OUR COVENANT, Part 4
October 25, 2019
We continue today with the unfolding of the concept of Covenant as it expanded in the life of Abraham and Sarah.
How would
you like to have been in Abraham's place? You cut a covenant with
Almighty God, but the cut and mark in your flesh is in a place where you can't
show it to the public. God was doing something unique.
The mark
of His covenant with Abraham -- a covenant which specified that "I
will make thee exceed fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings
shall come out of thee. And I will establish my covenant between me and
thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant,
to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee." -- would be with
his reproductive organ for the seed that would come forth thereafter.
Notice
that Ishmael had come forth out of uncircumcised flesh. Abraham's natural
reaction as a father to God's Word is, "Oh that Ishmael
might live before thee." (Genesis 17:18, KJV)
The Hebrew
context actually reads, "Oh that Ishmael might be revived or restored to you [under
this covenant] (my addition)." (RAC Translation
& Amplification)
But God's
response makes clear that He isn't having any part of the flesh incorporated
into a covenant race of people. Ishmael was born of flesh, out of an
attempt on Sarai's part to help God accomplish His
Word.
It's not a
wonder that God changed Sarai's name from
"Dominative" to "Noble Woman." "Dominative"
in this context is manipulative and acting out of unbelief. Unbelief, and
the product of unbelief, will NEVER inherit under God's covenant.
Thus, the
Lord speaks to Abraham and answers, "My covenant
will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time
in the next year."
"Dominative"
does not get to bear seed under the covenant. "Noble Woman" (a
woman of nobility, honor, and integrity) WILL bear seed. God's covenant
is VERY specific!
Covenant
-- from God's perspective -- is always based in faith, in believing that God
cannot lie, in believing that no matter how unsupportable God's Word to us may
be from a natural, historical, medical or scientific perspective, when He
declares His Word and heart's desire and purpose to us, the very act of His
speaking that Word sets in motion the creative force to bring it about.
When we
speak unbelief concerning the Word of God, when we speak doubt, when we speak
fear -- and then act according to that unbelief, doubt or fear -- we don't
cancel out God's covenant; we cancel out our receiving what God has
spoken. In the first part of this discussion last week, I said that God
created Adam and Eve in His image and likeness and imbued them with the same creative
powers of speech that He had.
The
creative power of our speech is a spiritual law that runs throughout Scripture
from Genesis to Revelation. We may not speak worlds into existence in the
same way that God did, but we have the ability to speak life or death. We
don't speak worlds into existence in a natural realm although we were
originally created with that ability.
The
Scripture does not specifically say so, but there is no other conclusion that
one can draw. Adam and Eve certainly had that power prior to the
fall. They didn't lose their power of creative speech with the fall, but
they lost the place of agreement with the Lord that would have empowered such
creative force had God so quickened them.
We have
the ability to create abundance and prosperous living by the words of our
mouth. We have the power to create and to enact anything that has ever
been written in God's Word -- so long as we do so in concert and in agreement
with Him. It is a covenant ability.
We also
have the capacity to destroy for ourselves the receiving of anything God has
promised. When we speak doubt, fear, or unbelief concerning some promise
that God has spoken, God's Word does not return to Him void: it returns to us
void because we destroy our own personal environment, our own success, our own
life, our own financial prosperity by the words of our mouth.
For God's
covenant to work in our lives absolutely, unequivocally requires the same faith
that Abraham exercised when he believed God in the face of the naturally,
physically, historically, medically and scientifically impossible. We
become the seed of Abraham according to God's Word by virtue of believing the
Word that comes forth from the Lord despite how we might consider it in the
natural.
Covenant
is not one-sided. It requires the total agreement and commitment of both
parties. Thus, if God promises something to us within the framework of
His covenanted Word, it comes forth from His mouth as surely as if He were
standing in front of us physically and speaking it. For us to be
covenant-partners requires that we not only believe God, but that we speak our
agreement with what God has said, and then act accordingly.
To mouth
our agreement with what the Lord says to us, and then act contrarily is to
negate the words that come forth from our mouth. Covenant always begins
with speaking. Because God's covenant with Abraham was an eternal
covenant, it was made on behalf of, and with, all that seed of Abraham that
came forth by faith. We either empower or cancel the effectiveness of
God's covenant in our lives by the words which come forth by faith or by
unbelief.
There is
another aspect of covenant that I want to cover in the next few weeks, and that
is the force of covenant. Let’s begin that part of this discussion
today. Watch.
I said
earlier that covenant is not one-sided. It requires the total agreement
and commitment of both parties. Thus, if God promises something to us
within the framework of His covenanted Word, it comes forth from His mouth as
surely as if He were standing in front of us physically and speaking it.
For us to be covenant-partners requires that we not only believe God, but that
we speak our agreement with what God has said, and then act accordingly.
But there
is an aspect of covenant I don't think I've ever heard discussed in any church
or fellowship. It is based in a Hebrew word that really has no direct
translation into English. That word is ãñ•ç• kheseed with the
"k" sound almost silent. Strong's Concordance is literally all
over the map with the word, and without explaining why, gives totally divergent
meanings.
Gesenius, in his Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon explains the word like this in its primary applications: to love with intense desire; to show oneself gracious; zeal (towards anyone); ardor; kindness; benevolence; the grace, favor and mercy of God; tender mercies; lovingkindness.
Depending
on context, this word does have some opposite uses, but these uses are limited
in Scripture and always occur with appropriate diacritical (breathing)
marks. Because those uses are peripheral to our study, I won't try to get
into them other than to say that they always occur with antiphrasis -- that is,
set within the context of communicating a negative article.
ãñ•ç• kheseed, therefore, is the closest Hebrew word to the Greek agape in usage and meaning. Appearing most frequently -- actually, almost entirely -- within the context of covenant, it gives us a picture of the kind of relationship the Lord had with Abraham, and the extravagant nature of what the Lord was establishing.
ãñ•ç• kheseed draws a picture of
an almost intense rivalry in which covenant partners seek to meet each other's
needs, go out of their way to defend, uphold and care for, and to display a
sense of mercy and lovingkindness that knows no
bounds even in the face of dispute or disagreement.
In our
first discussion on covenant, we talked about the fact that one of the first
events to occur during the covenant ceremony was the exchange of cloaks or
outer coverings. It symbolized the giving of all that a person was,
making all that he had available to his covenant partner: his wealth, the
resources of his household, the intervention of his family in time of need or
distress, and his personal guarantee or oath upon which the covenant hung.
Consider
how the Lord showed His cloak during the covenant ceremony. Abraham is
put into a deep sleep as the Lord shows up to pass between the halved animals
and stand in the blood. The KJV puts it that "when
the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning
lamp that passed between those pieces."
That's
somewhat obscure in the way it gets translated, but the word translated
"smoking" is the same word that gets used in some instances for cloud
or vapor. Remember the cloud or pillar of smoke that stood guard for
ãñ•ç• kheseed is the core of
covenant. It describes what we could call an "alter ego."
Let me explain.
When a
person is in a covenant relationship, their covenant partner virtually becomes
their alter ego, their "other self." I might liken it to a
description that folks used to use in referring to Dwain McKenzie and me during
our
The
situation developed to the place where when we were in Barrow (we ministered
together there years before we were at
You've got
to know how strong this identity thing was when my father returned from a boat
trip along the arctic coast where he had been ministering in some villages and
summer campsites and saw Dwain coming to meet him on the beach. His first
and immediate reaction was, "Well, Regner, what
are you doing here?" Funny thing. I was in
Anyway,
you get the idea.
Within the
framework of covenant, kheseed describes a
condition in which each other's blood flows in each other's veins: so deep is
the sense of caring and covering for each other.
Are you
beginning to understand my early comments about how the whole concept of
covenant has been so diluted and watered down throughout the centuries that
we've lost the true sense of it? Now maybe you can begin to get a grasp
on the New Testament (Covenant) and the use of the word, agape, as the
descriptor by which the Lord commands relationship.
Covenant
relationships defined the character and nature of those in covenant with each
other. So deep was the sense of responsibility and concern for each other
that they would gladly die for one another if the situation so demanded.
It transferred over to the family members within that covenant so that each
party to the covenant, their wives, children, grandchildren,
great-grandchildren -- and even aunts, uncles and cousins -- all became
identified with each other.
The entire
Old Testament -- the word "testament" all by itself scarcely conveys
the whole picture -- is a picture of God's covenant -- His first covenant --
with Abraham and his descendants. Everything framed in the Old Testament
is described within the structure of covenant relationship.
I want to pick this up next week to show you just how much of what we have read -- and understood poorly -- throughout both Old and New Testaments is specifically framed within covenant relationship, and how significant the promises of covenant are in our walk with the Lord.
In case you are missing out on real fellowship in an environment
of Ekklesia, our Sunday worship gatherings are
available by conference call – usually at about 10:30AM Pacific. That conference number is (712) 770-4160, and the access code
is 308640#. We are now making these gatherings available on
video using ZOOM. If you wish to
participate by video on ZOOM, our login ID is 835-926-513. If you miss the live voice-only call, you can
dial (712)
770-4169, enter the same access code and listen in later. The video call, of course, is not recorded –
not yet, anyway.
Blessings
on you!
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
RIVER WORSHIP CENTER
Temple, Texas 76504
Email Contact: CapenerMinistries@protonmail.com
All Coffee Break articles are
copyright by Regner A. Capener, but authorization for reprinting, reposting,
copying or re-use, in whole or in part, is granted –provided proper attribution
and this notice are included intact. Older Coffee Break archives are available . Coffee Break articles are normally published
weekly.
If you would like to have these articles arrive each morning in your email,
please send a blank email to: AnotherCoffeeBreak@protonmail.com with the word, “Subscribe” in the subject line. To remove yourself from the mailing list,
please send a blank email to AnotherCoffeeBreak@protonmail.com with the word “Unsubscribe” in the subject
line.
CAPENER MINISTRIES is a tax-exempt church ministry. Should you desire to
participate and covenant with us as partners in this ministry, please contact
us at either of the above email or physical addresses, or visit: http://www.RiverWorshipCenter.org.