You did a LOT of reading last week!  Maybe you have not stopped to consider much the way God interacts with man.  I think it can be easy to read through our Bible and see the ways God works individually and in specific situations without noticing how this all fits into the bigger plan God has: REDEMPTION!  I also think it can be easy to look back and think some of our Biblical heroes were kind of bone-headed!  Why would Abraham lie about who his wife was?  Could it be, because he didn’t trust God to protect them?  Why did David pursue another man’s wife?  Selfishness perhaps?  We’ll spend a little bit of time in the covenants again this week but looking at it from our perspective.  Could we really have done it any better?

As I was teaching through this study with a group of girls, we were discussing whether we could have obeyed that one simple rule God gave Adam and Eve originally.  Most of us were able to say, “We like to think we would obey, but we probably would not have either”.  But I had one girl that was the hold out.  She said, “Mrs. April, I really think I could do it!”  It surely made me smile!  But, I think history has shown us….not one of us could have done it.

Day 1

• Today we’ll review the covenants of Adam and Abraham.  If you need a refresher for reading, consult Genesis 1:26-2:17 (Adam) and Genesis 17:1-14 (Abraham).  Discuss the following questions about each covenant.
  • ADAM
    • How hard do you think it would be to have dominion over the earth, grow a family and to not eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil?
    • What about it do you think was so tempting for Adam and Eve to disobey?
    • What sort of lies could satan have told you to convince you to disobey?
    • Hindsight is always a perfect view right?  It is easy for us to see Adam and Eve as silly for not keeping their one rule.  But when satan entered the garden, he didn’t tempt Eve to murder, or to be disrespectful to the garden or pollute it.  Satan tempted her with what she was already interested in, knowledge to be like God.  She wanted to feel like she was in charge of things.  Is that something you have ever wanted?  If your friends would just do what you wanted them to do, or parents, if people at work would just handle the situation the way you tell them to, then everything would work out just fine.  Sigh….seems like we might not be that different from Eve after all.
  • ABRAHAM – Parents, this is a sensitive covenant involving the rite of circumcision.  If you have a pre-teen or a teenager this is certainly an appropriate time to be able to talk about male and female anatomy.  However, I completely understand if this is something you do not want to tackle so please feel free to pass over the Abrahamic covenant questions if that works better for your family.
    • Do you think it would be difficult to circumcise your sons?  For parents of boys, this might be a good time for you to talk about how you felt if you had your sons circumcised. 
    • What did this sign of circumcision represent?
    • Read Joshua 5:2-9
      • How well did the generations that came after Abraham uphold the covenant of circumcision?
      • Why do you think they were disobedient?
    • Circumcision was an outward sign of belonging to the people of the Lord.  A whole generation went without circumcising their sons.  This was the same generation that grumbled against Moses and Aaron and God and begged to go back to Egypt.  They wanted to go back to the captivity and oppression of the Egyptians instead of move to the promised land of God and be identified as belonging to Him.  Once again we see a people group that thinks they have the better way to do things, not God.
• What is one area of your life that you are trying to “get your way”. 
  • Seeing the results of our desire to get our own way means being out of the presence of the Lord and not being identified with Him and His people. 
  • Write or speak a prayer of confession of this sin to God (and maybe as a family) tonight and seek God’s help for you to find His way, instead of your own.

Day 2

• One more day of covenant reflection: Today we’ll look at the covenants of Moses and David.  You’ll find these covenants in Exodus 20:1-17 and 2 Samuel 7:1-17.  Discuss the following questions about each covenant.
  • MOSES
    • The Mosaic covenant encompasses all of the laws we read about in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers.  But in just considering the 10 Commandments, how hard is this to uphold in your daily life?
    • Which of these commands gives you trouble, and is there a link to your desire to have your own way in your temptation to disobey?
  • DAVID
    • What kind of pressure do you think David would have felt in his role as king of Israel, knowing that a son of every generation after him would be the king of Israel as well?
    • What if you were a son in David’s line to become king; what kind of pressure do you think you would feel?
    • What parts of ruling do you think you would do well in?
    • What parts of ruling do you think you would be weak in?
• Moses and David faced some challenging situations.  They were the first to be consider leaders over the nation of Israel.  The Israelites continually grumbled against Moses and just wanted to go back to Israel.  David had a huge task of not just ruling the Israelite kingdom well, but also in setting up a plan for strong rulers to come after him.  As you read through the two books of Kings and Chronicles, you can see this did not go well at all!
• The 10 Commandments is where everything started for the nation.  And as a king, the ruler was to read the law all the days of his life so he would keep the commands and rule well.  Tonight consider the 10 commandment you mentioned that is a struggle for you.  Write or speak a prayer asking God to forgive your disobedience (and ask anyone else you’ve sinned against in this way for forgiveness too) and ask for His help.

Day 3

• Well, we men are proving pretty pitiful at keeping our terms of the agreement as God’s people.  But just like in Genesis 3:15, God does not leave us without hope!
• Read Jeremiah 31:31-34 again this week.  Discuss the following questions about this covenant.
  • In the new covenant, how will people know what God requires of them?
  • Have you ever had an experience when you just felt something you were about to do was wrong?  Maybe no one even told you it would be wrong, but it just “felt wrong”?  What was it?
  • When man breaks this covenant, how will God handle it?
  • When considering the pieces that were broken by Adam and Eve’s sin in the garden, earthly creation (now it produces thorns and thistles), human creation (death), dominion over the earth and relationship with God, which of these do you think the New Covenant restores?  Why do you think that?
• When God writes His standards on our hearts and forgives us when we sin, we are called again God’s people.  Now when we sin there is forgiveness instead of curses.  But the forgiveness is not so we will intentionally disobey like Adam and Eve did.  But it is so we can once again be restored into fellowship and a relationship with God our Creator.  If Adam and Eve had been permitted to go back to the garden do you think they would want to sin against God again, knowing what the punishment was?  I think probably not!  We also know what the results of sin are; it’s death.  It is death to us, to the earth, to the job God gave us to do and to a relationship with God.  But God has now told us that those of us that have been forgiven of our sins, that we have come back into a relationship with God.  We are HIS people!
• How can you show gratitude for the act of forgiveness God has given you?
• How can this gratitude help you battle temptation to sin in the future?

Day 4

• We have reviewed the covenants of the Old Testament this week and reminded ourselves of the New Covenant to come.  But just like every other covenant, God desires to covenant with mankind, and He always appoints a man as His mediator/representative of the Covenant.  So who will this new man be?
• Read through several of these references for an idea about the man to come.
  • Deuteronomy 18:15
  • Numbers 24:15-19
  • Isaiah 7:14
  • Isaiah 52:13-14
  • Isaiah 53:2-3
  • Isaiah 16:4(b)-5
  • Jeremiah 23:5-6
  • Isaiah 11:1-5
  • Ezekiel 37:24-25
• Discuss the following questions about this man to come:
  • What is his lineage?
  • What kind of role will he fulfill?
  • What are his attributes?  (What does he look like and how does he behave?)
  • How should the nation respond to him?
  • What other attributes do you notice about this man to come?
• In considering that the man to come will come from the line of Jesse (David), will be a ruler and a prophet it is surprising to think that he will be “despised and rejected” and that “we will esteem Him not” (Isaiah 53:3).  But when you read through the gospels and even consider people that you may know today, it is evident that this Scripture was fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ.  He was rejected by Jews and Gentiles alike during his own day and continues to be rejected even in our modern world.
• How does knowing that Scripture was fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ, build your faith in Him and what He did when He came to earth?
• If you are lacking in faith in this area, pray to God and ask Him to reveal more of His truth about Jesus, what the Bible revealed about Him before He came to earth as a man and ask Him to build your faith.  And BELIEVE He will do it!

Day 5

• Today we look at the amazing promise of God to send a very special man indeed.  He was not just sending an ordinary man, (we already know how that will turn out), but He is sending His Son to be a man!
• Read through these references for an idea about God to come.
  • Isaiah 9:6-7
  • Isaiah 11:10
  • Isaiah 30:20-21
  • Isaiah 49:5-6
  • Isaiah 42:1-4
  • Micah 5:2-5
• Discuss the following questions about God who is to come:
  • What similarities do you see between the passages of a man to come from yesterday, and the passages today about God to come?
  • Why do you think Scripture shows us similarities between some of the passages?
  • In what ways are the passages different?
• One of my favorite passages is Micah 5:2 when the prophet speaks of the ruler to come “whose coming forth is from of old; from ancient days.”  There is a man coming, who is not yet here, but he’s been around since the ancient of days.  This is no ordinary man indeed! 
• John does an amazing job of really focusing on the deity of Christ when he writes his gospel narrative.  John, not even for a moment, lost sight of Jesus as God, as he wrote his story.  John writes “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God (1:1-2).  John continues on to say “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (1:14).  The Word that was with God in the very beginning, from the ancient of days, is the Word that became flesh and dwelt among men.  The Word is Jesus.  He has always been and He will always and forever be.  Jesus says of Himself in Revelation that He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end (22:13).  The man that comes is a man that has always been, but He is so much more than a man, He is God!