Open your Bibles with me to the
book of First Chronicles, chapter 16. First Chronicles 16. While you're
turning, just let me express my gratitude to all of you for
your hospitality, your fellowship, your prayers, and I covet your
prayers as I return home tomorrow. And as I said this morning, we
continue to pray for you here in Almonte that the Lord will
Number one, continue to bless you in your fellowship, in your
unity in Christ, your love for Christ and love for one another,
and then in your search for a pastor. As I said, it's just so important. So there's nothing that's more
important, I think, for a local body of believers, as you prayed,
John, that it's to have a man, who is an under-shepherd of Jesus
Christ, an overseer, as the Bible calls us, to preach Christ and
to preach the word, to be faithful to that word. And so, whoever
the Lord commands you and whoever the Lord leads you to call, and
he accepts that call, we pray for him, certainly, don't we?
And if that's Brother Wayne Boyd, then that would be a tremendous
blessing, I believe. You keep that in mind as I travel
tomorrow. Alright, I want to talk to you
tonight a little bit about this subject, a covenant-minded people. A covenant-minded people. The
Church of the Lord Jesus Christ is a collective body of covenant-minded
people. And the covenant That is upon
our minds. And when I say on our minds now,
I want you to understand that I'm not just saying that this
is an intellectual thing. It's a heart thing. You know,
the ancient Hebrews, they didn't really separate the mind and
the heart like we do. You know, I've said this to you.
People say, well, the difference between a false profession and
a true profession is one foot from here to here. And that's
a metaphor. This, when we talk about the
heart, You know as well as I do, we're talking about the spirit,
we're talking about the mind, the affections, the will, what
we are inwardly, Paul called it the inner man, our spirit,
what drives us, what motivates us, what we love, what we trust
in, who we trust in. And so keep that in mind. And
the title of this message was taken from verse 15 of this chapter
where David king of Israel in his Psalm of worship and this
is this parallels with with one of the Psalms Psalm 105 Where
he says be ye mindful always of his covenant And what I want
to show you tonight that the covenant of which he speaks is
the gospel covenant specifically as it relates to Abraham, to
show us that this is the way it is with God's people. A covenant-minded
people are a Christ-minded people. Scripture says that when we're
born again, we have the mind of Christ. That means we're a
Christ-minded people. We're a grace-minded people. We are a gospel minded people. And I want to show you that in
this context. Now the occasion of this psalm
that David wrote was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write is
the return of the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. As you
know the Ark had been stolen by the Philistines under King
Saul. And David made an attempt earlier
to bring it back and failed because he wasn't following the exact
instructions of the Lord concerning that ark and how it was to be
carried. But here he brought it back to Jerusalem and it says
here, look at verse 1. He says, so they brought the
ark of God and set it in the midst of the tent that David
had pitched for it. Now as you know, there was no
temple, but David had pitched a tent And he placed the Ark
of the Covenant, you know the Ark of the Covenant, that box
that was made of Shittim wood overlaid with gold, that had
the lid called the Mercy Seat, which also was made of Shittim
wood and gold, overlaid with gold, all of that was a picture
of Christ, who is our Ark, who is our Mercy Seat, that Mercy
Seat. the wood typifying his humanity,
the gold typifying his deity, so all of that. And so David
placed the ark, and it says in verse one, and they offered burnt
sacrifices and peace offerings before God, showing that this
ark was the dwelling place of the Shekinah glory of God, who
could only be approached on the basis of sacrifice. He could
only be approached on the basis of the shed blood, and this blood
of the sacrifices and the offerings, they too were a picture of Christ,
the Lamb of God. And you know how that ark was
set up in the original pattern that God gave Moses to be the
centerpiece of the tabernacle, later on the centerpiece of the
temple. And the burnt offering, how the high priest of Israel
would come into the holy of holies one time of year on the day of
atonement, but not without blood. Because if he came without blood,
that would dishonor God and he'd be killed. So he had to come
with the blood. So this burnt offering is shown
here to be the basis, the foundation, the very ground for all right
approach to God. This burnt offering in line with
this Ark of the Covenant was the only basis and ground of
a right relationship with God and blessings from God. And we
see that. We see that fulfilled in the
person and the finished work of Jesus Christ, who is our mercy
seed, who is our lamb, who is our high priest. And it's such
a beautiful picture, isn't it? Showing the multifaceted person
and work of Christ and the success of his work. But let's read on,
verse 2, it says, when David had made an end of offering the
burnt offerings and the peace offerings, he blessed the people
in the name of the Lord. You see, God's blessings flow
from from that which pictures Christ. We say it this way, Ephesians
1, 3, we're blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus. There's no real blessing from
God apart from Christ. Even the good things that men
and women on this earth receive without an understanding, without
faith in Christ, they really end up being curses. If you think
about it. But we're blessed. So blessed
of God. And every blessing we have, and
we could talk about all the blessings for weeks, couldn't we? Number
one, salvation by the grace of God. What a blessing. If God
never did another thing for me, other than save me from my sins,
I would be so highly blessed among men. But he's done so much
more. And often I'll say, we'll take
it to the very, the thing that we take for granted the most,
breathing. The next breath you take is a
gift from God. Isn't that right? And it's a
blessing to you who know Christ. It's a blessing. And he says
in verse 3, and he dealt to every one of Israel, both man and woman,
to every one a loaf of bread. There's Christ, the bread of
life. We approach God through him. We're accepted of God through
him. We're justified in him. We're
washed in his blood. We're clothed in his righteousness.
And we have life from him. And from then on, we feed upon
him as the bread of life. He's the bread. And he says,
and a good piece of flesh, that's the food, that's Christ, and
a flagon of wine. Wine in the scripture is an emblem
of the joy of the Holy Spirit that we have when we look to
Christ as the author and finisher of our faith. So everything that's
happening here, you see, is in line with this covenant that
he's going to be talking about. And he says in verse four, he
appointed certain of the Levites to minister before the ark of
the Lord and to record and to thank and praise the Lord God
of Israel, the Levites, the Levitical tribe, that was the priestly
tribe. They were the leaders in worship. They were the main
teachers in the old covenant. It wasn't really the prophets.
The prophets taught, the prophets had revelations from God, words
from God to deliver the people, but the daily teachers, And instructors
in the things of God were the priests, the Levites. And of
course we know the history of Israel that in many times they
failed. And that's not to puff us up
as if we wouldn't have been in the same boat, but for the grace
of God. And he names them here, verse
5, Asaph the chief. You notice in the Psalms sometimes
you have the Psalms of Asaph. He was an attendant under King
David. and many times. It could have been Psalms that
the Holy Spirit revealed to Asaph personally, or it could have
been delivered to him from David to record. And it says, Zechariah,
Jehiel, Shemiramoth, and Jehiel, and Manathiah, Eliah, Benaniah,
Obed-Edom, and Jehiel. Somebody said, well, why do they
have two Jehiels? Well, it's probably a son or
a grandson. And he says they had psalteries
and harps. They were worship leaders. But Asaph made a sound with cymbals. See, all these things, they were
intended in worship. Now again, worship was based
upon satisfaction through the burnt offering at the Ark of
the Covenant. See, the basis, the ground, all
of it was based on that. That's our worship today. What's
the ground of our worship? Is it because you had a good
week? I hope you had a great week, but that's not the ground
of your worship today, is it? Because whether you had a great
week or a terrible week, the ground of your salvation, the
ground of your blessedness, the ground of your praise and your
worship is still Jesus Christ and Him crucified and risen from
the dead. And that's what this is, verse
6. Now there's the foundation and the fruits of God's work
in bringing the people to focus their attention on the Ark and the burnt offerings
and the priesthood, the ground of salvation, how God can be
just and justify. You see, that's where God revealed
himself in every attribute of his character. That's why it's
called the Shekinah glory of God. And it's an amazing thing, isn't
it? Where do we see the Shekinah glory of God now? In the face
of Jesus Christ. Do you know that in Jesus Christ,
this is an amazing thing to me, And I'll never forget when this
first God hold of me is that, you know, we can get books and
we can read books and theological treatises on the attributes of
God. And some of them are great. They're fine. But we can sum
it up pretty simply for a sinner seeking mercy. And that is every
attribute of God is shown forth in its glory, in its fullness,
in the person and finished work of Christ. Right there. God's
justice, God's holiness, God's truth, God's faithfulness, God's
infinity, all of it. God's sovereignty, but also God's
mercy, and God's love, and God's grace, all working consistently
together to do what? to glorify God in the salvation
of sinners like us. That's an amazing thing. What
is man that thou art mindful of him? That's what I think.
So when all this was done, here's what David did. Now this is what
the king of Israel should have been doing all along. He was to be the worship leader
for the people. And we know Saul was the people's
king. He wasn't God's king. God let
him have Saul just to teach him a hard lesson. But here's David. And he says, Then on that day
David delivered first this psalm to thank the Lord into the hand
of Asaph and his brethren. He delivered this psalm of thanksgiving.
Now that's what worship is all about. Thank you, Lord, for saving
my soul. Thank you, Lord, for making me
whole. Thank you, Lord, for giving to me thy great salvation so
rich and free. We're here to give thanks. And
he says in verse 8, give thanks unto the Lord, call upon his
name, make known his deeds among the people. Isn't this beautiful?
What is he talking about here? He's not talking about what he
did for God. David, listen, David went and
got that ark back and brought it back, and now it's in Jerusalem. But he's not talking about his
own deeds, he's talking about God's deeds. He's talking about
the work of God, now that's what we do. Now, what I want you to
see as I go through this, this is the way of a covenant-minded
people. What are we here to do? We're
here to talk about the work of Christ. Not our works. Not what we do for Him, but what
He's done for us. That's what a covenant-minded
people do. I'm not here to brag on me or brag on you. I had a
lady tell me years ago, she said, you don't ever have anything
good to say about anybody. I said, well, you're right. I
said, but I have a lot of good things to say about our Savior
and our Lord. And that's where our peace is,
our joy. That's where our assurance is, isn't it? In Christ. Brother Mann used to say that
preaching the gospel in a lot of ways is just a matter of getting
up and bragging on Christ. In His glory. Make known His
deeds. Look at verse 9. Sing unto Him,
sing psalms unto Him, talk ye of all His wondrous works. We
can talk about His creative work. He created this world. Made it
beautiful in its time. Made us. David sung about that,
how wonderfully I'm made. The human body is an amazing
instrument, isn't it? All designed by God. We can talk
about His providence. You know, that's an amazing thing
to me, His providence. Things that God does on a daily
basis on this earth in the lives of His people Things that I've
gone through in my life that I thought would destroy me but
which in the end turned out to be the best thing that I could
have ever faced and experienced. Things that I thought were just
abject failures that turned out to be successes and things that
I thought were successes that turned out to be failures. All
designed by a sovereign Lord. You've heard the illustration
of looking up at the bottom of a tapestry And you see all the
mishmash and confusion of colored threads and you can't make any
pattern of it. And that's us. We're looking
up at things as they move along. But then when you get up above
the tapestry and you look down, you see the beautiful pattern.
And that's the way it is. See, when we look at things from
God's viewpoint, then we see how it all makes so much sense.
I think about the disciples during the time that our Lord was arrested
by the Sanhedrin and by the Roman government and how they thought
it was just in their own weak, sinful human ways, which we would
have been the same or worse, they thought it was all over.
You know, all of this is just for nothing. Let's go fishing.
And then after it all happened, and the Lord sat him down before
he ascended unto glory, and he taught him how to preach Christ
from the Old Testament, which I believe is what he was mainly
doing there. And he ascended unto glory, and here Peter stands
at Pentecost, and when he talks about the death of Christ, what
does he say? Him being delivered by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God. Isn't that amazing? Peter had learned some things,
hadn't he? Look at verse 10. He says, glory ye in his holy
name. His name is that which identifies and distinguishes
him from all counterfeits and idols. His name is his glory. Let the heart of them rejoice
that seek the Lord. Seek the Lord and his strength,
not your own, his, Seek his face, that's his glory again, continually.
Remember his marvelous works that he hath done, his wonders
and the judgments of his mouth. You see that? And then he says
in verse 13, O ye seed of Israel, his servants, ye children of
Jacob, his chosen ones. That's God's electing grace and
his redemptive work for the people of the covenant. The seed of
Israel. That's Abraham's seed, isn't
it? That's what scripture says. But Abraham has a physical seed
and he has a spiritual seed. Which one is he talking about
here? Well, hold on. We'll see. Well, look here. He says, He is the Lord our God. His judgments are in all the
earth. Now that expands the horizons,
isn't it? Do you remember when he made
a covenant with Abraham? He said, in you, Abraham, shall
all nations of the earth be blessed. How does that happen? Well, we
know from other scripture that it happens because God has an
elect chosen people, chosen before the foundation of the world,
given to Christ out of every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation. The fulfillment of these prophecies,
the fulfillment of all of this is often referred to as covering
the earth. His judgments are in all the
earth. It's not just limited to one nation. Now, God chose
that nation for a specific purpose, but hold on, we'll get to that.
Look at verse 15. Be ye mindful always of his covenant, the word
which he commanded to a thousand generations. Now, the number
thousand in the Hebrew way of thinking was not a literal thousand
years. Now the old covenant that was
given to the nation Israel under Moses lasted 1,500 years from
Sinai to the cross. And the number thousand in the
Hebrew way of thinking was a way of expressing an unlimited time
period that only God knows. It's like us, sometimes we'll
say things like that, you know, well, you know, you seem like
you've lived a thousand years. Well, we don't mean that literally.
We don't mean it literally at all. A thousand generations means
forever and ever and ever. What covenant is he talking about?
Which covenant? Well, look at verse 16. Even of the covenant which he
made with Abraham, and of his oath unto Isaac. He made a covenant
with Abraham. He confirmed it in Isaac, verse
17, and hath confirmed the same to Jacob for a law, and to Israel
for an everlasting covenant. Who is Israel now? Remember he
changed Jacob's name to Israel. What does the name Israel mean?
Some commentators say it means Prince of the Lord, but actually
the actual word means those who have prevailed with God. That's
what the name Israel means. El meaning God. Those who have
prevailed with God. Now let me ask you a question.
How does a Jacob, a sinner, prevail with God? And it's not prevailing
in the sense that we overcome him. I know people go back to
Jacob wrestling with the angel. That's not a lesson to teach
us that if we overpower God or overcome him or out-wrestle him,
we can get the blessing. No. It's just simply showing
the determination of a sinner who knows he has no other hope.
Hanging on for dear life. That's what it is. How does a
sinner prevail with God? Well, how did Abel prevail with
God? He brought the blood of a lamb. Cain didn't prevail. He brought
his works. How does a sinner prevail with
God? He prevails by pleading Christ. This is my beloved son
in whom I am well pleased, God said, hear ye him. We're accepted
in to be loved. And he says that covenant that
he confirmed to Jacob for a law and to Israel for an everlasting
covenant, verse 18, saying unto thee, will I give the land, this
is verse 18, of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance. Now there's
the promise of the land. Now, first of all, he talks about
the covenant that God made with Abraham. He's not talking about
the covenant of Sinai here. He's talking about the covenant
that was made 400 years before Sinai. That was made with Abraham. And God made promises to Abraham. Now what promises is he talking
about here? He made a lot of promises to
Abraham, you know that. There were some promises that
God made to Abraham that pertain to Abraham's physical seed, the
physical nation Israel, and had to do with physical promises,
physical blessings based upon their national obedience. You
know, there's two types of covenants. There's a bilateral covenant,
that means there's two parties that have to agree and meet conditions. That's the covenant of Sinai.
Remember God said through Moses in Deuteronomy several times,
if you will do this, God will do that. If you will obey, People
today quote 2nd Chronicles chapter 7 verse 14, if my people who
are called by my name will humble themselves. That's an if statement
that states out the condition of the bilateral covenant, two
parties coming together. Now what do you know about the
history of Israel under that bilateral covenant? They broke
it. But don't get puffed up. Because you would have too. And
we would have too. Because that covenant was a glaring
testimony to the absolute inability of man to keep the conditions
of the covenant. There were a few times in Israel's
history where you could say that they were in national obedience,
which means the king and the majority of the people, but they
were very few and they didn't last. You see, what does that teach
us? That teaches us that if salvation
and blessedness and acceptance with God is conditioned on us,
it's a failure. That's why that covenant was
given to show them their sin. The other type of covenant is
a unilateral covenant. That's where one party sets up
the conditions, brings the other party in, but there's only one
party upon whom these conditions are responsible. And that's the covenant of grace.
God never says to his people under the covenant of grace,
I will if you will. What did he tell the prophets?
When he talked about the new covenant, which is the fulfillment
in time of the everlasting covenant of grace made before time, when
Christ would come. He said, I will do this and they
shall do that. And what he said, and anytime
you see an if statement under the unilateral covenant of grace,
the gospel under salvation by grace, it's not a condition we
must meet in order to earn or merit the blessing. It's an evidence
that we have that blessing by God's grace through Christ. if
you continue in the faith, grounded and settled. What does that mean? That means God's blessed you
through Christ. That means God has given you
spiritual life to look to Christ. And that's what this is all about.
Look over at Galatians chapter 3. Now all this is simply saying
this. The covenant of salvation, the covenant of redemption was
all conditioned on Christ. He fulfilled the conditions and
we're the recipients of the blessings by His grace through the righteousness
that He accomplished. Not through anything we've done,
will do, try to do, promise to do. But it's all of Him. Look at Galatians chapter 3.
He talks about the law, how the law requires perfect obedience.
Verse 12, look at Galatians 3, 12. The law is not of faith,
but the man that doeth them shall live by them. The law says do
and live, disobey and die. That's the bilateral covenant.
But verse 13, but Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of
the law, being made a curse for us. That's his substitutionary
work of satisfaction, having our sins charged to him. For
it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on the tree, that
the blessing of Abraham Might come on the Gentiles through
Jesus Christ. Now wait a minute, there's a
distinction here, isn't there? He's talking about the blessing of
Abraham in that unilateral covenant made with Abraham. You can read
about it in Genesis 12, Genesis 15, Genesis 17. Coming where? On the Gentiles. What? You mean God's got a people out
of that mess of humanity? Yes, he does. Jew and Gentile. And that blessing comes on the
Gentiles through Jesus Christ, verse 14. That we might receive
the promise of the Spirit through faith. What is the blessing of
Abraham? Is he talking about a piece of real estate in the
Mideast? No. The Gentiles never had any
part in that. That's right. That's over. He's
talking about salvation. Eternal life. Spiritual life. That's what he's talking about.
Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Righteousness by Him. Romans
chapter 4 speaks of that. How was Abraham justified before
God? By the righteousness of Jesus
Christ imputed. How was David justified before
God? By the righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed. They looked
to Him by promise. as the future Messiah who would
come. Christ himself said in John chapter 8, Abraham rejoiced
to see my day. He saw it and he was glad. Peter said at Pentecost there,
when David spoke of a resurrection from the dead, he wasn't speaking
of himself, he was speaking of Messiah to come. And David spoke of it. Blessed
is the man to whom the Lord imputed righteousness without works,
And he said that when he made that statement, blessed is the
man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. Showing us that
sin not imputed to me means this, it means sin imputed to Christ
is my substitute and surety. It means righteousness imputed
to me. And I'll tell you another thing, it means spiritual life
in the new birth. Because out of Christ comes life. Romans 8.10, this body, It's
suffering the consequences of sin. This body is dead because
of sin. But the Spirit is life because of righteousness. Whose?
Yours? No. Yours and Christ together? No. Unilateral covenant. One
way. God fulfills all the conditions
in Christ. It's His. But look back at Galatians
3. Look on. Verse 15. Brethren, I speak after the manner
of men, though it be but a man's covenant, yet if it be confirmed,
no man disannulleth or addeth thereto. Now to Abraham and his
seed were the promises made. He saith not, and to seeds as
of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ. That's the covenant that was
given to Abraham, the promise of the coming Messiah. It was
confirmed in Isaac, the miracle child, in Isaac shall thy seed
be called. It was confirmed in Jacob because
Jacob is sort of like the pinnacle of a type of how God saves sinners. You remember Malachi? I'm the
Lord, I change not, therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed. That's the spiritual seed of
Abraham. In verse 17, in this I say that the covenant that
was confirmed before of God in Christ You see that? The law which was 430 years after
cannot disannul that it should make the promise of none effect.
What he's saying here, he's making a distinction. The law given
at Sinai, that bilateral covenant, which Israel failed and which
all of us would have failed, did not disannul the covenant
that was already made of promise, that unilateral covenant that
was given to Abraham, which was fulfilled in Christ. So in other words, this covenant
mindedness that we're talking about, it's not that God will give me certain
things if I meet certain conditions, no. It's all in Christ, it's
looking to Christ, it's resting in Christ. And he says in verse
18, for if the inheritance be of the law, it's no more of promise,
but God gave it to Abraham by promise. Now go back briefly
to 1 Chronicles 16, let me show you Some other things here and
then I'll conclude. You see, God made Abraham a lot
of promises. Some of those promises had to
do with the physical blessings, the physical nation of Israel. One of those promises was the
promise of the land. Look down at verse 18. Now, a lot of people, when they
go to this passage, they say, well, that's talking about Sinai
because it's talking about, in verse 18, he says, unto thee
will I give the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance,
the portion of your inheritance, when you were but few, even a
few, and strangers in it, and when they went from nation to
nation and from one kingdom to another people. Now, first of
all, you need to understand that the promise of the land was not
given in the law of Sinai, the covenant of Sinai. The promise
of the Lamb was given 400 years before to Abraham. But understand
this, the main thrust of the covenant that God made with Abraham
was spiritual, not physical. But for the accomplishment of
the spiritual promises, which was salvation conditioned on
fulfilled and acquired and secured by Christ, He gave Abraham temporal
promises with inferior privileges enjoyed by that nation Israel.
And that's the promise of the land. He brought that nation
together. He kept them together in spite
of themselves until the appointed time. And what was the purpose
of it all? To bring Jesus Christ the Messiah
into the world. That was it. That was the whole
reason for it. You see, the promises of the
covenant of Abraham were of a mixed kind, both natural and spiritual.
And the natural was necessary because the preservation of that
people meant the bringing in of Jesus Christ according to
the flesh. He was made of the seed of David
according to the flesh. Our Savior in His humanity was
a Jew. But the promise of that physical
land was God's means of accomplishing his purpose in time. It was a
vehicle to preserve them as a nation for the purpose of bringing Christ
into the world. Did you ever know that Abraham
never owned an inch of that land? Never occupied an inch of it?
He had to buy a grave site for his wife Sarah. And then the
book of Hebrews chapter 11 says that Abraham wasn't even interested
in owning that land. He looked for a country beyond
that land, a spiritual land. So for when he says, be ye mindful
always of his covenant, here's what that is. Here's what he's
telling them. In all of this that God has done for the nation,
be mindful of God's promise to send the Messiah, the Savior,
the Lord into this world to save his people from sin. and to establish
righteousness for them. That's to be fulfilled in Christ,
in Christ Jesus. One more thing and I'll close.
I want you to turn back to Genesis chapter 15. I'm not going to
read this whole chapter because I don't have time, but sometime
when you get an opportunity to read the whole chapter, This
is where God reconfirms the covenant made to Abraham that Abraham
and Sarah would have a child. And of course you know what happened.
Abraham and Sarah both began to doubt. They were getting older.
And it starts out here in Genesis 15. And he says Abraham was going
to get his servant Eleazar. Remember here in the first he
says in verse 1 of chapter 15. After these things, the word
of the Lord came into Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram,
I am thy shield, thy exceeding great reward. And Abram said,
Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and
the steward of my house is Eliezer of Damascus, is going to be the
steward of my house, will be my offspring, or get the inheritance. And the Lord said, or Abram said
in verse 3, Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed,
and lo, one born in my house is mine heir, that's Eliezer.
And God said, oh no, that's not the way it's going to happen.
I'm going to give you a child out of your own bowels, a miracle
child. And it was through that line,
according to the flesh, that the Messiah would come. And then
God did something here in Abraham. He caused a deep sleep to go
over Abraham and he gave him a dream or vision where he cut
up all these animals and divided them. had dead animals on one
side, dead animals on the other. He cut them up, he shed blood.
Now what that was, it was a way of confirming a bilateral covenant
among men. What they would do, have you
ever heard the term, they cut a covenant? Well that's what
that means, blood had to be shed and that was the confirmation
of the covenant And the two men, for example, who agreed to the
terms of the covenant, they would walk between those slain animals,
the parts of those slain animals. But in this covenant, there's
something different. It says here that when Abraham
was asleep and God gave him this vision and these animals were
cut, look down at verse 17 of Genesis 15, it says, it came
to pass that when the sun went down and it was dark, behold,
a smoking furnace and a burning lamp passed between those pieces. Now what's that smoking furnace
and that burning lamp? That's the abiding presence of
God walking between, going between those pieces. Notice what's missing. Abraham's not walking between
the pieces. This is not a bilateral covenant. This is a unilateral
covenant. This is God showing Abraham that
this covenant was conditioned on God alone. And notice what
he says in verse 18. He says, in the same day the
Lord made a covenant with Abraham saying, unto thy seed have I
given this land. This is almost 400 years or somewhere
between 350 to 400 years before they actually took possession
of the land. But look what God says, I've given it to them.
You see, our God calls things that are not as though they were
because His promises and His work never fails. I've given
it to them, He said, from the river of Egypt unto the great
river, the river Euphrates, the Kenites, the Kenozites, and the
Kadmonites, and the Hittites, the Perizzites, and the Rephims,
and He said, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgis.
See, that's all in the land of Canaan. God said, I've already
given it to them. Even their taking possession
of the land, even their living in the land was not conditioned
on them. Now once they got in the land, the covenant of Sinai,
that bilateral covenant, took place. And they failed. But you see, we're a covenant-minded
people. What is that covenant? It's the gospel covenant. It's
the covenant of grace. It's the covenant of salvation.
It's the covenant of righteousness. It's the covenant of mercy, and
we could go on and on and on. all fulfilled in and by the Lord
Jesus Christ. And that's the gospel. That's
the covenant that's on our mind, on our hearts. That's what he's
telling them. That's what David was saying.
Keep in mind his covenant forever. Don't look to yourself for salvation.
Don't look to yourself for righteousness. Look to Christ. They were to
look forward to him coming. We look back upon him who's already
come. But it's the same covenant. It's the same gospel. It's the
same grace of God. All right.