Bible Covenants Part 6 – Lawson and Aaron Perdue

Praise the Lord, everyone. I’m so glad that you’re with us today. So glad that you’re tuned in. We’re gonna be sharing today about the endurance of the covenant. The scripture says that God commands His Word to a thousand generations. That’s like 40,000 years, and humanity’s only been here on the planet for about 6,000 years, so open your heart and receive the word of God, because it’s good for you. Friend, it’s so good to have you with us today. We’ve been sharing on Bible covenants, and to lay the foundation when we began teaching, we talked about, when you study the scriptures, and you read every word for covenant and covenants in the Bible, you come up with this idea that either there’s one covenant with an old and new part, or there’s just two covenants, the old covenant and the new covenant, and a lot of times when people teach Bible covenants, they just look at certain individuals. Those individuals are all pictures of the covenant, right, types of the covenant, and so we started teaching last week talking about some of the types of the covenant in the Old Testament that we saw Noah, and we looked at Noah, and the scripture talks about Noah in Genesis Chapter nine, and it says a number of times through the verses in Genesis 9 that God establishes covenant. And he said, “I establish my covenant with you.” Now, the good thing about God establishing covenant is we understand that, number one, the covenant’s not our idea, the covenant’s God’s idea, so God wants to save us, heal us, free us, you know, fill us even more than we wanna receive it, so it’s God’s idea. Secondly, the covenant’s not about our performance. The covenant’s about the performance of God, and we talked about two types of covenants. There’s a bilateral covenant, right, like two equal partners, like if we have a contract with us and another human being, and that is, right, man to man, but then there’s a unilateral covenant, and that’s like between the king and his vassals, or God and his people. And so God has made a covenant with us, and he’s established it in the person of Jesus, and if we wanna receive it, we just gotta believe it, but God keeps His word. So we talked about how God establishes covenant, then we talked about Abraham. We talked about how covenant is based on relationship, and that’s the important part today.

And I love looking at all these covenants too. You know, they aren’t just separate covenants that ceased with that person. You know, even like the covenant God made with Noah, the sign of that covenant was the rainbow, and can still see the rainbow today, and that promise of that covenant is still, you know, enacted today where he’s not gonna flood the entire earth again, and, you know, to me that’s exciting, because there’s a lot of promises attached to these covenants, you know, the covenant with Abraham, the covenant with Noah, there’s so much promise, and they’re all actually gospel promises. They’re promises of redemption, promises that point to Jesus, and all of these promises are yes and amen through Jesus, so Jesus is the fulfillment of covenant. You know, God is really the only one who can fulfill covenant, because, you know, people mess up. You know, Noah messed up, Abraham messed up, everyone, you’re gonna mess up at some time, but Jesus is the one that fulfills that covenant.

Right. When you see that, and you know, part of the teaching, and maybe we’ll get into it later this week, is the blessing of the covenant. But when you read the Old Testament promises, they were based on performance, and there are people that received those benefits and those promises, but they didn’t receive them based on their performance. They received them based on their faith. But then when you get into the prophets, the prophets really prophesied of the grace that was to come to us in Christ, or in Jesus, and there’s these promises of covenant, and they’re connected to Jesus. Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of God’s covenant with us, so they’re based on Jesus, really, and then God says later, like in Jeremiah, “I’m making an everlasting covenant with you.” And it’s everlasting because, again, it’s based on Jesus. It’s not based on us. Now, we talked about Abraham, the covenant based on relationship, and we’re gonna move in and share today talking about David, and David shows us the endurance of the covenant. God made this promise to David, and He said, “Listen,” you know, David wanted to build the temple, right, and he went into Nathan, the prophet. Nathan, the prophet, basically said, “Yeah, go do it.” And then David barely gets out of the door, actually, that night God speaks to Nathan, and says, “Listen, David is not the man that I’ve chosen to build the covenant, but I’ve got this promise for David that, you know, his seed will not cease to reign on the throne of the House of Israel forever.” Again, that covenant promise is ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ, who is the seed of David, and so Nathan goes to tell David, and I think, you know, David’s called a man after God’s own heart. I think this really shows his heart for God, because Nathan goes and says, “Hey, I’m sorry I told you that, but God says you’re not the man to build the covenant, or you’re not the man to build the, you know, the Temple.” And so I think David said in his heart, “Well, if I can’t build it, let me raise the money.” So at the end of his life, what you see at the end of 1 Chronicles, I think it’s 1 Chronicles 29, David makes this huge offering of his own wealth, and in today’s terms, it’s something like a $4 billion offering. And then David’s mighty men, these are the people that started with David in the beginning, and they were in debt, and distressed in discontent, and they started with David, but they come behind him and they make a $5 billion offering of their personal wealth for this future temple that Solomon ultimately builds, and it’s just really, really amazing when you see that, but God makes this promise to David, and ultimately Jesus is the seed of David, the one who fulfills this covenant.

And you really see God’s grace in that promise, in that covenant to David as well, because it’s not long after David where his own lineage starts screwing up pretty major. You know, Solomon did okay, but he kind of screwed up quite a bit. But then, you know, right after Solomon, just when you read through, you know, 1 and 2 Kings, all these kings in the line of David that did evil in the saddle, there were more that did evil than that did, you know, good

Again, because they didn’t have the Spirit of God in them like we have the Spirit of God in us as a result of the cross. And this is at the end of David’s life, really, in 1 Samuel Chapter 23, and God actually gave me this years ago. We had started the church here in Colorado Springs, and we had started the church, we had our first, you know, Bible studies in March of 2001, and then we had our first service on 9/9, two days before 9/11, 2001. We had our first service, and you know, I had handed out 10,000 flyers before we started, had our first Sunday morning service, and we ended up with about 20 people, and this is after I had done, you know, six months of Bible study, so it was a very slow start, and in November, it was looking pretty bleak. And God actually gave this scripture to me, and really ministered to me, and it’s talking, you just shared where it really wasn’t about David, and this is the end of David’s life. And Aaron, if you wanna read this in 1 Samuel 23:1 actually, 2 Samuel. I’m in, 1 Samuel, it should be 2 Samuel, 2 Samuel 23.

Yeah, it says here, “Now these are the last words of David. Thus says David, the son of Jesse, thus says the man raised it up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel, The Spirit of the Lord spoke by me, and His Word was on my tongue. The God of Israel said, the rock of Israel spoke to me, ‘He who rules over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God, and he shall be like the light of the morning when the sun rises, a morning without clouds, like the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain.’ Although my house is not so with God, yet he made with me an everlasting covenant ordered in all things and secure for this is all my salvation and all my desire. Will he not make it increase?”

Amen. So actually, you know, it was looking kind of bleak at the start of this church. You know, we’d been doing six months of Bible studies and then services. I’d handed out all those flyers, and God actually gave me this scripture one morning, and it really ministered to me that this work is not about me. This work is not about my physical ability, my physical strength. This work is about the work of God, and the anointing of God, and the plan, and the purpose of God, and He spoke to me really from verse five and said, “Although my house be not so with God,” and this is David at the end of his life, and he’s considering all these things, and what he’s saying, that the one who rules, and God had given him his promise, right, years before 2 Samuel Chapter seven, that your seed’s not gonna cease to reign on the throne of the House of Israel. And he says, “Whoever rules over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God,” and the one God’s chosen is gonna be like the light of the morning when the sun rises, even, you know, like when you see the sun rising, and there’s been a rain, and there’s dew on the grass, and everything’s so beautiful in the morning. And then David says, “Well, my house isn’t that way.” But he says, “You know what, it’s not about my house.” You just brought up how David had lived enough life to see, Hey, Solomon failed, you know, his sons, his grandsons failed. They were challenged because they were physical human beings. He says, “Yet he has made with me an everlasting covenant.” This covenant is not about our works. This covenant is not about our performance. It is ordered in all things. This covenant is not about how well we keep it. It’s about how well God keeps it, and he says it’s sure, it’s established, it’s a sure thing, “and this is all my salvation.” You see, our salvation isn’t about our performance, our goodness, how well we’ve done, our salvation’s about Jesus. “And this is all my desire.” “All I really want,” David says, “is what God wants.” And then he made this last statement, and this is what God spoke to me so many years ago, November of 2001, “Although he make it not to grow.” And God said, “Listen, Lawson, I’m the one that’s gonna make this thing grow. It’s not about you. It’s not about what you’re doing. It’s about me.” And we’ve had tremendous growth and tremendous, you know, blessing and favor since then. Praise God. We’ve come a long ways, but you know, we got a long ways to go.

Well, and I just think this is really powerful at the end of David’s life too, because things weren’t really in order. His sons were fighting for the throne. You know, there’s a lot of, you know, Absalom had just, you know, tried to take over the kingdom shortly before that, even his own military. There were problems in his own military, so things weren’t really looking that great for this,

Right

you know, longevity of his throne, but he just looked to God in that promise. He said, “He has made with me an everlasting covenant.” And God can turn things around really quickly.

Lawson Amen.

You know, even when things aren’t looking like it’s gonna happen the way it should, just keep trusting God, keep trusting His promise, and He can turn things around really quickly.

Amen. We’re gonna come back in the last half of this broadcast, and we’re gonna be sharing more about, you know, these verses and what this really means. And if you need prayer, you can call in during the break, but we’re gonna be right back after a short break. Blessings. 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.

My foot surgery was five or six months ago, and it started hurting so bad, and then I decide I pray with God. He says, “Lord, I’m going to pray for my foot to get better.” Well, he said like this, “Stop the pain pills.” I said, “Yes Lord, I’m going to stop.” And now I’m healed, and now I start walking, and I’m really happy.

Friends, I’m so glad you stayed with us. We’re gonna break this verse down in 2 Samuel 23:5 that God spoke to me so many years ago about David saying, “Listen,” David says, “Although my house be not so with God.” There’s times we look at things like they’re just a total impossibility, and you know, he says, “Yet it’s not about me.” It’s not about my performance. “He has made with me an everlasting covenant.” It is about God and his covenant. And God says, “My covenant, you know, will I not break nor alter the thing that’s gone outta my lips?” He says, “It is ordered in all things and sure for this is all my salvation and all my desire, although he make it not to grow.” So God’s the one who keeps this covenant, and God’s the one who makes these promises work. Aaron, if you wanna read, talking about this covenant being everlasting and ordered in all things and sure, Psalm 89:1-4

It says here in Psalm 89, “I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever; with my mouth will I make known your faithfulness to all generations. For I have said, Mercy shall be built up forever. Your faithfulness you shall establish in the very heavens. I made a covenant with my chosen, I’ve sworn to my servant, David, your seed I will establish forever, and build up your throne to all generations.”

Amen. So God made this promise to him and God said, “I’m the one that made it, and I’m the one that’s gonna keep it.” And that’s what we need to know today, that God is the one who makes covenant with us, and God is the one who keeps it. And you know, there’s times that we all fail. There’s all times that our plans, and you know, our way of thinking just don’t work, but it’s not about that. It’s about the plan and purpose of God, and it’s about the covenant of God.

I love how that Psalm starts off just saying, “I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever.” You really have to look, you have to understand God’s mercy, His grace, His goodness, and you have to do that forever, and that’s the only way things work. You know, a lot of people just slip into legalism, where they make the focus of that covenant relationship on their own performance, but you’re gonna fail, and screw up, and the only way for these promises to work it’s by God’s mercy.

Right, so thank God for His mercy. Thank God for His grace. Now, you know, there’s just other scriptures really as we look at this that are tied into it. He says, “He’s made with me this everlasting covenant. It’s ordered sure for this is all my salvation.” Now after Jesus is crucified and raised from the dead, and then ascends into heaven, the disciples are waiting and they’re praying, and on the day of Pentecost, God sends the Holy Spirit. And when God sends the Holy Spirit, you know, it’s right in Jerusalem, right in the middle of everything, in the Feast of Pentecost, where Jews from all these different countries have gathered together to celebrate, you know, and they’re celebrating the Feast of Pentecost, and God pours out his Holy Spirit. There’s 120 disciples of Jesus at this point, gathering in the upper room. This is Acts Chapter Two, and they’re praying, and then they begin to speak in languages that they’ve never learned about the wonderful works of God, and they begin to speak praises to God, and people begin to ask questions, and say, “You know, what does this mean?” And Peter gets up and preaches and says, “This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel, ‘In the last days, God said He’s gonna pour out of his Holy Spirit on all flesh, and it’s gonna come to pass that whoever calls in the name of the Lord shall be saved.'” He goes on to say, “This Jesus, who you crucified, God raised him from the dead and made him Lord, and He has sent this, what you now see and hear,” and basically begins to tell them that Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s covenant with David. If we read in Acts Chapter Two, and Peter says, “You see, look over there, you see David’s tomb. This wasn’t about David.” So this is confirmation really of what David’s saying there in 2 Samuel 23, “Although my house be not so with God, yet he made with me an everlasting covenant. This is all my salvation and me desire.” So he says this about, we can read in verse 29, Acts Chapter Two, Aaron, if you want to turn there, and read this, Acts 2:29-36. Acts 2:29-36 really shows that what God was talking about with Jesus, and this is Peter preaching about the fulfillment of this covenant on the day of Pentecost, the day that the church was born.

So it says here in Acts 2:29, Peter speaking, “Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption. This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear. For David did not ascend unto the heavens, but he says himself, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.’ Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”

Amen.

That’s a big statement.

Amen.

Jesus is Lord.

Amen.

He is the Messiah, He is the Christ.

So what Peter is preaching is Jesus is the one that David was talking about. And when God spoke to David, and told him, “Of your seed, there’s never gonna cease one to sit on the throne of the house of Israel,” He was actually speaking about Jesus, and we actually even see this talking about Jesus being this, you know, fulfillment of this everlasting covenant in Revelation Chapter 22, the very last chapter of the Bible. Jesus is speaking, and he says this in verse 16. He says, “I, Jesus, have sent my angel or my messenger to testify to you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.” Jesus is the seed of David that reigns on the throne of the house of Israel forever, and on the throne of God. And so, you know, when God’s speaking these promises to David, right, a thousand years before Jesus shows up in the flesh, right, 3000 years before Jesus ultimately reigns, or maybe 4,000, right, because we have another thousand year millennial reign to come after this, and Jesus is gonna be reigning at least 3000 years before this comes to pass. He’s saying here in Revelation, Jesus is saying, “I’m the one, I’m the one, I’m the root. I’m the offspring of David.” So he made these promises over and over again. Psalm 105:8 talks about that. Aaron, if you wanna turn there to Psalm 105:8. He says, “You know this covenant, even though my house,” David says in 2 Samuel 23:5, “is not this way.” He says, “Yet he has made me an everlasting covenant. It’s ordered, it’s sure, this is all my salvation.” That’s talking about the promise of Jesus. “And this is all my desire.” All I really want is what God wants from me. But if we go back to Psalm 105:8, Aaron read that really quickly.

Yeah, it says here, “He remembers His covenant forever, the word which He commanded for a thousand generations.” That’s awesome. People might forget. A lot of people forget some of the promises that they made. You know, sometimes that’s why oftentimes, you know, in these bilateral covenants, these contracts ’cause you have to have it written out, ’cause people tend to forget,

Oh, Aaron.

Or tend to lie, or-

Cheat and steal, and you know, I mean, I remember when we first moved here to Colorado Springs, I was looking at renting this little building for the church. Ultimately I didn’t do it, but they gave me a 35 page contract, and I had a man who was a real estate attorney that was a friend of our family, and he’s a born again Catholic, and I said, “Hey, could you look over this?” He told me, he showed me some things in there said, “Absolutely do not sign that contract.” But I was talking to him about, “Wow, this is crazy for this little old lease.” It wasn’t a very big thing that we were leasing. He said, “Lawson, in Oklahoma,” ’cause he owned real estate in different areas, and he said, “In Oklahoma, this would be an eight page contract”, ’cause they have a lot less red tape than Colorado. He said, “In Illinois, that Chicago,” he said, “This would be about a 75 page contract”, ’cause they have a lot more, you know, the more liberals you have the crazier it is and the more government waste, so on, and so forth. But he said, “Do not sign this contract because they’re trying to, here’s an area, here’s another area. They’re trying to really nail you on this, and you could really get hurt.” And so, you know, but I sold a house one time that we bought in a downturn, and we signed papers this thick in our pile, and it was a government loan the person was getting to buy this house, and it was unreal, you know, the the amount of red tape that we have to go through. But people sign stuff like that, and then they try to get out of it. You know, they get an attorney. In fact, I had a deal with the Christian Broadcasting Company, and you know, ultimately, they had their attorneys write it all up, and I didn’t know some of the languages in there, and it came back and I thought, “Man, if it comes down to where I can’t trust people’s word, right, and I have to get an attorney to go through all this and look at it, I don’t wanna be in that relationship.”

Don’t even do business with them.” You know, and that’s an important thing to realize too. Like, you know, trust is so important in a relationship, and I’ve kind of settled, in my own heart, if I can’t trust someone, I don’t really wanna work that closely with them. And you know, God, He remembers His Word. He remembers His covenant. He remembers what He spoke, and, you know, and the words that He speaks, they’re actually commandments. They’re commanded. You know, His promises, His covenant, they’re commanded, and it says, “for a thousand generations”.

That’s 40,000 years. So, you know, humanity’s only been here on the planet for about 6,000 years from Adam till now. So it’s like, man, God keeps His Word. You know, when a word goes out of God’s mouth, that word goes into eternity, and bears forth fruit. And He never breaks His Word. And so you know, we have the unchangeable Word today of an unchangeable God, and when God gives you a promise, you can take it to the bank.

That’s awesome, and keep trusting God too. You know, just like David in his covenant, you know, there was a lot of problematic things happening, you know, in his family and his military, but he just kept trusting God in his promise, and God fulfilled that promise. You know, he sent Jesus, and Jesus, you know, He is that eternal King. He is still King, And you know, other people might screw up, other nations might screw up, you know, but Jesus doesn’t screw up. He’s the eternal King, and He can’t get voted out.

God keeps His Word. Now we have a lot of material that’s available actually in teaching on this downloadable audio, downloadable video, on our website, free of charge. We also have my entire syllabus on Bible covenants that I’ve taught for over 20 years at Charis Bible College in Colorado. It’s downloadable on our website at charischristiancenter.com, and it’s free of charge. Also have a great book on “Hebrews: The Better Covenant”. So check those out, and give us a call if you need prayer today. Blessings.

Announcer Hebrews 8:6 says that we have a better covenant based on better promises. In “Hebrews: The Better Covenant”, you’ll learn how the 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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