In this sermon, the preacher discusses the Edenic covenant and the relationship between God and man. The preacher emphasizes that God requires man to rule for Him and that God determines what is good and evil. The sermon also highlights the importance of recognizing moral issues based on whether God has spoken about them. The preacher then discusses the story of Noah and the flood, emphasizing God's grace and the establishment of human government to curb sin.

Father, we thank you this day for causing us to be born again by your spirit. And we do ask that you would grant us the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of you. And we thank you according to your word. Psalm 25, where he said, The secret of the Lord is within to fear him, and he will show to them his covenant. Show us by your spirit, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen. Psalm 15, verse 1 says, The mighty one, God the Lord, has spoken and summoned the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting. The Lord has spoken through creation. As he says in Psalm 19, The heavens are telling of the glory of God, and their expanse is declaring the work of his hands. Day to day pours forth speech. Night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, where their voice is not heard. Their line, that is their architectural rule, has gone out throughout all the earth and their utterances to the end of the world. And in them he has placed a tent for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber. It rejoices as a strong man to run his course. Its rising is from one end of the heaven, and its circuit to the other end. And there is nothing hidden from its heat. And as much as we know God's eternal power and Godhead through the creation that he has revealed to us, we know, as he says in Luke 16, 17, But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of a letter of the law to fail. Or as Jesus put it in Matthew 5, 18, But truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the law until all is accomplished. Thank God that the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has come to set us free from the law of sin and death. God has also spoken by his prophetic word through the scriptures, which Paul says in 2 Timothy 3, 16, That God breathed through men the living scriptures, the incorruptible seed of the word of God that lives and abides forever. And Peter says in 1 Peter 1, 20 and 21, That no prophecy, no God-breathed scripture was ever made by an act of human will. But men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. And so God has rebuilt himself in his creation. He's also spoken through prophets and given us the scriptures through which he has rebuilt himself. But ultimately, in these last days, God has spoken, according to Hebrews chapter 1, in his son. God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets, in many portions and in many ways, in these last days, has spoken to us in son. That is, the method that God has chosen to speak through is his own son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the world or blueprinted the ages. And he's the radiance of his glory, the flashing forth and the exact representation of his nature and upholds all things by the word of his power. And when he had made purification of sin, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. God's final and full word to mankind is through his son. Everything God has ever said is said again in his son with new clarity and value. And so like the little streams and the tributaries that run down and merge into a great river like the Niagara Falls. So all of God's truth merges and runs into his son. And as John the Revelator said, his voice was as the voice of many waters, so that of him and through him and to him are all things. Jesus Christ is the word that was in the beginning with God, the word that was God, the word that explained God, the exegesis of God, the alphabet, the Alpha and the Omega through which God communicates his final and full revelation to us. And so as we begin to think about God's speaking and particularly in relationship to the covenants that God made, we'll look at the Edenic, the Adamic, the Noahic, the Abrahamic, the Mosaic, the Palestinian, the Vedic and the New Covenant. But these eternal covenants that were made were made in eternity. And so these are between the father and the son. And there's always been the father who is a lover and he has loved dearly and perfectly his son, his beloved son, the one who has been loved for all eternity is Jesus Christ. He's been loved by his father without any break in that communication, perfect and total communication. There's been a spirit of love between them, between father and son for all eternity. And so we have the father, the son and the Holy Spirit. They are our model for communication because there's never been a time when there wasn't perfect communication. It's existed forever between the father, the son and the Holy Spirit. And because their love was so great, their love is so perfect and complete, then God created. He created for his own glory. He didn't need to create in order to have fellowship. He had perfect fellowship. But because his fellowship was so good, so perfect, so complete in every way, he created much like what he hopes his design is for the family. When a man and a woman get together and become one flesh, then God's desire for that family is that there be such a love between the man and the woman, such an agreement between the man and the woman, such a wholesome relationship and communication that the natural result of that will be that as they become one flesh and they bring into that union a little baby, that baby will be born into such a wonderful environment, an environment of communication, an environment of love. And so God is our model in terms of communication from the very beginning. And God who has loved his son for all eternity has sent his son and spoken in his son words that cannot be miscommunicated in any way whatsoever. His son became flesh and then he died, taking our sin upon himself. He died on a cross, went to the point of death on a cross, obeying his father, something that no man has done since God created man and said, Would you rule for me? And men have chosen not to rule for God but to rule for themselves. Jesus came and he ruled for God. The only man that ever fully, completely, perfectly pleased God in all he did and all he said and had a perfect heart toward his father and ruled for his father. And now the good news is that Jesus has done for us what we could never do and he offers us forgiveness on the basis of what he's done in the shedding of his blood. He offers to give us his spirit. We receive him and cause us to be born again, to become completely new in him and to have the power to continue the relationship with God and to grow in this grace and to enjoy God and to live by the spirit and to walk in the spirit. Oh, what a tremendous opportunity we have in Christ Jesus. And so God has spoken in his son. So it's very important as we begin to look through the word that God's words not be overemphasized. They can't be overemphasized because the eternal destiny of every human being depends on their response to God's words. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. God initiated the program of redemption. God made announcements about his intentions. Now, these announcements are designated covenants in the Bible. So you might want to think of the covenants in terms of God making announcements, God speaking about his intentions, particularly concerning man's salvation. When we think of a secular covenant, if we can say that, we're thinking of an agreement, usually formal, between two people to do something or not to do something, something specified, something that they've agreed upon and usually involves law in such an agreement. But when we think of a scriptural covenant, we're talking about a sovereign pronouncement of God by which God establishes a relationship, a relationship of responsibility between himself and either an individual like Abraham or a relationship with mankind in general, like he gave us at the Noahic covenant with the rainbow that he would not destroy mankind again in general, or a relationship with a nation, like choosing the nation Israel, or a relationship with a particular family. So a covenant is not man-made, but it's God-made. And most of them are unconditional. God says, I will. I will do this. And there are a few cases, like in Exodus 19, verse 5, or in Deuteronomy 28, where God says, if you will do this, then this will happen and I'll do this for you. But in most of the covenants, God simply comes and says, this is my sovereign pronouncement about what I'm going to do. The first time God ever spoke to man was in Genesis 1, 28, and God blessed them and he said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth. God had said, let us make man in our image according to our likeness and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky and the cattle over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. And so God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. And then God said, behold, I've given you every plant yielding seed that's on the surface of all the earth and every tree which is yielding fruit and its seed, it shall be for food. And chapter 2, 15 says, then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, from any tree of the garden you may eat freely, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day that you eat from it, you shall surely die. So in the Edenic covenant, God tells man he wants him to propagate the race. He wants him to subdue the earth, to have dominion over the animal creation, to care for the garden and eat the fruit and the herbs, but to abstain from eating from this one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And that's on penalty of death for your disobedience. And so if you could sum it up in one word, in one sentence anyway, what would you say? What is the Edenic covenant? Well, it's very simply God requires that man rule for him. God is setting the terms for the relationship between himself and the man whom he has created in his own image. And God wants to make the decisions as to what's good and to what's evil. Because after all, that's what makes something moral. If God has spoken about something, then it's a moral issue. How do you know something is a moral issue? How do you determine and discern if something is a moral issue? Well, it's very simple. If God has spoken about it, then it's a moral issue. If God has not spoken about it, then it's not a moral issue. Why? Because God is the only one who has the right to make those decisions. It makes me think of 1 Samuel 15 when Saul was told to wipe out the Amalekites. And we know that he didn't fully obey the Lord there. He was ruling for God to a degree. But we see in the end result he really wasn't ruling totally for God. He was ruling for himself. And he made the decision that it was best to spare Agag. And it was best to spare some of the best sheep and cows and things like that and bring them back. And yet God only has that right. He's the only one with that right to make those decisions. And so Saul never really ruled fully for God. He wasn't like what we read about David, that David was a man after God's own heart. Yeah, he had his problems. But what was so neat about him was his heart was right. And he wanted to rule for God. And he wanted to follow God fully. And it goes all the way back really to the Edenic covenant, what we learn here. God requires that man rule for him. But unfortunately, mankind created in the image of God, male and female, have decided that they will rule for themselves. Satan's main goal is to usurp the place of the Most High. And through the serpent, Satan's crafty tool, the woman was deceived, she says, and she ate. However, the man knew what he was doing when he ate. The root of sin lies in man's desire to be independent of God. How much do you do without God? Jesus said that he did nothing without his Father. Thank God that after Adam sinned, God sought Adam. Thank God that there's something besides the consciousness of what we are in our rebellion against God, but there is the revelation of who and what God is. Listen to what God says in Genesis 3, 14 and 15. As God sets the conditions of life for fallen mankind, God says, here's the way it is, and he gives promise of a Redeemer. And the Lord God said to the serpent, Because you've done this, curse it are you more than all cattle and more than every beast of the field. On your belly shall you go, and dust shall you eat all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel. To the woman he said, I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you. Then to Adam he said, Because you've listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying you shall not eat from it, curse it is the ground because of you, in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life, both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return. So God curses the serpent, Satan's tool, and the serpent becomes a graphic warning in nature of the effects of sin. But immediately, though the soul that sinneth it shall die, God makes a promise of a redeemer, that there will be a seed of the woman who will come to bruise the serpent on his head. And then God changes the state of the woman, God changes labor to be burdensome, and the earth is cursed with toil and thorns and sweat, and there's inevitable sorrow in life, there's brevity of life now, and the certainty of death, because the soul that sinneth it shall die. Sin is so awful because it kills our relationship with God. Now, God's not the author of sin, and man's not the author of sin either. Sin came from without. It came from Satan. Satan invented sin. And there was a time on earth when there was not sin, there will be a time again on earth when there is not sin. But sin's not just the personification of an evil principle that works within us, though it does, but it's an actual evil person that we're dealing with. And by the time we get to the end of the Bible, we see that God actually cast this evil person into the lake of fire and brimstone that burns perpetually forever. And so the seed of the woman will be the source of our redemption. By the woman came sin, but also by the woman will come salvation. As Galatians 4.4 tells us that Jesus Christ was born of a woman under the law to redeem those who were under the law. God is so good that he's going to get rid of the sin, which is so bad that it keeps us from relationship with God. And so God tells Adam, makes a sovereign pronouncement, that he will send the Redeemer because God is so good. This promise of God was probably the reason why Adam named his wife Eve, the mother of all living, because the voice of God, the voice of faith, caused Adam to name her prophetically, looking forward to that promise being fulfilled. But we're soon to see the effects of sin, and we read the story of Cain and Abel and how Cain killed his brother Abel. And the Lord God, even before that, said to Cain, why are you angry and why has your countenance fallen? Because Cain was not offering the proper sacrifice to God and he was not walking in faith toward God like Abel, his brother, and God had accepted Abel's sacrifice, but Cain's had not. And Cain was angry, his countenance was fallen. God said, if you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door and its desire is for you, but you must master it. However, Cain didn't master it, but he killed his brother Abel. And then the Lord said to Cain, where is Abel your brother? And he said, I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper? And he said, what have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. And now you are cursed from the ground. Well, things continued to go down. And we read that the Lord saw the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he made man on the earth and he was grieved in his heart. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time. Noah walked with God. And twice, the Lord says, the earth is filled with violence. Again, the earth is filled with violence. And so I'm about to destroy them with the earth. And so God did destroy the earth. He preserved Noah, eight souls, his family. The Lord closed the door on the ark that Noah had made and then sent the flood for 40 days and 40 nights upon the earth. And God started over with Noah and his family after the flood because God was going to establish now the principle of human government to curb the outbreak of sin. We need some law and some order because of the evil heart of man and the violence, particularly murder, that has been done on the earth. But because God is so gracious, God sent a rainbow and established a sign of a covenant that God would not destroy the earth anymore by water. And he hasn't. But in terms of government, the one thing that God brings out is in Genesis chapter 9 and verse 6. Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed. For in the image of God, he made man. And so with this government, man is made responsible to protect the sanctity of human life. And so much so that it says, whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed. That is capital punishment. Not a right we have as individuals, but that's the purpose of government. And God sent the rainbow in the sky, told him to populate the earth, to be fruitful and to multiply again. And God said to Noah, this is the sign of the covenant, that is, this rainbow which I've established between me and all flesh that is on the earth. So you see, it's God doing it. It's God's grace. And then, of course, the other thing he added in this new relationship with Noah is what some have said is my life verse, verses 3 and 4, where it says, every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you. I give all to you as I gave the green plant, only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. And so added to the diet of man is the meat of animals. Thank God. And one other thing that God says is concerning Ham, verse 25 through 27, he says that Ham will be the servants of his brothers and that Japheth will be blessed through the line of Shem. But that all divine revelation is going to come through Semitic men because Christ will descend from Shem. And so verse 26 says, Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem. By the fact of God establishing human government and God establishing that there's a special relationship between he and Shem and that he is the God of Shem, then human government has some relationship to God's overall plan. And I think this points to a time of rule on earth through the descendants of Shem and particularly the seed of the woman who is Jesus Christ, that he will at some point establish the perfect government and he will rule on this earth. Oh, what a day to look forward to. But we see here with Noah that without God, man is simply dead in the water, the waters of judgment, the waters of destruction. But because of the grace of God over all mankind, his reign does fall on the just and the unjust. But he says this reign will never destroy the whole earth again. And so he gives us the rainbow and says, Protect the sanctity of human life. That's the main basic purpose of good government. Well, soon we read that the whole earth used the same language and the same words. And they said, Come, let's build for ourselves a city and let us make for ourselves a name. And so when the Lord saw this intention, this godless ambition on their part, it almost sounds like Genesis 1 again, then the Lord said, Let's go down and confuse their language that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth and they stopped building the city. Therefore, its name was called Babel because there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth. And from there, the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth. And then God turns to this one man and calls him out of Ur of the Chaldees. And in Genesis 12, we read, Now the Lord said to Abram, Go forth from your country and from your relatives and from your father's house to the land which I will show you. And I will make you a great nation. And I will bless you and make your name great. And so you shall be a blessing and I will bless those who bless you. And the one who curses you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Now isn't it great to see God meet the need of mankind here? Because man needs to know that he can be delivered from Satan and from sin and this effect that keeps wiping him out. Man needs to know that God has a plan. And so God reiterates that plan through Abraham. And so we know that the promise of the seed, the Messiah, the one that he started in Genesis 3, 15, that he would build a great nation and through that nation, the whole earth is going to be blessed because from the seed of Abraham will come the Messiah. God does have a plan and he's going to work it out. In the book of Acts, when Stephen was in Acts 7 standing there, he says, the glory of God appeared to our father Abraham. And as they began to stone him, Stephen says, behold, I see heaven opened up and the son of man standing at the right hand of God. And they stoned him. He saw the glory of God, which was Jesus Christ, the Messiah. And Galatians 3, 16 tells us, now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say and to seeds that is plural as to many, but to one seed and to your seed singular, that is Christ, the Messiah. So the promise that was given to Abraham was that from him would come that promised Messiah that God promised way back in Genesis 3, 15. Now, what is the content that surrounds the covenant with Abraham? Well, we know that God keeps coming to Abraham and watching over him in Genesis 15. The Lord came to Abraham in a vision. He said, do not fear, Abraham. I'm a shield to you. Your reward shall be very great. And Abraham said, well, what will you give me since I'm childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus? And Abraham said, since thou has given me no offspring, one born in my house, you know, is my heir. Then behold, the word of the Lord came to him saying, this man will not be your heir, but one who shall come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir. And he took him outside and said, now look toward the heavens, count the stars, if you're able to count them. And he said to him, so shall your descendants be. And Abraham believed in the Lord and he reckoned it to him as righteousness. Well, what is God doing? God is saying, Abraham, I'm the one that called you out of Ur of the Chaldees. I'm the one that made the promise back in Genesis 3.15. I'm the one that's going to provide you the son. And in chapter 17, God reiterated it again when Abraham was about, well, 99 years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, I am God Almighty, walk before me and be blameless. I will establish my covenant between me and you. I will multiply you exceedingly. Abraham fell on his face and talked with God and said, as for me, behold, my covenant is with you and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abraham, but your name shall be called Abraham. And I will make you the father of a multitude of nations and I will make you exceedingly fruitful and I will make nations of you and kings shall come forth from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generation for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your descendants after you. And I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession and I will be their God. God is complete in himself. He is El Shaddai and he's going to do it. And notice that the method that God chooses is to talk to Abraham like he's his friend. God makes promises and then God comes and shares his plans and he comes to Abraham several times and says, I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that and just reminds him of what he's going to do. And it reminds me of what Jesus said to the disciples, I don't call you servants any longer, but I call you friends. Because Jesus was disclosing things about his life to them and that's the way it is with friends. I know you probably get upset if your friends don't tell you what they're doing and you find out through the grapevine or you find out from other people things that some of your closest friends are doing and you wonder, well, why didn't they tell me about it? I thought they were my friend because friends share plans and that's what God is doing. He's just talking to Abraham as a friend and sharing the plans that he has. And the response that God expects from this kind of a covenant is that we trust that God will do what he says and that we wait expectantly. Now we know that Abraham had the wrong response. He tried in his own strength and his own ability to produce Ishmael and would hope that Ishmael would be the one that God would work through. And Abraham even said to God, he said, oh, that Ishmael might live before you. But God said, no, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son and you shall call his name Isaac and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. And so we see that grace is God doing it and God expects trust, a committed faith and faithful perseverance in his promises. Paul says that Abraham grew strong in faith and he gave glory to God. That is, he didn't waver in unbelief, but he was fully assured that what God had promised, God was able to perform. And so he grew in his faith and gave the glory to God because that's the great thing about faith. It gives God all the glory. Established with Abraham was one of trust, expecting that God would do what he said he would do. And what God has promised, God is able to perform. And that's the reason that Abraham is called the father of all them that believe because God wants the same relationship with me and with you. To realize by revelation the things that God has said he would do and has done for us and will yet do and then to just reckon them to be true and to rely upon them, waiting, expecting, relying on his word and resting in him as we watch God perform his word. Oh, may the Lord create this kind of relationship with us that he had with Abraham. We will have to grow in it because Abraham grew strong in faith and then he was able to give glory to God. Now, God begins to develop the family line of Abraham and we know that 430 years later after they have been down in Egypt and they only had 70 people go down into Egypt, but they came out with millions and for years they just made bricks and babies, developing into a great nation. But at this time, the people need a leader and they get one in Moses. They need direction from God. They need law and order. And so, we see the revealed law of theocratic Israel and God gave this to Israel through Moses. The basis of all the laws in this covenant is the holiness of God as it's reflected specifically in the Ten Commandments. Now, the elements of this law that they were given were, first of all, the commandments. They were given the law to express the righteous will of God. Read Exodus 20, verses 1-26. Besides commandments, they were given judgments and these judgments were to govern the social life of Israel. Read Exodus 21, verses 1-24. And then they were given, besides commandments and judgments, ordinances. And the ordinances were to govern the religious life of Israel. You can read Exodus 24, verses 12 through chapter 31 and verse 18 and you'll see all the ordinances that govern the religious life. And so, we have commandments, judgments and ordinances. One expresses the righteous will of God. One governs the social life and one governs the religious life. And if we want to see the ultimate purpose for which this law was given, we can just turn to Romans chapter 7 and read verses 7-12. The law was like a trusted slave that tutored a child toward the future. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? May it never be. But on the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the law. For I would not have known about coveting if the law had not said, You shall not covet. But sin taking opportunity through the commandment produced in me coveting of every kind. For apart from the law, sin is dead. And I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died. And this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me. For sin taking opportunity through the commandment deceived me and through it killed me. So then the law is holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. And so we see that God is good and God is holy. But man is so bad that he can't obey God's good law. And so the law reveals the sin in man and the need that we have for God because man can't do it. We don't have the ability to be responsible in the relationship with God. The Lord explains it even further in the book of Leviticus and he says that we're to be perfect and we're to walk before him. That's the seed of the moral law. Be perfect. Jesus said be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. The seed of the ceremonial law is to walk before God. And so be perfect and walk before me. Be holy for I am holy. That's morality. But walk before me. And so God provided the heart response of worship before him. And they said in Deuteronomy 4 verses 7 and 8 they said for what great nation is there that has a God so near to it as the Lord our God is to us. I mean he's so near whenever we call upon him. And what great nation has statutes and ordinances so righteous as all this law. No one had this opportunity this righteous holy law but we learned that man is so bad that he can't keep God's holy law. And look at the method through which God spoke to his people. What did he choose? Well, when you read it you see he comes down on Mount Sinai and there's thunder quaking throughout. There's tremendous noise. There's lightning flashing and fire. And the mountain is quaking tremendously so that even if an animal or anything's near it everything dies around it. The method through which God does this is a scary method. The fear of the Lord is certainly before them because God's laying down the law. It causes fear. It causes respect. And the response that God expects is for us to recognize our sin to recognize our inability to have that relationship with him and to immediately see we need grace. We need God's ability. And so thank God that even though they weren't able to keep the law and we haven't been able to keep the law in that sense God doesn't react but he becomes proactive and God says, because I love you and as your friend I'll do for you what you can't do. Now, during this time God also gives the Palestinian covenant which is an unconditional covenant to secure the final restoration and conversion of Israel. They will be dispersed for their disobedience. He makes this clear in Deuteronomy 28. But there will be a future repentance of Israel while they're in this dispersion. Then they'll return to the Lord. There'll be a restoration to the land. There'll be national conversion. And then there'll be judgment on Israel's oppressors and enemies. And then there'll be national prosperity. And we read about this in Deuteronomy chapter 30. And so it shall become when all these things which will come upon you the blessing and the curse which I've set before you and you call them to mind in all the nations where the Lord your God has banished you and you return to the Lord your God and obey him with all your heart and soul according to all that I command you today you and your sons then, when, that is when they return there's going to be a future repentance and returning to the Lord. The time of refreshing that I'm sure Peter was hoping for when he spoke about it in the book of Acts. Then the Lord your God will restore you from captivity and have compassion on you and will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you. If your outcasts are at the ends of the earth from there the Lord your God will gather you. And from there he will bring you back. And the Lord your God will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed. And you shall possess it. And he will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers. And so there's going to be a restoration to the land that God has chosen. Moreover, the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul in order that you may live. And the Lord your God I mean that's just amazing. There's going to be a national conversion of God's people. He's going to put a new heart in them and circumcise their hearts to obey him. And the Lord your God will inflict all these curses on your enemies and on those who hate you who persecuted you. And so he will judge all the enemies of Israel. And you shall again obey the Lord and observe all his commandments which I command you today. Let's not forget what God said earlier to Moses in Exodus chapter 6 beginning in verse 6 where he said say to the sons of Israel you know I've remembered my covenant. Say therefore to the sons of Israel I am the Lord and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will deliver you from their bondage. I will also redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. Then I will take you for my people and I will be your God and you shall know that I am the Lord your God who brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. And I will bring you to the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord. Again this is something God is going to do. That's why in Ezekiel 1660 he says nevertheless I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you. Then you'll remember your ways and you'll turn. And so God loves to give grace and the covenant that he remembers is an everlasting covenant. You'll see it goes all the way back to Abraham when God spoke to Abraham in Genesis 12, 17 and the Lord appeared to Abraham and said to your descendants I'll give this land. And the same again in chapter 17 of Genesis he spoke to Abraham in verse 7 and said I'll establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant and I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land of your sojournings all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession and I'll be their God. And so Paul does warn us in the New Testament in Romans 11 not to be wise in our own estimation as Gentiles but to know that God gave them a spirit of stupor. They didn't stumble though so as to fall, did they? Obviously not. But God's able to graft them in again and all Israel's going to be saved because the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable and he's given them an everlasting covenant concerning their land Palestine. And when they get into that land we see that God has chosen out of the one nation God has chosen one family to be the royal family the seat of authority and power forever. We remember that kings were not elected but there was just one royal family line and the future of that is based on the covenant that he made with David in 2 Samuel chapter 7 when he says beginning in verse 8 thus says the Lord of hosts I took you from the pasture from following the sheep that you should be ruler over my people Israel and I've been with you wherever you've gone and have cut off all your enemies from before you and I will make you a great name like the names of the great men who are on the earth and I will also appoint a place for my people Israel and I will plant them that they may live in their own place and not be disturbed again nor will the wicked afflict them anymore as formerly even from the day that I commanded judges to be over my people Israel and I will give you rest from all your enemies the Lord also declares to you that the Lord will make a house for you when your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers I will raise up your descendants after you who will come forth from you and I will establish his kingdom he shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever I will be a father to him and he will be a son to me when he commits iniquity I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men but my loving kindness shall not depart from him as I took it away from Saul whom I removed from before you you see God's going to do this he's going to make it happen and your house and your kingdom shall endure before me forever your throne shall be established forever now we know it was Solomon that built the house but ultimately that's not the house that he's pointing forward to there is a greater than Solomon a greater than David David's greater son the Lord Jesus Christ the Messiah who was from the seed of Abraham who was that promised seed of Genesis 3.15 that would bruise Satan's head he has come from the line of David to sit on the royal throne and his descendant Jesus Christ will establish the kingdom forever and the throne shall be established forever through Jesus Christ and that's why we read in Romans chapter 1 verse 3 of Christ the Messiah and his future kingdom that he was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh in Psalm 89 in verses 3 and 4 the Lord says I've made a covenant with my chosen I've sworn unto David my servant thy seed singular will I establish forever and build up thy throne to all generations and in verse 34 to 36 he says my covenant will I not break nor alter the thing that has gone out of my lips once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David his seed shall endure forever and his throne as the sun before me Jeremiah says in chapter 33 in verse 22 as the host of heaven cannot be numbered neither the sand of the sea measured so will I multiply the seed of David my servant and the Levites that minister unto me and in verse 25 and 26 thus says the Lord if my covenant be not with day and night and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth then will I cast away the seed of Jacob and David my servant and so we see the Davidic covenant is an unconditional covenant yes disobedience might bring about the chastening of the Lord but it never annuls the covenant that God has made with David in 2 Samuel 23 in verse 5 we have the last words of David where he says of God he hath made me an everlasting covenant ordered in all things and sure for this is all my salvation and all my desire Isaiah 55 3 refers to it as an everlasting covenant even the sure mercies of David so David was counting on it and so was Jesus if you read Matthew 25 Jesus anticipates a literal earthly kingdom the announcement that was made to Mary when the angel Gabriel came and said behold you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a son and you shall call his name Jesus he'll be great and shall be called the son of the highest and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom there shall be no end it's just so exciting particularly in the days that we live in to see the preservation of the nation Israel how wonderful that it is they've continued right down till today in spite of powerful nations and strong nations have been against them and yet they continue because it is the will of God God will fulfill his word someday the Messiah is going to reign gloriously on David's throne and over his kingdom and it's going to extend to a worldwide dominion so when we who live today see them brought back to their land to have a national existence and be within a definite geographic boundary it's exciting because we know that God is going to fulfill his word and he's going to bring back the Messiah to rule and to reign over David's kingdom from David's throne and now we come to the new covenant where God guarantees Israel a converted heart if you turn to Jeremiah 31 begin in verse 31 he says behold the days come says the Lord that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt which my covenant they break although I was a husband unto them says the Lord but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days says the Lord I will put my spirit in their inward parts and write it in their hearts and I'll be their God they shall be my people and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor and every man his brother saying no the Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them says the Lord for I will forgive their iniquity and I'll remember their sin no more and so we see that it's God who guarantees Israel a converted heart this new covenant is unconditional it's grace because it rests on the I will of God it's an everlasting covenant that God has made with his people and he promises that he will impart to them a renewed mind and a new heart and we would call it in the New Testament I guess regeneration and so they'll be restored to the favor of God and to the blessing of God forgiveness will be there for sin and as he said in verse 34 I'll remove their iniquity and I'll remember their sin no more he's going to give them a new spirit and the Holy Spirit to indwell them and to cause them to come to him and the Holy Spirit will be teaching and they'll be known by the obedience of their heart and God's going to bless them materially there's going to be a sanctuary that'll be rebuilt in Jerusalem in Ezekiel 37 God says I will set my sanctuary in the midst of them forever more my tabernacle also shall be with them and war is going to cease and peace is going to reign he prophesies through Hosea chapter 2 and verse 18 Hosea chapter 2 and verse 4 and as he promised through Zechariah chapter 9 verse 11 by the blood of thy covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein there was no water it's so important to see that this is God's doing it's apart from any human help it's an unconditional covenant and in Ezekiel 37 beginning in verse 24 Ezekiel says and this is long after David Ezekiel says and my servant David will be king over them and they will all have one shepherd and they will walk in my ordinances and keep my statutes and observe them and they shall live on the land that I gave to Jacob my servant in which your fathers lived and they will live on it they and their sons and their sons sons forever and David my servant shall be their prince forever and I'll make a covenant of peace with them and it will be an everlasting covenant with them and I will place them and multiply them and will set my sanctuary in their midst forever my dwelling place also will be with them and I will be their God and they will be my people and the nations will know that I am the Lord who sanctifies Israel when my sanctuary is in their midst forever this is something that God plans to do in the future it's going to follow the return of Jesus Christ to this earth and that's why we can read in Romans 11 verses 26 and 27 and so that is after the Deliverer returns after Jesus Christ returns and they receive him as their Messiah so all Israel shall be saved as it is written there shall come out of Zion the Deliverer and shall turn away all ungodliness from Jacob for this is my covenant unto them when I shall take away their sins concerning the new covenant the writer of Hebrews chapter 8 says in verse 7 for if that first covenant had been faultless there would have been no occasion sought for a second covenant or a new covenant for finding fault with them he says behold days are coming says the Lord when I will effect a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah not like the covenant which I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt for they did not continue in my covenant and I did not care for them says the Lord you see under the old covenant the Old Testament it was a real promise but the problem was they had no power to measure up to the covenant and the law of course did not provide it the strength that is but grace does provide it and so we read in verse 10 for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days that is the days in which it wasn't provided for them after those days says the Lord I will put my laws into their minds and I will write them upon their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people and they shall not teach everyone as fellow citizens and everyone as brothers saying know the Lord for all shall know me from the least of them to the greatest of them for I will be merciful to their iniquities and I will remember their sins no more and when he said a new covenant he made the first obsolete but whatever is becoming obsolete is growing old and is ready to disappear so when Jesus said that his blood was the blood of the new covenant then they certainly would have understood by that in Matthew 26 28 my blood is the new covenant and Luke 22 20 and 1 Corinthians 11 where he said this is the new covenant in my blood they would have understood that it was the blood of Jesus that was going to affect this new promise for where a testament is there must also of necessity be the death of the testator for a testament is enforced after men are dead otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth and so here is Jesus Christ who was born of that royal line of David who could sit upon the throne of David and he is going to give his blood he is going to shed it and open this new covenant toward Israel to whom the promises were made who had the covenants etc and also to all because of that blessing through them to all who would believe to all who would have the faith of Abraham would be able to be brought into this covenant relationship with God and so we read in Hebrews 10 verse 16 and the Holy Spirit bears witness by saying this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days says the Lord I will put my laws upon their heart and upon their mind I will write them what a great day it will be when according to Ezekiel 36 and verse 27 God will put his spirit within them and cause them to walk in my statute and you will be careful to observe my ordinances and you will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers so you will be my people and I will be your God and someday God will fulfill those promises to his covenant people Israel and as James said in Acts 15 and verse 14 that God is concerning himself right now however with calling out a people from among the Gentiles thank God that you can receive the promise of the Spirit through faith and that by the Spirit you've been born again so that you are sons of God and God has sent forth the Spirit of the Son into your heart crying Abba Father and so we've begun by the Spirit and we want to continue to walk in the Spirit and not to be perfected in the flesh but to live by the faith that God gives us and I say walk in the Spirit and you'll not carry out the desire of the flesh for the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh for these are in opposition to one another so that you may not do the things that you please but since you are led by the Spirit you're not under the law oh the fruit of the Spirit that which is naturally produced in our relationship with God as we walk by faith with Him trusting and resting in Him that He will do the work within us that He's actually within us to will and to do all of His good pleasure the fruit of the Spirit as we're joined to Him will be love joy peace, patience kindness goodness, faithfulness gentleness self-control against such things there is no law so if we live by the Spirit let us also walk by the Spirit for the one who sows to his own flesh shall from the flesh reap corruption but the one who sows to the Spirit shall from the Spirit reap eternal life so now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty that is liberty liberty to be changed as Jesus said in John 8.32 you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free so if you want to be changed and you want to be a holy man or woman, you want to be like Him then just take time to behold Him but we all with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory just as from the Lord the Spirit the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit Amen