The Double Edged Covenant

UV 1745/10000 The Double Edged Covenant
If thy children will keep my covenant and my testimony that I shall teach them, their children shall also sit upon thy throne for evermore.
Psalm 132 v 12

Our covenant relationship with the Lord is eternal or everlasting. It passes from generation to generation as long as our children keep the covenant and live testimonial lives in the way that the Lord and we have taught them. They will be greatly blessed and the nations will be blessed through them. They will occupy respectable seats wherever they go. The Lord will never lie to David or to us. He is faithful to His promises through a thousand generations. IF our children disobey their covenant, the Lord will correct, chastise and admonish them as a parent corrects her children. But He will not utterly forsake them. He will give them many chances to return to Him. A covenant relationship is a real time relationship tested by many changes in circumstances. In every situation or circumstance, the Lord will send His anointing, His enablement, His guidance, His empowerment, His protection and His specific Word. We prove our faithfulness by holding onto our hope and His Word even when the results we are hoping for are not yet visible or evident.

The Lord who placed His anointing on us, His word in our mouths will place His anointing on our children and on our children’s children. It shall not depart or leave their lives or their mouths. His Word is a spiritual seed that is planted in them and it will grow to bless and cause them to flourish in every way. Our descendants will retain the favour of the Lord forever. This uni-verse gives us the assurance that our generations will be blessed and that they will be a source of blessing. If good seed is planted it produces a good tree with good fruit. If evil seed is planted, it produces a bad tree with bad fruit. Similarly, some of David’s sons turned out to be evil like Absalom. The books of Kings and Chronicles is replete with testimonies of both kinds of heirs of kings- the good and the evil.

A covenant is not one –sided. It is mutually binding. This is the reason that when some of the heirs of kings of Israel departed from the anointing of David and they ceased to both fear and love the Lord, they lost the plot. They suffered defeat at the hand of their enemies and were routed and put to shame and even death. This is the reason this uni-veres begins with “If”. The blessings of covenant are conditional to the depth and intimacy of our relationship with the Lord. It is double-edged: if we are faithful to the covenant of our forefathers with the Triune God, we will be greatly blessed. If we prove ourselves faithless, we will be greatly punished and the grace of God or His favour is withdrawn from our lives. We are to imitate the positive actions and attitudes of the positive models in scripture and avoid the negative actions and attitudes of the negative models in scripture.

Prateep V Philip