Bible Covenants Part 10 -Lawson and Aaron Perdue

Praise the Lord, friends. I’m so glad that you tuned into the program. We’ve been teaching for two weeks on Bible covenants, and today we’re talking about the blessings of the covenant. Thank God. I learned years ago, this Bible is full of promises, and I can believe ’em, and if I believe ’em, I can receive ’em. Thank God, we can receive the blessing of God today based on faith in Jesus Christ. Friends, it’s so good to have you with us today. We’ve been sharing all of the last two weeks on Bible covenants. And today, we’re gonna talk a little bit about the promises of the covenant. And you know, all of God’s promises in Christ are yes and amen to the glory of God by us. That means all the promises of the Old Testament, all the promises of the New Testament, when Jesus died and rose again, sent the Holy Spirit, those promises are good for us today. God keeps his word, He never turns from it. So we’re just gonna jump into the word and begin to look at some of these promises. You know, we are the seed of Abraham by faith in Jesus. If you study the Book of Galatians 3, you can see all these benefits, all these blessings, all these promises that come to us through Jesus Christ. So we’re gonna start right there in Genesis 12, and sharing from the life of Abraham about the blessings of the Lord.

Well, it’s really important to understand these blessings and these promises that are available to us as believers. You know, a lot of ministries, a lot of, you know, preachers stay away from these. I don’t know why you would. And some people even attack, you know, ministers who are preaching these promises. But these are right in the Bible. There’s a lot of promises about, you know, blessing. There’s a lot of promises about financial wellbeing. There’s a lot of promises about just living a good life, a healthy life, a strong life, a productive life. These are part of our covenant with God. So I certainly wouldn’t preach against it.

Amen.

I certainly wouldn’t mock, you know, preachers that are preaching it, believing it.

Aaron, years ago, I made a decision. If I see a promise in the word of God, I am gonna believe it.

Mm-hmm.

And I will never criticize another minister for preaching a promise of God, for preaching something that’s in the scripture. And sometimes, you know what? We’ve been so much in the left ditch, God has to take somebody, and maybe they’re a little bit extreme, but He has to anoint them, get them over here to get us out of this ditch and get us back on the right road so we can receive from God.

Yeah, and people need to live a moral life, you know, especially ministers. You know, Paul writes about-

Everyone.

You know, the qualifications for leaders, for elders. And you know, like leaders in the body of Christ do need to live a good, everyone needs to live a moral life, live according to scripture. But like, we shouldn’t be attacking people who are blessed, who believe in the blessing of the Lord. You know, it’s part of our covenant.

Well, I’m gonna tell you, there have been people for years that have criticized different people, especially in the word of faith. And you know what? Those people have, you know, people who have said all kind of negative things about ’em, but they’ve lived and they’ve lived good godly lives. I know some of ’em personally, and some of them are very good friends. Mark Hankins is a very good friend to me. Jesse Duplantis has been a very good friend of me. And listen, I’m telling you, Mark and Jesse hates it and they love God, and they’re very blessed people, and they preach the gospel concerning the promises, and they receive the gospel concerning the promises, and they receive a lot of criticism. But at the same point in time, I’m not gonna criticize ’em. You know, people years ago, were criticizing Jesse, said he owned all these, he only owned one jet. I said, “Jesse, I don’t care if you got 10 jets.” And people literally don’t know, you know, the amount of effect that he has on the world, but how he travels and the, you know, how much of a toll that just puts on you doing what he does. But I’ve been with Jesse and I’ve seen people, you know, respond to him, you know, and he has a tremendous effect for the gospel around the world.

Mm-hmm. Well, and then just in today’s, you know, modern era, just it’s very easy for people to post things, to attack. It’s very easy to criticize and that, you know, gets people clicking and, you know, can make you famous just by going around criticizing people.

Amen. Yeah, that’s not our ministry. That’s not what we want here.

Yeah. And I’ve seen people, that’s all they do is just pump out stuff just-

To get attention.

Criticizing, to get attention, but they’re not really doing anything or accomplishing anything themselves.

Yeah.

They’re not really preaching Jesus either.

Yeah. So we’re gonna start today in Genesis 12, and this is when God makes a covenant with Abram, who becomes Abraham, the father of our faith, and speaks some things into his life. And this is really talks just about what you’re saying here, Aaron. It says, “Now the Lord had said to Abram, ‘Get out of your country and from your family and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you, and I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you and curse those that curse you, and in you shall all the families of the earth be blessed.'” So when God makes this covenant with Abraham, right, he says, “I’m gonna bless those who bless you. I’m gonna curse those that curse you, and in you all the families of the earth are gonna be blessed.” Now, in Galatians 3, we read that and it says, God was preaching the gospel to Abraham. Galatians 3:8, so praise God. But when he says this, God says, “Listen, I’m gonna bless you.” God is still in the blessing business. And I’m gonna make your name great. Do you know Abraham is one of the greatest names in the whole earth? Christians call him Father. Muslims call him Father. God said, “I’m gonna bless you and make your name great.” God kept his word. And you’re gonna be a blessing. I’m gonna bless you. One reason God blesses us is to make us a blessing. And he says, “I’m gonna bless those who bless you. I’m gonna curse those who curse you, and in you shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” Praise God. The families of the earth are gonna be blessed.

Well, and this blessing, it’s the gospel.

Right.

You know? “In you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” He’s saying outta you, Jesus is gonna come. You know, the greatest blessing is from Jesus. And Jesus, you know, he’s a descendant of Abraham.

Right?

And so God wants to bless you so you can be a blessing to other people. You know, years ago, I was listening to a teaching of Kenneth Hagin, and something he would pray with his wife every day-

Right.

Was Lord, they’d join hands and pray every day Lord, help us be a blessing to other people.

Amen, wow.

And what a powerful prayer.

Yes.

You know, the blessing isn’t just for you. Some people are offended by preaching on the blessing, preaching on prosperity, but the God doesn’t wanna just prosper you for your sake, just so you can have, you know, a TV in every room. That’s not what the blessing is about. But God wants to bless you so you can be a blessing to other people.

Amen.

You know, he wants to bless you so much, you know, it talks about in the New Testament that you can have an abundance for every good work.

Yeah, 2 Corinthians.

Think about every time you see something good, some ministry doing something good for the kingdom, you could just sow into it.

Amen.

You know, you could just, for every good work have an abundance.

Hallelujah. 2 Corinthians 9:8 says, “God is able to make all grace abound to you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.”

Yeah, just recently, we’re sitting at the youth ministry here at our church, and we’re having a party, and I could tell like we were gonna be short on food, and I just, you know, you were outta town, so I had the church car and I just went to Costco and I just went crazy, I got a lot of food. I like tripled up the food, but it all got eaten.

That is amazing.

All of it. But we had nachos, but I went and bought, you know, a lot more food, desserts, drinks. I bought chicken drumsticks, and I even bought two things of shrimp. And, you know, we went all out. I thought, you know, this is a good thing we’re doing. And it ended up being God that spoke to me saying, “You better go get some more food ’cause you know-

It’s great.

I tripled the amount of food we had and it’s still all got eaten up.

Amen, so God makes this covenant of blessing. And actually, if you read that really closely, it says, “The Lord had said,” if you read Acts 7, you’ll find out that God had actually spoken to Abram when he was in the current area of Iraq, right? And God had spoke to him. It was called Ur of the Chaldees, Baghdad. And God had spoken to him then, so this was a number of years sooner, and he got halfway to the promised land. And then when his father-in-law, Tara, died, they moved on into, you know, they went, they got halfway, they got to Haran, then they moved on into the Promised Land. And when he got there, God reiterated this covenant to him again. So I believe this is actually the second time. But after God appears to him, you know what? The Lord speaks to him and confirms his covenant, but then God speaks to him and we read in Genesis 13:2, after this happened, it says, “Abram was very rich.” He wasn’t only a little bit rich. You know, that word rich offends a lot of Christians, and it shouldn’t. You know, the Bible says in Proverbs 10:22, that it’s the blessing of the Lord that makes us rich, and adds no sorrow with it. He was very rich in cattle, in silver and in gold. And so, we just read this blessing over and over and over. And then God renews this covenant with Abram after Lot separates from him at the end of Genesis 13 and says, “Listen, all the land that you see, I’m gonna give it to you and your seed forever.” Praise God. What a promise.

It’s really interesting what Abraham, where his blessing was at, where his prosperity was. He is very rich in livestock, in silver and in gold.

He had multiple streams of income,

Multiple streams of income. And you know, there were different types of income too. You know, livestock or cattle. It’s a stream of income that requires some work,

Right.

You know, the Bible says in all labor, there is profit. You know, it’s actually good to have things that require some work, some maintenance.

I’d say, “I will bless the work of your hands.”

There’s some people that really push this idea of like, you just, you know, don’t work at all, just have. And that’s not a reality.

That’s not spiritual.

We’re actually created to work. So he had livestock. Livestock is also something that can multiply.

Right.

You know, part of the blessing is there is a blessing of multiplication.

Right.

So having things that can multiply, and he had silver and he had gold. You know, gold is more valuable than silver, but sometimes it’s okay to have assets that are less valuable.

Right.

You know, I But there’s different, you know, actually the scripture talks about this and it talks about give a portion to seven or even to eight because you never know what evil’s gonna be on the earth. And if you have wealth, you don’t want all your eggs in one basket. And so, it’s good to have different areas of income, different areas of assets, because if different things happen on the earth, then you’re still operating the blessing. You spread out, right? The risk.

And Lot actually just had cattle. When you read about Lot, Lot had cattle.

Right.

But he didn’t have the silver and the gold. And, you know, there’s this strife that came up, but God took care of Abraham.

We’re gonna come back and talk more about the blessing. Hey, we have a website and we have a lot of free things to give you, if you’ll check that out. We’ll be right back after a short break. Friends, we’ve been teaching Bible covenants from my syllabus, but 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. When Barbara and I are in a tight spot, we don’t call 10 or 15 or 20 or 30 people and say, “Would you pray for us?” We don’t do that. Do you know what we call? We call one or two good friends. People of faith are people who know God, and we get them to agree with us and believe God with us. It’s not because you pray many prayers, it’s because you pray in faith. Friends, we’re so glad that you stayed with us, and we’re sharing, talking about the blessings promised in the Old Covenant. And we’ve been talking about Abraham, how God spoke to him and said, “I’m gonna bless you, make your name great and you’re gonna be a blessing.” And then it says, “Abraham was very rich in cattle and silver and gold.” We need to have multiple areas of investment. And then we spread out our risks, so when different challenges come on the earth, we can keep operating the blessing. And then in Genesis 15, after these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram into vision, saying, “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield and your exceedingly great reward.” So Genesis 12, Abram was 75 when the Lord spoke to him. Genesis 15, he’s about 83 years old here. And the Lord says, “Fear not, I’m your shield, your exceedingly great reward.” And Abram said, “Lord God, what will You give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my houses is Eliezer of Damascus?” So Abraham’s looking for a seed, right? And so God took him and said, “Listen,” in verse four, “This will not be your heir, but he will come forth out of your own bowels. You’re gonna have a child, Abraham.” And he brought him forth and showed him the heaven, and said, “Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if you’re able to number them, so shall your seed be. I’m gonna make your seed like the stars.” So what God was doing was giving him a picture. Sometimes God wants to take a picture and get you to get a picture of the blessing. And if you can get a picture of where God wants to take you and what He wants to do on the inside, you’ll move towards the picture that’s on the inside of you. But if you never change the picture on the inside of you, the outside picture will come conformed to the picture on the inside of you. Do you know, most people when they win the lottery are flat, busted, broke within two years. And it’s because they didn’t do anything to earn it. They don’t have any good habits, so on and so forth. In fact, I sat at a table years ago with some different people and they were sitting there saying, “Well, if we win the lottery, we’ll do this.” I never said that. I’m probably not gonna win the lottery because you know what? I don’t buy lottery tickets. You know? I’ve never bought a lottery ticket. Never will buy a lottery ticket.

Yeah.

You know? But I’m a very blessed person and I’ve got more money than most of the people who win the lottery because I have good principles that I’ve established in my life that come from the scripture, and you keep living those out and that blessing will come to you.

Yeah, my best friend that I’ve had since high school, his dad is like a math genius, but he says the lottery is an attack on stupid people.

It is.

So it’s better to trust God than trust the lottery system. And you know, Abraham trusted God. You know, it says here in scripture that there’s some contention between his herdsmen and Lot’s herdsmen. They’d become so wealthy with their herds that there wasn’t enough land and enough water, so they had to separate, and you know, really Lot should have stayed with Abram.

You know, Dr. Lester Sumrall said this. He said Lot could have sold off a few cattle and just solved that problem immediately.

Yeah.

And he would’ve been way better to stay connected to this person who had this anointing and this blessing of the covenant on him.

Well, and you see in Genesis 13:5, that Lot, he had flocks, he had herds, and he had tents.

Right.

And Lot actually ended up going to Sodom and Gomorrah, but you know, we see in the story that he actually ended up living in town, you know, this town was full of a lot of wickedness. But so he had to get rid of his flocks and herds and his tents to live in this town.

Yeah.

You know, if you live in town, you don’t have pasture.

Yeah.

You know, I live in town. That way, I can be close to church, close to my kids’ schools, but I’m only allowed to have two dogs in my HOA, you know, I can’t have goats and sheep and cattle. So Lot, he got rid of his flocks, you know, to live Sodom, but he wouldn’t get rid of things to stay with Abraham. You know, you’re gonna have to make some choices in life.

Wow, that’s-

Who are you gonna stay with and who you’re gonna separate from.

Right.

And you know, that was a bad choice on Lot’s part. He could have stayed with Abraham. It would involve some sacrifice.

Right.

But he chose Sodom and Gomorrah, and eventually sacrificed a lot more that way.

You know, God said, “Sacrifice an offering.” I would, it’s not. You know, God wants your heart. He doesn’t wanna sacrifice an offering. But, you know, you go on down here, a burnt offering. And it says that Abraham believed in the Lord and it was imputed or counted to him for righteousness. And, you know, so when God renews this covenant again, He did it when he’s 75, he did it when he’s 83. You know, He gives him this picture, right? And so, you know, we’re not getting it through our ability, we’re getting it through, you know, God and His covenant with us. But then in Genesis 17, Abram’s 99 years old, and it says in Genesis 17:1, “When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, ‘I am the Almighty God.'” You know, I’m the many-breasted God. I’m the all-sufficient God. I’m the God who’s more than enough. I am El Shaddai in the Hebrew. Walk before me and be perfect. Come into a relationship with me. Now, notice when you begin to understand who God is, and then you come into a relationship with Him, there’s people that come into a relationship with God, but they don’t know who God is. God’s promises are a picture really of who He is, they come from who he is. And then he says in verse two, “I will make my covenant between me and you and I will multiply you exceedingly.” So you see this thing grow. When you begin to find out that God is more than enough, He’s the El Shaddai, He’s the many-breasted, one has so much sufficiency running out of Him, you don’t even have room enough to receive it and you come into relationship with Him. Guess what? You begin to multiply exceedingly. You begin to see the promises of God and the attributes of God flow in your own. Some people are never gonna operate in exceeding blessing here on this earth, even some believers, because they don’t really understand who God is in that realm. And you can limit God by your understanding of Him. But Abraham gets more revelation of who God is and begins to see that flow in his life. But then we can even move on down, right, after Abraham, right? God speaks to him and says, “Your name’s no longer gonna be Abram, but Abraham. Sarah, she’s not gonna be Sarah, princess. She’s gonna be mother of princess.” Sarah. Right? And so, God changes their identity, so it can change their destiny. And then, you know, Isaac is born. But we go on later in Genesis 22, when Isaac is somewhere between about 14 years old and 25 years old, God speaks to Abraham and says, “Take Isaac and put him on a altar on a mountain that I show you.” He goes on a three-day journey. Well, Jesus, amen, was three days in the belly of the earth, right? Three days, you know, he died and then God raised Him from the dead. And then God shows Him this mount, it’s the Mount Moriah, the Temple Mount, right? And shows him this. And he takes Isaac and offers him up there. But when he makes this offering, Isaac represented everything that God promised to Abraham. Isaac represented everything Abraham had believed God for, for years, and yet he’s willing to lay him on the altar. And when he does that, man, God makes this covenant. And you know, Isaac says to Abraham in verse seven of Genesis 22, you know, he says, “You got the fire and the wood, but where’s the lamb?” He said, “God,” listen to Abraham’s confession. “God will provide a lamb for Himself.” And Isaac is a type of Christ. And so he builds the altar, you know, lays the wood, he ties Isaac up and lays. Now, Abraham’s 114 to 125. Isaac’s 14 to 25, who wins this battle? Isaac does, but he believes so much in his father’s relationship with God that he lays himself down there. That’s like Jesus. It’s a type of Christ.

I love too, that you’re just talking about how Isaac represents everything, you know, to Abraham, but it’s just a great picture, you know.

It’s a picture of the cross.

Yeah. And it’s a picture of our relationship with God. You know, we’re not just to seek the blessing, but we’re to seek the blesser.

Right.

And don’t just seek the promises, but the one who makes those promises.

Right.

You know, God’s got a covenant, but ultimately that covenant, it’s to bring us into relationship with Him.

Yeah.

That’s what He ultimately wants. You know, there are promises attached to the covenant. There are blessings that attach, you know, to falling after God, but God’s after you in a relationship with you primarily.

Amen. Now we go on down and you know, Abraham binds up Isaac, lays him on the altar. Isaac lays himself down. He’s willing to do it because he believes in his father’s relationship with God. And Abraham, it says in verse 13, Genesis 22:13, “Lifted up his eyes and looked and behind him a ram was caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son.” Now, I’ve been to Jerusalem. I’ve stood on the Temple Mount, and you can from the Temple Mount about a quarter mile to the north, look over there and you can see another mount, it’s called Calvary, the Hill of the Skull, that’s where Jesus was crucified. There’s all kinds of historical facts behind it. But I believe what Abraham did is he looked over there and he saw a ram caught on Calvary, a type of Christ. And he saw this ram caught in its horn, and he went and took this ram and offered him in the place of his son. And he called the name of the place, this is the first redemptive name of God in the Old Testament. In Genesis 22:14. “God called the name of that place Jehovah Jireh, the Lord will Provide in the Mount of the Lord, it shall be seen.” You know, John 8, I think it’s verse 58, it says, “Abraham rejoiced to see my day,” Jesus said, “and he saw it and he was glad. This was a type of Christ. So this isn’t only God making financial provision. This is God making provision for the forgiveness of our sin, for the healing of our body, for the peace of our mind, for every promise. Jesus is the one who secured that, and also for physical and financial prosperity. And after Abraham did that, the angel of the Lord called out of heaven and said, “By myself I have sworn,” in verse 16, “Because you have done this thing, not withheld your only son, that in blessing, I will bless you in multiplying. I’m gonna multiply you. This is my work, this is what I’m gonna do. And your seed is the stars of heaven and the sand which is on the seashore, and your seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.” Aaron, you got some revelation on that?

Yeah, well, I just wanted to mention this too. Part of this blessing, this covenant with Abraham, it’s an everlasting covenant.

Amen.

You know, Genesis 17:7, it says, “I wanna establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants,” and God is the one that establishes it.

Amen.

And that’s just a part of His grace. You can’t make it happen. He’s the one that establishes it.

Amen. But it says, “I’m gonna establish this between you and your descendants after you and their generations for an everlasting covenant.”

Amen.

It says an everlasting covenant. It just doesn’t go away.

Amen.

These promises are still here today.

And they’re based on Jesus and God’s promises to you. I wanna take a just a brief moment before we go off the air today and invite you to come to Charis Christian Center, if you’re in Colorado Springs, Sunday morning, Wednesday night, we would love to have you at Charis Christian Center. And not only that, if you can’t come here and physically attend, we live stream all these services Sunday morning, Wednesday night, and check them out, and I believe you will be blessed. Also, check out our website. We got lots of free stuff for you. God bless you. We love you.

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.

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