One of the challenges is, I've got about a 45-minute sermon now. So let me just kind of jump in. Most of you have been here the last few weeks. And what I really wanted to do was get my arms around all this and pull it together. And the subject is so big, so rich, so deep, I can't do that. So, uh, don't know what to say. The divine covenants and you have all these ones begins in a garden, two covenants in a garden, and then, uh, Noah and Abraham and on, and, you know, you got a number of them. All these divine covenants can be summarized with the promise of eternal life and the gospel. come to my church because we have the best entertainment. The gospel is believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. That's part of the nub of the gospel. The covenants feature the same mediator, Jesus. This church will never tell you well if you do this, this, this, and this you'll go to heaven. Or we're not going to say, if you don't do this, this, this, and this, you'll go to hell. It isn't the doing. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And I have had, you know, military, you wind up with all sorts of psychopaths and things. God, as you imagine him or her to have been, or that you would have liked to have been. I've heard that more than once. There is no hope for some God that you created, some Jesus that you conjured up in your mind, who's got goals that are surprisingly like your own. The covenant is always a covenant of life, but with the threat of death. The covenant is all about the mediator, Jesus Christ. That's why we teach this doctrine, which I think a lot of churches have given up on this, that Jesus had to be God in the flesh to mediate, to take our needs and so on to God the father. And he had to be human to identify with us and be able to take upon himself as a human being, all of our weaknesses, infirmities, and ultimately our sins. We're talking here about summarizing the covenants. The same covenant, the covenants are all featuring the same requirement or condition of faith. When he says, do this and live faith said, I will do this. I will not add to it or take away from it. the requirement of faith in who he is, as he's revealed it in his whole book, as he has revealed it to you as you come to know Christ, not that you imagine some new God. Condition of the covenant is faith in the revealed Lord Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament, and I hope you have seen this, under the law, It's worthwhile to reflect the descendant in each of the covenants was not just a man, not just a person. Yes, it was traced humanly through these lines. And that's why it's important to notice in the New Testament, you have the genealogy of Jesus traced through Mary. Did you notice that? Think about that. Why not through Adam? The descendant in each of the covenants is Jesus, whom they had not seen, but whose sacrificial death and the threat of hellfire are prefigured in the hellfire of the sacrificial death of a substitute. He didn't deserve to die, you and I do, but because he had perfectly kept the will of the father. Though he lived a common life, I mean, he could identify with the working people. I'm sure he must have hit his thumb at least once with a hammer. He was a carpenter after all, a laboring guy, earning his living by the sweat of his brow. He identifies with us, but he did all his living innocent of sin. And because he did that, kept the law perfectly, He can put his right doing on our account. God the Father is just. He's right when he takes the death of Jesus as a substitute for yours. That ought to fill us with a certain appreciation. Sometimes you walk among giants. I've done that. Men who would, without a second thought, throw themselves between me and danger. That inspires a love that you will never forget. And the same is true with Christ. How can you treat him as a second-class citizen, ignore him, and come periodically, but you basically ignore him, who didn't just risk death? He didn't jump on the grenade. He didn't push you out of the way. He died. He took that death for you. We owe him a debt far greater than we could ever fulfill, and a part of our living then as covenanters, that is, ones who covenant, is seeking to live that kind of life. Now, you all know that that's not the way it works, 100%, is it? I wish it did, but it doesn't. The wages of sin is death. but he has paid the penalty, he goes before the father. Jumping back, and I know you've read this multiple times in your life, and I believe you can follow along mentally here, After Adam's disastrous decision to sin by directly disobeying God, the fruit of the tree of life was still available. Adam, after breaking the covenant of works, was in a state of sin. This is something I tumbled to in the last two weeks. God had allowed Adam full access to the tree of life after he had sinned and taken of the other fruit, the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. He became a fallen sinner doomed to hell on his own. Had God then with Adam in that state of lost dead hellbound sinner, if he had taken of the fruit of the tree of life, what would have happened? He and you and I would have been, can I use the word doomed? Would have had to live a life with no hope of any salvation, no hope of anything better. And so God does you and me a favor, and he keeps Adam from eating of that tree of life while he was dead, because if he had, the gospel wouldn't work. The tree of life. Eternal life comes only by faith in the Lord Jesus, this descendant whom God promised over and over. Otherwise, Adam would have lived forever, for eternity, in a state of sin and misery, a state of death and decay, a state of suffering and separation, brokenness, family dissolution, and so on. That would have been as good as it gets. And even though he was redeemed by grace, Remember in Adam's fall, as the horn book said, in Adam's fall we sinned all. We came under sin and death and hell as the judgment. We deserve this life of sin and misery of which I've just spoken. In the day you eat thereof, you will surely die. He's told that. He failed to teach his wife, that's obvious from the answer she gave to the serpent, and he failed to teach his son. Scripture says the law of God is written on the heart. Adam knew the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments. It was written in the heart, in the conscience, in that spirit, that inner person, or whatever you want to call that. He knew that, and he failed as a father. He caused the death of all who would live after him, and it comes back on him in one generation, his own son. Can you imagine what mom and dad felt like? What they went through, experiencing not only the loss of a son, but knowing that he was killed by his brother who had not heard the gospel. But we've heard it. We aren't left hopeless. The way to the tree of life, Genesis chapter 3 tells us. That's what that cherubim out there with the sword that goes all directions, it is to guard the way to. And so we can give a free offer of the gospel to anybody to guard the way to the tree of life. That's terribly important to the covenant. Without that, we don't have much hope. We don't have much to offer anybody. Part of the reason Adam is driven out of the garden then is to ensure that the hope of eternal life continues. Life would continue but only in sin if Adam had eaten that fruit while in sin. Putting Adam out of the garden, out away from that fruit of the tree of life left the hope of reconciliation and life through God's plan of redemption through the second Adam one of the names of Jesus, through the bloodlines, I mentioned it, the genealogy that traces Jesus through Mary. And it takes the bloodline down to Jesus, who fulfilled all righteousness for us. And he eternally saved our eternal life. Eve, the mother of all living, will continue through the ages down to the young Mary, the supposed wife of Joseph. It was God's grace to us that the way was kept to the tree of life. It was God's grace to us that we were born into or brought into contact with the scripture, contact with Jesus Christ, contact with the bride of Christ. I didn't plan 500 years ago to be here, did you? Don't think that made much difference. I don't think we could have, right? But in the Lord's good intention, in His He gives us unmerited favor. He gives us what we don't deserve. He calls the dead in sin, rebels against him, people who haven't enjoyed sin. He calls us to come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. You will find rest for yourself. Instead of the frenetic activity of the world in which we live, everybody's so busy doing his own thing, busy trying to do this and that and the other. Horrible frustration and He enables us by giving us faith to cast ourselves upon Christ. That is a conscious decision to cast ourselves upon Christ. Confess our sins to Him. Ask Him to forgive our sins. Ask him to pay the penalty for the sins we've done. Ask him and the Holy Spirit to keep us from continuing to wander around in a world full of sin. The gospel is the good news. Yes, there is life after Adam. There's life after his son, the murderer. There is life after this life, and that's the real life, freed of all of these impediments in this human life. The gospel is offered freely. We'll wrap up here in just a moment. If you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as personal Savior, if you have not in a time and a space gotten alone with the Lord to talk to him about who you have been, what you have done, if you have not done that, if you have not closed with Jesus, ask Him to pay the penalty for your sin. Ask Him to mediate with God the Father so that Christ's righteous doing is put on your account. If you have not taken actions, you are still in your sin. Going to church isn't enough. This used to be a Scots-Irish denomination. Having a Mick in your name doesn't save you. Doesn't matter where you're from, who your daddy was, who your mama was. One of the painful things of the Christian church, I'm aware of many, many hell bound violent rebels against God who were raised in Christian homes with parents who were born again Bible believers and they lived it out. Some of them were ruling elders, some were teaching elders, some were Sabbath school teachers, all of these great things. And the kids have walked away. They never closed with Christ. They never got right next to him and said, would you please take my sin? Would you please give me your life? Would you please give me that Holy Spirit that Ephesians chapter 2 talks about? If you have not done that, my friend, you are in serious jeopardy. And should you die in a car crash on your way home from church today, you would spend eternity in hell. I have not preached on the subject of hell. I can hardly stand the thought of it myself. But that's the options. Do nothing, death, hell. Come to Christ by faith, believing, life, a life worth living in this life and a life eternally in his presence where you will have no problem, no sin, no suffering, and for parents who may have children who have gone astray. Jonathan Edwards preached one of his famous sermons, the title of which was Suffering of Sinners in Hell, No Detriment to the Joy of Saints in Heaven. We won't suffer then, but I'm sure that there is suffering for those who may be experiencing what I'm talking about now. All of this comes together then in the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. I ask you, please, if you had not gotten serious with him, do that today. Behold, today is the day of salvation. That covenant-keeping Jesus that was there in a garden is here today and will forever ensure the covenants.