SID: You know, here in the West, we don’t understand an Eastern covenant. Why is it we’re so ignorant on eastern covenants?
CRAIG: You know, Sid, people in the east understand covenant in a totally different way than most of us that live in a western nation. And the reason that is, is they, it’s been in a culture and experience. Here’s what a covenant is. A covenant is the most solemn agreement known to man only broken by death. Death is the only thing that breaks a covenant. So in an eastern thinker’s mind, if I give you my word in covenant, there is a 100 percent chance that I will fulfill it, because I would rather die than break my word. In the West, that concept of covenant has been exchanged for a totally different concept of contract. Now sometimes we use the word “covenant”, but what we actually mean is a bilateral, totally conditional contract, meaning a contract is this. If you give me your word and I give you my word, it’s totally dependent upon the performance of each person. If you do what you said, I will do what I said. But if you break your word and you don’t do what you said or you’re unfaithful to me, or you betray me, or you hurt me, or you turn against me, or you cheat me, I’m totally justified to terminate relationship with you and get rid of you. I don’t have to relate to you anymore. Or if I agree to sell you something, if you don’t give me the money, I don’t have to give you the thing. That’s a contract. A covenant, on the other hand, the best word, and we see this word used all the time in the Bible, is “promise”. If I make you a promise and I say, “Sid, I will do this for you” or “I will give you this”, that is not dependent on anything you do or do not do. That’s 100 percent dependent on my integrity to keep my word, and that’s what a covenant is.
SID: Okay. I understand what you’re saying right now about covenant.
CRAIG: Yeah.
SID: But what about someone, because it’s all dependent on God, not dependent on our works, etc.
CRAIG: Yeah.
SID: What about someone that is living in unrepentant sin? Is God obligated to honor his covenant?
CRAIG: So here’s what we find. God will always be toward you. God will never turn his back on you. He said in Hebrews 13:5, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” That’s what Jesus said. So he’s always faced toward you. But then we read in Hebrews, Chapter 10, Verse 26, it says there, “If you continue sinning willfully,” in other words, you just willfully sin and sin, and sin, and sin, what you have actually done is you died spiritually. You kill the seed of the spirit of God in your own spirit, and it uses some very strong language. It says, “When you do that, what you actually do is trample underfoot the Son of God, defile the blood by which you were sanctified and insult the spirit of” what? The spirit of grace.
SID: That’s pretty interesting.
CRAIG: Yes.
SID: The spirit of grace when you willfully continue sinning. What about that threshold where someone—explain that.
CRAIG: That is such a powerful concept. In the East, there is a very powerful concept that when a man invites another man to come into his home as a guest, he pours out blood right at the door, at the threshold.
SID: That’s really what happened at Passover.
CRAIG: That’s exactly what happened at Passover, what God told them to do. It was a common eastern custom. And when a guest comes and he sees that blood poured out, he knows he’s invited to enter into covenant. When he steps across the threshold, then the host says, “I will protect you with my life. All I have is yours. All I am is yours. You’re like family to me. I will protect you with all I have.” But if that guest comes and steps on the threshold, steps in the blood, what he’s saying to that host is, “I reject your offer to protect me. I reject your offer of covenant. I spit in your face and I die to you, and you are my enemy.” If you do that, you better have brought your army, because that host will slay you on the spot. That’s the very imagery that’s being used.
SID: And we don’t know that imagery that’s written in the Bible. But once you comprehend that imagery, you then can be confident in your relationship with the living God. There doesn’t have to be, like my grandmother used to always say, “God works in such mysterious ways.”
CRAIG: No he doesn’t. God works exactly according to his Word. But let me say one other thing that’s critical. There could be somebody watching right now that says, oh my, I think I’ve done that. I think, I might have committed that unpardonable sin, or I might be the one that’s trampled underfoot the blood. You know how you could know? You know you know if you’re that person? Very simple. Hebrews, Chapter 6 says this: “That person who has done that is impossible to restore again to repentance.” What that means is if you’re repentant and you say, God, I want to change, I want you to heal my life, I want you to set me free, I’m in bondage, God is there for you. He will heal you. You’re not the person who’s done that. The person who has cut themselves off from God and died spiritually is the one that doesn’t want to know God, doesn’t want to have anything to do with God. If you’re even watching us today, that’s not you. You can know that God is for you if you repent today and say, cry out to the Lord and say, “God, help me,” he will be there for you, save you, heal you and bless you.
SID: And you will have experiential knowledge with the living God. This is eternal life that you might have experiential knowledge of him. Make Jesus your Lord. And if you’re a little back-slidden, no such thing as a little, get rid of that little. Confess your sins. Behold…
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth