Covenant

Genesis 9:8-9
Gregory Broderick | Sunday, February 13, 2022
Copyright © 2022, Gregory Broderick

The topic this morning is “Covenant.”  In executing His worldwide judgment on wicked mankind through a worldwide flood, God did a miraculous work of mercy in saving Noah and his family.  Although millions were wiped out, eight people were saved because God shined His electing favor on Noah and His family (Gen. 6:8).  And in Genesis 6:8 we see an amazing statement:  “Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.”  In other words, God elected Noah.  God elected Noah in eternity past and saved him.

But after this great flood and deliverance, we see another amazing statement.  Beginning in Genesis 9, verse 8, “Then God said to Noah and his sons with him, ‘I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you.’” This is an amazing follow-up to an amazing promise that God made in Genesis 6:18.  He said there, “I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you.”

So as we leave the flood account behind, let us take some time this morning to examine covenant—not just covenant with Noah, but covenant with all of God’s people.  The normal way of God relating to His people is through covenant.

1. The Covenant Is Unilateral

Unilateral simply means one-sided. This promise in Genesis 6 to establish a covenant is the first explicit use of the term “covenant” in our Bible.  From the outset, it is clear that God is the actor in this covenant situation, and that man is subordinate.

Notice here that it is God who acts first.  He announces the covenant in Genesis 6:18:  “I will establish it.”  He declares the covenant in our text this morning (Gen. 9:9):  “I now establish.”  And we see that man is passive in both accounts.  If this seems awfully one-sided to you—God coming and dictating a covenant—then I say, “Praise the Lord.”

God must be the prime and first mover in His relationship with man.  First, because man is dead—spiritually dead, dead in his transgressions and sins.  It is axiomatic, of course, that the dead can do nothing.  So without God to move, without God to act upon dead man, we would remain dead in our transgressions and sins.  Second, sinful man hates God.   The theological term is “enmity,” but sinful man is deeply and actively opposed to God and hostile to God.  In that way, he is worse than dead.  At least the dead are, in relative terms, neutral.  They don’t do anything.  We are spiritually dead but actively opposed to God.  So we shorthand this by saying “hatred,” but hatred does not quite cover the full scope of man’s “againstness” as to God.  There is a deep and fundamental againstness in the core of our nature as fallen men.  We see a glimpse of this in Psalm 2.  The nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain against God.  The kings of the earth gather together and take their stand against the Lord.  “Let us break their chains.”  “Let us throw off their fetters.”  You see the rebellion and the againstness as towards God.

We see in Acts 7 as the godly Stephen preaches the gospel to the assembled, they gnash their teeth at him.  Against.  They cover their ears and they yell at the top of their voices and drag Stephen away and stone him to death at the mere mention of Jesus Christ.  “No, no, no!” man says.  “There is no God!  Shut your mouth or we will kill you.”  A deep, deep againstness.  These same leaders who stoned Stephen to death produced false testimony against Jesus.  They bribed the guards to cover up His resurrection, which was told to them in advance.  The point is that truth, reality, does not matter.  Man is against God regardless of evidence, regardless of the cost.

In case you think we might be better off, modern man is no better.  He hates the very idea of the God of the Bible—a moral, authoritative, and holy God.  So modern man invents false gods, idols, mythologies, and so on.  He worships detestable demons who let him sin all he wants.  He posits atheism, that we all came from nothing with no cause and for no reason, with nothing to live for and no purpose to our existence.  That is modern man’s great contribution to philosophy.  Man would rather believe that he is a cosmic accident—a cruel and farcical joke of a creature—than to believe that he is made in the image and likeness of God and for the purpose of eternal fellowship, joy, and worship with this God.

Modern man says there is no God, even though he knows that that statement is a lie (1 John 2:22).  He knows the God of the Bible, but he suppresses that truth by his wickedness, sinning and sinning and sinning the more so as to sear his conscience as with a hot iron (Rom. 1:18; 1 Tim. 4).  From the Fall in the garden to this very day, the default of man has been enmity, hatred, and againstness towards God.  So modern man is dead.  All men are dead.  Man is against God.  He has a deep enmity towards God.

But there is a third reason that God must be the first mover in any relationship with man which is, even if we were not dead, and even if we did not harbor a great and fundamental enmity toward God, we have nothing to offer God in this relationship.  It is hard to make a two-sided deal when you have nothing to offer the other party.

We have nothing material to offer.  God owns everything (Ps. 24:1).  In fact, God created us, so He owns us (Heb. 1:2).  Everything there is:  He created the whole universe and everything in it.  And if the world was lacking something that God deemed to be good, He could simply create it by fiat, by His spoken word, as He did in Genesis 1:1.  In fact, our ongoing existence requires God’s affirmative action sustaining us, as it says in Hebrews 1:3:  “Sustaining all things,” including us, “by His powerful word.”  So when your existence depends on the affirmative action of another party, you are in a bad bargaining position.  We simply have nothing that God requires, desires, or benefits from.  He is perfect in every respect and fully self-existent.  Acts 17:25 tells us that He has no need of anything.  Before creation, before anything else existed, God dwelt in a perfect state of perfect fellowship in perfect happiness in the holy Trinity.

So if God did not move first to make a covenant with man, on what basis would we go to God and say, “Let’s make a deal”?  What would we offer to God in our deal?  What deal would we even propose?  Why would He even entertain that deal, much less accept it?  In fact, we could not even approach Him if He did not draw us to Himself.  You see, He dwells in unapproachable light (1 Tim. 6:16).  If you think you could approach God perhaps on the basis of your good deeds or righteousness, I have bad news for you.  It says in Isaiah 64:6, “All our righteous acts are as filthy rags.”  Habakkuk 1:13 says that His eyes are too pure to look upon evil, and yet we are covered in it.  So covenant with God is indeed one-sided.  It is pure mercy by God to us, and thank God for that one-sidedness.

We may get confused on this subject, but God is not confused.  In Genesis 6:18, when He announces this covenant in advance to Noah, He says, “I will establish My covenant with you.”  He is not confused about what we have to offer.  And when He comes back to establish it in Genesis 9, He says, “I now establish My covenant with you.”  So there are a few things we can see here.  He does not propose a covenant with us.  He does not suggest a covenant with us.  He does not offer a covenant with us if we are interested.  No, He establishes it.  He declares it to be.  No countersignature by us is necessary.

It is God who is doing all the work in this relationship.  Genesis 9:12:  “The covenant I am making.”  Genesis 9:17:  “The covenant I have established.”  Mankind, with Noah and his wife and his sons and their wives as our representatives, does not even have a speaking role in this covenant ceremony.  Look at who is doing all the speaking:  Genesis 6:18:  “I will establish.”  Genesis 9:9:  “I now establish.”  Genesis 9:17:  “I have established.”  Man is simply on the receiving end of this covenant relationship.  There is not even an “I accept” or an “Okay” recorded in here.

Notice, also, God uses the language of ownership to indicate that it is not our covenant, but His covenant.  In Genesis 6:18 He calls it “My covenant.”  In Genesis 9:9 He calls it “My covenant” again.  And in Genesis 9:15 He says, “My covenant.”  You see, He moves.  He acts.  He establishes.  He sets the terms.  He owns it.  He does it for His purposes and on His terms.  Noah and mankind, whom Noah represents, are simply along for the ride.

This is by no means limited to Noah, lest you think I am cherry-picking language.  God created Adam in the garden and then Eve.  He made a covenant with them, blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience.  He does not use the word “covenant,” but it is clearly a covenant relationship.  We see again that it is unilateral.  He did not consult Adam on whether he wanted to be made.  He did not consult Adam on whether Eve was to be made.  He did not consult them on what the rules were in the garden.  He simply acted.

The same thing is true with God’s covenant with Abraham, as we see in Genesis 15.  Gen. 15:2:  “I am your shield, your very great reward.”  This is the basic covenant:  “I will be your God and you will be My people.”  Genesis 17:2.  Listen to the parallel language:  “I will confirm My covenant.”  It sounds a lot like the language used with Noah.  Genesis 17:4:  “This will be My covenant.”  Genesis 17:9:  “You must keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you.”

As we look further in God’s relationship with Israel, He uses the same kind of language.  We are reading through the book of Exodus now.  It says God heard their groaning and remembered His covenant.  It is God’s covenant.  He did not remember their “joint-shared agreement.”  God remembered His covenant.  Exodus 6:4:  “I have established My covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan.”  Or Exodus 6:5:  “I have remembered My covenant.”  Exodus 19:3, 5:  “Say to the people, ‘Keep My covenant.’”

This is fairly interesting since these are Abraham’s descendants.  They are mentioned earlier.  God made His covenant with Abraham’s descendants and with Noah’s descendants, so these people are all in that line.  But they do not even appear to know God.  They do not even know His name.  Remember when Moses says, “Who am I going to say sent me?” And the Lord said, “Tell them I Am.”  They did not even know His name, and yet He has a covenant with them.  They do not have any independent agreement with God, but God has established His covenant with Noah and his descendants, with Abraham and his descendants, and these are those people.  It does not matter that they do not know His name or that they do not have their own independent agreement.  God’s covenant remains in force.  God remembers it, and God will fulfill it.  It is indeed a one-sided deal, and praise God it is a one-sided deal.  He is one-sidedly faithful to keep His covenant.

God made a similar arrangement with David and used similar covenant language in 2 Samuel 7:8.  Listen to who is acting:  “I took you from the pasture and from following the flock to make you ruler over my people Israel.”  David was not consulted in this matter.  “Now I will make your name great .  .  .  and provide a place for my people Israel  .  .  .  The Lord declares to you that the Lord Himself will establish a house for you .  .  .  I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, and I will establish his kingdom” (1 Sam. 7:8–12).  Then a bunch of blessings and curses follow after that.  It is the same type of arrangement.  God comes to David as he is off dealing with sheep, and God declares a unilateral covenant with him.

God’s covenant with us, His present-day people, is also one-sided.  God elected us in eternity past.  It does not get any more one-sided than that.  We were not around.  We did not get a vote.  We did not even exist at that time.  God called us in time by His irresistible grace.  As Pastor Mathew said yesterday, “You can resist all you want, but God will overcome your resistance.”

God did everything.  God the Father decreed the salvation plan.  God the Son achieved it in time.  Jesus Christ, very God, became man, lived a perfect life of perfectly holy obedience, bore the infinite wrath of God that was due us, and died the death that we deserve that we might live, and at least from our perspective, that all happened about two thousand years ago, before we were even born, before our farthest ancestors back that we can remember were even born.  It is a one-sided deal.  He took all our sin on Himself, and He put all His merit onto us, that we might be justified, that we might be qualified for eternal life with God in glory.  This is a double transaction that took place before we existed.

Then God the Holy Spirit applied this redemption to us in time, in our lives, moving in us by the Holy Spirit to give us a new heart and a new spirit so that we could cry out in faith and say, “Have mercy on me, a sinner!” And if you go back and read Ezekiel 36, you will see that it is God doing all the work.  “I will put my Spirit in you and move you.”  “I will,” “I will,” “I will,” “I will.”  Man is on the receiving end.  It is all of God.  This new heart and new spirit is called regeneration.  Dead sinners are made alive.

And so you can see the deal is still one-sided.  Praise God, it is one-sided.  He found us dead in our transgressions and sins, doomed to eternal hell without hope, and He one-sidedly said, “Live!” We are redeemed, redeemed, redeemed by the precious blood of the Lamb.

This unilateral covenant is a covenant of unilateral grace.  For Noah, and even before that through Abraham, the Israelites and David, all the way down to us, it is a covenant of God’s grace.  We have no right to ask God for anything.  We have nothing to offer and nothing to give.  We have no merit.  There is nothing good in ourselves when God comes to us and says, “Live!”  We have nothing, and yet “because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive in Christ.”  Paul continues, “It is by grace you have been saved” (Eph.  2:4–5).  It is all of God—one hundred percent.  Even my saving faith is of God.  Ephesians 2:8:  “For it is by grace you have been saved through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”  In other words, no one can say, “I did it.  I chipped in.”

Even our repentance is a gift of God.  Acts 11:18:  “God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life.”  Acts 5:31:  “God gave repentance and forgiveness to Israel.”  In 2 Timothy 2:25, speaking of sinners, Paul prays, “That God may grant them repentance”—it is a grant; it is a gift—“leading them to a knowledge of the truth.”  It is all a gift of God.  It is all the grace of God.

Now we are left to ask the question, “Why?  Why would God do this?” I spent all this time explaining that we have nothing to offer and He has nothing to gain.  So why would God do this?  Why would God make a covenant with Noah?

Look at Noah.  Talk about nothing to offer.  He is fresh off the boat with nothing to give.  He barely survived this cataclysmic flood, and even that was because God made it happen.  Why a covenant with him?  Why a covenant with Abraham, a wanderer with nothing?  He did not even own a foot of ground.  He did not even know where He was going.  Why would God make a covenant with stateless Israelites, living in bondage in Egypt?  Why would God make a covenant with a no-name shepherd of such little account that they did not even call him in from the sheep to be considered when it was time to pick a king?  Why would God make a covenant and choose ordinary, unschooled fishermen?  Why would God make a covenant with you, with me?  Why?

I already gave you the answer:  His great love and rich mercy.  You see, God loved us because He loved us.  There was nothing good in us, nothing for Him to gain from us.  It is simply His nature, His good nature, His rich and merciful nature.  We think sometimes, “God picked me because I am special,” but that is backwards.  It is “I am special because God picked me.”  Praise the Lord.  It is a unilateral covenant, and we must praise God for His unilateral covenant.

2. It Is a Communal Covenant

In this case, we could say it is a family covenant.  Both the promise in Genesis 6 and the established covenant in Genesis 9 were not merely for Noah but for His family also.  They obviously benefited from the relationship that Noah had with God.  They got to go in the ark and live and not die in the flood.  That is a pretty good outcome.  But there is greater benefit than just this collateral benefit of living.

They are made part of the covenant.  Genesis 9:8–9 goes even farther than just “You get to live.”  There we read, “God said to Noah and to His sons with Him:  ‘I now establish my covenant with you.’” It is not just a covenant with Noah.  It is a covenant with those sons.  It is clear that Noah’s sons are part of the covenant, not merely collateral beneficiaries.  They are members.  They are included—included by God’s decree.

Now, they also demonstrated faith—their responsive faith.  They believed God’s word delivered through Noah, the man of God.  (GTB)  They obeyed God’s word; they acted upon that belief by helping construct and entering the ark.  They were chosen by God, included by God, and regenerated by God, the proof being their obedience of faith.

Yet God goes even further than that.  The promise is not just for Mr. and Mrs. Noah, or Mr.  and Mrs. Shem, Ham, and Japheth.  “The promise is,” it says, “for you and your descendants after you” (Gen. 9:9), a people not yet born, a people existing only in the mind of God and yet brought into covenant relationship with God—His covenant of grace by His divine and merciful decree.  It is not just God makes a covenant with people who exist, but He makes a generational covenant.  And this is God’s general way—generational relationship.  We will see it soon in our reading and preaching as we approach Abraham.  In Genesis 17:9 God says, “A covenant for you and your descendants after you for the generations to come.”  So also with Jacob in Genesis 35.  “The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I also give to you, and I will give this land to your descendants after you” (Gen.  35:12).

God is by nature slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness, and He shows love to a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commands.  Of course, we know that this is not some mere racial, family, or national inheritance when God speaks of their descendants.  He speaks of their descendants as a people who live by faith.  Note, Esau was a biological son and yet excluded from the covenant.  He was not a spiritual son (Rom. 9:13).  Ham was a biological son and yet cursed.  We are heirs not of some DNA, not of some culture, not of some continual national government.  We are heirs of a righteousness that comes by faith (Heb. 11:7).  The covenant is with those who have faith in God.  The covenant is with us who put our faith in God by His grace.  Abraham is the father of all who believe, not just all who were born of him.

God has always operated on this generational scale and He still does.  Acts 2:39:  “The promise is for you and your children—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”  Before we were born, God brought us into His covenant in eternity past.  Before the cross, before the exodus, before the flood, before all time in eternity past, God chose us and called us and elected us to salvation that He might always have a people to praise Him and to spread His gospel to declare His glory until He comes again with glory.  It is a generational covenant.

3. It Is a Certain Covenant

God’s covenant, and, in fact, God in general, is not wishy-washy.  What He says He does, and what He says, He says with certainty.  With God, it is not hope-so.  His “Yes” is “Yes,” and His “No” is “No.”

Look at the strength of the language in Genesis 9.  “I establish.”  It is done.  It is not, “I will try.”  It is not, “I will put the pieces together.”  It is “I establish.”  God speaks, and it is done. He says, “Never again will I wipe out everyone by a worldwide flood” (Gen. 9:11).  In Genesis 9:15 He also says, “Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.”  He even gives a sign of the covenant—a rainbow (Gen. 9:13–17).  It says there that when God sees the rainbow, He will remember the covenant.  The truth is, it is not really there for Him to see it and remember.  He does not forget.  It is for us to know with certainty that He remembers.  It is to give assurance, blessed assurance, for an otherwise shaky people.

God said He would settle Abram in a land that He would show Abram, and that He would make Abram into a great nation and bless Him, and He did it.  He said He would give Abram a son from his own body, even though he was super-old and his wife was super-old.  God said He would give them a son from their own bodies to be the heir, and He did.  He told Moses that he would lead the Israelites out of Egypt, and that they would plunder the mighty Egyptians.  It seemed impossible, but they did it.  God did it.  He promised to lead the unarmed, untrained refugees into a promised land after forty years of wandering in the desert, and He did it.  “Not one of all the Lord’s good promises to the house of Israel failed; every one was fulfilled” (Josh.  21:45).

It goes farther.  He promised to send a Messiah, born of a virgin, riding on a colt, out of Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Egypt, to obey Him perfectly, to bear His wrath that was due to us, and to die for our sins and to be raised for our justification.  He promised it, and He did it.  He promises now to work all things together for the good of those who love Him and who are called according to His purpose, and to lead us to an eternal glory with Him (Rom. 8:28).  He has done it, and He will do it.

God’s covenant is sure and certain because God is sure and certain.  Man may make a promise and fail to keep that promise.  We are sinners.  We lie and we deceive.  We change our minds, or we intend to do it but are too weak to accomplish it.  We are unable.  We lack the resources, or whatever it is.  We try and we fail.  Every promise of man is inherently contingent, inherently dependent.  But God suffers from no such problems.  He has no such uncertainty.  His promises are sure.  He does not forget.  He does not lie.  And He cannot fail.

If I am in Christ, then everything that happens to me is for my good.  God says so (Rom. 8:28).  God says so, and therefore I know so.  My chronic illness is for my good.  My singleness or barrenness is for my good.  My job loss is for my good.  The death of my beloved brother is for my good.  My own death in God’s good timing is for my good.  Nothing bad can happen to me if I am in Christ.  God promises, and His promises are sure.  His covenant is certain.  The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid.  What can man do to me?  The answer is, nothing.

The world, the false brothers, and the devil may come after me.  They will come after me.  They can do nothing.  They cannot even touch a hair of my head (Luke 21:18).  My own flesh, my own thoughts, may oppose me.  But I can say “No” to sin and “Yes” to righteousness by God’s grace.  I can discipline my flesh and make it obey me (1 Cor. 9:27).  I can take every thought captive for Christ.  I do not have to be a victim to my thoughts.  I do not have to be at the mercy of my emotions.  God said I can take every thought captive (2 Cor. 10:5).  God says I can do all things—all things, hard as they are—through Him who strengtheneth me.  I can be a super-conqueror full of super-abounding grace because God promised, and He will deliver.  His promises are sure.

The truth is that often we do not know how God will keep up His end of the covenant, His end of the bargain.  It can be very mysterious to us.  It can seem impossible to us.  Noah had to build the giant ship.  It does not say this in the Bible, but I have to believe Noah thought, “I don’t know.  That is a big boat.”  Abraham was told, “Take your son, your only son, your son Isaac, the son of the promise, the son from whom the Messiah was going to come—take him and kill him and burn him up.”  He may have thought, “I don’t know how that is going to work out.”  Joseph was made a slave and falsely imprisoned.  “I don’t know how that is going to work out for the good of those who love Him.”  “These walls of Jericho are going to come down when we go around it and blow our trumpets and yell at it.  I don’t know.”  “A Christ who would achieve our eternal salvation by His unjust and excruciating death—I don’t know.”  Understanding how is often difficult.  But we can always know and rest in the certainty that God will keep His covenant and perform His vows.  Even when we do not know how, we know who.   We know God, and He will do it for sure.

Just look back at Genesis 9.  The rainbow still shines as a reminder.  The worldwide flood has not come again even though the inclinations of man’s heart are still only evil all the time.  He continues to save the sons of Noah.  God has kept His covenant.  He is keeping His covenant.  He will keep His covenant.  God’s covenant promises are sure because God is sure.  Let us always trust in Him and give Him all the glory when it comes to pass.

4. Covenant Requires Obedience

Just because God’s covenant is all of grace, just because it is by God’s unilateral action, just because it is all free of cost, does not mean it is free of obligation.  We must obey our covenant Lord.  This is a key covenant term.  Modern antinomian evangelicalism has lost the plot.  They say, “Because salvation is all of God and free of cost, then it is free of obligation.  I don’t have to do anything.”  False!  Look at the terms in Genesis 9.  There is a lot of obligation on Noah and his family and his descendants.

In Genesis 9:1 and 7, God commands them, “Be fruitful and multiply.”  This is the same command from Genesis 1:28.  The terms do not change.  Genesis 9:4:  “You must not eat meat that still has the lifeblood in it.”  God came and unilaterally established a covenant, but those covenant terms have things that they are supposed to do, things that they must do.  It is not free of obligation.  The essence of every covenant with God is the same:  “I will be your God and you will be my people.  I will command you in the way you should go, and you will obey me.”  That is the deal.  There will be blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience.

In Genesis 17 we see different terms.  “You must be circumcised.”  That is new.  It is a sign of the covenant It is not achieving the covenant, but it is a sign of the covenant.  The circumcised people are the people who declare fealty to the covenant.

Deuteronomy 28, the classic chapter, lays out the covenant obligations as well as the curses for disobedience and the blessings for obedience.  And the situation has not changed today.  We are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.  We cannot earn our salvation.  We cannot contribute to it in any way.  God’s covenant is still unilateral, just like it was way back then.  But just like it was way back then, it is not free of obligation for us.  Indeed, it is clear now that our obligation is total.  One hundred percent of our obedience for one hundred percent of the time for one hundred percent of the years of our life, in one hundred percent of our actions.  Whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, we must do it all for God’s glory, that is, according to His word.  We cannot glorify God by our disobedience to His word (1 Cor. 10:31).  We can only glorify Him by obeying and testifying about Him.  If this is not good enough for you, I will point you to John 17:4.  Jesus said, “I have glorified the Father by obeying Him.”  We are to glorify God by demonstrating our love for Him in keeping His commands (John 14:15).

God saved us.  God gave us eternal life by paying the highest price ever paid, the precious blood of Jesus Christ.  Jesus paid it all, and it is fully paid, and no more is needed.  We do not need to obey to add to what Jesus did.  We do not need to obey to complete His work or participate in it.  His infinite sacrifice is sufficient.  No, we obey as a thank-offering to God, a joyful and loving response to our God and His Christ, who paid it all for us.

There is indeed a yoke of obedience to God’s word which we must bear, and He gives us the grace to bear it.  But His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Matt. 11:30).  His yoke keeps us on the straight and narrow way which leads to eternal life of glory and of joy.  Even that yoke is for our good.

You might ask, “What about that disobedient Christian?” For such a person, there is discipline, pain, trouble, frustration, loss, holes in the purse, weakness, sickness, and even death itself.  King David experienced it.  His disobedience and adultery led to the death of a child.  It led to great personal shame and disgrace for David.  It led to a bloody civil war and the wiping out of many people.  But David repented and was saved, and at the end of his life, he departed to glory.  He sinned, he experienced discipline, he repented, and he went to eternal life.

Consider the immoral brother of 1 Corinthians 5.  He was expelled from the assembly.  That is serious discipline.  He was cut off from the means of grace.  And in verse 5 we see severe discipline:  “Hand this man over to Satan”—this is severe suffering—“so that His flesh may be destroyed”—serious loss—“but so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.”  He experiences the discipline, he experiences the difficulty, he experiences the loss, but he also repents and experiences his spirit being saved on the day of the Lord.  This man sinned and he suffered greatly, but God was still committed to saving him in eternity and on that great judgment day.

And if that describes you, know this:  If that describes you, you may not be saved at all.  Your profession may be false.  In other words, “the disobedient Christian” may just be “the disobedient.”  A life marked by ongoing sin is a prime indicator that your profession “Jesus Lord” is false.  If you say, “Jesus Lord,” but refuse to obey Him, then how are you any different from the devil?  He knows that Jesus is Lord.  He is not confused about that topic.  He hates it.  He disobeys it.   But he knows it is true.  And if that describes you, how are you any different from the devil?

We must look at the fruit of our lives to determine if God has made us a good tree.  There is a tree called the manchineel tree, and its fruit looks just like little apples.  But it is super-toxic and super-poisonous.  When the Spanish came and they found this tree and they ate a bunch of them, they named them “little apples of death.”  Now, if I have a tree with a sign on it that says it is a Gala apple tree, but all it produces is poisonous manchineel fruit, then you would soon conclude that is not a Gala apple tree, and you would not eat its fruit.  The signage on the front of the tree would not change your opinion.  You would look for the fruit.  You would look for the outcome.

So I say, brothers and sisters in the Lord, do not trust in your signage, in what you declare about yourself.  Look at the fruit.  As 1 John 3:6 declares, “No one who lives in Him keeps on sinning.  No one who continues to sin has either seen Him or known Him.”  These are the “Lord, Lord,” people:  the people who go through life making one profession, living a different way.  And on that judgment day when they go and say, “Lord, Lord,” they are, as Pastor Mathew has said, “surprised by hell” on the day of the Lord.  Do not be that person.

Application

What are you supposed to do about all of this?

1. Partake of the covenant. “Whoever confesses with his mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believes in his heart that God raised Him from the dead will be saved” (Rom. 10:9).  It is open to everyone—not some particular country, not some particular race, not some particular family.  Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, it is open to all.  So all should cry out, “Have mercy on me, a sinner!” and be saved.  God’s love is great, and His mercy is rich.  And I promise you that it is great enough and rich enough for you.
2. Keep the covenant. We must live all of life in thankful and joyful obedience to God.  Confess and renounce your sin as the covenant requires (Prov. 28:13).  Love what God loves (holiness) and hate what God hates (sin).  Study the covenant terms that are found in His word so that you can be careful to know how to please Him, how to glorify Him with your obedience.  Examine yourself to see if you are indeed keeping it, and adjust your conduct as needed—in other words, repent.
3. Benefit from the covenant. The principal benefit is eternal life, so we cannot mess that up.  But we can benefit even in this life.  Eternal life is the prime benefit of being included within God’s covenant.  But it is not the exclusive benefit.  In Deuteronomy 28, God promises us that we will be blessed in every way.  We will be blessed in the city, blessed in the country—the fruit of our wombs (that is our children), crops and livestock, baskets and kneading troughs—blessed when we come in and blessed when we go out.  Everything we put our hands to do will be blessed.  This is abundant prosperity from God.  Even our hardships are a blessing.  Even our light and momentary troubles will result in our good.  Everything we do will be blessed.  God will be with us—with us in Potiphar’s house, with us in the prison, and with us as prime minister—like Joseph when, like Joseph, we fear and obey God.  He even goes with us as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death.  God is with us.  God is with us now, and God is with us forever in glory.
4. Receive covenant discipline. We are sinners.  We will sin.  We will disobey.  But God does not abandon us when we sin.  Instead, He disciplines us.  He disciplines those He loves as sons (Prov. 3:12; Heb. 12:6).  So when the discipline comes, receive it, repent, and be restored.  Do not conceal your sin as Achan did.  It may prove, as it did in that case, that you were not truly born again.  But even if you are truly born again, why suffer the prolonged and unnecessary discipline?  Why suffer prolonged and unnecessary loss?  Stop at “weak.”  Don’t progress to “sick” or “fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 11:30).  Why have your flesh destroyed?  I am glad that my spirit will be saved.  I do not want my flesh to be destroyed.  Why go to God as one escaping through the flames?  Repent, obey, and store up treasure in heaven instead.
5. Advertise the covenant. This is a simple call to evangelism.  Tell others about Jesus, His person and His work.  This covenant is a good deal, and it is open to all.  Romans 10:13 says, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”  So tell others.  Tell them that we owe an infinite debt for our infinite sin which we can never repay.  That debt will land us in an eternal hell from which we can never, never escape.  There is one way out, and it is available today.  One way out—the narrow gate, the way of faith, faith in Jesus Christ.  Invite all you know to Christ and tell of all His wonderful works.  Advertise the covenant.
6. Finally, glory in the covenant. It is not a burden to be part of God’s unilateral covenant.  It is a joy.  God chose us, the zeroes, sinners, His enemies who had nothing to offer, and, yet, before time, He chose us because of His great love and rich mercy.  We should not ever consider the covenant a burden; we should consider it a joy.  We should cry, “Glory!” We should cry, “Hallelujah!” We should never cease praising the God who elected us, who called us, who redeemed us, who perseveres us, who sanctifies us, and who glorifies us.  To Him be all glory!  Praise the Lord.