Why Covenant Keepers?
We showed in Part 1 how He made a covenant with Himself and traced how He kept it at the cross. A covenant is between two people who are expected to keep the covenant. Our part is the focus. In a Gentile (non-Jewish) society, Businessmen speak of contracts and agreements.
However, the word covenant was used in ancient times and was more than just a binding agreement signed on a parchment or sealed with a wax impression from a signet ring. To the ancient cultures, a covenant was sealed in blood. To the Hebrews, the biblical covenants are also connected to blood covenants. Gen. 6:18; Gen. 17:1-2
During Abram’s journey, God progressively appeared to Abram, revealing His divine purpose for Abram and his future children.
(Gen. 12:2).
(Gen. 17:4).
(Gen. 17:6)
(Gen. 18:18).
(Gen. 22:18).
The Hebrew word for covenant is birit, and it is used 280 times in the Old Testament. According to W.E. Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Dictionary of Old and New Testament words, the word b’rit is frequently the object of the verb karath, “ to divide or to cut in two.” (Gen. 15:9-10) Gen. 15:17-18.
BLOOD STAINED TREES
According to author H. Clay Trumbull in his book The Blood Covenant, in various parts of the East a tree was used in the rite of forging a blood covenant. Among some nations, planting a tree was a symbol of covenant.
In ancient Timor, a young fig tree bore a portion of the blood of the covenant. In both instances, the tree was a visible and continually growing sign of the covenant. How visible is your covenant with Christ.
ABRAHAM’S COVENANT SEALED BY BLOOD
Abraham was eighty-six when Ishmael was born (Gen. 16:16). At age ninety-nine, God revealed that circumcision was the sign of the covenant (Gen. 17:10-12).
Consider this. If at age seventy-five Abraham had known that circumcision was the sign of the covenant, then eleven years later the son of the bondwoman would have been “marked” for God’s covenant promise, thus disrupting God’s plan of a Hebrew nation through Abraham and Sarah.
THE COVENANT – SEALED BY A MEAL
(Exo. 24:6-8).
(Gen. 14).
(Gen. 27:6-41).
(Gen. 31:49-54).
Afterward, Moses, Aaron, his sons, and seventy chief elders were invited to the top of the mountain where the “…saw the God of Israel. And there was under His feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone… So they saw God, and they ate and drank” (Exod. 24:3-11).
This meal sealed the deal between God and Israel. In Christian tradition, the Lord’s Supper, or Communion Meal, represents the blood and body of the Messiah and forms a spiritual bond between Christ and the believer, sealing our faith and confidence in the new covenant. Therefore Communion is the covenant meal.
THE TERMS OF OUR COVENANT
We showed last week that He is the King – a fact He didn’t hide to all He came in contact with. With Adam (Gen. 2:16-17) I demand obedience and I can determine the fate of your life! That’s a king (see 2Sam.12:1-5). With Israel He used the word serve Abad (Ex. 4:3,7,16; Deut. 8, 1, 20)
The first thing in the terms of the covenant, He said, ‘I brought you to myself, you are the least of the people in terms of numbers’.
(Exodus 24:3-8)
We will obey ALL you say’ the people told God. That formed the basis for Theocracy: God is our Sovereign ruler. The sanctuary became God’s habitation amongst them; the priests were ordained to minister before them. The services within the habitation of God provided an object lesson of the plan of salvation and pre-figured the coming of the Messiah.
They are representatives before God. The Lord gave the nation prophets, as you will find from Amos 3:7 Prophets were His spokespersons. Prophets were the ones that God gave to direct the affairs of the nation, as they heard from Him. (Amos 3:7). Matt. 27:24-25; John. 19:14-15;
GOD’S PURPOSE FOR ISRAEL (US)
Deut. 4:5-6
2Sam. 7:22 (Living Bible)
Deut. 17:14-20
Deut. 28:1
Certain blessings were going to come upon them but I want you to see the order God set them; the order that the Church has gotten it wrong. Spiritual prosperity is what makes way for material prosperity. It is not the other way round. Spiritual prosperity is what triggers material prosperity.
And that’s why Jesus was speaking, hammering it unto us everywhere, “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all other things will come. But people are looking at it the other way, seeking all other things – at the expense of seeking first the kingdom of God.
Exodus 15:26 and Deut 7:13.
HOLINESS OF CHARACTER –
Gen. 17:1-2. (Lev. 19:2; Matt. 5:4; Hab. 1:13).
1.Blessings of health.
Exodus 15:26, Deut 7:13
2.No sickness.
3.Superior Intellect Deut. 4:5-6
Nazi who has syphilis must not allow himself to be cured by Salvarsan, because it is the discovery of the Jew, Ehrlich. He must not even take steps to find out whether he has syphilis, because the Wasserman reaction used for the purpose is the discovery of a Jew—
A Nazi who has heart disease must not use digitalis, which use in heart disease was developed by a Jew, Ludwig Trabo Typhus must not be treated, for he will have to benefit by discoveries of Jews, Widall and Weill.
If he has diabetes, he must not use insulin, because of the research work of a Jew, Minkowsky. If he has a headache, he must shun ovarmidon and antipyrin, discovered by Spiro and Eiloge. Anti-Semites who have convulsions must put up with them for it was a Jew, Oscar Leibreach, who thought of using chloral hydrate…
The Jews comprise less than 1 percent of the world’s population, yet 176 Nobel Prize winners have been Jews, Twenty-five percent of the organizations receiving the Nobel Peace Prize were founded or cofounded by Jews. While 67 percent of American high school graduates attend college, 80 percent of Jewish high school graduates go to college, with 23 percent attending Ivy League schools.
Studies have shown the Ashkenazi Jews (those from Northern Europe) are highly intelligent with a verbal IQ of 117-125 and score 12-15 points higher than Gentile groups, thought to be accredited to two thousand years of emphasizing verbal scholarship.
The number-one-rated economically productive small group is Israeli-Americans, who are “seven times more likely to have the highest concentration of higher incomes and lowest rate of dependency upon public assistance.
Some identify these phenomena as a genius factor, and others as some mysterious success factor deep in the Jewish culture that fosters such accomplishments.
Mark Twain, in an 1899 quote from Harper’s Magazine,
“ It is clear that God alone selected Abraham for a new nation and revealed the code of heaven to an earthly people, The covenants were sealed in blood, and out of the seed of Abraham came another nation of destiny, which the Jewish apostles identify as the church, born out of a blood covenant ratified and sealed through Christ’s own sufferings. The church must understand the Jew, and the Jews must understand that true Christians love Israel and the Jewish people. We are from the same tree.”
- 1.Blessings of health.
Exodus 15:26, Deut 7:13
2.No sickness.
3.Superior Intellect Deut. 4:5-6
4.The skills in Agriculture and animal husbandry.
5.Superior Craftsmanship Ex. 31:1-
6.Unparalleled prosperity Deut. 8:17-18
7.National Greatness Malachi 3:12
Isa. 43:10-12
Dan. 3:28-29
Dan. 6:23-27
Closing: As you eat the bread, renew your covenant with Him. Ask Him to help you with grace to remove whatever hinders you from obeying Him. (Jn. 14:15,21).
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