COVENANT – LESSON 7



COVENANT – LESSON 7

“Faithful to Covenant – No Matter the Cost”

Kay Arthur, Teacher

Faithful to covenant, no matter the cost. That is what it is to be, and if that is not what it is going to be in your life, someday you are going to see your covenant partner, whom you have not seen, but you have believed, face to face. And what will you say if you have not been faithful to that covenant, no matter the cost? You know, someday He may challenge your commitment, because faith is not faith until it is tested. When that test comes, will you be prepared? It is our prayer that you will be because of this lesson. To be forewarned is to be forearmed, and may God forewarn you so that you are forearmed, so that when you see Him you are not ashamed.

We are looking at covenant, and we are going to through the series of possible things that two men, or two parties, could go through when they entered into covenant. I had to skip over a few in our last lesson, and just mention them, so I want to go back and pick them up, and touch them in the light of your homework. We saw that: #8. They shared the blessings. (We are just listing them; not that they necessarily did them in this way, not that they necessarily went through all these steps, or had all these significant things that they participated in, but just to number them for your sake.) They shared with one another what they owned, and what they possessed. They also shared their debts, so that the covenant partner, if he had the means of providing whatever they needed, he would provide that. Or, if a covenant partner had a debt, the other covenant partner would meet that need.

#9. The changing of names. They changed names. We saw this way back in the early lessons when I shared with you out of Peace Child. Remember when they exchanged “peace children” in Don Richardson’s story, Peace Child, how they had a great festival and a great feast, and they exchanged gifts? That would parallel with sharing the blessings, the giving of gifts. Then they had a party, and at that party they changed names, so that they took on the name of the other tribe with which they had made peace. Where did this come from? As I have said time and time again, I believe it had its origin in God, in God’s principles and precepts that were laid down by Him through the word of God.

I want to show you where names were changed. The first covenant that God made with an individual in the word of God, as far as we know, is with Abraham. Go to Genesis 17. God has already made the covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15. He is confirming that covenant again in Genesis 17. I think it is so precious the way the Lord keeps confirming (and He does that to us) again and again and again. As we read His word, as we keep coming to Him, He confirms His covenant with us. Genesis 17:1 says, “Now when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before Me, and be blameless. (2) And I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly.’” [Now this was thirteen years after the birth of Ishmael. Abram is now ninety-nine years old. He was approximately seventy-five when God called him out of the Ur of Chaldees (Genesis 12), and made the covenant with him. So almost twenty-five years have passed.]

(3) “And Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying, (4) ‘As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. (5) No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your names shall be Abraham;’” [What was God doing? They say that God took the “het” out of His name and put it into Abraham’s name. Abraham took on God’s name. The same thing happens to Sarah. Look at 17:15. “Then God said to Abraham, ‘As for Sarai, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.’” [So God changed her name. Why would God change Sarah’s name? Because He is in covenant with Sarah also, because He is in covenant with Abraham, and the seed is going to come through Abraham and through Sarah.]

We take on a name, a new name, after we become a child of God. What do we call ourselves? We call ourselves “Christian.” What are you? “I am a Christian; or I am child of God.” We take on the name “Christian.” What does “Christian” mean? “Christian” means “little Christ.” So we take on His name. We take on the fact that we belong to Jesus Christ, and we are little Christs, and that is what we are to be. We are to be in this world as Jesus was in this world. We are to show the world what the character of Jesus Christ is like, because we are to be changed into His image.

Look at Revelation 2:17, because this is neat. We see even in redemptive analogy, as you look back, that people made covenants, and sometimes they gave them a white stone upon which a name was written. You wonder, “Where did that custom come from? Did it come from Revelation 2:17? We have to remember that when men move away from darkness, what does evolution say? Evolution says that man starts out down here as just a little amoeba, so to speak. Then he just keeps popping out and popping out, until all of sudden, he is like an animal. Then from an animal he goes into man. We have man progressing from nothing to something, and in the process we have cavemen along here somewhere, men who are uneducated, men who are still walking a little bit like this (hunched over) and dragging their wives by their hair, and having a club over their shoulders. Yet the Bible teaches that when God created man, he started in his highest form. But, when men knew God, and they glorified Him not as God, and they became vain in their imaginations, their foolish hearts were darkened, and professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. They changed the glory of an incorruptible God into an image made like man. When man does that, when man departs from God, man descends.

There is an excellent Moody film (and I don’t know if you translated that Moody film) that shows you cultures where men are living in primitive, caveman, aborigine kind of culture that once came from a very highly developed culture. But they descended, so to speak, into a caveman type situation, or a man like an aborigine, like a headhunter or sometime like that. Why? Because when he knew God, he glorified Him not as God.

When man descended, and man always descends when he doesn’t know God, he still takes with him some vestiges of truth. He can take all sorts of vestiges of truth, and because he glorifies God not as God, he becomes vain in his imagination; he takes vestiges of truth and perverts them. Then you find people here in some sort of primitive tribe having a ceremony where they write a new name for a person on a white stone. Then, as you read in your homework, they would get the chiefs of the tribe to get that young man. “Give me your stone; give me your stone.” They would try to buy, and see if they could get that stone away from him. If they did, the young man had failed.

So where do we get all this from? Revelation 2:17 says, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.” [If you ever study Revelation, and you go through all the overcomers, you know that every one of those messages to overcomers belongs to believers. So there is our new name, written on a white stone; a name that nobody knows, but it is a new name from God.

The next thing that they would do is: they would have a covenant meal. You will see, as you read through your Scriptures (In your very first lesson I had you go through Genesis; then I had you look at Exodus 34.), you saw that when they got through with the whole covenant procedure, they had a meal. Even on Mount Sinai, the elders with Moses ate and drank. We saw the covenant meal in Matthew 26, when on the night that Jesus was betrayed he took bread, and he broke it. He said, “This is My body.” I explained to you about saying, “You are eating Me; you are drinking Me.” It is another symbol to show that in covenant two become one. They share a common life. This is what he is showing.

#11. Once you entered into covenant, you were now known as “friends”, so “friend” is a covenant term. Go to 2 Chronicles 20:7. We have looked at it already, but I have a purpose in it that I think you will see in a few minutes. In this passage we find a reference to Abraham. Jehoshaphat is in trouble; he is praying, he is crying out to God. As he cries out to God, he reminds God of covenant. He said, (1) “Didst Thou not, O our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before Thy people Israel, and give it to the descendants of Abraham Thy friend forever?” [Jehoshaphat is in terrible trouble; the enemies are coming against Jehoshaphat. They are going to wipe them out, and Jehoshaphat knows covenant. If you are in covenant, your covenant partner promises to take on your enemies. He promises to be your strength when you are weak, because your covenant partner is bound to take care, not only of his covenant partner, but of his descendants. Abraham is long gone, but God cut a covenant with Abraham and his descendants. Jehoshaphat is very wise, because he is calling upon God. Does God answer? Yes. It is so neat, because if you look at the situation in which Jehoshaphat was, the first that Jehoshaphat does is to worship God. He goes to God, and he reminds God of who He is, at the same time strengthening his faith, and reminds God of His promises, which are “Yea, and amen!”

In John 15:13 (and I want to repeat it since it has been a week since we have looked at it), it says, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. (14) You are My friends, if you do what I command you.” [Friend is a covenant term. What is God saying? God is saying that we, now, have become friends of God, because we are in covenant. Remember, in John 13 is where you have the Passover meal. Now in John 15, they are in covenant; Jesus is about to go to the cross.] (15) “No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.”

Janice was sitting on the bed last night, and she said that she just longed some day to be worthy to be called a friend of God. “Some day, God, could I be worthy enough to be called Your friend?” She just let out a whoop (Roger told me this this morning). She said she didn’t have to be Abraham; she could be her. She realized that she could be God’s friend. Not something that you earn, do you see? Not something that you attain to, but it is something that is a gift of grace through the new covenant.

You know, Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved David as himself. We didn’t seek a covenant with God, but God made a covenant with us, because He loved us as He loved Himself, and He wanted to call us “friend.” Isn’t that neat? Isn’t that exciting? Just imagine—you are a friend of God. But listen, if you are a friend of God, will you be faithful to covenant, no matter the cost? We are going to come back to that question is just a minute.

They are known as friends. Go to Zechariah 12:10, and this is the last passage that I want to look at, but as you turn to Zechariah 13, I want to remind you of one other Scripture. It is Proverbs 18:24, which says, “There is a friend” [It is the same Hebrew word for “friend” that is used for Abraham.] “that sticks closer than a brother.” Zechariah 12:10 says, “And I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced;” [Who wanted Jesus’ death? Who wanted to get rid of Him? It was the Jews. He came to His own, and His own received Him not.] “and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him, like the bitter weeping over a first-born. (11) In that day there will be great mourning in Jerusalem,” [And it talks about this mourning.]

Zechariah 13:1. “In that day (the same day) a fountain will be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for impurity.” [There is going to be a way for them to come back. Watch.] (4) “Also it will come about in that day that the prophets will each be ashamed of his vision when he prophesies,” (6) “And one will say to him, ‘What are these wounds between your arms?’” [The New American Standard says “arms”, but it is literally “hands.”] “‘What are those wounds between your hands?’ Then he will say, ‘Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.’” [Faithful to covenant, no matter the cost. God made a covenant with Israel; Israel broke that covenant. Israel despised the Abrahamic covenant. Israel turned their back on the seed of the Abrahamic covenant, but there is a covenant partner. His name is Jesus Christ, and what does He do with Israel? He is a friend that sticks closer than a brother,a friend that would take their rejection, and still come back, and remain faithful to that covenant, and some day save Israel.

Don’t you dare let anybody tell you that God is finished with Israel. God is not finished with Israel. He is in covenant with Abraham and his seed. How do you know that He is in covenant with Abraham and his seed? Well, when men wanted to make a covenant, and they wanted that covenant to pass down, not only to be between them, but to be between them and their seed, when they wanted to assure the protection of their seed, and those covenant promised on down to their seed, many times they made a covenant cut closest to the site of paternity.

As I told you in the lesson, women have come to me and said, “What did Jewish women do, because they couldn’t be circumcised? How could they be part of the covenant?” And I couldn’t explain it. I didn’t understand why God chose circumcision, something that could be done only to a man, and not be done to a woman. Was He slighting women? Were women less than men? Oh no, the answer is beautiful! Go to Genesis 17:10. What was circumcision? (9) “God said further to Abraham, ‘Now as for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. (10) This is My covenant, which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: every male among you shall be circumcised. (11) And you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be the sign of the covenant between Me and you.’” (13) “‘A servant who is born in your house or who is bought with your money shall surely be circumcised; thus shall My covenant be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.’” [Now, remember that.]

To whom is He speaking? He is speaking to Abraham, so in the Abrahamic covenant, circumcision was a sign of covenant. How long a covenant? An everlasting covenant, and because it is everlasting, precious one, God is not through with Israel. Any theology that comes along (I am sorry for my dear brothers that disagree with me) and says that God is through with Israel, and we are the new Israel, or we are the new “Abraham’s seed”. Yes, we are Abraham’s seed, as far as the Gentiles are coming into the body of Jesus Christ, and we are being grafted into that wild olive tree that has been cut off, but not torn away. We have been grafted in by belief, and when Israel believes again, they will be grafted back in. God is not through with Israel. If God is through with Israel, then listen, He could be through with you, because He made an everlasting covenant. That sign was circumcision. It was passed down and down and down. You say, “Does circumcision save us?” No. Circumcision was always, and only, just a sign, a sign of a heart belief. You have got to see that.

Go to Romans 2:28, and let me show it to you. (28) “For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly; neither is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. (29) But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.’” [So circumcision served simply as a sign. But what was it a sign of? An everlasting covenant. God had to make a cut in the site closest to paternity. So when a man’s seed came forth from his body it was a reminder to that man that his sons were to be in covenant. Beautiful! Isn’t that beautiful? Doesn’t it turn from something that we snicker about, or that we blush over, to something that is absolutely beautiful? And see how the woman participates in it? Where does the woman come from? The woman comes from Abraham also, so she is part of that covenant. It was so exciting to me, and now when I hear about the Jews circumcising their people, I can appreciate that so much. They call the one who is there present at the circumcision “Baal-berith.” Bael means “master or God.” Trumble spells “berith” that way (?) when he uses that quote. Master of the covenant.

Do you know how the Germans hunted down the Jews many times? They would strip them, and they would know that because they were circumcised, they were Jews. But, do you know what? It is so neat. God says, “Circumcise your males on the eighth day.” As a nurse (and this was years ago so I don’t know what they are doing now) we would circumcise them right after they were born. But when we did, we had to give them a shot of Vitamin K. Do you know why? So that their blood would clot, so that they would not bleed, because there was no suturing at all involved in that. Now, in the eighth day, the clotting time in a male is at its very peak. So when God said to circumcise on the eighth day, God had that clotting time at its very peak, so there was no worry about them bleeding to death.

Now do you understand why Zipporah stopped Moses on the road? Why was God going to kill Moses? Because God is faithful to covenant, and covenant must be kept; and Moses (those years on the back side of the desert) had neglected to circumcise his son. That is why Zipporah said, “Oh, you bloody man. You man of blood.” Why? It is covenant blood.

Many times they erected a memorial, or they had some sort of sign of the covenant. What was the memorial, or the sign, of the Abrahamic covenant? Circumcision. What was the sign or memorial? Something that would remind them. A sign points to something, or a sign reminds you of something. So what was the sign of the covenant that God made with Noah and all flesh and animals? The rainbow. We look up at the rainbow, and we get excited. When I was writing this course, Jack and I were driving on a trip, and Jack knew that I was writing Covenant. There had been this huge rain storm. I mean, you thought you were going to get blown away. We were on the South Carolina oceanfront. So Jack said, “Look up here, Sweetheart.” The most beautiful rainbow! I thought, “Oh God, there is Your sign of a covenant that you made with us, so that every time I look at that, no matter how deep the water gets, I can know that You are not going to destroy this earth with a flood.”

So they had all sorts of signs. In Genesis, you find a covenant flock, so as they looked at these lambs that had been bred from two flocks together, that is a memorial; that is a reminder to them. Every time they are out there with their sheep, and they look at that covenant flock, they remember, “I am in covenant.” The cut on the wrist was a sign, so every time they brushed their hair, or every time they ate, they would see that cut, and they would remember that they were in covenant.

They had other signs. They would put up stones, pillars. You find the Jews doing this all the time. As a matter of fact, you can find pillars, little stones put together; they are marking something, that the Jews have put beside the road over in Israel. It is exciting. Or you see them in the middle of fields. So here are memorials. One of the most exciting things when you are in Israel is to go down under the Wailing Wall, down into that territory. You go down, and you look over—if you go with us, I say, “Look over there. See that door? Do you know that they are digging under there, and they think they are going to find the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle? They think they are going to find it. Do you know what they are looking for? They are looking for the Ark of the Covenant.”

I love Israel; I love the Jews, God’s chosen people. I tell them that if I could be anything on the face of this earth, I would be a Jew that knew the Messiah. You look at these young boys, and you look at these old men, and you see them with boxes on their foreheads. You see them with boxes on their arms. You see them with their little prayer books. They are going like this and this and this (bobbing forward and back), because there is a verse in the Psalms that says, “All my bones do shake, and they are shaking their bones as they read these books, and as they make their prayers. They have phylacteries on their heads. What are those phylacteries? They are a sign, not of the Abrahamic covenant, that sign is circumcision; but they are a sign of the old covenant. Oh, beloved, as you do your lesson this week, just remember this when you think about it, those Jews are still there with those phylacteries on their heads? Why? Because there is a veil over their eyes. They don’t know what has happened to the old covenant. They don’t understand that the new covenant has come. And they stand there, and their eyes are open, but with open eyes they can not see. They are blind, absolutely blind!

Phylacteries on their heads and on their arms. What is a phylactery? Let’s go to Deuteronomy 6:4. Moses is telling them what they are to do once they get into the land. This is the great shema. It says, (4) “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God (Jehovah, our Elohim), the Lord is one! (5) And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. (6) And these words , which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart; (7) and you shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. (8) And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals (or frontlet bands between your eyes) on your forehead.” [So this is what they do—they take the words of the law, put them in a black box called a phylactery (we have pictures of it), and they tie them around their forehead. Or, they tie them on their arm. What do they do? They take this Scripture, and they do something literal with it. What is God saying? Is He saying to literally bind these phylacteries? In fact, the rabbis carried it so far that they said God wore phylacteries to remind Him of the covenant. That is what they said.

Did God mean that? Is He speaking figuratively, or is He speaking literally? I think He is speaking figuratively, and I think He is saying this, “Wherever your eyes go, always remember who you are, and remember My commandments; and whatever your hand does, always remember My commandments. Remember that you are in covenant with Me. Be faithful to covenant, no matter the cost.”

Let me show you Exodus 13:11, because this is really neat. “Now it shall come about when the Lord brings you to the land of the Canaanite, as He swore to you and to your fathers, and gives it to you, (12) that you shall devote to the Lord the first offspring of every womb, and the first offspring of every beast that you own; the males belong to the Lord.” (14) “And it shall be when your son asks you in time to come, saying, ‘What is this?’ then you shall say to him, ‘With a powerful hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, from the house of slavery. (15) And it came about, when Pharaoh was stubborn about letting us go, that the Lord killed every first-born in the land of Egypt, both the first-born of man and the first-born of beast. Therefore, I sacrifice to the Lord the males, the first offspring of every womb, but the first-born of my sons I redeem.’

(16) So it shall serve as a sign on your hand, and as phylacteries (or frontlet bands) on your forehead, for with a powerful hand of the Lord brought us out of Egypt.” [What is he saying? He is saying, “That first-born male set aside unto the Lord, of the animals, that first-born male of the sons, is always a sign. So when your kids say to you, “Daddy, why are you taking that lamb to sacrifice it?” Daddy says, “Let me tell you a story. One day pharaoh had us under his rule. He was a cruel king…, and you tell them the story.” What is it? It is a sign to your descendants over and over and over again, so that they don’t forget the covenant.

I want to tell you something—in Israel, the people that I really admire are the people that don’t forget the covenant. You see, some of the Jews have just walked away from all belief in God. They believe that the Messiah is the nation now, not a Messiah that is coming. But the orthodox Jews are hanging on, and they have all these sign. And I think it is right, because all those things should be in practice until the new covenant comes. The new covenant has come, but they don’t know it. They are blind. But at least they are hanging on, in part, to what they know. Now, we want to move on.

When you were in covenant, you had to be willing to give the very dearest thing that you could give to your covenant partner. You had to be faithful to covenant, no matter the cost, even if it meant laying down your life. Let me ask you a question—you are in covenant with Jesus; you are in covenant with God the Father. How faithful was God to covenant? He loves us so much that He gave His only begotten Son. You had to be willing to lay down your life for your covenant partner, but to an Oriental man (and it is too bad that it is not true today), there was nothing dearer to him than his son. That son was dearer to him than his very own life, and he had much rather die than he would to give up his son. Why? Because his son was the one that carried on his blood line. The son was the one that the one that carried on his name. If an Oriental father died without a son to carry on his name, that was disaster to him. That is why God would keep telling Eli , and others, “This is the judgment of God. I am cutting you off.” They didn’t care about them dying, but they cared about not having a descendant to follow them. So, God, how faithful are you to covenant? So faithful that He gave what was dearer than His own life. He gave the life, not of one son out of several, but His only begotten Son.

“Abraham, Abraham.” “Yes, God?” “Take your son, your only son, whom you love, and offer him up as a sacrifice for Me.” “Yes, Lord.” Faithful to covenant, no matter cost. And Abraham took Isaac. Isaac was not a little boy. Isaac was a young man. Go to Genesis 22. He said, “Son, we are going to go and worship God.” (3) “So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son; and he split wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. (4) On the third day Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place from a distance.” [You know, they selected the Passover lamb, and then on the third day, they prepared it; they sacrificed it.] (5) “And Abraham said to his young men, ‘Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go yonder; and we will worship and return to you.’” [That is a statement of faith. “I am going to go up with my son. I am going to sacrifice him.” He knew he was going to sacrifice him. Isaac did not know that he was going to die, but Abraham knew he was going to die, because that is what God said. And Abraham was in covenant with God, and God was testing Abraham. “Will you be faithful to Me? Do you just want Me for what I will you, or do you love Me? Do you serve Me just for what you can get? Do you serve Me just because you do not want to go to hell, and just because you want heaven, or do you serve Me because you love Me? Do you serve Me because I am Me? Why do you serve Me?” And God may be asking you the same question—why do you serve Me? How faithful will you be to My covenant?]

When Abraham went up that mountain, he knew that God was faithful to covenant, and because God was faithful to covenant, and because He had said, “Abraham, in thy son Isaac shall thy seed be called.” You studied it in Genesis 17. He says, “Oh, that Ishmael might live before You.” And God said, “No, no, no; not Ishmael, not a child of the flesh, but a child born of the Spirit. No, in Isaac shall your seed be called. I am going to give you a son.” And Abraham knew that if he went up and sacrificed Isaac, that God, because God was faithful to covenant, God would have to resurrect Isaac from the dead. “God, I will be faithful; I will obey You. But, God, I know that You are faithful to covenant, and You will have to resurrect Isaac.” Do you think that is farfetched?

Go to Hebrews 11, that beautiful, beautiful chapter of faith. You will appreciate it so much more when you see the context it is in. (17) “By faith Abraham, when he was tested,” [Faith is not faith until it is tested. Has your faith ever been tested?] “when he was tested, offered up Isaac; and he who had received the promises…” [Promises of what? “Through Isaac shall your seed be called.”] “was offering up his only begotten son;] (18) “it was he to whom it was said,” [You see, if God killed Isaac, and God did not raise Isaac, then the covenant stopped, because God would not use Ishmael, because the promise was to Abraham’s only begotten son.] (18) it was he to whom it was said, ‘In Isaac your descendants shall be called.’ (19) He (Abraham) considered that God is able to raise men even from the dead; from which he also received him back as a type.” [As a type of what? Resurrection, because was Abraham going to kill him? “Father, I see the wood; I see the fire. Father, where is the sacrifice.” (That is a very interesting statement. We will come back to it in just a minute.) “God shall provide Himself a sacrifice.” He binds Isaac; Isaac knows he is the sacrifice. Isaac is not a little boy; Isaac can resist this 100+ year old man. And Isaac is on the altar.]

I don’t know if you ever saw the movie, The Bible, but it is outstanding. Cecil B. DeMille just did an outstanding job. He got a little bit of it mixed up, but not much. I have never heard so much Bible in a Hollywood movie. You see Abraham standing up there, and you see the wind blowing. You see the altar, and you see Isaac lying on the altar. Abraham raises the knife, and holds his son’s head back, to come down. “Abraham.” “Yes, God?” “Abraham, now I know you fear Me, seeing that you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” Abraham was willing to put him to death. Abraham was going to be faithful to covenant, no matter the cost. The cost was that which was dearer than life; it was his son. In that, Isaac became a type. He received him back, in picture. It was as if he was killed, and God resurrected him.

Genesis 22 is the first time God uses the word “love” in the Bible. It is the first mention. He writes 21 chapters, and God never once uses the word “love.” The first time He uses the word “love” is when He says, “Abraham, take thy son, thy only son, whom you love, and offer him up as a sacrifice.” When God takes that word “love,” He gives us what true love is all about. What is true love all about? It is a man laying down his son, his only son; and “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son.” What was God showing us in Abraham offering up Isaac? A picture of God’s love for us, in covenant, because Abraham was in covenant with God. In covenant, God being so faithful to covenant that He would crucify His Son for us—and then raise His Son from the dead.

Listen, this is not only the first time that “love” is used in the Bible, but it is the first time that “worship” is used in the word of God. Love and worship go together. Worship is looking at somebody’s “worth-ship.” It is looking at somebody’s value. You come, and you say, “God, I worship You. You are my God; I am in covenant with You.” And because you are in covenant with Him, love is an active verb, and love lays down its life. “Greater love has no man than this, to lay down his life for another.” What does a friend do? What did you see in John 15? A friend lays down his life for a friend. They are in covenant. This is what is happening here in Genesis. It is beautiful, and you and I need to see what God did.

Look at Genesis 22:14. “And Abraham called the name of place (in the Hebrew, it is Jehovah-jireh) The Lord Will Provide, as it is said to this day, ‘In the mount of the Lord it will be provided.’” [Why did God stop him? Let me show you the Scripture.] Genesis 22:11, “But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.” (12) And he said, Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since your have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.’”

Let me ask you a question: What is in your hand? What is the dearest thing in life to you? What is the dearest thing? How are you going to hold it? Are you going to say, “God, I love You; I love You, I really do, but God, don’t ask me for this. Don’t ask me for this.” And God says, “Do you love Me? Do you love Me?” He said it to Peter, “Do you love Me more than these?” What was He pointing to? Was He pointing to the other disciples? Because Peter said, “I will go with you to death?” Or was he pointing to the fish, because Peter had gone fishing? I don’t know, and I really don’t need to know. All I need to know is how would I answer God when He says, “Do you love Me more than _______ (whatever it is)?”

God taught me a long time ago, through a biography about Isabel Kuhn (?), a great missionary in China under Hudson Taylor in the China Inland Mission. She says, “God has taught me to hold everything in an open hand, so that if God wants to take it, He doesn’t have to pry my fingers apart in order to get it.” He has taught me to hold it like this, and if He wants it, fine. And if He doesn’t, fine.

I think one of the worst things that could have happened to me, or that I thought would be hard to live with, would be being paralyzed from the neck down. And I remember the day that I went to the Lord, and I said, “Lord, whatever You want, whatever You want.” You say, “I am afraid to do that; God is liable to paralyze me from the neck down.” God is a God of love; God is a covenant keeping God; God loves you with an everlasting love. He says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; the thoughts I have for you are thoughts of good and not thoughts of evil, to give you a future, and to give you a hope. But, I love you so much that I can’t let you hold anything that way. You have got to hold it in an open hand.”

In covenant, your relationship to your covenant partner must supercede every other relationship upon the face of this earth. It must supercede it. It must supercede every other possession on the face of this earth. Sometimes God asks you, “Do you love Me? Do you love Me? Then take the thing that you love, and unclench your fingers, and trust Me.” Abraham trusted God, and God let him have Isaac. God will not always let you have what you want, but I promise you that whatever He lets you keep is because it is all right for you, and whatever He takes away is because it is better for you and for Him and His kingdom. What are you holding in your hand, and how are you holding it? God wants you to be faithful to covenant. He is faithful. He has been faithful all the way. He has been so faithful that He took His Son, who was dearer to Him than anyone else, and He offered Him up for you, to show you His faithfulness. What about you?

When I have taught this before, I had one woman that wept bitterly back there. She was holding her son, her child, like that. “No, God.” Until finally God, out of love and truth, coaxed her hand out, and she stretched it out, and slowly she opened her fingers. When she did, she had the sweetest peace, and the sweetest release. That is what you will have too. Faithful to covenant, no matter the cost. You don’t have to be afraid of Him—you don’t have to be afraid of Him. He desires your highest good.

When Isaac was taken off the altar, God said, “Look, there is a ram caught in the thicket. Offer him in his place.” That ram became a picture of God laying down His Son for you, in order to cut a covenant with you. Faithful to covenant, what have you got in your hands?

Let’s bow our heads. Who is your Isaac? Or what is your Isaac? Will you put Isaac on the altar right now? Will you trust God? Will you trust His love? Will you put him on the altar? If you do, God will say the same thing to you that He said to Abraham, “For now I know that you fear Me, since you have not withheld your Isaac from Me.” Will you give God your Isaac?

Father, we thank You. We thank You that You were faithful, that Your faithfulness knew no bounds; and we thank you for that verse in Romans 8 that says that if You did not withhold Your Son from us, Your only Son, the ultimate of sacrifices, that because You did not withhold, then You will not withhold from us any good thing that pertains unto life. O Father, thank You. How can we be afraid of such love? How can we hold anything in our fists, when we know the ultimate sacrifice that You gave, because You were faithful to covenant? We thank You, Father, that in this way, we can show You that we are faithful to covenant, no matter the cost. In Jesus’ name we praise You. Amen.

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