The Covenant & the Promises of God
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The Covenant & the Promises of God - Dr Lawrence Ajayi
© 2020 Dr Lawrence Ajayi. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
Published by AuthorHouse 05/06/2020
ISBN: 978-1-7283-5284-8 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-7283-5283-1 (e)
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,
and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
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Scriptures marked KJV are taken from the KING JAMES VERSION (KJV): KING JAMES
VERSION, public domain.
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taken from the NEW KING JAMES VERSION®. Copyright© 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
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THE LIVING BIBLE copyright© 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.,
Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
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the AMPLIFIED® BIBLE, Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by the Lockman
Foundation Used by Permission. (www.Lockman.org)
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
CONTENTS
Dedication
Introduction
Chapter 1 The Covenant Of God
Chapter 2 Understanding Covenant
Chapter 3 The Covenant Of Grace
Chapter 4 Covenant Of The New Testament
Chapter 5 Covenant Of Health And Prosperity
Chapter 6 God’s Covenant With His People
Chapter 7 The Covenants Of Yahweh
Chapter 8 Promises Of God
Sustaining God’s Favour
DEDICATION
This Book is dedicated to the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, the whole body of Christ, my wife, son and daughter.
INTRODUCTION
A covenant is a contract or agreement between two or more parties From the Christian perspective, it reflects how God has chosen to communicate with us, to redeem us, and to guarantee our eternal life in Christ Jesus. These ‘truths’, revealed in the Bible, are the basis of Christianity. The Bible is a covenant document. The Old and New Testaments are really Old and New Covenants The word ‘testament’ is the Latin equivalent of ‘Covenant.’
There is a basic pattern to the covenants found in the Bible. The initiating party describes Himself and what He has done. Then there is a list of obligations between the two (or more) parties What follows is the section dealing with rewards and sanctions that govern the keeping and breaking of the covenant.
The Ten Commandments fit this pattern and are a covenant document.
Covenant was thus the basis through which God first made clear His relationship with Mankind. We know this from studying the Eternal Covenant mentioned in Hebrew 13:20; Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord.
In this covenant, God the Father and God the Son had an agreement regarding the elect (being the children of God from the covenant statutes). This covenant was made before the universe was created, and it consisted of the Father promising to bring to the Son all whom the Father had given Him (John 6:39, 17:9, 24). The Son would become man (Colossians 2:9, 1 Timothy 2:5) for a while, lower than the angels (Hebrews 2:7), and be found under the Law (Galatians 4:4-5). The Son would die for the sins of the world (1John 2:2, 1 Peter 2:24), and the Father would raise the Son from the Dead (Psalm 2).
The Eternal Covenant, then, leads to the Covenant of Grace. Whereas the Eternal Covenant was made between the Father and the Son, the Covenant of Grace was made between God and Man. In this latter covenant, God promises to Man eternal salvation based upon the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross The manifestation of that covenant occurs in our world in a sequence of additional covenants that God made with individuals: Adam (Genesis 2:15-17), Noah (Genesis 9:12-16), Abraham (Genesis 17), the Israelites at Mount Sinai (Exodus 34:28), believers in the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-37).
39759.pngCHAPTER ONE
The Covenant Of God
A covenant is an agreement between two parties and involves promises on the part of each to the other. The covenant concept is key covenant between God and His people is one of the central themes of the Bible. However, in the Biblical sense, a covenant implies much more than a contract or a simple agreement between two parties
The word for ‘covenant’ in the Old Testament also provides additional insight into the meaning of this important idea. It comes from a Hebrew root word that means ‘to cut.’ This explains the strange custom of two people passing through the cut bodies of slain animals after making an agreement (Jeremiah 34:18). A ceremony such as this always accompanied the making of a covenant in the Old Testament. Sometimes those entering into a covenant shared a meal, such as when Laban and Jacob made their covenant (Genesis 31:54).
Abraham and his children were commanded to be circumcised as a ‘sign of covenant’ between them and God (Genesis 17:10-11).
At Sinai, Moses sprinkled the blood of animals on the altar and upon the people who entered into covenant with God (Exodus 24:3-8).
The Old Testament contains many examples of covenants between people who related to each other as equals For example, David and Jonathan entered into a covenant because of their love for each other-this agreement bound each of them to certain responsibilities (1 Samuel 18:3).
The remarkable thing is that God is holy, omniscient, and omnipotent; but He consented to enter into covenant with man, who is feeble, sinful, and flawed.
In this book, we want to examine five great covenants of the Bible.
1. GOD’S COVENANT WITH NOAH
Centuries before the time of Abraham, God made a covenant with Noah, assuring Noah that He would never again destroy the world by flood (Genesis 9).
Noah lived at a time when the whole earth was filled with violence and corruption-yet Noah did not allow the evil standards of his days to rob him of fellowship with God. He stood out as the only one who ‘walked with God’ (Genesis 6:9), as was also true of his great-grandfather Enoch (Genesis 5:22). ‘Noah was a just man, perfect in his generation’ (Genesis 6:9). The Lord singled out Noah from among all his contemporaries and chose him as the man to accomplish a great work.
When God saw the wickedness that prevailed in the world (Genesis 6:5), He told Noah of His intention to destroy the ancient world by a universal flood. God instructed Noah to build an ark (a large barge) in which he and his family would survive the universal deluge. Noah believed God and ‘according to all that God commanded him, so he did’ (Genesis 6:22).
Noah is listed among the heroes of faith. ‘By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith’ (Hebrew. 11:7).
With steadfast confidence in God, Noah started building the ark. During this time, Noah continued to preach God’s judgment and mercy, warning the ungodly of their approaching doom. Peter reminds us of how God ‘did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly’ (2 Peter 2:5).
Noah preached for 120 years, apparently without any converts At the end of that time, ‘when … the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah…eight souls were saved through water’ (1 Peter. 3:20).
People continued in their evil ways and ignored his pleadings and warnings until the flood overtook them. When the ark was ready, Noah entered it with all kinds of animals ‘and the Lord shut him in’ (Genesis 7:16) cut off completely from the rest of mankind.
Noah was grateful to the Lord who had delivered him from the flood. After the flood, he built an altar to God (Genesis 8:20) and made a sacrifice, which was accepted graciously, for in it ‘the Lord smelled a soothing aroma’ (Genesis 8:21).
The Lord promised Noah and his descendants that He would never destroy the world again with a universal flood (Genesis 9:15). The Lord made an everlasting covenant with Noah and his descendants, establishing the rainbow as the sign of His promise (Genesis 9:1-17).
Another part of the covenant involved the sanctity of human life, i.e. that ‘whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed; for in the image of God He made man’ (Genesis 9:6). Every time we see a rainbow today we are reminded of that agreement-this covenant has not been done away with. As long as God still sends rainbows after a storm, capital punishment will still be a part of God’s law for the human race.
2. GOD’S COVENANT WITH ABRAHAM
In making a covenant with Abraham, God promised to bless his descendants and make them His own special people-in return, Abraham was to remain faithful to God and to serve as a channel through which God’s blessings would flow to the rest of the world (Genesis 12:1-3).
Abraham’s story begins with his passage with the rest of his family from Ur of the Chaldeans in ancient southern Babylonia (Genesis 11:31). He and his family moved north along the trade routes of the ancient world and settled in the prosperous trade centre of Haran, several hundred miles to the northwest.
While living in Haran, at the age of 75, Abraham received a call from God to go to a strange, unknown land that God would show him. The Lord promised Abraham that He would make him and his descendants a great nation (Genesis 12:1-3). The promise must have seemed unbelievable to Abraham because his wife Sarah was childless (Genesis 11:30-31;17:15). Abraham obeyed God with no hint of doubt or disbelief.
Abraham took his wife and his nephew, Lot, and went toward the land that God would show him. Abraham moved south along the trade