Revelation 1:1-3 - God Always Keeps His Covenants

Revelation 1:1 “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants--things which must shortly take place.” To properly interpret and understand the prophesies of the Bible and especially the book of Revelation we must remember that the Bible is a “Covenant” Book! I’ll never forget when I was taking my “theology” classes during my four years at Lynchburg Baptist College, that one of them was called Eschatology. Eschatology is a part of theology concerned with the study of final events of history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity. This concept is commonly referred to as "the end of the world" or "end times". I was expecting that we immediately would jump into Daniel, Ezekiel and Revelation in our class, and I was somewhat surprised that we spent the first three weeks in the book of Genesis and other Old Testament books studying the covenants or promises that God made with Noah, Abraham, Moses and David. A covenant is an agreement or a promise made between two parties. Some covenants are conditional which means they have an “if” in them. “I will do this for you if you will do this.” In other words, this is a conditional covenant. Sometimes in Scripture God will say, “If you will obey me and do this, I will bless you with this.” The other kind of covenant in scripture is called an unconditional covenant. This is where God simply says, I am going to do something for you with “no if” involved. In Genesis 12:1-3 God made an unconditional covenant and promise to Abram, better known today as Abraham. “Now the LORD had said to Abram: "Get out of your country, From your family And from your father's house, To a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." For sure God has kept this promise because through the seed of Abraham we have been given the Messiah, Jesus Christ and also the Word of God! We all have been blessed! But God also make a covenant with Abraham that involved land in Genesis 13:14-17.  “And the LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him: "Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are--northward, southward, eastward, and westward; for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever….. Arise, walk in the land through its length and its width, for I give it to you." This is what is called the Palestinian Covenant. God made an unconditional promise to Abraham and his seed concerning the land of Palestine. This covenant has only been partially fulfilled. Amazingly, the seed of Abraham is miraculously back in the land of Palestine today but there is more of this prophesy that needs to be fulfilled. The last major covenant that affects our view of prophesy is what is called the Davidic Covenant.  This is an unconditional promise God made to David in 2 Samuel 7:12-16. "When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. ….And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever." This promise or covenant has not been fulfilled yet. And it is a major reason that I believe that Jesus, the seed of David, will come the second time as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and set on the throne of David in Israel and all these covenants will be fulfilled literally! And my friend, Jesus is coming soon! Be looking up! God bless!