Automatic Transcript Generated:
Speaker 1
John is asking, where can I find in the Bible the first act of faith? Believing in the work of God for an impossible situation or event.
Speaker 2
And I just say it’s interesting. It seems like every week we always have a variation of this question. What was is the first act of faith? And our guest always gets a chance to answer this one last time. It was wait and get to hear your time, your answer faith.
Speaker 3
This time I can’t help but think of Adam because in a sense, the act of him doing the first sacrifice after sin happened, believing that the sacrifice would represent the coming of the redeemer. I think that took a great act of space on his end to be able to take that first strike on to kill for the first time. But he did it as an act of faith that this is pointing forward to the coming of someone that will deliver him from the curse of sin that he would have to carry for hundreds of years moving forward. So I can’t I mean, that was the moment you read the question, the first thought that came to my mind. While the act of faith is believing in what you could not see. And he couldn’t see in that moment when he had to take the life of that first lamb, he couldn’t see that this was going to be pointing forward to he couldn’t see it. And he had hoped that his first son, him and Eve, had hoped that their first son would be this redeemer. But we all know that didn’t happen. So I think that first act of faith was him sacrificing or participating in the sacrificial service that God had asked had to have been an act of faith, since it was such a depressing story that he had to live with for so many years.
Speaker 3
So that’s what pops into my head, but I don’t know if someone has a better idea.
Speaker 2
Amen. Yeah, I agree. I would say it’s what God promised in Genesis three regarding the seed of the woman who would come and crush the head of the serpent.
Speaker 4
Definitely.
Speaker 1
All right, let’s get our next question up here. So Demetria is asking, can you give me an example of the covenant? I understand that it is an agreement made between two parties, but biblical, I do not understand it.
Speaker 2
So I’ll take this one because I’m a lawyer and I do lots of contracts and as you said yes, I would say it is sort of an agreement between two people. Both sides agreed to do something. And sort of the first time we actually see this word come up, covenant is in the context of Noah and it comes up a couple of times. But let’s look at Genesis 617 to 19. And in it God says, and behold, I myself in bringing floodwaters on the earth to destroy from the heavens all flesh, which is the breath of life, everything that’s on your earth shall die. But I will establish my covenant with you. And you shall go into yard, you, your sons, your wives, your son’s wives with you and everything and flesh shall shall bring two of every sort. And it goes on. So basically God saying, I’m going to make a covenant with you. You get on this arc, you, your family and all these creatures, you’re going to be spared. Everything else is going to be lost. So God’s promise was, you get on the arc, you listen to me, you obey me, and you’re going to have life.
Speaker 2
And if you look through the Bible, this is pretty much an ongoing theme. Over and over we go to the next chapter, to Genesis, or go to Genesis 17 now. And now we have a covenant with Abraham. And God again tells Abraham, if you walk before me and be blameless, obey me and I will make my covenant with you and I will multiply you exceedingly. And it goes on from there, many blessings. And then similarly we go down to Exodus, exodus 19, five to six. And God says, now therefore, if you indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be a special treasure to me above all people. From all the earth is mine. And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. These are the words which you shall speak to your children of Israel. So God again is having his covenant. You’ll be my special people. I’m going to bless you a lot. But what do they have to do? They have to obey God. And you just keep going down and down and down, down through all the different stories and it’s just never any theme.
Speaker 2
And then we get down to the New Testament and Jesus says, if you love me, keep my commandments. And then he says, and if you do that, when you pray, God will listen and he will answer your prayers. Same principle. So there’s one covenant, it’s the everlasting covenant, and that’s we obey God. We listen to Him, we stay within his ways. And then God will give us life, he will give us blessings, he will call us his children, he’ll bring us into his presence. It’s wonderful coming. And what did Adam and Eve do that was wrong at the beginning? They broke the everlasting covenant. God says, Obey me. Don’t eat the forbidden fruit and you will live. If you don’t listen to me, you disobey, you will die. There you go. This explains pretty much everything you see in the Bible. What’s going on in the Bible? Sin. Why sin so bad? How do we have life? What allows us to continue living with God? Being good or being God doesn’t give us life. There’s no life in that. But if we disobey, we’re departing from God, the source of life.
Speaker 1
That’s powerful.
Speaker 3
What do you guys think I totally agree. I wanted to throw this in there. I always say this to people when they’re like, why does God do these types of things or make these types of regulations on us? And my response is because I’m doing Bible studies with some people right now. And my response is always, well, if you don’t like it, you can go get your own planet. It’s his territory, it’s his rules. But the thing that I think is nice about or wonderful about the whole thing is that he’s inviting us to love Him and to enter into that love relationship, which is a covenant of love and peace and joy. So it doesn’t come sorry. It’s not absent of grace and goodness. It’s not like a tyrant. It’s good, it’s wonderful, and there’s blessings involved.
Speaker 2
Amen. And you’re bringing some awesome point.
Speaker 4
And I think, like, what you just said kind of it perfectly with your son being there, because it’s like a parent. It’s like, this is my house, my rules, and this is the way it has to be. And it’s not that God is a mean, bad person. He’s a caring, loving father. And we don’t always understand our parents rules, just like as we were as children, but as we get older, we have our own kids. We’re like, wow, I’m really glad my parents enforced this because that really helped me develop into a better person. And so I think that’s a really good point that you bring up their face. Go ahead.
Speaker 2
Oh, no, I was just going to say I’m glad that we’re going to have other questions, give us opportunities to touch on some of these other points.
Speaker 1
Yeah, I was going to add also to that just kind of what you were saying. I just had this thought maybe like five minutes ago, like, love has boundaries. Love sets boundaries. And to let someone do things that are damaging to the relationship and damaging to other people, or even.
Speaker 2
To some.
Speaker 1
Extent damaging to themselves, I think people need to god gave us freedom, but he also gave boundaries, and those boundaries were there to protect us. And some of these things that we see are just a part of God setting boundaries and saying like, this is an activity that’s going to take you away from what is good can be harmful for you. It’s going to hold you away from what is good. And so don’t do that. Do what’s good instead.
Speaker 2
All right. You had another point, though, Tina, right?
Speaker 4
Oh, sorry. I was just going to bring up one quick verse. As far as the covenant, I hope this makes sense because my sister, who’s asking this question, is asking, you don’t understand what a covenant means, biblically speaking. And so I think Jay did a really great answer, showing the answer, summing it up. And if you just want to see a quick summary of it in Hebrews chapter twelve, where it’s basically talking about Jesus in verse 24. So Hebrews, chapter twelve, verse 24, basically speaking of the covenant that Jesus made the new covenant with us and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant into the sprinkling of blood that speaks better things than that of able. So we know that Abel made a sacrifice by faith, saying that there will be a lamb that I will put my faith in that will take away my sin as I obey him. In the same way Jesus was that perfect sacrifice. So we hold on to the blood of Christ and by faith we enter into this covenant with Jesus that we accept his sacrifice on our behalf by faith. And that because we have faith in him and his sacrifice that he will wash away our sins and that we can have salvation through his merits, through his blood.
Speaker 4
I hope that makes sense.
Speaker 2
Yes and yes. Even read into Hebrews 1320 or 21. Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, the great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant I can’t speak today with the blood of the everlasting covenant make you complete and every good work to do his will, working in you to do well, pleading in his side through Lord Jesus, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
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In His Service
BibleAsk Team
