Oaths, Vows,

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Oaths, Vows, CovenantsPart II

• Presented by Chad Cogburn
• April 8, 2007

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Last Time

• Vows
• Oaths/Swearing
• Keeping our Word
• We are Gods signature to the world when we are
  people of our word
• James 512 But above all, my brethren, do not
  swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any
  other oath. But let your Yes be Yes, and your
  No, No, lest you fall into judgment.

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Covenants

• What are the different types?
• Why are covenants important?
• What were the consequences for breaking a
  covenant?
• Binding force of covenants
• How were covenants made?
• Are we under any covenants today?

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Covenants
Def. - Covenant (Strongs) H1285 beriyth
ber-eeth' From H1262 (in the sense of cutting
(like H1254)) a compact (because made by passing
between pieces of flesh) confederacy,
con-feder-ate, covenant, league. - Used
also for treaties between kings and
authorities
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2 Types of Covenants

• 1. Between men (contracts, treaties)
• Genesis 2122 And it came to pass at that time
  that Abimelech and Phichol, the commander of his
  army, spoke to Abraham, saying, God is with you
  in all that you do. 23Now therefore, swear to me
  by God that you will not deal falsely with me,
  with my offspring, or with my posterity but that
  according to the kindness that I have done to
  you, you will do to me and to the land in which
  you have dwelt. 24And Abraham said, I will
  swear..32Thus they made a covenant at
  Beersheba.

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2 Types of Covenants cont.

• 2. Gods covenants (divine covenants)
• Conditional
• Exodus 195 Now therefore, if you will indeed
  obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you
  shall be a special treasure to Me above all
  people for all the earth is Mine.
• Deuteronomy 79 Therefore know that the Lord
  your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps
  covenant and mercy for a thousand generations
  with those who love Him and keep His
  commandments
• Unconditional
• Genesis 911 Thus I establish My covenant with
  you Never again shall all flesh be cut off by
  the waters of the flood never again shall there
  be a flood to destroy the earth.

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How Covenants were Made

• The blood covenant was common among mid-east
  people.
• The typical blood covenant had 9 steps
• 1. Give your coat or robe
• 2. Give your belt
• 3. Cut the covenant divide an animal into two
  halves and walk between them in the blood.
• 4. Raise the right arm and cut the palm of the
  hand and clasp each other's hand to mingle your
  blood.
• 5. Exchange names. Each one takes part of the
  others name and incorporates it into their own.
• 6. Make a scar or some identifying mark as a
  permanent reminder
• 7. Set the terms of the agreement
• 8. Eat a memorial meal
• 9. Make a memorial so our children will remember.

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Gods Covenant with Abraham

• Genesis 151 After these things the word of the
  Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, Do not
  be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your
  exceedingly great reward. 2But Abram said, Lord
  GOD, what will You give me, seeing I go
  childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of
  Damascus? 3Then Abram said, Look, You have
  given me no offspring indeed one born in my
  house is my heir! 4And behold, the word of the
  Lord came to him, saying, This one shall not be
  your heir, but one who will come from your own
  body shall be your heir. 5Then He brought him
  outside and said, Look now toward heaven, and
  count the stars if you are able to number them.
  And He said to him, So shall your descendants
  be. 6And he believed in the Lord, and He
  accounted it to him for righteousness. 7Then He
  said to him, I am the Lord, who brought you out
  of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to
  inherit it. 8And he said, Lord GOD, how shall I
  know that I will inherit it? 9So He said to him,
  Bring Me a three-year-old heifer,

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• a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old
  ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon. 10Then he
  brought all these to Him and cut them in two,
  down the middle, and placed each piece opposite
  the other but he did not cut the birds in two.
  11And when the vultures came down on the
  carcasses, Abram drove them away. 12Now when the
  sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram
  and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon
  him. 13Then He said to Abram Know certainly
  that your descendants will be strangers in a land
  that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they
  will afflict them four hundred years. 14And also
  the nation whom they serve I will judge
  afterward they shall come out with great
  possessions. 15Now as for you, you shall go to
  your fathers in peace you shall be buried at a
  good old age. 16But in the fourth generation they
  shall return here, for the iniquity of the
  Amorites is not yet complete. 17And it came to
  pass, when the sun went down and it was dark,
  that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a
  burning torch that passed between those pieces.
  18On the same day the Lord made a covenant with
  Abram, saying To your descendants I have given
  this land, from the river of Egypt to the great
  river, the River Euphrates

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Blood Covenant
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Consequences for Covenant Breaking

• Jeremiah 348 This is the word that came to
  Jeremiah from the Lord, after King Zedekiah had
  made a covenant with all the people who were at
  Jerusalem to proclaim liberty to them
• 15Then you recently turned and did what was right
  in My sightevery man proclaiming liberty to his
  neighbor and you made a covenant before Me in
  the house which is called by My name. 16Then you
  turned around and profaned My name, and every one
  of you brought back his male and female
  slaves,...
• 18And I will give the men who have transgressed
  My covenant, who have not performed the words of
  the covenant which they made before Me, when they
  cut the calf in two and passed between the parts
  of it19the princes of Judah, the princes of
  Jerusalem, the eunuchs, the priests, and all the
  people of the land who passed between the parts
  of the calf20I will give them into the hand of
  their enemies and into the hand of those who seek
  their life.

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Covenant Breaking

• Ezekiel 1659 For thus says the Lord GOD I will
  deal with you as you have done, who despised the
  oath by breaking the covenant. 60Nevertheless I
  will remember My covenant with you in the days of
  your youth, and I will establish an everlasting
  covenant with you.
• Some people claim that the breaking a covenant
  constitutes a termination and immediate
  dissolution of the agreement.
• Breaking Gods covenants does NOT annul or
  dissolve it!
• Gods covenant with Moses was in full force until
  it was nailed to the cross by Jesus.

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Gods Covenants are Sure

• Judges 21 Then the Angel of the Lord came up
  from Gilgal to Bochim, and said I led you up
  from Egypt and brought you to the land of which I
  swore to your fathers and I said, I will never
  break My covenant with you.
• Jeremiah 3319 And the word of the Lord came to
  Jeremiah, saying, 20Thus says the Lord If you
  can break My covenant with the day and My
  covenant with the night, so that there will not
  be day and night in their season, 21then My
  covenant may also be broken with David My
  servant, so that he shall not have a son to reign
  on his throne, and with the Levites, the priests,
  My ministers. 22As the host of heaven cannot be
  numbered, nor the sand of the sea measured, so
  will I multiply the descendants of David My
  servant and the Levites who minister to Me.

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Binding Force of Covenants

• Exodus 2331 For I will deliver the inhabitants
  of the land into your hand, and you shall drive
  them out before you. You shall make no covenant
  with them, nor with their gods.
• Joshua 93 But when the inhabitants of Gibeon
  heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai,
  4they worked craftily, and went and pretended to
  be ambassadors. And they took old sacks on their
  donkeys, old wineskins torn and mended, 5old and
  patched sandals on their feet, and old garments
  on themselves and all the bread of their
  provision was dry and moldy. 6And they went to
  Joshua, to the camp at Gilgal, and said to him
  and to the men of Israel, We have come from a
  far country now therefore, make a covenant with
  us.
• 12This bread of ours we took hot for our
  provision from our houses on the day we departed
  to come to you. But now look, it is dry and
  moldy. 13And these wineskins which we filled were
  new, and see, they are

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Binding Force of Covenants cont.

• torn and these our garments and our sandals
  have become old because of the very long
  journey. 14Then the men of Israel took some of
  their provisions but they did not ask counsel of
  the Lord. 15So Joshua made peace with them, and
  made a covenant with them to let them live
• 2 Samuel 211 Now there was a famine in the days
  of David for three years, year after year and
  David inquired of the Lord. And the Lord
  answered, It is because of Saul and his
  bloodthirsty house, because he killed the
  Gibeonites. 2So the king called the Gibeonites
  and spoke to them. Now the Gibeonites were not of
  the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the
  Amorites the children of Israel had sworn
  protection to them, but Saul had sought to kill
  them in his zeal for the children of Israel and
  Judah.
• Israel was punished for breaking a covenant that
  should never have existed.

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4 Covenants we are Under Today

• 1. Noahs Covenant
• 2. Abrahams Covenant
• 3. Marriage Covenant
• 4. Christs Covenant (New Covenant)

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1. Noahs Covenant

• Genesis 912 And God said This is the sign of
  the covenant which I make between Me and you, and
  every living creature that is with you, for
  perpetual generations 13I set My rainbow in the
  cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the
  covenant between Me and the earth. 14It shall be,
  when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the
  rainbow shall be seen in the cloud 15and I will
  remember My covenant which is between Me and you
  and every living creature of all flesh the
  waters shall never again become a flood to
  destroy all flesh.

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2. Abrahams Covenant

• After Abraham obeyed God in offering Isaac on the
  mountain, God said
• Genesis 2217 blessing I will bless you, and
  multiplying I will multiply your descendants as
  the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is
  on the seashore and your descendants shall
  possess the gate of their enemies. 18In your seed
  all the nations of the earth shall be blessed,
  because you have obeyed My voice.
• Galatians 315 Brethren, I speak in the manner of
  men Though it is only a mans covenant, yet if
  it is confirmed, no one annuls or adds to it.
  16Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises
  made. He does not say, And to seeds, as of
  many, but as of one, And to your Seed, who is
  Christ. 17And this I say, that the law, which was
  four hundred and thirty years later, cannot annul
  the covenant that was confirmed before by God in
  Christ, that it should make the promise of no
  effect.

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3. Marriage Covenant

• Malachi 213 And this is the second thing you do
  You cover the altar of the Lord with tears, With
  weeping and crying So He does not regard the
  offering anymore, Nor receive it with goodwill
  from your hands. 14 Yet you say, For what
  reason? Because the Lord has been witness
  Between you and the wife of your youth, With whom
  you have dealt treacherously Yet she is your
  companion And your wife by covenant. 15 But did
  He not make them one, Having a remnant of the
  Spirit? And why one? He seeks godly offspring.
  Therefore take heed to your spirit, And let none
  deal treacherously with the wife of his youth. 16
  For the Lord God of Israel says That He hates
  divorce, For it covers ones garment with
  violence, Says the Lord of hosts. Therefore
  take heed to your spirit, That you do not deal
  treacherously.

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3. Marriage Covenant cont.

• Proverbs 216 To deliver you from the immoral
  woman, From the seductress who flatters with her
  words, 17 Who forsakes the companion of her
  youth, And forgets the covenant of her God.
• Matthew 196 So then, they are no longer two but
  one flesh. Therefore what God has joined
  together, let not man separate.
• Marriage is not just an agreement between two
  people. God has revealed to us that marriage is
  a covenant and that He Himself joins each
  marriage union.

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4. New Covenant

• Covenants were the foundations upon which God
  built relationships with and governed His people.
  God made covenants with key people in the bible

- Adam - Noah - Abraham - Jacob - Isaac
- Moses - Priests - David - Solomon
God wanted a better way to have fellowship with
his people.
This required a new Covenant!
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4. New Covenant cont.

• Jeremiah 3131Behold, the days are coming, says
  the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with
  the house of Israel and with the house of Judah
  32not according to the covenant that I made with
  their fathers in the day that I took them by the
  hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My
  covenant which they broke, though I was a husband
  to them, says the Lord. 33But this is the
  covenant that I will make with the house of
  Israel after those days, says the Lord I will
  put My law in their minds, and write it on their
  hearts and I will be their God, and they shall
  be My people. 34No more shall every man teach his
  neighbor, and every man his brother, saying,
  Know the Lord, for they all shall know Me, from
  the least of them to the greatest of them, says
  the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and
  their sin I will remember no more.

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4. New Covenant cont.

• 5 Key points of the New Covenant promise

1. Gods law is written on our hearts
Jeremiah 3133... I will put My law in their
minds, and write it on their hearts and I will
be their God, and they shall be My people. 34No
more shall every man teach his neighbor, and
every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord,
for they all shall know Me, from the least of
them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For
I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I
will remember no more.
2. We are Gods chosen people
3. We shall all know God
4. No partiality with God
5. Our sin is truly forgiven wiped out
completely!
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4. New Covenant cont.

• Hebrews 86 But now He has obtained a more
  excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also
  Mediator of a better covenant, which was
  established on better promises. 7For if that
  first covenant had been faultless, then no place
  would have been sought for a second. 8Because
  finding fault with them, He says Behold, the
  days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make
  a new covenant
• Because God has bound himself to this covenant,
  we know from His track record that he will NOT
  break the covenant! He will be faithful.
• So what happened to the old covenant?
• 13In that He says, A new covenant, He has made
  the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete
  and growing old is ready to vanish away.

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4. New Covenant cont.

• Hebrews 103 But in those sacrifices there is a
  reminder of sins every year. 4For it is not
  possible that the blood of bulls and goats could
  take away sins.
• 8Previously saying, Sacrifice and offering,
  burnt offerings, and offerings for sin You did
  not desire, nor had pleasure in them (which are
  offered according to the law), 9then He said,
  Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God. He
  takes away the first that He may establish the
  second.
• Colossians 214 ...And He has taken it out of the
  way, having nailed it to the cross.

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4. New Covenant cont.

• Significance of Blood
• Hebrews 918 Therefore not even the first
  covenant was dedicated without blood. 19For when
  Moses had spoken every precept to all the people
  according to the law, he took the blood of calves
  and goats, with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop,
  and sprinkled both the book itself and all the
  people, 20saying, This is the blood of the
  covenant which God has commanded you. 21Then
  likewise he sprinkled with blood both the
  tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry.
  22And according to the law almost all things are
  purified with blood, and without shedding of
  blood there is no remission.

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4. New Covenant cont.

• Leviticus 1710 And whatever man of the house of
  Israel, or of the strangers who dwell among you,
  who eats any blood, I will set My face against
  that person who eats blood, and will cut him off
  from among his people. 11For the life of the
  flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you
  upon the altar to make atonement for your souls
  for it is the blood that makes atonement for the
  soul. Vs.
• John 653 Then Jesus said to them, Most
  assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh
  of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have
  no life in you.

God was reserving this special memorial for the
New Covenant!
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The 9 steps seen in the New Covenant

• 1) EXCHANGE COATS OR ROBES. We put on His
  righteousness.
• 2 Corinthians 521 "He made Him who knew no sin
  to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the
  righteousness of God in Him." He takes our sins
  upon Him and we take His holiness for ours. What
  an exchange!
• 2)TAKE OFF BELT He protects us and provides us
  with protection. Ephesians 613-17 "Therefore,
  take up the full armor of God, that you may be
  able to resist in the evil day...
• 3)CUT THE COVENANT Jesus was not only the one
  making the covenant, but he was also the
  sacrificial lamb.
• 4)RAISE RIGHT ARM MIX BLOOD Jesus was both man
  and God. He was holy and also human. As we have
  the shed blood of Jesus Christ applied to our
  hearts, His blood cleanses us from all sin and we
  are also made holy. Our lives are forever
  intermingled with His.

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The 9 steps seen in the New Covenant

• 5) EXCHANGE NAMES Jesus took on the name, "Son
  of Man and we take on the name Christian.
• 6) MAKE A SCAR Jesus has the scars of the nails
  in His hands and the feet and the spear in His
  side. We have the circumcision of the heart.
• Romans 229, "But he is a Jew who is one
  inwardly and circumcision is that which is of
  the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter and
  his praise is not from men, but from God."
• 7) GIVE THE COVENANT TERMS Jesus gives the terms
  of the covenant in the Bible. We must possess an
  obedient faith.

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The 9 steps seen in the New Covenant

• 8) EAT MEMORIAL MEAL 1 Corinthians 11 23-26,
  "For I received from the Lord that which I also
  delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the
  night in which He was betrayed took bread and
  when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said,
  This is my body, which is for you do this in
  remembrance of Me.' In the same way He took the
  cup also, after supper, saying, This cup is the
  new covenant in My blood do this, as often as
  you drink it, in remembrance of Me.' For as often
  as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you
  proclaim the Lord's death until He comes."
• 9) PLANT A MEMORIAL TREE The cross that Jesus
  died on was the tree that the blood of the
  sacrifice was sprinkled on and it still is a
  memorial of His covenant with us to this day.

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4. New Covenant cont.

• Hebrews 1028 Anyone who has rejected Moses law
  dies without mercy on the testimony of two or
  three witnesses. 29Of how much worse punishment,
  do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has
  trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the
  blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified
  a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?
  30For we know Him who said, Vengeance is Mine, I
  will repay, says the Lord. And again, The Lord
  will judge His people. 31It is a fearful thing
  to fall into the hands of the living God.
• Trampled Jesus underfoot
• Counted the blood a common thing
• Insulted the Spirit of grace
• But we serve a merciful God!

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4. New Covenant cont.

• 2 Peter 38 But, beloved, do not forget this one
  thing, that with the Lord one day is as a
  thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
  9The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as
  some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward
  us, not willing that any should perish but that
  all should come to repentance.
• What is His Promise? Jer 31

1. Gods law is written on our hearts 2. We are
Gods chosen people 3. We shall all know God 4.
No partiality with God 5. Our sin is truly
forgiven wiped out completely!
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Summary

• 1. God went to great lengths to relate with His
  people
• 2. Covenants were established from early on as a
  way for God to give his word to man and have a
  relationship
• 3. Covenants are binding some for eternity
• 4. God loves you so much that He sent His only
  son to establish a New Covenant filled with great
  promises
• 5. He wants you to be in that Covenant!