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Peggy Joyce Ruth, aka "the Psalm 91 Lady" is author of a variety of Psalm 91 book titles with over six million copies in print. She taught a weekly Adult Bible Study for more than 35 years in her church in Central Texas as she shared how to make God’s Word your final authority. Known for her easy-to-understand style of communicating the Word of God and warm storytelling, Peggy Joyce's heart is that her books and teachings will bring you into the same freedom from fear she experienced and help you put God's Word to work in your life.
Okay, last week now we started our series on blood covenants and I did a little foundational study about God's plan for introducing the blood covenant that was later going to be carried out in Jesus. And so this has been a fun study. Now, in review, before the world was created, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit now knew about the fall of man and they formulated a plan of redemption now through the blood covenant. And so here was the plan. First, God gave evidence to man that there was a God, and He did that through the awesomeness of His creation.
Speaker 1:All man had to do was look and see the creation that he knew. And He also did it through the instinct that's put on the inside of man to every man knows in his heart that there is a God. And then after He proved His existence, then the plan was for the second party of the Trinity, the Son Jesus, to come to earth and fulfill that covenant in His own blood. So it was all planned out. Now, God knew everything that was going to happen during the earthly ministry.
Speaker 1:Therefore, ahead of time, He ordained now Old Testament customs and He ordained the law, the sacrifices, all the feasts, everything about the tabernacle, the types and shadows of all sorts of kinds and all the prophecies. And he did that to picture exactly who to expect and when to expect Him so that Christ would be recognized as the Messiah. He didn't want there to be any doubt anybody could look at all this and know who was coming and know when He was coming. Okay, now receiving the Messiah was not to be a blind leap of faith. It was foretold well all through the Old Testament.
Speaker 1:Now, Christ's coming was to be no surprise at all to anyone who had taken the time to study the Scriptures and come with an open heart and just be willing to say, Lord, all this has happened. See you've put it in place so perfectly. Now, God made it easy for man to know the truth. It's all right there in the Word of God. And so, we said last week that God progressively revealed just a little more and a little more of His covenant all through the Old Testament until all of these covenants now came forth and were fulfilled in Jesus.
Speaker 1:So it's been so much fun to study how it worked all down through the ages. I mean, there's no question once you start studying it. Now, we underlined in the genealogy of Luke five Old Testament men now through whom God was going to give special revelation of the covenant. And these men, the five men that He was going to use, was Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses and David. And you'll hear them called Adam was the Adamic covenant Noah was the Noahian covenant Abraham, of course, the Abrahamic covenant and then the Mosaic covenant Moses and then David with the Davidic covenant.
Speaker 1:Now, each of these five Old Testament covenants, now they were pointing toward the same redemptive death and resurrection of Christ. And they were just each one picturing just a little bit of a difference. One would point out one thing and another another, but it all fit together so perfectly. Now, we looked at the Adamic covenant last week, and it's the foundation of all the other covenants. So, in Genesis three twenty one: Then Adam and Eve sinned, and God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife Eve, and they were soaked in the blood and clothed them.
Speaker 1:Now, if it had not been for this blood covering when they closed Adam and Eve, if it had not been for that, if they had not been having their gout covered with bloody skins taken from these animals who had died in their place, then the world would have been over. It would have been over. Man would have had no hope. Now, when they first sinned, they tried to cover themselves with fig leaves, but that didn't work because it took a blood covering. Now, that's a type and shadow of our having to be covered with Christ's blood because our fig leaves, in other words, our good works, you know, all of our self efforts, it's not going to work.
Speaker 1:It's not going to happen. Now, when Adam sinned, death did not just come on to Adam. It came on to everyone who would come under his dominion. And so that included all of us. Death came on all men who had descended from Adam.
Speaker 1:Okay, now the earth also became cursed. His relationship with God was severed by the sin. Therefore, Adam lost the life source that was an absolute necessity for ruling in God's kingdom. The life source was literally cut off by sin. Now, at that point, man's rule was turned over to Satan, and Satan became then the god of this world.
Speaker 1:Now, this verse was spoken to Satan in Genesis three fifteen. God said, I'm going to put enmity or hatred between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed. Now, the seed of woman is Christ, but the seed of satan is a continual line of evil offspring. And they extended down through the ages and they were doing satan's work. Now, tells us that Jesus will eventually crush his head.
Speaker 1:And head means his ruler, his authority. Now, God was prophesying that Christ would one day crush Satan's authority, but at the present time now, the earth had been turned over to Satan and he was over all of man's rule and authority. So, in the Adamic covenant now, Adam and his descendants came under just a life protection covenant. That's all they had. It was a covenant to only spare their life if they followed after God completely.
Speaker 1:Okay, now today we're going to study the other four main covenants. We're going to get a better understanding of our new covenant. Now, with each one of these five Old Testament covenants now, God revealed just a little more of the final new covenant that was to come. And the next man underlined after Adam now was Noah. And we find that Adam's lifetime spanned over halfway to the time of the flood.
Speaker 1:So, we know that this first blood covenant could have been well understood by anyone who cared to talk to Adam about it because when you think about it, Adam lived nearly a thousand years. So, had lived a long time. Anyone who needed to have answers, I could have talked to him. Okay, now this second covenant that was made with man is called the Noahian covenant. Of course, it was made with Noah in Genesis six.
Speaker 1:And as we go through these five Old Testament covenants now, I want you to see that it's like stringing pearls as God just went down through the genealogy. And He went from one to the next, revealing more and more with each man. Okay, now anytime you see the Bible say that a covenant was made, there was always a lot more involved than met the eye. Now, the word covenant appears over two fifty times in the Old Testament, but there were only these five main Old Testament covenants, the five that we're going be covering today. And these five that we're going to be involved with, these were God's covenant that He made with man.
Speaker 1:Okay, now the second covenant is stated in Genesis six thirteen and fourteen. And God said to Noah, the end of all flesh has come before me, for the earth is filled with violence, and I am about to destroy them with the earth. So make for yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make it with rooms and cover it inside and out with pitch.' Now, God had found Noah alone to be righteous, so God gave the instructions now. And God said in Genesis six seventeen: Everything on the earth will perish, but I will establish my covenant with you, Noah, and you shall enter the ark, you and your sons and your wife and their wives.
Speaker 1:And of every living thing, every animal, every bird, you shall bring two of every kind and keep them alive, male and female. Now, God completely protected him throughout the Flood. And after the Flood, Noah now, with his sons and their wives, went out of the ark. Then Noah built an ark, took in all the clean animals, birds, and offered a burnt sacrifice. And the Lord said to himself, I will never again destroy every living thing.
Speaker 1:Okay, God then said in verse 22: While the earth remains, from now on there will be seedtime and harvest, there will be cold and heat, there will be summer and winter, there will be day and night and this will not cease as long as the earth remains. Okay, then Genesis nine:eight-thirteen. Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons and he said, I myself do establish my covenant with you and with your descendants, Noah, and with every living creature that came out of the ark, and all flesh shall never again be cut off in a flood or be destroyed. And this is the sign of the covenant. He said, I set my rainbow in the clouds and it shall be a sign of the covenant that's between me and those on the earth.
Speaker 1:Now, every covenant has a sign and there's also conditions. If Noah hadn't been obedient to build the ark, if his hadn't been obedient now to go inside and wait for seven days before the flood started, this covenant would never have been consummated, would never have been established. Now, Noah demonstrated his faith when he built that ark. He had faith in God. He had already expressed his faith.
Speaker 1:Now, it's interesting to note in Genesis chapter eight that there is no direct command from God here telling him to go and make a blood sacrifice. But the minute that the ark sought and when they got off, they immediately made a sacrifice unto God. So that lets us know that he knew to do that. He had known that since the time of Adam. So the requirement of a blood sacrifice offering now was passed down clear all the way from Adam.
Speaker 1:And the blood said that Noah's sacrifice was pleasing to God. So we know that what he did was pleasing. And it pointed toward Jesus and it pointed toward the blood sacrifice. It was a picture of that. Now later you can look up one Peter two twenty-twenty one.
Speaker 1:But this tells us that the flood was a type and shadow now of water baptism. And Peter spelled this out so clearly in his book, one Peter. Okay, now like we said earlier, every happening, every ritual, every feast, everything in the Old Testament now was picturing this covenant that was going to come in Jesus. Everything that happened, it was a picture and it was pointing toward Jesus. It was pointing toward the blood, toward water baptism, toward resurrection.
Speaker 1:It was pointing toward the Holy Spirit. And all of heaven and earth now was awaiting that covenant with Jesus and God was recording all of these pictures of it. There were pictures all through the Old Testament so that we would not miss it when Jesus came. And these covenants now were a picture of the things now to come. Now, a lot of time we get confused in the Old Testament because some of these Old Testament people, like Job, for instance, they appeared not to have much protection.
Speaker 1:But it's in understanding that under this earlier covenants now, we see that Satan had so much more authority then because all the authority that Adam and Eve had, they had given that authority over to the enemy. And so, at that point, the enemy was in charge of this world and God's people then only had a life protecting covenant. Okay, now studying covenants is going to help explain some of these Old Testament stories. As you study these covenants, these stories come alive and you see what God was doing all through the ages. And with each progressive covenant now, new promises, new insights were added.
Speaker 1:So, the first two were the Adamic covenant and the Noatian covenant. That was made with Adam and then with Noah. And then finally, it became time for the third covenant, the next very significant covenant. And they had new revelation, new additions added to it. Every time God put a new covenant in, He gave a little bit more.
Speaker 1:So this is the one that was made with Abraham. Now, many things were going to change with this one. God was really coming on the scene. And in Genesis 15, it has now been five hundred years since the Noacian flood and the Noacian covenant, nearly two thousand years since Adam. Now, in this five hundred years since Noah's time, the whole earth has fallen into idolatry.
Speaker 1:Everywhere you went, there was idolatry. Now, God is getting ready to call out a man from Ur of the Chaldeans and He's going to establish what's called the Old Covenant or the Old Testament. It's going to be the Abrahamic Covenant made with Abraham. Now, this covenant was actually, for the first time, bringing a covenant that was going to be between God and man. God was doing everything and then all of a sudden now He's bringing man into the picture to give legal grounds now for the promise of the Messiah.
Speaker 1:Now, this first covenant and the second covenant, the Adamic covenant and the Noahian covenant, they preserved life. They preserved the seed. But now, this Abrahamic covenant is going to lay the groundwork for a nation into which the Messiah could be birthed. And each covenant is going to add something new. And as you go through it, it was so perfectly planned as God just added a little more and a little more each time.
Speaker 1:Now, the plan of God was coming more into focus and it's beginning now to work out and show us some of the details. It's just another pearl that's been added now to the string of pearls. Now, in Genesis fifteen:one, God says, I am your shield. I am your exceeding great reward. Okay, now I want you to look what's happening.
Speaker 1:God is offering Himself to Abraham. He said I am your reward. All that I am, I'm going to give to you. And God said I am holy. He was offering Abraham His holiness.
Speaker 1:He was offering Abraham His righteousness. And God was saying, If you will accept the covenant and if you'll enter into this covenant with Me, then He said, I'm going to be all these things that you need. I'll be everything to you. God didn't say, I offer you a shield. No.
Speaker 1:Actually, in verse one He said, I am your shield. He said, I am your armor. And I want you to notice every time God gives us a gift, it is a part of Himself. That's what's so special about the things that God leaves to us. When you go down the list of the armor, He names the helmet of salvation.
Speaker 1:Well, He Himself is our salvation, He said. And number two, He gives us the belt of truth. And He's told us in I am the way, I am the truth, and I'm the life. And then He gives us His breastplate of righteousness. He is our righteousness.
Speaker 1:He's our health. He's our deliverer. His gifts are Himself. It's not like He hands us a gift. He hands us Himself to be all these things that we need.
Speaker 1:He's all we need. Now, that's why He says I am your shield. And God says I'm going to protect you. I'm going to fight your battles for you. And He said if anyone attacks you, they're really attacking me.
Speaker 1:God's saying put me on. I'm your shield. I'm your armor. And in Genesis 15, starting with verse two, What will you give me since I'm childless? He's seen what God's trying to do and there's going to be many people involved.
Speaker 1:He said, I'm childless. I don't have any children. And since he didn't have an heir, he asked that one born in his household could be the heir. But God said, No, that man's not going to be your heir. And then God told Abram, took him outside and said, I want you to look into the heavens and I want you to count the stars if you're even able to count them.
Speaker 1:And, of course, He looks up. He can't even begin to count the stars. And so He said to Abram, That's how many descendants you're going to have. Can't you imagine? That was a shock when Abraham heard that.
Speaker 1:Then God said, I make this covenant with you and I'm going to bless all the nations of the earth through you. So, not just the Jewish Abrahamic nation, but He said, I'm going to bless all the nations of the earth through you, Abraham, and you're going to be the father of a great multitude. Now, this Abrahamic covenant was a covenant to establish a nation into which the Messiah would come. So, each time, he adds a little bit more to the covenant. Now, I want you to take notice that he's establishing something new.
Speaker 1:That's why, as we go through, we need to really take note of what he's adding to us each time. He's given them something more that they didn't have. Now, Abraham was to be the father of this great nation and that's why God said that the nation was going to be blessed through Abraham. It was at this covenant that He started sending the blessings, because it was through Him that we were going to be given our Messiah. And so that's what He's showing to Abraham.
Speaker 1:He said, Abraham, I want you to follow with me because it's through you that the entire world will be blessed. And so, in Genesis fifteen:six, four different times now the Bible says that Abraham believed God and when he believed God it was counted as righteousness. Okay, that scripture is going tell us how we can be righteous when we believe God. All he's asking is, Lord, just believe me. Just believe me.
Speaker 1:Now, when Abraham believed God, it was counted, it said, as righteousness. The word counted is an accounting term. And this verse, it's letting us know that God added up every single thing that Abraham's faith and trust meant to him. And when it was all compiled together, God counted Abraham's faith to be equal to being considered righteous. So, that's how we're righteous, when we just believe God.
Speaker 1:That's all He's asking from us. And that's how important our faith is to God. In fact, in Hebrews eleven:six, it tells us now without faith it's impossible to please God. You need to go back and mark these Scriptures in your Bible because they tell you what God's expecting out of us. He said, It's impossible to please me without faith.
Speaker 1:And then in Genesis fifteen:seven-eleven, God reminded Abraham, I am the one who brought you and gave you this land. He said, I've given you all this land. He said, I'm the one that did it for you. Then Abram said, Well, how can I know that I can possess it? And God had him bring a heifer, a goat, a ram, a turtledove and a pigeon, and He prepared them.
Speaker 1:But the birds of prey, the minute that he started preparing them for the sacrifice, the birds of prey came down and they were trying to eat the sacrifice. They were trying to take it away. So, sometimes, this lets us know that sometimes we have to put a protection over what we're offering to God. The enemy tries to steal it. So, this is a good example right here.
Speaker 1:By God telling Abram to gather up these animals and split them in half, Abraham knew immediately that he was making blood covenant with God. He knew that's what it meant. And he knew that blood covenant was the most lasting and the most sacred of all covenants. And he knew that covenant could not be broken. So, he is wanting to please God.
Speaker 1:Abraham wanted to please God and it was counted as righteous. But how can man enter into covenant with Him? What does man have to give to God? We don't have anything to give. How can we obey a part of that?
Speaker 1:Well, that's what's important about this covenant. This was an unconditional covenant that God made with man. He was going to have to do it all because we had nothing we could give. We had absolutely nothing. And that's why God had to swear by Himself and God assumed responsibility and He assumed obligation for the covenant.
Speaker 1:And then in Genesis 15 twelve-eighteen, during a deep sleep then, in verse 12, God told Abram that the time was going to come that his descendants would go in bondage for four hundred years in a foreign land. They were going to be in Egypt. But he said, You're going to be delivered after the four hundred years and you're going to come out with great wealth. And they would come back and the land of Israel was going to be their land forever. Okay, now that's why people who seek to take Israel away from the Jews, they're really fighting against God Himself.
Speaker 1:You know, all they have to do is just read in the Bible and God said I've given this to you. I've given this to those that are going to follow after Me. And so, they're going to fight. They do fight against Israel, but they're never going to be able to win against God. Now, Israel has an eternal covenant that absolutely cannot be broken.
Speaker 1:And, again, in Genesis fifteen seventeen, anytime a covenant agreement is made, both parties have to walk between the pieces. When you read the Old Testament, they walk between the pieces together. But Abram saw someone else take his place to walk between the pieces for him because God was making that covenant with him and it was going to be God Himself who was eventually going to pay the price by giving his own life. He was going to not only make the covenant, but he was going to be the sacrifice. Now, someone was walking where Abraham should have walked, and that one, if you read in even over in Revelation, it tells you that it looked like a smoking oven and a flaming torch.
Speaker 1:Okay, now, like I say, Revelation describes it that way. Okay, now I want you to see this beautiful picture here. Abram saw Christ walking in his place. You know, don't you know when he's thinking, Oh, I can't do this. You know, how can I do all this?
Speaker 1:And then all of a sudden he stops and he sees and it's Christ walking in His place. Christ cut covenant with God the Father and stood in place for Abraham. And all of Abram's unborn seed were included in that covenant because they were in Abraham. Okay, now, later, Abraham tries to help God out by having an Ishmael because he didn't have any children. And so he decides he's going to have a child.
Speaker 1:And he has a child by a handmaiden that wasn't his wife. That was in Genesis sixteen fifteen. But that was not in God's plan. So, after that, God reinstates the covenant and He re it in Genesis 17. Now, all covenants have a sign.
Speaker 1:When you look, you're going to find that if there's a covenant made, there's a sign for that covenant. Marriage has the ring, a marriage covenant. Old Testament covenant had circumcision. Adam had the animal skins that were put around him. Noah had the rainbow and the New Testament covenant had the Holy Spirit as a sign.
Speaker 1:So, when you go through, it's fun to see the signs of the covenant. So, God gave Abram a sign. He changed his name from Abram to Abraham. A new relationship with God often requires a new name to simply show the new relationship. Now, Jacob's name, if you remember, it was changed to Israel, and we knew him from then on as Israel.
Speaker 1:Simon's name in the New Testament, his name was changed to Peter. Saul's name was changed to Paul. Every time Abraham said his name, it was a reminder: I am the father of a multitude, you know, because God had been telling him that and telling him that. But he didn't have an heir so he couldn't see how it could happen. Now, God has a lot of names, a lot of covenant names, but the name that identifies him now as the covenant maker is Yahweh.
Speaker 1:And then God told him it's an everlasting covenant and it's going to be to all the natural descendants now. So, I want you to hear me. This promise to Abraham is the foundation stone to Israel's eternal relationship to God. That's so important. And Abraham and all of his natural descendants were going to confirm their accepting of the covenant by being circumcised.
Speaker 1:That's the seal of the covenant. And this circumcision is required in Israel of all the newborn males. Now, the spiritual significance of circumcision was that they were cutting away their dependence on their own flesh. They were cutting away self dependence. They were cutting away self sufficiency and they were putting their confidence in God and in His faithfulness.
Speaker 1:And that's what the circumcision is all about. Then, one year after God renewed the covenant in Genesis 17, Isaac, the promised son, was finally born. And the Bible says it was in the fullness of time. Well, it doesn't sound like the fullness of time to us, you know. It's interesting because the Bible says that she was way past the childbearing age.
Speaker 1:So it doesn't look like the fullness of time. She's too old to have children in the natural. So our timetable now is often much different than God's. But even in her old age, she became pregnant to have this child. Now, it's important to remember when a covenant is cut, each party now completely surrenders himself in loving trust to the other party.
Speaker 1:We see that really in other countries where when they make a covenant with each other, I mean, it was a binding covenant. And each covenant partner has to be willing to give his total life, his heart, to the one with whom he makes covenant. I mean, it meant something. Now, God was going to yield everything over to Abraham and, in return, Abraham had to yield everything that was near and dear to him. He had to yield it back to God.
Speaker 1:And that's why, to make covenant complete, when God promised to give his son Jesus, then Abraham had to be willing then to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice. It had to be legal to satisfy the demands of the covenant. And so in Genesis 20 two:two, it was so much fun to just go through and see every step that God made with each covenant, with each one that was going to play a part in it, to see that it was so perfectly planned out. And God said, Take now your son, your only son, whom you love. So he's just had this son in his old age and they named him Isaac.
Speaker 1:He said, Now take Isaac and go to the land Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains off which I will tell you. Okay, now he said, Take your son, your only son. It was Y A C H I D. I don't know how to pronounce the Hebrew words, but it means you're the only one and only child of precious life. That's what that word means.
Speaker 1:And it's interesting to note now that the phrase in John three sixteen, For God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son. And in the Hebrew now, it's His Son, His Y A C H I D. And He's saying Your son, the only one and only child of precious life. Okay, now that's what Abraham gave to the covenant and now He was going to give his only son and Abraham was going to be required to do that, too. Now, the mountain to which God took Abraham in the land of Moriah was later going to be the mountain on which Jerusalem was built.
Speaker 1:Now, Jerusalem is built on a mountain referred to sometime as Mount Zion and it's known as the Country Of Moriah. So, Abraham now was to take his son to be sacrificed on the exact same mountain where God's son was later going to be sacrificed on the cross two thousand years later. Now, Genesis 20 two:seven-ten, Isaac asked his father. He said, We have the fire. Now, Isaac's just a young boy now.
Speaker 1:He probably would have been maybe around 12 years old. And he said, We have the fire and we have the wood, but where's the lamb for the burnt offering? And Isaac was definitely old enough now to understand that a sacrifice was needed. They were going to make a sacrifice. And in Genesis 20 two:eight, Abraham said God will provide.
Speaker 1:And so they walked on together. And then in verse nine: Then when they came to the place that God told them, Abraham built an altar and he arranged the wood. And then he bound his son Isaac, laid him up on the wood and then he took a knife ready to slay him. So, he knows that God is going to give his son and he knows it's his time he has to give his son. Now, it's hard for me to picture a faith like that, but Abraham was fully prepared to be obedient.
Speaker 1:And Isaac was old enough that he had to be obedient, too, because he was old enough to know all of a sudden I'm going to be the sacrifice. And in Hebrews eleven:nine it tells us that Abraham believed God was able to raise Isaac even back from the dead because he was that sure of God's faithfulness. Now, he knew his covenant was not going to fail. It was a blood covenant and Abraham understood the significance of blood covenant. And that's something we need to learn today.
Speaker 1:We're not taught that that much now, but it's all right there in the Old Testament. It's all right there showing us in the New Testament. We need to learn about the covenant that we have with God. And God made a very timely intervention and He provided a ram to be sacrificed in Isaac's place. Now, Abraham was so confident that you can tell he wasn't worried but he thought he was going to have to sacrifice his son.
Speaker 1:And don't you know that that was wonderful when he realized that God already had that taken care of. And just as Jesus had taken Abraham's place in the cutting of the covenant and Jesus had walked through the pieces in place of Abraham, now God once again, as His Jehovah Jireh, provided a sacrifice now and He provided a substitute sacrifice to take Isaac's place on the altar. And this was symbolizing now the Lamb of God who would one day take our place on the altar on the cross. So, all these things in the Old Testament, they are so perfect types and shadows. And as you study it and read it, you think, Oh, that's a top and shadow of this.
Speaker 1:And you see it, you know, in retrospect. See, this was the perfect picture that God kept giving to man so that we would not miss Christ when He came. Christ was going to come and do this for us, but God had to show it so perfectly in the Word so that we wouldn't miss Him when He came. So it's an inconvenience when people don't know the Word, when they don't know the Old Testament. It's an inconvenience because they're not seeing all these things that God was giving to us.
Speaker 1:Now, as time moves on, all that God showed Abraham did come to pass. And just three generations now after Isaac and his 12 sons and their families, after they're all in Egypt because of the famine, And just as God told Abraham back there at the cutting of the covenant, they were in Egypt for four hundred years in slavery. And at the end of that time, now, God had promised that He would bring them back to their Promised Land. And the only reason that they were there is because they had gotten in idolatry. They had moved away from God and this, at which time, He was going to progressively now reveal more and more of the covenant.
Speaker 1:Now, you remember how the bondage had gotten so great in Egypt and God had raised up Moses in the fullness of time and you remember how he was sent to Pharaoh with a message from God and God had sent him to say Let my people go. They used them as slaves and so they didn't want to turn this on. That was their slave labor. Now, this was the multitude of Israelites that God had promised to Abraham now through the promised son Isaac, and they had now grown into a nation. Okay, that was the next step.
Speaker 1:That's the word. He kept giving new words as they went along. And so, nation, all of a sudden Abraham realizes we've got a nation now. We're going to have a nation. And he had indeed become the father of a multitude.
Speaker 1:He had become the father of a nation. Now, again, we see the blood covenant put into action in Exodus 12 after the four hundred years have passed. And in Exodus twelve:five-seven, the blood sacrifice is seen here as a means now of deliverance. Now, this is all painting a picture of what's available to us under our new blood covenant and what they had in part we have in full under our new and better covenant. God was showing us a long little at the time and until it became in full under the new covenant.
Speaker 1:Now here God was giving another picture of the sinless lamb of God. He was giving a picture of Jesus now who would be killed to spare mankind just as this physical lamb was killed to spare the Israelites. That was a picture of it in the Old Testament. He was showing us what was going to happen where Jesus was going to take our place. Okay, now they ate the flesh and they put the blood on their doorposts.
Speaker 1:And then in verse 23, where the blood was, the destroyer couldn't come in. The firstborn was being killed in all of the Egyptian homes, but the Israelites were protected. They had blood on the doorposts, another type and shadow of our protection by the blood of Jesus. Okay, when we're covered by the blood and when we believe for it, the destroyer cannot come in. Now, that's a powerful promise.
Speaker 1:If we really understood and knew the significance of what it means to have a blood covenant with God, we would never doubt another promise in the Word of God because it's so perfectly planned out. We can see it perfectly all through the Old Testament. And that's why I felt so impressed to teach on our covenant. We're never going to walk in total victory until we understand our covenant. But we have to read that Old Testament.
Speaker 1:We have to see these things so we know God had it planned from the beginning. Now, we look at Abraham and we think how could he possibly have been willing to put his son on the altar and take his life? And it boggles our mind and we can't begin to comprehend it. But the reason he could do it was because he understood what it meant to have covenant with God. He understood that.
Speaker 1:He knew if he had to take Isaac's life, he knew that God would resurrect him. He knew that. Now, he was that sure because he knew the significance of a covenant. We've not been taught what we need to be taught in the New Testament about how powerful our covenant is. I think subconsciously we know it but we haven't actually studied to say Wow, a covenant is one of the most powerful things that we've been given.
Speaker 1:Now, if we were as convinced of our covenant as Abraham was of his and Moses was of his, no matter what Satan threw in our direction, it'd be like water off a duck's back if it didn't line up now with our covenant and we wouldn't give it the time of day. They didn't pay any attention to it because they knew the power of their covenant. Okay, now later you can look at Psalm 1five 37. It says that when the children of Israel left Egypt, they went out with silver and gold, their shoes didn't wear out, all their needs were met, and there was not one feeble among their tribes. God had promised them that, and it came to pass.
Speaker 1:They were in health. The old ones had their strength and their youth renewed. Okay, now that picture is our blood covenant. That's a picture of our blood covenant, what we have when we trust the Lord. Now, Jesus is our salvation and that covenant provides for health, healing, deliverance, protection and provision.
Speaker 1:Many, many Christians are not believing for those things but they're there. Those are promises to us. But God is trying to get us to the place where we read it and we say Lord, this is your Word and we start believing it. And the people that are believing it, they're seeing unbelievable things. But do you believe it as Abraham did or Moses?
Speaker 1:At 120 Moses was still climbing mountains. His eyes were not dim. His strength was not diminished. And when they left Egypt, where did God have Moses take them? The very first thing.
Speaker 1:I think this is very significant. This is important. God told Moses to take them first to Mount Sinai in the desert because He wanted to renew their covenant. You've got to realize it's been four hundred years, so the only knowledge of their covenant that they had was what they had handed down by word-of-mouth for four hundred years and so very little of it had been handed down. Therefore, it was important for God to renew that covenant that He had originally given to Abraham and to his descendants.
Speaker 1:Now, He would renew it now with those descendants personally there. As a nation then, it was going to become their covenant now and they could take it. They could put it into practice. Now, He designated Israel openly there to be His chosen people and He gave them the 10 Commandments and He gave them this Mosaic covenant, the covenant of Moses. Okay, now, in Exodus three twelve, God told the children at Mount Sinai when they were coming through the wilderness.
Speaker 1:He said: Certainly I will be with you and this shall be a sign to you. He said that it is I who has sent you and when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship me at this mountain. So he had told them that ahead of time. He said, When you get there, you're going to know. I'm telling you ahead of time.
Speaker 1:This is going be a sign and you'll worship me on this mountain. Now, this was the next sign of the Mosaic Covenant. It was worship. So new things were being added all along. So worship was the next thing He added.
Speaker 1:Worship was a part of that covenant now. And in Exodus nineteen:four-six, God said: You have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagles' wings and how I brought you out Myself. He said: You saw how I did all that for you. Now, if you will obey My voice and if you'll keep My covenant, then you're going to be My own possession among all the peoples of the earth. He said: If you'll just believe Me, and He said, You're going to be set apart over all the earth and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
Speaker 1:Okay, so this is the covenant with Moses. It was the Mosaic covenant. And now God was personally calling this nation out and they were going to be His chosen people. And here on Mount Sinai, now God is making it very clear what His objective is for His people. He's calling them out, in verse six, to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
Speaker 1:So, again, God has added something new to the covenant. He's added priests to the covenant. Now, priests are the ones who offer up praise and sacrifice to God. And holy means set apart so they were set apart. They had a specific job that God had given them to do.
Speaker 1:Now, under the covenant, they were to learn to worship God as a nation of priests. So, next, their worship now is a sign of their covenant. God was bringing them now and He said, Okay, I'm adding worship to it. He added the priests and they said, Now I'm adding worship. You will learn to worship Me.
Speaker 1:Now, this is important. Their learning to worship Him was their means now of possessing their future victories because as they worshipped God, things began to open up. So that was the key. They were to be a nation set apart to be different from other nations. Now, this thing that happened here now, like everything else, served as a type and shadow to us.
Speaker 1:And it's showing us God's plan and it's showing us His method now for the Church, where everything they learned has already been taken care of. So, we need to learn from what they learned and not have to go through it again. We're to be a holy and a set apart from the world. We're to be a kingdom made up of people, now priests, who worship the King. And we're to offer up praises and sacrifice of thanksgiving to Him.
Speaker 1:So, that's what He was showing us right here. So we came into a whole newness with the Lord. Now that was another aspect of our blood covenant that He was revealing. And we find that most of our victories are also in direct relation now to the praise and worship of the Father. As we learn to come in and praise and worship Him, we see things begin to happen.
Speaker 1:Now, one more scripture before we go to the last Old Testament covenant at which we'll be looking and that's in Exodus 20 four:five-eight. Young men now of the sons of Israel made a sacrifice to the Lord and Moses spearheaded and sprinkled the blood and then he took the book of the covenant and he read it to the people and he said all that the Lord has spoken we will do and we will be obedient. So they've seen what God's done. They've seen how He's been faithful, how He's added to their covenant over and over. So they're saying yes, we'll be obedient.
Speaker 1:And then Moses took the blood and he sprinkled it on the people and he said behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with his people. Okay, now the animal's shed blood was proof that one life had been given for another. So, on the one hand, the blood symbolized the death of somebody, but it also symbolized the life that had been spared as a result of the blood. And that's the type and shadow for us today. Because of the blood, man could once again then approach God because something had died in our place.
Speaker 1:And that's what God's done all the way through. Something died in our place always. And, of course, the biggest sacrifice when He gave His own Son to die in our place so that we can live eternally with Him. And verse eight, the blood on the people showed that they were covered and the penalty of sin had been paid for. Okay, now that was a top and shadow showing us the penalty of our sin was taken care of and that's what the Mosaic covenant was all about.
Speaker 1:Then, the last Old Testament recipient to receive new dimension of the covenant was David. Now, David, a man after God's own heart, took the throne, a covenant called the Davidic Covenant was made with him for an everlasting kingdom. So they've added a new word now. There were priests and there were all these things that had been added, but now kingdom. Each new covenant brought a little different dimension and this one showed us now an everlasting kingdom.
Speaker 1:Now, in the last song David wrote before his death, he says about his covenant. He said in two Samuel 20 three:five, God has made an everlasting covenant with me, David said. It's an everlasting covenant forever. My descendants will be on the throne. God was speaking through the prophet Nathan that the throne of David's kingdom would last forever.
Speaker 1:Okay, now, two Samuel seven sixteen, speaking to David, God said: Your house and your kingdom shall endure before me forever. Your throne shall be everlasting forever. And it will be. I mean, it's going on down and it will end with Jesus, which He will be King and Lord forever. And then in two Samuel seven fourteen, God has spoken to King Solomon, David's son, and He says I'm going to be a father to him and he will be a son to Me.
Speaker 1:When he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men, but my loving kindness will never depart from him. And that temple now, like the tabernacle in Moses' day, it was laid out in such a way that it, too, pointed to Christ. It was a type and shadow of the Savior to come. Then, David's covenant was an unconditional covenant. This is when it was prophesied.
Speaker 1:And the angel said to Mary, do not be afraid for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will bear a son and you will name him Jesus. Everything's been leading up to it. Now it's coming to the final point in Jesus. And he will be great and he will be called the son of the most high.
Speaker 1:And the Lord will give him the throne of his father David and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and his kingdom will have no end. So that's what they were looking for. They knew there was going to be a kingdom that would have no end. They kept waiting. They kept seeking God and they took every step along the way.
Speaker 1:Now, if God was faithful to bring all those Old Testament promises to pass, how much more will He faithfully keep all of the New Testament promises? There's not a New Testament promise that God will not fulfill but we have to believe it. We have to take it and grab hold of it. And I'm going to end now this last Davidic covenant with a scripture in the New Testament that recounts all of these events. You're going to want to mark this in your Bible because it's a very important scripture.
Speaker 1:It's in Acts two twenty nine-thirty six and it says: Brethren, I am going to confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and he was buried and his tomb is with us today. He's saying he was our king, but he died. He's been buried. And because he was prophet and knew that God had sworn to him an oath to seek one of his descendants on his throne, He looked ahead and he spoke of the resurrection of Christ. All of a sudden, David realized, Yes, I have someone who's going to follow me who's going to last forever.
Speaker 1:He's never going to die. So he realized then that it was Christ and that he was neither abandoned to Hades nor did Hades' flesh suffer decay. Now, this Jesus God raised up again and we're witnesses, he said. Therefore, having been exalted to the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, David has poured forth this which you both see and hear. He's talking about the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1:For it was not David who ascended into heaven, but he himself says, The Lord said to my Lord, sit on my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. Therefore, all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. So all this has been leading up until the final King who's going to be King over all who would never die and it was Jesus. And when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart because they realized they had crucified Him. And Peter said, Repent and let each one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.
Speaker 1:He says when you do that, you're going to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God shall call to Himself. So, all through, they were told the next step and the next step. They couldn't see how it was going to end up. They couldn't understand how there was going to be a King who would not die.
Speaker 1:But they weren't understanding God was leading to the time when He gave His only Son, His only begotten Son, who wouldn't die. And so, Father, right now, we thank you. We see this covenant that literally started way back there with Adam and it went through all these different patriarchs, one after other after the other. And, Father, we see how you kept adding things to the covenant. You kept adding promises.
Speaker 1:You kept adding witnesses to us. And, father, they didn't understand what the final was going to be, but, Lord, you knew exactly where you were taking us. You were taking us to the time when, literally, the son of God would die in our place but then would not stay dead. He would live. And through him, we can have an eternity forever and ever and ever with you.
Speaker 1:And, father, you told us that from the beginning and step by step, you showed it to us as they went off of the old testament. You kept adding new things to the covenant to get us excited about it. And then, father, you brought it to pass. Father, it's so important that we get into the Word and we see what the Word says because, Father, we don't know what Your promises are if we're not even studying the Word. But when we study the Word, we see that You've given promise after promise after promise.
Speaker 1:And all of those promises were leading up to the finality in our Lord and Savior. Father, we thank you for Jesus. We thank you, Lord, that you had this plan from the moment that man sinned. You said I'm going to forgive you and I'm going to give you a way out. And you did.
Speaker 1:And Father, we cannot thank you enough. We cannot thank you enough. We thank you for our covenant. We thank you, Father, that you've culminated it all in Jesus Christ. And Father we have everything.
Speaker 1:We have health and healing and deliverance and protection and provision. We have everything if we just believe you and walk with you. So Father we just want to say thank you. We want to study the Old Testament and we want to see how you did it step by step by step because, Father, that's your way. I've just sang to to us that you love us.
Speaker 1:And, Lord, we want to return that love. We want to walk in that love. We wanna walk in in the victory because, Lord, you've made it possible for us. You love us that much. And we say thank you, father, in Jesus' name.
Speaker 1:Amen.