Page 41 - Overcoming Addiction

hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be My people. And they shall
not teach everyone his fellow citizen, and everyone his brother, saying,
'Know the Lord,' for all shall know Me, from the least to the greatest of
them. For I will be merciful to their iniquities, and I will remember their
sins no more." When He said, "A new covenant," He has made the first
obsolete.

Even as it is no longer necessary to sacrifice a lamb each year at Passover, for
Christ has been slain now at the end of this age, one time for all sin, so too has
Yahweh sent forth His Spirit to produce in us a life of righteousness, bringing an
end to the Law’s role in this matter. The Law was never able to make men and
women righteous. The testimony of Scripture is abundantly clear concerning this.
The reason it could not do so is that the Law had no capacity to produce spiritual
life in the hearts of men and women. Without the life of God present within us, we
cannot walk in righteousness.

Galatians 3:21
Is the Law then contrary to the promises of God? May it never be! For if a
law had been given which was able to impart life, then righteousness would
indeed have been based on law.

With these words, the apostle Paul reveals the true deficiency found in the
Law written upon tablets of stone and delivered to Moses. It was unable to impart
life. This event where Moses received the Ten Commandments inscribed by the
finger of God on tablets of stone, looked forward to a day when God would write
His law on the hearts of men.
The fact that Yahweh wrote the first Law on tablets of stone was itself a
spiritual parable. He was declaring to mankind that they were presently walking in
a condition of being hard-hearted. They were hardened against doing His will,
desiring rather to seek their own ways. What was really necessary in order for
mankind to change, to be freed from sin and begin to live a righteous life, was for
mankind to receive a new heart. Mankind needed a heart that was soft and which
would respond with eagerness to Yahweh’s desire for them.

Ezekiel 11:19-21
“Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them,
and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh,
that they may walk in My statutes and keep My judgments and do them;
and they shall be My people, and I will be their God. But as for those whose
hearts follow the desire for their detestable things and their abominations, I
will recompense their deeds on their own heads,” says Yahweh God.

Ezekiel 36:26-27
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the
heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My
Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep
My judgments and do them.