me here in Hebrews 13, and it
says there in verse 20, ìNow the God of peace that brought
again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of
the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant.î
I want to talk about the covenants tonight. This is kind of in a
reduction to covenant, and then next week, God willing, Since
I talked a little about redemption, I want to preach the covenant
of grace and the covenant of redemption next week. And you
notice this says, ìThrough the blood of the everlasting covenant.î
Now, we often refer to our God as a covenant God. I love the
fact that Heís a covenant God, that He binds Himself by His
own promises. When He could swear by no greater,
He swore to Abraham. And when He made that swearing
that promised Abraham and swore by it. He made two immutable
things. First of all, he can't lie. And
secondly, he gave him an anchor for his soul. And so God, the
word covenant is mentioned 25 times in Genesis alone. 25 times in Genesis alone. Now,
God has been pleased to make known to His people, to make
known to His people, His purposes, His will, on their behalf in
the form of covenants. And you're faced with covenants
right off the bat. And these covenants, these covenants
that God has, they were different characters revealed at different
times in Biblical history. And you know, let me just give
them to you right quick. First covenant that we find in
the Scriptures, and these are in order in time. But before any of these were
ever given, that was the eternal covenant of grace, the everlasting
covenant. The first covenant was the one
that God made with Adam. It was a covenant of works. It
was based upon his obedience. God promised him something that
if he obeyed him, if he disobeyed him, God promised him also the
judgment. That was a covenant of works.
It was based upon Adam's obedience. And then the second covenant
we find, we find with Noah, when God sent the flood, and He says,
you know, that I'll preserve you and your family. And so this
covenant was that He would just preserve this family, preserve
them because of the genealogy that would lead us to the Lord
Jesus Christ. And He confirmed that covenant by a rainbow when
it was over, saying there will never be another flood on earth
like it was before. Because naturally, if it ever
rained again, Noah would start getting nervous anxious and worried,
and, oh my, what will we do the next time, you know? Mark's way
up there on this mountain and all the water's going, I can't
get back up. And anyway, you know, God said, I'll put a bow
in the sky. And every time you see that,
that'll be a token of the covenant that I made with you, that the
rain will never destroy the earth again. So every time you see
a rainbow, That's a promise that God made to Noah and all of us,
everybody on the earth. Then he made a covenant with
Abraham. This was a covenant concerning
the promised seed, the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. And that
covenant went on to Isaac, went on to Jacob, and the reason they
kept that genealogy like that was to show us that Christ would
come from Abraham, which the seed was promised through him,
Then he was brought into a nation, brought down to a tribe, brought
down to a person that came in time. And that's a blessed covenant,
the covenant that God made with Abraham. Paul said, not as the
seed which are many, but the seed which is Christ. And the
covenant, the law, which was given 430 years afterwards, cannot
disavow that covenant of promises. So the law didn't have nothing
to do with this. And then there's the law of Sinai,
the covenant that God made with Sinai. Now that covenant God
made with Israel as a nation to separate them as a nation,
to give them a law to govern them, to give them ceremonies
by which to go through in their sacrifices and their rituals
of worship. He gave them moral government
to govern them by, gave them judges, gave them everything
that was necessary to make them a nation and govern them as a
nation. And then there's the covenant of grace. And that covenant
of grace, Noah's was the first in time. Noah's was the second
in time. Abraham's the third in time.
Sinai's the fourth in time. But this everlasting covenant
of grace was given before time. It was before all then. That's
why it's called the everlasting covenant. The blood everlasting
covenant. So these covenants were at different
times with different characters involved in the covenants and
revealed at different times in biblical history. And let me
tell you this, that revelation is progressive. When you start
in Genesis, you can watch the Christ and watch the scriptures
and study, and you'll see that the revelation of Jesus Christ
and redemption story is unfolded a little bit at a time. all the
way through the Old Testament until Christ comes on the scene
in the New. It's progressive. It starts out in Genesis 3, 15,
the first mention of Him, and then it just gets greater and
greater and greater and greater until the prophets start speaking
of Him and describing Him, and then He comes on the scene just
exactly like all the prophets said that He would do. And that's
what these covenants are about. But before we could understand
and fully appreciate that's blessed covenant of grace, and this salvation
by that grace, we need to understand and comprehend just a little
bit about covenant. The covenants show us, first
of all, where all blessings come from. All blessings come from
these covenants. Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. God told him how to make the
ark. God preserved him in that ark.
God saved him. God kept him. God confirmed him.
Or he would have perished like everybody else. Everybody deserved
to perish. And all the blessings and how they're bestowed, they're
bestowed for Christ's sake. Ain't that what it says? He brought
again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, that great Shepherd
of the sheep, and by Him, make you perfect and ever good work
to do His will. And not only that, but for Christ's
sake and because of this blood, the everlasting covenant, it
says this, working in you that which is well-pleasing in His
Son. It's because of that covenant that God saves us, works in us,
makes us do His will, and causes us to do what's pleasing in His
sight. That's an amazing thing to me. It's an amazing thing
to me that, you know, how in the world do we do what's pleasing
in His sight? How do we know? Well, He just told us. He said
it's going to cause us to do that. And these covenants are given
to reveal God's great design of salvation that would be accomplished
by the Redeemer of God's people, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, beloved,
God is in intelligence. Now, what do I mean by that?
I mean God is... He just knows everything.
There's not anything you don't know. And he knows everything
without faking. He's an intelligent. And when someone is like him,
who comprehends the end from the beginning, and takes all the earth, waters
of the earth, and holds them in the palm of his hand, measures
the nations as the drop of a bucket, and hung the earth upon nothing,
and saw every one of us before we ever was, created us for one
reason, to save us by his grace, to reveal his Son to us and in
us, he must, because of the very fact that he is an intelligence,
he must have a plan. And when we say intelligence,
I don't know how else to say it. He is an absolutely perfect
intelligence. He only designs and desires nothing
but good because of the way he is. Everything that he desires
and everything he designs is nothing but good. It cannot be
anything but good. It just can't be. Could he ever
do anything wrong? Could he ever design or desire
anything evil? Could He ever desire, design
anything that would not be to His glory? And He's eternal. And He's an eternal and an immutable
intelligence. Known unto God are all His works
from the beginning. Then Mary was talking about this
the other day. I threw away a little old tomato plant, and it had
these little pair of tomatoes on it. And we ate all we could
eat off of it all summer. And it was still just covered
up. And I pulled that thing up. And I stepped up and said, oh,
look at all the seeds in that thing. Look at all the seeds
in that thing. You know how many tomato plants
are in just one of them little old bitty tomatoes? Mary said,
I heard one time that God We can count the seeds in an apple,
but God can count the apples in a seed. We can count the seeds
in an apple, but God can take one seed and count all the apples
in that one seed. That's what I'm talking about.
Anyone that can count the hairs of your head and numbers them,
says he numbers them. And he does that for all of his
people. You start to get an understanding of what he's like, just a smidgen. Now, so he's an eternal and an
immutable intelligence. If he wasn't an eternal and immutable
intelligence, what that means is that he might make the wrong
decision and have to back up and do something different. But
so whatever he sets in motion, whatever he wills or plans to
do, it has to be immutable. It can never change. And His
plan must be one, just one. It must be eternal. It must be
comprehensive. It must cover all things. And
it must be immutable. You and I, we see many. God sees
one. We see all the different schemes
man has come up with to save themselves or save sinners. And
the fact you give a sinner anything to do, anything to do, anything
to do by which to approach God, whether it's his faith or his
repentance or his tears or his church membership, you give that
sinner something to do if you give him any choice. And if you tell him he can do
that, even though he's dead and trespasses and sins, you've told
him a different system than what God says. See, man comes up with
all these many ways. God has one way, and it's called
the everlasting covenant. And all flows from that. You
remember I read, I think it was last Sunday. I believe it was
last Sunday. Yes, it was last Sunday. In Isaiah
42, 6, where God said, I have given thee, given thee for a
covenant for the people, for a life of the Gentiles. Who did
He give for a covenant? Christ to be for a covenant.
And so through the blood of the everlasting covenant, now this
covenant forms the grounds upon which God deals with all of these
people. Now I want us to look at a few
scriptures now. Let's look over here at Exodus chapter 2, just
a minute. Exodus chapter 2. And of course,
earthly Israel just was a type of heavenly Israel, spiritual
Israel. And in Exodus 2, In verse 24,
look what God says here. This covenant and this covenant,
that's the reason God deals with all of these people. He remembered.
How many times has He said He remembered His covenant? And
He remembered His covenant. He remembered His covenant. And
here He says in Acts 2.24, And God heard their groaning. And God remembered his covenant
with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. What was that covenant? He says that I'm going to bring
you out and make you the father of many nations. Now listen,
he only had one son, then he had a grandson. Abraham had been
dead for years, for over 400 years as a matter of fact. And then God said He remembered
His covenant. You reckon God had forgot it?
No, no. He's doing this for Moses' sake. He told Moses this, I heard.
And look over here in Exodus 6 with me just a moment. So that's
the reason He's going to go down and save those people, because
of a covenant. And that's the reason He comes
and saves us, because of a covenant that He made with His Son. And
in Exodus 6 too, look what it says. God spake unto Moses and
said unto him, I am the Lord. I appeared unto Abraham, unto
Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty. But by
my name Jehovah was I not known to them. I wasn't known as Jehovah's
Savior. I wasn't known as the Savior
at that time. And I've also, now listen, I've
established my covenant with them. And I'm going to give them a
land that they were strangers in. I've heard the groaning of
the children of Israel, and I've remembered my covenant. Wherefore
saying to the children of Israel, I am the Lord, and verse 6, will
to bring you out from under your burdens, and I will redeem you
with a stretched out arm. And oh, beloved, and he said,
and down in verse Verse 8, He said, I'll bring you into the
land concerning which I did swear to give it to Abraham, to Isaac,
and Jacob. I'm going to give it to you. Why did He say, I'm
going to give it to you? Because of a covenant. Covenant. And oh, and it says over, I believe
it is, in Psalm 111, it says, God is mindful of His covenant. Mindful of His covenant. The
Lord reveals His covenant to them that fear Him. Now in the
New Testament, the covenant is the foundation which precedes
all of God's gracious works. The reason that He sent Christ
into this world was because of the covenant. That's why Christ
came into this world. Look with me over in Luke 170,
just a minute, Luke 172. You know, this New Testament, And that's why they call them
Old Testament and New Testament. The Old Covenant, New Covenant.
The Old Covenant had to do with law, but in the Old Covenant
was the New Covenant all the way through it, and then it was
brought out in the New in clear light for everyone to see. But
if you can't see the covenant of grace in the Old Testament,
you wouldn't see it in the New either. Look what he says in Luke 1.72.
This is Mary speaking now. She says in verse 68, Blessed
be the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His
people, raised up and hoarded salvation for us in the house
of David, as He spake by the mouth of His holy prophets, which
have been since the world began. that we should be saved from
our enemies and from the hand of all them that hate us to perform
the mercy promised to our fathers to remember his holy covenant. That's what God does for us. You back over in Hebrews 13,
are you back over there yet? You remember where God said,
this is the covenant that I will make with him after those days. This is, the Holy Ghost bears
witness to this. He says their sins, put my law
in their hearts, write them in their hearts, and their sins
and iniquities will I remember no more. Instead of on tablets
of stone, it will be on their heart, where they can love and
desire and appreciate them. I'm going to forgive their iniquities
and their sins, I will remember no more." And that's a covenant
that God made with them. And they say, don't say to a
man, know the Lord, for they all shall know me, says the Lord.
Now that's the covenant He's talking about. And so, beloved,
when we say, back over here in Hebrews 13, when we say, for
Christ's sake, oh God, for Christ's sake, and when God says what
He does for us for Christ's sake, God forgave us for Christ's sake.
God redeemed us for Christ's sake. God accepts us for Christ's
sake. God saves us for Christ's sake. God remembers us for Christ's
sake. God hears us for Christ's sake.
When we say, for Christ's sake, it means it's done by virtue
of that covenant which God made with Christ as the head of His
people, as the representative of His people before the world
ever began. Now, our Lord Jesus Christ stood
They call it surety, and I think I mentioned that Sunday. It's
surety. One who will stand good for the wrongs of all of his
people, all of their obligations, all of their debts, all of their
incompetencies, all of their inadequacies, everything that's
wrong with them, Christ said, I'll stand good for them. And the Father said, I'll give
you these people, but you will have to stand good for them. The Lord Jesus Christ said, I'll
do it. Now He lifted His hand to the Father, and the Father
lifted His hand to the Son, and they struck hands, beloved, in
the covenant of grace, and because of that strike, you and I wasn't
in this covenant, only as if we were in the loins of Christ. Now God didn't enter into a covenant
with us, He entered into a covenant with His Son. And the only way we're in that
covenant is as we were in that Son. Just like my son was in
my loins, and I was in my father's loins, and Levi was in Abraham's
loins, and Isaac was in Abraham's, and Jacob was, and on and on
and on. All of Christ's elect people were in the loins of Christ
from before the foundation of the world, and were His seeds.
I didn't make no cover. God made a cover with His Son,
and He included me in His Son. You're talking about making you
some comfort and some assurance. You know, I ain't lifted my hands
and told God, I ain't made no promises. You know, I'm scared
to death to make a promise to God. You know, I trust His promises
to me. I can't even keep promises to
myself. How many promises have I broke
to myself? How many times have I promised
things that I couldn't perform? That old saying, sometimes we
let our mouth overload something, you know, and that's what we
do. We make these promises, even to ourselves. I promise I'm going
to do this. I promise to ourselves. And we won't keep them. But God's
not like us. When He makes a promise, He made
it in His Son, and I mean, beloved, that's why He's immutable and
He can't lie. Ain't that right? Oh, we've got to understand.
God helped us understand the difference between the covenant
of works and the covenant of grace. Oh, if we don't know the difference
between works and grace, how could we ever tell anybody how
God saves a sinner? Whether He saves him by works
or grace or a mixture, as some people think He does. I was just
reading yesterday, and a fellow says, you know, that there's
a condition in the covenant. And the condition is that you
believe on Christ. Let me tell you, there is conditions,
but here's where the conditions are met. Christ needs them. Everything God required
for us to have, repentance, faith, love, obedience, law-keeping,
all of those were provided for us in Christ before you and I
was ever born. You're not formed by grace, or
you're saved through faith, and that's not of yourself. I mean,
just put yourself out of the equation. None of it works. Oh, that's just conclusive. None of it works. Because that
skinny man should boast. And I tell you, if a fellow trusts
in his faith and says, I boast because I believe, then he don't
know nothing about grace yet. God shuts one of the things that
God does in this covenant of graces, He shuts a man's mouth
and stops him from boasting about anything. The only thing he boasts
in, the only thing he glories in, is in the Lord Jesus Christ
and what Christ did. Ain't that right? Oh my, I'm
telling you, this is what's so wonderful about the covenant.
And we'll get into it next week, but I tell you, What's so wonderful
about it is that everything God requires of us, He gives to us. Whatever He asks of us, He provides. You know, Mary was talking about
Christmas. I said, what do you want for
Christmas? I don't want nothing, absolutely nothing. I'd like
to go someplace. She said, we can't go. It's the
baby's first Christmas. See, we can't go anyplace. We've
got to stay here with Riley. We've got to buy Christmas for
her. Now listen, if I was in a store
and that little old young'un looked at something and said,
God, poppy, please get me that. Please get me that. Please get
me that. Do you think if I could afford
it at all, I wouldn't? And God loved His Son, and He
loved us any son, And he says, they ain't got nothing. And everything
they had, you're going to have to give them for them. Because
they can't pay for nothing. You know, we're not riley's,
we ain't got no money. But we ain't got nothing. Christ
gave it all to us. Oh, Father, I need to believe.
Give them faith. Oh, I don't repent. And though
my heart's so hard, I'll give them the heart of flesh. They
got iniquities. I'll forgive them. They're dead. I'll give them life. They're
blind. I'll give them sight. Their mind
is darkened. I'll enlighten it. You see what I'm talking about?
Oh, my. And that was a covenant I forgot
about over in 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel 23, excuse me. There's a covenant
I forgot about, just remembered it. The covenant that God made
with David, and that covenant to show that Christ would come
after the flesh of the seed of David, that he would come through
the tribe of Judah so he'd be king. But look at this covenant
that God made with David. Huh? 2 Samuel 23. Look what he says in verse 5. 2 Samuel 23, 5. Although my house be not so with God, my sons and my daughters, My grandchildren, although my
house be not so with God, yet he hath made with me an everlasting
covenant, ordered in all things, ensured." This is all my salvation, all
desire, although he make it not to grow. Oh, my. When the Scripture says,
you know, I'll make my covenant. Psalm 25, verse 14. You look
at it on your own time, and it says this over there. It says,
Them that fear Him will He make to know His covenant. He'll make
them to see it, to understand it, to believe it, and rejoice
in it. And He told Isaiah, He said, He told His people there,
He says, Take hold of My covenant. Take hold of it. And oh, beloved,
now do you see the importance of learning about these covenants.
Let me tell you what a covenant is, the nature of a covenant.
It's an absolute, complete covenant in a voluntary pact. Nobody makes
you do it. Or an agreement between distinct
persons about the ordering and dispensing of things in their
power unto their mutual concern and advantage. And I'll give
you a perfect illustration of that. Marriage is a covenant.
between two people. And they enter into this covenant. Life or death, poverty, health,
sickness, health, death, poverty, whatever it is, with my goods,
all this stuff. And so death do us part. Now,
both of them, in a marriage like that, when that happens, they
voluntarily enter into this thing. And they have responsibilities
in that thing. And they have to live up to that
covenant. They have to live up to that pact that they made between
themselves. And they have things that they
promise, you know what? I didn't know you was going to
be that sick. I didn't know you was going to
become a vegetable in the hospital, so I can't stay with you. And they find a thousand reasons
why. But beloved, there are three
things included in a covenant. We see them here in Hebrews 13.20.
There are two people involved in this covenant. But three things
are included. First of all, you have the parties.
You've got the Father and the Son. You've got the terms. God will
give him a people. He'll do whatever is necessary
to save those people. And God promises that if He saves
them, He'll accept them. He'll accept them for all eternity.
He'll make them accepted in Christ. He'll make them holy in Christ.
He'll do everything they need. And you know what? Then you've
got to have something to bind that agreement. Make it legal. And what makes it legal is the
blood of the everlasting covenant. The blood ratifies it. Huh? Because when you go in to buy
a house or something like that, they set papers. You're in the
banks getting into a covenant. And they lay the papers in front
of you. And they promise, well, we're going to give you this
much money, and you're going to pay us this much money every
month. Every month. And you sign, you ratify that
thing. They stamp a seal on it, and you sign your name to it,
and they sign their name to it. And as long as you stand true
to those agreements in that covenant, everything will work out fine.
And you go on and on and on, and the covenants entered into
a mutual agreement and a benefit being assured of the fulfillment
of certain conditions. And we enter into covenants in
our daily lives all the time. Buying and selling property,
land, houses, cars, marriage, laws of the land, promises made,
demands made. You know, Jonathan and David,
you all remember Jonathan and David, they entered into a covenant
between themselves. It says they loved one another
beyond the love of a woman. They entered into a covenant,
and the covenant was this. See, Jonathan was the lawful
king. Saul, his father Saul, was the
king. But God had raised and anointed
David to be king, and Jonathan knew that, and Saul knew that.
And Jonathan loved David, because his father wanted to kill David.
And he entered into a covenant with him. He says, now David,
I'll tell you everything my father's going to do. And I won't let
him hurt you. But he said, I do want you to
do this for me, that you will show mercy to my house, to my
people. And sure enough, when David was
made king, Saul and Jonathan were slain. He stepped down to
see if Jonathan had any children that he might show the kindness
of God unto. He remembered his covenant. And
they had one boy down there. He was lame on both feet. How
did he get lame? Through a fall. Cratch him! Bring him over here
to me. That's exactly the way grace works. That's the way a
covenant works. David said, I love Jonathan.
Jonathan loved me. And I told him that I'd take
care of his... If he had any children in his house, I'd show
mercy to them. And oh, when they started bringing
Mephibosheth down there, and Mephibosheth says, well, I guess
I'm a goner. I said, I guess when that David
gets me there, he'll bring me in there in front of everybody,
ridicule me and cut my head off. And that'll be the end of the
house of Saul. And he come in there and David said, I got Mephibosheth. And he says, what is thy servant
is such a dead dog here before thy, why would thou remember
me? Call yourself a dead dog. He said, fear not. That's the
way we are. Oh, we are dead dogs, stinking
dogs, rotten dogs, mangy dogs, crippled dogs, every kind of
dog. Oh, listen. And David said, fear not. Fear
not. Me and your dad, me and your
father, and that's the way it is, the father and the son, entered
into a covenant. And all of his Mephibosheth, every single one
of them, He said, go fetch that one, go get that one, go over
yonder and get that one. I want that one. And he brings
them in. He just keeps fetching them and bringing them. Because
of a covenant. And also, God's dealings with
men are all based upon His covenant engagement with them. He promises
certain blessings upon fulfillment of certain conditions. And I've
already told you. that He meets the conditions
for us. So it's clear, let me not close
here, it's clear there can be only two covenants possible between
God and man, only two. One founded upon what man shall
do for salvation. Covenant based upon what man
can do to get God to save him. And the other, what God shall
do to save men. There can be no middle ground. It's a covenant of works or a
covenant of grace. And the covenant of works made
with Adam as the head of the race based upon his absolute
obedience to his Creator. had failed, and if he'd done
that in paradise, how many times do you reckon you and I would
last trying to be obedient, and thus you and me in a fallen state
in this old wilderness that we're in? And then there's the everlasting
covenant of grace that God made with His elect in the person,
now listen to me, not us, in the person of their head, the
Lord Jesus Christ. And because of that, because
of that, that's what thy Lord said. He said, all that the Father
gives me. Oh, you will not come to me.
Y'all give us that bread. You know, give us a sign. Give
us this asset. You will not come to me, but
that don't make any difference. He said, all that the Father
gives. What did they give him to you? Father, they were yours. When
were they yours? Before we was ever formed in
the belly, He said, I knew you. And He said, Oh, Father, all
that the Father give me shall come to me. And when He comes,
there ain't nothing He'll ever do that will make me throw Him
out of His covenant. It ain't going to happen. It ain't going to happen. So our salvation depends on this
covenant. Will God keep His promise to
Christ? Did Christ fulfill His part of the covenant? I'll tell
you why we know He did. God brought again from the dead
the Lord Jesus Christ. That means, beloved, that He
fulfilled His covenant engagement when He cried, It is finished,
and was buried. Brought Him again from the dead. through the blood
of the everlasting covenant. And now, now He works in us that
which is well-pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Good news, ain't it? Amen.