Blood of the Covenant

Introduction

Have you ever been stuck? Or caught in some circumstance or difficulty where at first glance you didn’t know the way out. But then you remembered the perfect person to call who could come to your aid and rescue you. Can I tell you about a time in my life? When I was in high school, I worked for Food World. That was a grocery store chain in Alabama, and I met a cast of characters. I could write a book about the characters that I met at the grocery store when I worked there as a teenager. One man that I worked with, he was actually, he didn’t work for the grocery store, he worked for the Coca-Cola Bottling Company, but he was a frequent guest stocking the Cokes and delivering Cokes to the store.

And not your regular four-wheel drive, one of those four-wheel drive trucks on steroids. The tires were the height of a grown man. Jerry bragged about his truck. He could pull anything, haul anything, come out. In fact, Jerry used to say he wanted to be buried in his truck.

On Sunday nights after our evening services at church, me and a couple of my buddies would always get in my pickup truck and go to town. That’s what we did in Alabama for entertainment. And at that time, they were extending the highway. Highway 157 ended at Highway 31, but they were going to extend it further into the county. And they had done much of the prep work on the roadbed, but hadn’t done any of the paving, and so they had these big barriers at both ends of Highway 157 that said, do not enter. Well, for a high school boy with a pickup truck, that was just a suggestion. And so we decided this one Sunday night to drive around those barriers and drive on that roadbed.

I did not factor in our recent weather of several inches of rain. And so I drove around that barrier down onto the roadbed, and then felt my truck just sink into the mud. So much mud that we could barely get the doors open. We were that deep stuck in mud. We stepped out of the truck, we went up to our knees in mud. This was before the days of cell phones, and so we had to walk. And we walked up actually to what we thought was a house and ended up being a Pentecostal church that was having their evening services, and the preacher put us in the backseat of his car and drove us to the gas station. And I had a quarter. Who am I going to call?

Smart move would have been to call my dad, I’m sure, but I knew that would involve a form of discipline that I didn’t want to get involved in. And so I called Jerry. And Jerry came to our rescue. He enjoyed it more than we did because it gave him an opportunity to show off his four-wheel drive truck. And so he came and he hooked a chain to my little pickup truck and just pulled us right out of the mud like nothing ever happened. A smarter kid would have washed his truck before he took it back home. So I ended up getting the discipline that I would have gotten if I’d have called Dad. But Jerry was the man to call that night because I was in deep.

But I knew somebody could come and rescue me. Now, obviously, you can make a spiritual application to that, and I want to make a spiritual application. Going back to the Old Testament to Zechariah chapter 9. We’ve recently studied the minor prophets. And the minor prophets, like most of the prophets in the Old Testament, preached a message of doom. And the doom being, because you’ve sinned and transgressed the law of God, God’s going to punish you, namely, he’s going to punish you in sending you away to captivity. God was going to put them in a pit. God was going to put them in a situation that they themselves could not get out of. But you know that the prophets weren’t just a message of doom. That was maybe the primary message.

But usually toward the end of the book, there would be a message of hope. Sometimes sprinkled in with messianic hope, but a message of hope. God’s going to punish you, but God’s still going to bring you back as well. This is one of those passages in Zechariah chapter 9, where we find the children of Israel in a dark situation. They had been taken away into captivity, but God had promised, and actually at the time of Zachariah had delivered on that promise. And notice how Zachariah, our God to Zachariah, puts that promise. Will you read with me, Zachariah 9, beginning in verse 11? As for you also, because of the blood of your covenant, I will set free your prisoners from the waterless pit. Return you to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope.

1. Because of the Blood of Your Covenant

Even today I declare that I will render double to you. I’d like for us to take that passage and just break it down into its individual components and then make an application to us, because not only did that promise mean so much to those first old covenant Christians, but it means so much to us under our covenant. The first part of that says, Because of the blood of your covenant. God is saying, I’m going to do this, that which follows in verses 11 and 12, and I’m going to do this for you. And here’s why.

Of your covenant. A covenant is an agreement between at least two parties that is to be binding upon both parties. God made a covenant with Israel. And as Josh read in our Bible reading this morning in Jeremiah 31, verse 31, they broke that covenant. But God still, because of his righteousness, his holiness, and his goodness, God was still obligated to that covenant that he made. God was going to keep his word. And because of that covenant, and because of the blood that had sealed that covenant, he was going to do his part. So let’s talk about that covenant this morning. If you go with me now to the book of Exodus, chapter 24. You might want to put a bookmark there in Zechariah 9. We’ll be coming back to there.

But let’s look and let’s examine just briefly the covenant that God is talking about. That because of his righteousness and holiness obligated him to save these people. There are certain elements involved in a covenant. There are people. There have to be parties in a covenant. There are going to be two parties in this covenant, God and the people. There needs to be a mediator, someone who works out the terms, who stands between two parties, and maybe we would say negotiates or mediates those terms. There was an ancient covenant a blood. We read in Genesis chapter 15 in our Lord’s Supper discussion of the covenant between Abraham and God. And those animals were killed and actually cut in half, and they would walk between, and the blood would actually seal or initiate that covenant.

And then there was a book. There was a writing. The covenant was written. The contract, we would say, was written down. Well, in Exodus chapter 24, we read about those elements. Would you read with me? Exodus 24, verse 1. He said to Moses, Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and 70 of the elders of Israel and worship from afar. And Moses alone shall come near the Lord, but they shall not come near, nor shall the people go up with him. So Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the judgments. And all the people answered with one voice and said, All the words which the Lord has said we will do. And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord.

And he rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and twelve pillars according to the twelve tribes of Israel. Then he sent young men of the children of Israel who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord. And Moses took half the blood and put it in basins, and half the blood he sprinkled on altars. Then he took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people, and they said, All that the Lord has said, we will do and be obedient. The people involved in this covenant were Israel. Israel on one side, God on the other. The children of Israel were the covenant people of God. The mediators, obvious in this context.

It was Moses. Moses alone who would go up and commune with God on behalf of the people, and then come back down the mountain and commune with the people on behalf of God. He was the mediator. The blood was the blood of animals under that old covenant. We’re well aware of that fact. And the book, he says, was the book of the covenant and would later include the law of Moses. That was the book. That was the elements of their covenant. And so in Zechariah 9, years after the fact, God would say, I’m going to set you free because of that. Because we had a covenant. We had an agreement that was sealed with blood. And that means it didn’t mean much to you. You broke it, but it still means something to me.

Now let’s fast forward to the New Testament. And look with me in your New Testaments in Hebrews chapter 9. The Hebrew writer is going to use this old Testament covenant language to talk about our covenant with God.

But Christ came as high priest of the good things to come with the great and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Now in Hebrews 9, verse 12, he says, not with the blood of goats and of calves, but with his own blood, he entered the most holy place, once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve a living God. And for this reason, he is the mediator of the new covenant. And by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

For where there is a testament, there must also be by necessity the death of a testator. For a testament is in force after men are dead, since it has no power at all while the testator lives. So we can go through that section of Hebrews 9, and we see that now God has a covenant, not with Israel, not with physical Israel, but with spiritual Israel, the church. Christians are the people involved in that covenant. The Hebrew writer makes it plain that it’s no longer Moses, but we have a better, that’s the key word of Hebrews, isn’t it? We have a better mediator, that is Jesus. Jesus came to earth to speak to man on God’s behalf, and now has ascended back to heaven to speak to God on our behalf.

He’s our mediator. The blood was not the blood of bulls and goats, the Hebrew writer said, but of his own blood, he sealed that covenant. And that book is the new law, the testament, the new testament that we live under today. And so they had a covenant that God made with them. A covenant that God felt was binding, and that he was going to, based upon that agreement, rescue his people, and God has a covenant with us today. And a blood that has sealed that covenant. But if we go back to Zachariah chapter 9, God says the covenant and the blood of the covenant is the basis of what I’m going to do for you. And notice what he says. He says, Because, because we have a covenant, because I agreed to something, and that agreement was sealed with blood, here’s what I’m going to do.

2. I Will Set Free Your Prisoners From the Waterless Pit

I will set free your prisoners from the waterless pit. These waterless pits, think of a well being dug, but there’s no water in it. Those were often, you think, well, that’s worthless. It’s no good anymore as a well. And you’re right, it’s no good as a well to draw water, but it becomes a real good place to hold prisoners. You throw somebody down in that well, that empty well, and unless somebody comes along with some rope or some rescue device, then there’s no way of getting out. Think of Joseph, remember, Joseph’s brothers threw him in a similar waterless well, a pit. And he says, Israel had been thrown in this pit, a hole that they couldn’t get out of. That was the captivity. But I’m going to set you free.

I’m going to bring you back from that captivity, God said. But I want you to notice not just what God said he would do and did do in the days of Zachariah, not just rescue them from that waterless pit, not just return them from captivity, but why he did that. He doesn’t say, because you’ve learned your lesson, time out and you’ve learned your lesson, now you’ll behave. It wasn’t that. There may be some truth to that. They did seem to learn their lesson about idolatry, didn’t they? And it’s not so I give you a second chance. I’ll give you a do-over, and you see if you’ll do. There was maybe some truth in that. He wanted God to bring them back to see if they would now serve him when they failed before.

That’s but that’s not the stated reason. God said, I’m bringing you back, I’m rescuing you from captivity, because I have a covenant with you that was sealed with blood. The New Testament speaks of our life in sin outside of Christ as a form of captivity. It’s us being prisoners or slaves to sin.

God’s promise to set us free. To set us free from the pit wherein is no water.

3. Return to the Stronghold, You Prisoners of Hope

Return you to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope.

They were in captivity because of their sin, because of transgressing that covenant and the law, which was the book of that covenant. But he doesn’t just call them prisoners. He qualifies that. They were prisoners of hope. That’s an important qualification, isn’t it? There’s a difference between a prison being a prisoner and being a prisoner of hope. They had some hope. The hope was wrapped up in the prophecy of Jeremiah. When Jeremiah had said, or God said through Jeremiah, that I’m going to send you away into captivity, but it’s just going to be for a period of time, 70 years, he says. And so there was hope attached to their imprisonment. There was an end to the sentence. You’ll serve this much time, and then you’ll be free.

That’s what made them prisoners of hope. There was hope of rescue, a promise of rescue. And so he says, You prisoners of hope, return you to the stronghold. Well, what was their stronghold? Well, the Bible will answer that question. Jerusalem was referred to as their fortress. And so maybe God is saying, go back to Jerusalem. You were prisoners of hope. I’m setting you free. Go back to your fortress. Go back to Jerusalem. And that certainly would be literally be the case geographically. But it wasn’t just Jerusalem that was their fortress. Scripture would also say, and more emphatically and more often, that God was their refuge. So he wasn’t just saying, go back home, go back to Jerusalem, your stronghold. But surely this was a call to repentance.

Go back to God. Who is your refuge, your fortress, and your stronghold. I’m setting you free to go back to God. This is an important element of repentance. We’ve talked about this before. And we use this illustration, the best one that I can think of that we might be able to relate to. We talked about being in that pit or being stuck and being in a place that you can’t get out of. Think of it now in terms of financial debt. Sometimes scriptures speak of sin as being like a financial debt transaction. Imagine being so deep in debt that there’s no way you’d ever, if you lived 20 lifetimes, you couldn’t pay that debt off. And imagine the weight, and maybe you don’t have to imagine, but think of the weight and the burden of being in that kind of debt.

And then someone comes along and is able to write a check to erase all of that debt, a debt you could never have paid, and releases you from that bondage, from that weight.

You’re free. But free to do what? Two different pathways you could take. And sadly, some would take pathway number one, and that is my credit cards have been paid off. Let’s go shopping. Let’s run the debt back up. But we would recognize the foolishness and the folly of that. The best pathway is I learned my lesson. I remember what it was like to have that burden and that weight on me. And so now that I’ve been freed, I’m not going down that path. I’m not getting in that boat again. And so I’m going to be financially responsible. I’m not, yes, the credit cards have been paid off. Instead of going shopping, let’s go and put them in a lockbox and not use those again. We’ve been set free.

4. I Will Render Double to You

We return to the stronghold. We’ve been set free for what? To sin again, knowing that we can go back to the fountain receive that forgiveness. No. We know what put us in that position. And so we return to our stronghold. We’ve been set free so that we can still be free. That’s the argument Paul makes in Romans chapter 6 is why we don’t continue in sin. And so return you to your stronghold, you prisoners of hope. And then he says, I will restore double to you. What does that phrase mean? We probably think we know what it means. We know what double means. If you’ve got two, you double it, now you got four. And so you used to have two, now you’ll have four. And that’s one way of interpreting, but if you’ll go with me to the book of Revelation, we have an explanation of that phrase that’ll shed a little light on what it really means.

In Revelation chapter 18, Christ, through John in the revelation, uses that phrase, an old Testament phrase, render double to you. And he’ll explain what that really means. Revelation 18, verse 6, render to her just as she rendered to you, and repay her double according to her work. See, there’s that phrase, repay her double. In the cup which she has mixed, mix double for her. In the measure she has glorified herself and lived luxuriously, in the same measure, give her torment and sorrow, for she says in her heart, I set as a queen and no widow and will not see sorrow. It’s not our point to explain the meaning of that, but to see how he uses the phrase double. Double in this context means there was this much, there’ll be that same amount.

That’s the double. Using his illustration of measuring, you’ve got two cups of flour in the recipe, and you want to double the recipe. You don’t add four more, you add two more. You make them equal measures, which ends up being double. Does that make sense?

So I’m going to give you this much good stuff. That’s the double. And so he says, because of the blood of the covenant, I will set free your prisoners from the waterless pit, return you to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope, and I will render double to you. I’ve punished you. You’ve been in that waterless pit of captivity. But now I’m going to match that with blessings. Your freedom is going to be as beautiful as your captivity was ugly. And that’s the blessings God has promised for us. We’re in the pit of sin. We’re in that waterless pit that we can’t get out of. But God has thrown us the lifeline and has promised to rescue us and to give us blessings in place of our tribulation.

And the whole reason he’s doing that is because he made a promise.

Conclusion

Remember the words of Hebrews 9, and particularly in verse 14, where he said, if the blood of bulls and goats would compel God to keep that covenant, how much more the blood of Christ. And so we have hope. No matter how much you might be mired down in the pit of sin, no matter how dark your future, your present, your reality might be, God has hope for you. Simply because he is God. He is righteous and holy, and he’ll keep his word to keep his covenant because it was sealed with the blood of Jesus Christ. And so our invitation this morning is that of Zachariah. Because of the blood of the covenant, I will set free your prisoners from the waterless pit. Return to the stronghold.

You prisoners of hope. And God has promised that he will render double to you. Blessing in the place of sorrow. Would you return to that stronghold this morning? You’re a prisoner of sin, but you’re a prisoner of hope. God has promised, God has shed the blood of his only Son to seal an agreement that he would save you if you return to the stronghold. Would you do that this morning as together we stand and as we sing?