Covenant Judgments (6) - Standard Pattern

Judgments under a covenant follow a standard pattern.

• The church or nation has a made a covenant with God.

• The terms of the covenant are clearly understood.

• The people of the covenant know what is required of them.

• The covenant spells out the consequence for disobedience.

• When the covenant is broken, God send prophets to challenge the disobedience and warn of the consequences.

• The prophets call the people to repentance and explain what they must do to return to blessings.

• The prophets are required to pray for the people.

• If the people repent, the judgment will be averted.

Covenant judgments are redemptive, not destructive.

Covenant Judgments (5) - Church

In New Testament times, the church is the people of the new covenant. The prophetic role of watching over the covenant continues, but the focus has shift from nation to church. New Testament prophets are primarily responsible for watching their church, rather than their nation. Agabus, Judas and Silas are New Testament prophets who watched over their church to ensure that its leaders fulfilled their covenant with Jesus (Acts 11:28; Acts 15:31). This is not a doom and gloom ministry.

When a church loses the plot and persists in disobeying God, the Holy Spirit will be forced to withdraw. This is a new covenant judgment. These judgments should usually be called in advance by the prophets. They will warn of the consequence for the church and explain must be done to return to blessing. John’s letters to the seven churches are examples of a prophetic challenge to a church that has lost the plot. John explained what was wrong and where this would lead. He also told each church what it must do to return to blessing.

New covenant prophets watch over the church. They will not need to prophecy judgment against a church very often, because in contrast to OT Israel, the victory of the cross and the gift of the spirit means that most churches will mostly walks in blessing. More often they will need to encourage the church through the troubles that often arise when it obeys Jesus voice.

Covenant Judgments (4) - New Covenant

A new covenant was established when Jesus died on the cross. The benefits of this covenant are received by faith and the Spirit is given to enable those who trust in him to hear his voice and walk in obedience to him. They Holy Spirit is able to convict believer of sin and teach them how to serve God, so he generally does not need to send judgements to teach us how to live in the fullness of the covenant.

Under the Old Covenant, the people of Israel could assess how they were going with God by reviewing their external circumstances. Peace and prosperity were signs that they were obeying God. Poverty and war were signs of disobedience. The prophets just amplified these signals to the people.

The pattern is totally different under the New Covenant. The Sermon on the Mount warns that external circumstances are poor indicator of our spiritual state. Christians who are slack in following Jesus will often have a more comfortable life.

But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort (Luke 6:24).

Those who follow Jesus seriously will often be persecuted.

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me (Matt 5:11).

Our situation does not provide a reliable indication of our spirituality. We need the witness of the Holy Spirit to know how we are doing. The peace that surpasses understanding is the best indicator that we are fulfilling the covenant. If we have fallen into sin, the conviction of the Holy Spirit should turn us back to the right path. We will sometimes need a jolt from a prophet to confirm his witness, but that should be quite rare. God should not need to send judgments to keep Christians on track.

Covenant Judgments (3) - The Cross

The role of prophesying to the people of the old covenant was curtailed by the cross. Jesus took over the role of guardian of the that covenant and gave a final prophesy to Israel warning of the destruction of Jerusalem (Matt 23:33-24:2). The people of Israel were about to place themselves under the curse of the covenant by rejecting their messiah and handing him over to the Romans to be killed.

Look, your house is left to you desolate (Matt 23:38).

They were coming under a curse that would last for a long time.

There will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people . They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled (Luke 21:23-24).

This judgement announced by Jesus will last until the Times of the Gentiles are complete. Israel will not come back under the blessing of their covenant until they believe in Jesus, so this is a long judgment.

Jesus warned the people of Jerusalem that they would not get another prophetic word for a long, long time.

For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord (Matt 23:38-39).

Being left without prophets is part of their desolation. All future prophets will be Christians, so if the Jews will not accept those who come in the name of Jesus, they will have no prophets (Micah 3:6). NT prophets will only get to speak freely to Israel when the Times of the Gentiles are coming to an end.

Covenant Judgments (2) - Israel

When God made a covenant with the people of Israel, he told them what he required of them in the law given through Moses. God promised to bless the people if they fulfilled the conditions of the covenant.

All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God (Deut 28:2).

These blessing are spelt out in detail. Moses also warned that failure to keep the covenant and trust in God would bring them under a curse.

However, if you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you (Deut 28:15).

Deuteronomy lists the curses in even greater detail than the blessings. When left the true part and forgot about God, when these curses were fulfilled, they were referred to as the judgments of God.

You will be judged according to your conduct and your actions, declares the Sovereign LORD (Ezek 24:14).

I judged them according to their conduct and their actions (Ezek 36:19).God is Israel’s King and Judge. The covenant made them accountable to him for their behaviour. When they broke the covenant, he judged their actions and pronounced judgment against them. By disobeying God, the people of Israel placed themselves under the curse of the covenant.

The main role of the prophets was to be guardians of the covenant. Whenever, Israel broke the covenant, the prophets would challenge them and warn in advance of the judgments that would inevitably come, if they continued in disobedience. The prophets called the people to repentance and obedience, to prevent their warnings from being fulfilled.

Most of the prophecies in the Old Testament were warnings of curses/judgments that would come upon Israel, if the continued to reject God. Israel broke the covenant again and again, so the prophets had a consistent message. They often seemed to be full of doom and gloom because Israel was mostly living in disobedience. They could not be nice, because the prognosis for Israel was usually bad.

A few prophecies were declarations of judgment against local nations attacking Israel (Is 14:29). These judgements were fulfilment of the blessings of the covenant.

They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven (Deut 27:8).