UNBROKEN COVENANT
Exodus 19: 5 ‘Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine.’
Leviticus 26: 14- 16 ‘But if you do not obey Me, and do not observe all these commandments, and if you despise My statutes, or if your soul abhors My judgments, so that you do not perform all My commandments, but break My covenant, I also will do this to you: I will even appoint terror over you, wasting disease and fever which shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.’
Introduction: “Covenant”
Living out the commandments meant that Israel was to recognize this sense of calling as people of covenant. It made them God’s people, His own special possession.
The word “covenant” is quite commonly used in legal, social, and religious and theological contexts.
The term “covenant” is of Latin origin (con venire), meaning a coming together. It presupposes two or more parties who come together to make a contract, agreeing on promises, stipulations, privileges, and responsibilities.
In political situations – treaty;
In a social setting – lifelong friendship agreement; or it can refer to a marriage.
2 Types of Covenants:
- Parity covenant – where each party of the covenant is EQUAL.
- Suzerainty covenant – where the agreement is made between two UNEQUAL parties.
The biblical words “covenant” are berit in the Old Testament (appearing about 280 times) and diatheke in the New Testament (at least 33 times).
Comes from a custom of eating together (Gen 26:30 ; 31:54 ); emphasized the idea of cutting an animal.
Title: UNBROKEN COVENANT
- The Covenant Relationship
- Keeping or Breaking the Covenant
- The Broken One for the Broken Covenant
- The Unbroken Covenant for the Broken
I. THE COVENANT RELATIONSHIP
Throughout the Bible, God enters into agreements with various people in order to save the world he created. These covenants between God and humanity tell the story of God’s plan to redeem his people.
The 5 Covenants:
- Noahic Covenant: In the Book of Genesis, God made a covenant with Noah in which he promised that, despite humanity’s evil, he will never again flood the world and destroy them.
- Abrahamic Covenant: In the Book of Genesis, Abraham formed one of the first covenants with God, agreeing to circumcise the men in his household in exchange for God making him the father of a ”great nation” (Genesis 12:2).
- Mosaic Covenant: The most significant covenant in the Bible, the Mosaic Covenant was established in the Book of Exodus between God and Moses. The covenant was an agreement that God would lead the Jewish people, or Israelites, to the Promised Land and protect them as long as they upheld the laws outlined in the covenant.
- Davidic Covenant: The Davidic Covenant was established between God and David, the second king of Israel, as a promise that David and his descendants would always rule Israel.
- The New Covenant: The New Covenant, which was first mentioned in the Book of Jeremiah, was a re-institution of God’s promise to the Israelites despite them breaking their earlier covenant. The New Covenant conveyed messianic hope that a messiah would save the Israelites from their exile.
Conditional and Unconditional covenants.
Unconditional covenants involve no stipulations of any kind for the fulfillment of the agreement. E.gNoahic covenant.
For the conditional covenant, the agreement relies on at least one party upholding certain conditions in order to receive the blessing, protection, or benefit from the other. Conditional covenants can be broken. E.g. The Mosaic Covenant
II. KEEPING OR BREAKING THE COVENANT
There are consequences for keeping and for breaking the covenants. Leviticus 26.
The Blessings of Keeping the Covenant
(1) Bountiful harvests.
“Threshing shall reach unto harvest and harvest unto planting ….” (Leviticus 26:5) “One season of fruitfulness shall run into the next; in Amos’ celebrated words, `the plowman shall overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him that sows the seed.’ (Amos 9:13).”
God’s blessing will cause you to always have something you can even give away.
(2) Peace and security
“I will cause evil beasts to cease out of the land …” (Leviticus 26:6).Orlinsky: “vicious beasts” is more accurate than “evil beasts.”
God’s blessings will keep you from destructive fears.
(3) Fruitfulness and increase.
“Bring forth the old because of the new …” (Leviticus 26:10). This means “bring forth the old to make room for the new.”
(4) The presence of the Lord among the people.
“I will walk among you and be your God …”(Lev. 26: 12)
2 Corinthians 6:16 “I will live with them and walk with them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”
“I have broken the bars of your yoke …” (Leviticus 26:13). This is a metaphorical expression denoting Israel’s emancipation from Egyptian slavery.
You will not be a slave anymore but a son who enjoys the goodness of the father.
The great condition, “IF”.
IF Israel would obey; IF Israel would really keep God’s commandments and walk in his ways, IF Israel would keep God’s covenant – then, only then, would God so richly bless them.
These blessings anticipated what life will be like in the new heaven and earth, and the ancient Israelites enjoyed them when they trusted Yahweh.
But there are also curses for breaking the covenant. Curses including disease, infertility, and defeat in war.
The curses would worsen as the people remained impenitent, culminating in the worst covenant curse of all—exile, the banishment from God’s special place of blessing.
The 7-Fold punishment.
- Prior period, First Seven and Second Seven.
– The prior period punishment –removing their ‘vision’ so what Israel wants to achieve shall be taken by their enemies.
Lev. 26:14- 17 ‘But if you do not obey Me, and do not observe all these commandments, and if you despise My statutes, or if your soul abhors My judgments, so that you do not perform all My commandments, but break My covenant, I also will do this to you: I will even appoint terror over you, wasting disease and fever which shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. I will set My face against you, and you shall be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you shall reign over you, and you shall flee when no one pursues you.
– The first seven – removing their reason to be proud and the fruitfulness of their land.
Lev. 26:18- 20 ‘And after all this, if you do not obey Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. I will break the pride of your power; I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze. And your strength shall be spent in vain; for your land shall not yield its produce, nor shall the trees of the land yield their fruit.’
– The second seven –wild beasts which would remove Israel’s offspring and livestock.
Lev. 26:21- 23 ‘Then, if you walk contrary to Me, and are not willing to obey Me, I will bring on you seven times more plagues, according to your sins. I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number; and your highways shall be desolate.
– The third seven –people being gathered together in their cities due to fear of the sword; and the resulting famine and pestilence.
Lev. 26:24 – 27 then I also will walk contrary to you, and I will punish you yet seven times for your sins. And I will bring a sword against you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant; when you are gathered together within your cities I will send pestilence among you; and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. When I have cut off your supply of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall bring back your bread by weight, and you shall eat and not be satisfied.
A critical passage: “ten woman shall bake your bread” – a time when ten symbolic entities will prepare spiritual food, food which shall not spiritually satisfy.
– The Fourth Seven. – It tells of severe famine, cities laid waste, land desolated, scattering of the inhabitants, great fear and wasting away of the people.
Lev. 26:28 – 39 then I also will walk contrary to you in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins. You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars, and cast your carcasses on the lifeless forms of your idols; and My soul shall abhor you. I will lay your cities waste and bring your sanctuaries to desolation, and I will not smell the fragrance of your sweet aromas. I will bring the land to desolation, and your enemies who dwell in it shall be astonished at it. I will scatter you among the nations and draw out a sword after you; your land shall be desolate and your cities waste.
When we continue breaking God’s covenant with us we will lie in desolation and scatter to the point of no return.
III. THE BROKEN ONE FOR THE BROKEN COVENANT
The covenantal story began when God created humans in his image to partner with him in spreading goodness throughout the world. God invites Adam and Eve to be priest kings and represent his generous rule on Earth.
And in their first test of covenant faithfulness, they failed. They ate from the tree, fracturing the human-divine relationship and plunging humanity into corruption and death.
Amidst rebellion and exile, the Hebrew prophets spoke of a new covenant, saying that God would one day fulfill all of his promises, repairing his relationship with his people and blessing the nations through them.
This new covenant is to be everlasting. God will write his law on the hearts of his people, bring complete forgiveness of sin, and raise up a faithful king from the line of David who will restore all that has been broken.
The anticipation of this covenant pushes the story forward into the pages of the New Testament, where we are introduced to Jesus (Matt. 26:26-29) “And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”
God preserved the world through Noah, initiated redemption through Abraham, established the nation of Israel through Moses, promised an eternal shepherd-king through David but fulfilled all of his covenants through Jesus.
Jesus is the offspring of Abraham who trusted Yahweh, even to the point of death, and became a blessing to all nations.
He is the greater Moses, leading us out of bondage, and He is the obedient Israelite who perfectly follows the laws of God.
He is the royal son of David who inaugurated God’s Kingdom in his life, death, and resurrection, and who now sits at God’s right hand forever reigning as the one true King.
Jesus perfectly succeeded at every point where humanity failed. He is the guarantor and mediator of the new and better covenant (Hebrews 7:22, Hebrews 9:15) “… that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.
When Jesus laid down His own life for ours, He made an eternal covenant with us that can never be broken, undermined, or reversed. This is an agreement with God Himself that cannot be revoked because the blood of His son was shed for us.
As God made a covenant with Abraham by cutting the flesh of the animals and shedding their blood, so God made a new covenant through the broken body and blood of Jesus on the cross.
Jesus, the One who was broken restored what was broken and makes God’s covenant unbroken.
IV. THE UNBROKEN COVENANT FOR THE BROKEN
With whom we make our covenant with and keeping it is important. It determines our lifestyle and what is to come for us. With whom you make your covenant with will either break you or make you, destroy you or build you.
No matter how far you have gone, you can still go back to that covenant you thought has been broken because of your failures, sins and even darkness. It can be restored because Jesus was broken on the cross for all you have broken. And He broke through death by His resurrection to restore all that has been broken, including your life, commitment and covenant with God.
When you enter a covenant with Jesus you become one with God and the covenant remains unbroken. It is a higher covenant than any you could have ever entered into, or any enforced upon you from birth.
When you enter the covenant through the blood of Jesus, it supersedes every other covenant that you have ever made in your entire life. The blood of Jesus speaks on our behalf as the covenant of His blood breaks the power of all other covenants.
Lastly, those who come under the new covenant have their sins forgiven; and they have their assurance of this forgiveness of their sins. This forgiveness goes beyond the initial forgiveness. It includes the forgiveness of subsequent sins or offences against God.
CONCLUSION:
Man is a covenant breaker but God is a covenant maker. When our first parents failed in keeping the covenant, God kept on searching for people He could make covenant with. He called Noah, Abraham, Moses, David and made covenant with them, but Jesus supersedes them all because He is the perfection of all covenants. He succeeded where even great men failed.
His brokenness on the cross can restore it and His resurrection has made it unbroken. It was done and all you need to do is to come with willingness and humility, and you can once again enjoy bountiful harvests, peace and security, fruitfulness and increase and His abiding presence because of an unbroken covenant with God.
God is also a covenant-keeper. He fulfills His covenant with those whose hearts are towards Him. And even if we fail, He looks at His Son’s obedience even to the death on the cross.
Even if you feel and know you have failed or sinned against God, when you come back you will realize that the covenant is not broken. He is just waiting for you and I to answer His invitation. And even waiting for his children to return. His covenant is an unbroken covenant, and through Jesus we can keep our covenant unbroken.
