The Covenants of God

Dr. Mike Jackson discusses the importance of understanding the covenants of God in the Bible. He explains that a covenant is a contract or agreement expressing God's promises to his people. God is the initiator of these covenants, and he keeps them to show his faithfulness. Dr. Jackson highlights several covenants mentioned in the Bible, including those with Noah, Abraham, Moses, Israel, and through Jesus Christ. He emphasizes that God always fulfills his part of the covenant and never forgets or neglects it. Dr. Jackson urges listeners to study the Bible to discover and understand these covenants, as they are essential for maintaining a covenant relationship with God. He concludes by highlighting that God not only makes and keeps covenants but also enables people to fulfill their part through his grace and the Holy Spirit. Welcome to the Bible Institute Online Podcast, the teaching ministry of Dr. Mike Jackson. And now, with today's Bible teaching, here's Dr. Mike. Hello and welcome to the session today. We're going to continue our study in the doctrines of God and it's the covenants of God. This is a very important lesson to our understanding of God and our understanding of the Bible overall. God initiated covenants with his creation and God fulfills and will fulfill those covenants. The purpose of him fulfilling his covenants is to show us that he is God and he keeps covenants. He doesn't break covenants. He keeps covenants. So let's start by defining what a covenant is. A covenant is a contract or an agreement expressing God's gracious promises to his people and their consequent relationship to him. So it's a contract, it's an agreement that God made with his creation. And God is going to fulfill those covenant promises when we are in relationship with him. You see on the screen here, I have some scriptures listed here, Genesis 9, 8-17, Genesis 17, verses 1-22. It talks about his covenant that he made with Noah and the covenant that he made with Abraham. And then Exodus 24, 1-8, covenant he made with Moses, Jeremiah 31, 31-34, the new covenant that he made with Israel, and 1 Corinthians 11, 23-26 is the covenant that he made with us through Jesus Christ. So let's continue to understand covenants. Who originated the covenants? A covenant must be made by one person for or with another. It's an interpersonal arrangement. And a covenant must be, number one, made by one person for or with another. So we're talking about the covenants that God made with his creation. So God is the initiator of the covenant, and he made this covenant with his creation. Look at the second bullet here. The covenants between God and man had to originate with God, for he alone has the mind, authority, and the ability to make them effective. So whatever covenant, whatever promise you see in the Bible was initiated by God, it came from the mind of God, is based on the authority of God, and is based on God's ability to make whatever covenant he made effective. God is the originator of all the covenants in the Bible. It was always his heart and nature that motivated him to initiate the covenant with man. But it's based on his heart and his nature that motivates him to initiate the covenants with man. He didn't have to do a thing because he's God. He chose to initiate the covenants with man. The covenants are the greatest manifestation of God's love, grace, and mercy. So how does God manifest his love, grace, mercy? Through his covenants that he made with his creation, man. Now we're going to look at God in these different capacities. He's a covenant-making God. God established his covenant with Noah in Genesis 6, 18, and Genesis 9, 16. He made a covenant with Abraham, Genesis 15, 18, and Genesis 17, 2. He made a covenant with David in 2 Samuel 23, 5. He promised to make a new covenant in the future with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. And this is found in Jeremiah 31, 31 through 34. And he also made an everlasting covenant. We see God making these covenants with his creation, man. He's also a covenant-keeping God. God made the covenant with man, and God's going to keep the covenant with man. God reveals his faithfulness and trustworthiness in that he keeps the covenant that he makes. This can only apply to God. And he reveals his faithfulness and his trustworthiness in keeping the covenant that he makes. This is God's word on the line. God said he's going to do a certain thing, and God is going to prove his faithfulness and trustworthiness by keeping that covenant that he made. We don't have to ever worry about God keeping his part of the covenant, contract, agreement, promise. We don't have to ever worry about that. It's on us to do our part. God's going to do his part, but we have to do our part. Once God has made a covenant, he does not forget it nor become negligent of it. Now, when it happens, how it happens, and the manner of it happening is still in God's purview because God is sovereign. He determines all this. He sets the timelines, not us. God is the one that made the covenant. He's the one that's also going to set the timeline, but God does not forget or become negligent of the covenant, the promise that he made. We can trust God and his word. He always follows through with the commitment he has made. Man does not follow through on his commitments. God will always follow through with his commitments he has made. Let's take a look at Deuteronomy chapter 7, verse 9. It says, Know, therefore, that the Lord your God is God. He is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments. A couple key words here. It says, Know, so we have to know. We have to know that we know that the Lord your God, capital L-O-R-G again, Jehovah, the Lord your God is God. He is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations. Talk about that term, thousand generations. It's a figurative term, meaning everlasting, meaning forever. It means eternal. God does not forget his covenants. He's going to always follow through on his end of the covenant. Psalm 111, 5 says, He provides food for those who fear him. He remembers his covenant forever. So he provides food for those who fear him, meaning he's going to meet the need, whatever need you might have, he's going to meet that need. For those who fear him, honor him, reverence him. He remembers his covenant forever. Same chapter, Psalm 111, verse 9, He provided redemption for his people. That's a promise of God. At this time, Israel had backslid, and he provided redemption, but ultimately, he's going to provide redemption for his people, and he did that through Jesus Christ. He provided redemption for his people. He ordained his covenant forever. Holy and awesome is his name. Next, he's a covenant-revealing God. In order for man to be in a covenant relationship with God, God must reveal the covenant to man. In order for man to be in a covenant relationship with God, and that's what God wants, he, God, being the originator and the initiator of the covenant, must reveal the covenant to man, openly declaring the promises and the terms. Now, guess where this is found? Your Bible. So if the Bible's closed or if you never taught to study the Bible for yourself or read the Bible in context, you will never discover the covenants of God, and you will never be in covenant relationship with God because you don't know how to be in covenant relationship with God. That's why it's important that we study the Word, important that we rightly divide the Word, so that we will know how to be in covenant relationship with God, how to maintain fellowship with God. And he has revealed it, openly declaring his promises and terms. They're found in the Bible. What do we have to do? We have to go to the Bible to search, to seek. And the Scripture says, well, we seek, we shall what? Find. But if you don't seek, you will never find until you go into the Word and search the Scripture daily to see if those things be so. So in order for man to be in covenant relationship with God, God must reveal the covenants to man, and he has in the Bible, apart from God, taking the initiative and revealing his covenant to man. Man would be ignorant of the availability of the covenantal relationship with him. God is a covenant-revealing God. Apart from God, separated from God, distance from God, man would never know and will continue to be ignorant of the availability of the covenantal relationship with God with him. Second Timothy 215, study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman. If you're going to find these treasures that's found in the Word, you got to work. You got to seek. You got to find. But it's good work. It's beneficial work. It's profitable work, according to Second Timothy 316, profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction. Second Corinthians chapter 1 verse 20 says all the promises of God are yes and amen. How many of them do you know? How many of them do you believe? And you'll never know what God promised or what God made available to you until you get into the Word. Not only is God a covenant-making God, not only is he a covenant-keeping God, he's a covenant-revealing God, and he has revealed his covenants in the Scripture. Not only is God a covenant-making God, not only is God a covenant-keeping God and a covenant-revealing God, he's a covenant-enabling God. The same God who makes, keeps, and reveals his covenant to men also enables man to fulfill his part of the covenant. The same God, through the Holy Spirit, who makes and keeps and reveals his covenants to man also enables man to fulfill his part of the covenant. You can fulfill your end of the covenant, meaning you can do what God is asking you to do. You can do it. God would never, ever ask you to do something and not give you the ability to do it. Now, the willingness to do it, oh, that's a whole different topic now, because although you're able to do it, you have to also be willing to fulfill your part of the covenant promise. You don't have to worry about God and his part. He's a covenant-keeping God. He's faithful and trustworthy. But are you faithful and trustworthy to hold up your part of the agreement? So, any contract, any agreement, any covenant, it requires the participation and the cooperation of both parties, all parties involved. God is a covenant-enabling God. The same God who makes, keeps, reveals the covenants to man also enables man to fulfill his part. So you can do it. God would never call you to do something that he's not equipped you to do. Now, do you have the willingness to do it? See, that's your part. God has enabled. He's given you his word. He's given you scripture. Now, are you willing to do it? God, through the Holy Spirit, because that's the source of our power, can enable man to fulfill his part of the covenant. Apart from enabling grace of God, man has proven his inability to keep the terms of any covenant. Because of the grace of God, because of the spirit of God, we can't keep it. But apart from that, we can't keep the terms of any covenant. But with God and yielding to the word of God and the authority of God and the spirit of God, we can fulfill our part of the covenant. God is the originator of the covenants. He's the initiator of the covenants. He revealed his will to us through his covenants. So it's important for us to understand God. We have to understand his covenants. To understand the totality of the scripture, we must understand these covenants.