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Tag: covenant

  • Covenant and Truth – 2

    Covenant and Truth – 2

    Malachi 2

    English Standard Version (ESV)

    2 If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart to give honor to my name, says the Lord of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it to heart…

    10 Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers?

     

    Have you ever said to God: Where is Your justice?

    Do you think that the Lord does not see the injustice done to you or the sin committed by you?

    Why does the Lord not answer our prayers? (Surely God knows all truth.) Is God not going to seek justice for me?

    Indeed God will judge. It is not a court (when books are opened) where you would dare to plead even your own case, let alone come to God as the plaintive about others.

    In fact, God in several passages of scripture, pleads His own case to us; indeed, as warning against the same injustices we have committed against Him and against others.  This is God’s plea through the Prophet Malachi. Hear the proceedings of our case:

    The charges are serious. The consequences are eternal. The call for repentance is immediate.

    13 And this second thing you do. You cover the Lord’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. 

    14 But you say, “Why does he not?”

    Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. 

    15 Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? 

    And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring.

    So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.16 “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts.

    So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”

    The Messenger of the Lord

    17 You have wearied the Lord with your words.

    But you say, “How have we wearied him?”

    By saying, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.” Or by asking, “Where is the God of justice?”

    And we ask for God to come and bring justice?

    What were we thinking, without first bowing down to the will of Christ Jesus, our Redeemer by His Cross and our Judge Advocate?

    Read Malachi 3 for further conviction, if need be.

    Malachi 3:2 But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?

    NOT me; not without Christ Jesus as my Lord.

    To be continued…

     

     

     

     

  • Covenant and Truth

    Covenant and Truth

    Numbers 23:19-20

    English Standard Version (ESV)

    19 God is not man, that he should lie,
    or a son of man, that he should change his mind.
    Has he said, and will he not do it?
    Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?
    20 Behold, I received a command to bless:
    he has blessed, and I cannot revoke it.

    What is a covenant?

    Is it not a most solemn promise? Is it also not witnessed so that the truth can be confirmed?

    I have given my word. And I cannot revoke it.

     

    Of what value is a covenant without truth?

    God is not a man that he would lie. (Numbers 23:19) Satan is a liar… and Satan influences man (and woman too, of course… see earlier mention of the temptation of Eve). We now know good and we also know evil and we must choose every day whether to tell ‘the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help us God.’ (Sound familiar?) Law and covenant require truth.

    When God makes a covenant we can count on it, because God IS truth.

    However when two men, or a man and a woman, (or even two women or many individuals) make ANY covenant or promise, even with witnesses… even signed in the sight of an earthly judge; the validity of the covenant REQUIRES not only truth, but also faithful continued truth to the word of ALL parties to the covenant (solemn agreement).

    And one more thing (before we return to scripture): A covenant is permanent. A solemn promise before GOD is based on the truth of the words of those who make it, until it is broken by any party. And let’s not forget that our God and Judge (who will open books and separate unrepentant liars from the sheep) is also witness to EVERY VOW.

    Genesis 6

    5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord…

    18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.

    Noah worshiped the Lord (both before the flood and after God saved them).

    Remember, both Cain and Abel had worshiped the Lord; but God accepted the sacrifice of Abel, while cautioning Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen?  If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.” – Gensis 4:6-7

    Do you recall the oft’ repeated answer of Cain to God after he murdered his brother?

    He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?”

    Cain did not answer God with the whole truth. Like his sinful parents before him (and also like you and me), Cain spoke as if he could hide his sin from God.

    This sin of failing in the truth continues throughout the generations. God hates lies, and murders, and unfaithfulness, and GOD HATES ALL SIN (though He loves the confession of the repentant sinner).

    Surely we can no more hide our breaking of our covenant from the witness of God than Adam and Eve could hide themselves in Eden.

    God knows ALL truth.

    Genesis 4:10-11 And the Lord 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, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.

    Genesis 9:9 “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you…

    Who has broken the covenants?

    Will you hear truth? “God is not a man that he would lie.”

    To be continued…