minds. God’s law affects their will. It effects their emotions.

This is all closely connected to regeneration. God’s Spirit regenerates the heart, renews the will and changes one’s will, so that such a one is changed and desires to do God's will. That is the most wonderful change and it is worked by God's Spirit. You see this change immediately in the 120 disciples on the Day of Pentecost. Immediately they praised God and exclaimed the mighty deeds of the Lord as never before. They knew God's will and testified freely of God's will for people. This grace of regeneration was also present in the O.T. but under the N.T. this grace of the Holy Spirit is poured out in a far more abundant manner.

This all teaches us that nobody can truly obey God's law unless he is regenerated by the Holy Spirit of God. That work of regeneration is now the precise work of the Holy Spirit in the heart. That is the significance of Pentecost. The Spirit has come.

Does He work in your heart? Do you delight in God's law? Can you say: How I love Thy law? Is His law your aim in life? Do you desire to do God's will? Are you therefore in prayer: Teach me to do Thy will o Lord? Change me and renew me, so that I would walk in thy ways? Do you have sorrow over your sins? Do you see your sins and you confess them and you are grieved over them and you need daily to be washed in the Blood of Christ? Do you meditate on God's Word? That is all how the Spirit works, the Spirit of Pentecost works in such a way that you know God's will and you delight in it. It is a spiritual sensitivity of love, and of meekness, the Lord instills into the lives of His people. That is such a blessed reality.

It is done by the Spirit of Pentecost. He still changes sinners hearts. How? Through His Word. By studying the Word of God, by calling upon His Name for that grace. The 120 disciples were united in prayer and supplication. Cornelius in Acts 10 was praying and fasting and looking for the grace of the Lord. In reality it is already the Spirit of the Lord leading people to call upon the Lord. Your heart becomes desirous and you long for Him. His love becomes real to you. Your guilt starts to weigh upon you. You yearn for the living God. That is already a fruit of regeneration. The Spirit still works this in sinner’s hearts. He still does this work.

Peter said in Acts 2: 21, It shall come to pass that whosever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Pentecost preaches grace for sinners, life for dead people. It preaches that you understand the will of God and you sense it, you know it and moreover you are led to walk in his ways.

But here it will only be a beginning, but the fulfillment of this promise shall take place in heaven. Then God's people shall be fully immersed in God's laws. They shall fully walk according to the will of God. There God's children shall be joined fully to their Head and be made fully conformable to Christ. No more sin, only His perfect will in their lives.

2. This is also confirmed by what Jeremiah further says in verse 33: and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. That shows us the coming of the Holy Spirit leads to adoption. God not only renews these people, He not only instructs them in His will and He not only carves His laws into their hearts, but He also adopts them as His people. It is because of the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit that sinners become God's children. God adopts them as His own.

The text says: I will be their God. The Lord will be their God. He will be an all-sufficient God to them. He will be a providing God to them. He will be their God in the fullest sense, that He brings everything along for them. God is the sum of all happiness. All the treasures of salvation belongs to them, because God is their God to the full extent.

He is their God because He purchased them. They are paid by the Blood of the Lamb. They are sanctified to God by the Spirit of God.

There will be an eternal bond between the Lord and His people. How low the Lord condescends towards His people. He takes upon Himself every obligation for the well being of His people. The bond between the Lord and His people is unbreakable. The Lord binds Himself to His own Word. It is His honour to keep His Word.

He is their God. He shall lead them to be in Heaven with Him forever. Heaven means nothing if God is not there. God works full salvation for His people. He gives them eternal life. They shall never be removed from Him. Hebrews 11:16 God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city. The same matter we find in Revel. 21:3 Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.

The text also says: and they shall be My people. They will be dedicated to God. That is their calling. They are to submit to Him and to seek His will. To be God's people is a calling to crucify the flesh and to seek to know God's will and to do God's will.

These words and they shall be My people, are also a promise that God shall make them such a people. He will have a willing people in the day of His power. He will change their hearts and their inclinations that they will be committed to Him. They will be loyal to Him and this is all by His grace.

I will be their God, and they shall be my people. That is something like a standard expression in the bible. It is like a marriage formula. There are people who are married, but where husband and wife each live their own lives. Their marriage is only a formal matter. But there are also marriages where they just have to look at each other and they know what the other thinks. They are truly one. They are glad with one another. That is how God is for His people and His people for Him. They rejoice in one another. We can understand that His people rejoice in the Lord for all his benefits. But we wonder how can God rejoice in his people? Yet that is the deep reality. God rejoices with joy in His people.

Although His people have not behaved as they should have done. They are defiled so many times. Yet He shall rejoice over them. That is the miracle for God's children. They see their own unworthiness and their own failings and you see how far you are from being as you should be, then still this God delights in mercies. I will be their God, and they shall be my people. You may take hope from this rich promise. The Lord is still willing to renew people’s lives. He is still willing to heal the backslidings of His children. Just one thing is necessary: That we confess our unworthiness and plead for His rich mercies revealed in Christ Jesus. Plead upon His promises that He will have a people that are dedicated to him. He can change your heart that you belong to Him. That happened at Pentecost. The 120 disciples were made dedicated to the Lord.

3. The Coming of the Holy Spirit leads also to knowing God. The text says further in verse 34 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.

In this verse we see the result of what it means that they will be instructed and adopted as children of God. The Lord will put His law in their hearts. The knowledge of the Lord is then no longer communicated by outward teaching, but all, small and great, will be enlightened by His Holy Spirit.

This does not mean that under this New covenant that the office of teacher or preacher would no longer be needed. But it means that the knowledge of the Lord will no longer be dependent on communication and instruction of man. It is God's Spirit who teaches through the preaching. God’s people have the inward instruction through God's Word. Matters become clear to them through the operation of the Holy Spirit.