Greeting Members and Friends
It time once again for our weekly Sunday School preview so thanks for joining me and welcome back. “An Everlasting Covenant” is our November unit focus. This Sunday’s lesson entitled “Promise of a New Covenant” is about God’s promise of a more personal individualized relationship between Himself and His people and about taking that relationship to a higher spiritual dimension.
At the time of this lesson, Israel had existed as a divided nation of North and South for many years under different kings. The Northern kingdom fell first to the Assyrian empire. The Southern kingdom survived for another 135 years before falling to the Babylonian empire. God used both of these empires to judge His people for their unfaithfulness. God used His prophet Jeremiah to foretell of this new covenant to His people just before the fall of the Southern kingdom. God uses Jeremiah to remind His people that they have no one to blame for their trouble but themselves. He had been faithful to them, but they had been unfaithful to the covenant He made with their fathers. So after they had suffered enough for their disobedience, He would make a new and better covenant with them.
The new covenant will not be just outward, but would affect them inwardly. It would become a part of them and not just something written down and read to them. And while God felt that He needed to judge His people for their unfaithfulness, He also reassured them He had not abandoned and forsaken them and never will nor ever stopped loving them. Some may wonder if this covenant is so much better than the previous covenant, why not start with this covenant to begin with. I can’t answer that question. I only trust and believe God has His own reasons for doing things the way He does them and they are always in the best interest of His people.
This new covenant began taking shape with the return of the first exiles back to the promised land their fathers were forced to leave after their captivity to foreign powers. Many of those who returned began to see God for the just, but merciful God He is. They began to develop a stronger personal relationship with God of the kind their fathers didn’t have. This new covenant relationship could only go so far without the Holy Spirit. But because of the redemptive work of our Lord Jesus Christ and the shedding of His blood on the cross and His resurrection, salvation and the Holy Spirit is made available to all and all are able to know and experience the full mercies and extent of the new covenant Jeremiah foretold about nearly 2600 years earlier.
As a result, we shall receive a greater condemnation than them because we have available to us so much more than what they had available to them. To get a fuller understanding of this lesson read the daily SS readings found in your SS book and on our website and mobile app. Well, that’s all for this week’s preview. Be sure to join us in Sunday School this week for a fuller discussion of this lesson and the general topic of an everlasting covenant. So, until then
Grace and peace
Pastor Jordan
