Trust And Obey

The theme of the month of May is Amazing Covenants as spoken by God through His Prophet. I can hear an abundance of rain for someone here today, but there is a condition, if the fellow will trust and obey God. By the special grace of God we have been blessed by the messages we have heard over the last 2 weeks ‘God is not a man that He should lie’ and ‘Entering into an Agreement with God’.

We also looked at different definitions of covenants.

In form, a covenant is ‘an agreement between two people and it involves promises on the part of one to another’. The concept of a covenant between God and His people is one of the central themes of the Bible. In the Biblical sense, a covenant implies much more than a contract or a simple agreement between two parties.

The word ‘covenant’ in the Old Testament also provides additional insight into the meaning of the important idea. It comes from a Hebrew root word that means ‘to cut’. This explains the strange custom of two people passing through the cut bodies of slain animals after making an agreement (Jeremiah 34:18)

A ceremony such as this always accompanied the making of a covenant in the Old Testament sometimes those entering into a covenant shared a meal such as when Laban and Jacob made their covenant (Gen. 31:54)

Abraham and his children were commanded to be circumcised as a sign of covenant between them and God. (Gen. 17:10-11)

At Mount Sinai, Moses sprinkled the blood of animals on the altar and upon the people who entered into covenant with God (Exo. 24:3-8)

The Old Testament contains many examples of covenants between people who related to each other as equals. For example, David and Jonathan entered into a covenant because of their love for each other, this agreement bound each of them to certain responsibilities (1Sam. 18:3). That is why David said in the book of Prov. 18:24 ‘There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother’.

The remarkable thing is that God is holy, omniscient and omnipotent, but He consents to enter into covenant with man, who is feeble, sinful and flawed.

Our God is a covenant keeping God, He is ever faithful, (2Tim. 2:13 the GNT says ‘If we are not faithful, he remains faithful because he cannot be false to himself’) why because He is not a man that he should lie neither is He a son of man that He should repent.

When he was going to bless Abraham in Gen. 22:16 He did not find anything else to swear by but by Himself because He is higher than the Highest and He can’t deny Himself. In the book of Hebrew 6:13 Apostle Paul said ‘since there was no one greater than God to swear by, He swore by himself that in blessing He will bless Abraham and He will make him a blessing and by his seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because he obeyed the voice of God.

You and I are partakers of these blessings of Abraham because he obeyed God.

God does not break covenant, it is we humans that most times break covenants. As a matter of fact God hates putting away in the case of marriage, Mal. 2:16 (because marriage before God is a covenant between a man, a woman and God. The Bible makes us to understand that God will judge covenant breakers. God will help us in a Jesus name.

Amos 3:3 says ‘two cannot walk together except they be in agreement’.

Deuteronomy 8:18 -20 (GNB)

Remember that it is The Lord your God who gives you the power to become rich. He does this because He is still faithful today to the covenants that He made with your ancestors.

Never forget The Lord your God or turn to other gods to worship and serve them. If you do, then I warn you today that you will certainly be destroyed. If you do not obey The Lord, then you will be destroyed just like those nations that he is going to destroy as you advance.

This will not be our portion in Jesus name because we will trust and obey God at all times.

Brethren trusting and obeying God is the key to receiving His promises, the last stanza of the hymn ‘There shall be showers of blessings says ‘There shall be showers of blessing, if we but trust and obey, there shall be seasons of refreshing, if we let God have his way’.

It will be impossible for us to trust and obey God fully, wholly and completely if we do not love and fear Him, Job 28:28 says ‘And unto man He said, Behold the fear of The Lord, that is wisdom and to depart from evil is understanding’.

Matt.6:33 says ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and every other thing will be added unto you’.

Brethren I can assure you that seeking will be difficult and challenging if we do not love the King of the kingdom.

Whatever we do for God is counted as a sacrifice and what qualifies our sacrifice is the love we have for the One we are offering the sacrifice to. Whatever we do for God must be because we love Him. Even God Himself in John 3:16 demonstrated this love, it is the love He had for us that propelled Him to offer His only begotten son, He loved us even whilst we were yet sinners and died on the cross of Calvary for us so that you and I will have life and have it in abundance.

In Gen. 39:7-12, Portiphar’s wife: Joseph lie with me.

Joseph: No, how can I do this wickedness and sin against my God, No, I love him too much and I cannot afford for Him to be offended, I cannot disappoint Him because He has invested a lot in me, He is counting on me, because I am a man on a mission, He has sent me to this land for something great, I cannot place my finger on what the assignment is yet, but I definitely know that this house is not my final bus stop, I am destined for greatness and I cannot settle for this flirt ness. No, I say No and Brethren God made a way of escape for Joseph because he submitted himself to God, resisted the devil and he flee from him.

Rev. 5:1-7

Brethren the death of our Jesus ushered in the new covenant under which we are justified by God’s grace and mercy and not by our works least any man should boast, it is now possible to have the true forgiveness of sins. Jesus Himself is the Mediator of this better covenant between God and man (Heb.9:15) Jesus’s sacrificial death served as the oath or pledge, which God made to us to seal this new covenant.

The Epistle to the Hebrews gives the new covenant more attention than any book in the New Testament, Jesus is referred to by the writer of Hebrews as ‘the Mediator of a new covenant’ . The new covenant, a better covenant established on better promises (Heb.8:6) rests directly on the sacrificial work of Christ.

The new covenant accomplished what the old could not that is removal of sin and cleansing of the conscience. The new covenant of Jesus Christ is invented for all mankind, regardless of race.

In the Great Commission, Jesus sent His apostles into the entire world so they could tell the story of the cross in (Matt.28:18-20) The gospel call extends to every man and woman today.

Delivered on May 18th 2014