“The Fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant” (Luke 1:74-75)

 

MORNING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/23/2026 7:43 AM

My Worship Time                                     Focus:  “The Fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                                 Reference:  Luke 1:74-75

            Message of the verses:  “to grant us that we, being rescued from the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days.”

            In this mornings SD I begin the last section in MacArthur’s 10^th chapter in his first book on the gospel of Luke, and I believe that there will be just one more chapter in order to finish his commentary on this first chapter of Luke.

            “In one of the most dramatic incidents in all of redemptive history, God’s covenant with Abraham was confirmed by his faith, expressed in his willingness to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice to God.  Israel unlike Abraham, has through history failed to respond in faith to the revealed will of God, even when Messiah came.  As a result, the promised blessings of the Abrahamic covenant, like those of the Davidic covenant, have not been realized.  Not until the Jewish people acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah who comes in the name of the Lord (Luke 13:35), look with penitent remorse on the One they pierced and mourn their rejection of Him, will the believing remnant be saved (Rom. 11:26) and the nation experience all the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant in the millennial kingdom.  Only then will Zacharias’s fervent hope that the children of Israel, being rescued from the and of their enemies, might serve God without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all their days, be realized.”  Now let me quote the verse references from this paragraph in the order that they are listed.

(Luke 13:35)

“35  Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’"”

(Zech. 12:10)

“10  "And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.”

(Rom. 11:26)

“26  And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”;

            “As is the case with the Davidic covenant, Gentile believers will also experience the vast blessings of the Abrahamic covenant.  In a spiritual sense, all Christians share in the promises of salvation blessing in the covenant, and so in the promises of salvation blessing in this covenant, and so in the sense of salvation are called children of Abraham, as the apostle Paul notes in Galatians 3:6-7: ‘Even so Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.  Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham.’ Looking ahead to the cross, God applied the righteousness of Jesus Christ to Abraham’s account.  Those who believe the gospel and in faith embrace Jesus Christ ‘are blessed with Abraham, the believer’ (v-9).  Even if they are not descended from Abraham physically all who believe share the principle of faith with Abraham and thus are in that sense his spiritual descendants.  The salvation blessings of the Abrahamic covenant are for all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, both Jews and Gentiles.  To the Romans Paul wrote:

“11  He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, 12  and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.” (ESV)

            “That all believers become Abraham’s children spiritually does not mean that the church is the new Israel, cancelling all the promises to the nation.  That kind of ‘replacement theology’ is unacceptable in light of the unconditional Old Testament promises of God and the New Testament reiteration of them.  Paul says with regard to Israel, ‘the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable’ (Rom. 11:29).  Israel has not been permanently set aside as a nation; God would not perpetuate and protect the Jewish people through the centuries unless He had a definite purpose for doing so.  The apostle Paul recoiled in horror as the thought that God had permanently rejected Israel:  “ I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be!” (This is the strongest Greek Paul is using here)  “God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew” (Rom. 11:1-2).  Though Israel stumbled into disobedience, ‘They did not stumble so as to fall, did they?  May it never be [me genoito]! But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make them jealous’ (v. 11).   Gentiles, like a wild olive branch, are grafted into the rich root of Abrahamic blessings (v. 17).  But the natural branches (the Jews), ‘if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again’ (v. 23).  Indeed, after ‘the fulness of the Gentiles has come in’ (v. 25), ‘all Israel [i.e., the believing remnant] will be saved’ when Jesus returns at the end of the tribulation to set up the millennial kingdom (v. 26).  

            “It is then that the Abrahamic covenant, anticipated by members of the believing remnant such as Zacharias, Simon, and Anna, but rejected by the unbelieving nation when it rejected the Messiah, will be fully realized.  Through redeemed Israel, its blessings will flow to the world in the earthly kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I have to say that before I  became a believer over 52 years ago, I did not know much, if anything about the Jewish people, but once God saved me I have certainly learned to love them and as I look at the world today with what is going on in the middle east I certainly pray that God will continue to bless the nation of Israel as they team up with the United States to rid the world of the terrible people in Iran.  Now not all of the people of Iran are terrible, but those who are trying to kill the Jewish people and the people of the United States are the ones that, it seems to me that God is judging. 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  I continue to believe and always will believe that God is not finished with Israel at this time, and as mentioned pray for victory for Israel over the bad Iranian regime.

3/23/2026 8:37 AM    

 

PT-3 “The Promise of the Abrahamic Covenant” (Luke 1:72b-73)

 

EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/22/2026/ 8:22 PM

My Worship Time                                 Focus: PT-3  “The Promise of the Abrahamic Covenant”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                               Reference:  Luke 1:72b-73

            Message of the verses:  “and to remember His holy covenant, the oath which He swore to Abraham our father,”

            I will try and pick up where I left off from this morning’s SD on these verses which will finish the commentary on these verses.

            John MacArthur writes “Israel has never possessed all the land promised to Abraham (vv. 18-21).  Only when the Lord Jesus Christ takes the throne of David and establishes His earthly kingdom will Israel experience the full blessings of the Abrahamic covenant.

            “Genesis 17 reveals another important component of God’s covenant with Abraham.  In verse 2, God said to him, ‘I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly,’ then repeated that promise in verse 4: You shall be the father of a multitude of nations.’  To further reinforce that point, the Lord changed his name from Abram (‘exalted father’)to Abraham (‘father of multitude’), because God declared again, ‘I will make you the father of a multitude of nations’ (v. 5).

            “In keeping with that promise Abraham became not only the father of the Jewish people, but also of the Arabs.  Earlier Sarah, despairing of even having a child herself, ‘took Hagar the Egyptian, her maid, and gave her to her husband Abram as his wife’ (Gen. 16:3).  The child born from that union was Ishmael (v. 11), the ancestor of the Arab people.  But Ishmael was not the child through whom the covenant blessings would come:

“15 ¶  And God said to Abraham, "As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. 16  I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her." 17  Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, "Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?" 18  And Abraham said to God, "Oh that Ishmael might live before you!" 19  God said, "No, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. 20  As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. He shall father twelve princes, and I will make him into a great nation. 21  But I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year.’’ (Genesis 17:15-21; cf. Romans 9:7; Galatians 4:28) 

(Romans 9:7; Galatians 4:28) 

“7  and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.”

“28  Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise.”

“Three times in this chapter (vv. 7, 13, and 19) God described His covenant with Abraham as an everlasting covenant.  It will never be abrogated, but will ultimately be fulfilled when Christ reigns during the millennial kingdom.

            “Although the Abrahamic covenant was enacted unilaterally by God and is thus unconditional and irrevocable, the enjoyment of its blessings comes only through faith.  Genesis 22 illustrates that principle.  In keeping with His promise, God had given Abraham and Sarah a son (Gen. 21: 1-3).”

(Gen. 21: 1-3)

“1 ¶  The LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did to Sarah as he had promised. 2  And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him. 3  Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac.”

“Years later (cf. Gen. 21:34), when Isaac was a young man, God gave Abraham a shocking command:  ‘Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you’ (Gen. 22:2).”

(cf. Gen. 21:34)

34  And Abraham sojourned many days in the land of the Philistines.”

“Humanly speaking, this was incomprehensible.  Isaac was the son through whom God had promised to make of Abraham a great nation.  Would not his death, therefore, abrogate God’s covenant with Abraham?  But Abraham’s faith did not fail, and he set off with Isaac to obey God’s command.  According to Hebrews 11:19, Abraham believed that after he sacrificed Isaac, God would raise him from the dead.  But as he was about to plunge the knife into his son,

11 ¶  But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." 12  He said, "Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me." (vv. 11-12)

“Abraham, faith that God could keep His promise is a model for all believers to follow (cf. Gal. 3:9).”

(cf. Gal. 3:9)

“9  So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.”

            We can see from this part of this SD that Abraham was a man of great faith, but it took a while for that faith to develop as I don’t believe that he was a believer at that point in time, when he first left his land to go to the land God would show him,  but certainly was a while after God told him to move from his land and go to the land that He would show him to go to, and that land was what would become the land of Israel some four hundred years later after Joshua led the children of Israel into it once they came out of Egypt which took forty years of wondering in the wilderness before they would enter it.  You can read that story in the book of Joshua.   All of these verses, like every verse in the Word of God are very important and can teach us great things.

            Now we have looked earlier about the birth of John the Baptist, as it is similar to this story about Abraham and Sarah having a child when they too were very old.  When we get to chapter two we will see the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Earlier in this chapter we saw the story of How Mary became pregnant with Him.  That is three miraculous births that we have looked at, as Jesus, as stated will be born in the early part of Luke chapter two.

3/22/2026 8:57 PM

 

 

PT-2 “The Promise of the Abrahamic Covenant” (Luke 1:72b-73)

 

MORNING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/22/2026/ 11:04 AM

My Worship Time                                 Focus: PT-2  “The Promise of the Abrahamic Covenant”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                               Reference:  Luke 1:72b-73

            Message of the verses:  “and to remember His holy covenant, the oath which He swore to Abraham our father,”

            I want to pick up where I left off last night.  MacArthur continues “Underscoring its crucial significance in the flow of redemptive history, the Abrahamic covenant is reiterated eight times in the book of Genesis (chapters 12, 13, 15, 17, 22, 28, and 35).  As noted above, (last nights SD) God announced the terms of the covenant in Chapter 12, but the covenant was not actually set until chapter 15.”  Chapter fifteen is the chapter that has the sacrifices that were cut in two and actually Abraham was put to sleep so that the covenant was actually fulfilled by God, for He is the only one to fulfill it.  “That is clear in 15:18, which records, ‘On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram.’  God sealed that covenant in a very dramatic way, one which emphasized its unilateral, unconditional nature.

            “In verse 7, God repeated the promise He had made to Abraham in chapter 12 regarding the land He would give to him and his descendants: ‘I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess it.’  Seeding reassurance Abraham replied, ‘O Lord God, how may I know that I will possess it?’  (v. 8).  The ensuing ceremony, which was in keeping with Ancient Near Eastern custom, ratified the covenant:

 9So He said to him, “[n]Bring Me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” 10Then he [o]brought all these to Him and cut them [p]in two, and laid each half opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds. 11And birds of prey came down upon the carcasses, and Abram drove them away.

12Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, [q]terror and great darkness fell upon him. 13Then God said to Abram, “Know for certain that your [r]descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, [s]where they will be enslaved and oppressed for four hundred years. 14But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with [t]many possessions. 15As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age. 16Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the wrongdoing of the Amorite is not yet complete.”

17Now it came about, when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, a smoking oven and a flaming torch appeared which passed between these pieces.”  (NASB)

“Killing animals symbolized the seriousness of a covenant.  The two parties making it would walk between the pieces of the dead animals, thus affirming that the same thing should happen to them if they broke the covenant.  But in this case only the ‘smoking oven’ and ‘the flaming torch’ which represented God’s presence, passed between the parts of the slain animals; Abraham was divinely anesthetized.  The covenant, therefore, was unilateral; and irrevocable pledge made by God alone and not dependent on Abraham.”

            Israel has never possessed all the land promised to Abraham (vv. 18-21).  Only when the Lord Jesus Christ takes the throne of David and establishes His earthly kingdom will Israel experience the full blessings of the Abrahamic covenant.”  Now let us think about what has happened to the Jewish people since this covenant was made in Genesis chapter 15.  It took 400 years before God would take the children of Israel out of Egypt to then move the children of Israel out of Egypt and then go into their own land.  Then if 586 BC they were removed from their land by the Babylonian people, and they stayed there for 70 years before going back to their land.  This is seen in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.  They did not really own that land but were under the rule of foreign countries.  Next we see that this took another 400 years before the birth of John the Baptist and then the Lord Jesus Christ which we see in the gospels, and we are looking at that through the writing of Luke.  Jesus was born lived 33 years on planet earth, preaching and teaching those last three years as we will see as we move forward in the book of Luke.  Jesus was then turned down as the Jewish Messiah by the people and then was crucified for the sins of the world.  In 70 AD the Romans conquered the land of Palestine and the Jewish people were then dispersed around the world, living in different nations.  After World War II in May of 1948 the Jewish people were then back in their land and established their country.  We are living in the time when Israel is living in their country.  Now we see a war taking place with Iran as they desire to kill all of the Jews like Hitler tried in WW II, but he failed as all other nations who tried to kill them failed, and they failed because of the covenant that we are looking at in this section.  The future is also prophesied.  Next event will be the rapture of the Church, which I pray will be soon as God takes all believers to be with Him in heaven.  While in heaven the Tribulation Period will happen on planet earth which actually is the 70^th week of Daniel’s prophecy found in Daniel chapter nine.  This will be the most dangerous time that will happen on planet earth and unless the Lord returns to planet earth as seen in the last part of Revelation chapter 19, there would be no earth at all.  Jesus will return as seen in that chapter (19) with His saints and ends the war of Armageddon and then will set up His promised kingdom to Israel which will last 1000 years and then the earth will be destroyed as seen in 2 Peter 3, and then eternity will begin as the Lord will make a new heaven and earth, as eternity begins. 

            Lord willing I will complete this section from Luke’s gospel in this evening’s SD.

Spiritual Meaning for my Life today:  I trust the Lord will do exactly what He has promised to do with Israel and also with the Church, and I certainly look forward to the next event, the rapture of the Church.  I also look forward to what the Lord has promised to do for Israel as the Lord has given me a great love for the people of Israel.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  I trust the Lord will continue to work in my life so that I can serve the Lord in the way that He has planned for me to serve Him.

3/22/2026 11:53 AM

 

“The Promise of the Abrahamic Covenant” (Luke 1:72b-73)

 

EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/20/2026 5:30 PM

My Worship Time                                          Focus:  “The Promise of the Abrahamic Covenant”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                               Reference:  Luke 1:72b-73

            Message of the verses:  “and to remember His holy covenant, the oath which He swore to Abraham our father,”

            This evening I will continue to look at Zacharias said after he had his voice return to him, which he had lost because of not believing the angel Gabriel when Gabriel told him that he and his wife were going to have a baby, to which Zacharias stated that he and his wife were too old to have children.  Of course he and his wife would not be the first couple to have children when they were past childbearing age, as Abraham and Sarah had Isaac when they too were past childbearing age.  Now if one reads the earlier chapters in the book of Genesis that happened before the flood that took place they would see that people lived a lot longer than they do now and thus could have children when they were hundreds of years old.  However this is different now and I believe it is because once the flood happened all the waters that were above the earth were protecting the earth from the sun’s rays.  Ok it is time to begin looking at some of the things that John MacArthur has in his commentary on these verses, and this is a fairly long section from his commentary.

            Let us begin by again looking at the “holy covenant, the oath which He swore to Abraham our father,” through first mentioned in Genesis 12, would not actually be ratified until the 15^th chapter of Genesis as we will see more of it later.  Now having called Abraham to leave his home for another land which He would show him, seen in Genesis 12:1, God promised to make of his descendants a great nation, protect and bless them, through them bless the world as seen in 12:2-3, and give them that particular land (v.7).  The Lord’s promise to make a great nation from Abraham was humanly impossible, since his wife Sarah who was then known by Sarai, were barren as seen in Genesis 11:30).  Now the beginning of the fulfillment of that promise would be a conception miracle and the birth of Isaac (Gen. 18:9-15; 21:1-8).

(Gen. 18:9-15; 21:1-8)

9 ¶  They said to him, "Where is Sarah your wife?" And he said, "She is in the tent." 10  The LORD said, "I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son." And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him. 11  Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years. The way of women had ceased to be with Sarah. 12  So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, "After I am worn out, and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure?" 13  The LORD said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ 14  Is anything too hard for the LORD? At the appointed time I will return to you, about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son." 15  But Sarah denied it, saying, "I did not laugh," for she was afraid. He said, "No, but you did laugh.’”

“1 ¶  The LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did to Sarah as he had promised. 2  And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him. 3  Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac. 4  And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. 5  Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. 6  And Sarah said, "God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me." 7  And she said, "Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age." 8  And the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned.”

            MacArthur writes “God’s promise to make Abraham a ‘great nation’ (Gen. 12:2) has indeed come to pass.  The Jewish people have made profound contributions in such fields as medicine, the arts, education, literature, science, and finance.  But more significantly, through the nation of Israel ‘all the families of the earth [would] be blessed’ (v. 3) spiritually.  The Jewish people ‘were entrusted with the oracles of God’ (Rom. 9:4); that is, Israel was sovereignly called by God to be His special witness nation and to receive ‘the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises (v. 4).  Most important of all ‘from [Israel] is the Christ according to the flesh’ (v. 5; cf. Rom. 1:3).  All the blessings of salvation came through the Jewish people, leading Jesus to declare that ‘salvation is from the Jews (John 4:22).

            “But while Israel has been the channel through which God’s revelation and blessing have flowed to the world, the nation has rarely shared in those blessings. Disobedience; idolatry; empty, ritualistic, outward worship; and, most heinous of all, rejecting the Messiah, have led to chastening from God instead of blessing.  But despite their rebellion and resulting punishment, God has protected the Jewish people.  They have survived exile to Babylon, the attempt by Antiochus Epiphanes during the intertestamental period to eradicate their religion and culture, the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, being dispersed from Palestine and forced to live in Gentile lands, and centuries of pogroms and persecution, culminating in the twentieth century with the madness of the Holocaust. Yet Israel still exists as a nation, occupying part of the land God promised to Abraham.  And in the future God will continue to preserve the Jewish people, sealing 144,000 evangelists, 12,000 from each tribe (Rev. 7:4-8, during the tribulation, rescuing the nation from Antichrist’s furious attempt to annihilate it (Rev. 12:13-17), and redeeming the believing remnant at the end of the tribulation (Rom. 11:25-27).  But the Jews as a nation have yet to experience the complete fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham.”

            On my blogs I have my studies from the book of Revelation, on the main blog, and on the second blog I am putting my Spiritual Diaries  which were written beginning in January of 2015 onto my second blog.  I know that both blogs are named 2Twokens.blogspot.com but that was actually a mistake when I began my blogs back in 2012 and two blogs got started at that time, but I believe that the Lord is using both of these blogsites to bring glory to His Son, my Savior, Jesus Christ which is the goal of my blogs.

            Now like I said earlier this section is kind of a long one and so I hope to finish this section in tomorrow’s SD as I will do some in the morning and then try to finish it up in the evening SD.  I am thankful and blessed by all those who are reading my Spiritual Diaries and pray about it each day, that God will use them to bring glory to the Lord.

3/21/2026 6:16 PM

 

“The Background of the Abrahamic Covenant” Luke 1:72a)

 

MORNING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/21/2026 10:29 AM

My Worship Time                                    Focus:  “The Background of the Abrahamic Covenant”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                          Reference:  Luke 1:72a

            Message of the verse:  “To show mercy toward our fathers,”

            I’m having a problem with my new laptop and so I had to switch to my older laptop to write this SD, and so I think this morning it is best to just quote from MacArthur’s commentary for this SD.

            “The Abrahamic covenant, which God made to the fathers of the nation of Israel (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob), is a foundational element of biblical interpretation.  A correct understanding of it is essential to prop-Biblical interpretation.  A correct understanding of it is essential to properly comprehending all of redemptive history.  In contrast to the Davidic covenant, which was universal in scope, the Abrahamic covenant is national, promising blessings to Israel (though Gentiles can enter into those blessings (through faith; see the discussion of Gal. 3:6-7 and Rom. 4:11-12 which is seen below).

            “The Abrahamic covenant is preeminently a covenant of mercy, revealing that God is gracious and compassionate to undeserving people.  The stream of mercy that began with God’s blessing to all who have faith in the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.

            “After beginning with universal themes, such as God’s creation of the universe in six days, the entrance of sin into the world, and the worldwide flood of Noah’s day and its aftermath, the book of Genesis narrows it focus to one individual and his descendants:  Abraham )then known as Abram), who is introduced at the end of chapter 11.  He was a native of the sophisticated and powerful Chaldean city of Ur (v. 31), located in Mesopotamia (Acts 7:2).  What his connection with the true God was in not clear, since according to Joshua 24:2 he was an idolater.  But God soveringly called him while he was still living in Ur, commanding him, “Leave your country and your relatives, and come into the land that I will show you” (Acts 7:3).  Later, after Abraham had settled in Haran with his father, Terah (Gen. 11:31), God repeated His call to him:

“1 ¶  Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:

2  And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:

3  And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

“In obedience to the Lord’s command “Abraham went forth as the Lord had spoken to him…and came to the land of Canaan” (vv. 4, 5).  3/21/2026 10:52 AM

 

“Intro to “Zachariahs’s Song of Salvation -PT 2:The Abrahamic Covenant” (Luke 1:72-75)

 

EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/20/2026 5:44 PM

My Worship Time  Focus: “Intro to “Zachariahs’s Song of Salvation -PT 2:The Abrahamic Covenant”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                                          Focus: Luke 1:72-75

Message of the verses:  “To show mercy toward our fathers, and to remember His holy covenant, the oath which He swore to Abraham our father, to grant us that we, being rescued from the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days.” (NASB)

            I will quote the introduction from John MacArthur’s commentary.

            “If one were to ask historians to name the single most even in history, the one with the most far-reaching implications and that made the greatest impact, there would be no consensus.  Some might suggest a major battle or war that reshaped the balance of power, or the influence of a great military or political ruler, such as an Alexander the Great, Pharaoh, Caesar, king, prime minister, president, or general.  Others might suggest the rise to power of a major civilization or nation, such as Egypt, Babylon, Greece, Rome, China, the British Empire, or the United States.  Conversely, some might point to the fall of a major civilization, such as Babylon, Rome, or the decline of contemporary Western civilization.

            “Other historians might argue that a scientific invention or discovery made the greatest impact.  Inventions such as the wheel, telegraph, telephone, automobile, airplane, radio, and computer, the harnessing of electricity, and the discoveries of modern medical science have unquestionably helped make our world what it is today.

            “Many would insist that it is ideas and beliefs that exert the greatest influence on history.  They would point out the impact of thinkers such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche; religious leaders such as evolution, communism, democracy, capitalism, and postmodernism.  Nor can the significance of major movement or events, such as the Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment, the American Revolution, or the French Revolution, be under underestimated.

            “But while historians might debate history’s most significant event, history itself has already answered the question.  The most monumental event of all was the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ into the world.  The division of history into B.C (“before Christ”) and A,D (Anno Domini, ‘in the year of our Lord’) reveals the unsurpassed significance of Christ’s incarnation; it is history’s great dividing point.

            “God created mankind to serve, worship, and glorify Him.  To that end, He placed Adam and Eve in the perfect environment of the garden of Eden.  Tragically, Satan’s lies led to the corruption of that perfect world as the fall plunged the human race into sin and depravity.  But what Satan meant for evil, God used for His glory.  He saved lost sinners, putting on display His otherwise unknowable attributes of grace, mercy forgiveness, and compassion.  The Father redeemed a people, and presented them to His beloved Son as a gift of His love.  They will serve, praise, and worship Him forever.

            “The pinnacle of God’s redemptive plan was the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ into the world.  After living a sinless life of perfect obedience to God’s law, He died on the cross bearing the sins of His people.  Because He treated Jesus as if He had lived their sinful lives, God is able through His grace to treat the redeemed as if they had lived Jesus’ perfectly righteous life.  The incarnation, substitutionary atonement, and resurrection of Jesus Christ are the Bible overarching themes.  The Old Testament (most notably in Isaiah 53) anticipates the death of Messiah as the ultimate sacrifice that the Old Testament sacrificial system pointed to.  The Gospel’s given the record of Jesus’ sinless life and  sacrificial death.  Acts and the Epistles are a commentary of the theological significance  of His life, death, and resurrection.  Revelation gives the details of His return and millennial reign on earth, and His eternal reign in the new heaven and new earth.

            “In Zacharias’s day, the Jewish people were eagerly awaiting Messiah’s arrival.  They longed for Him to come, set up His kingdom, and restore their land to them  Zacharias was one of those ‘who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem’ (2:38).  The birth of his son filled him with anticipation; the angel Gabriel had told him that John would go as a forerunner before [the Messiah, Jesus Christ] in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, so as to make read a people prepared for the Lord’ (1:17).  Zacharias knew that if His forerunner had just been born, Messiah’s coming was imminent.  That knowledge prompted his magnificent hymn of praise and worship.  As befits a priest, a man who had devoted his life to studying and teaching God’s law, Zacharias’s hymn is saturated with Old Testament covenant texts.  Specifically, he centers on the three covenants of salvation and blessing—the Davidic, Abrahamic, and New covenants.  Having referred to the Davidic covenant in verses 67-71, Zacharias now turns to the Abrahamic covenant, noting its background, promise, and fulfillment in the coming Messiah.”

3/20/2026 6:32 PM

 

“The Fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant” (Luke 1:71)

 

MORNING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/20/2026 9:55 AM

My Worship Time                                          Focus:  “The Fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                                      Reference:  Luke 1:71

            Message of the verse:  “salvation for our enemies, and from the hand of all who hate us;”

            MacArthur begins this section by writing “Like many Old Testament predictions, the Lord’s promise to David in 2 Samuel 7:12-14 has both a near and a distant fulfillment.  In the short term, David’s descendant, whose kingdom God promised to establish (v. 12) was his son Solomon,  He was granted the privilege of building the temple that was denied to David (v. 13a).”

2 Samuel 7:12-14

12  When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13  He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14  I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men,”

            As one reads through the Old Testament in the chapter about Solomon they will find out that when Solomon grew old that he sank deeper and deeper into sin.  So as a result, after his death the kingdom split into two kingdoms: The northern kingdom of Israel, and the southern kingdom of Judah.  Eventually, after centuries of rebellion and disobedience, Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians in 7:22 BC.  It was a little more than a century later that Judah fell also, and it fell to the Babylonians in 586 BC as the destroyed Solomons magnificent temple.

            God’s covenant promise, however, did not fail as it extends to the One greater than Solomon (Luke 11:31)—the Lord Jesus Christ.  It is His kingdom that God promised to establish forever as seen in 2 Samuel 7:13, 16.  Christ will one day return to establish His earthly kingdom in fulfilment of the promise made to David “there will be no end to the increase of His government or of Peace, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore” (Isaiah 9:7).

            MacArthur writes: “It was that messianic kingdom, with its hope and expectations of salvation from Israel’s enemies, and from the hand of all who hate the Jewish people (cf. Ps. 106:10), that elicited Zacharias praise.”

(cf. Ps. 106:10)

“10  So he saved them from the hand of the foe and redeemed them from the power of the enemy.”

“As noted above, he believed the kingdom’s arrival was imminent (as indeed did Jesus’ own disciples, even after His resurrection [Acts 1:6]): he knew that his son was the forerunner of the Messiah, and that Mary was pregnant with the Messiah.”

[Acts 1:6])

  6 ¶  So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?’”

Now I think that it is best if I quote the answer that Jesus gave to His disciples:  “7  He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.”  We are still today looking for the answer to that question, but from what is going on in the Middle East at this time it could be very soon that this will happen, but first there has to be an end of the Church age, which will happen at the Rapture, and next the seven year tribulation period, and then after that the promised kingdom for Israel will happen and it will last 1000 years.

MacArthur goes on:  Zacharias did not foresee that the unthinkable would happen—that Israel would reject and execute the King.

            “But Israel’s disobedience cannot nullify the promises of God (Rom. 3:1-3).”

(Rom. 3:1-3)

“1 ¶  Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? 2  Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. 3  What if some were unfaithful?? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God?”

The King will one day return to establish His earthly kingdom, just as God promised David.  In that day the remnant of Israel will come to repentance and faith and, says the Lord, ‘will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn’ (Zech. 12:10).  They will cry out joyously, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ (Matt. 23:39).  ‘In that day,’ Zechariah prophesied, ‘His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east’ (Zech. 14:4).  The most detailed description of the triumphant return of Jesus Christ to judge His enemies and establish His earthly kingdom is found in Revelation 19:11-21:

“11 ¶  Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. 12  His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. 13  He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. 14  And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. 15  From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. 16  On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. 17  Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and with a loud voice he called to all the birds that fly directly overhead, "Come, gather for the great supper of God, 18  to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both small and great." 19  And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against him who was sitting on the horse and against his army. 20  And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who in its presence had done the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur. 21  And the rest were slain by the sword that came from the mouth of him who was sitting on the horse, and all the birds were gorged with their flesh.”

The hope of Zacharias and the future remnant of Jews, as well as all true believers, is sure and will certainly come to pass.  God will not forget His covenant with David.  The redeemed will experience the blessed joy of serving and worshiping the King during the millennial kingdom and the eternal kingdom that will follow it.  Only then will the fervent longing of the children of Israel for salvation from their enemies, and from the hand of all who hate them be realized.”

Spiritual Meaning for my Life today:  Now as I look at the prophecies of the end times and then look at what is going on in the Middle East today, it is my great hope that the rapture of the Church will happen soon!

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Continue to trust the Lord to take care of my wife who continues to fight the cancer that is in her body.

3/20/2026 10:48 AM