This is Bob Mumford's recommended tape number 47 for November 1976. This month's featured speaker is Ern Baxter, a noted Bible teacher and conference speaker. He has for many years ministered throughout Canada, primarily at Christian Center in Surrey, British Columbia, and is currently residing in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. This month's message is entitled, "The Men of Covenant." In our first session, we... talked about covenant relationships in terms vertical. We made the observation that our horizontal relationships are only going to be as valid and as deep and as meaningful and as lasting as are our vertical commitments and our understanding of those vertical commitments.

And I want to underline now, if I fail to do it later, that word understanding. It is out of an understanding of the will of God that we are able to move with spiritual intelligence so that our covenantal relationship between one another is based on an understanding of the Christian's covenantal relationship vertically or with God.

And then we concluded the last session by making reference to the nature of covenant commitment in baptism and the renewal of covenant relationship in the Lord's Supper. God's approach, his covenant approach to man, is a revelation of his love and his self-giving, and it's a pattern for our covenantal relationship with each other.

All I'm doing at the moment is trying to tie in the two before we move in to a historical illustration, because we couldn't begin to cover all of the Bible material, but to move in to a historical illustration of the nature of horizontal covenant. As John 3:16, so well known to us, tells us about God's covenantal breaking into history in words so well known.

God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. 1 John 3:16, as I'm sure we all know, gives us the correlative statement that relates to our covenantal relationship.

And I'd just like to turn, and if you care to turn and look at it, 1 John 3:16. We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has the world's goods and beholds his brethren in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?

I'd like you to just talk verse 16 into our little side corner and hold it there because it's going to come up later on as we deal with horizontal relationship. Let's read it once more.

We recognize and we know true agape by this, that he laid down his life for us. None of us are in any doubt as to God's love for us. We have a historical manifestation of that love. There's no question about it because in the self-giving of God in Christ, we have a demonstration of love.

Now, he says, we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. It doesn't make any difference in the actual fact of Christ laying down his life and our laying down our life. They are two of a kind. I can't lay down my life for you vicariously. But I can covenantally.

But the nature of the laying down of life is the same in both instances. Jesus Christ proved the love of God by literally going to the length of dying for us. And we are told that that is what is expected from us, at least in spirit and attitude, even if we're not called upon to do it.

But when I say even if we're not called upon to do it, that may be a dangerous addition to the Scripture. Because I'm wondering, and this will come up as we look at our historical illustration, I am wondering... If we say we will lay down our lives for the brethren, and it sounds good and it sounds noble and it sounds like real commitment and it emits responses of appreciation, but I wonder if in our hearts we really believe that it is possible that we may be asked to do exactly that.

And I referred in my prayer to the sobriety of this conference. Some of the things we're hearing, it's almost like Bishop D'Antonio set a note when he read his message. He spoke about his priests and his responsible men and sisters being murdered and massacred.

And we seem to have heard a sober note running all through. We've heard about change. We've heard about the challenges. And I'm thinking of one day as we were sitting, talking together about what we were doing. And I believe it was Charles Simpson who said very quietly and unemotionally, "And there was no great emotion in the room, and it didn't stir any great emotion, although it seemed to register with us."

He just said very simply and very quietly, some of us may have to die for what we believe. And somehow we knew that what he said was prophetic.

After I heard the bishop in the opening thing, I hardly wanted to be a part of this coin. I thought of the passage in Hebrews where... The Hebrews were screaming because of persecution, and the writer to the Hebrews said, "Have you resisted sin unto blood?"

He said, You're screaming about being called names and about some persecution. Let me ask you one question. How much blood have you shed?

When you are weary and faint in your mind, he says, Consider him who endured such contradiction of sinners against himself.

Who endured the cross and despised the shame and has sat down at the right hand of God.

When you start to get weary and faint in your mind, consider him who not only resisted sin unto some blood, but resisted sin in the mystery of his total self-giving and vicarious death.

So I want to strike this sober note, not that I want to bring you down into any kind of a despondency mentality, because that isn't where it's at. I think it's got another dimension entirely.

But I don't want us to play with it. I want us to realize that these are serious times, that nations are in turmoil, that we may be walking into the climax of history with all of its... It's change and it's challenge and that we have to be ready, probably in very reality, to make some very real sacrifice.

The illustration that I want to use this afternoon in speaking of horizontal covenantal love is that of David and Jonathan. I think it's one of the most beautiful and one of the most enduring and one of the most descriptive.

We're not going to be able to deal with it in depth, but I want us to expose our hearts to it and let it speak to us.

When we gather to the Lord's table, if I may once more relate to our last session, when we gather at the Lord's table, we are taking communion. It is, I think, improper to speak of me saying I'm going to take my communion.

A phrase that has become rather common among some people who see only the vertical dimension in communion so that when they take the body and blood of our Lord out of whatever... theological context.

When they take it, they're thinking, "I am remembering him. I am receiving grace through this from him." This is something that I'm doing in relationship to him. But that is not the context in which the communion is placed, either by our Lord in its inauguration or by the Apostle Paul when he establishes it as a permanent part of the church's life.

He said it is the communion or the common sharing of the body of Christ. And when it is not taken in community, it is not the Lord's Supper. It's our own supper. And he says every man eats his own supper.

I don't take my communion. I relate to you in the common sharing of the body and blood of our Lord. It is a meal of community. It is a meal of covenant. It is a meal celebrating that we are not only in covenant relationship with God, but we're in covenant relationship with one another.

All right, that's very general. We are covenant people. I think it's a word that we've got to get back into our vocabulary. We are covenant people.

Now, when Jonathan and David met for the first time, and we'll go into that in a moment, when they met for the first time, we must see that they met in a context of covenant. Both David and Jonathan understood the nature of God's covenant with Israel.

They both knew the history of God's dealings covenantally. They knew about God cutting covenant with Abraham. They knew about God cutting covenant with the nation of Israel in Exodus 19.

When Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the book and then took what was left in the basin and flung it out across the congregation, there was blood on the book and there was blood on the people and there was blood everywhere.

They understood the nature of covenant. They were men who lived in a society that understood covenant.

They knew what it was to cut covenant. They knew what it was to make covenant. They knew what it was to break covenant. They knew the rules and the regulations and the disciplines and the penalties attached to covenant.

These men understood the nature of covenant. I think we're handicapped by not understanding the nature of covenant.

And I think this is all related to the source. The sloppy, mocky sentimentality that characterizes so much of the initiation into the Christian faith.

The soft lights, the gentle organ music, the just as I am without one plea, the come to Jesus and he'll be your buddy.

That wasn't the way it was. When Jesus gathered his disciples and inaugurated the supper, he did it within the bloody context of the Passover celebration.

He did it in the shadow of his own coming cross.

He took that cup, and as he looked at its red contents, he saw his own blood in that cup.

And as he gave it to his disciples, he was saying to the man, "This is what's going to bind you to me, and it's going to bind you to one another."

This is the blood of a new covenant. And it's got all the characteristics of the old one, only it's better blood with better prospects, with better hopes, with better clauses, with better promises, and with a better future.

But you better understand, it's a blood business.

Now, quickly, let's have a little Bible drill. Get back into 1 Samuel chapter 20.

I just want you to see that David and Jonathan weren't entering into some... sentimental, promising one another.

They weren't exchanging friendship rings.

I just want you to see how they relate what they did to one another to the Lord.

Verse 8 of chapter 20, please.

Therefore deal kindly with your servant, for you have brought your servant into a covenant of the Lord with you.

It just wasn't a covenant between Jonathan and David. They knew that the covenant that they'd made with one another was a covenant that had been cut.

They always in the Old Testament speak of cutting a covenant or making a covenant.

But in the case of Jonathan and David, it was cut covenant. Karat Berit. Cut covenant.

And we'll come to that in a moment.

I just want to... established the fact that David and Jonathan knew what they were doing.

Verse 12 of chapter 20.

Then Jonathan said to David, "The Lord, the God of Israel, be witness."

They brought God into this thing because they knew what they were doing.

Verse 42 of chapter 20.

Jonathan said to David, "Go in safety inasmuch as we've sworn to each other in the name of the Lord, saying, 'The Lord will be between me and you and between my descendants and your descendants forever.'"

They understood the divine dimension in their horizontal covenant.

Chapter 23 and verse 8. Chapter 23 and verse 18.

So the two of them cut a covenant before the Lord.

2 Samuel chapter 9 and verse 3.

And the king said, "Is there not yet any one of the house of Saul to whom I may show the kindness of God?"

David's covenant with Jonathan was tied up in the divine relationship.

so tightly that David, in fulfilling his part of the covenant to Jonathan, referred to what he would do as manifesting a kindness of God.

And so they knew what they were doing.

All right, now let's just expose our hearts to what happened between Jonathan and David as we go back to 1 Samuel chapter 18.

Jonathan was no slouch. We haven't time to go into his history, but he was heroic. He was courageous. He loved God. He was a man of integrity.

And might I say that like relates to like.

There's almost a law in this matter of covenant-making, and that is that peer covenants with peer.

You'll find men on different levels covenanting with each other.

In verse 1 of chapter 18, it came about when he had finished speaking to Saul that the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as himself.

Now let me stop right there and just say this. I cannot be in a meaningful covenant relationship with the whole worldwide covenant community.

It is just not practical.

And it's very much like this idea of where are you responsible as a Christian?

Somebody said, well, I'm a member of the body of Christ, the church at large, which means that you're a member really of nothing, that you're committed to nothing.

You have no responsibility anywhere.

In many instances, I believe, sincerely, it is a deliberate cop-out.

It is a kind of religious excuse for not tying yourself into a responsible relationship where you will grow in God and you'll find the dimensions of maturation that God intended you to have.

I'll go further and say, a man cannot mature in God, he cannot become anything in God, and he'll probably shrivel up and blow away if he doesn't get into a meaningful relationship with other believers in an ongoing corporate maturation situation.

I cannot mature alone. I have to mature in community.

Let me repeat, I can't be in covenant with everybody.

And it says that the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David.

And the New Testament says that we are knit together.

Now, I've got to be knit to somebody. I can't be knit to everybody.

Who are you knit to? I know who I'm knit to.

Now, because I'm knit to somebody in particular doesn't mean that I am not happy with my relationship with all Christians everywhere.

But I cannot conduct a covenant relationship with people everywhere, I have got to have a specific knitting with others with whom I can work out a relationship and an ongoing maturation.

There must be a specific knitting together.

And the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David.

And I believe that this knitting... even in their day, was a divine thing.

And if anything today, it's more divine than men, as this covenant is better than the old.

And that God knits men together.

When we were in California recently, meeting with a group of leaders, the question was asked, how many people can be meaningfully related together?

I think Bob said that sociologists teach that 12 is the maximum number that can have a real meaningful relationship.

There was a physicist in the audience who spoke up and said something that almost blew my mind. He said, in the atomic structure of the universe, the maximum number of atoms that can be neighbor to each other is 12. The minimum is six.

And I thought, my God, that's Romans 1:20. The invisible things of God are seen in the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, and God has built into the very atomic structure of the universe the fact that twelve is a maximum number of atoms that can have a meaningful relationship with each other.

Then I understood why there were twelve tribes.

I understood why there were twelve disciples.

I understood why twelve became the functional governmental number in the Bible. That twelve is the maximum number that can have a meaningful relationship.

Now, I've said all that to underscore what I've already said, that I can't have a meaningful covenantal relationship with everybody.

But I'll tell you something, if I have a meaningful covenantal relationship with six, and it is meaningful and it is genuine,

It will reflect itself whenever I meet anybody else who is in the redeemed covenant community because out of the maturity of my specific relationship will come an integrity that will be manifested anywhere I meet God's people because as I conduct my covenant relationships in my specific area, I am preparing myself.

to be a man of God wherever I meet God's people across the face of the earth.

Here is the cleaned-up version of the sermon transcription:

Seventy-five animals represented them. They were giving their blood to each other, and usually after they'd walked through between the animals together, they sat down and fed upon the animals and they ate together.

The Hebrew word "berit" has a lot of mystery in it. And when you research it, you'll find that it's got both the meaning of cut and eat, so that the sacrifice is cut and it's eaten.

Now, if they were to give each other's lives, give their life each to the other, it would mean that I would have to kill myself and give myself to you, and you'd kill yourself and give yourself to me, and there wouldn't be much left to go on in covenant relationship.

But when the sacrificial animals are taken, it is done in symbol. But when you walk down between those animals, which was the meaning of cutting a covenant, You are not only saying, I give my life to you, you give your life to me, and now we will eat this animal, and in eating it, we will be literally eating each other's life so that we become united in a covenant of blood.

But they were also saying, that if either of us violate this covenant, may it be to us as it is to these animals. That thing that we so often think of as being a delightful benediction, the Lord watched between me and thee while we're absent one from another.

You know, we say that the Lord watched between me. That wasn't said in that way when it was said originally. It was, now we've made an agreement, and God keep an eye on you, and God keep an eye on me, and if either of us break it, God get us.

So the next time you say, God, watch between me and me while we're absent one from another, at least do it intelligently, you know, just say, God's got his eye on you. All right?

Now, as was the custom, there was always an exchange of gifts. And in verse 4, Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him, gave it to David with his armor, including his sword and his bow and his belt.

And so they've entered now in the covenant.

Now, we're going to have to say some somber things about this, but I want to go to verse 1 of chapter 19. We're creatures of imbalance. And as we talk about any subject, we find ourselves leaning one way or another. As we talk about covenant this afternoon, we can become very somber and sober and be deeply stirred about our commitments and our sincerity and our integrity and our veracity, and that's good.

Make us lopsided because we've got another side to our nature that laughs and claps its hands and enjoys and plays, and that's valid, very valid. And I have found that in covenant relationship with my brothers that we've had to walk through some pretty bloody places together. But we've had a lot of fun together.

And so I find in verse 1 of chapter 19, Now Saul told Jonathan and his son and all his servants to put David to death. But Jonathan, Saul's son, greatly delighted in David. Now that doesn't mean that he loved him, but he was Jonathan's delight. They had a relationship that they liked to be together.

They enjoyed being together. Man, I think it'd be hell to be in covenant relationship with someone. Well, you take a bad marriage and you got it. A covenant where men are knit together in God is not only designed for loyalty and integrity and veracity and standing together in times of testing, but it's designed for the fulfillment of each other's total life, and you enjoy one another, and you're happy with one another.

The brothers that I'm in covenant with, I don't mind going through battles with them and going through the fire with them, and we've had to do that. But I tell you, it's been compensated for, if by nothing else, than by the joy we've had out of each other. When we can sit together and we can share together and we can eat together and we can walk together and break bread together and counsel together, I say hallelujah.

I like the arrangement. And let me say that you again have an illustration in marriage. A good marriage. A good marriage is fun. A good marriage is joy in that that wife of your youth, the darling of your bosom, is the woman that God needs you to.

All the labor of childbirth, all the trials, all the problems, all the frugality you've shared together, all of the situations you've had to walk through together have been compensated for because you've got a relationship of joy and happiness and it compensates.

And I want you to know that being in covenant isn't some kind of a living tragedy. Quite frankly, I don't know how I lived all the years of my, I was going to say my marriage, all the years of my ministry outside of government. I really don't. If I have any blue minutes or hours about the past.

It's because I look at the past and see where having to walk alone, I bumbled and blundered and made a mess of things again and again because I had no one to walk up to the house of the Lord with. And I'd walk into my big church with its big Paul steeple and its big custom-built oak pulpit and its 2,000-seated custom-built oak pews.

And the crowd would all pile through rejoicing and happy. And I'd walk in there alone and deliver my soul and walk out alone. And I lived in lofty loneliness. There's nothing as lonely as a minister or a shepherd or a servant of God who cannot expose all of the problems of the flock to the flock.

That's very obvious. This is where the plurality of relationships come in, that when you are walking in covenant with a peer brother, you don't carry your burden alone. You share it together because two are better than one, for they shall have more reward for their labor. And if one falls down, the other will pick him up. And if one gets cold, the other will keep him warm.

It's not good for a man to be alone. First time God ever saw anything that wasn't good was he saw Adam all alone. Up to that point, he made something. He said, oh, that's good. He made something. Oh, he said, I did a good job on that. He said, that's good, too.

And then he looked down inside and he said, that's not good. And thank God he fixed it up. Sometimes we wonder if he did, but I'm sure he did.

It's not all suffering and sacrifice, brothers. So don't grit your teeth and clench your fist and buy a cross and drag it down Main Street. You are going to need all the joy and the happiness and the relational fun that there is in covenant relationship. Enjoy it. Never have a bad conscience about it.

Hallelujah. I'm going to enjoy it more. I'm preaching myself into a real joy here. Hallelujah.

All right, let's turn to chapter 20 now, and we'll see where covenant is tested. Covenant is tested.

I don't have to say, Thus saith the Lord. This is just the nature of things. Life is designed, if it's to grow at all, it's going to grow as it finds itself pitted against providential and deliberately planted tensions and obstacles.

Then David fled from nigh off in Ramah and came and said to Jonathan, What have I done? What is my iniquity and what is my sin before your father?

Because by now Saul is against him. And he said to him, Far from it, you shall not die. Behold, my father does nothing, either great or small, without disposing it to me.

So why should my father hide this thing from me? Is it not so? Yet David bowed again, saying, Your father knows well that I have found favor in your sight. And he has said, Do not let Jonathan know this, lest he be grieved.

But truly, as the Lord lives and as your soul lives, there is hardly a step between me and death.

Then Jonathan said to David, Whatever you say, I will do for you. That's covenant. Because Jonathan was speaking out of a situation where he was the son of the king.

He was the heir to the throne. He was a celebrity in the nation. David was on his way out. David was about to be exiled.

And yet Jonathan understood covenant, that when you cut a covenant with a man, you don't cut a covenant to be kept when things are going easy. You cut a covenant with that man, and in the shedding of the blood of the sacrificial victims, you are saying, I pledge my life to you to the death.

And brothers, we're going to need that these days. All right?

Now, we have to see Jonathan's relationship to Saul in a two-fold form, first paternally and then officially. Paternally, he was Saul's son, and this elicited filial relationship.

But officially, Saul was also Jonathan's king. And Jonathan saw his father as a king. Later on, we're going to see what Jonathan really knew. He saw his father as a king whom God had left.

And he had to walk a tightrope. I don't know if I can say this to you the way I want to. Some of you may have heard my series on Saul and David.

But I consider Saul, in this analogy, to stand for heaven's shoulders government devoid of the Spirit of God. Jonathan recognized in David God's anointed king, and he knew that his father was finished.

And Jonathan made a choice. Even though the king was his father, he made a choice. He cast his lot in with David and he cut a covenant with him. But he had to walk a tightrope because he lived in his father's court.

He sat at his father's table. He ate his father's bread. He was his father's son. He was an heir to a throne. And yet he was in a blood covenant relationship.

With a man who was about to be exiled from his country. Jonathan walked that tightrope admirably.

And so he said, whatever you say, I will do for you. Now we're getting into the nitty-gritty of having our covenant commitments challenged. Are we willing to come through when the chips are down?

It's fine to be in covenant when everything is good. But when your brother is in a problem, when he's in difficulty, do we stand with him? This has not been characteristic of our day.

Our day has grown a crop of covenant breakers who don't understand the nature of loyalty, who'll sell one another for a mess of pottage or a political position.

And God is calling into being a counterculture, and among other things, he wants to reintroduce into a world that ought to be run by moral government the meaning of integrity and loyalty between men.

Because once integrity and loyalty is gone, the whole thing disintegrates. Somebody has said that if God told a lie, the whole universe would disintegrate.

The stars would fall out of heaven. The sun would stop shining. All the atoms in the earth would break up and go scattering through the universe. Why?

He upholds all things by the word of his power. And if that is not a pure word, if that's not a tested word, if that's not a word of veracity and integrity, then the whole universe will collapse.

But under this universe there is a word. It is the word of a God who cannot lie. It's a word of integrity and veracity. It upholds the universe, and it upholds the man who leans hard upon it.

And God will confirm your integrity as he will ultimately confirm his own. Drop down to verse 8. Therefore deal kindly with your servant, for you brought your servant into a covenant of the Lord with you.

He reminds Jonathan. That they have a covenant of the Lord. That the Lord is watching. The Lord's in on this thing. This isn't just some human arrangement. That they have to relate in integrity.

All right? Let's go to verses 12 and 13. David is sure that Saul's going to kill him. Jonathan doesn't think so. But Jonathan now knows that there's some truth to this.

And so Jonathan said, I want to protect you from my father. He said, let's step aside so we won't be heard. Let's go out into the field.

So the both of them went out to the field. Verse 12, then Jonathan said to David, the Lord, the God of Israel, be witness. Here we are again. When I have sounded out my father about this time tomorrow or the third day, behold, if there is good feeling toward David, shall I not then send to you and make it known to you?

He said, if everything's all right, I'll send you a messenger.

Now notice what he says next. Verse 13. If it please my father to do you harm, may the Lord do so to Jonathan and more also.

Now brothers, let me point something out here. It almost sounds like they don't trust one another. I think that Matthew 18. is going to be one of the new ways that's going to come in on the shore of what God is doing in this hour.

And Matthew 18 says, if your brother sins against you, go to him. In another place it says, if he sins against you, rebuke him. And if he repent, forgive him. There's been a failure on our part to confront one another lovingly and remind one another of the nature of the relationship that we're in.

Now, he said, if my father is going to do you harm, may the Lord do so to Jonathan and more also, if I do not make it known to you and send you away that you may go and save you. He said, if everything's okay at home and my father is not out for your life, I'll send a messenger to you and you can come walking back casually.

But he said, if there is a plot to harm you, I will personally put my life on the line and I'll come to you and I'll see to it that you know the truth and that you get out of the situation without any harm. This is relating in integrity before God.

I'll get you word, he said. All right? However, here's the other side of it now. See, this covenant always has two sides. And brothers, let me say something to you. I don't have anything in mind other than I see it here as I have exposed my heart to the Jonathan and David record.

Don't ever take advantage of your covenant, brother. This is a two-sided thing. He's standing with you today. He may need you to stand with him tomorrow. It's a two-way street. Don't split and run the minute it's going to cost you.

All right, verse 14, he said, I'll come to you myself at the risk of my own life. And if I survive it, if I am still alive, will you not show me the loving kindness of the Lord that I may not die? What did Jonathan know? He tells us later on what he knew.

He knew that David was going to be king. He knew who was going to come out in the top of the heap. But I don't question his motivation. This covenant was taught on the basis of love.

And whatever Jonathan knew, he was prepared to risk his neck for it. And while he knew that David was going to be king, he was prepared to expose himself to the wrath of his father. If his father caught him leaving the palace and going out to warn David, he would have killed his son as quickly as he would have killed anybody else.

That's the nature of an ancient, absolute, despotic monarch. He'd have killed him. So don't question Jonathan's motivation.

What Jonathan is saying is that if I am alive, will you not show me the loving kindness of the Lord that I may not die? And you shall not cut off your loving kindness from my house. Now we have the covenant extended and renewed. It got along fine up until now, but now the covenant can stand a little more weight.

You'll find that as covenant develops, you can put more weight on it. He said you shall not cut off your loving kindness from my house. Forever, not even when the Lord cuts off every one of the enemies of David from the face of the earth.

He said, I know that your enemies are all going to be cut off, and I may die fulfilling my part of the covenant relationship. I may die in protecting you from my father's wrath. But David, could we covenant between our houses?

And if I live, as he says later on, You're going to be king and I'm going to be with you and my father knows it. That was his high hope.

I have high hopes this afternoon. I've got my dreams. A man who doesn't dream isn't worth his salt. A man who doesn't use his sanctified imagination to project his highest hopes. That man's half dead already.

I've got my dreams this afternoon. I've got a vision. I also have a haunting sense that it is possible I'll not live to see it. But that isn't going to keep me from having my dreams.

Jonathan had his dream. He knew his father was going to fall. He knew David was going to be king. He knew he was going to stand beside him in the rulership of Israel. That was his dream.

But if he died in protecting his covenant brother, he wanted to pledge from his covenant brother as he would pledge to him that if David got in trouble, he'd take care of David's family. And if he got in trouble... David would take care of his family.

And so they cut another covenant. Verse 16, So Jonathan cut a covenant with a house of David. The covenant is being extended now, saying, May the Lord require it at the hands of David's enemies.

Jonathan made David vow again because of his love for him, because he loved him as he loved his own life. I think that we see some contemporary fulfillments of this, brothers, for some of us at least.

We are entering into a new phase of covenantal relationship in this hour. Some are further ahead than others, where they've gone into community situations. I'm not here to discuss community situations, but I believe that the spirit of Acts 2 and Acts 4 is the perennial spirit of a sound covenantal Christianity, which says that in the hour of crisis, what I have is yours, and that we hold all things common.

I'm not opposed to private enterprise. I'm not opposed to you having your bank account. But I am saying that the spirit of covenant is that what's mine is yours, what's yours is mine. And in a time of crisis, there won't be a split second of hesitation.

I will share it with you, and you will share it with me. We hold in common the things that God has given us, for the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and all that dwell therein, and we are stewards of the earth that is his, and we can share with one another what is all ours anyway.

And so there was a

Here is the cleaned-up sermon transcription with proper punctuation, capitalization, and natural paragraphs:

By the stone as hell, I will shoot three arrows to the side as though I shot at a target. Behold, I will send the lad, saying, Go find the arrows. If I specifically say to the lad, Behold, the arrows are on this side of you, get them. Then come, for there is safety for you and no harm as the Lord lives. But if I say to the youth, Behold, the arrows are beyond you, go, for the Lord has sent you away.

As for the agreement of which you and I have spoken, behold, the Lord is between you and me forever. We've done this with God looking on. So David hid in the field.

Now drop down to verse 30. Then Saul's anger burned against Jonathan, and he said to him, You son of a perverse, rebellious woman, do I not know that you are choosing the son of Jesse to your own shame and to the shame of your mother's nakedness?

That was a terrible thing for him to say to his son, especially if you understand the implications of it. Verse 31, For as long as the son of Jesse lives in the earth, neither you nor your kingdom will be established.

Do you see this not-too-subtle attempt to divide David and Jonathan? Don't you know that as long as he lives, your throne is in jeopardy? But Jonathan isn't thinking that way because it's no longer his throne, it's our throne.

And when you've entered into covenant, it's no longer my ministry. It's our ministry. It's no longer my reputation. It's our reputation. We have entered into a covenant which Jonathan and David did not hesitate to refer to as a kind of a marriage without any improper implications in that. For their love was beyond the love of women.

All right? Verse 32, But Jonathan answered Saul his father and said to him, Why should he be put to death? What has he done?

Then Saul hurled his spear at him to strike him down. So Jonathan knew that his father decided to put David to death. Then Jonathan arose from the table in fierce anger, and he did not eat food on the second day of the new moon, for he was grieved over David because his father had dishonored him.

Now it came about in the morning that Jonathan went out into the field for the appointment with David, and the little lad was with him, and he said to his lad, Run, find now the arrows which I'm about to shoot. As the lad was running, he shot an arrow past him.

When the lad reached the place of the arrow which Jonathan had shot, Jonathan called after the lad and said, Is not the arrow beyond you? And Jonathan called after the lad, Hurry, be quick, do not stay. And Jonathan's lad picked up the arrow and came to his master, but the lad was not aware of anything.

He didn't know what was going on. Only Jonathan and David knew about the matter. Then Jonathan gave his weapons to his lad and said to him, Go bring them to the city.

Now I come to something that I'm calling covenant of motion. I want you to know that both David and Jonathan were men of war. They were men of courage. They were men of bravery. I'm saying that so that we can move into this with a sense of... who we're talking about, reading about.

When the lad was gone, David rose from the south side and fell on his face to the ground and bowed three times. And they kissed each other and wept together, but David wept more. That's covenant emotion. It's always been wrong for a man to weep. It's always been wrong for a man to show any emotion. He's supposed to be stoical, unmovable. He does all his crying inside.

I don't believe in that. I believe that there is a valid expression of emotion in a covenant relationship when you're going through trials and problems and difficulties where you can weep together unashamedly, when you can mingle your tears, and where you find a warm, strong grasp of a brother's arms around you putting strength into you.

And Jonathan said to David, Go in safety, inasmuch as we have sworn to each other in the name of the Lord, saying, The Lord will be between me and you and between my descendants and your descendants forever. Then he rose and departed while Jonathan went into the city.

Covenant of motion. Brothers, I think that we're going to need to know that it's all right for us to cry together. I think we're going to need to know that when we're standing with each other in a crisis, we don't have to play stoic. We don't have to pretend we don't feel bad. We can release ourselves in tears and in emotion.

I see the elders as they fell on the neck of Paul and wept until he said, What do you mean doing this? You will break my heart. Because they knew they wouldn't see him again.

I've got a message on the back burner just kind of stewing. It's called legitimate emotional expressions. And I find through the Bible that there are times when it's right to shout, it's right to cry, it's right to laugh. All the emotions of the human scale are valid in God. God didn't intend us to suppress our emotions. Our emotions have proper outlets.

And what more proper outlet is there for valid weeping than when we weep with a covenant brother in an hour of danger and pledge each other's heart one to the other?

A friend of mine who was related to one of the top Germans who was on trial in Nuremberg told me that this particular man, in all the years that he had known him, had never expressed an iota of emotion.

He was a Prussian. He was trained to suppress all of his emotions. And as he was dying from poison before he could be brought to verdict in Nuremberg, my friend says that for the first and last time in their relationship that had run over many, many years, for he was the stepson of this man.

He said, as I reached out to take his hand, he said, for the first and only time in all our relationship, he raised me, he trained me, he taught me languages, he taught me protocol, he taught me how to walk among the mighty. He said, the only emotion was as he was dying from poison, I felt the slightest grip in his hand.

That's the most emotion that I'd ever felt from him in all my life. Man, I'm not ashamed of my emotions. I don't want them to master me. But I don't want them to die in my bosom unexpressed.

And I think that we need to be a little more expressive to one another. I know people find it hard to hug one another, and they think that this is not manly and all that. I don't accept that. I think we need to get our emotions redeemed.

For years, we've checked them with the usher at the door. We've gone in and we've sat down. stony-faced and, quote, reverent, paid our club dues, left, picked up our emotions, and gone out and used them where we thought it was valid.

We've used them in sports. We've used them in every place else. Is there anything wrong in using our emotions in our relationships with God and with one another? No, they're a covenant emotion.

Now let's go to chapter 23. I'm afraid to use the term finally, so I won't. We'll just turn to chapter 23.

I wish people wouldn't spoil good words like that. All right, verse 15. Saul is hunting David. Now David became aware that Saul had come out to seek his life because verse 14 said he sought him every day, but God did not deliver him.

David became aware that Saul had come out to seek his life while David was in the wilderness of Ziph at Horesh. Notice this. Jonathan again lays his life on the line. And Jonathan, Saul's son, arose and went to David at Horesh and encouraged him in God.

I call this covenant courage and hope and endurance. He went to David at Horesh and he encouraged him in Saul. Thus he said to him, Do not be afraid, because the hand of Saul, my father, shall not find you. And you will be king over Israel, and I will be next to you.

And Saul, my father, knows this also. And they cut another covenant. Hallelujah. Right out there in the midst of danger, they knew that God's hand was on David, and Jonathan knew it, and Jonathan lived in hope that he would share it.

I want to speak to a question that has vexed many of us, and I think I've changed my view on it just today. I can't go through this whole recital of the Jonathan-David relationship and believe that if David had turned to Jonathan and said, Jonathan, stay with me, that Jonathan would not have stayed.

I've always said, and I'm afraid to confess, that I think I was wrong. I've said that Jonathan did everything with the thing he should do. He should have gone with David. I don't believe it. I believe that he would have stayed with David at that drop of a word.

And I believe that he and David felt that Jonathan should stay in Saul's house, which raises the question. We've considered Jonathan weak in that he did not join David. Have we not done him an unkindness? I think so.

I think that Jonathan stayed in Saul's court to serve as a buffer, to serve as a messenger, to serve as an advocate. And I believe that Jonathan literally and in very deep laid down here.

I can't believe. My understanding of covenant, and with their understanding of covenant, I can't believe that had David said, Jonathan, I think you'd better just come and be with me, that Jonathan wouldn't have come.

He laid down his life. He said, but Baxter, that's not a happy ending. There you go. Every book's got to have a happy ending. That's a part of the self-deception of our whole society. Everything's got to have a happy ending. Who said so?

My brother-in-law is lying up in a Calgary hospital for a year and a half. He's lived miraculously without kidneys. We're waiting hourly for a word. He's unconscious. My wife's sitting up in the room. Her heart is heavy and broken.

It's not a happy ending. Brother, that's just one of a lot of unhappy endings. But you see, the thing is that that body that's lying up in a hospital in Calgary this afternoon has got in it a spirit that is one with the spirit of immortality.

Well, that body is wasted away until her sister said, Ruth, I don't think you'd want to see it. Inside of that wasting body is eternity. You say Jonathan's death was not a happy ending. Who said it's all going to be a happy ending? In the first place, we're not promised that kind of a happy ending.

And I'm going to finish where I started. When we're talking about covenant and laying down our lives for one another, let's not mouth cheap words. We may lay down our lives for one another. Jonathan laid down his life. So it wasn't a happy ending. He died. But it was a happy ending.

Because the ending doesn't come with death. Jonathan will stand in the day of God holding his head high. Standing beside the progenitor of our Lord. The great Israelite is king.

And David will look at him with favor as they stand before their God. And if there's a show of emotion that is beyond humanity in that day, he'll reach out and embrace Jonathan. And he'll say, Jonathan. Every day I thought of you when I sat on my throne, when I covenanted with Judah, when I covenanted with Israel, when we were marching to Zion.

There was never a day that you weren't on my heart. I loved you when I took the high place, when I brought the ark in. I thought of you, Jonathan. Bless you. You saved me from your father. You laid down your life for me.

Some of us die. Some of us live because some of us die.

I listened to a preacher way back in 1948 in the days of the so-called latter rain revival when a lot of wild things were being said. I remember he preached one night, and I was sitting there, and he said, bless God when this revival breaks.

He said, all the prison doors will swing open, and all the Christians will be released from their prisons in the iron court. Oh, he painted a beautiful picture. People applauded, and they said, hallelujah, glory to God.

And I sat there and said, that's not fair. After it was over, I went up to it. And I said, brother, I want to say this to you kindly, but I think you did a disservice to a lot of people tonight because you may have been talking to some people that are going to prison.

They're going to hear the footfall of the Roman soldier like Paul the Apostle. They're going to have their head put down on a block and it's going to be severed from their bodies. They're going to say, hey, where's God?

I said, I think we've got to present to people the divine possibility.

I said, God took Peter out of prison supernaturally, but James was beheaded. I said, it's great to preach on Peter coming out of prison. But how many of us preach a sermon on James being beheaded?

Now, we'll return to 2 Samuel as we read the covenant lament. Verse 24 of chapter 1.

Oh, daughters of Israel, weep over Saul who clothed you luxuriously in scarlet, who put ornaments of gold in your apparel.

How have the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle? Jonathan is slain on your high places. I'm distressed for you, my brother Jonathan. You've been very pleasant to me. Your love to me was more wonderful than the love of women.

How have the mighty fallen and the weapons of war perished?

Brothers, we're going to lose some comrades. Something's got to come into Christianity. There's got to be some iron come into our soul.

Many years ago I sat across the table from a young man about my age, a little younger, knit to me by a common bloodstream, a first cousin. I knew that back in those days when even in Canada communism was outlawed, that he was a card-carrying communist.

I knew that although he was a brilliant student and that he had degrees, that... The arms were sticking out of his coat because he gave everything that he had to the party.

I knew he was organizing cells. I knew what he was doing.

And I thought, I've got to press the claims of Christ on him as I sat across from him. If you've ever talked to these people, they don't get angry and impassioned and loud. They're very cool and calculating. They've made some very deep decisions.

I remember as I pressed the claims of Christ upon him, he listened to me courteously, and when I was through, he said, Ern, I have been in situations where my comrades have been shot.

He said, I have female companions whose breasts have been burned off in the torture chambers of Europe. He said, I have comrades that I stand with, and we know that our lives are at stake.

He said, When I see that kind of dedication among Christians, I may listen to you. I want you to see the ultimate integrity of the covenant as we go to 2 Samuel chapter 9.

Now, will you just do this for me, please, as we finish up here? Will you go back to 1 Samuel 20? Go back to 1 Samuel 20.

Keep your finger in 2 Samuel 9. Go back to 1 Samuel 20 and verse 15.

And you shall not cut off. This is Jonathan speaking to David. You shall not cut off your loving kindness from my house forever. Not even when the Lord cuts off every one of the enemies of David from the face of the earth.

He said, not even when my father is killed.

And when all those that are standing with my father and all your enemies are killed, you won't cut off your loving kindness. This thing is going to continue as long as we both live.

And if one goes before the other, we'll look after each other's house. Is that a promise, David? Will we cut covenant on this?

David says we'll cut covenant on it. All right, come back now.

While you've got your finger in 2 Samuel 9, go to 2 Samuel 7 and verse 1.

Now it came about when the king lived in his house, and the Lord had given him rest on every side from all his enemies.

Now drop down to chapter 9, verse 1. Then David said, Is there yet anyone left of the house of Saul that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake?

Now there was a servant of the house of Saul whose name was Ziba, and they called him to David, and the king said to him, Are you Ziba? And he said, I am your servant.

And the king said, Is there not yet anyone of the house of Saul to whom I may show the kindness of God?

And Ziba said to the king, There is still a son of Jonathan who is crippled in both feet. So the king said to him, Where is he? And Ziba said to the king, Behold, he is in the house of Machir, the son of Amiel in Lodabar.

Then king David sent and brought him.

And Mishpivisheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David and fell on his face and prostrated himself. Why? Because the house of Saul had been wiped out, and he was the last remnant of the house of Saul.

And as he prostrated himself, he knew that he deserved to die as a member of a rebel house.

Oh, brother, there's three hours of gospel in here. You and I come to God. We deserve to die. We're members of a rebel house. We're lame on both feet. We can't help ourselves. We can either run to or run away.

Oh, hallelujah.

Fell on his face and prostrated himself. And David said, Mephibosheth, and he said, Here is your servant.

And David said to him, Do not fear, for I will surely show kindness to you for the sake of your father Jonathan. My God, I think he said that with a sob in his throat as he thought of the tall, straight, manly young man that he'd cut covenant with on that day long ago, as he thought of the young man that risked his life.

That risked his reputation, that risked his crown, and that eventually died on the battlefield with his father because he had covenanted with David.

And as he looked at this poor, benighted creature, lame on both feet, the remnant of a rebel house, he said, I'll show kindness to you for the sake of your father, Jonathan, and will

Here is the cleaned sermon transcription:

That we stand with him. We confront him in the house, but we fight for him in the field. That we don't expose him before his enemies and ours. I had a red-headed sister. She was our... She was something else. We always had to wash the dishes after the noon meal. And she'd come into the kitchen and mom and dad would be in the living room. She'd come into the kitchen and she'd be 10 feet from me. And she'd say, "Don't you hit me, Earn, don't you hit me." And the voice from the living room would say, "Earn, you do the dishes."

Back in those days in public school, the girls were on one side and the boys in the other. Recess, the girls had their recess on one side. Those days we had our gangs and I was the leader of a gang. And I got caught by another gang without my gang. And the other gang were ganging up on me and they had me down. Word moves fast. Somehow the word got around.

And suddenly as I was down there being pummeled, I looked through the legs of my enemies, and I could see this same female coming around the corner, her skirts above her knees. She was running, her beautiful red hair flowing out in the wind. Her eyes were bulging, her face was flush. She moved in on those fellows whose arms and legs and teeth and brains had been slain in the Lord's remaining presence.

With my enemies all lying prostrate, she leaned over me, her eyes full of fire, and she said, "Did they hurt you, dear?" We fussed at home. But out there, I was her brother. If you're going to fuss, fuss at home. Confront one another within the confines of covenant. But out there, you're my brother. I don't care what you've done. You're my brother.

Hallelujah. Let's restore loyalty. Let's restore integrity. Let's restore courage. Let's be men of God. Let's cut covenant with one another. When we cut covenant, know who you're cutting covenant with. And know that when you cut covenant, you drink each other's blood. You pledge each other's life. You lay your life down one for the other.

Father, as we have appealed today for the restoration of loyalty and integrity and covenant courage, it's almost as if we've done it with a ring of joy in our voices, though you're already answering our prayer. And that in the kingdom there's going to come a new dimension. And while there's going to be disloyalty and there's going to be treachery, there's going to be covenants cut between men of integrity, there's going to be Jonathan's and David's, they're going to pledge each other's love and loyalty one to the other.

Grant today, Lord, that in this counterculture, in this alternate society, In this emergence of the kingdom of God, there shall be a restoration of these great covenant aspects so that we may show the world that men can stand true to one another, that they will not be disloyal and treacherous. Let this be born in our spirits. Let it mature in our lives and be fruitful in the days that lie ahead.

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Glory to God! Glory to God! Glory to God.

I just want to say as I dismiss you, I want to thank God for covenant brothers that I got here in the room and covenant brothers that I know. Thank God for covenant brothers. Amen.

Glory to God. This concludes this message.