Bible Covenants Part 1 – Lawson and Aaron Perdue

Praise God. Friends, I am so glad that you’re with us today. We are beginning a brand new series today on Bible covenants. And I believe that if you get ahold of the truth in these lessons, that it will liberate you and it will bring you to a place where you can begin to experience all that God has promised you and begin to live the good life in Jesus Christ. Blessings. Friends, I’m so glad that you’re here. So glad to have Aaron. We’re actually gonna be teaching a subject and just beginning today on Bible covenants. And I’ve actually been teaching this for over 20 years at Charis Bible College in Colorado, here for Andrew Wommack and Charis Bible College. And they actually asked me specifically to develop a class on this subject. And so I’ve been teaching it and I love the subject and we have a lot, a lot of information available, but thank God, Aaron, we have a covenant with God.

And I love this class too. I’ve actually filled in and taught it for you, like kind of filled in as your substitute. And I think my dad, Pastor Lawson, just has a great understanding of covenant. You know, our God is the God of covenant. He establishes covenant with people, and we have a covenant through Jesus. But it’s really awesome to go through the Bible and see these different covenants that God makes. And we’ll be doing that because it all points to Jesus, it all points to our relationship with God through Jesus. And our God, you know, we actually have an everlasting covenant. The Bible talks about these everlasting covenants. They don’t go away because they’re based upon who God is.

Right. You know, when you talk about the promises of God, the promises of God really are connected to the nature of God. And when you find out who God is, and this is something that I go through in depth in this teaching, but when you find out who God is, then you can know what he does and you can begin to receive from it. So, and the Bible really all fits together. The Bible ultimately is the book of God’s covenant with man. And you know, a lot of people when they teach covenants, they teach all these different, you know, Noah had a Covenant, David had a covenant, Abraham had a covenant. But when you study it out, it’s really just one covenant with the old part and a new part or two covenants, the old covenant, new covenant. And I actually, when they asked me to develop the class over 20 years ago, I actually studied every word on covenant and covenants in the Bible. And I had this thought come to me, this isn’t all these individual covenants, these individual covenants are actually aspects of a greater covenant that God has made with man. And it’s either this one covenant with an old part and a new part, really, which I really liked that thought. Or the old covenant, new covenant. Period. And then a number of years, actually, after I had been teaching this, I was reading a Mabel Major Bible teacher’s lesson, you know, on covenant. And he said the same thing. And it was actually a really great teaching. And I thought, “Praise God, I’m on the right track.” And if you begin to see that it all really centers around Jesus.

I like that you mentioned that the Bible is really one big covenant between God and man. And years back, I took biblical Hebrew for a year at Rice University. I did my master’s and doctorate there in music, but I took this biblical Hebrew class and it as a very extensive class. Most of the students in that class were a PhD religion students. And the professor is actually a believer, a German man, who was just a brilliant scholar and especially with biblical Hebrew. But when we were reading through different parts of the Old Testament in the original biblical Hebrew, every now and then there’s this two-letter conjunction, it was all of Aleph-Tav the A and Z of Hebrew. And he said, there’s no translation for it. People don’t know what it… It’s like an extra conjunction. Like, “and,” “the.” And I was thinking about it really that Aleph-Tav, it’s Jesus’s initials. He’s the alpha, the omega, the beginning, the end. So, you know, like you said, it’s the Bible is a covenant. You know, if you have to sign a contract, I remember when I bought a house, you have to sign your name like a hundred times. You have to initial here, you know, usually like a hundred, like a lot of times. And Jesus, he’s initialed with, the A and the Z. He said, I am the Alpha, the Omega. That’s what he says in Revelation when he appears to John. So he signed this contract, he signed this covenant just all throughout.

He’s the author and the finisher of our faith. So he’s the beginning and the end. And that’s what we really bring out. Now, talking about what is a covenant. It’s a contract, but the spirit-filled life Bible says it’s a pledge, a treaty, or a compact. And in the Greek, in the New Testament, the word covenant is the Greek word diatheke. And it means a disposition, a contract, a covenant, or a testament. And when you study it out, there’s really two types of covenants. There’s, first of all, bilateral agreement, right? That’s a horizontal agreement. And that’s like a covenant between man and man. Like when you’re buying a house, if I’m a seller, you’re a buyer, we have an agreement, and we’re gonna work by this agreement. And that’s between two equal partners. But then there’s also a unilateral agreement, or I like to call that a vertical agreement. And that’s like between a king and his vassals or between God and man. And the Bible is a unilateral, in other words, God has made the covenant with man. And there’s some really good things as we study this out, because ultimately, the covenant is based on the performance of God.

It’s based upon who he is. You know? Sometimes as a pastor, I’ve counseled and married quite a few couples, and I’ll mention covenant, how our God is a God of covenant. And how marriage is really a covenant. It’s a covenant between a man, a woman, and God. God needs to be part of that relationship. But I tell ’em that when God makes a covenant with us, it’s based upon who He is. If that covenant were to break, He’d have to shift in who He is. And I said, in marriage, it’s a covenant. And really for that covenant to be broken, it’d be like you as an individual being broken. It’s based upon who you are.

Right. So when your mom and I got married, we had a very good pastor council us he was a pastor from the Foursquare Church in Lamar, Colorado. We were actually talking about the other day. We’ve been married 40 years. But when he talked to us, he’s like, “Well, it’s like, Lawson, you’re on this side of the church.” You know, we’re sitting in the office, in the church, and he’s counseling us. “And Barbara’s over here, and Barbara has this perspective. You have this perspective. Barbara has this perspective. So you see this thing from different angles. And you see your marriage, you see life from different angles, different perspectives. But God is up here and God sees the overall picture.” And he said, “If you’re both going towards God, if Jesus is your Lord, then when you’re doing that, you’re gonna pull together and you’re not gonna work apart.” And I thought that was a really, really good perspective. And he was very also very practical, because I was talking about being called in the ministry. I wasn’t yet in full-time ministry, really wasn’t receiving very many finances at all, or very much from the ministry. And he’s like, “Well, what are you gonna do to provide for your wife?” So on and so forth. And I took that seriously of course. I was raised, you know, that’s the way my dad raised me. And I believe that’s biblical. You know, when you study the Ephesians, chapter five, husbands are to love their wives. Physically, right? Emotionally and spiritually, like Christ of the church. But we’re to nurture them, we’re to care for them. And so just like we would our own physical body. So that really comes from the scriptures. But just seeing that when God is the center and when Jesus is really our Lord, then we’re gonna work together. We’re not gonna be fighting one another. Now, you can’t make another person come into covenant. You can’t make them agree. That has to be a decision of their own heart, of their own will.

I’m really excited to share on this with you. I’ve actually thought for years, I’ve been here eight and a half years now, I thought this would make a great series to preach sometime. And it’s such an extensive subject. A lot of pastors don’t really go into depth on it. But here on this series for our program, we’ll be going through it extensively. But I really think just understanding God’s covenant it’ll help you grow in your relationship with God. But also to help you grow in your relationship with other people when you understand God’s covenant with you. And also those covenants you have with other people, like whether it be your spouse, children, business partners. That’s not the same level of a covenant. It might be more contractual. But if you’re dealings with people, whether it be business or interacting within the body of Christ, if you understand God’s covenant with you, and you know, Jesus says, “Let your yes be yes, your no be no.” He’s saying, you need to honor…

Well, and when you think about the covenant of God, the Bible is the book of God’s covenant. And we have the unchangeable word of an unchangeable God. And integrity is a big thing. And if God would lie, everything that we see, you know, would fly apart because matter is actually held together by the word of God. And there’s actually science behind this. The smallest part of anything is a quark. And that’s actually a sound. But God created heaven and Earth with His word, and He upholds all things by the word of His power. And it says that Hebrews chapter one, verse three, it also talks about it in two Peter, chapter three. And so he said, by God created heaven and Earth. He called it all together with His word. And by His word they’re held in store.

My wife, this is just a few days ago, but she walked into my office, I was reading the Bible, and she says, “What are you reading?” I said, “I’m reading Genesis.” She said, “You’re always reading Genesis.” I love Genesis. But you see, just from the very beginning, you just see covenant all throughout. Even in Genesis three, after Adam and Eve had sinned, God actually speaks the gospel. He starts showing His covenant to Adam and Eve, even the serpent. The gospel’s actually spoken to the serpent. He says, “You know, that woman’s gonna have a child, and that child is gonna crush your head.” That’s actually the…

That’s the first promise of redemption in the Bible. Genesis chapter three, verse 15. And you actually see the grace of God, even in Genesis chapter…

You do.

When Adam sins, when Eve sins, then God comes, right? And He clothes them with coats of skins. And so God makes these promises and He keeps the promises. And the promises are not based on our goodness or our faithfulness. They’re based on the faithfulness of God. And if you begin to understand that, I remember asking you, because I received a tremendous revelation of grace when I was 30 years old. I’d actually been pastoring at that time for about seven years. And when I received that revelation of grace, I asked you, when you’re taking Biblical Hebrew, if you could see actually later when you took biblical, if you could see grace in the old covenant. You said, “Oh yeah, daddy Grace is all over the Old Testament.” And so we’re gonna come back and talk more about this, right after a short period break. Friends, we’ve been teaching Bible covenants from my syllabus that I’ve been teaching at Bible school that I developed over 20 years ago. I’ve been teaching it for over 20 years in Bible school. We actually have that syllabus free of charge on our website, plus “Hebrews: The Better Covenant” in book form, in audio and video downloadable form. Check our website out.

Three different doctors. And they said, “Oh, wow. Have you messed up your mouth.” Well, I asked another orthodontist and he said, “That means she’s probably gonna break your jaw and you’re gonna have to have jaw surgery.” Because my hinges here had come out. We believe this is a house of miracles. Lester looked at me and he just grabbed me. Literally. I felt his faith, and you know, they are people of healing. So I went home, looked in the mirror, nothing. Then I thought, “Wait a minute, who are you in Christ? What do you teach and preach?” We stand on the word of God. We walk by faith and not by sight. There’s a battle going on, folks. Do you think he wants me healed? Do you think he wants this church to be full of praises? No, he does not. Just said, I thank you, Lord. Whatever I have to do to get this fixed, you’re gonna do it.” And I said, “Can I see those x-rays?” She said, “Yeah.” I said, “Well, there they are.” The hinges are where they should be. You guys understand, this is what we call a miracle.

Friends, I’m so glad that you’re here with us and we are continuing to talk about covenant. And we talked about what is a covenant, and we’re gonna move into the Bible is the book of God’s covenant. This is my Bible. I am who it says I am. I have what it says I have. Amen. God is who He says He is. Better yet. And God will do what He said he would do. And when we think about it, God actually says this in Psalm 89, verse 34. He says, “My covenant, will I not break nor alter the thing that has gone forth out of my lips.” God isn’t gonna break His covenant. He’s not gonna change what goes forth out of His lips. God is keeping His word.

God is not a man that He should lie. I love that versed out of the Bible. We were just talking about how a lot of people, and you’ve even made this statement, you’ve known a lot of Christians that just lie. And it really bothers you. And I actually, I follow this, a minister, a Christian leader by the name of Martyn Iles, he’s from Australia. He was the leader of a great Christian organization in Australia. And I think they let him go because he was so conservative and took a big stand during like all the Covid lockdowns in Australia. But he was hired by Ken Ham he’s the founder of an Answers in Genesis, he built the Arc Museum in Kentucky. So he hired Martyn Iles, which I think is really awesome ’cause they’re both kind of apologists, but they really believed the Bible. The word for word, especially Genesis. Martyn Iles said he’s been really shocked just sitting at these tables with a lot of big name Christian leaders and just notices how much people lie and it really bothers him.

Well, you know, I actually had a major Christian leader, and he pastored for a long time, said, “I know how it is, pastor, and you just got lie, lie, lie.” I don’t lie. I don’t believe in lying. I may not tell if everybody, everything I know.

Well, we should try to be like God. And God does not lie.

Right. He does not,

Like you said, if he lied, the entire universe would just explode.

Yeah, when a word goes out of God’s mouth, that word goes into eternity and it produces fruit.

I like what Jesus said about his words. So the words of Jesus are the words of God. But he said, “My word they are spirit and they are life.”

Amen.

You know, when you read the word of God, it’s spirit and it’s life. It’s so true. It’s so eternal that it’s not just words, it’s not just ink on a page, but it is the spirit of God. It is the eternal life of God. And heaven and earth might pass away, but His word won’t ever pass away.

Right. You know, Peter, James and John were with Jesus at the Mount of Transfiguration, and God spoke from heaven and said, “This is my beloved son, in whom I’m well pleased.” Peter talks about that in second Peter chapter one, and he says, “We have a more sure word of prophecy.” They didn’t have the New Testament like we have today, but he’s saying that the Old Testament scriptures that they had were more sure than Jesus standing in their midst. Moses and Elijah being… You know, being there with him. And God speaking from heaven. And so if you take that type of attitude towards the word of God, it will literally change your life. But see, a lot of people, they look at their circumstance or their situation or their problem…

Or they might just want an experience or a dream or something, and there’s nothing wrong with those things. Like those things do happen.

I thank God for those things. But those things never take the place of the written word of God, the written word of God. God, we have the written word of God. And it is the authority.

Well, and I’m just noticed too, just over the course of my life, but especially in ministry, when people kind of get off track, you know, I’ve known some people who’ve gone into ministry and they get off track. They stop believing portions of scripture. And then they just keep stripping stuff away ’til they don’t really have any firm foundation, and this kind of deconstruction type stuff, it’s really sad. But it starts with like not believing the word of God. That’s where it starts. So, your faith has to be founded upon the word of God.

Amen. Yeah. You found your faith on who God says He is. So, and His covenant, what God promised. “My covenant will I not break nor alter the thing that that goes outta my lips.” You know, I love the scripture you brought up, Numbers 23:19. God is not a man that he should lie. Neither the son of man that he should repent. Has he not said it? Shall he not do it? Has he not spoken it? Shall he not make it good? When God says something that settles it. You know, they used to have these bumper stickers. God said it. I believe it. That settles it. The fact is God said it, that settles it. If you believe it, then you can begin to receive it. If you doubt it, you do without it. So I’m gonna keep believing the word of God. And I love this verse also, it kind of goes along with this. You know, Psalm 89:34. “My covenant will I not break nor alter the thing that’s gone forth outta my lips.” Or Proverbs 30, verse five. It says, “Every word of God is pure.” Man, God’s word is pure, and He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him. You know, the word of God is both offensive, you can believe it and move into new territory with the promises of God. But it’s also defensive. It’s also a protection against the enemy. We have an enemy in this world, in this life. Satan is our enemy. Jesus has already won the victory and conquered him. And we can walk in that victory as we believe what God promised us.

That’s awesome. And God’s word is such a sure thing. You know, you have to always look to God’s word and something I really know as a minister and just observing people going through different situations, you’re always better off trusting God’s word than not. You’re always better off believing God’s promises, looking to who God is, than not.

Amen. So the Bible, it’s the Book of God’s covenant and we begin to think about it. There’s just a lot of different aspects. The scripture, it’s God’s covenant with man. The Bible is a revelation from God to man. And it is for man. Man, there are so many promises of God in the scripture, and a lot of people don’t know what they are. I grew up in a church. We really didn’t know what the Bible said. Now we said we believe the Bible. And because of that, and my dad really loved anybody that would just teach the scripture, you know, teach the Bible. We need to teach people what the Bible said. I remember years ago we had a group of youth and they were going around the church and you know, in the area where the church was at that point in time, and they were raking leaves up for people and just doing it, just blessing people. But one of the ladies, she was up in her eighties, she said, “You know, I watched,” she found out where they’re from. She said, “I watch him on TV. And it’s amazing. If you listen to what he says, it’s in the Bible.” But there’s a lot of people that they have their doctrine and they believe what they believe, kind of separate from what the scripture says. Well, you know, we need to believe what the word of God says. And when you believe it, it’ll change your life. So we were somewhat set up for success in that we believe the Bible. So when we begin to find out what the Bible said, the promises of God. You see, the scripture actually says this in Second Corinthians, chapter one, verse 20, “All the promises of God in Him in Christ are ye and are amen to the glory of God by us.” When God sent Jesus, he said, “Yes, that’s grace.” Grace provided when we believe it, we’re saying, “Amen.” And God gets glory when we walk in His promises. And a lot of people, if you don’t know what it says, I remember the first time I heard the full gospel preached in a Bible study in Lamar, Colorado. And when I heard that preached, you know, Andrew Wommack, almost nobody knew who Andrew Wommack was then. But I thought I left that Bible study that night, 14 years old thinking, “I don’t have to be sick, I don’t have to be poor, I don’t have to be defeated by the devil. I can believe God.” I got a Bible full of promises that I can believe. And you know, literally, the message of the gospel and what God has done for us in the person of Jesus and understanding what He’s promised us has completely changed my life. And I am living a good life. And the good life is based on what God promised us and what Jesus did. And now what we have the power to receive through the power of the Holy Spirit living on the inside of us. It’s an amazing gospel that we have.

You know, in the Bible, just trusting it as God’s covenant, as His promise to us that changes your life. You know, I went to school in secular universities. I was often a minority as a spirit field Bible-believing Christian. But I was able to get along with other people because I wasn’t against them as people. They might have different ways of thinking, different beliefs, different lifestyles, I didn’t personally agree with. But I knew it was a foundational thing. I really believed the Bible. And they didn’t. And that’s why they live and view the world that way. So it helped me kind of get along with people and they could get along with me. Because I wasn’t against them as a person. But our differences came from a foundational level. And it’s the I believe the Bible. And if the Bible says something is true, it’s true. And if the Bible says this is right and this is wrong. That’s it.

Amen. The Bible is the basis for the truth. You know, Jesus was praying for his disciples in John 17, and then he prayed for those of us who would believe on him through the word of his disciples. And he said, “Father, don’t take them out of the world.” But he said, “I pray that you would keep them from the evil.” And then he gave a little revelation into how he’d do it. He says in John 17:17, “Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth.” And if you get that, see, we need to understand that the Bible is the word of God. The Bible is the truth that comes from God and conform our lives to the word of God instead of the world.

This is something I’ve thought about too, as we’re kind of wrapping things up here. I really encourage you to get this entire series on Bible covenants. We actually have the syllabus for this course that my dad has taught at Charis Bible College for 20 years. The syllabus is available on our website as a free download. So that’d be a great resource for you to have. But I really feel like people who are connected to our ministry here, this program, our church, they’re people who really love the word of God.

And they believe the word and it works in their life.

Yeah, so if you wanna become a partner, if you were someone who loves the word, who wants to invest in the word, invest in the gospel going forth, you can give us a call, become a partner. But we’d encourage you just to stay connected with us. This is a ministry that loves the word. We love you too. God bless you. See you again soon.

Narrator Hebrews 8:6 says that we have a better covenant based on better promises. In “Hebrews: The Better Covenant,” you’ll learn how though new covenant is better than the old, simply because of Jesus. We’d like to bless you with a digital copy of “Hebrews: The Better Covenant,” a $35 value free of charge. Don’t miss this opportunity to know what Jesus accomplished in establishing this better covenant. Visit CharisChristianCenter.com today to download your copy.

Hey everyone, I want you to mark your calendar for Family Camp Meeting. We’re gonna have great teaching with Mark Hankins and Pastor Max Cornell. Great worship with Philip Renner, sharing the grace of Jesus all around the globe. And we’re gonna have great children’s meetings, great youth meetings, something for the entire family right here at Charis Christian Center in Colorado Springs. We want to see you here. Blessings. Friends, it’s great to have you with us today. And I want to invite you to attend services with us at Charis Christian Center in Colorado Springs. The atmosphere is amazing. Recently in one service, I had people from 10 nations in several states. They watch us on a regular basis online and they said, “This is amazing.” So if you can’t come physically, come and attend online at Charis Christian Center or YouTube. Blessings.

Narrator Thanks for watching “Grace for Today.” This broadcast has been made possible by our faithful partners. If you would like to become a partner, need prayer, or have a question, please call us at 719-418-4000 or to partner online, go to CharisChristianCenter.com/give. You can write us at PO Box 63733, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80962. See you next time on “Grace for today.”