I Promise by Pastor Ed Young

Well, today I’m continuing this series called “Love Affair,” so let’s bow for a word of prayer. [Ed leads in prayer.]

A covenant is a blood bond of life and death. In our modern day vernacular we might call a covenant a commitment on steroids. So a covenant is a blood bond of life and death. Our culture would say it’s a commitment on steroids. The word covenant is used throughout the Bible. All you have to do is thumb through the Scriptures and you’ll see this word. It’s mentioned 286 times. A covenant, a covenant, a covenant.

God was always making covenants with his people. I want to draw your attention to one of the covenants that God made to a guy named Abram. God made this covenant with Abram and they got together. It’s a very interesting situation how it plays out.

Genesis 12:1-3, “The Lord had said to Abram, ‘Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go the land I’ll show you…”

Abram was a squillioniare. Don’t think about a mom and a dad and 2.3 kids and maybe a dog and a cat just moving from one area to another. Abram, who lived in Ur of the Chaldeans, was commissioned by God to move to this new tract of land, this ultimate piece of real estate, Canaan. Think Bill Gates. Think of a Fortune 500 company moving from one area to another area. That’s the picture.

Let’s continue reading. In verse 2 God says, “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

What does this word blessing mean? Blessing means to be on the receiving end of the supernatural favor of God.

At the end of your life you will groan, when your flesh and body are spent. You will say, ‘How I hated discipline! How my heart spurned correction! I would not obey my teachers or listen to my instructors. I have come to the brink of utter ruin in the midst of the whole assembly.’ Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well. Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares? Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers. May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer—may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be captivated by her love. Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress? Why embrace the bosom of another man’s wife? For a man’s ways are in full view of the LORD, and he examines all his paths. The evil deeds of a wicked man ensnare him; the cords of his sin hold him fast.”