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“Remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” (Ephesians 2:12)
But once a man is joined to Christ, God’s covenants become his possession. As Charles Spurgeon once said, “God’s dealings with men have always had a covenant character. It has so pleased Him to arrange it that He will not deal with us except through a covenant, nor can we deal with Him except in the same manner.” (Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Blood Covenant, p. 1) However, in order to appropriate these covenant promises, a man must first know what they are.
Several years ago, a friend of mine purchased a high-end VCR. I recognized the model as a very pricey item with many features, including the ability to do some simple editing. When I asked him why he bought it, he said, “My girls like to watch Disney movies.”
Surprised, I said, “You can certainly watch movies on this machine, but do you know what else you can do?” He showed me the thick manual that accompanied the product and said, “I started to read this, but it was too complicated.”
I tried to explain some of the many features of the machine, but he was obviously uninterested. He had a feature-rich VCR, but was content to get only the very basic use out of it.
I often think how descriptive that is of many Christians. They have received a feature-rich covenant, but are often content to get only the basic use of it. Like my friend, they find the ‘manual’ too complicated. Even though technically under the covenant, they are in reality “strangers to the covenants of promise.”
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