God’s Remembrance of His Covenant

God's Remembrance of His Covenant

(No. 1886)

A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S DAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 14, 1886,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"Nevertheless He regarded their affliction, when He heard their cry:
And He remembered, for their sake, His Covenant, and repented according
to the multitude of His mercies." Psalm 106:44,45.

THIS Psalm deserves to be read very carefully. It mentions many of the
afflictions of God's ancient people, but it clearly sets forth that
their afflictions were the distinct result of their rebellions and
sins. It is not so with all the afflictions of God's people. It is
written, "As many as I love I rebuke and chasten." And again, "Every
branch in me that bears fruit, He purges it, that it may bring forth
more fruit." Yet it is often so to this day that the servants of God
smart because of disobedience. They are chastened for their sin, as it
is written, "You only have I known of all the people of the earth,
therefore I will punish you for your iniquities." Sin in a child of God
cannot go unchastened. The rod of chastisement is included in the
Covenant and, if we are in the Covenant, the Lord will keep His
promise. "If his children forsake My law, and walk not in My judgments,
then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity
with stripes."

The miseries of Israel of old were distinctly the result of their sins.
They lived under a dispensation in which there was a visible reward for
obedience and a prompt temporal punishment for disobedience. Therefore
one might suppose that if the people fell into affliction willfully and
through their own fault, the Lord might see fit to leave them in it.
Did they not procure it unto themselves? Yet such is the abundant
compassion of our God, that as soon as ever these people, smarting
under the result of their sin, began to cry to Him, "He regarded their
affliction when He heard their cry." He might have justly said, "Go to
the gods that you have set up; tell your sorrows to the calves that you
have made. Ask succor at the hands of the dead whom you have consulted,
or of the cruel deities to whom you have sacrificed your sons and your
daughters." But instead of thus meeting them in righteous wrath, He is
tender and full of compassion for them!

I will read you the words again, for they are inexpressibly
sweet–"Nevertheless He regarded their affliction, when He heard their
cry." There is something very powerful about the cry of a child to its
own parent and God, the most tender of all fathers, cannot bear to hear
His children cry–

"Such pity as a father has

Unto his children dear,

Like pity shows the Lord to such

As worship Him in fear."

If there are any here who are brought low and sorely distressed through
their own wrong-doing, let them, nevertheless, cry unto the Lord.
Though it is because of your transgressions and your iniquities that
you are afflicted, yet you may cry unto the Lord in your trouble and He
will save you out of your distresses. Turn unto the hand that wounds
you and that hand will bind you up. Turn unto the Lord in repentance
and He will turn unto you in loving kindness.

What was the secret reason why God thus dealt with His people and heard
their cry when they were in affliction through their sin? The secret
reason was that, "for their sake He remembered His Covenant." If He
looked upon His people in their sin and their sorrow, He could not see
anything in them to justify why He should have pity upon them. What
they endured they richly deserved and He knew that if He took away His
rod from them, they would go and commit the same wickedness again. They
were not to be driven by judgment nor drawn by mercies. Though they
humbled themselves for one moment, they would soon be proud again! The
Lord could see nothing hopeful about them, nothing in their future any
more than in their past which should plead for mercy.

Why should they be smitten any more? Or why should gentleness be
further wasted on them? Was it not high time to say, "They are given to
their idols, leave them alone, that We may see what their end will be"?
One Divine reason prevented the infliction of justice–this, and this
alone, sufficed–"for their sake He remembered His Covenant." If He
could not see anything in the erring people, or hope for anything from
them, He looked to another source for a motive and an argument for
mercy–He looked to the Covenant which He had made of old with their
father, Abraham, when He said, "Surely, blessing I will bless you, and
in you and in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed."
Because He had once permitted that promise to go out of His mouth, He
would not withdraw it! And when He heard their cry, He regarded their
affliction. Is it not a great wonder that God not only is willing to
give mercy, should there be a manifest reason for it, but that He,
Himself, finds and makes the reason? When there is no motive for Grace
discoverable to our anxious eyes, there is a fountain of self-created
mercy in the Lord's own heart–and this He causes to overflow and fill
a channel of His own making! Though there is nothing in the creature,
there is everything in the Covenant. If the Lord can find no plea in
the character of the offender, He discovers an argument in Himself–He
remembers His own Covenant and, for His own name's sake, He deals in
mercy with the guilty!

Now, observe that in the text it does not say, "He remembered their
covenant." They stood at the foot of Sinai and said, "All these things
which You have commanded, we will do!" They willingly, eagerly,
hastily, loudly entered into a covenant with God, before whose terrible
thunders they trembled. But that covenant they soon broke. Within a few
days they had departed from the living God and fallen down before the
image of an ox which eats grass! The Lord does not dwell upon the
matter, since it would be to their destruction. He forgets their
falseness and treachery and casts them behind His back. But what He
does remember is His Covenant–"Nevertheless, for their sake, He
remembered His Covenant." This proves that the Covenant referred to
must have been one of pure Grace.

Do you not see this? These people were in affliction through sin! If
that Covenant had only been a Covenant of Works, in which they were to
be rewarded for good and punished for evil, the more the Lord
remembered that Covenant, the more He would have been bound to punish
them for their offenses! But a Covenant which led Him to cease from
punishing the guilty must have been one of only Grace! Is it not so? A
Covenant was made long before that of Sinai, a Covenant of Grace which
is called, in Scripture, "the everlasting Covenant." This was made
known to man in that first promise which was given to him at the gates
of Paradise and it was, afterwards, revealed more clearly in the Lord's
Covenant with Noah and in His gracious promises to Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob.

The Lord said to Abraham, "I will establish My Covenant between Me and
you and your seed after you in their generations for an everlasting
Covenant, to be a God unto you and to your seed after you." This same
Covenant, after being made more fully known in promises to Moses and
other saintly men, was stated anew in the Lord's dealings with His
servant, David, whom He exalted as one chosen out of the people–"I
have made a Covenant with My chosen, I have sworn unto David, My
servant, Your seed will I establish forever and build up your throne to
all generations." Since then the Lord has given us promises, by His
Prophets and Apostles, and specially in the Person and ministry of His
only-begotten Son. All these various forms of manifestation relate to
one and the same Everlasting Covenant ordered in all things and sure,
which God had made with men in the person of His dear Son. It was that
Covenant which God thought upon and, when He remembered it, He was able
to deal with them upon terms of Grace, and even to change His hand and
no longer crush them with afflictions, for He "repented according to
the multitude of His mercies."

Dear Brothers and Sisters, I want to show, this morning, how this
remembrance of the Covenant on God's part is the great ground of hope
to all of us who are in Covenant with God. Indeed, the Lord's
mindfulness of His Covenant is the ground of hope to everyone of you,
whether as yet you have embraced the Gospel promise or not! Inasmuch as
God must, according to His Law, look upon you with anger on account of
your sin, He has devised a way by which He can have regard unto the
voice of your cry! Remembering His Covenant, He can pass by your
transgressions and receive you as His returning children into the bosom
of His love!

I. The first head of our discourse will be this–THE COVENANT EXISTS.
God cannot remember, to any practical purpose, that which does not
exist. Had the Covenant been repealed or abrogated, it could not have
availed for God to remember it, except to strike the people into a more
complete and settled despair. In love He remembered the Covenant as an
abiding thing, according to the Word of God, "My Covenant will I not
break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of My lips."

Beloved, the Covenant is, in its own nature, everlasting. Dying David
said, "Although my house is not so with God, yet has He made with me an
everlasting Covenant, ordered in all things and sure." The Covenant is
everlasting in its beginning, for it was made, "or ever the earth was,"
between the first Divine Person of the sacred Trinity and the Second,
on the behalf of His chosen. It is everlasting, also, as to its
duration, for all things are still governed under this Covenant, and
shall be, world without end. "And I will establish My Covenant between
Me and you and your seed after you in their generations, for an
everlasting Covenant." "Thus says the Lord, if you can break My
Covenant of the day, and My Covenant of the night, and that there
should not be day and night in their season; then may also My Covenant
be broken with David, My servant." Sooner shall the Covenant with the
earth concerning seedtime and harvest be broken, than this Covenant of
Grace. By everything that is permanent in the universe and by
everything that is permanent in the Godhead, we are made to know that
the Covenant of Grace is a fixed and settled thing and abides today as
it always has done, for there is no variableness nor turning with Him
from whom every good gift comes down.

The promises in Christ Jesus are Yes and Amen, to the Glory of God by
us. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but not one jot or tittle of the
Law shall fail, much less shall the Covenant of Divine Grace be
disannulled. Thus says the Lord– "The mountains shall depart and the
hills be removed; but My kindness shall not depart from you, neither
shall the Covenant of My peace be removed, says the Lord that has mercy
on you." God, in remembering His Covenant, falls back upon everlasting
and immutable things!

Well may the Covenant of Grace be everlasting, for it was made with
deliberation and foresight. If two persons enter into a contract and
one, afterwards, wishes to escape from it, he may plead that he made
the agreement in great haste, or under compulsion, or through being
misinformed and over-persuaded–on any of these grounds he may object
to the fulfillment of the covenant and thus may attempt to justify his
failure to keep his word. Now, on God's part, nothing of the kind can
ever be urged, for He made the Covenant, Himself, on His own
suggestion, according to the good pleasure of His will. It was a free
Covenant, entered into through the love of His own heart, according to
the wise counsel of His infinite mind. He made it knowing all that
would happen in time or in eternity! When He made the promise that
whoever believes in Christ Jesus shall have everlasting life, He knew
that those who believed in Christ Jesus would, nevertheless, be
fallible creatures and would commit mistakes and sins–He made the
promise well knowing what Believers would be!

When He chose Abraham to be His friend, He knew what failures there
would be in Abraham and in his seed. He made His choice deliberately,
knowing the end from the beginning and foreseeing all the provocations
which He would endure for 40 years in the wilderness–and how they
would anger Him when they came to their own land. His choice of His
redeemed was made deliberately and the promises made to them were given
forth in the full foresight of all our unbelief, lukewarmness,
backsliding, selfishness and folly! The Lord is not deceived in the
subjects of His Grace. Hear how He puts it in the 48th of Isaiah, verse
four–"Because I knew that you are obstinate, and your neck is an iron
sinew, and your brow brass." And again, verse eight–"I knew that you
would deal very treacherously, and were called a transgressor from the
womb." Man's love is blind, but the Lord's love sees all things–

"He saw me ruined in the Fall Yet loved me notwithstanding all." He
knew as well in that day when He called me, by His Grace, what I should
be as He knows today! Every fault and folly stood clear before His
vision and yet, notwithstanding all, He determined to give faith and,
through faith, to give eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord!

Dear Friends, every promise in the Bible is a part of the Covenant. The
Covenant that now stands between the Believer and his God is on this
wise, that you take Him to be your God and He takes you to be His
people. He gives His promises to you and you rely upon them. He will
bless you in this life and perfect you in the world to come. The tenor
of the Covenant is not according to what you deserve, but according to
the greatness of the Lord's love! In making this Covenant, it is clear
that God knew from the beginning what He was doing. He made no mistake
and said no more than He intended to fulfill. He deliberately said, "I
will be their God, and they shall be My people." And in the day wherein
we believed in Him, He guaranteed to us that we should never perish,
neither should any pluck us out of His hand. This Covenant was made
with such judicious deliberation and Infallible foresight, that there
is no conceivable reason why it should be revoked. God is not a man
that He should lie or repent.

Moreover–and this is a point to which every child of God delights to
turn his eyes–that covenant was sealed and ratified in the most solemn
manner. When God made a Covenant with Abraham, there was a slaying of
sacrifices and a dividing of their bodies and the Lord, under the image
of a burning lamp, passed between the pieces–in this solemn
sacrificial manner was the Covenant established. But when the Lord made
a Covenant with us, the seal He gave was much more precious. He took
from His bosom His only-begotten Son and He gave Him to be a Covenant
to His people. He died to make the eternal Covenant sure. Paul speaks
of "the blood of the everlasting covenant" and when we come to the
communion table we hear our Lord say, "This cup is the new covenant in
My blood." Jesus has gone into Heaven bearing with Him the blood of
sprinkling! Can God deny His promise to His bleeding Son? Can He run
back from the promise which He has made to the Only-Begotten in His
death? "By His knowledge shall My righteous Servant justify many; for
He shall bear their iniquities." Can these promises fail? Impossible!
The very thought would be blasphemous! A Covenant which has been made
in so solemn a manner, by the death of our great Surety and Sacrifice,
can never be repealed, neglected, or changed!

My dear Brothers and Sisters, we may rest fully sure that this Covenant
will stand because the Divine Glory is wrapped up in it. Why did God
promise to save men through faith in Christ Jesus? Why? That He might
manifest to angels, principalities and powers, the splendor of His love
and the riches of His Grace! He has selected for this reason the very
worst of men, that in them He might show forth all long-suffering and
display the magnificence of His pardoning love. He selected beings that
were depraved and subject to grievous temptations that, by regenerating
them by His Spirit and sustaining them by His Grace, He might display
the greatness of His power! We are witnesses to time and to eternity of
the Glory of the Lord! Are not these His own words–"This people have I
formed for Myself: they shall show forth My praise"? The manifestation
of the glorious love of God is the design of the Covenant–that where
sin abounded, Grace might much more abound! He intends to show to all
the ages His Truth, His faithfulness, His patience, His tenderness and
His power. He designs to set Heaven and earth wondering until the whole
universe breaks forth into the song– "Who is a God like unto You, that
pardons iniquity and passes by the transgression of the remnant of His
heritage? He retains not His anger forever because He delights in
mercy."

God is more glorified in the Covenant of Grace than in creation, or in
Providence–in fact, creation and Providence are but the temporary
scaffold of the great house which God is building, even the God who
inhabits the praises of Israel! The Lord cannot break His Word, nor
forego His designs, nor forget His promises. Do not even think it! The
crown jewels of God are staked and pawned upon the carrying out of the
Covenant of Grace!

Furthermore, it is not possible for God to break a Covenant. When you
and I stand and tremble before a Divine promise for fear it should not
be fulfilled, we cast a slur upon the truth, faithfulness and
Immutability of God. Has He ever changed? Has He ever been false? Has
He ever lifted His hand and sworn by Himself, because He could swear by
no greater and by two Immutable things wherein it was impossible for
God to lie–has He given us strong consolation and yet has He failed
us? Far from it! Brothers and Sisters, there has been nothing in the
past to cast suspicion upon the veracity of Jehovah! Therefore, should
we doubt Him or distrust His Covenant?

My text gives us an instance of a great strain that was put upon the
Covenant. These people whom God had chosen to be His heritage
constantly provoked Him! I cannot imagine a greater extent of sin than
that which is pictured in this 106th Psalm. The chosen seed were
degraded below other nations–they had forsaken their own God to go
after alien deities. Was it ever known in any other case that a nation
changed her gods? Yet Israel departed from the one living and true God
willfully and wantonly, times without number! And God, instead of
breaking His Covenant because of their treachery, had pity upon them!
When He found them in the throes of their grief as the result of their
sin, He turned His eyes upon His Covenant and, because of that
Covenant, He delivered them!

From which I gather that the Covenant purpose of God to save His own
people shall stand fast, come what may. "If we believe not, yet He
abides faithful: He cannot deny Himself." They that trust in the Lord,
notwithstanding all the enormous weight of their sin, shall find Him
faithful to His Word of pardon. He will keep His Word to sinners who
put their trust in Him–and they shall be saved. Oh, glorious fact, the
Covenant still exists!

II. But, secondly, THIS COVENANT IS TOO OFTEN FORGOTTEN BY US. The
children of Israel had quite forgotten the Covenant of their God.
Elijah said, "They have forsaken Your Covenant." Starting aside like a
deceitful bow

which fails the archer in the day of battle, they had been false to
their God and useless for those great purposes for which He had chosen
and ordained them. Have we not failed in the same manner?

Are not God's people at this day chargeable with forgetting the
Covenant by their unspiritual carelessness? Have you thought of
yourself, my Brothers and Sisters, as covenanted ones, as ones with
whom God has entered into solemn compact, saying, "I am your shield and
your exceedingly great reward: I am God Almighty: walk before Me, and
be you perfect"? Have you realized your position as in covenant with
God? When you have been staggered with its wonderful condescension and
blessedness, as I have often been, have you not soon forgotten your
great obligation and thought only of earthly things? Have you not
doubted your God because you have forgotten His Covenant? When Heaven
and earth were rejoicing, Zion said, "The Lord has forsaken me, and my
Lord has forgotten me." Under such a slanderous charge, the Lord is
gladly to speak with plaintive earnestness and ask, "Can a woman forget
her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of
her womb? Yes, she may forget, yet will I not forget you. Behold, I
have engraved you upon the palms of My hands; your walls are
continually before Me." Let it be realized by us and not passed over in
a wicked carelessness, that as many as believe in Christ Jesus are in
covenant with God and He has promised not to turn away from doing them
good.

This cannot be better described than as a marriage covenant, even as it
is written in the Book of the Prophet Ho-sea–"And I will betroth you
unto Me forever; yes, I will betroth you unto Me in righteousness, and
in judgment, and in loving kindness, and in mercies. I will even
betroth you unto Me in faithfulness: and you shall know the Lord." O my
Brother and Sister Believers, as the man puts the ring on the woman's
finger and the words are said, and she is his, and he is hers, so has
God, by giving you faith, put the ring on your finger once and for
all–and you are His and He is yours– and He says to you, today, "You
shall not be for another; so will I also be for you." Our response
should be–"Other lords have had dominion over us, but now we are the
Lord's alone." Oh, you covenanted ones, angels look at you with wonder!
They regard you as the favorites of Heaven and yet you forget this and
live as if there were no Covenant between God and you.

Sometimes, too–and in the case of Israel it was so–we get away from
that Covenant by wanton sin, or by negligent omission of most
delightful duties. I need not go into the story of Israel, again. You
see in this Psalm how they transgressed. They took no notice of the
Covenant they had made with God, but violated all His precepts. May I
ask whether we have not been guilty of this same sin? May not each man
bury his face in his hands as he confesses, "My God, You know how often
I have acted as if I were not in covenant with You. I have lived as if
I were my own master instead of yielding myself wholly to Your service.
I have sometimes acted as a man of the world would have done, and not
as one that belonged to Christ"? Be ashamed and be confounded for all
this! And then wonder and admire that Covenant still stands and the
Lord has not recalled his gracious promises. He says, "Nevertheless I
will remember My Covenant with you in the days of your youth and I will
establish unto you an everlasting Covenant." This ought to yield in our
hearts a harvest of repentance. It should bind us to God with intense
affection that should tend towards perpetual sanctification from this
day and onward!

These people had forgotten their God for another reason, namely, in the
depth of their sorrow. A great sorrow stuns men and makes them forget
the best sources of consolation. A little blow will cause great pain,
but I have frequently heard, in reports of assaults, that far more
serious blows have occasioned no pain, whatever, because they have
destroyed consciousness. So do extreme distresses rob men of their wits
and cause them to forget the means of relief. Under the chastening rod,
the smart is remembered and the healing promise is forgotten! The
people of Israel, when they were under the afflicting visitations of
God, failed to remember His Covenant from the crushing effect of their
sorrow and despair. Is it so with any of us? I may be addressing at
this moment an ear which has grown dull through grief, a heart that is
forgetful because of heaviness. Do not men even forget to eat bread in
the hour of dire calamity? Ah, my Brother! Your affliction seems more
present to you than even God, Himself! The black sorrow that lowers
over you eclipses all the lamps of Heaven and earth!

May I be my Master's messenger to you, to remind you that He is still
in covenant with you and though He causes grief, yet will He have
compassion? He has said, "All things work together for good to them
that love God," and He will keep His Word. He has also said, "When you
pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers,
they shall not overflow you; when you walk through the fire, you shall
not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon

you." Depend upon it, He will preserve you! "Cast your burden upon the
Lord, and He shall sustain you; He shall never suffer the righteous to
be moved." Remember, "He does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the
children of men," but in love He corrects and chastens. Therefore,
brush those tears away, anoint your head, wash your face and be of good
courage, for the Lord will strengthen your heart–

"What cheering words are these!

Their sweetness who can tell?

In time and to eternal days,

'Tis with the righteous well."

Oh that you could learn to sing in the dark like the nightingale and
praise God out of the midst of the furnace like the three holy
children! Oh that you may cry with Job, "Though He slay me, yet will I
trust in Him!" This is what you should do and it may help you to do it
if you will remember the Covenant which God has not forgotten.

O Soul, why do you forget the Covenant? Fall back upon it and sing with
Habakkuk, "Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit
be on the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields
shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and
there shall be no herd in the stalls: yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I
will joy in the God of my salvation!" According to the Covenant, God is
to be everything to you. The Covenant does not stipulate that you shall
not lose your friends, nor does it promise that you shall not lose your
property, nor that you shall have no sick-ness–the Covenant is that
God will be everything to you. Take care that you use Him as such.
"These things have I spoken unto you," said our Lord, "that in Me you
might have peace. In the world you shall have tribulation, but be of
good cheer; I have overcome the world." If you have received the
tribulation, be not satisfied till you have enjoyed the peace in Jesus
which is equally promised! Alas, God's people forget this Covenant! We
have said enough upon this.

III. Though we forget the Covenant, yet GOD REMEMBERS HIS
COVENANT–"For their sake He remembered His Covenant." What does this
word mean? Beloved, of course the Covenant is always on the mind of
God, for the infinitely wise God cannot forget anything. But the text
means that He stands to His Covenant–He remembers it so as to cause it
to abide. Even though these people had so grievously provoked Him, He
remembers His Covenant so as to find in it a reason for pardoning their
sin and dealing with them in a way of mercy. He meets the flood of
their sins with the flood of His faithfulness–"Nevertheless for their
sake He remembered His Covenant." He remembers it practically, that is,
He puts it into effect and, in this case, He did so by repenting
"according to the multitude of His mercies." He had formerly smitten
them, but now He puts the rod away. He made His people to be pitied of
all them that carried them away captive. He came to their relief and
succor. And this is just what God will do with you, my afflicted
Friend, if you turn to Him with cries and tears and a humble, penitent
faith! He will remember, for your sake, His Covenant by acting in a
covenant way towards you, according to that word in the Book of
Zechariah, "As for you, also, by the blood of your covenant I have sent
forth your prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water."

Friend, God must remember His Covenant, for He can never forget what
the making of that Covenant has cost Him. It cost Him nothing to make
the heavens and the earth–He spoke and it was done. It costs him
nothing to rule the nations–in the serenity of His Omnipotence, the
Lord sits upon the floods–the Lord sits King forever. But to make the
Covenant with man and to carry it out, cost Him His innermost Self! It
cost Him His Only-Begotten–the eternal Son, the Well-Beloved, must die
the death of the Cross–so that the Covenant may be established!
Covenant-making was no trifle with God. I have heard people speak
sneeringly of the Covenant. Indeed, no one of note preaches upon it,
now, but yet it is the grandest of themes. It is a wondrous fact
Godward, for it cost Him His dear Son's heart's blood. "It pleased the
Father to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief," that this Covenant
might be fulfilled and eternally settled!

See how readily God turns to this Covenant. You can be sure that He
delights in it, for no sooner do His children cry than He, at once,
remembers for their sakes, His Covenant. It was only a cry forced from
them by misery, but instead of upbraiding them for the past and
shutting out their cry, He straightway remembered His Covenant! When a
man is easily reminded of a thing, it shows that it is agreeable to him
to think of it. We are sure that God's heart is much wrapped up in the
Covenant of Grace since the feeble cries of His children remind Him of
it.

1 think, however, the reason why God remembers His Covenant most of all
is because He remembers with whom He made it. A certain man had lived
abroad for a while and there he found a friend with whom, for years, he
enjoyed delightful fellowship. In due time he returned to England, to
carry on a business, but he never forgot his friend. He had promised
and entered into brotherly covenant, that he would help his friend's
family and so, in due season, he received into his

employment the young son of his old friend. And he was minded to
instruct him and help him, and promote his interests. He had given his
friend his right hand and said, "Trust your boy with me. I will see him
through." The youth came to London and entered the service of his
father's friend, with every prospect bright before him. But, alas, the
boy proved unworthy. He fell into all sorts of vices and follies and
grieved his friend–his father's friend. His employer said, "I shall be
glad to get rid of this fellow for he is a burden to me. I cannot
advance him for he is unworthy of my favor." Look how loath he is to
deal severely with the boy, for his father's sake! He calls him into
his private office and pleads and reasons with him. He says, "I have
borne more with you than with anyone else in my establishment.
Remember, it is for your father's sake. Had it not been for my promise
to your father, I would have dismissed you long ago." One day he cries,
"I really must dismiss him! He must go." But he thinks of the father
and of their days of fond familiarity with each other and he cannot
bear to deal harshly with the son of such a man and, therefore, he
says, "I will try him again; I will still bear with him, for my
promise's sake, which I made to his father."

Now I am sure it was so with God and the seed of Abraham. These people
had revolted and rebelled continually, but the Lord remembered Abraham,
His friend. A memory rose before the Divine mind of the faithful man
lifting the knife to slay his only son, Isaac, in obedience to the Most
High. As the Lord saw that act of believing obedience, He seemed to
say, "I will still have pity on his offspring–they are the most
undeserving and provoking people that ever breathed, but I have entered
into a Covenant with Abraham, My friend, and therefore I will have pity
upon them." The fact is, with regard to the great God and you and me,
that He would often say, "I must destroy them." But then He thinks of
His dear Son upon the Cross. He hears ringing through the midnight of
that great day of sorrow, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"
And the great heart of God is moved to pity us because of the death of
His Son. There is merit enough in Jesus to remove all the demerit of
our sins!

The great God was not thinking of a dead man when He thought of
Abraham. Our Savior tells us, "God is not the God of the dead, but of
the living." Abraham is with God and God looked at Abraham, His living
friend, and restrained His indignation when Abraham's children provoked
Him. Jesus also lives! He has gone up on high; He sits at the right
hand of God and when the Lord has looked at us and grown weary of our
sins, He turns His eyes upon the perfections of His dear Son and He is
well pleased, for His righteousness' sake, for He has magnified the Law
and made it honorable. Thus the Lord turns back to the Covenant made
with Jesus–He hears our cries and remembers, for our sake, His
Covenant. Oh, the Grace of this! Because of Him with whom the Covenant
of Grace is made, who is forever the Father's delight and the joy of
His soul, the Father has compassion on us! Does it not make you pray,
"Behold, O God, our shield, and look upon the face of Your Anointed"?
Or, to quote our hymn, do we not say–

"Him and then the sinner see, Look through Jesus' wounds on me?"

The Person of the Lord Jesus is the Substance and Seal of the Covenant
of Grace and God remembers it because He remembers Him!

IV. I will finish with this last point, which I am sure you will feel
to be of the utmost importance. If God remembers, for our sake, His
Covenant, LET US REMEMBER IT. You that are the Lord's covenanted ones,
think of the sacred promise and begin to enjoy it and live upon it
practically. What is the Covenant? Here is one form of it–"I am God
Almighty; walk before Me, and be you perfect." That is an early and
condensed shape of it, that is to say, the Lord God Almighty gives
Himself up to be our portion and we are to yield ourselves to Him, to
walk before Him in perfect obedience. This also is the Covenant–"I
will be their God, and they shall be My people." Come, Beloved, make
God your God. This means–make God your everything! Say not, "I am
poor." Not so, for God is yours and so all things are yours! Say not,
"I am weak." Not so, God Almighty is yours–when you are weak, then you
are strong. "But I have no wisdom." Is not the Lord Jesus made of God
unto us wisdom, righteousness and sanctification? He that has God has
everything!

Will you belittle your God and limit the Holy One of Israel? Come, find
your all in God! This is your part of the covenant, to accept God as
being to you what He says He is. He has made Himself to be your All in
All–accept Him as such. Did not David say, "He is all my salvation,
and all my desire"? This is the portion and heritage of the children of
God. "Cursed be the man that trusts in man and makes flesh his arm; but
blessed is the man that trusts in the Lord and whose hope the Lord is."
Cast yourself upon the Covenant and find rest in it. Sing in your heart
of hearts–

"He that has made my Heaven secure Will here all good provide, Since
Christ is rich, can I be poor? What can Ineei beside?"

"The Lord is my shepherd: I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in
green pastures: He leads me beside the still waters." Oh, the blessed
result of standing to the Covenant and letting God be our All in All!

In this Covenant it is incumbent that we rest alone in our God. You
have not taken God to be your God if you cannot be content with Him,
alone. Abraham forsook everything for God. He went to a country he had
never seen, followed a path that had never been mapped out and God said
to him, "Fear not, Abram: I am your shield." He was in the midst of
enemies who would have destroyed him but for the mysterious protection
which surrounded him like a shield. The Lord's word had gone forth,
"Touch not My anointed and do My Prophets no harm." Abraham had no
shield but his God and yet no man in the world dwelt in greater safety!
God said to him, "I am your shield and your exceedingly great
reward"–and so He was! Abraham once lamented that he had no seed and
that the steward of his house was his only heir. But the Lord who had
promised him a seed yet said to him," I am your exceedingly great
reward." Not the seed, but his God must be his joy and crown! And
Abraham felt it was so and, therefore, stood ready to surrender that
seed if the Lord commanded.

That is what the Lord would have you do, Beloved. Look not to what is
seen with the eyes. Listen not to what is heard with the ear. Live in
the secret place of the tabernacle of the Most High–in the place where
faith takes the place of sense. Endure as seeing Him who is invisible.
Penetrate into the substance which is unseen and pass by the shadow
which is all that sense can discern. Live on the living God and then
you know the secret of the Covenant! Your soul shall dwell at ease and
your seed shall inherit the earth! Your soul shall be satisfied as with
marrow and fatness and you shall praise the Lord with joyful lips!

Remember, lastly, in order to look well to this Covenant, you must give
yourselves wholly up to God. "Seek first the Kingdom of God and His
righteousness." Live only to glorify God! Have no other aim or
objective but your God. Brother, if God gives you much, glorify Him
with it by your generous consecration. If He take it away, glorify Him
by your patience under loss. Wherever you are, be always aiming to love
your God with all your heart and with all your soul–and your neighbor
as yourself and, verily, it shall be well with you and blessed shall
you be–for God will remember, for your sake, His Covenant!

I wish that the unconverted here would desire to be a participant in
this Covenant. If you do so, the very desire is the gift of Divine
Grace! Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you have entered into
Covenant with God! He that has faith in the Lord Jesus is a child of
the Father of the faithful and, therefore, he is a participant in the
Covenant which God made with Abraham and his spiritual seed! O Lord of
these poor stony hearts, raise up children unto Abraham, for Jesus'
sake! Amen.