Respecting The Covenant

Reach down and pick up your Bibles, will you?

We'll get into the Word and see what the Holy Ghost does after we get the Word tonight.

Sometimes he moves and then we have the Word, and sometimes, you know, it's the other way around.

We're just willing to do whatever he wants.

Let's lift our Bibles up, wave them around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad.

Say this together, say Heavenly Father, thank God for the greater one.

I'm lined up with Him.

I'm on God's side.

That's the right side, and I know that he's with me because I'm lined up with Him.

In Jesus' name, amen, all right.

Hebrews 11 tonight, verse 24.

It's the latter part of the chapter of the hall of fame of faith.

I call it.

These were all Old Testament people and they did great things.

By faith, we can do greater things.

Verse 24, by faith, moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer a fliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, Estiming the reproach of Christ my margin says the reproach for Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward he had.

Respect Everybody, shout respect and by faith, he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.

And so tonight I just wanted to share a message entitled respecting the covenant.

Respecting the covenant Of course we have a better covenant than Moses, but Moses respected the covenant.

You know what power we have available to us in 2023 is the year of God's power, and it's no small connection between our respect of the covenant that we have with God a better covenant than Moses and when we respect that covenant, there's great power available.

We're not going to, you know, I was talking this morning about redemptive realities and how God wants to lavish all that he has upon us, and that power is available to the church.

But it's my job to see to it that you get your portion of goods that fall with unto you.

And when I say goods, I'm not just talking about wealth, I'm talking about everything health, victory, favor, things lined up at home.

And Jesus, we know, shed his blood once and for all.

That's all he needed to do.

He did it once and it's enough.

And so we have the Bible for us, we have the Word, we have the blood, we have the Holy Ghost.

We have all what we need to know in order to operate as sons of God.

That's what God's expecting us to do.

He wants us not to be like Junior.

Junior went to church all the time, never strayed, never did anything.

Bubba was a backslider when he got everything he needed to get and then, when he blew it, he came back and God reinstated him.

I mean, let's have at least enough brains to walk as sons and daughters of the most high.

Let's take our positions and our place.

In July of 2004, oral Roberts had a visitation when I went out the next six months later to talk to him about it and he told me that God, that Jesus, told him there's a wasting of power in the church.

Wasting of power and that can be a couple of different aspects.

Number one power has been given and not received.

Millions of Christians the power has been given.

They haven't received the baptism.

There hadn't been taught about it.

Or they've got pride about it.

Or they've got, they're afraid of it because somebody told them it was speaking in tongues of the devil.

You got all kinds of crazy stuff.

Or power was received and not used.

Our power was received and misused.

You can misuse God's power and but not respecting the covenant is one reason why many are living way below what's been paid for.

Just think about again.

We think about Bub and Junior this morning, the prodigal son and his brother.

I mean, the older brother was at the ranch.

He never strayed, but he was living way below what God wanted.

He wasn't in the family business.

He could have been signing contracts, he could have been making payroll, he could have been investigating a newer breed of cattle.

He could have been I mean, there's all kinds of things he could have done to be a blessing to the family business.

He just all wrapped up in the servanthood business, he's all wrapped up in being a doer instead of a leader.

You know we can do, but we need to lead, not respecting the covenant.

When you don't respect something then you don't look into all about it and you don't learn all about it.

You know, back a hundred years ago, airplanes were new, hadn't been around that long and you didn't have any airplanes flying from America to Europe.

I mean, you know, it's just too far over the Atlantic.

That didn't happen till late twenties.

I guess Lin Bird finally made the trip from New York to Paris, and first time.

But that wasn't even.

Still that wasn't commercial.

I mean, that was just an experiment and they didn't regularly go across that water for a long time.

So you, in order to get from Europe to America I mean you had the Atlantic passage you had to book passage on a ship, on like Queen Mary or something, and you buy that it takes five days, you know.

And so you know the ticket is expensive.

And of course you had first class, you know you had the top floors with all the fancy food and you went on down closer to the engines that you were, the more vibration and you know no windows and you know all of that.

So it was a cheaper ticket.

This guy tells a story of going out on the deck and seeing this guy.

Another passenger was huddled up underneath the one of the life boats that he was eating crackers.

Hey, buddy, what are you doing out here, don't?

You know they're serving dinner and you know in the dining room you can go in there and eat.

He said well, I just couldn't afford that kind of money.

You know I don't have a lot of money.

I just bought peanut butter and crackers to eat on the trip.

He said your food comes with a ticket.

A lot of people don't know what comes with a ticket.

A lot of people don't know what comes with the blood being shed for the name Amen.

And so here in Hebrews it says that Moses faith is noted.

It says by faith Moses forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured is seeing him who's invisible.

You know it says that he saw God by faith.

Your faith has eyes, it has ears, it has a nose, it can smell, it can hear.

I mean you know your faith has all the senses that your body has.

And Moses, he endured because he kept looking at God, he kept seeing God.

And then verse 26, it says he had respect under the recompense of the reward.

You know God keeps the books.

And over 35 years of ministry, I mean I've seen some people try to take shortcuts and they're short-sighted.

When they get tired of being persecuted, they get tired of the resistance.

You know the devil's always lined up against you when you walk by faith.

One of the biggest things that he will do is when you discover you're a threat.

The biggest things that he will do is when you discover your authority as a believer.

He will come against you with everything he has to move you out of that whole realm.

He keep you from operating in your God-given authority, but he'll come against you, whatever, whatever faith project you've got.

Some people just get tired of walking by faith, so they just relapse into walking away of the world.

And they're kind of religious, they pray after a fashion, but they just really don't.

They just too.

They don't realize that God is keeping the books and there is a recompense of reward for enduring.

Sometimes you'd have to endure between the amen and there it is, don't you?

We can pray about things and say amen, I believe it's on the way and we can start praising God, but there's still a seed time.

There's a time between the amen and there it is, and that's when you need to endure.

Takes faith.

So he had respect under the recompense of reward.

Under the recompense of reward, in other words, the word respect in the Greek apopleppo means to turn the eyes away from other things and fix them on one thing.

So in his case he turned his eyes away from his education, the fact that he was the son of Pharaoh's daughter by adoption.

She adopted him out of the river he's royalty.

But then, when he discovered his true bloodline, hebrew, he identified with the slaves and he'd rather be identified and take the reproach for Christ.

Why is it Christ?

Christ hadn't showed up, I know, but Christ is still the one in the covenant.

I mean, he's the one that appeared on the banks of the Jordan and said take off your shoes, josh, you're standing.

He had a sword.

He said are you with us?

Are you far as or against us?

I'm a Lord of the armies of heaven.

I mean, christ was there in the pillar of fire by night, the cloud, by day.

Christ was the center of the covenant.

So he had respect.

He took his eyes off of the natural, his scientific education, he was a builder, he was a brilliant person, highly influential.

He took his eyes off of all of that and he fixed them on a God they couldn't see.

He had respect, or you could say he focused exclusively.

It's a little easier to say that he focused exclusively on the recompense of the reward and, of course, beyond that, he had to focus exclusively on the God of that reward, the rewarder.

I said the rewarder, he focused on the rewarder.

Are y'all with me now Talking about respecting the covenant?

Kind of ties in with what we're speaking on and what we're gonna be speaking on about redemptive realities.

Because we're covenant people, we've gotta be people of great, we've gotta have great concentration right now.

We've gotta be able to turn our eyes away from all of the devils over here going look at me, look at me, I'm over here.

I'm over here and we've gotta just fix our eyes on the rewarder.

Praise God.

So he embraced suffering for Christ's sake.

Yeah, he suffered a lot, man.

I mean, you know, he's a young man.

When he was 40 years old, he was a young man.

Stephen said to the Jews, right before they stoned him and killed him as a martyr we find this out through Stephen Stephen started to get over into the prophetic realm and he said you know, it came into Moses' heart when he was about 40 years old to be the delivery of Egypt.

See, we didn't know that till Stephen preached it.

He got a little inside information, see.

So as a young guy he had just discovered his bloodline.

He got lined up with the slaves.

He felt sorry for them, he identified with them, he started looking at them, he started looking at their God, he started finding out about that covenant, he started progressing and then he got in the flesh.

You know, he did have a temper.

We talked about people that have faults this morning.

There are no flawless diamonds, amen.

Even the flawless diamonds are not flawless.

If it took flawless, we wouldn't be here.

But no, he's flawless, we're in him.

See, we don't have to worry about us being flawless.

You mean you could just.

No, I'm not saying we shouldn't do what we can do to improve and to lay aside things that we'll let in, but I'm saying we'll never be him.

We're him, we're in him, at least not in this life.

Later on, who knows what's gonna happen, it's gonna be a glorious time.

So, anyway, he focused exclusively on the recompense of reward and the reward area.

He had braced the suffering for Christ's sake.

He was covenant minded.

He looked to the invisible God, the covenant maker and the covenant keeper.

Now let's look at God's side of this thing, because he had a similar word about him, about God.

Let's look at Exodus, chapter two, way later.

See, he suffered a lot.

He's 40 years old.

He murdered that Egyptian.

He had to run for his life.

He had to run away from his heritage in Pharaoh's house.

He had to run away and he went to the backside of the desert, started a new life 40 years on the backside of the desert.

Any thought of ever delivering Egypt was gone, probably didn't even remember it, chose not to remember it Until one day God appeared to him in the burning bush.

So let's look at it.

Exodus, chapter two, verse 23.

Came to pass in process of time that the king of Egypt died.

The children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage, and God heard their groaning.

And God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob, and God looked upon the children of Israel and had respect unto them.

He had respect unto them.

Now that's over 400 years that they'd been in Egypt.

He told Abraham how it was gonna be.

400 and whatever.

30 years before.

He said they're gonna be evil and treated, but afterward they will come out with great substance.

He prophesied a transfer of wealth to Abraham, and so Israel cried out.

God heard, god remembered.

God looked upon the children of Israel.

God had respect.

In other words, he focused exclusively on the children of Israel.

And that's when, in the next chapter, he appeared to Moses and called him out of the burning bush Moses, moses.

So God reciprocated the respect that Abraham, isaac and Jacob had toward the covenant that they had.

You know, abraham had respect to the covenant.

You think about Abraham standing up before God on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah.

And he stood, one man stood between God and his wrath and a city.

You're gonna do the right thing, aren't you?

You wouldn't destroy the righteous with the wicked.

What if we find 50 righteous?

What if we find 50 righteous there?

You wouldn't destroy the city for 50.

Well, no, I won't do it for 50.

Well, okay.

Well, how about 40?

Well, how about 30?

How about 20?

How about 10?

What was he doing?

I'm telling you, he was acting in his covenant.

He was acting in his covenant and so it took all that time.

Well, the reason?

It was because God was lazy.

Was it because God was uncaring?

Well, no, there had to be.

In order for him to deliver the children of Israel, he told Abraham, you know, the cup of judgment was not yet full in Canaan land.

He could not legally take the land of Canaan away from them and give it to his kids, to Israel.

And besides that, he couldn't deal, despitefully, with Pharaoh.

Pharaoh had to fill a cup of judgment.

So two cups of judgment, one in Egypt, one in Canaan land had to fill up in order for God to legally do what he did.

Are y'all with me now?

God's always just.

God is perfectly just.

He's perfectly just with Satan.

A lot of people don't understand why Satan still got a lease on this work.

Because it's legal what he did I mean what he did was wrong, what he did was evil, but it's legal because of why?

Because Adam gave him that lease.

He's not gonna take it away from him until the time.

Are y'all with me now?

So I'm talking about the respect of the covenant, in other words, focusing exclusively on what God said and what he backed up by blood.

In the old covenant.

It was the blood of a bull.

One time Abraham said I don't know, how can this be?

I mean, why should I believe all this?

He said get me a heifer.

It was a heifer, sorry, get me a heifer.

And he split the heifer down and so that heifer was God's heifer.

That was shed.

The blood was shed on behalf of God and God effectively said if I don't do what I've promised to do for you, I'll cease to exist.

I'll die.

How many of you know?

God didn't die.

Look Magazine speculated is God dead in 1960?

I still remember as a kid looking at the Look Magazine.

Is God dead?

We think about the crummy news media today.

Well, it's been crummy for a lot of years.

So, yeah, I think about Joseph, as when he died, you know, he was still in Egypt.

He was the prime minister of Egypt.

He brought his family over and they multiplied and Joseph knew it was temporary.

Joseph knew that they were gonna leave.

They all knew, they all had the oral tradition, they had all of that.

And Joseph said don't you leave me here, you take my bones with you when you leave.

So he knew they were gonna be delivered, praise God.

So, and then you had this covenant respect.

Think about the 12 spies.

You had two of them.

It had covenant respect.

Joshua and Caleb focused exclusively on what God said they could have Canaan.

I'm giving you the promised land.

They focused exclusively on that covenant that he had cut with Abraham and they did not look at the giants.

They didn't look at the wall, since they knew they were there, but they didn't focus on that.

They focused on what God said they could do and that said well, we're well able.

They're bread for us.

Let's go up at once, take the land.

But the 10 spies.

No, they held sway and they didn't respect the covenant.

They focused exclusively on the enemy, they focused exclusively on the giants and on the wall cities.

Just think about how that made God feel.

What am I, chopliver?

Have I not done enough to prove to you people what I can do?

And now, when the chips are down, you're just gonna melt like a bunch of snowflakes.

God was angry.

You wanna get God mad, lose respect for the covenant.

I'm not saying God will smite you.

I'm not saying that.

I'm just saying don't you wanna please him?

I don't wanna make him mad, I wanna please him.

Yeah, oh, hallelujah.

Thank God for the promise and the promise keeper.

Now, israel often cried out without any faith, which basically is just murmuring and complaining.

There's one thing to cry in faith.

It's another thing to cry just murmuring and complaining and having a pity party.

So I guess my message tonight is be at just an ask a question what are you exclusively focused on?

It's a good time to check up on yourself.

It's a good time to just look at and what you're facing right now.

Some of you are facing some trials.

You're facing some financial trials, health trials.

We're all facing something.

Some of us are facing something right now.

Some of us just got through facing something and getting the victory.

Some of us are fixing to go into something.

I mean, it's just how it is, and the later the hour, the more crazy mad the devil is and the more unhinged are the attacks.

We are rapidly getting into a place of where the church is being persecuted like never before in the church in America.

I mean for decades, decades.

We really the persecution was all in foreign countries where they have communist governments, godless governments and all, and our government is so godless now that they're just taking the I got a hands off approach.

It's okay to take pot shots at the Christians now and the Jews Open anti-Semitism.

You've got Biden not even inviting a head of state to the White House.

He doesn't like Netanyahu.

He's trying to push for regime change.

He's trying to influence a foreign country's governmental choices.

That's the only democracy in the Middle East, only democracy there.

They're the only friends we have.

You think the Saudis are our friends?

Are you nuts?

They hate us.

What they say over there is, you know, first comes Saturday, then comes Sunday.

That's what they say.

First comes the Saturday people, that's the Jews.

Next comes the Sunday people, that's the Christians, and as far as they're concerned, america's still a Christian nation.

So they hate our guts.

When are we gonna understand that there's no, there's no peace treaty with these people?

They hate our guts and we let them make the anyway.

So my point is that there's, you know, gotta be a likelihood that we're gonna have to get exclusively focused on the God of our covenant, because some of the things that we've taken for granted, some of the things that we have relied on or getting termites and they're crumbling, pastor that sounds so bad.

Well, I'm not saying it's gonna happen tomorrow.

I'm saying you can see the future.

You can see what's gonna happen when the church leaves.

Man, if it's this bad with the church here, just think what it's gonna be like when we're gone, amen.

So anyway, getting back to you, what are you exclusively focused on?

Say, let's get ourselves tuned in, let's get over here on the side of God, god's side.

Let's quit making him move to our way, because he won't move our way.

We have to move his way, and it means that you've got to make an adjustment.

You know we'll make those adjustments, whatever they are, and turn your attention away from the circumstances.

I'm not saying you deny them.

I'm not saying you stick your head in the sand and act like there aren't any.

I'm saying you don't focus on them, you focus on your covenant.

And what did God say about that situation?

Everybody say I'm fixin' my eyes On the covenant keeper.

See, moses chose.

He had to make a choice.

He didn't do everything perfect.

He made a lot of mistakes.

But you know what he's written up in the Bible.

You look back at Abraham made a lot of mistakes.

He's in the Bible.

All of these people made mistakes.

All of these people missed it at one point or another.

They're all right here.

God is so proud of them.

God has respect under the stand they took.

We're gonna take that kind of stand.

Joshua and Caleb they chose.

Look at them.

They hung around 40 years in this group of people.

They suffered with them.

They did the right thing and they still suffered with them.

They didn't get to go in.

They didn't get.

Okay, y'all go ahead.

Go ahead, y'all go in in the promised land.

I've got a little spot.

No, they had to stay out there in the wilderness for these people for 40 more years.

They all chose and we have to choose Choose life, choose the word.

Choose faith, choose the rewarder and the reward that comes with him.

Respect the covenant.

Come on, lift your hands.

Glory to God.

Thank you, lord.

We're choosing tonight.

We're choosing to focus exclusively on what you have said.

Hallelujah, glory to God.

He's the God who cannot lie, like we were singing tonight.

He can do anything but fail.

He can't fail and he can't lie.

Hallelujah, did you get anything out of this tonight?

Praise God.

Well, let's praise him a little while.

Come on, let's just praise him.

Thank you, lord.

Thank you, lord, for the word of God.

Thank you, jesus.

Glory to God.

Now, I know that a lot of you just could say this just to be nice, but I mean this message hit home with you, particularly for things that you're facing right now.

I mean, right now, this is a message that really helps you gird up the loins of your mind.

You know your mind is assailed, we're under attack, but this message, if that's you, if this message really helped you to get your mind clarified about what you don't know exactly what you're gonna do, but you're focused right now, you're focused on this promise If that's you, just lift a hand, let me know that you.

This one went way, man, a lot of you.

Okay, pray, I hit, and I hit the message right.

Then Praise the Lord.

Most of you lifted your hand.

Glory to God.

Come on, let's rejoice a little bit more.

Hallelujah, the tide of the battle just turned.

You know, when you make that decision, see, that's a decision.

Only you can make it.

You can't, nobody can make it for you.

Over the years, these 35 years, there have been years that I just wanted something so bad for somebody.

I saw them struggling, I saw them in all kind of a mess and I just think, god, if I could, just if I could just take this from them, or if I could just make this decision for them.

Well, I can't.

Jesus did it, he took it, he paid for the answer Can't do better than Jesus, and so the best I could do is encourage them.

So, thank God that this message encouraged you.

Hallelujah, glory to God.

Thank you, lord.