Q&A 31: What does the Bible teach about covenants? (continued)

We have a handout from last week. It's the same one. I think we're out of it now, so hopefully you either brought or got one. I think Nancy's making some backup copies, but it might be a little bit. We asked the question last week, what does the Bible teach about covenants? And it's something we see from the very beginning of the Bible.

We talked about, in fact, there are covenants between persons of the Trinity, between God and mankind, which is most of what we're looking at here today, between one man and another. Some of those covenants between one man and another will occur between someone who's like Abraham or Isaac, Jacob, and another who is clearly not a believer. So covenants can be of different category.

We talked about the different categories of covenants or qualities of covenant. Unilateral, I'm going to do this regardless of what you do. Bilateral, we talked about covenants being conditional or unconditional. That is, I'll do this if or I'll do this regardless.

Covenants are limited in duration, or not limited, or they can also possibly be very long. Obviously something that is very long or is unlimited, this isn't just between two human beings. This is something that involves God. They can be earthly in subject matter or they can be spiritual in subject matter or a combination of those two. I would say that as a generalization we'll see that the biblical covenants tend to have at least some earthly component.

And then, so we last week went through, we only got halfway done and even then not quite there. We went through the eternal covenant, the Edenic covenant, in which God placed Adam in the garden and told him, this you shall do and this you shall not do. And so the Edenic covenant, is it still in place? Is the Edenic covenant still in place? Do you have access to the Garden of Eden?

No. Nobody does. As a matter of fact, we have some guesses, but no certainty as to where it is. Right? So, not in place. Then the Adamic Covenant, is that still in place? No. Okay, and you say no because Pardon? Well, but this is the Adamic covenant. In other words, it was the consequences after Adam broke the Edenic covenant, right? Yeah, in other words, it's consequences and God didn't provide conditions under which it would change as long as you have this present earth and present people. So I think you may have been thinking about the Edenic covenant. Yeah, right.

Okay, now, We move on from there to the covenant with Noah. And let's think about this covenant with Noah. Here Noah gets off the ark after having all sorts of people and creatures wiped out, that the world looks quite different. And God makes this covenant with Noah.

And one of the things that we said is a covenant involves an oath, it involves a swearing by a deity in the full expression, and then some kind of a physical sign or gesture. What did we say was a physical sign that God gave in the covenant with Noah?

The rainbow, right? So God gave this physical sign, the rainbow. What's interesting is that that physical sign continues now, right? So unlike what you see in some of the covenants, you have this physical sign that keeps reoccurring. How many people understand when they see a rainbow that it's God's continuing gesture or sign to keep his promise not to flood the earth?

It's probably pretty rare. People will take pictures of it. They'll say, isn't that gorgeous? And they'll be amazed because whether you're in California, Kansas, or New Jersey, if that rainbow shows up there, it's just beautiful no matter what. So here's this rainbow.

It's rare that people will look at that and say, oh, God's continuing to give us a sign that he won't flood the earth, right? How many times do Christians sometimes say, Lord, if you'd just send me a sign. Lord, if you'd just send me a sign. Right? Yep. Let's think about this. That one thing, I won't send a flood on the earth. Did God do that under compulsion? Noah was twisting God's arm, so to speak, Pressuring him and so God said well, okay. I guess I won't know it was a Unilateral I'm going to do this, okay.

Yeah, it's also a precursor to Many many changes that took place with the earth because of that flood yeah, rainbow is really a manifestation of the physical properties of of water in the air and the refraction of light and that sort of thing. So it shows how the earth was changed during the flood. So again, it was part of God's plan as he progressed through the development of mankind. It is an interesting, the implication is that a rainbow did not present itself before. And yet we still have, as you point out, the implication as well that God is continuing to give a sign of something that occurs now again and again and yet seems to be implied didn't occur before.

Yeah, so there's one. God just did it. He did it unilaterally. It didn't seem to come, so far as any record, didn't seem to come from Noah begging for it or trying to twist God's arm about it or anything of the sort. Okay, so that's something God's going to do. What else changed at the flood? At that time when God talked to Noah and made promises. Genesis chapter 9.

Yeah. Food changed. From being a vegetarian to eating meat. Okay. The food changed. And all of a sudden meat is allowed. Did he say, you know, not pork? Did he say, you know, can't eat the eel because it doesn't have scales? Did he say any of that? No. It wasn't the food laws of the Jews. It was simply previously you could not eat meat. Now you can. And what's interesting is now that that's in place, and even after the laws given to Moses, Paul writes to Timothy and said abstaining from certain foods is doctrines of demons. Isn't that wild? Very interesting. But that's not all. You're right, we've got the rainbow, we have change in diet.

What else? Alright, but isn't that the Adamic covenant, right? So with Noah, what else do we have? There's a difference in the relationship with these animals. So you've got that pattern. What else? Okay, here's a renewal of the earth. And there's another interesting couple of things. You were talking about dust to dust. Another thing that happened is there was a repetition of what was given there in Genesis 1.

Be fruitful and multiply. Okay, so isn't that an interesting thing? When you started with two people, Be fruitful and multiply, and now that you're back to eight, the be fruitful and multiply command is repeated again, right? So here is, it isn't something as with the rainbow where God says, I will do this or not do this. This one is instead, you must do this, right? Okay, there's one more.

What is it? Yeah? here on page four, it's kind of like capital punishment. Yeah. Essentially capital punishment was instituted there, which also implies something else that prior to the flood, one human being would take the life of another. And what was the first example we have of that? Cain and Abel, right? Here's Cain and Abel, and immediately, did Cain lose his life for that act? No, he did not. He was marked, but he did not lose his life.

Now, when we come to this time after the flood, God institutes capital punishment. And what's very interesting is there's been a trend away from carrying out capital punishment in recent years. I would say probably in earlier centuries it may have gone too much the other way, but at least now the tendency is to move away from that even though it was called to be in place.

Okay, now let's take a look at one more question. The covenant with Noah, how long is that valid or was it valid? How long was or is the covenant with Noah valid? Okay, I hear a couple of forever and everlasting, but think about this. Capital punishment? When will the need for capital punishment end? Pardon? Well, actually the Lord himself might carry out capital punishment when the Lord returns.

New heavens, new earth. Yeah, in other words, when we get past this present earth, that's it. So you've got that kind of thing, eating the animals that doesn't appear to go on after this present heavens and earth. What you find is that that covenant with Noah seems to go through the end of this present heavens and earth when you start looking at the different items that are there.

Is there not going to be a radical change in the Earth's structure in the New Earth? No seas, right? No day or night. Some really big changes. So we're going to see a radically different environment in the new Heaven's New Earth. Okay, so you got that that's going to last.

Let's think so far, the Edenic covenant, about how long did it last? Any guesses? Back in the Garden of Eden. How long were they in the Garden of Eden? We really aren't given a figure, are we? We don't get the impression it was a really long time, but we also aren't given an exact figure.

The Adamic covenant, the idea that from dust you were made, dust you will return, thorns and thistles, that's going to last a long time. It's certainly lasting through the present, right? We have the covenant with Noah, which will last through the present heavens and earth.

And now we're going to step into the covenant with Abraham. God made a covenant with Abraham, first called Abram. impacting his descendants through Isaac and Jacob and then all mankind. When we say descendants through Isaac and Jacob, we mean those who are Jews. And then the Abrahamic covenant is given in Genesis 12, 1-3, verse 7, and then we give a list. We make the point that this is a short list because we're going to see on the next few pages that there are a great many passages that make reference to the covenant with Abraham and in fact give more detail and extend its applicability. So Genesis 12, 1-7 and I'm going to go ahead and read 1-3 because that's the introduction to the covenant with Abraham and continues to be important to this day.

Now the Lord said to Abram, later called Abraham, Go forth from your country and from your relatives and from your father's house to the land which I will show you, and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, and so you shall be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed." He continues on there with a recording of what Abraham did, and then in verse 7, The Lord appeared to Abram and said, to your descendants I will give this land. So he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him.

God doesn't call what he made with Abraham a covenant until Genesis 15-18. And here's one of the things I think is important to look at. It is possible for a covenant to have aspects of its revelation and its confirmation in a sign extend over time. In some instances, we'll see like this one with Noah, it's just given in one lump sum and that's it. With Abraham, what we find is from chapter 12, God continues to drop details and to reiterate and to extend the scope of the covenant with Abraham on into the next two generations.

God doesn't call it a covenant until several chapters later. Yes? Wouldn't that be because the Canaanites, as long as the Canaanites were in the land, the covenant wasn't really fully enacted? Because it has to do with land. Yeah, and we're going to talk about that because that's the other thing. God made a promise Abraham saw the land, but he never saw the ultimate fulfillment of it, did he?

Right. Now, so this covenant with Abraham, so let's start thinking about what are the elements, the key elements, and there are basically three here in Genesis 12, 1 through 3. What are the main elements that you see there? Okay, so you've got land. That's one thing. And the land I'll show you. And let's ask this.

Is the covenant with Abraham completely and entirely fulfilled regarding the land right now? How many years has it been? About 4,000, right? So we're talking about 40 centuries and the covenant with Abraham regarding the land is not yet completely fulfilled.

Why? It's not finished. Yeah, and I guess one question you could ask is God just keeps struggling to pull it off and just doesn't seem to quite happen and God's saying, well, you know, 15 times the charm or what's the deal here? This plan's not finished yet.

Yeah, I think one of the things when we look at these covenants, it is It's important for us to recognize that God's time frame in fulfilling these things is not ours. If you were to ask the question, why doesn't God just look on planet Earth and say, you know, these human beings are really messing up badly, and why don't I just kind of wrap this thing up, you know, and call it a day or call it an Earth or something. and end this thing. Why don't I just say that enough is enough and we're all through here.

And God just drops this great big banner in the sky and say, you know, midnight tonight, I'm going to close up shop here. We're going to roll everything up and hope you guys have enjoyed everything. Midnight, we're all through. Right? So why doesn't God just do that? He wishes to have communion with us. Right, but he could do that in heaven. He could say, you know, we've got people who are saved.

You're quite correct. You're quite correct. Yeah. Well, he's made some specific promises and some specific prophetic proclamations that still have to be fulfilled. Yeah, that's right. And what's very interesting is you will find as you go through even the prophetic points that are made in the Old Testament, you'll see note of that made. regarding their fulfillment in the new, even regarding things like, you know, we were talking at our Thursday night study because we're studying through the Gospel of John.

Here's Jesus, why didn't he, you know, go make his triumphal entry and say, guys, I'm here, go ahead and do me in and take me and we're all done. Why didn't he just, you know, finish off with a triumphal entry and say, okay, crucify me and I'm ready to go. And one reason is, it's not the only, one reason is there were several different prophecies yet to be fulfilled.

And they had to be. And so there was a postponement of days after his triumphal entry, postponement of days before he actually was crucified, one reason being the prophecies had to be fulfilled. Right? So that's part one, and you're quite correct on that. Let's think about this.

God's not done with with Abraham's covenant. God made a promise to this guy 4,000 years ago, just one guy, who was raised in a pagan city. And what's amazing is here's this guy 4,000 years ago, and because of that promise to that one guy, the earth is not wrapped up and done yet.

And we've got at least 1,007 years to go. Why do I say 1,007 years? First, you've got a seven-year tribulation, right? And you've got a thousand-year time where the Lord is on the earth, a millennium. Those are both things subsequent to the covenant with Abraham. but under that umbrella that basically says that's what it's going to take at least to wrap up the promises and prophecies that God's made. At least 1,007 years left, folks. Alright, so we've got land. Stan's got that and he's quite correct on that. God has not yet fulfilled all that about the land.

And by the way, During the Millennial Kingdom, Israel will go from the Mediterranean all the way to the Euphrates. Mediterranean all the way to the Euphrates. So all those squabbling with the Palestinians are doing right now is nothing. You'll see the Palestinian land, the land that's now in Syria, the land that is now, some of it in Saudi Arabia, the land that is now in Iraq, all be included in the land that God promised Abraham. Now, land, what else?

Yeah. And it's going to look a lot different because during the tribulation period there's going to be a lot of land changes. Oh yeah. You got that right. So when you say from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates, it could actually be into the Mediterranean or because Jerusalem is going to be on a high plain. Yeah, we could have some geographical changes that happen during that time. You're quite correct. Okay, what else besides land?

Seed, and what are we talking about? Little tiny seeds? What do we mean by seed? Mustard seed. What's that? Yeah, in other words, land, seed, and seed is talking about people. And what's the ultimate fulfillment of the seed? It's Christ. And we went through in our study of Galatians, and ultimately seed talks about a lineage of people, but then ultimately Christ himself is the fulfillment of that. So we've got land, seed, and what's the third? Blessing. Land, seed, blessing.

So in blessing, what's this issue of blessing? Who's going to be blessed out of this promised Abraham? Who's first blessed? Yes, Abraham himself. I'm going to bless you, so there's that. Abraham himself, part one. Next part is those who bless you, I will do what? Those who bless you, I'll bless. Those who curse you, I will curse.

So there is a blessing and cursing that is dependent upon how do you treat Abraham's descendants through Isaac and Jacob. How do you treat the Jews? So Abraham is going to be personally blessed unconditionally. Then there is a question of how do people treat Abraham and his descendants And that will be conditional. If they bless you, I'll bless them. And notice the blessing is on the Gentiles if they bless Israel. And those who curse you, I will curse.

Right? And by the way, is that in force now? Is that in place now? Yes, it is. it will ultimately show itself up in the Millennial Kingdom, the time when Christ reigns upon the earth, because then what you will find is that the Gentiles will, in great number and in great part, be flocking to the Jews, and they'll be saying, take me to your Messiah. And guess what? Those Gentiles who do so will be blessed. So in great numbers, the Gentiles will in fact bless the Jews and in great numbers they will be blessed.

The whole earth will be blessed because they blessed the descendants of Abraham. Matthew 25 gives the judgments at the end of the tribulation period between the Gentiles and the Jews. And what's interesting is you know how God will judge the Gentiles at the end of the tribulation period? He'll judge them according to the covenant with Abraham.

Did you bless these my brethren? This is the passage about, you know, I was thirsty and you gave me drink and those kinds of things. Did you bless the Jews? That's how you're going to be judged. if you're a Gentile at the end of the tribulation period.

Okay, now, land, seed, blessing. We're not done with blessing. There's one more to this blessing. In you, all the families, nations, of the earth will be blessed. How is everybody going to be blessed all the different families of the earth going to be blessed through Abraham. How's that going to happen? Through the seed. Ultimately being Christ. Ultimately being Christ.

In you, all the families of the earth will be blessed. Paul makes reference to this in Galatians. So think of this. Here's this one guy raised in a pagan household in a pagan city. God singles this guy out, makes promises to him that are still being carried out.

Now, we've got one more question. We've got one more question, and that is, how long does this covenant with Abraham last? Can God say, okay, it's all done, we're ready to wrap up heaven and earth and roll up this earthly scroll and put it on the shelf? of eternity, right? No. And why not? Why can't God do that yet? Because all the people have not yet been blessed that are going to be blessed, right? Yeah, in other words, if you start looking at that, you've still got the land, you've still got the seed. Now, the seed is Christ, and based on subsequent promises and prophecies, Christ has to return again and reign for a thousand years, right?

So you get that in there, and then all the people to be blessed. People will be blessed through Abraham until the last person is born on this planet. The death of Jesus Christ is applicable to every single person on the planet until the last one breathes. until the last one is born and lives on this planet. Abraham will be a blessing.

Here in Genesis 12, I mean this was 4,000 years ago, what God promised to this guy in this pagan city, probably raised in a pagan household, what God promised to this one guy will last in its impact through the rest of this earth. And by the way, If we are blessed through Abraham by Jesus Christ, how long do those blessings last? Forever. So you have a covenant here with eternal impact.

It had impact in Abraham's day, although lots of details yet to be fulfilled and come to pass. What did God say in chapter 12? The land that I will show you, he hadn't even seen it. He hadn't even seen it. So God has more things to reveal here. God waits three chapters to tell him it's a covenant.

Alright, let's take a look on page six. We have a chart there at the top of page six that shows the Edenic covenant, the Adamic covenant, the Noahic covenant. and the Abrahamic covenant, it gives some references, the same ones we saw on the prior page, but then the rest of the references to the covenant with Abraham. We have God promised land, seed, and blessing to Abraham, or Abram, and there's the land promise given in 1315, or reiterated in 1315, all the way to chapter 50, verse 24, the last chapter. And then you have the seed promise given there again in chapter 13, and then continuing on to chapter 48. And then the rest of the references there on the third slide. The promise of blessing was given by God in Genesis in chapter 18, continuing on to chapter 28. Blessing in Genesis includes three nuances. So when you say blessing, it's got three different areas. One is prosperity, fertility, and victory.

And then he talks about the land that I will show you. Here he says, I'm going to take you out of Ur. And let's think of one more thing. For Abraham to go to this other land, the land that God is going to show him, meant in the context of the culture that Abraham had to leave his earthly inheritance. He went away from the land of his fathers. The only way that you could keep and enjoy those properties that were due you because of inheritance was to stay where you were. And what did he do? He got this promise from God, the land that I will show you, and that meant in order to see that land, he had to leave the inheritance that he had with his father. and to leave the earthly inheritance in order to get this other inheritance that God promised.

I will make you a great nation. The idea of nations was introduced in Genesis chapter 10. The table of nations sometimes with reference to that chapter. These are the roots of the great ethnic populations on the face of the earth. The general pattern that you see in the Bible is the nation and the people is Israel. The nations and the peoples, plural, are the non-Jewish people, the Gentiles, right? That's the pattern that you see there. And I Will Make Your Name Great is the seventh slide there.

The leaders of the Tower of Babel project had tried to make a name for themselves. God's judgment by the confusion of languages put a stop to that. But God promised unilaterally to make Abraham's name great. Isn't that something? Look, you guys are trying to build a name for yourselves. You've got this big tower and it's a monument to man.

And he says, that's not going to work. And I'll tell you why. All of a sudden you've got a gazillion languages and you can't even talk to each other. Right? By the way, have any of you heard Hassan speak in his native language? I hear him on his end of the phone conversation when he calls over there. I have not the slightest idea what he's saying. And he knows five languages. One of them is English. He's got four kind of regional languages. And he says there are hundreds of languages in Uganda. So he's only tackled a handful.

That's what the Lord did. He said, nope, I'm not going to make you guys great and let yourselves make your names great. But Abraham, I'm going to make a promise to him, and for all we know, there is no reason why God should have done so. I'm going to make a promise to him and his name will be great. And he will be a blessing.

Now let's ask one more thing here. Was God compelled or forced to make any of these promises to Abraham? Was God, you know, over a barrel, had his arm twisted behind his back, under the gun? Was there anything about the promise to Abraham in which God was sort of compelled to do it, just had to? No. The promise was gracious. The promise was gracious. So the promise to Abraham was gracious.

So guess what? When the Apostle Paul wants to talk about how we're saved by faith, what does he do? He makes reference, he points back in Romans, he points back in Galatians, he points back to Abraham. He points back to Abraham. Gracious. Gracious. Now, let's take a look at page 7.

Ephesians 1.3 There's the last slide there in that set of slides. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Our blessing and believers in which we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ comes from God having told Abraham, and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed. So you're blessed because God made a promise to Abraham 4,000 years ago. You're blessed through his seed.

Alright, now we have then the next four covenants with Israel or a representative of Israel, all of whom are descendants of Abraham and through the lineage of Isaac and Jacob. So the middle of page 7 you see a reference there to the Mosaic Covenant. The Mosaic Covenant is substantially encompassing the law of Moses. We're not going to quote major sections of it because it's huge. How many laws do we have for Moses?

It shows there in the first bullet, 613 laws. You got them all memorized? 365, if you want to make it easier to remember, just like the number of days in a year, 365 days in a year, 365 laws say don't do this. Right? So 613 laws, 365 of which say, do not do this. So most of, or I'd say more than half, may be a better way to put it.

Law of Moses was given only to the people of Israel, not to any other people. Psalm 147.20. Nobody else to adopt or pick and choose from or to alter in any way.

Galatians 5.3 and James 2.10 both say that the law is whole.

We are not to go pick and choose among certain parts of it and say, I like this one and then I don't like that one. The Seventh-day Adventist, for example, will say, you know, we like to really focus on that seventh day, right? And they'll really make a big deal about that. But then they'll make their own food laws in which they say, you know, if you really want to go to heaven, you really need to drop off all the meat, even though both the covenant with Noah and even the law of Moses with its restrictions allowed eating meat.

Yeah. So in other words, if you had the time and the inclination and you went through the Pentateuch, you'd be able to count 613 laws? Yes. I have a PowerPoint slide in which I show all 613 laws on one slide. And that's also the Torah, right? Yeah. In other words, the first five books are the Torah. They're the Pentateuch. They're the five books of Moses. And from that, you count 613 laws.

And by the way, they include in that the be-fruit-full-and-multiply. And that's a positive. Be-fruit-full-and-multiply, they look upon as a command. And again, just like all the other laws, they put additional little requirements on it. And including that, you know, if a husband and wife don't have children within about ten years of marriage, he's fully justified in getting a divorce because he has to be fruitful and multiply, right? So, that's how they take it.

Then the third bullet, the law of Moses reflects God's character, including his moral character. The fact that there is right and wrong. The fact that this is a good thing to do, this is not a good thing to do. So that's what is behind the law of Moses. That's why Paul would write in Romans 7, he says, I approve of the law. I can't do it, but I approve of it. Right? Yeah. So what he's saying is that if a person could and was able to, if they accomplished all 613 laws, they would be in the image of God's character and his moral character. Yeah, if they were to do all, right? If they were to do all.

Okay, now there are things within the law of Moses that are simply not possible to do unless you are a Jew in the land. And that's one of the things that the Jews struggle with now. What do you do? Here it says repeatedly in the Law of Moses, in the land, in the land, in the land, in the land. It says there, you know, you've got to go after you've had a baby and go in there and see the priest. There are certain things you've got to do, just like Joseph and Mary did right after Jesus was born. You've got to go do that.

Now there is no temple there. Nobody's really sure who the Levites are. How are you going to do that? You can't. The truth is a great number of the laws and the law of Moses cannot be fulfilled to this day because the Jews have no temple, they have no priesthood in the land. You just can't do it. So the rabbis have decreed that the only thing you can do to replace that is to pray.

I don't know how they decided that was equal, but that's what they did. All right. Now you have the Palestinian or land covenant. And this has to do with their living in the land. If they obeyed, if you obey the law, in other words the Mosaic covenant, If you obey the law, then you will be blessed in the land. If you do not obey the law, you will be cursed in the land, and ultimately the land will spit you out. Now, so let's ask this. The Mosaic Covenant, is it law or grace? It's law, just pure and simple. And let's ask about the Palestinian Covenant. Is it law or grace? It is absolutely law. No grace at all. So you have both of those covenants are law, period. Okay, now, flip side, page 8.

The Davidic covenant was God's promise to Israel's king, David, through the prophet Nathan, there would be a descendant from the house of David, seated on the throne of David, to reign over the kingdom of Israel forever. A thousand years later, approximately, A thousand years later, the angel Gabriel would say to Mary, the descendant of David, who would be the mother of Jesus. Now in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel, this is Luke 1, 26-33, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the descendants of David, and the virgin's name was Mary.

And coming in, he said to her, greetings, favored one, the Lord is with you. But she was very perplexed at this statement and kept pondering what kind of salutation this was. The angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus, Yeshua in the original language. And he will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David. And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end. the elements of the original promise to David retold to Mary, but then you will have a son.

And what's interesting is she says, okay, where do I sign? Right? No, what we see after this is after she hears this, her question is not, who's David? What do you mean this kingdom will have no end? What is all this? She is not questioning that at all. What's her question? You remember? What's her question? It's not here on the page.

I'm a virgin, right? And this is out of the book of Isaiah, right? A virgin will bear a son. And it does mean virgin, by the way. A virgin will bear a son. And so she says, I'm a virgin. How is this going to happen? The Holy Spirit will come upon you. And this will be a miraculous birth, not from a physical descendancy. So there's a fulfillment of the prophecy given through Isaiah. Mary had no questions about the fulfillment of the covenant with David. None whatsoever. She knew exactly what that was all about. She knew she was of the Davidic line. The only question was, wait a minute, I'm a virgin, how is this going to happen? So that was the only Ultimately, this would be fulfilled in the yet to come Millennial Kingdom in this present earth and in the New Jerusalem.

We're going, because we're running out of time, we're going to roll this New Covenant question over and then address some of these questions next week. We're going to talk about covenants, we're going to talk about the New Covenant, and then covenants and stewardships and ages. Covenants, stewardships, and ages and see how those connect.

Because the point that we need to put together here is These covenants seem to have stewardships and how does that happen and how does that pass along? What are the aspects and characteristics of the stewardships? And I think here's what's fascinating is that every one of us has one or more stewardships. Every one of us has one or more stewardships.

They may or may not be related directly to a covenant. But many of the covenants also have stewardship involved. So anyway, we'll make that connection. And then there are ages of time in the earth, and then beyond the present earth, there are ages. And how does that connect to the stewardship and the covenants? So we're going to put that together, and hope we don't blow any circuits. OK, let's pray.

Just as we've covered this material, and in fact didn't even get done here on the second week completely, we just thank you for the immensity and the depth here. But we also thank you for your faithfulness. Thank you for your gracious character, and that we can trust you and place every confidence in you. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.