 Okay, good morning everyone Wishing you all a blessed new year 2022 May the Lord bless each one of you and continue to use each of you Greatly for his kingdom That's wonderful. Welcome back. It's good to be back for a new semester All right, so this semester We'll be going through the course the covenants the cross and the blood and it's a powerful You know course where we can learn a lot of Insights on covenants what the Lord Jesus did for us on the cross and Also, what the blood of Jesus does for us? Even now in each of our lives. So excited for this course the PDF for This course the document the coast notes have been uploaded So you can feel free to download them and even as we Go along in this class you can you know if you have questions to you can track along Feel free to post your questions so you can even Stop me anytime ask questions As we continue on with this course All right, so shall we begin this course? Everyone okay everyone ready? All right, all right can one of us please lead us in prayer Let's just surrender this entire semester and this course especially into God's hand to pray that the Lord Will give us wisdom the Holy Spirit will minister to each of us You know the whole point of going through this course is it's not just to finish Okay, second semester, but the point is to gain something In our spirit that we may be used for our for the glory of God's kingdom. So let's pray one of us Please lead us in prayer Maybe John if you're there, can you please lead us? Let's pray. Yeah, thank you father. We want to thank you for this time Lord. We humble ourselves once again to your presence You know, so you're starting off with this course of God We pray that you would continue to impart your revelation to us And we would be able to Understand the mysteries of your word help us to be deeply rooted and securely grounded in your love And as we learn this course of God, we pray that you would minister to us And we would we would have a thought of knowledge of what you have finished in the cross for us God We thank you Lord. We submit Passable to your hands and ask for your grace to be with him to teach the entire course of God And we pray for each of us as students We pray that to God we would have a clear understanding of what you are teaching us Lord God Thank you in Jesus precious name. We pray Thank you, John. All right, so let's begin with The covenants, let me just present the notes so that we can all Sorry, I'm just trying to pull up the notes Okay For some reason the notes are My PDF is not showing on the stream. I just tried it. But anyways, let's start off with the course. I'll just probably All right, so what what do we Think of when the first the first thing that comes to our mind when we say covenants What is the first thing that comes to our mind? You know the first thing that comes to my mind is You know if we if most of us have stayed in a rented house or a leased house, right? Now when we stay there What what happens? Okay, you meet with the owner you you sign a lease agreement or a rental agreement You say, okay, this is the number of years that I will be staying here. It's a 12 month contract and You know you sign the agreement After that what happens? Right? Nothing much happens. You pay your rent. Everything's fine, right? You there's not much of a relationship happening Now later on you decide to move out of that place and go to another house Right and so we do the same thing in the other place Now are we going to be in touch with our old owner? Are we going to say hey? It's you know, it was a wonderful place. I stayed there for two years Very unlikely, right? Now the word covenant when we say the word covenant sometimes in our mind We may think of legal contracts or we may think of you know a 12-year contract or a two-year contract And we have to do certain things. Only then that contract is liable But when we look at the biblical understanding of covenant, it is completely different The biblical understanding of a covenant talks about a relationship The Lord our God is a God who wants to have a relationship with us So when we say that God is a covenant God Does not mean that God has you know a certain set of rules, right? Okay, these these are the rules like in the old testament you have these rules You follow these rules only them You're in covenant with me. It does not mean that What it when we read through the scriptures we understand that the old covenant and even the new covenant The God the Lord God Is a god of relationship It's not like the old owner You know, you pay your rent you pay your dues you pay your bills There's no relationship. I say, okay Fine, everything's fine. You can stay and then he calls you once a while says, you know, don't make sound The other neighbors are complaining Or or you know, the the owner may say, you know, these are the problems that we are facing There's no relationship But in the new in this covenant in the biblical understanding God is a god of relationships Right. He is the god who has created this covenant He is the god who wants us and encourages us to walk in the covenant Now, when we look at the old testament There are plenty of covenants the blood covenant Plenty of covenants all through the levitical offerings. You see covenants are being made Now one important thing that we must understand Is when God has created this covenant this covenant is based on love Right Why is God A covenant god. Why is God giving us these covenants? It is because God is a god of love Right. It's simple as this if we have You know, we have families. We have friends or we have children You set certain rules you set certain guidelines. Why it's not because you know, uh, you want them to be afraid of you But it's because you love them Right the same way When we are in covenant with God, it's not that God wants us to be you know, uh, okay You know in in such a way that you know, we should not look left or right. We should just you know It's not a relationship of fear But it's a relationship of love Now that's why many times, you know people have asked Why is God in the old testament? You know, so You know, it looks like it's so different from the old testament in the new testament. It's not We see that in the old testament. It was only love And the same thing carries on in the new testament because It's the same god Right. So in this semester As we talk about covenants, let's understand. Let's go to chapter one And we go to understanding Covenants The god of the bible Is a god of covenant And god is a covenant keeping god right now This is this is something that should you know really sink into each one of us our god Of the bible is a god of covenant And he is a covenant keeping god right Let's read deuteronomy chapter seven and verse nine. Yes. Could one of us please read that Deuteronomy seven and verse nine Therefore know that the lord your god. He is god The faithful god who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations With those who love him and keep his someone Amen. Thank you right, so He's writing here therefore know that the lord your god He is god the faithful god who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations Psalms 89 and verse 34 Uh, yes, one of us, please read it. I think I've projected it. Uh, are you able to see? Is everyone able to view all right go ahead My covenant I will not break no after the word that has gone out of my list Amen, what a powerful scripture this is god is saying my covenant I will not break Nor will I alter the words that come out of my lips Right so the word covenant refers to a serious binding agreement between two parties Right now when we looked at initially I just shared about how you know if you are staying in a Place you you have this owner Yes, you have a relationship with him, but it is not a covenant relationship It's not like after you move away, you know, you're going to be in touch with him or there's this solemn relationship happening there but here God is saying He will make a covenant in a solemn promise an unbreakable promise A commitment and an agreement which he has made for each one of us So even as we you know walk this walk of life Even as we you know Prepare ourselves equip ourselves remember that we are fulfilling The part of the covenant that God has initiated for us Right sometimes you may feel hey, I'm I'm in the ministry. I'm I'm doing this That's wonderful, but Remember that we are fulfilling the covenant which God has asked us to fulfill So it is a joy. Maybe some of us are in the workplace Some of us are already in the You know arts and entertainment or medical field or whichever sphere of influence God has a covenant for each one of us And what does he say here? My covenant I will not break That's so powerful And later on we look at the different covenants But we want to make this foundation strong and say God you are a covenant keeping God And his covenant he will not break Now the question is What about our side of the covenant? You know if there's a rental agreement or a lease agreement for 12 months If we don't like the place we tell the owner hey No, I don't want to stay here. Please. Well, I'm going to break this contract In the next two months. So Kindly excuse me and you can just break the covenant Like they're not the owner is not going to take you and put you into jail for breaking the covenant. No, that's not going to happen Like there may be a fine But you can break the covenant But God here is saying You may break the covenant. I may break the covenant But God is saying I will not break the covenant that I have established The Hebrew word for the word covenant is beret, which means to cut a covenant Which means that a covenant that is made by passing of flesh. So when we look at the Old Testament Let me just give you a little bit of Old Testament reminder here When two parties the Old Testament Would make a covenant what they would do is they would take the blood of the lamb Or the goat or the calf whatever animal it is And they would sprinkle the blood In a sense to say that hey this covenant that we have made It's a blood covenant And what is it? What does blood refer to blood refers to life? Right, which means Even to the point of death We are going to keep this covenant together Right, uh, so in the Old Testament in the Old Covenant what they would do was The Israelites would come and there was a sin offering the guilt offering the peace offering all those offerings and then Uh, if two parties had decided to join together They would make a blood covenant And no matter what happens, you're not supposed to break the blood covenant But if you read the Levitical Uh, you know offerings and you keep reading If we break the blood covenant There's a curse upon the people the person who has broken that covenant Right because it's it's bound by blood so The word covenant in in Hebrew is mostly talking about Involvement of of blood which means life for the two parties The Greek word here is Which is translated testament Unfortunately, the word testament does not do justice To or does not, you know give the full weight Than the word covenant that the word that covenant gives Uh, but we are reminded of this That that is the old covenant that is the new covenant And both covenants are initiated by God And God communicates to us through these covenants The new testament is a covenant Remember what Jesus said He took the blood and he said this is the blood of the new covenant A new treaty The old agreement is there It's it's it's still there, but I'm giving you a new covenant Where not by the blood of goats and rams, but by the blood of the sinless lamb So even as we study this Remember that God has initiated these two covenants You got the old covenant got the new covenant Both initiated by God And he has called us To partake in this covenant So what a wonderful wonderful opportunity that God has given us And so every time we go into God's word We can understand that hey God is speaking to us God is ministering to us. It is God's side of the covenant In that we are following that we are obeying Every time we read the word it's it's not it's not poetry But it is a covenant that God is speaking to each one of us Right and so as we understand that and as we think about that and read the scriptures meditate on the word The power of the word will come alive in us. So Let's move on page six Covenant relationship Now the ultimate purpose for God's covenant Is to have an intimate relationship Now God has not just put this covenant so that you know You know, we don't run away or you know, there's a contract. You have to stay here It's not like God felt okay 400 years in Egypt. So now I let me make a new covenant first. No, no The reason God made the covenant was Because he he is he's a god of love He wants to have that relationship of love an intimate relationship with us And for us to believe him and to be his friends Abraham said I'm a friend of God I'm a friend of God So let's look at a few points here God is relational When he portrays in the bible God is He's our father He is our king He is our leader He's our teacher We are his students So there's so many different analogies That God portrays But in all of it, we don't see God working alone God is a relational God Uh, for example, I've been Not been watching too much of it, but I just happened to Watch a few episodes of the chosen And uh And how they portray Jesus Right Why didn't Jesus just go about doing all this? You know the whole thing on his own he could have done it on his own Maybe just two three people have Peter James and John three of them and then finished the whole ministry He did most of it But we see that Jesus was Being God, he was relational He built relationships with people Right He was not somebody who went and you know said don't come near me. I'm God. I'm the son of God now He was a relationship. He had relationships with people. He had 12 disciples. He knew them very well He had friends. He had relatives and so God is a king God is a father. We are his children God is a king And we are his his part partakers of his kingdom God is a covenant God And we are his covenant people It's so assuring when you think of it, right? God is a covenant God We are his covenant people God will do his part of the covenant We are to do our part of the covenant Then we look at another part or another aspect of You know covenant is a father and children You know, God is our father. We are his children And it also portrays the terms of adoption We were you know Paul writes to the Galatians and he says You was we were in sin far away from God But through the blood of Jesus we have been adopted in Christ Jesus We have been adopted into God's kingdom Right through the blood of Jesus now. What was what what did Jesus do? He came to fulfill the old covenant Right Then we see here He's the king the kingdom and the heirs There are then there are kingdom descriptor descriptors that describe our relationship We are is and joint is with Christ Jesus So a covenant is established However, a relationship is developed within the within the covenant Right, let me repeat that a covenant is established But a relationship is developed now God has made a covenant with us. He said, okay This is what I'm going to do Genesis After Adam's sin, I'm going to make a covenant Firstly with Abraham. Abraham. I'm going to make you a blessing You're going to be a blessing You're going to be a father to many nations And and you'll be a blessing to many nations and all of that I'll give you an inheritance. All right Then going on He says I'm going to do something more I'm going to as you all are living in sin. The world is living in sin. I'm going to send my son And he will make all things new he will fulfill what I've mentioned in the old covenant And so God has established it You know, we say Christ crucified before the foundation of the world God has established that covenant But you and I Are to develop in that covenant develop a relationship Now there's no point in me saying, okay God thank you for The cross. Thank you for coming and saving me And thank you for everything That's it Okay, thank you. Finally. I don't have to go to hell Somehow I live a good life and go to heaven You know just scrape through and get into heaven now What does God desire? God desires relationship Right, so if I just say, okay, God, thank you I'd be done with it God is fulfilling his side of the covenant, but I'm not building a relationship with the God who created me I'm just saying God. Thank you Thank you. And uh, now I don't have to go to hell That's not that's not a whole point God is trying to tell us that hey, I've made a relationship I'm a god of relationship The goal of the relationship is fellowship and intimacy That is why we you know Every day we wake up every day we read the word we pray We seek God most of you have joined the course why because You want to know God Right, nobody's saying you have to join this course. You have to do this It's your choice. It's because you Want to build a relationship with God God has already given the covenant We are doing our part of the covenant Right, so never come to a place where we say, okay, God This much is enough Now God is willing to do more The more we build a relationship with him the more He is intimate with us the more we have fellowship with him I love that verse in the new covenant. It's it's such a powerful verse. It says My sheep hear my voice Lord Jesus saying my sheep hear my voice So I will speak I will speak my side of the covenant And if you are my sheep, you will hear the covenant You will hear my words and you will respond to that relationship right A covenant relationship is the best picture is that of a marriage A relationship or a promise made between a man and a woman in before many witnesses And you know they exchange tokens If if you've been in You know those Some of the traditional churches And you see the marriages, you know the words used Very very, you know, sometimes they use high words where they say, you know As a token of your love for each other or they say sometimes Do not annul what God has done for you and It's a powerful representation of God's relationship with us Right, uh, and here the covenant Is was ratified, which means it was confirmed. It was enforced. It was brought into action And and and and the ceremony of marriage is bringing that relationship into action right, so Let's go go down right Covenants have responsibilities They have obligations. They have terms Covenants have promises They have blessings. They have provisions. They have privileges Covenants have consequences Which means it has consequences And when we look at these three aspects first one Covenants have responsibilities There are terms and obligations. Now I cannot say God Thank you that Now I'm part of your kingdom. I'm your child And I cannot keep living a life of sin Right, I can't I can't do that. There are terms and conditions Right Yes, of course God has called us He says be holy for I am holy. He's given us the Tools and he's given us the Holy Spirit to overcome Temptations to live this holy life. And so it is our responsibility Right Now when we fulfill those promises when we fulfill those responsibilities There are certain promises What are the promises God blesses us? He provides for us He grants us so many privileges But here Is another important point Now even when we don't You know Do the first one which is you know the responsibilities follow the terms and obligations Yet God blesses us He provides for us. He gives us the you know Providence he he he gives us certain privileges. He heals us. He does all these things Why is that? Have we ever thought about it? God I've been living here. I hardly pray for example, right? For example, I pray five minutes For the entire week and I'm living a sinful life But yet, you know, I have all I need God has provided me, you know, there's no sickness in my body Give me a good job. Give me a good family good children How is it sometimes anything? No, how is it that you know They're all living sinful lives, but you know, everything's fine with them It is because God is keeping his side of the covenant Right. God is not saying, okay, you have disobeyed me. So I will not give you anything No, remember what we read in psalms my side of the covenant. I will not break Yet if we continue on And we allow the enemy To you know, overpower our lives. What we're doing is we're building a wall And we're saying we're not able to receive the blessings of God The enemy blocks it And so that's the reason why God is saying there are certain things that you have to do The enemy comes but to kill, steal and destroy the enemy wants to wants us not to believe That God, you know, he wants us to believe that if we if we do wrong, we will never be blessed Or he wants us to believe that we can you know, there is no blessings in In this covenant or he wants us to believe that this is all a hoax Or this is all just man-made stories. He knows it's real, but he wants us to believe that it's not real And so our side Is we have certain responsibilities Terms and obligations that we Must follow We must obey And when we do that His promises his blessings his provisions will follow us thirdly if we don't we continue to live Uh in our life of sin God will just let go And the enemy will overpower When the enemy comes initially it may sound good But there will be consequences Covenants have a sign For example, the abrahamic covenant It was circumcision circumcised your part of the abrahamic covenant What is the sign that you and I have in this new covenant You and I have the holy spirit For us that god is given to each one of us To help us fulfill the responsibilities of our side of the covenant For example, if you consider god's covenant to noah and the human race The promise was that god would never destroy the earth with a flood What was the sign? What is the token? Or a memorial of that covenant It was a rainbow So usually when god speaks to us He gives a sign He gives a token. He brings things to us You know, sometimes we may feel we're far away from god. We may say god I can't experience you. I feel dry in myself We may go through those seasons But god is a god Who restores and he signs shows signs and tokens of his covenant Right, he may say Paul remember Look at this picture. Remember this. This is my covenant with you This is my covenant with you You just want to share this I just a couple of months back. I was just going through a few of my old books Uh, 2010 2011 And in in one of the books I had written Uh, I think it was 2012. I could be wrong It was just 2012 I had written 10 years from now You will be I will be here Sharing the word Ministering the word of god 10 years from now 2012 I wrote down. I think it was september 2020 2012 10 years from now And I had written there right next to it and I said god is a covenant god And I saw my I saw that notes. I thought to myself It's 2022. It's 10 years now And and you know god has been so faithful We see that god has kept his side of the covenant So like that Many times god may remind us For Noah it was a rainbow You say, okay, god of mercy He would never do this again The old covenant if you're circumcised you're part of the abrahamic covenant And so even in our lives each one of us remember That god still speaks through his covenant Now god may give you a vision. He may give you a dream a word from the scriptures That can just bring light into your heart To remind you that even though you and I may be drifting away. He Is keeping his covenant Amen All right, any questions before I go ahead any thoughts any questions. I know I've been talking Any thoughts any questions? Should we continue Yes Okay, everyone following is it am I too fast? Please let me know if I'm too fast or Okay, all right, great. So let's go on Yeah, we are we are okay All right, great Okay, the cornerstones of god's covenant on page seven Two very important cornerstones Are his word and his nature god and word and his nature Go together Right now for example of jesus if god says I am the jehovah rafa the god who heals you That's what is god god's word says So his nature goes in line with his word And these two are the important cornerstones of god's covenant God Establishes his covenant By making a solemn promise And by giving us his word Right, so every time we read the word of god What are we doing? We are reading saying god. This is your part of the covenant Every time I come to Jeremiah 2019 11 I have plans to prosper you to give you a good hope and a good future What is it? It is his part of the covenant I've made you the head and not the tail It's his part of the covenant and all these wonderful scriptures when we read I've blessed you with every spiritual blessing. I've healed you have anointed you you are a chosen generation All these wonderful promises are his part of the covenant. It's his word And so as his word says so is his nature If god says I'm the god who provides for you So so much so is his nature. He will make providence It is that's why when we read the word we must understand That the word is not You know a whole letter or a poetry And with some good words and big words No It is life-giving word. It is god and it is god god speaking to us and his nature Being you know His nature coming into us And so the two cornerstones god's covenant Are his word and his nature God's covenant is strong because god is a god who cannot lie He is truth and he's absolutely faithful. He's merciful Compassionate in his nature He's not a god who lies Right. He's not a god who changes his mind He's a god who's compassionate Slow to anger a bounding in love That's what he is His word is absolutely and completely reliable So we can rely on god's word It is perfect When god says that I will do this I will take you I will make you A great nation or I will make you The head and not the tail You will be a light to the world you will be the salt when god is declaring all of this He is faithful to accomplish it in our lives. We can depend on god's word. We can rely on god's word No, we can you know, sometimes in our prayer we say god you said this lord It's not like we're reminding god But we're standing on his promises We're saying god In your word you have said this That by your stripes we are healed and so we declare this healing. What are we doing? We're standing on the promise of god. We're standing on the word of god Which is completely reliable, which does not change god is not You know changing from One day to another. He's the same And so you and I Can hold on to his word He speaks his covenant. He speaks his promises through his word That is why as believers It's very important that we spend time in the word right His word and his nature Are co or always together and they are the two cornerstones of his covenant In the old testament we see Psalms 103 and verse 18 Yes, could one of us please read that Psalms 103 and verse 18 Psalms 103 and verse 18 Psalm chapter 103 verse 18 of those who are faithful to this covenant of those who obey his commandments Yes, amen. Thank you. Jafina. Yes. So god's covenant He's saying here those who are faithful those who obey his commandments Right and so and there are plenty of scriptures. You see the scriptures there Psalms 25 10 thumbs 78 10 deuteronomy 7 9 actually the book of deuteronomy is packed with powerful covenants because god is reminding the people of Israel. Hey, you guys have turned away from me Uh, but now you're in the desert, but now you see my covenant. You see how I am I'm keeping my covenant. I'm a god of covenant. And so If you get time go ahead and read the book of deuteronomy. It is filled with You know covenant scriptures that we can declare upon ourselves as well. So God gave his word and then backed it up by himself God's covenant is a relationship of love and loyalty Between him and us God gave his covenant. He backed it up by himself He didn't say if it doesn't happen, I will send an angel and he will make sure that it happens. No, no, no God is saying I'm making this covenant And I'm backing it up by myself I myself My nature my attributes is going to back up the covenant that I'm giving you No angel No Michael nobody No other people but I will stand as that covenant What a powerful assurance that is Amen And you and I Even as we read these covenants even as we declare these covenants over our lives we can say god One thing we know that you are Other one who is standing behind this What you have spoken of you are standing behind that covenant and you will fulfill it in our lives Now sometimes we feel god, you know Nothing's happening as we have planned Sometimes life may be just going on and we think okay Nothing's working out I read all these, you know blessings and prosperity and love and care and Healing and all of it, but nothing's really happened up to now Am I not Fulfilling my side of the covenant sometimes we may Have these questions we may have these thoughts remember That god has called us into this covenant, but he is standing backing it up continue in faith continue In steadfastness Continue knowing that it is god who stands So when maybe some of us are waiting for a healing it's been Maybe a couple of months or years that we haven't received it continue on He does not change His words does not change his promise does not change his covenant Will not change right, so Let's take a break We'll come back and we will continue Let's take a break for 10 minutes and we'll be back