(With your Bible in your hand)
MAKING A COVENANT WITH GOD
“We make a sure covenant and write it.” — Neh_9:38[PS1] .
“He is the Mediator of a better covenant.” — Heb_8:6[PS2] .
IT IS good for a soul to make a covenant with God. On his twenty-third birthday Milton[PS3] wrote these memorable words:
“Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,
It shall be still in strictest measure even
To that same lot, however mean or high,
Toward which Time leads me and the will of Heaven.
All is, if I have grace to use it so,
As ever in my great Taskmaster’s eye.”
This was his covenant with God; and through all the years, now in his prime under Cromwell, and again in his lovely old age under Charles II, he never swerved from the path he had selected.
Who can forget those magnificent lines of Wordsworth[PS4] , which tell how he was returning from a village merry-making, which had lasted through the night, and lo, the glory of a summer-dawn was breaking over the hills! He describes its beauty, and adds:
“Vows were made for me,
That I should be, else sinning greatly,
A dedicated spirit.”
There are certain principles outlined in these chapters in Nehemiah, which may well be included in our covenant with God:
(1) Never to allow anything in private or business life which is not in keeping with the high ideals of the Bible.
(2) To set aside a certain proportion of our income and time for the maintenance of the Work and House of God.
(3) To observe the Rest-Day.
But a covenant is between two. No resolution of ours is strong enough to keep us true. The most fervent protestations and vows may fail us in the day of trial, and our covenants are permanent only so far as God is party to them. But if Jesus is our Co-Signatory, there will be a safe-guard and certainty which all the powers of evil will not be able to overthrow.
Livingstone’s covenant with God was that he might heal the open plague-spot of the Arab slave-trade. A covenant like this, in some cases, has been signed with blood. This was D. L. Moody’s prayer, as a young man: “Great God, let the world learn, through my life, what Thou canst do by a man wholly devoted to Thee!”
PRAYER
We present to Thee, O God, ourselves to be a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable, our reasonable service. Fulfil through us the good pleasure of Thy goodness, and the work of faith with power. AMEN.
Evening
“He shall gather the lambs with his arm.” — Isa_40:11[PS5]
Our good Shepherd has in his flock a variety of experiences, some are strong in the Lord, and others are weak in faith, but he is impartial in his care for all his sheep, and the weakest lamb is as dear to him as the most advanced of the flock. Lambs are wont to lag behind, prone to wander, and apt to grow weary, but from all the danger of these infirmities the Shepherd protects them with his arm of power. He finds new-born souls, like young lambs, ready to perish-he nourishes them till life becomes vigorous; he finds weak minds ready to faint and die-he consoles them and renews their strength. All the little ones he gathers, for it is not the will of our heavenly Father that one of them should perish. What a quick eye he must have to see them all! What a tender heart to care for them all! What a far-reaching and potent arm, to gather them all! In his lifetime on earth he was a great gatherer of the weaker sort, and now that he dwells in heaven, his loving heart yearns towards the meek and contrite, the timid and feeble, the fearful and fainting here below. How gently did he gather me to himself, to his truth, to his blood, to his love, to his church! With what effectual grace did he compel me to come to himself! Since my first conversion, how frequently has he restored me from my wanderings, and once again folded me within the circle of his everlasting arm! The best of all is, that he does it all himself personally, not delegating the task of love, but condescending himself to rescue and preserve his most unworthy servant. How shall I love him enough or serve him worthily? I would fain make his name great unto the ends of the earth, but what can my feebleness do for him? Great Shepherd, add to thy mercies this one other, a heart to love thee more truly as I ought.
Morning
“And David said in his heart, I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul.” — 1Sa_27:1[PS6]
The thought of David’s heart at this time was a false thought, because he certainly had no ground for thinking that God’s anointing him by Samuel was intended to be left as an empty unmeaning act. On no one occasion had the Lord deserted his servant; he had been placed in perilous positions very often, but not one instance had occurred in which divine interposition had not delivered him. The trials to which he had been exposed had been varied; they had not assumed one form only, but many-yet in every case he who sent the trial had also graciously ordained a way of escape. David could not put his finger upon any entry in his diary, and say of it, “Here is evidence that the Lord will forsake me,” for the entire tenor of his past life proved the very reverse. He should have argued from what God had done for him, that God would be his defender still. But is it not just in the same way that we doubt God’s help? Is it not mistrust without a cause? Have we ever had the shadow of a reason to doubt our Father’s goodness? Have not his loving kindnesses been marvelous? Has he once failed to justify our trust? Ah, no! our God has not left us at any time. We have had dark nights, but the star of love has shone forth amid the blackness; we have been in stern conflicts, but over our head he has held aloft the shield of our defense. We have gone through many trials, but never to our detriment, always to our advantage; and the conclusion from our past experience is, that he who has been with us in six troubles, will not forsake us in the seventh. What we have known of our faithful God, proves that he will keep us to the end. Let us not, then, reason contrary to evidence. How can we ever be so ungenerous as to doubt our God? Lord, throw down the Jezebel of our unbelief, and let the dogs devour it.
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[PS1]Neh 9:38 “Now because of all this We are making an agreement in writing; And on the sealed document are the names of our princes, our Levites, and our priests.”
[PS2]Heb 8:6 But as it is, Christ has acquired a [priestly] ministry which is more excellent [than the old Levitical priestly ministry], for He is the Mediator (Arbiter) of a better covenant [uniting God and man], which has been enacted and rests on better promises.
- [PS3]John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, and civil servant best known for the epic Paradise Lost. Active during the English Civil War and Interregnum, he wrote influential prose like Areopagitica defending free speech and works advocating republicanism. Milton served as Secretary for Foreign Tongues under Cromwell, went blind by 1652, and later authored Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes, securing his place as one of English literature’s greatest figures.
Born:
9 Dec 1608
Died:
8 Nov 1674 (Bunhill Row, Middlesex, England)
- [PS4]William Wordsworth was an English Romantic poet whose collaboration with Samuel Taylor Coleridge on Lyrical Ballads (1798) helped launch the Romantic Age in English literature. Known for his focus on nature and common life, he challenged poetic conventions through plain language and emotional sincerity. His major works include The Prelude and Tintern Abbey. He served as Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death in 1850.
Born:
7 Apr 1770 (Cockermouth)
Died:
23 Apr 1850 (Rydal Mount, Westmorland, England)
[PS5]Isa 40:11 He will protect His flock like a shepherd, He will gather the lambs in His arm, He will carry them in His bosom; He will gently and carefully lead those nursing their young.
[PS6]1Sa 27:1 But David said in his heart, “Now I will die one day by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than to escape to the land of the Philistines. Then Saul will give up searching for me inside the borders of Israel, and I will escape from his hand [once and for all].”
