PT-2 “Zachariahs’s Song of Salvation –Part 3 The New Covenant” (Luke 1:76-80)

 

MORNING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/24/2026 9:45 AM

My Worship Time     Focus: PT-2 “Zachariahs’s Song of Salvation –Part 3 The New Covenant”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                                        Focus:  Luke 1:76-80

            Message of the verses:  “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare His ways; to give to His people the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, with which the Sunrise from on high will visit us, to shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”  And the child continued to grow and to become strong in spirit, and he lived in the deserts until the day of his public appearance to Israel.” (NASB)

            I continue to quote from the introduction of John MacArthur’s commentary on these verses above.

            “In his farewell address to the nation nearly forty years later as the wilderness wandering ended, Moses described the blessings that would come from Obedience (Deut. 28:1-14),and warned of the consequences of disobedience (vv. 15-68).  As an object lesson, Moses commanded that after Israel entered the Promised Land, half the tribes were to recite the promised blessings of obedience from Mount Gerizim and the other six pronounce the threatened curses for disobedience from Mount Ebal (Deut. 27:11-26).  After the conquest of the land of Canaan, Joshua, like Moses, also challenged Israel to obey:

“If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. (Josh. 24:15) (NASB)

In response ‘the people answered and said, ‘Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods’’ (v. 16).  When Joshua further cautioned them, ‘If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then He will turn and do you harm and consume you after He has done good to you’ (v. 20) they protested, ‘No, but we will serve the Lord…We will serve the Lord our God and we will obey His voice’ (vv. 21, 24). 

            “Again, those good intentions were not enough to keep the people slipping into apostasy.  ‘The people served the Lord all the days  of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who survived Joshua, who had seen all the great work of the Lord which He had done for Israel’ (Judges 2:7).

But after

10  And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD or the work that he had done for Israel. 11  And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals. 12  And they abandoned the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the LORD to anger. 13  They abandoned the LORD and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth. 14  So the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers, who plundered them. And he sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies. 15  Whenever they marched out, the hand of the LORD was against them for harm, as the LORD had warned, and as the LORD had sworn to them. And they were in terrible distress.” (Judges 2:10-15) (ESV)

            “Israel’s situation thus seemed hopeless.  Were they never to receive the promised blessings of the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants?  Could they somehow be forgiven for violating the Mosaic covenant and granted the means to obey? What they desperately needed was for God to provide another covenant that would provide both forgiveness and the power to obey.  That really underscores the need for the New covenant—the personal work of God to forgive sin, cleanse the heart, and provide spiritual power.”  Now if you are looking for more detail exposition of the theological aspects of the New Covenant see the commentary that John MacArthur wrote on 2 Corinthians pages 93-117.

            “Zacharias, a true believer in the Lord God, and a student of the Old Testament Scripture, understood the covenants and their fulfillment through the Messiah to come.  His response to the announcement of a son to be Messiah’s forerunner was to break out in praise for the inevitable fulfillment of the Messianic covenants.  He had already referred to the Davidic and Abrahamic covenants.” We already looked at that when we looked at verses 67-75 in earlier SDs.  “God would end four centuries of revelatory silence.  John’s ministry would be to go before the Lord to prepare His ways, in fulfillment of God’s promise through Malachi, ‘Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way for Me’ (Mal. 3:1; cf. 4:5).”  “5  "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes.”

“He was ‘the one referred to by Isaiah the prophet when he said, ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘make ready the way of the Lord, make His paths straight!’’’ (Matt. 3:3).  John’s mission was to prepare the people for Messiah’s arrival.  To that end he ‘preach[ed] a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins’ (Luke 3:3), and his uncompromising message was that people should ‘repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’ (Matt. 3:2).  John also challenged the legitimacy of some of his hearers repentance:

“7 ¶  But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8  Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. 9  And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. 10  Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” (vv. 3:7-10” (ESV)

            “John’s message ran counter to the popular conception of the Messiah.  The people were looking for a conquering hero, who would defeat their enemies, establish his throne, and usher in the promised blessings of the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants.  That is why the crowd wanted to make Jesus king after He miraculously fed the five thousand (John 6:14-15).” “14  When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!”  15 ¶  then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.”  “But before realizing the blessings of those covenants they needed to face the reality of their sin, repent, and seek the forgiveness provided only in the New covenant, already in operation, through ratified by our Lord on the cross.  In God’s timeless, eternal view He applied the death of the Savior through all redemptive history to those who repented and sought His salvation by grace.”  This ends the introduction to these last verse found in the first chapter of Luke chapter one, and as I have copied the commentary from John MacArthur it surely brings back great memories to me, and has taught me new things.

Spiritual Meaning for my Life Today:  To remember the cost that God gave to me through the death, burial and resurrection of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  To trust the Lord to help me to live a life that is very pleasing to Him, who has given me salvation through Jesus Christ my Lord as He suffered and paid for my salvation on the cross, then was buried and three days later arose from the dead to show that what He did pleased God.  For this I am very thankful!!

3/24/2026 10:56 AM

 

PT-1 “Zachariahs’s Song of Salvation –Part 3 The New Covenant” (Luke 1:76-80)

 

EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/23/2026 7:08 PM

My Worship Time     Focus: PT-1 “Zachariahs’s Song of Salvation –Part 3 The New Covenant”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                                        Focus:  Luke 1:76-80

            Message of the verses:  “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare His ways; to give to His people the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, with which the Sunrise from on high will visit us, to shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”  And the child continued to grow and to become strong in spirit, and he lived in the deserts until the day of his public appearance to Israel.” (NASB)

            It is my practice to quote from the introduction of John MacArthur’s commentary as I begin a new chapter from his commentary.

            “Of the several covenants God has given for the outworking of redemptive history, the New covenant is unique.  As noted in previous chapters of this volume, three of those covenants, the Noahic, Priestly, and Mosaic, are non-salvific; that is, they are not promises associated with salvation.  The Noahic covenant is God’s pledge not to destroy the world again by water, while the Priestly covenant is a ‘covenant of a perpetual priesthood’ (Num. 25:13) promising that all legitimate high priests would come from the family line of Phinehas.  Nor is salvation in view in the Mosaic covenant, because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin’ (Rom. 3:20; cf. v. 28; Gal. 2:16; 3:11; 5:4).  And though the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants require salvation for their blessings to be realized, nothing in them provides it.

            “There is a barrier, insurmountable by any human effort, which prevents everyone, including Israelites, from experiencing the benefits of the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants—sin.  For those covenants blessings to be realized requires a new, different, and superior covenant—one that provides total forgiveness of sin (Heb. 7:22; 8:6).  That is precisely the point the writer of Hebrews makes in Hebrews 8:7-13:

“7  For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. 8  For he finds fault with them when he says: "Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 9  not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord. 10  For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 11  And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. 12  For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more." 13  In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.” (ESV)

“Commenting on the significance of God’s making a new covenant the Puritan theologian John Owen wrote, “Had it not been of the greatest importance to the glory of God and the good of the souls of men, God would not, for the sake of it, have laid aside one covenant and made another…All this was done that we might be pardoned (The Forgiveness of sin [Reprint; Grand Rapids; Baker, 1977], 179).

            “The most basic problem people face is not psychological or social.  It is not how they act, think, or speak.  Those things merely reflect (cf. Luke 6:45) the true problem; that is, that all are sinners (Rom. 3:23), with evil, sin-defiled hearts (Jer. 17:9).  The apostle Paul gave a comprehensive description (drawn from Old Testament passages) of mankind’s endemic, systemic sinfulness when he wrote to the Romans,

“10  as it is written,: "None is righteous, no, not one; 11  no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12  All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." 13  “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” 14  “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” 15  "Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16  in their paths are ruin and misery, 17  and the way of peace they have not known." 18  “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Romans 3:10-18 ESV)

            “Paul referred to sin’s pervasive presence as the ‘law of sin’ (Rom. 7:23, 25), graphically expressing the power, authority, constraint, and influence that sin exerts.  The apostle’s use of the term ‘law’ was metaphorical; he was not speaking of a standard to be lived up to, but of a force to be reckoned with.  Sin is an operative reality in man’s nature that has the power to drive and compel behavior, much like hunger, thirst, sexual desire, fear, anger, and sorrow do.  Indwelling sin manipulates and controls behavior from the inside, unlike external standards or rules.

            “Since neither the promised blessings of the Davidic and Abrahamic covenants, nor the threatened curses for violating the Mosaic law can change the heart, they cannot overpower the law of sin.  No amount of willpower or determination to obey can enable a sinner to keep the Ten Commandments (or even Jesus’ summary of the Law [Mark 12:28-31]).”  I will stop here to quote these verses from Mark’s gospel” (Mark 12:28-31) “28 ¶  And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” 29  Jesus answered, "The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30  And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31  The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these." (EST).  The law both demonstrates to sinners their inability to obey and their need for mercy, grace, and forgiveness, and even exacerbates sin and leads to death (Rom. 7:8-11).” “8  But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9  I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10  The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11  For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.” (ESV).  “It displays our sin and helplessness in order, as Paul wrote, to become ‘our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith’ (Gal. 3:24).

            “Israel’s experience illustrates that truth.  The people had the best intentions, vowing obedience to God’s law and sealing their commitment with blood as recorded in Exodus 24:4-8:

“4  And Moses wrote down all the words of the LORD. 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. 5  And he sent young men of the people of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the LORD. 6  And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. 7  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 spoken we will do, and we will be obedient." 8  And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, "Behold the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words." (ESV)

But it proved impossible for them to overcome their sinful natures and soon they were breaking the commandments with a level of idolatry and immorality that led to divine judgment (Ex. 32).”

            I will end here and Lord willing pick up the rest in tomorrow morning’s SD.

3/23/2026 7:48 PM

           

 

“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