Covenants - David Pawson

[Music] well if you're sitting comfortably so my and Jesus set to teach so why shouldn't I well I'm amazed that you've all come on a Saturday morning to listen to an 86 year old man struggling with cancer and Here I am and you're here too I want to take you right through the Bible in two sessions that's quite an order but if I pick a key word in the Bible that will unlock the scriptures to us then that's we'll do it we'll just pause until you've all got my notes and imagine me writing out 350 of these for you I didn't really was anybody here in this room 30 years ago when I spoke no oh yes but that was in the hut up in the actual yes good right so you're all new to me better introduce myself I'm David I'm married we have three children one in heaven to honor us and I gave up smoking at the age of 10 on the same day that I started I met the Lord Jesus when I was 17 I'd left school at 16 to be a farmer that was in the family and it was going to be my job when I was 21 but the Lord had other ideas and he called me to be a preacher so I had no choice and Here I am right now let's get started I'm going to use one word to unlock the Bible for you and it's a very lovely word which we rarely use every day the word is covenant and I begin by telling you that our God is a God who makes covenants and not only that but he keeps them and to have a covenant making an account and keeping God is an incredible privilege but I want to tell you the difference between a covenant and a contract most of the bonds between human beings today are contracts and most of us have them if you want to build a house you've got money the Builder wants that money and he's got materials labor and time and you come to an agreement and you make a a bargain between you and finally you sign a contract and that contract is binding and if one of you doesn't keep the terms of the contract the contract Falls and the other is set free from it that's a bilateral contract between two equal parties who have something each of them that the other needs and once and therefore you can bargain until you've struck the right deal how much time it'll take to build how much it will cost and you're agreed and you sign the contract nearly every binding between us is contract there are only two things that I can think of that are a covenant in our daily life that we don't call them that another word for covenant is Testament and it's very interesting that the Bible is divided into two parts the Old Testament the Old Covenant and the New Testament the New Covenant but that is so misleading because the New Covenant is in both Testaments and there are other covenants that are not old there are five main covenants in the Bible only one of them is old and only one of them is new and you need to have it very clear in your mind which is the old covenant and which is the new and how you get into both well no you don't want to be in both you want to be in the new well now let's look at the two examples in daily life I'm going to ask you to vote with your hands is marriage a covenant or a contract now let's take a vote those who believe marriage is a contract one two no more you're in for a shock how many believe marriage is a covenant you're all saying the right things but I tell you this in our society marriage is no longer a covenant it's become a contract and that's why it breaks and someone says I don't love you anymore so that's finished emerged but there's another example of a covenant in daily life I wonder if you can think if we use the word Testament I think you'll get it I hope you've made your last will and testament if you haven't you've prepared a lot of baubles for a lot of people do make a will even if you've only got tuppence to leave at least make it clear who it goes to but we make a will and testament that is a covenant because it's not a bargain you don't say to the people you want to leave money or property to what will you do for this you make a promise that you will leave them your money unconditionally they don't have to do anything for it they could refuse it that's all so they can choose to accept it or reject it with the covenant you have no other choice because it's been made by a person in a strong position with yourself if you're the legacy in a weak position and that describes God the great God who made the universe he makes the covenant he settles the terms he decides it and he leaves it to you you can accept it or reject it but you cannot change it now let's just giving you the feel for a covenant a contract is made by two equals who reach got something the other needs a covenant is made by a strong person with a weaker person who has no choice but to accept or rejected there was a man in our church who had been in world war Warner and he came to me one day and he said can you have a second bite of the cherry I said George what on earth do you mean and he said when I was in the war I'm sorry it was World War two I was in the middle of a big battle and my pals were dying either side of me and I made a vow to God God if you get me out of this and back to my family I'll go to church every Sunday for the rest of my life and he said the Lord saved me and brought me back to my family but I didn't go to church can you have a second bite of the cherry I said of course you can you're still alive and so you can have a second bite of the cherry but this time no bargains you cannot make a bargain with God Almighty you have nothing that he needs he will make a covenant with you but you can't make one with him he's the stronger of the two and he makes the terms and he makes the promise but you can't bargain there was a man in the Old Testament who tried to bargain with God his name was Jacob and when he was running away from home he said God if you bring me back safely home I'm your man for the rest of my life and Gor God brought him back but not until he'd lamed him and he had to limp home a and then he was where God could make a covenant with him and Jacob couldn't bargain with God he even offered him a tenth of his money a tithe but God wouldn't accept the bargain you don't bargain with God you don't say God if you'll do this for me I'll do this for you you're not in a position to do that you don't have anything that God needs one of my favorite texts is in Psalm 50 where God says if I was hungry I wouldn't tell you isn't that lovely the God who says I wouldn't tell you if I was hungry because the cattle on a Thousand Hills are mine and all the silver and the gold in the world is mine so why would I come to you if I needed something that puts us in our place we're just little human beings on planet Earth and the God who flung the Stars into space you can't bargain with him you can come humbly and accept one of his covenants one of his promises but that's all you can do well I think I've said enough to lay the foundation God makes covenants with people and that to me is astonishing it's like saying God marries people because marriage was originally a covenant and you didn't make terms you are there except did your beloved or you didn't person who married you didn't say now will you do this if he does that or if she does that will you do this you said I will now secondly the longest sentence in the English language I will I'm sorry about that useful video all right now there are five covenants and I've written them all down in the sheet of paper with the lines both ways and down the left-hand column of a five major covenants which God has made and which he is made with people and we call those covenants after the people he made them with so we talked about the noahic covenant which she made with Noah and we talked about the Abrahamic covenant which he made with Abraham and we talked about the Mosaic Covenant which he made with Moses at Sinai and we talked about the Davidic covenant which he made with King David and then he we talked about the Messianic covenant which he made with the Christ the Messiah our Lord Jesus now do you notice that I've written old against one of the five and knew against one of the five there is only one Old Covenant and it's not the one with Noah and it's not the one with Abraham and it's not the one with David it's the one with Moses and it's vital that you see that and understand it as well see in a moment and there's only one that is labeled new and that's the messianic that's the covenant that led Jesus to say on the last night of his life this is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for you and for many now there are six columns moving sideways the first column is the party sorry that word is not there altogether the party who he made it with the second thing in any covenant is the promise he made which he will fulfill what is he offering in the Covenant the third thing that we need to ask is is there any proviso and he conditionally made that we have to fulfill what does he expect in return for the promise that he's made the next column is the penalty will he punish us if we fail to keep his expectancy fifthly the period how long does the covenant last does it cover a long period of a short period or does it last forever could be any of those and finally why what is the purpose why would he make such a promise why would he offer us something that he has that we haven't and the way we need now those give you the outline of the talk I'm going to give you the covenants are down the left-hand column and the questions were going to ask all right well in the top six of them and the first covenant mentioned in the Bible he made with Noah on Mount Ararat and through Noah he made a promise to the entire human race that's all of us in this room and he still makes that promise and we live by it how many of you remarked on the weather who came this morning let me see quite a lot of here why we're so weather conscious in Britain we've got to start off each day by looking the weather is it going to be fine no raining actually was trying to rain very hard here in bounce mill this morning but it wasn't succeeding there was blue sky nevertheless that goes right back to his covenant with Noah and through Noah and his family the whole human race descended from them and so we've all benefited this morning from that promise of God and he promised to keep the world going until the end the promises while the earth remains and that's how long it lasts this is a period covered and therefore it is a promise of survival nothing more than that but he promises that the human race will survive as long as the earth is here and we do and every bit of our food comes not from the supermarket but from from God's price if God did not keep the seasons going we starve and we rely on that every year the farmer relies on the spring and the summer and the autumn every single year there are two things we need to survive Sun and rain light and moisture I remember an old poem that I learned as a little boy the rain it raineth on the just and on the unjust fella but it raineth more so on the just because the unjust has the just Sunbrella and that little perm fixed in my mind that God sends his rain and Sun on the just and the unjust both benefit from the regularity of the seasons so we should thank God this morning for the weather and in Britain we get a doorsill return out of it nevertheless God's behind the well earth and that is the promise there will always be a spring a summer an autumn under winter as long as the earth remains and I'm afraid we take it for granted God never takes it for granted he has a reminder which she's put in the sky when the Sun and the rain come together there's a rainbow it's God's wedding ring just as that reminds me I marry to my wife that reminds God to keep the seasons going he didn't put the rainbow there to remind us it's to remind him it's his wedding ring whereby his married to the human race and guarantees our survival now does he expect anything from us in return yes he expects us to treat life as sacred the sanctity of life is important to God he will do his bit to keep everybody alive but we have to do our bit too and the sanctity of life will express itself in two ways number one murderers will be put to death that's the way of keeping life sacred and God ordered capital punishment in the 60s Britain with many other countries abolished capital punishment murderers no longer paid for it with their lives but that was God's will and I remember saying to my wife in the 1960s that's the end of the sanctity of human life in Britain and the very next thing will be abortion and soon after that euthanasia and we'll put granny to death just as we put a dog down at the end of his life that's what we've done and I'm saying this morning we should be pressing as believers in God for the return of capital punishment for murderers the commandment of God thou shalt not kill should be thou shalt not murder because in the same chapter God told us not to kill he told us to end the life of a murderer and in this way people will realize that life is sacred and to touch another life and end it deliberately is to touch the image of God and that was the reason God gave for it not only human life is to be sanctified but animal life is to be respected as well and that is why in the same covenant God said I don't want you to eat meat with the blood in it because the blood is the life and it's really saying and the animal must be properly killed you can have it for meat but not while it's still life in it you mustn't eat live animal we do so with all kinds of sea creatures but that's covered as well now if we fail to sanctify human life and if we fail to respect animal life what will God do the answer is nothing this was an unconditional covenant and even though we now break it on a widespread scale God does not punish us that really is quite amazing but of course if he did punish us who would be left it's an unconditional covenant and it will last as long as the earth knows God wants us to respect human life and animal life but even if we don't he will keep his part of the Covenant and he will keep the seasons going and the moral condition of people doesn't affect that and God goes on blessing all of us with food that depends on the seasons to grow now why should God do this what was the purpose of keeping the human race going the answer is so that God can have a family and he needs people as his sons and daughters that's the reason for the Covenant if you ever ask me why didn't God create men and women why did God make us the answer is really so simple he already had one son and enjoyed him so much that he wanted a bigger family and every parent with one child could understand that feeling and so God has made human beings to be his family that's why we're here and until we discover that we haven't found the reason for our existence why is David Paulson here because God wanted him as a son in his family and he wanted you as his daughter in his family and so he's going to preserve the people as long as they remains so that while the earth remains there's still hope of someone getting into God's family and that's the purpose of the Covenant it's not for salvation not for anything else it's simply for the survival of potential members of God's great family and what a family he has I'm here this morning because of Brazil roundabouts women that's how the invitation came to me to go back to bounce table after 30 years simply friends in Brazil heard about me and told you is that right yes so that's why I'm here the second time because of a God's family in Brazil what an amazing thing let's look at number two the Abrahamic covenant which still applies it hasn't been canceled it hasn't been made obsolete and it was made with Abraham and his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob and those three men are so important to God that God has taken their names and he is now called the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob just as in a human wedding the wife takes the husband name so those three men have given God his name God married them God men vows to them which still apply to this very day and he made it in Canaan and they're called the patriarchs and this was a covenant of selection selection and the Covenant was choosing a people for God now God had a choice he could either send a British Messiah a Russian Messiah an American Christ an African Messiah but he didn't he chose to send blessing to us through Jews this Bible is a Jewish book my Savior is a Jew and always will be the founders of the church were all Jews and we forget our Jewish heritage we just simply ignore it for not careful and because we ignore that we ignore the Jews but God chose them they are his chosen people not just in the Old Testament days but now Israel is God's chosen people and the church in England is largely ignoring that and that's our curse because God said Abraham I will bless those who bless your people and I will curse those who curse them and every single Empire that is risen against the Jewish people has disappeared from the atlas from the days of the Assyrian Babylonians Persians Greeks Roman they've all disappeared from your school Atlas because they attacked boats people and the tragedies I have lived to see the British Empire almost disappear because it wouldn't look after Israel and in 1948 the British government washed its hands of the Jewish people said we want no more to do with them and within five years an empire which covered the world has gone very little of it left Gibraltar the Falklands that's about it why don't we take God seriously the covenant with Abraham said you curse my people and I will curse you and God has done that faithfully he's kept his promise right up to the day and I predict now the American Empire will be the next to go and you can see all through history how God's hand has controlled the Atlas let's get back to this the selection would be both national and international national because God was going to make a great nation out of Abraham's offspring and international because through them he would bless all the families of the earth and he has done he's kept that promise I have three children and every Satur Saturday morning I will buy some sweets for them they look forward to that very much now I had a choice I could either buy one bag of sweets and give that bag to one of the three children and say share that with the others or I could buy three bows of children and give one each the second way brought peace the first way we didn't guarantee peace at all oh you've got more than AI heaven it's not fair and the family break so God chose this that way to bless the world he said I'm not going to bless America and France and Germany and China and Russia I'm going to bless Israel and through them my blessing can go to everybody else and that's how it's worked out you would have no blessing from God except via the Jewish people and you need to remember that so it's what the philosophers call the scandal of particularity it's quite simply the scandal that God is choosing one nation to bless everybody else and people don't like that they want God to bless everybody directly they don't want to have to go to the Jewish people for blessing but they have to you had to and I had to we had to go to Jewish Scriptures to get the truth and we had no choice god bless them with the truth and said now take the truth to everywhere else so that's why this election took place it was not to make the Jews special it was to make them God's chosen channel to bless everybody in the world and they still honored and we are making huge political mistakes in Europe at the moment you know as a Jew to Israel and God will deal with that LS I hope that Britain now is we've had brexit will change its attitude towards the Jewish people if we want to be blessed as a nation we shall need to bless them now what provider was that what was expected well two things were expected of Abraham trust and obedience which together make faith and circumcision that was to be a mark of God's choice and during the 1930s hit Hitler and his people would simply tell males in Germany dropped your trousers because every Jew carries his title needs to the Middle East in his trousers circumcision is the title deed to be Abraham's descendant if they were not faithful and not circumcised they were cut off God's people and many have been and will come to the New Covenant and find that a similar condition applies so as far as the International blessing for all the families of the earth could be curses as well and this would be a permanent covenant forever the Jews will be God's people forever and one day you will live in a New Jerusalem did you ever realize that you're heading for Jewish capital where you'll spend eternity - Lana get used to it now now why did God do this he needed a people on earth who would do two things who would be a demonstration to the world of how blessed you are when you live God's Way and how cursed you are if you don't and therefore this people descended from Abraham have been more blessed and more cursed than any other nation they have been more blessed and they have suffered more than any other people on earth but he needed them also to be a blessing to others to take the kingdom of God and share it with everybody else let's move on to the Mosaic Covenant now this was made on sana-i with Moses and the twelve tribes of Israel and this was a promise of security but it was a conditional promise it he had offered them the land and the ownership of the land will never change but the occupation of it will and God said if you don't live my way according to my Lords my command then you will be attacked in the land by by insects by locusts I was once in a locust storm in northern Nigeria and I couldn't believe my eyes they're only about four inches long but they come in the million and whether is green they just settle and 20 minutes later move on and there is nothing green left trees are strip even the bark is attacked and I watched the poor Africans beating the locals of their Cabbage Patch but the cabbage is just disappeared it's a terrible thing as the local pagan god promised locusts are going to invade your land if you don't live right and disease will come you water will be corrupted and he said enemies will invade and finally if you persist in not living my way you will lose the land and leave it and that's what happened the prophets tried to prevent it but they couldn't and you know that one of the things that God had told them was this let the land have a holiday every seven years leave it fellow don't take corn or any crop from it for just one year and I will give you enough food in the previous year to see you over the 12-month and they didn't do that for 500 years and in my mathematics that means the land didn't have 70 years holiday and that came a day when God said if you more give my land arrest I will you go and leave it for 70 years and they did and then were taken into exile for exactly 70 years and after that time Daniel read his Bible and he said God you promised to take us back after seven years and God did and that was the end of the first exile they've had a second exile for hundreds of years must have been a very serious thing this upset gone deeply that has kept them out of the land for nearly 2,000 years but they're coming back half of them have come back and the other half are getting troubled and that's God stirring things up I can talk a lot about that but ever I must resist the temptation why did God make this covenant with Moses he wanted obedience in the land not disobedient he wanted them to live the way that he wanted which would make them the healthiest happiest holiest people on earth but they didn't and it's a tragic story in the Old Testament how they failed to keep God's covenant they came back to the land but they never got back their sovereignty they never got back their throne well their king that forfeited it so this was a covenant for national security and though the ownership of the land would never be taken away the occupation of it depended on their obedience and that they didn't give and so the blessings of health and prosperity left them and disasters occupation by enemies and finally exiled to Babylon took their place now thank God this was a temporary covenant and the Bible tells us it lessened only until Jesus came it was an Old Covenant it didn't work not because it was a bad law but because people were bad and they just didn't want to keep it and that's the real problem of the Old Covenant the Mosaic Covenant it could have worked but it didn't and there was human nature that killed it so why give it well it would demonstrate to the world that God means business and he blesses those who obey Him and he deals with those who disobey Him and we've got the whole history of the Old Testament to give us that lesson now I've got time for one more and then we'll pause before the Sun know the davidic now King David was the best King that Israel had during his reign they got more land than ever before they became an empire and this man was a man after God's own heart he loved the Lord and the Lord loved him and blessed him more than any other king though when you look at the others there was a pretty bad lot many of them disobeyed the Lord but David loved and praised the Lord we use his some of screens even today but David wasn't perfect and in one afternoon he broke five commandments of the ten would you believe it he coveted his neighbor's wife he committed adultery with them he bore false witness against a husband and had him killed in one afternoon King David broke five out of ten the commandment it's a tragic story he was such a good king and God made a covenant with David and the Covenant had two parts one that his successors would reign over Israel provided they kept the laws of God and God would continue to bless them but the other part was this God promised to send a son of David who would reign over Israel forever and would be a perfect king and this son of David became the center of the Jewish hopes and they longed for anointed one their word for anointed mushiya Messiah and they lived for centuries looking for this king whom God would send in fulfillment of the Covenant of David he didn't come for centuries so much so that when a boy was born the father would rush out into the street with the boy in his hands saying dummy and dummy this could be the king that God has promised but it wasn't for centuries not until Mary had a boy without knowing men I've got two rings that one was given to me by my wife on our 25th wedding anniversary we were in Jerusalem and I watched a little Jew make that from a little bit of gold and it's got the name Davis in Hebrew now he's back to front on the wall of Jerusalem you can come and look at it in the lunch time and my wife gave me that said you to be a watchman on the wall so there it is on we're going to Jerusalem next week to celebrate our 60th wedding anniversary now I've had to find the darkness I don't know what she will do this time this one was found in London when they were digging the foundations for a new office block and they found they were digging through an old Jewish cemetery from East London and they found that ring lying with a skeleton and they kindly gave it to me I'll treasure that it's got the name dowries again David some drew in the Middle Ages all that but this time the named always is right is rightfully round to us that's wrong way round that's Hebrew but that's Hebrew to one of the right weren't way around it's a signet ring when you do that in the wax it comes out right wrong way around Hebrew now we I'm sure go to my grave wearing those because they represented a real part of my life a little covenant of mine if you like well that's the Davidic why did God make that because he wants a visible Kingdom on earth governed by his son and a son of David - must be the real thing and this son must be eternal if he's going to be eternally king of Israel and that covenant is still applied it's still relevant and that's represented by my two rings a visible Kingdom on earth is coming Jesus is coming back now every Christian believes that but every Christian does not understand why is coming back and how long he will stay next time the answer is very much longer than he did the first time 33 years nothing then he went back to heaven this time he is coming back to stay 4000 years to rain he's coming back to rule this earth and to reign over it in justice and peace at last we'll have peace because we'll have justice you've got to have justice first and he is a just and fair judge and he will reign on earth a few weeks ago I had the privilege of addressing the diplomats from the nations to the United Nations they're in Switzerland I thought the headquarters of the United Nations was in New York but most of it is in Geneva in the old palace built for the League of Nations and I had the privilege privilege of addressing the diplomats to the United Nations and I had to tell them about Jesus coming back to reign and he will rule the world from Jerusalem and he's going to need a government who's going to be the government the answer is you are you're in training now to take over responsibility for the nation's what a responsibility that is if I were cynical and say we can't even run the church now and we're going to run the world get into practice we are here to prepare to reign with Christ forever and the first part of the forever will be on earth and so he's coming back for a much longer time and he's coming back to reign to rule and he's bringing back with it with him all those who are in heaven now my daughter will be coming back with him she died at 36 but she'll be back when he comes back he's coming with all his saints that's a lovely thought so they'll be back on earth I've presided at the funerals of a number of my relatives now now and in each one I've said they'll be back Jesus will bring them back to reign with him here that's those who were Christians and it was like talking Buddhism to people these are church-going folk that Dimmick had no idea what he has prepared for those who love him what I has not seen in years not heard he has prepared for those who love Him well that brings us nearly to the end have you noticed this Noah's covenant was international Abraham's covenant was national and international Moses covenant was national David's covenant was national and international and the New Covenant which were going to look at this afternoon is international can you see what's happening International International and national national national and international international can you see God's purpose in these promises he made and the covenants he offered to us which would narrow down to the national to Israel and then brought out again to the international New Covenant which we are now part of thank you for listening

Channel: David Pawson - Official

Views: 53,940

Keywords: David Pawson, Covenants

Id: Oa16GDt34WU

Length: 60min 16sec (3616 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 30 2018