God’s Covenant And His Kingdom – Pastor Chidiebere Nwokeocha

God relates to his people from the point of covenant, as the devil also does with his own people. Covenant is a powerful thing, and if you are going to operate in God’s kingdom, then you must also understand how His covenant runs everything.

 

God takes covenant seriously

My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. Psalm 89:34

God takes covenant very serious and He also wants you and I to do so as well. Covenants are so important to God that even when entered falsely, He expects them to be honoured! He expect that if you have taken an oath or said something that is going to hurt you and it is a covenant, you have to honour it!

God instructed the children of Israel to destroy the cities ahead of them, and not to enter into any covenant with the people. They had destroyed Jericho (Joshua 6-7) and Ai (Joshua 9) and Gibeon was next. In Joshua 9, we see that the Gibeonites disguised themselves as travelers from a very far country. They wore rags, carried old bread, wore tattered shoes and looked haggard. They came to Joshua and said, “We have come from a very far country, we have heard what your God has done to the cities before us and we want to serve your God.” Joshua and the leaders did not consult God, they entered into a covenant with the Gibeonites, only for them to realise a few days later that Gibeon was the next city to be destroyed. By then however, it was too late. Joshua and the leaders of Israel had to honour this covenant. During the reign of Saul, Gibeon was destroyed and a plague descended upon the land. In the time of David, he inquired of the Lord and the Lord told him that they had broken covenant with the Gibeonites. Remember this covenant was entered into with falsehood! Yet God honoured it, because, as He said, He will never break His covenant. The Israelites went to the Gibeonites and said, “We have enquired of the Lord, God said we have offended you, what do we do to correct this?” And the Gibeonites said, “Give us the heads of the sons of Saul that we may hang them.”  They hung them and the plague stopped (2 Samuel 21). That tells you the importance of covenant!

 

 

Covenant is relational

The Kingdom of God is His comprehensive rule over all that He created. God is the Almighty God, He is sovereign God and He rules over everything, those that believe in Him as well as those that do not believe in Him. We have a president, whether you like him or not, whether you belong to his party or not, as long he is President, he is your president. He decides your fate according to constitution. This is the same way that God is sovereign over everything that He created, over the believers, over the unbelievers – the only difference between believers and unbelievers is the relationship we have through covenant. Covenant is a divinely created bond, a spiritually binding relationship between God and His people.

What is the difference between contract and covenant? Relationship. And that means, for example, that marriage is not a contract, it a covenant.

Covenant is a relationship of blessing. Whenever God makes a covenant, His intent is for the good of those who covenanted with to be blessed. God is the Almighty, He is the only one that can enter into a covenant with us – man does not have what it takes to enter into a covenant with because we cannot keep it. God is the only one that initiates a covenant, His real intent is for the good of those He enters into the covenant with, the good of the people and their families.

 

Keep therefore the words of this covenant, and do them, that ye may prosper in all that ye do. Deuteronomy 29:9

 

As a child of God, you have entered into a covenant relationship with God, if you want to prosper, keep that covenant, the new covenant, the covenant that is established by the blood of Jesus. Covenants are often signed or rectified in blood. We are part of God’s covenant and it is sealed with the blood of Jesus, blood of the new covenant, which is why we share Holy Communion. Communion is the symbol of the covenant that Christ established, so whenever we partake of it, we are reaffirming our covenant.

 

Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel. Exodus 19:5-6

 

God said if you keep the covenant, you shall be a peculiar treasure to me, a kingdom of priests. Covenant allows you to exercise dominion as kings, priests and gods.  Covenant will allow you to prosper in all you do. Covenant allows you to receive progress in your life. Under covenant you receive the flow of God’s power, position, provision, authority. So you need this to operate as God want you to.

 

Another word for covenant is covering. Some pastors say, “I am the man of God here, you are under my cover.” It’s a lie! The covering you have is Jesus Christ, so when you enter into the new covenant, you have a cover! God works through authorities but the number one cover you have is Jesus Christ. Remember Rahab? She brought herself and her family under the cover of the God of Israel when she hid the two spies. Christ eventually came through the lineage of Rahab, a harlot. So, regardless of any kind of life you have lived in the past, you can enter into this new covenant and the moment you enter into it, your life becomes different. That is what Rahab did and through her, her family was saved. Your family can be saved through you! It does not matter what you have done in the past, it does not matter what the enemy has accused you of – Jesus said I have come, not to condemn them but to save. Rahab started as a harlot but by the virtue of entering into covenant with God, she became the great- great-grandmother of Jesus Christ. Do not write yourself off!

 

God administers His Kingdom via covenant

Covenant is the means by which God administers His kingdom.

As Christians, partakers of His covenant, we are reigning with Christ in heavenly places, far above all principalities and powers. We are to dominate our environment, we are to rule, we are to help bring the kingdom of God in heaven to earth, we are to enforce it. But if you do not know who you are, if you do not know your covenantal rights, privileges, and authority, the devil will keep on oppressing you. Say a child’s father is a multimillionaire, because he is a child and he does not know who he is, he will cry when is hungry, not knowing that all the food she needs is available in the fridge and all he has to do is say what he wants and he will get it. Some believers are like this child. They do not understand the rights and the privileges they have as covenant children and so the devil oppresses them. The devil thrives on our ignorance because we do not know who we are in Christ. If you understand the covenantal rights that you have, when the devil comes, you say, “No, you can’t touch this, I know who I am, I know what I have, I know who my God is!” Those that know their God will be strong and do exploits (Daniel 11:32). Why will they be strong? Because they know their rights.

 

Distinctives of Covenant

There are five distinctives of the spiritual covenant that needs to be recognized in order for you to be in spiritual alignment with God.

1. The transcendence of the covenant. God is in charge. He is a sovereign God, He is the one that initiates and rules over the covenant. God rules in the affairs of men, so we cannot question Him. Sometimes we try to use our small brains to figure out God. Somebody who existed before time? How can you figure out a being who exists outside time and space?
2. The hierarchy of the covenant. God works through a chain of command. 1 Corinthians 11: 3 says “But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.” There is a hierarchy. Kingdom Man, when you violate the order of the covenant, when you do not recognize Christ as your own head, your own authority will not be recognized by the woman. So for the woman to submit and recognize you as the head, you have to first of all make Jesus Christ your head. The moment you submit to Christ and the woman sees that you submit to Christ and two of you are doing the same thing, serving God, she will see the Christ and she will submit to you. And when she submits to you, she is not submitting to you because you are the head, she is submitting to you because of the Christ in you.
3. The ethics of the covenant. Covenants have guidelines or rules. God has set certain things in motion, seed time, harvest time; whatever you sow, you reap.  If you go to the bank to collect a loan, you will be given an offer letter with terms and conditions. There are privileges, things you will benefit if you sign that contract with them, but there are terms you must keep, and if you break them, you will be penalized. So also in Christendom, there are rights that accrue to you as a covenant child of God, there are privileges and there are authorities. But there are also terms and conditions of covenant. Do not be deceived by the doctrine of grace of grace being preached today. No matter how much a Pastor prays for you, or pours anointing oil over you, if you break the terms and conditions, there is a penalty. But God is so good that He not only died for you, but to help you abide by the terms and conditions, He lives inside of you.
4. The sanctions of the covenant. Covenants are attached to an oath that a person makes with regards to the agreement. The oaths that accompany God’s covenant are called sanctions and they are provisions that make a law binding upon the one that makes the oath. Deuteronomy 27 – 30 contains all the terms and conditions of God’s covenant. Deuteronomy 28 contains the blessings of the covenant, but from verse 14, we see what God says He will do to those who break the covenant. He said He would make the earth like iron so that nothing would grow, there would be no fruitfulness – people would labour, but have nothing to show for it. He said He would shut the heaven, meaning that there would be no communication with heaven, no favour – people would knock repeatedly on doors and they would never open.
5. The inheritance of the covenant. If you read the bible, from Adam to Jesus Christ God had different covenants He entered into with different people, Adam, Abraham, Noah, David and Moses, until Christ came to establish the new covenant. When God wants to do something great, when He wants to formalize a relationship, He establishes a covenant. One thing about the covenant of God is that is beyond just one person. When He enters covenant, He looks to first, second, third to fourth generation. Just as genetically, there are traits that are hereditary, inherited from parents right, so it is spiritually, that if parents have access to spiritual things, children can inherit them. The devil’s covenants on the other hand, are not generational but because he is wicked, when a man enters into covenant with him, he will usually make him pledge his family so that as long as there is sin in that lineage, he will bring out evidence to access them. Until somebody says, “No! I am a child of God, I do not want to enter into this covenant, I take myself out of it, I establish a superior covenant to that of the devil!” the covenant will continue in the linage. When he takes himself out of it, he is released from it, but it could continue in the lives of his siblings.

Three sisters were beautiful, educated and wealthy, but had never been married even though they desired to be, and were serving the Lord diligently. The Lord revealed, concerning them, that there was a covenant that had not been revoked and broken. It was discovered that their great-great-grandfather, in the days when communities fought a lot of battles, made a covenant with the devil that all his daughters would always be returned to him. He did this because women were always carried away as war trophies, but the devil established a covenant with his lineage. When God gave this word of knowledge, a man of God stood with them to break the covenant. A few months later, the ladies were married. Be careful what you do today, so your children do not have to suffer for it in the future.

God’s covenant has continuity, long term generational impact. What you do affects not only you but also those in contact with you and those who follow you. When Achan stole, his family dies with him? When Korah and company sinned and challenged Moses (Numbers 16), the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them and their families. God’s covenant has a long term impact. God is eternal, when he speaks, He speaks in eternity, His voice reechoes eternally and that is why when you want to pray, you pray in scriptures because God’s words are already spoken and they reverberating all over. So when you speak them, you bring them to His remembrance. Covenant has impact beyond you, it has generational impact. It has to do with inheritance. Many people are suffering for things they did not have anything to do with personally.

 

The New Covenant

Before Christ came there were other covenants. Jesus Christ came to establish the new covenant because man was condemned to death and God had to step down Himself to redeem mankind, a huge sacrifice.

Young people do all sorts of crazy things. They say, I love you, I will marry you and they cut themselves and exchange blood vows! Somewhere along the line, the two of them would have grown apart and problems start in their lives. Blood covenants are so powerful! If you entered into covenant carelessly, jokingly, that covenant may be speaking against you! Until you go back and correct it, there is a problem. It takes entering into a superior covenant, which is covenant with Jesus, because His blood is so powerful, to break earlier evil covenants.

Before I got born again I used to say if I were God, I would have killed man, created a new man that will do my will. But I realize now that that would have made Him an unfaithful God and that would have meant that He does not love mankind. R

The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee. Jeremiah31:3 

Even before we were created He had loved you and I, so because of that love He could not destroy man to make a new man. Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God was slain before the foundation of the earth. You know what this it means? God being the Alpha and Omega, knows the end from the beginning and the beginning from the end, He knows everything and seeing what was to play out, he made provision so before even you were created, He said, “Jesus, you know this thing we about to do now, at some point they are going to turn away, but I love them so much, I don’t want anything to go wrong, so Jesus you have to die now before I will even start creating them.” This is deep! So before we were created, Jesus had already paid the price for you and I!

The love of God for is so much, when you reject Him, you are openly saying, ‘I don’t want you, I don’t want anything to do with you, and I am prepared to go to hell. Why would you want to make yourself the wood for hell fire?  When you love somebody so much and the person is hurting you, the person keeps treating you so bad, how do you feel?