Participants: David Asscherick, James Rafferty, Jeffrey Rosario, Ty Gibson
Series Code: TT
Program Code: TT000008
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00:01 [Music]
00:10 [Music] 00:21 Having these conversations is just opening my mind left and 00:24 right to new ideas. 00:27 There's this synergy that happens around a table, and I'm, 00:31 I'm really benefiting from personally, and in our last 00:34 conversation, for example, James brought 2 Corinthians 11 to the 00:39 table, and it was like new light for me. 00:41 I, I, I was really familiar with 2 Corinthians 4 and the idea 00:47 that Satan is the god of this era, this age, and that he, he 00:51 works to deceive people's minds, and Christ is the illumination 00:56 of God's character in contrast to the devil's deception. 00:59 I was also really familiar with 2 Corinthians chapter 10, and 01:03 the idea that the warfare between good and evil is, is 01:06 primarily a war between arguments and ideas playing out 01:11 against one another, so it's really a truth-error war. 01:14 But then, chapter... 01:17 He goes to 11... 01:18 He goes to 11, which I've read before, and all of a sudden I 01:22 realize that here the Apostle Paul is carrying on...there's 01:25 this trajectory, this continuum, and in chapter 11, Paul is 01:29 taking us all the way back to Genesis 3, and he's saying there 01:34 was craftiness, and Eve was the object and focus and it happened 01:39 in her mind, the devil deceived her mind, and then Paul leaps 01:44 forward and says, and the whole world now is in this mind war, 01:49 this great controversy, and there is this constant foisting 01:54 upon the world of another gospel, another Jesus, another 01:57 spirit, so conversation is powerful, and we actually want 02:02 to encourage people to do this. 02:05 To get together around tables in homes and converse around the 02:11 Word of God and you will learn things as you hear God 02:16 communicating through a friend, a family member, to you, so I'm 02:22 blessed. 02:23 I wanna say something on that too. 02:24 We often think, oh, I'm gonna go to church because that's where 02:27 I'll hear the word. 02:29 That's where I'll hear a sermon, and praise God that that's one 02:31 of the best things about church, but too often we think, that's 02:35 where the spiritual happens. 02:37 That's the place where the Bible, the gospel...and then we 02:40 go home, and we talk about the football game or the basketball 02:42 game, or we talk about surfing or our vacation or whatever. 02:46 The very best place for these kinds of conversations to take 02:50 place is not in a church because a church is, important as it is, 02:54 it's a monologue, usually, except for Sabbath school. 02:57 Where somebody's up front and they're teaching, but here, 03:00 Jeffery, and he brings something, and James, and it can 03:03 happen not just here with us but on your own, so to me this venue 03:08 is such a rich venue because as Scripture says, and I think you 03:12 quoted this in the very first program, iron sharpens iron, so 03:15 a friend sharpens the countenance of his friends, 03:17 somewhere Proverbs 17. 03:18 This idea of, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I hadn't seen that before. 03:22 Different perspectives, different ideas. 03:24 I love it. 03:25 I just want people to understand this. 03:27 This is how this works. 03:28 It's not necessarily that we are sitting here with our own little 03:32 nuggets that we're going to share. 03:33 I've got my little nugget. 03:35 You've got your little nugget. 03:36 We've all got our little nuggets, but there are times, 03:39 may times, like this occasion where as we're talking, and as 03:43 were bringing together all these ideas and thoughts, something 03:46 else steps in among us. 03:48 God's Spirit leads us to thoughts and ideas that He 03:53 didn't necessarily entrust to one or two of us individually, 03:57 separately, but He entrusts to the group of us together because 04:00 each one of us together is coming together discussing, 04:02 seeing, uncovering, and suddenly, boom! 04:06 And without that interaction, it's not possible. 04:09 It wasn't possible because that 2 Corinthians idea was and idea 04:12 that gelled in my mind as we were talking about Genesis. 04:14 As we were talking about Revelation 12. 04:16 As we were talking about Ezekiel 28 and that whole great 04:19 conversation. 04:20 All of a sudden it's coming together. 04:21 Wait a minute! 04:22 Merchandise. 04:23 Wait a minute. 04:24 Look at the way the devil is working. 04:25 Pitchfork. 04:26 No! 04:27 Angel of light, yes. 04:28 Another gospel. 04:29 Another spirit. 04:30 Another Jesus. 04:31 That's, yeah, his merchandise, and now we're sharing and 04:34 presenting this beautiful gospel and the same thing that the god, 04:38 the merchandising and misrepresenting, the same thing 04:42 that he wants to do to us in these last times. 04:44 False prophets first as the truth, the light, the gospel. 04:46 Understanding the gospel as a community exercise. 04:49 It's a community event. 04:51 This is a little community around this table and it'd be 04:54 great if there were all kinds of people... 04:56 Listen, Ty...listen, Ty. 04:58 This is why we're doing this because we have sat down in 05:00 offices, in cars, in homes, at coffee tables, wherever, and 05:05 we've, whoa, whoa, it'd be so cool if we could have this. 05:08 It's be so neat if we could have this. 05:10 And that's why we said hey, let's do Table Talk. 05:12 Not to get too far field here, but, this, people are longing 05:17 for this. 05:18 They're not just longing to sit down and have a sermon. 05:20 And the sermon has a crucial, I mean you're a preacher, you're a 05:22 preacher, you're a preacher, I'm a preacher, we're all preachers. 05:24 Nobody here is diminishing the role of the sermon, so it's not 05:27 that in lieu of this. 05:29 It's this and that. 05:30 More interaction. 05:31 More communication. 05:33 More community. 05:34 More priesthood of all believers bringing what they're learning 05:37 about God and the Gospel to the table. 05:40 Yeah. 05:41 Yeah. 05:43 So, where're we headed? 05:44 Ok, so this conversation, we're dealing with the covenant of 05:48 peace. 05:49 Just covenant concepts in Scripture which all of us have 05:52 discovered in our Bible study, is pervasive through the Bible. 05:56 The Bible basically, we look at Scripture and we see one book. 06:00 Then we understand on another level that it's two books we 06:03 refer to as the Old Testament and the New Testament, and then 06:07 we realize that basically the whole Bible can be summarized in 06:11 the fact that the Old Testament is God making promises, 06:16 establishing and articulating covenant. 06:20 And then the New Testament is God keeping those promises. 06:24 Fulfilling His covenant in the person of Jesus Christ. 06:29 I love that even the structure of the Bible is covenant. 06:32 So in the Old Testament you have a covenant, and that covenant 06:36 created a movement of God's people, and that movement 06:40 brought about a body of literature. 06:42 And that body of literature has been collected and we call it 06:45 the Old Testament. 06:46 The New Testament, God's promises brings about a 06:49 movement, and that movement brings about a body of 06:52 literature and we call that the New Testament. 06:54 So I don't think, I think that you can even say further that 06:57 the Bible doesn't have covenant. 06:58 The Bible is covenant. 07:00 That's what it is. 07:02 I love that. 07:03 It's not just that it contains it. 07:05 It's that it is. 07:06 Now, I'm just gonna press the quickest of pauses here and say 07:08 for the hair dresser, the grocer, the brother, the sister 07:10 that's at the table here. 07:11 We're using this language covenant, covenant, covenant. 07:13 That's not everyday speak. 07:15 It's an everyday concept, but that's not everyday speak, so we 07:18 need to put some flesh on that. 07:20 What are we talking about when we say, the Bible is a covenant, 07:22 uh, the Old Testament is a covenant. 07:24 The New Testament is the covenant fulfilled. 07:26 What's our word here? 07:27 What does it mean? 07:29 A synonym for the word covenant would be agreement. 07:31 Another would be promise. 07:33 Uh, the idea is that God makes promises and He faithfully keeps 07:40 His promises. 07:41 Contract? 07:42 Would that work at all? 07:43 Contract works. 07:45 A contract or a vow. 07:46 A vow. 07:47 A bond. 07:48 A pledge. 07:49 What we have happening in the Bible is that God is making 07:51 promises. 07:52 He's keeping them. 07:53 On the human end, the promises, the covenant is being broken, 07:57 and finally Jesus comes as we will just really magnify in our 08:01 next conversation, and Jesus is the fulfillment of the covenant, 08:06 from both the divine end of the spectrum and the human end of 08:09 the spectrum, so that there's total faithfulness achieved in 08:14 the person of Jesus Christ, the God-Man. 08:17 And I really like that, when I think about a contract too, 08:19 because when I think about a contract, I think about a 08:22 contractor. 08:23 I think about, for example, building a house, and a house 08:27 builder, a person, a family who's building a will get a 08:29 loan, or if they have the money, they will contract it to someone 08:32 who promises to A, B, and C for a certain amount of money. 08:36 But the way you're describing it, God is the contractor, and 08:40 God is the contractor. 08:42 In other words, He's the one that is making the promises to 08:46 build the house, but He's also the one who is supplying 08:49 everything that's needed financially or otherwise. 08:51 He's executing as well. 08:53 Yes. 08:54 He's drawing the plans and he's executing it. 08:56 And He's providing everything in-between. 08:57 But that is slightly ahead of the story because as the story 09:00 unfolds, and I agree, yes, yes, yes, that's all true, but as the 09:03 story unfolds, as we're gonna see, God extends His hand in a 09:08 series of covenants. 09:10 We're gonna I think get into that, and the reason that God 09:13 comes in Christ to fulfill, not only the divine half of the 09:17 covenant as God, but to fulfill the human half of the covenant, 09:19 is that you have an uninterrupted series of covenant 09:24 failures as human beings. 09:26 Failure, failure, failure, failure, failure, so that God 09:29 has to take upon Himself as a man, what no man, or group of 09:34 men, or women, had done up to that point. 09:37 Another way to define covenant, David, you, you, you're probing 09:40 into basic definition of the word and the idea, is to think 09:45 of it this way. 09:47 That we live in a universe that is basically governed by 09:53 covenant. 09:54 If we go all the way back, as we have done in a previous 09:58 conversation, to God before creation, in Genesis 1 we 10:04 discover what we might call the covenant of creation. 10:07 You have the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and how did 10:11 we discover that they exist prior to creation? 10:15 They exist in covenant among themselves. 10:17 They exist, that is to say, in a condition, in a relational 10:23 condition of others centered love. 10:25 Each living for the others. 10:27 Out of that covenant that is intrinsic to God's character, 10:32 which is simply to say that faithfulness, faithful love, is 10:35 intrinsic and central to God's character. 10:39 The Father is faithful to the Son and the Spirit. 10:42 The Son is faithful in love to the Spirit and the Father, and 10:45 the circle. 10:47 Got it. 10:48 Ok, so then, then, out of that foundational covenant 10:51 relationship, we hear in Genesis, let us make mankind in 10:56 our image. 10:58 Let's create covenant relationship adjacent to 11:03 ourselves, and so, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, enter into the 11:06 covenant, or the agreement or the contract of creation. 11:10 Let's create in our image, and they fulfill what they agreed 11:13 among themselves, the three of them, to do. 11:17 Boom! 11:18 You have humanity. 11:19 You have the man and the woman, and now covenant is expanding. 11:23 Something, that, that's true, beautiful, and awesome. 11:27 The other thing that comes to my mind when you say those words is 11:32 that a covenant within say, let's just take the pre-creation 11:36 covenant, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, requires not only 11:38 faithfulness to the agreement. 11:41 It requires a self understanding of one's role within the 11:45 covenant. 11:47 So, for example, the Father is the Father. 11:51 That is who He is, and as the Father he superintends and 11:55 executes certain elements within the covenant. 11:58 That's His role. 11:59 So, to the Son. 12:00 So to the Spirit. 12:01 The Son's role is not the Spirit's role. 12:03 The Spirit's role is not the Son's role. 12:04 The Father's role is not the Son's role, and the Son's the 12:07 Father's, so...so too in a marriage covenant. 12:09 My wife, she has an identity and a role to play out in the 12:15 context of the covenant. 12:17 Her job is not my job. 12:18 Her role is not my role. 12:19 Neither mine hers. 12:20 So, even within, before you even get to the creation covenant, 12:24 God is covenant. 12:26 The Father, the Son, and the Spirit each knowing who they 12:29 are, being true to the other within the roles that are a part 12:33 of the very essence of the Godhead itself, so then it makes 12:36 sense that that kind of a God who is covenant. 12:39 Who is identified as three and yet one, that He would establish 12:45 people in covenantal relationship. 12:48 He would make, ok, you're the man. 12:50 Ok, and now you're the woman, and you're role and her role, 12:53 and then children and their role. 12:55 The whole thing is not just relational, but it's 12:59 relationship defined by roles and being true to that role as 13:03 well as being true to others within the agreement. 13:06 That's covenant. 13:07 Ok, so we have the covenant of creation, then that emerges from 13:11 Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and God's anticipation, God's 13:16 hope, God's desire is that faithfulness will be maintained. 13:19 That humanity will maintain faithful, relational integrity. 13:24 Covenant. 13:26 With God and with one another. 13:27 The fall occurs. 13:29 When the fall occurs, we need to understand, in Scripture, that 13:34 God has already in His foreknowledge, in His 13:38 omniscience, God has already anticipated the fall, and has 13:41 made a decision consistent with His character, that if humanity 13:48 should defect, fall, rebel, what will God do? 13:53 Well, God will follow through with, and I love this language, 13:57 He will follow through with the covenant of peace. 14:00 And this is found, that language is found in Isaiah chapter 54 14:05 and verse 10. 14:06 And here's God speaking, "For the mountains shall depart, and 14:11 the hills will be removed, but my kindness shall not depart 14:17 from you, nor shall my covenant of peace be removed, says the 14:22 Lord who has mercy on you." 14:25 So, here's this language covenant of peace, and God is 14:28 basically making a pledge. 14:29 He's saying, no matter what happens in the material 14:34 creation, mountains will shake and remove, but I'm immovable. 14:38 In what sense am I immovable? 14:41 I will follow through with my faithful love for you. 14:45 Now, you've not been faithful to me. 14:46 You've broken covenant. 14:48 You've defected. 14:49 You've rebelled, but your unfaithfulness will not have any 14:55 impact on my faithfulness. 14:59 I'll keep being who I am. 15:01 I'll keep being faithful to you no matter what you are toward 15:06 me. 15:07 I love that because if covenant means promise, a promise is only 15:10 as good as the reputation and character of the person 15:13 promising. 15:14 Right? 15:15 There are certain individuals that they can say, oh man, I'll 15:18 come through, I promise. 15:20 I'll be there, or I promise, and you're like, yeah, whatever, you 15:24 promised the last 10 times. 15:25 So reputation has a lot to do with the integrity of the 15:28 promise, so could it be that Scripture's the story of God's 15:31 consistent, faithfulness to his promises. 15:36 A track record of His reputation. 15:38 That when God promises something, He always comes 15:41 through, and... 15:42 But He doesn't always come through in the way that we 15:44 think. 15:46 That's sort of the, that's the story, the story, the Bible 15:49 springs a surprise on us as to how God fulfills His promises. 15:53 I know that that's skipping ahead slightly, but it's 15:56 amazing. 15:57 And it reminds me of the text that says He couldn't figure out 16:01 who to swear by so He swore by Himself. 16:02 He couldn't figure out somebody greater, somebody greater, so he 16:07 swears by Himself. 16:08 That language, I'm so glad you brought that to the table 16:10 because that's basically God saying, I'm going to pledge 16:15 and promise and swear by myself because there's no one greater 16:19 Hebrews says. 16:20 In other words, I'm pledging to be consistent in Myself and not, 16:24 illustration we had in the previous conversation, I'm not 16:28 going under the table. 16:30 I'm not going to break covenant with my own character. 16:33 I'm not going to violate the integrity of who I am. 16:36 Isn't that amazing love? 16:39 Amazing love that God has for us. 16:42 Something that I just kind of want to just tell a little of my 16:45 own story here about the Bible and my own maturation or my own 16:50 increasing understanding of what Scripture is and the role of 16:54 Scripture in my own life goes something like this. 16:57 Prior to my becoming a believer, you know I was just a purple 17:03 haired punk rocker, skateboarder, did that thing. 17:05 Then when I became a believer at the age of 23, almost 24, I 17:09 would read the Bible, but I was reading the Bible primarily, and 17:12 I did for a number of years, as a series, what's right, what's 17:16 wrong. 17:17 What should I do? 17:19 What shouldn't I do? 17:20 And I read the Bible, I would say, in a certainly sincere and 17:22 genuine way, but in a fairly perfunctory and immature way. 17:27 I just saw the Bible as a code book. 17:29 Right? 17:31 Just, do this, do this, do this, do this, do this. 17:33 Don't do this. 17:34 Don't do this. 17:35 Don't do this. 17:36 This is the...but then over time you transition from code book to 17:40 case book, right, where you have also this is Moses story. 17:44 Oh, this is...and this is a story, and this is a story, and 17:47 you start to see the Bible is not just a list of rules, but 17:50 it's how God interacts with people and as that transition 17:54 took place in my own life, I began to see, it's not just any 17:57 ordinary story, or a series of stories. 18:00 The fullest maturation, not that I've arrived, I don't suggest 18:04 that, is when you come to realize that the Bible is the 18:07 story of God's covenantal faithfulness. 18:09 And I just want to speak to any of the listeners that are here, 18:13 that are listening in, there's nothing wrong with growing in 18:16 how you understand Scripture. 18:18 It might just start of as a, that's wrong, that's wrong, 18:21 that's right, that's right, but as we mature, as we grow, the 18:23 Bible becomes a beautiful covenant document. 18:26 Not just an ancient, but a modern covenant promise, God to 18:29 us. 18:30 You know, David, not only is there nothing wrong with growing 18:34 and you know, and expanding and maturing our perspectives. 18:38 That's the only way to actually progress in our experience with 18:44 Jesus is to keep learning. 18:46 In our second segment of this conversation, we're gonna 18:51 discover some incredible ideas, I believe, as we continue this 18:55 conversation, because we're dealing with an incredible God 18:58 who is making and keeping promises. 19:00 Amen. 19:01 Praise God. 19:03 Hi, I'm Ty Gibson. 19:10 Welcome to digma.com. 19:12 I am so excited about this website because you're about to 19:16 discover a powerful new way to share life-transforming messages 19:19 and videos with your family, friends, and anybody else on the 19:24 planet that has access to a computer. 19:25 Digma is a Greek word. 19:28 It basically means to show or to reveal something by means of a 19:33 pattern or an example of some kind. 19:35 It's the second half of the word paradigma from which we get the 19:43 English word paradigm, as in paradigm shift, and so what 19:45 you're going to find at digma.com is a growing library 19:47 of short videos and transcripts dealing with paradigms and 19:51 fundamental questions. 19:52 What's the meaning of life? 19:55 What is our origin and destiny as human beings? 19:59 What happens when we die? 20:01 Does God exist or are we alone in this vast universe? 20:06 Why is there so much evil and suffering in our world. 20:09 An estimated 70% of Americans have a computer right in their 20:14 home and stay in touch with family and friends by email, and 20:18 more than 400 million people are active on Facebook. 20:23 And 5 million new users are signing up every week. 20:28 We are literally in the midst of a communications revolution of 20:32 massive proportions. 20:34 This is granting the Gospel direct and easy access to 20:39 millions upon millions of homes and hearts, and that's what 20:44 digma.com is all about. 20:48 It's a tool for leading our family and friends on an 20:51 exciting paradigm shift by revealing the truth of God's 20:56 creative power and his incredibly beautiful character 20:59 in contrast to our world's popular misconceptions about who 21:05 God is. 21:07 Again, you guys, I'm pretty excited about the Digma project. 21:19 I know you are as well, because it does something a little bit 21:24 new. 21:25 It approaches Biblical subject matter from an angle that will 21:30 be accessible to the kinds of people that I grew up with. 21:37 People who have no Biblical foundation, who are basically 21:42 raised in secular homes and they're not hostile toward God, 21:47 but they're basically in a frame of mind, well, I don't know. 21:51 Maybe God exists, maybe God doesn't exist, and if He does, 21:53 what kind of person is He? 21:55 I don't know, so the Digma videos are basically a short 21:59 little, story-based, communication devices that 22:04 stimulate conversation with people regarding two basic 22:08 categories of ideas: does God exist, and if He does, what kind 22:13 of God is he, what kind of being is he? 22:17 So, we just hope people will find them valuable. 22:18 Digma.com. 22:20 Share those things, pass them around, and let's get right back 22:23 into our subject. 22:24 So, we're talking about covenant, and where we've come 22:27 from in the first part of our conversation is basically say 22:31 that God is a covenantal being in and of Himself, God is 22:42 consistent. 22:43 There is faithfulness that lies at the foundation of the 22:47 character of God. 22:49 Father, Son, and Holy Spirit live in an eternal ebb and flow 22:54 of others-centered, faithful unchanging love. 22:57 Out of that God says, let us make mankind in our own image, 23:03 and so now covenant is expanding, and human beings are 23:07 now a replica of the triune love that exists with the Father, 23:11 Son, and Holy Spirit, and as they replicate that love, now a 23:17 whole new possibility of expanding love is before the 23:22 universe. 23:23 Then we notice that the fall occurred. 23:25 Adam and Eve defected. 23:27 They rebelled, basically they rebelled against God's love, 23:31 against the idea, the mode of living that is grounded in 23:37 relational integrity, covenant. 23:40 They then find themselves in the predicament in which, and God is 23:46 in a predicament that of course in His foreknowledge He saw and 23:49 anticipated, and God has already determined to remain consistent 23:54 no matter what human beings do. 23:56 It's called the covenant of peace. 23:57 God basically says, within the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy 24:03 Spirit, no matter what they do, we will continue to be faithful. 24:07 We will continue to keep promise. 24:10 We will continue to be who we are, and so that launches the 24:13 Biblical story. 24:15 The Biblical story begins with this foundational idea of 24:18 covenant, and now covenant has been broken, so in Genesis 24:23 chapter 3, now we're moving on in the story line, and I know 24:28 Jeffery really loves Genesis 3:15. 24:30 It comes up in our conversations sometimes. 24:32 Well, it's the first time God basically chimes in, so to 24:36 speak, and He blows the trumpet and the whole buildup of Genesis 24:40 3 is the fall and it's dark. 24:42 It's failure. 24:45 It's disappointment, and then in verse 15, "And I will put enmity 24:51 between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. 24:58 He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." 25:05 So, I love that word enmity, and it's hostility. 25:10 It's resistance, and it's almost like, humanity fell and we 25:14 caught the virus. 25:17 The virus is gonna be passed down from generation to 25:19 generation and then God introduces this guarantee that 25:22 there's gonna be resistance to the virus. 25:26 There's gonna be resistance to this, to this warped picture of 25:29 God, and He's gonna introduce it into the very race, into the 25:33 human race, and I think that's a beautiful thing, and so it seems 25:36 like this is basically the launching pad for this covenant 25:40 that's going to be traced throughout the entire Old 25:43 Testament. 25:44 Notice how the language begins, "I will." 25:48 Yeah, I love this. 25:50 I love this. 25:51 It's promise language. 25:53 It is. 25:54 It's...I think this is the first covenant agreement that God 25:56 makes with humankind. 25:57 I mean, when you look at this, we really have nothing to say, 26:00 but, yes. 26:01 Yes. 26:02 Yes. 26:03 Because we're helpless. 26:05 We're fully depraved, so God makes this covenant agreement. 26:07 He says this is what I'm gonna do for you, and I'm gonna do 26:10 it through my Son, Jesus Christ, and we're standing there going, 26:13 ok. 26:14 Ok. 26:15 Now, I have a question for you. 26:17 I just wanna, just ever so slightly challenge you, or maybe 26:20 I just misunderstood what you were saying. 26:21 What, or maybe a better question to ask is, what was the covenant 26:26 that God had with Adam before the fall? 26:28 It seems to me like we skipped a chapter there, because God 26:32 created Adam and Eve. 26:35 They were perfect people in a perfect environment in a perfect 26:37 situation. 26:39 He certainly as a covenantal being made them as covenantal 26:41 beings, so this here is a covenant as to how I will redeem 26:44 or rescue you from the fall, but prior to that there would have 26:49 been another covenant that God would have made with them that 26:52 was not based on His redemption of them but His faithfulness, do 26:56 you see where I'm going with that? 26:57 Of which this is a corrective. 26:59 Yeah, this is the corrective to the initial covenant. 27:01 This is the pathway back to where they were. 27:03 So, what was that covenant? 27:05 Love. 27:06 It certainly was a covenant of love, but it wasn't a covenant 27:08 based on a savior or based on redemption. 27:10 It was based on them remaining loyal and trusting and obedient 27:15 to... 27:16 There you go. 27:17 That's where I was going. 27:19 That's the word I'm looking for. 27:20 It was a covenant of obedience. 27:21 it was a covenant of loyalty. 27:22 It was a covenant of not salvation, but a covenant 27:24 of...certainly in a sense they had to believe God because, I 27:28 mean here they're just... 27:29 Of abiding in what God had created. 27:31 It was a covenant of abiding, no? 27:33 They were to abide in the love and freedom and liberty that God 27:36 had established, and you had mentioned earlier that the whole 27:40 idea of the tree of life is, here we have an opportunity for 27:44 a choice, and that with that choice could come moral 27:47 development, right, and so it seems to me that was the 27:53 covenant, and then now this is God's great corrective. 27:56 A covenant based on Adam's obedience to the, at least, the 28:01 one that we know that's clearly there in Genesis 3 is, don't eat 28:04 of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but presumably 28:06 this is just a...emblematic of a larger body of responsibility. 28:12 That's what I was getting at with the responsibilities. 28:14 You have a responsibility, I have a responsibility, and 28:16 Adam's responsibility was the things that are mentioned there. 28:19 Be fruitful and multiply. 28:20 Subdue the earth. 28:21 Extend the garden. 28:22 Don't eat of the tree. 28:23 So it's a covenant based on, you keep your part. 28:25 I keep my part. 28:26 I will be your God. 28:28 You will be my people. 28:29 Then he falls. 28:30 He's unfaithful to that. 28:31 He doesn't believe the promises of God. 28:33 He believes, he and she, Adam and Eve both believe the words 28:36 of Satan, so then now there's no lapse there, there's no synapse 28:41 between God, oh now what do we do now? 28:43 It's already in place. 28:45 Yeah, that's Genesis 3:15. 28:46 It's there. 28:48 And Genesis 3:15, though, what I heard James say a moment ago, is 28:52 that post fall, after the fall has occurred, now there's human 28:57 impotence. 28:59 Yeah, of course. 29:01 That now they're powerless to form righteous characters and to 29:05 be obedient and to, they can't self, they can't self generate 29:11 the faithfulness. 29:14 That's not the point I was challenging, James, and 29:16 challenge is too strong of a word. 29:17 It's just that James had used the language, I think you said 29:21 something like, this is the first covenant. 29:22 What you mean is this is the first post-fall covenant, 29:25 exactly. 29:27 I was saying that well there's a...that what going on prior to 29:29 that was that God had a covenant of obedience. 29:31 He had a covenant of trust and loyalty. 29:32 Yeah, so we're on the same page. 29:36 But this is a the first Gospel promise. 29:37 This is the first covenant promise post-fall, and I like 29:39 something here, Jeffery, you read the whole text, and I had 29:43 just begun to call our attention to the fact that this is, this 29:48 is God making the promise because he says, I will put 29:53 enmity, and then He goes a step further. 29:55 He says, not only will He put enmity or hostility between the 29:58 woman and the serpent. 30:00 By the way, we didn't mention, and we should, this is God 30:03 speaking to the serpent, or to Satan in the hearing of 30:07 humanity, ok, so when He says, I will put enmity between you and 30:11 you, He's addressing the serpent. 30:14 He's addressing Satan. 30:15 Satan, I will put enmity between you and the woman. 30:19 There's gonna be hostility. 30:21 We're not going along with your plan. 30:24 You've laid claim to humanity and planet earth, but a 30:26 reclaimation process is going to be implemented. 30:29 I'm going to reclaim the human race and planet earth. 30:34 And how am I going to do it? 30:35 I'm going to do it straight through the lineage of the 30:38 woman. 30:39 I'm going to, somebody is going to be born. 30:41 Right here at this early stage, if this is all you had, right 30:44 here, you don't know the name Jesus. 30:47 You don't know Messiah. 30:49 All you know is God is saying, I'm going to come through human 30:54 lineage. 30:55 I'm going to bring a savior, and the savior has warrior 30:59 characteristics. 31:00 Did you notice that? 31:02 Warrior characteristics because He, that is, the one I'm 31:06 sending, will bruise your head. 31:08 The language is actually stronger in the Hebrew. 31:10 He will crush your head, and you will bruise your heel, and the 31:15 image here is that the head of the serpent is being crushed 31:19 under the foot, under the heel, of this warrior-savior, but in 31:24 the process of the crushing, the savior's crushing, he's wounded 31:30 in the process. 31:32 In other words the savior sustains some kind of injury in 31:36 the process of defending the human race and rescuing us. 31:42 Beautiful. 31:43 It sounds like an epic movie. 31:45 That sounds, I'm sorry, I'm still stuck in the movie thing. 31:49 Well, it's a story. 31:52 Brother, this crushing of the head under the heel of the 31:56 Messiah, this is describing, and we're gonna get there in our 32:00 conversation later on, but this is pointing straight forward to 32:04 the cross of Calvary where God Himself in human flesh will be 32:08 horribly injured, wounded, on our behalf. 32:14 I really think that's significant because here God is 32:16 making this first post-fall covenant for us, for mankind, 32:20 and we are listening. 32:23 He's not speaking to us. 32:24 He's speaking to the serpent, and we're listening. 32:27 We're listening to, see that sets the stage. 32:31 That actually lays the foundation for what God's 32:33 everlasting covenant is because I think as we go through the Old 32:37 Testament, we're gonna find all of these detours, all of these 32:39 covenant failures, agreement failures that involved us, but 32:43 here' a covenant that, it involves us. 32:46 It's about us, but it doesn't exactly involve us. 32:48 Satan, this is what I'm going to do. 32:50 We're listening. 32:51 Satan, you're Adam, you're Eve. 32:52 Sorry. 32:54 This is what I'm going to do. 32:55 I'm going to do this, and it's not like, ok, Adam, Eve, this is 32:59 what I'm going to do, you guys. 33:00 No, Satan, this is what I'm going to do, and so it makes it 33:02 very clear that we're the spectators listening to what God 33:06 is going to do on our behalf. 33:07 It's like back in school, like when you're getting picked on, 33:10 you're getting pushed around, smashed against the lockers, and 33:13 then your older cousin or your older brother or whatever walks 33:16 in, he walks up to the main guy and he says, if you touch my 33:18 brother again. 33:19 And you're just listening, you know? 33:21 And then the next day you show up to school, you're just 33:23 like....you're feeling tall and mighty. 33:27 This is what came to my mind when James was talking. 33:29 When I was a little kid, there was a boy, and he was picking on 33:33 me almost every day on the way home from school, just him and 33:38 his bigger brother. 33:40 Throwing rocks at me. 33:41 Calling me names. 33:42 Swatting me on the head, and my mom knew this was happening, and 33:47 my mom took me by the hand one day, took me down the street to 33:53 the house where the house where those two boys lived. 33:58 She knocked on the door. 33:59 The parents came to the door with these two little guys 34:02 standing behind, and my mom said, tomorrow after school, our 34:05 front yard, my boy is gonna fight your boy, and we're gonna 34:10 end this matter. 34:12 So, I didn't have a big brother, Jeffery, to step in and make 34:18 threats and promises on my behalf to defend me. 34:20 I just looked up at my mom, and she just gave me a look like, 34:24 no, you're gonna do this... 34:25 You gonna fight him or me? 34:27 When we went home, my mom gave me instructions. 34:31 She said, this is how you're gonna whoop him, and my mom told 34:36 me what to do. 34:37 The next day, it happened. 34:38 His parents came. 34:40 There was my mom outside the fence, and these two little boys 34:44 were put in the front yard, and we just had to go at it... 34:48 You against two of them? 34:52 No, no, just me and the one, the younger one my size, and I hate 34:56 to say it, but I grew up in a pretty rough neighborhood. 34:58 My mom said here's how you do it. 34:59 You walk in. 35:00 You don't hesitate. 35:01 You walk in and you take the first blow. 35:02 She said, you just start swinging your little fists and 35:04 just start hitting. 35:06 So, I'm laughing here, I'm laughing here because you might 35:09 think that's, that's uh, unusual, that's what happened in 35:13 my experience too. 35:17 The same thing. 35:18 Are you serious? 35:19 Absolutely. 35:20 My parents and my, uh, my friend Lance's parents were like, ok, 35:21 these kids can't get along, they'll just fight in front of 35:23 us, so we duked it out and our parents just sort of sat by... 35:26 I think what we're saying, before we start....bring it back 35:28 before we start embellishing stuff here now... 35:30 I'll bring it back... 35:32 ...and I took 10 guys on, you know. 35:33 I'll bring it back. 35:34 My experience was very Old Covenant. 35:37 And mine was New Covenant. 35:41 I didn't have anybody come to my defense and say, I'm gonna crush 35:44 your head under my heel on behalf of this little guy, but 35:47 here this promise is, I will, God, I will step in and I will 35:54 deal with you, the serpent, on behalf of my children whom I'm 35:59 defending. 36:00 We're saying these are fighting words. 36:02 We're saying God opens His mouth, and they're fighting 36:04 words. 36:06 That's right. 36:07 That's awesome. 36:08 The other thing I like about this is this is the first 36:09 prophetic declaration of the post-fall Old Covenant, I mean, 36:12 Old Testament. 36:13 This is the first prophetic declaration, and that prophetic 36:15 declaration focuses on Jesus. 36:18 Also it focuses, it talks about the serpent, which you take that 36:21 all the way to the book of Revelation you've got the same 36:23 thing, but Christ, Jesus is the center of prophecy, the center 36:27 of this prophetic declaration. 36:28 Am I getting sidetracked there? 36:30 No, we're not getting sidetracked at all. 36:32 That, that's so true. 36:34 That's a good point that we have to, because so much prophecy is 36:37 just novelty and interest...or it's conspiracy theories. 36:41 It's, you know, international government agencies and all of 36:45 that stuff, religious, ok, whatever, but at the center of 36:48 prophecy and the center of Revelation is Jesus. 36:51 The center of Scripture is Jesus, and too prophecy. 36:54 So, I love this because it lays the foundation out just for 36:57 prophecy, as you were saying, but it lays the foundation for 36:59 identifying what the everlasting covenant looks like. 37:02 This is what it looks like. 37:04 The text is actually whispering to, to, to read through, the 37:07 text is telling us to keep our eyes open and watch closely. 37:09 Yeah, the text is also telling us, uh, I don't know, do you 37:13 guys see this here? 37:15 This just popped into my head, I don't know, yeah, I'm just gonna 37:18 say it, this is before there's any Jewish nation. 37:21 There are no Israelites. 37:23 This is God making covenant with the human race Yes. 37:26 God always intended to save humanity as a whole, and was 37:30 never exclusive and never wanted a separatist people, an elite 37:37 people. 37:38 God is making covenant promise here... 37:43 To all. 37:44 ...to save humanity. 37:45 And in addition to that, a mistake was made at Sinai. 37:47 Adam and Eve stood by as spectators and they watched. 37:51 At Sinai? 37:52 Yes, a mistake was made at Sinai. 37:54 Oh, Adam and Eve stood by and watched... 37:56 No, no, I'm going back. 37:57 Adam and Eve stood by in Eden and they watched and they 38:00 listened and said, whoa, this is...but at Sinai, at Sinai God 38:04 is coming down to make covenant promise, and the people step in. 38:07 They don't stay back. 38:09 They don't listen. 38:10 They don't accept. 38:11 They don't say, yeah, they step in and they say, oh, and we're 38:15 gonna. 38:16 You see what I'm saying? 38:17 Which is a symptom of the fall. 38:18 Yes! 38:19 Because back at the fall, remember, they made coverings. 38:22 They're trying to compensate. 38:25 They're trying to somehow save themselves by their own works, 38:29 and now when we come to Sinai and the people are making 38:32 promises to God that are like ropes of sand, they'll never be 38:34 able to keep them. 38:36 That's a symptom of the fall. 38:38 It's indicative of the issue that began in the mind that 38:43 distorted humanity at the very foundational level, and brought 38:48 us into a state of self centeredness and 38:50 self-dependence, rather than dependence on God. 38:52 You could almost, Adam and Eve's hiding and covering themselves, 38:58 their acts of self-dependence, could almost be forgiven in this 39:02 sense. 39:04 The announcement of the good news had not yet taken place. 39:06 They didn't know. 39:09 They're afraid of God. 39:10 They don't trust God, so they're thinking, oh, we gotta do this 39:12 ourselves, but by the time you get down to Sinai, it's, I mean 39:15 you have two thousand years-ish of human history, more maybe by 39:19 the time you get down to, in fact quite a few more by the 39:22 time you get down there. 39:23 They should have known well and truly, you can't...it's not 39:27 gonna... 39:28 And here's the value. 39:29 I really like what you're saying because here's the value. 39:31 God allows the fig leaf experience to help us to realize 39:36 as human beings, this is what we naturally tend to. 39:38 But then God continues to allow it because at Sinai He could 39:42 have stopped right there and said, wait, wait, wait a minute, 39:44 this is not...but He allows it again, and again, and again. 39:46 The whole, I think, experience in history... 39:50 Well, how many of us at this table have made promises to God? 39:52 Yes! 39:53 Ok. 39:54 I know I've done it. 39:55 I mean, haven't you? 39:56 I've made promises to God and then failed. 39:57 That's the same thing, right? 39:59 Absolutely. 40:00 It's the same thing. 40:01 I will never, or I will.... 40:02 And if they should have known, we should have known. 40:04 So it simply brings us back, not just to a revelation of the fact 40:08 that we can't fulfill these promises. 40:10 We can't carry through with our word, but also, directs us then 40:12 to the foundation that was laid by God. 40:17 Right there. 40:18 Push the pause button, and we'll take our final break, and then 40:21 we'll come back because lots of good stuff is being brought to 40:24 the table, and this is, this is, yeah, we'll continue the 40:27 discussion. 40:28 Digma videos are short, engaging messages designed for opening up 40:34 discussion with individuals and groups regarding the character 40:36 of God as well as for your own personal, spiritual growth. 40:40 For your DVD sample collection of Digma videos, call 40:43 877.585.1111 or write to Light Bearers, 37457 Jasper Lowell Rd, 40:52 Jasper, OR, 97438. 40:55 Once again, for your free DVD sample collection of Digma 40:58 videos call 877.585.1111 or write to Light Bearers, 37457 41:07 Jasper Lowell Rd, Jasper, OR, 97438. 41:10 Simply ask for Digma DVD 3. 41:14 I love this. 41:19 I love what we're discovering here in the book of Genesis, 41:23 because Genesis is the beginning, and in the beginning 41:26 we have, post-fall, this powerful foundation that's laid 41:31 for the everlasting covenant, for God's covenant with the 41:36 human race, and it's based, as we are spectators, it's based on 41:39 what God promises as he's speaking to the serpent, to 41:43 Satan, what God promises He's going to do in our behalf because we're helpless. 41:47 We're hopeless. 41:48 Now, the thing, the reason I think this is so beautiful and 41:52 so significant is because as we move through the Old Testament, 41:56 we see failure after failure after failure of God's covenant 42:01 people to understand and to take a hold of this everlasting 42:05 covenant, so we see detours. 42:06 I think about, for example, the experience of Abraham. 42:10 Abraham is to enter into the same covenant, along with God's 42:14 people at Sinai, along with, along with, and we see these 42:17 detours that are taken, in fact Paul even tells us, I'm just 42:21 jumping ahead in the summery, Paul even tells us that there 42:24 are these two understandings that develop in the Bible of the 42:28 covenant. 42:29 One's an Old Covenant understanding and one's a New 42:33 Covenant understanding, which is I think, this everlasting 42:35 covenant. 42:36 This same covenant that God began with in Genesis, in the 42:38 book of Genesis. 42:40 Well let's just move to Abraham, then, and with Genesis chapter 42:43 12 and see how far we can get because what's happening here in 42:47 the Biblical narrative, this unfolding story, is that God is 42:53 active in real time in human history. 42:56 He just made the promise in Genesis 3:15. 43:00 I'm gonna step in. 43:01 I'm gonna do something, so then He's relating to people on the 43:05 basis of His covenant faithfulness. 43:07 He enters into covenant with Abraham in chapter 12. 43:10 "Now the Lord said to Abram, get out of your country from your 43:15 family and from your father's house to a land that I will show 43:18 you..." 43:20 and here's the covenant language..."I will make you a 43:24 great nation and bless you and make your name great and you 43:28 shall be a blessing. 43:30 I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse those who 43:33 curse you, and in you all the families of the earth shall be 43:38 blessed." 43:40 So, I just want to call our attention to two things here. 43:44 See what else emerges from the text. 43:46 God enters into a covenant with Abraham. 43:49 He's making a promise, and He says, I'm going to bless you. 43:54 I'm going to make you a great nation, and I love this part, 43:57 all the families of the earth, all the nations, will be blessed 44:02 in you. 44:04 That is to say, through your lineage, which loops back to 44:07 Genesis 3:15, through the woman, your seed, through your 44:11 posterity, someone's gonna come. 44:14 This is a repeat, but an expansion of the Genesis 3:15 44:19 promise where God is saying to Abraham, ok, you're the one I'm 44:25 choosing to create, initiate, the lineage through which 44:29 ultimately, all the families of the earth will be blessed. 44:36 This is pointing forward to the complete fulfillment of Jesus 44:41 Christ as the Son of Abraham, ultimately, so this is where we 44:45 have kind of a beginning point of God entering into covenant 44:51 relationship with human beings. 44:53 Genesis 3:15 of course is the first Gospel promise, but now 44:57 it's taking on form. 44:58 It's developing. 44:59 Yeah, I love this. 45:01 In fact, when you look at this in the context of Abraham's 45:05 experience, you see him wrestling in a sense with this 45:10 whole idea, but coming to terms with it over and over again. 45:14 One of the examples you see of this is found in the further 45:19 development of the story in Genesis 22 where God, I think, 45:24 repeats this same promise to Abraham. 45:27 I mean, he is first of all asking him to make a sacrifice 45:32 of his son, which to me is a beautiful picture of the 45:35 sacrifice the Father is making of his son Jesus Christ for the 45:41 world, so you see this kind of representation of the plan of 45:46 salvation in the sacrifice that Abraham is asked to make here, 45:50 but Abraham is told to withhold. 45:51 He doesn't, you know, finally have to make that sacrifice, and 45:55 then God says in verse 15, the angel of the Lord calls to 45:58 Abraham out of heaven the second time, Genesis 22:15, and he says 46:02 verse 16, "By myself have I sworn, says the Lord, for 46:07 because thou hast done this thing and has not withheld thy 46:10 son, thine only son..." 46:11 verse 17..."then in blessing I will bless thee and in 46:15 multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and 46:18 as the sand that is on the seashore and thy seed shall 46:20 possess the gate of this enemies, and..." 46:23 verse 18..."in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be 46:27 blessed because thou hast obeyed my voice." 46:29 So here again you see Abraham, uh God, again confirming this 46:36 covenant. 46:37 He says, by myself I have sworn. 46:38 I'm gonna do this. 46:40 Why? 46:41 Because you have listened to me. 46:44 You have agreed with me. 46:45 You put your trust in Me. 46:46 You haven't put your trust in yourself. 46:48 Can you imagine if Abraham would have put his trust in the death 46:52 of his son. 46:53 I don't have to imagine it. 46:54 He did. 46:55 We don't have to imagine Abraham putting his trust in 46:58 himself because you jumped ahead to Genesis 22, but all the way 47:02 back in Genesis 15,16, 17, Abraham tries to fulfill part of 47:07 God's covenant promise by taking Hagar. 47:10 Exactly! 47:11 Yes, yes, yes, yes. 47:13 So we have that contrast taking place, and I think that contrast 47:15 follows, goes all the way through the Bible, Old Testament 47:19 and even New Testament because in the New Testament you still 47:22 have people trying to work out that Old Covenant experience, 47:26 that we understand to be the Old Covenant experience, that whole 47:29 idea of putting trust in themselves. 47:30 I love the idea of how they laugh. 47:31 How Sarah laughs. 47:33 She just cracks up when God says, this is what I'm going to 47:37 fulfill. 47:39 It sounds so crazy, so impossible, so she laughs in 47:42 Genesis 18. 47:44 Why? 47:45 Why does it sound impossible? 47:46 She says, I'm so old, basically, and you're so old. 47:48 How are we? 47:49 How is this going to happen? 47:51 And she laughs, and the funny thing, there, I love how there's 47:54 humor in the Bible. 47:56 There's comedy here because in Genesis 18 when she laughs, she 48:02 almost catches herself, but it was too late, God already heard 48:05 her and in verse 14, is anything too hard for the Lord? 48:09 And then in verse 15, but Sarah denied it. 48:13 She said no, no, I didn't laugh because she was afraid, and then 48:17 God says, no, you did laugh. 48:18 I heard you. 48:21 And then the real funny part is that when she finally does have 48:25 a child, she names him "Crack-up." 48:28 Yeah, because I laughed... 48:29 She names him "Laughter." 48:30 His name is Isaac which means "laughter." 48:32 But I think that's more than just funny. 48:34 I think it's indicative that God's promises throughout 48:38 Scripture and history are so amazing that our difficulty is 48:42 to, is to grapple with it, is to believe. 48:46 To disbelieve. 48:47 Well yeah, what comes naturally to us is to disbelieve. 48:52 Yeah, and the difficulty is to believe because it's so amazing. 48:55 There's another thing here that is really significant that 48:57 you're bringing out, Jeffery, and that is, is that we can be 48:59 real with God. 49:00 We don't have to pretend with God. 49:01 God knows everything, and he knows the struggles we're 49:04 having. 49:06 He knows how funny it is, how impossible it seems to us, 49:08 etcetera, and as Sarah realizes that she can be real with God, 49:12 that realization makes itself manifest in the name of her 49:15 child. 49:17 Her child now reminds her that God is real, that she can be 49:20 real with Him, that this is the relationship experience, and 49:24 that He's faithful. 49:26 What about the whole idea where, when God tells Abraham, you were 49:30 just pointing out, uh, the sacrifice, He says takes your 49:33 son Isaac, your only son. 49:34 That whole concept of was Isaac the only son, in the literal 49:40 sense. 49:42 He was the only promised son. 49:44 He was the only promised son, right, so it's almost like God 49:47 doesn't even acknowledge Abraham's own efforts in the 49:49 other son. 49:50 In God's mind, there's only one son, and that's the son of 49:52 promise. 49:54 Because in God's mind there's really only one covenant and 49:56 that is the eternal, everlasting covenant, and human beings are 50:01 continually going, mmm, mmm, mmm, you know, detour... 50:04 I have another son, I have another...and God says, I 50:06 don't see it. 50:07 How about this angle? 50:08 Can you do it this way? 50:09 God says, nope, I don't acknowledge any of that. 50:11 Now what we've been doing here is interesting. 50:13 We said, uh, let's go to Genesis 12 and look at Abraham, and we 50:18 went to chapter 12. 50:20 Then we went to chapter 22. 50:22 Then we went back to chapter 18, so the chronology of the story, 50:27 though, if you back up to chapter 15, this is very 50:29 fascinating because in chapter 15, in my Bible actually it 50:34 says, God's covenant with Abraham as the heading for 50:37 chapter 15, and God reiterates His promise to Abraham, and 50:44 Abraham responds to the Lord in verse 2 in basically, Abraham 50:49 says to the Lord God, what will you give me seeing I go 50:54 childless. 50:56 In other words, ok, you've made this promise to me that through 50:58 my lineage all the earth is going to be blessed, but I don't 51:01 even have a child, if this is a lineage promise. 51:04 If it's through my posterity, I don't have posterity, and this 51:09 is interesting, he says in verse 3, look you have given me no 51:14 offspring, Lord, so he's emphasizing this, and then verse 51:18 4, and behold the word of the Lord came to him saying, this 51:22 one shall not be your heir... 51:26 You missed that part because he puts forward his servant 51:29 Eliezer. 51:32 Right, of course. 51:33 He says, ok, let's just take Eliezer. 51:34 He can be like my son. 51:35 Yeah, yeah, and God is saying I'm going to do it through you. 51:38 Through your own body, and this is the part I really want to get 51:44 to, verse 8, how shall I know? 51:46 So Abraham, ok, how can I know that you're going to do it 51:51 through me? 51:53 I tried to come up with a method that we could pull this off with 51:55 because I don't have any children. 51:57 I'm kinda old, so God, how can I know you're gonna do this, and 52:01 then God does something really strange. 52:04 He says, here's what I want you to do Abraham. 52:08 I want you to get three animals. 52:09 I want you to sever them straight down the middle, cut 52:14 them in half. 52:16 Lay them across from one another. 52:19 Three animals across from one another, and some birds. 52:23 Lay them across from one another creating a path between the 52:26 severed animals, ok? 52:30 And then, you're thinking, well wait a minute, how does this 52:33 answer the question, how can I know that you're gonna do this? 52:36 Abraham severs the animals in half, all three of them. 52:40 Lays the birds across from one another, and a pathway is 52:42 created, and Abraham goes into a sleep and a vision and a dark 52:46 horror comes upon him in verse 12, as he's just there, and then 52:51 verse 17 says that a smoking oven and a burning torch of fire 52:56 passed between those pieces and on that same day, verse 18, the 53:03 Lord made a covenant with Abraham. 53:05 In that ancient culture, the way covenants were made was not with 53:10 a piece of paper that is signed by two people in front of a 53:16 lawyer and then notarized. 53:17 The way covenants were made in that day, when two people 53:21 entered into an agreement together, and animal would be 53:23 sacrificed, severed in half and laid across from one another, 53:28 and then each of the two parties would pass between the pieces to 53:32 basically signify symbolically, may it be done to me as done to 53:36 this animal sacrifice if I don't fulfill my half of this 53:40 covenant. 53:42 In other words, I'm pledging my life for my integrity and 53:47 faithfulness. 53:49 Ok? 53:50 So, then what happens is Abraham severs the animals in half, cuts 53:53 them in half, and then Abraham is not asked to pass between the 53:59 pieces. 54:00 Abraham is watching from a distance, and a torch of fire 54:04 passes between the pieces, and this is none other than God 54:08 Himself passing between the animal sacrifices and in the 54:13 symbolism, saying to Abraham, Abraham, here's how you can 54:17 know. 54:18 Remember the question? 54:19 How can I know that you're going to, through me, fulfill the 54:22 promise. 54:23 I'll tell you how you can know, Abraham. 54:25 Because I'm going to lay down my very life to fulfill this 54:29 covenant. 54:32 I will save you and the human race, the human race through 54:36 your lineage, at any cost to myself... 54:40 By any means necessary. 54:42 Yeah, Abraham, somebody's gonna pass through the pieces, and 54:45 it's not gonna be you. 54:48 A sacrifice is going to be made. 54:52 A severing is going to occur. 54:53 Suffering is going to happen. 54:55 A thick, dreadful darkness is going to envelop the earth. 55:00 That's right. 55:02 So, so, this is Abraham's story, you guys. 55:06 This is God saying essentially to Abraham, I'm going to remain 55:12 faithful. 55:15 Abraham, you don't need to worry about this. 55:16 I've got this in hand. 55:18 It's going to happen through your body. 55:20 I'm going to save the human race through you. 55:24 Love it. 55:25 It's beautiful. 55:26 It's all pointing forward to Jesus, and Satan, just like he 55:29 did here in this story, the birds of prey tried to come down 55:33 and they tried to take, and Abraham drove them away, Satan 55:35 has tried to detour, detour, detour us away from this 55:39 covenant and this covenant promise, all the way through. 55:42 All the way through the Old Testament, all the way through 55:44 New Testament. 55:46 One of my favorite authors, someone you guys love as well, 55:50 Ellen White, makes this statement and it's profound. 55:55 She says that what happened for our salvation was the sundering 56:01 of the three great powers of heaven. 56:04 You've got three sacrifices here. 56:07 You've got Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all experiencing a 56:11 fracture of relationship, a severing of connection in order 56:17 to save the human race. 56:19 You've got, my God, my God, why this separation? 56:24 And it was all pointed forward to from the very beginning of 56:28 the covenant that God was laying down for the human race, this, 56:33 this suffering that was going to occur. 56:35 And not even just back to Genesis 15, which certainly 56:37 that's there, but even back to, as you mentioned earlier Genesis 56:41 3, that there would be a woundedness in the warrior 56:45 himself. 56:46 A bruise, bruising. 56:48 Somebody summarize what covenant of peace, what, what's our 56:51 takeaway. 56:52 What's the message that we've basically gathered here? 56:57 I just love the imagery. 56:58 I think, if I can summarize just in a picture, I mean, that whole 57:03 cutting the animal apart, I mean you can just picture Abraham, 57:07 and he's just like, what? 57:09 And you can just imagine him getting ready and God's like, no 57:12 I'm going to do this. 57:14 I think the summery is is basically that God, the very 57:17 second humanity fell, stepped right in, and God was already 57:24 prepared to invest all of heaven into this race. 57:29 Could we say it this way, Jeffery? 57:30 As soon as there was sin, there was a savior. 57:34 This is the covenant of peace. 57:38 Before human beings ever sinned, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit had 57:41 a holy agreement within the sacred inner-precincts of the 57:46 Godhead... 57:48 The community of the Godhead itself... 57:50 Yeah, there was an agreement, whatever happens, we will 57:55 intervene. 57:56 We will save the human race at literally any cost to ourselves. 58:04 By any means necessary. 58:05 By any means necessary. 58:07 It's gonna happen. 58:08 God will remain faithful within Himself and we, here we are, the 58:13 recipients of that faithfulness. 58:15 Amen. 58:17 Hallelujah. 58:18 We can praise God for that, and just camp right there. 58:21 That's a good place for us to close. 58:22 To receive our free, monthly newsletter and a list of Light 58:28 Bearers resources, visit us online at LightBearers.org or 58:33 call us toll free at 877.585.1111. 58:38 You can also write to us at Light Bearers, 37457 Jasper 58:43 Lowell Rd, Jasper, OR, 97438. |
Revised 2014-12-17