In this sermon, the preacher explores the concept of the blood covenant and its significance in the relationship between God and man. The sermon begins by emphasizing that God's covenant with man is based on bringing man into a proper relationship with Him. The preacher highlights the importance of understanding that God writes from the future backwards, meaning that He has already fixed history according to His plan. The sermon also discusses the ruin that man experienced when he encountered another will, brought into the earth by Satan, which is self-will and conceit. The preacher references Isaiah 14 to illustrate this point.

For the theme text, I'm going to turn to Hebrews chapter 13, and I'm going to use the theme text from Hebrews chapter 13. Then we go to the book of Genesis and start a week of looking into the blood covenant. Something happened when I began to look into the covenant relationship of a holy God to man, and to see what all's involved in that covenant relationship. When I say the word relationship, I mean that when God covenanted with man, he covenanted on the basis of bringing man into proper relationship with him. That was the only reason why God interrupted and came into this world. In Hebrews 13, now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory, forever and ever. Amen. Now, here's what I want you to notice. Of course, the word everlasting covenant, and then of course we'll go through the Old Testament and pick that up as we look through the blood of the everlasting covenant. And then the purpose of that covenant in verse 21, the very ultimate reason for God's interruption into our lives is this, that he may make you perfect in every good work. And listen, here's the ultimate, listen to me, to do his will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight, his sight. And I pray that as we look into these texts, that we'll find out what the purpose of God is with blood covenant. Now then, I want you to go back to Genesis and we'll start with chapter 3 and we'll begin to unfold the covenant that God made with man. In Genesis chapter 3, and I'll read verse 15, and then we'll bring out about four things from this text. Genesis 3 and verse 15. Well, let's read verse 14. And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field, upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, serpent and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed, it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Here is the glorious, redemptive promise that God brings into the chaotic condition in the Garden of Eden. And I pray laying a foundation of what I'm going to say all week. And listen, I've read, I just finished reading not long ago, Trumbull's book on the blood covenant. And then through the years, hearing people refer to the blood covenant and then beginning to search through the Word what all God is saying concerning covenant relationship. You say, well, Brother Bill, we've heard all this about the blood, we've heard all this about the curse, we've heard all this about the fall. But listen, what I'm going to bring out in these days is this, that the word covenant comes from a word which means an agreement. An agreement by bringing, cutting animals, separating them and dividing them, and passing through them and making a binding commitment that if anything happens, that one does not stay true to the promise. That will mean the covenant is broken, except in the unconditional covenant that God made. Oh, when I saw this, ladies and gentlemen, and I tell you what, I began to look into it, and here's what I found out. When we talk about covenant, we're not talking about a salvation that gets you out of hell and gets you to heaven. We are talking about a relationship that brings man back to oneness, sharing the very life of God. His life becomes my life, my life becomes his life. And listen to me, if that is so, listen, if that is so, we have a church full and a denomination full of people that are not saved. How do you know? There has never been in thousands upon thousands of the people who have made a profession of faith any sign that the life of Christ indwells them in bringing them back to the proper relationship of the will of God and pleasing Him, which is the ultimate reason for covenant. Amen? God did not make covenant to give man his right to do as he pleases. He made covenant to restore him back to God's ultimate purpose in the book of Genesis, when He put him here in the first place. Hallelujah. And boy, when I saw this, I got shouting happy. Amen? Now then, let's go to Genesis 1 and verse 26, and I want to show you what God just let me begin to say. And of course, a lot of this is fresh. Other stuff I have picked up from others. When I started preaching, I was going to be original or nothing, and I wound up originally nothing. Amen. So, what's new is not true, and what's true is not new. What I hadn't picked up from Dr. Phillips, I got from somebody else. But anyway, and I don't say that to embarrass him, because really, I preached with Dr. Phillips, and I want you to know, I just love him dearly, and the only thing I'm sorry for, I haven't been able to get all of his books yet. Amen. All right. And he writes them so fast. I tell you, it takes me three months to get an outline, and it takes him five days to write a book. I've never seen the like. Amen. That's the truth. Dr. Phillips, you can get even with me when you get up to preach next. All right. In Genesis 1 and verse 26, the first thing I want you to know is the relationship that God intended. Look at this. In Genesis 1 and verse 26, and God said, Let us. Boy, oh boy. There is the plurality of God. There's the Elohim, the plural, the Trinity. Oh, how sweet it is when the Word of God in just one little two-letter word can unfold the total work of the Trinity. Let us, Elohim. Singular, one. Dual, two. Plural, three or more in the Hebrew. Amen. And this is one of the Eloistic combinations. Elohim. In another place, he's called the Most High God, which is El Elyon, the Most High God. That means he's the possessor and owner of all things. Amen. Then when he turned to Abraham, we'll talk about later, and by the way, this is a covenant name, El Shaddai, which is the name he gave to Abraham and told him that he was to Abraham in Genesis 17, and here's what he said. I am the Almighty, the Shaddai, Elohim. I am, or El rather, not Elohim, but El. I am the all-sufficient, and the word Shadd means breast. Shaddai means many-breasted, which means the God that we serve has sufficient comfort to succor every person that flies to his bosom to find comfort in the time of the storm. Hallelujah. And ladies and gentlemen, you know what? This book is so full. Man, the more I've studied about this, I couldn't hardly wait to get here. I mean, you know when the word saturates you, and it comes alive, and of course I'm not a teacher, I'm just a preacher, but Lord have mercy, you may not get this together, but I'm having a spell just talking about it. Listen. Listen. If we could get people in the word of God, get people in the word of God, loving Him through the word, we could charge a city for the glory of God, the word coming alive to us. Amen? And God said, let us, Elohim said, let the Trinity, all three of us, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, make man in our, there it is again, our image, and after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, so God created man in His own image, and the image of God created Him, male and female created He them. Now look at this. God did not make man just so He could redeem him. The original reason for God making man was to live through Him. Fellowship. Share. Listen why. If God's love, then love cannot be contained in itself. The only reason why God ever fooled man was, He's love. That's not, you say that's His name. No, that's what He is. He just is. I mean, if you don't know what love is, go to God. He is. That's not something that He does. That's something He is. He just is love. Amen? But it's not our kind. It's not our kind, and that's why people can't understand hell, and they can't understand sin, they can't understand immorality, they can't understand why some people are judged, and why we're going to have a great white throne judgment. Why? They don't understand God's quality of love, and neither do I, but I believe it because He's God. And, listen to me, God did not make you for the ultimate purpose of redemption. He made you a vehicle of an extension of His life on this earth. God made man in His likeness. He wanted someone to love through, and to love with, and to fellowship with. Now then, watch it now. He knew before it began what man would do. And in foreknowledge, He already had the covenant made before the foundation of the world because He knew man wouldn't make it. Amen? And, listen, God made you, or made man, in the original beginning that He may be an extension, that we may be an extension of His life. Amen? God wants a vehicle. Hey, and by the way, you're going to find out as I preach this meeting in these morning sessions, God didn't save you to get you out of hell as the primary motive for saving you. He saved you to reinstate you to the original purpose. What is that? To be an habitation of God. Hallelujah. Boy, if we don't wake up to that, man, if Baptists don't wake up to that, you won't even need the Mullins family to sing to bless you. You'll get blessed just thinking about it. You won't need a sob story from this evangelist to bless you. You won't have to go to church to hunt a blessing. Why? You'll come awakened to the fact that your body is the temple of the Spirit of God, and redemption restores you back to the original purpose that's Christ in you. Amen. Amen. Hallelujah. God didn't save you. Well, God saved me to make me a trophy of grace. Oh, no. That's just a by-product of what He had to do to get you back to what you should have been, what we should have been without the fall, and that is a habitation of God. And I will be a trophy of His grace. But if that's all I've got the glory in, I won't be much in heaven. If I'm a trophy of His grace, then I'm going to be an extension of His life here. Amen? You see, ladies and gentlemen, salvation has been lowered to such a humanistic relationship. People can get saved, live all their life as they please. Why? We don't understand covenant. We don't understand the purpose of God, that redemption was not first for man, redemption was for God. And God put man in the beginning, made him for one reason, to be an extension of His life, and then to be an expression of His character. Brother, God put us on this earth, and God put man here that he may express on earth the very character of God. Now, let me tell you something, friends. Holiness is the character God is going to reproduce in people that are saved. And holiness is not something I do. Holiness is a person that controls me, rules me, and I build a relationship with, to where through that relationship, He lives His life through me, because I'm a sharer of His life, because when He fell on me, I didn't have any life. The only life I've got is His life. Amen? Hallelujah! So if His life is the only life I've got, why am I so busy living mine? Amen? We don't preach salvation as the exchange of life. We preach it like getting out of hell and do the best you can and hope someday you make it to heaven, build me a mansion next door to Jesus. Oh, Lord, help us, folks. The one you've got is ruining you. Amen? You say, Brother Bill, what are you talking about? We're talking about relationship. God desired relationship. God wanted fellowship. God wanted someone He could meet with and love and share and reach and commune in oneness and likeness. His life through them. Whoo! Boy, you understand this? You'll have a spell. You'll find out you're so saved it's pitiful. Amen? An extension of His life, an expression of His character, an exhibit of His dominion. He said, I'm going to give man the right to rule, to reign, and the Lord. And man's original purpose was to be on this earth and exhibit the dominion and power of God on this earth. Now, that's the original relationship that God really wanted with man. That's the purpose. That's the reason. You see, we built totally around Genesis 3 in the fall, and as a result, we think that the only thing man's got to do is get redeemed and go to heaven, and that's it. That is an ultimate lie. And I'm going to tell you, people have lied to me about salvation. When I got saved, they told me getting to Jesus would solve everything. Ladies and gentlemen, getting to Jesus only solves your destiny. The rest is relationship that I have got to, I have got to appropriate and live out. If not, I will never be pleasing to Almighty God and never come to the ultimate joy of being His son and living and acting like it. Amen? All right. So here it is. Here's the original relationship that God wanted. This is the very reason for the creation of man. You say, why? He wants somebody by choice, not robots, not mummies, or not somebody that just has to serve Him. God's looking for somebody to love Him back. Because love is only love when it's reciprocal. Amen? One-way love. So what God is trying to do is put man on earth so He could bring through that man Himself in the likeness of Himself, reproduce Himself through that man and let that man love Him back like God loves. A mutual love affair between God and man. That's the original relationship of Almighty God. Amen? That's the reason why we're here. That's the very first thing that God intended. Amen? Amen. Now, God needed responders. Lord, put me here to learn how to respond to Him. Now, we respond to our emotions. We respond to our minds. We respond to our feelings. And ladies and gentlemen, this was before common sense took over. Man didn't get common sense until he fell. Up to this time, he had God sense. You say, well, Brother Beard, God give me common sense. Oh, no, that came at the fall. Nothing God does is common. I mean, He don't leave you. He don't make you uncommon, but He just makes you commonly supernatural. Naturally supernatural and supernaturally unnatural. Living out a life you can't live, and yet you're living it. It's not I, but it's Christ. And the life that you live is not yours, it's His. Now, that's a paradox, but it's so. Amen? Hallelujah. So here's a relationship. A relationship that God desired. Then the second thing I want you to notice is in Genesis chapter 3, the ruin that man experienced. Here's what happened. Man came along and encountered another will. Another will. Satan has brought another will into the earth. According to Isaiah chapter 14, Satan brought another will into the earth, and it's called self-will. Conceit. I'm the center of attraction. I'm the important one. Live for what you want. And in Isaiah, is it chapter 14? I think I'm right, verse 28, where Satan said, Lucifer said, I will ascend to the heights. I'll set my throne where God's is. I will, I will, I will, I will. Five, I wills. And ladies and gentlemen, whenever he brought that theology, false theology, into the Garden of Eden and confronted Adam and Eve with choice. And all that God said was this. Listen. Out of all the trees in the Garden of Eden, just remember, I'm only putting a prohibition on one. Isn't that strange about the self-life? Man, aren't we stupid? Just put up a sign and say, do not walk on grass. Don't you want to walk on it? Isn't there something about restrictions that we rebel against? Huh? Somebody looks at you and says, don't you do that. Well, that's why our mom and dad have such a problem with us. That's why our self-wills have got to be changed. Why? Bless God, when they tell you not to do it, you'll reach for it anyhow. Why? That's part of common sense. What is common sense? I'm important. I'm the center of attraction. I'm the only one that matters. I'm going to live for me. And the devil brought that in the Garden of Eden and projected it and proposed it to Eve. And when she looked it over, even though the Garden was full of blessings, full of provisions, full of all that she'd ever need, Adam had everything he'd ever wanted, and in the Garden of Innocence and Perfection and Beauty and Plenty and Power and Provision, I mean, the only thing that they could not keep from doing was what God said not to do. And you see, the only thing they did in the Garden was disobey. What God said. That's all. Independence is the word. Brother, when we begin to understand what sin really is, it's not liquor, it's not shorts, it's not cigarettes, it's not chewing tobacco, amen? Sin is not dancing. Sin is not all that stuff. Those are offshoots of our real problem. What is our real problem? I'm independent, and I've got enough sense to know what I want to do, and I don't care what the preacher preaches, I don't care what the man of God says, I'll do as I please, and defiantly we walk out, ultimately bringing ourselves to a doom because we will not do the will of God. Independence. All Adam did was just do his own thing like he thought he ought to do. But ladies and gentlemen, Sunday morning, the church is full of it. What they've done is they've pleased all week, and then they come in and want you to give them something that'll last them another week so they can get through the week without falling apart. Ladies and gentlemen, I don't need something to help me, I need someone to inhabit me. And here is God finding Adam and Eve working out their fig leaf religion. They began to try to cover themselves, and by the way, listen to me, listen to me, the only thing Adam and Eve was trying to do was be their own gods. Did you know that's why a lot of people can't get saved? Do you know that's why we have lowered the plan of salvation to get people down the aisle? Why? We're not telling them, when you get saved you've got to change gods. What was Adam and Eve's problem? The devil said, God bless God, God don't want you to know what he knows, and he knows if you do know, you'll become gods. And sure enough they did, they become self-gods. Right? And when they became self-gods, they walked out of God's original plan, walked into their own plans, become their own gods, devised their own life, did their own thing, and they fell and lost everything that God originally created them for. They lost the likeness of God mentally and physically. And now you can see what the mind of man is doing, and you can't believe what the wickedness and imaginations of the mind of man is doing in this country today. I would never believe that we could live like we're living and protect what we're protecting and use our tax money to help prop up a bunch of perverts. Amen! You say, well, I should have. I don't know why I didn't believe it, because God won't have to judge man. Just let him go. It'll shock your socks off what man's going to do before it's over with if God just keeps not bothering him. Just let man go. It's going to shock you what'll happen. We haven't seen anything yet. God won't have to do anything. Leave man alone. You see, ladies and gentlemen, the biggest curse on man today is not just the fact, listen, it's not the fact of the exaltation of sin, it's the normalization of it. Listen to me. We no longer have a moral society, nor do we just have a society that's rebelling against God and then come to church anyway. We've got a society that don't even believe in God, don't even care for the Bible, and we're trying to face them with the same power, and it won't work. Amen? We need revival. Listen, every sermon I preach will be geared to revival. Every sermon I preach will be geared to the cross. Every sermon I preach will be geared to Jesus Christ. Why? Brother, we are past the point of having a little help. We've got to have a God invasion, or we're gone. Amen? A God interruption. Hallelujah. I'm glad he... However, let me remind you, he is sovereign. Amen. Just wanted you to know that. But I'm not worried about it. Adam lost his dominion, he lost his likeness, and he lost his character. Lost it all! Total fall! And boy, man didn't fall up, he fell down. I'm sorry for these evolutionists that believe man started falling, and he's falling up. Boy, isn't that something? I don't believe that. I believe man is falling down, and is still falling, and will keep falling, because he has nothing under him except to fall. And the only foundation he'll ever have is Jesus Christ and him crucified. Hallelujah. Amen. Now, watch this. Whenever that Adam and Eve... By the way, disobedience is so prevalent in us that about every second generation after Holy Ghost revival, it shocks us at how quickly men can turn away from God. Listen, I've looked at revival meetings, I've looked at revival services, I've watched churches. Listen, our problem in this generation, we're raising up a generation of people that hadn't seen the glory, don't know the glory, wouldn't know what to do in the glory, and afraid of anybody that has a little spell once in a while. Amen? We don't know what it is to have a sinner cry out in the middle of a service, My God, I'm lost! and run to get saved. We're too busy. God's all playing. Three points in a poem, just as I am, and invitation's got to be just like that. If anything interrupts that, Pentecostal. He's off for somewhere. Lord God, folks, I want to tell you something. We're living in a day when we better get back to the glory, the glory of God. This is exactly, which is exactly what Adam... And by the way, before the fall, they were totally naked, but they were clothed in the glory of God, and there was no shame. Shame comes as a result of man's common sense and depraved mind, who thinks the wrong thoughts, whose mind is perverted, and who physically begin to die from that day, and death has been in dominion ever since, and we have to die. So Adam died. He died. Because death is spiritual separation from God. Adam died, and as a result... But here's something, here's something that just blesses my blessing. In the middle of that fall, God comes down, and begins to unfold the drama of redemption, and begins to reveal a covenant promise that He had before the foundation of the world. Boy, I love this. Before there was ever a need, God had the supply. Amen? I mean, I want you to know, and it is so in my walk with God, every need that comes my way by a holy God is to push me to a supply that was there before a need. But it's God's plan and need to push me to the right supply. Hallelujah! For God is my supply. Not people, not churches, not denominations, not associations, but God is my supply. Hallelujah. And here's Adam and Eve running around sin, covering themselves with fig leaves, words of righteousness, trying to cover themselves, knew they were sinful. And the first thing that shows up, God comes down and starts talking to Satan, and here's what He says. You may have interfered, and you may have interrupted, and you may have had your way in this garden, but all you've done is release the supply of God that was here before you came. And all you've done is become the delivery boy. God has let you, by His sovereign power, come into the garden, tempt man, and Adam disobeyed only to release the greatest unfolding drama and plan of redemption. And you'll wish you'd have never messed with him because what you've done is hang yourself with your own noose. Because the covenant promise of the blood that I made before the foundation of the world, you said, Brother Bill, where do you get that? All right. Let's just look here a minute. In John 17 and verse 24. Just turn with me for just a moment. If you can turn fast enough, you can't just jot it down and look at it later. John 17 and verse 24. Look at this. John 17 and verse 24. Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am. This is his intercessory prayer. This is really the Lord's prayer. He's putting in his order before he leaves here. Hallelujah. That they may behold my glory which thou hast given me for thou lovest me before the foundation of the world. Whew. Hallelujah. All right. Let's turn to Ephesians chapter 1. Ephesians chapter 1. And just look at a verse here. Ephesians chapter 1, verse 3. Everybody's familiar with it. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places, according as he hath chosen us in him before. Before. Before the foundation of the world. How could God come down into the garden in such a chaotic condition if he's holy, if his character is pure? How can God come down and meet Adam in the garden without marring his character and violating grace? One way. He already had the Lamb in his mind as there was already slain. And on the basis of covenant blood, he could meet Adam on his own ground and still be God. Hallelujah. Amen. All right. I told you I had a time. 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 17. 1 Peter. Boy, what verses. 1 Peter chapter 1 and verse 17. Look at this. And if you call on the Father, who without respect a person judges according to every man's works, past the time of your sojourning here in fear, forasmuch as you know that ye were not redeemed. Boy, there it is. That's the very ultimate thing that God is unfolding in the Garden of Eden. With corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot, who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world. Hallelujah. Does that bless you or bless her? But was manifest in these last times for you. Now listen to this. What you've got to understand, you've got to see it from God's perspective. You can't humanly understand this. But let me tell you, in the mind of God before the world began, Jesus had already died. Only God. You say, explain that if I could have been God. That's what's wrong with some of you now. You're trying to play God. Just read it and have a spell. Don't try to figure it out. Just thank God it's there. Amen? Here is Jesus as a Lamb, Lamb slave, when? Before the foundation of the world. Glory to God. In the mind of God, Jesus, God the Father, does not write from the past forward. He writes from the future backwards. Why? That's God. Lord, if there's one thing you're going to straighten your mind this week, quit trying to figure. Faith it. You say, what is history? It's his story that he had already fixed and we're just filling it out. Amen? We're just... Oh Lord, help us. Hmm. My Lord, what a God. Hebrews 4 and verse 3. Look at this. Boy, I got blessed on this one. Boy, I want you to know. Hebrews 4 and verse 3. For we which have believed do enter into rest, and as he said, as I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest, although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. The word finished there is the same word Jesus said on the cross. It is finished. Tell it to stop. Finished. It's done. Hey, here's something happened from the foundation of the world. What is that? When Elohim created the world and said, in the beginning Elohim, Trinity, created the heaven and the earth. Listen to this. Whenever God established the foundation of the world, listen to this, He already had everything He was ever going to do done. In His mind. Boy, this is one of the greatest reasons for rest in the believer's life. Now listen. Listen. When Adam sinned, he broke the Sabbath rest. The Sabbath rest. What is the Sabbath rest? Resting in the finished work of God. That's man's rest. Not sleep, not pills, not Valium, not going to the doctor, not taking something to make you sleep. That's not rest. Physical rest is not what He's talking about. He's talking about a spiritual rest, which is what's killing folks. We don't have many folks who know spiritual rest. What is a spiritual rest? That we're not working to, we're working from. His works are finished when? At the cross? Not in His mind. From the foundation of the world. Ladies and gentlemen, when I saw this, I found out what the rest is to the believer. What's that? That what I'm doing, if I'm walking with God and living in the Word, I am only living out what God had already purposed for me. What do you mean, Philippians? Chapter, let's see. No, Ephesians 2 in verse 10. Well, let's look at verse 8 and 9. For by grace are you saved through faith in that not of yourself. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works. Why did God save me? The day that God saved me, I got in on something that God foreknew before the world ever began. Bought to pass the price on the cross of Calvary. Raised Jesus from the dead and set Him at the right hand of the Father, fulfilling everything the law could lay on me. And now the righteousness of God without the law is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. And through Him, I stand righteous today because I'm in Him. And I was there before the foundation of the world. You said that's predestination. No, that's foreknowledge. I'm sick and tired of people trying to put foreknowledge and predestination together and explain it. I'm not God and I'm going to let them run right together till I get the glory. And if I happen to get somebody saved that's not foreordained, God will forgive me. Of course, I don't say that irreverently. I'm just sick and tired of all the fuss and fume over theology. Let's stick to He who is theology. Get to the living God and love Him. Man, we're fussing over incidents and nitpicking over junk. Get to Jesus. You'll have more than you can handle. Hallelujah. It's hot up here. Excuse me while I pull off my coat and expose my suspenders. The lady said, Well, now, what are you wearing them for? I said, To hold my pants up. That's exactly why. Amen. You see what God really did. He came down and met Adam. God already had the lamb slain. And God acted in the garden on the basis of a covenant promise that everything that God's going to do He will initiate in covenant to bring Adam back to the relationship that He intended. And it took the price of God's son. God did not save me to just restore me back to a good man. He saved me to bring me back to God in right relationship which involves holiness, godliness, Christlikeness. It involves reproduction of Jesus. You say, What about soul winning in prayer? That is an offshoot of relationship. You can't train a man to keep up a prayer life unless he's rightly related to Jesus. You can't make a man keep winning souls until he gets back in relationship. Relationship supersedes all things. And that's why the Lord used the word covenant here. The word covenant is not used. I'll bring it to you in just a minute because He didn't use covenant here because there wasn't anybody to agree with. He had to do it all. He couldn't find a man that He could meet except on God's total sovereign choice because Adam was in no shape to meet Him except God had to chase him down. Right? You say, Well, explain that. I can't. I'm not God. When I get to glory, He'll unfold that to me. But I'll tell you one thing. He came down looking for Adam, and Adam was hiding. Went and hid from Him. Why? He didn't want His presence anymore. Sin has broken relationship. He's lost everything that God intended. You say, Well, is God upset? Hey, a lady, not a lady, but a couple came to me one night and said, Brother Stafford, I don't think we ought to pray over cars and pray over houses and pray over food and what I mean is the supply of it and pray over clothes. I think God gives us sense enough. I said, and they went on to say, And by the way, we just don't want to bother God with all that. I said, You pitiful folks. Do you think you're big enough to bother God? Aren't we little peanut fellas running around down here saying, God, I don't want to bother you with this. You ain't big enough. Amen. And here we are running around here trying to tell God how it ought to be and tell God what we think. Listen. Independence is what made us have an opinion. Independence is what made us unlovely. Independence is what makes church fusses. Independence is what makes church run off preachers. Amen. Independence is what makes us want our rights like I want it and I'm going to have it or else. That's independence and it's not of God. God save me from independence. Ladies and gentlemen, let's face it. Most of us have worked us out a system of religion that we do on the basis of common sense that demands no miracle, that demands no relationship. Where we can do as we please and still go to church on Sunday and have no interruption from God. Why? I don't believe a lot of people are in covenant relationship because covenant means two becomes one. Two becomes one. I'm no longer mine. I'm his. Well, now, Brother Bill, now come on. Now, you mean I, hey, oh, I go on and do the things I'm supposed to do that I know to do. I go on and eat and I go on and take showers and I go on and drive cars and I go on and shop and I go on and buy clothes. Hey, I do normalities, but that's things that I do on the floor walking with God. Amen? That means if I'm in relationship with him, everything I do is spiritual. Amen? I don't buy clothes because I need them. I buy them because I want to use them for the glory of God and need them to carry out the ministry. I don't need to use as many suits as I've gotten there if I wasn't preaching and sweating. So when I took that coat off, I'd get tired of ruining them. Amen? I guess I can't trust God for a new one, but anyway. Before sin, before Adam, before the fall, before the curse, God covenanted and had a plan to meet the need. That was a result of Satan's deception and Adam's and Eve's disobedience. And disobedience was nothing more or less than just saying, I'm going to do what I want to do. I don't care what God said. I don't care if there's something about this I want and I'm going to eat of that tree. And the only thing they did, they didn't get drunk, they didn't commit adultery, they didn't murder anybody. They just did what they wanted to do. And ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to drive this home and I'm going to say it every morning. The very reason why we've got covenant is agreement. And the Bible said in, is it Amos? How can two walk together except they agree? And God's certainly not going to agree with us because we don't even have anything to agree with. And by the way, covenant is the strongest relationship in the human world as far as that's concerned. Covenant is a strong, strong word of relationship and God uses it to bring the man so he can understand what God has done to man to bring him back to relationship. Relationship. Relationship. Relationship. I'm related to him. I'm a son. Now then, how much time have I got? Oh, 15 minutes, all right. Now then, in verse 15, when God came down in the garden, here's what he did. Boy, of course, some of these preachers could tear loose on this one for about two hours. Here's what God said to the devil. I'm going to put enmity between thee and the woman between thy seed and her seed, which is the seed of the woman, of course, is Jesus. The seed of the serpent is the antichrist. It shall bruise thy head, speaking of the seed of the woman, and that word it there should be he, because Jesus is not an it, amen? He's a living person. He shall bruise thy head, amen? What's that saying? And thou shalt bruise his heel. The seed of the woman is going to bruise Satan's head, and antichrist is going to bruise his heel, which is the first preview we see of Calvary, of the bruising of the seed of the woman. Now then, we know the woman doesn't have seed, so the virgin birth is in play. Boy, aren't you glad you're not a liberal? I mean, if I was a liberal, I couldn't interpret that. I'd just have to say, well, you know, I wouldn't know what to do with that. But that word seed unfolds the whole drama, because from this day on, God begins to lay down a seed line, a seed line, and the way he does it, he does it through covenant, by promising there will come a seed line through. Amen. It'll come through. It'll come through Adam, and then through, and Abel got killed, of course, but then God raised up Seth, and right on our anus was it, amen? Well, one or the other, I ain't got time to look right now. I've got to finish this. All right. And then right on through. Noah, when Noah came, well, there's one or the other, amen. All right. Here come Noah, and the world was wiped out and would have been gone had it not been for a covenant. Look at Genesis 6 and verse 8. Here's the first time the word covenant is mentioned. Look at this. Genesis 6, 18. But with thee will I... You see, a covenant has to have two. There's got to be an agreement between two. He couldn't agree with Adam because Adam wasn't able, but Noah had found grace in the eyes of the Lord. God had found a man to covenant with, and he issues and establishes covenant relationship. Whoo! Look at this. I'll establish my covenant, and thou shalt come into the ark, thou and thy sons and thy wives and thy sons with thee. Now notice something about a covenant. When God makes a covenant with a man, he makes it with his family. Whoo! Amen? Now look at Genesis 9, 9. Noah's been gone in the ark. All the animals have gone in with him. And now then the water has receded. The ark has come to rest on Ariat. And in verse 9, Genesis 9, 9. And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you and with your seed after you. And then he goes on down. Look at verse 11. And I will establish my covenant with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off anymore. And then he goes on down, verse 12. This is a token of the covenant. He gave him a rainbow in the cloud. Does that mean God will never judge the world or destroy the world again? No! But he'll never do it by water. A covenant is put in the sky as a rainbow. Now then, verse 16. And the bowl shall be... Oh, verse 15. And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you, and every living creature of all flesh. And the water shall no more become a flood and destroy all the flesh. And the bowl shall be in the cloud. And I will look upon it that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the face of God. Verse 17. And God said to Noah, This is the token of the covenant which I have established between thee and all flesh that is upon the whole earth. And boy, Noah went immediately and broke that covenant. And in his drunkenness, one of his sons came and saw him. I'm talking about broken in the sense of his unfaithfulness. Now let me tell you, the reason why God initiated covenant is because of the failure of man. And if God had initiated covenant, he wouldn't have fooled with us in the first place. But covenant is a binding agreement that you're going to stick to what you say. And that is why we must get back to see what God said. Why? He's the only one that'll ever stick to what he said. Does that give you a right to break the covenant? Oh, no. We're going to find out what happens when people break the covenant. But anyway, again, in Genesis chapter 20. Let's look at it. By the way, he started the seed line. We'll talk about that in the morning. I haven't got time right now. Lord have mercy. I'm behind. All right. Genesis chapter 15. Genesis chapter 15. After all, you know what happened. Here comes the flood. And then Noah and them come out of the ark, and they start another line through Ham, Shem, and Japheth, which is the three distinct people that went in three separate ways. And boy, I wish I had time to talk about how much they knew about the blood covenant. Adam and Eve knew the blood covenant. Abel knew the blood covenant when he brought a more excellent sacrifice to God than Cain. Why? He came by the blood. How did Cain come? Independence! Rebellion! And Abel died. But then that Noah went in the ark, came out, and through Noah comes three more seed lines, Ham, Shem, and Japheth. Gentile nations, the black nations, and the Jewish nations. Amen? All coming out of the land of Noah. And they are dispersed. But wait a minute. Wait a minute. When did they get dispersed? At the Tower of Babel in Genesis chapter 11. Now watch this. At the Tower of Babel, whenever that God dispersed the people and confounded their language. Now listen to me. Listen to me real closely. Every one of them that left out in that confusion knew about blood covenant. Ham, Shem, Japheth. They all knew the way to God was blood. And that's why, if you'll look through even the primitive tribes in New Guinea, or even the primitive people in Africa, and if you'll look around the world, you'll still see covenants being made on the basis of swapping blood. Some cut their wrist. And when they make a treaty, they cut their wrist and bind themselves by putting the blood together and swapping blood, which means my life in you, your life in me. Why? Life is in the blood. And that means I am binding myself to you for the rest of my life. Your enemies become my enemies. Your friends become my friends. What I've got becomes yours. What yours becomes mine. What a relationship. And they went out to all over the world, and instead of preaching the true gospel, they brought in a pagan system of covenant relationship. But even what they're doing is a good sign that all the way back to Adam, men have known the will, for God is the blood. And how in the world can a liberal preach and not preach on the blood of Jesus Christ? Amen? Now, in Genesis 15, after the tarot Bible, men are confused and dispersed. God comes down and calls Abraham an idolater. And his name is Abram, not Abraham. Am I right? He calls Abram out and brings him to Genesis 15 and cuts covenant with him. And I hadn't got time to talk about that today, but ladies and gentlemen, I want to tell you, God took an animal, Abraham took an animal, cut it down the middle, and laid it one side and one on the other, and suddenly down from glory came someone that the Bible explains as a smoking furnace and flaming sword. Well, let me look at it just a minute. I've said so much, and let me make sure I've got this right. All right. And it came to pass, the sun went down, it was dark. Oh, a smoking furnace and a burning lamp that passed between, passed between. Now, listen to me, listen to me. This is the first time we have blood covenant explained, splitting the sacrifice down the middle and then walking down between, saying, Abraham, I'm going to be to you everything that you need, and I'm going to bring a nation through you and thy seed, and I'm even going to bring Jesus through you, which is the singular seed. Galatians chapter 3. Amen? He said, and thy seed, which is Christ. And boy, tomorrow, in the morning, we're going to talk about the person of the covenant and we're going to trace the seed line, the seed line. What a glorious truth to seek covenant. Now, listen to me, listen to me. The reason why that I believe most people need to know blood covenant is because you can't read and believe blood covenant and live as you please. Because when you got saved, listen, when you got saved, if you really got saved, you exchanged life. It's not I. I don't know why we, why don't we let, we just let people go on and, man, our churches are loaded with people, selfish and domineering and worldly, living in adultery. You're talking about the PTL and white swapping. I bet it'd shock us at what's going on in our churches, in our ministry, and around the world. Sitting on the pews of churches, deacons who strut in the deacons' meetings and sit on church pews and brag about their outside extramarital relationships. Amen! Why? Because we let them come in on the basis of money. We let them come in on the basis of what we think they are, is going to mean to the church. Let me tell you something. A man will mean nothing to the church or to God until he knows covenant relationship. I want you to know, ladies and gentlemen, listen to me, I am related to God because I receive His life in covenant. You say, well, how long will it last? As long as He does, because it's His. See, these fellows don't believe in eternal security, don't know blood covenant. And we don't preach eternal security so we can sin, we preach it because it's so. And if you're here and don't believe it, hang around, you'll get so saved too, it'll be a penalty. Amen? You see, covenant means God initiated it. And the one that initiates it is responsible for it. Well, oh Lord, I've got more here on the, you know, Jacob cut covenant with Laban and Isaac cut covenant with Abimelech, Abraham cut covenant with Abimelech, and then we're going to study further how that Jonathan and David cut covenant and even Mephibosheth got in on that covenant relationship. Whoo! Hallelujah. And then we're going to talk a little further about the death of the testator, that a covenant is not enforced until somebody puts it in force. Who know it dies but rises again. Hallelujah. Amen? And then we're going to talk about the Lord's Supper, the memorial of that covenant, and what you do when you drink it unworthily because it's not only a symbol, it is important. Amen? I love you. I appreciate you. The best is yet to come, not in my preaching, but God's truth. I'm just a vehicle. If he can get through me wonderfully, don't you're in a mess. Amen? But I'm not here to preach. I'm here to minister Him. Him! And boy, I hope before it's over, you'll get so locked up in Jesus and so thrilled about Him, we can walk out every day saying, What a God! What a Lord! What a Savior! Amen? Listen. Let me say this to you. Don't let anybody rule you by their opinions. You be ruled by the Word of God. Amen?