Chapter – 34 ‘At Valentines Farm’
Valentine and grandpa were in the older work truck making their rounds and talking. The sun was shining brightly but it was only fifty degrees and it was close to noon. Most of the farm land had been plowed but a couple smaller portions still needed to be finished.
Grandpa told Valentine that he and grandma were going to Florida for three months later in the year; they would leave the week after Christmas and come back the first of April. Grandpa handed Valentine a two-page, ‘things to be done’ list prior to planting in the spring and then he spoke, “This has been my routine for forty years. My dad gave something like this to me way back in the day; that’s when he asked me to take over the main duties.”
“Grandma and I have been talking and we are going to have you legally become my partner in the business. This farm will be totally yours if something happens to me. Remember son, our wives are included as lifetime partners. Your mom will get a tidy inheritance but not the farm; that is yours.” He told Valentine the papers would be completed for signatures very soon.
Grandpa looked out the window, a tear rolled down his cheek, but he finally commented, “While I’m gone don’t forget to make the Tuesday morning bible study with, Caleb.” He told Valentine that the youth minister had a good heart and a good scriptural message each week. “I’ll drive by and pick you up in the morning.”
The youth pastor was on time and had a small sack in one hand and his bible in the other. He spoke as he reached in the sack and pulled out a roundish red fruit, “It is a new Tomato, fresh from the market.” Grandpa nodded his head up and down a moment and thought, “I’ve seen a few of those, yum.” Pastor was silent a moment then spoke, “Do you know where the term ‘New Covenant’ derives from?” He told them it was from the older Hebrew Scriptures, in the book of Jeremiah, where God had spoken to the Prophet and it reads, “Behold the days are coming when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.” Pastor Caleb then asked, “Why is it that the new covenant is called the ‘new covenant’?” Gramps responded, “Because it came after the old covenant; so it is a newer covenant.” The young PASTOR then spoke, “That was years ago; if it’s only the new covenant because of when it came; by now, a couple thousand years have passed; it is later and would no longer be new. It has to be something more than that.” He looked toward Valentine and spoke, “The answer is in my hands.” Valentine’s quick comical question was, “Is it because of a tomato?” There were several laughs by the fellas and then it became quiet.
Pastor smiled and then told them that in seminary he learned some amazing things, “The original Hebrew does not say ‘new covenant’; the Hebrew word used doesn’t speak of a slot in time, but a state of being; it means new and fresh, just as the fruit in my hand is new and fresh.” He told the men that his Hebrew teacher told him it could be translated as ‘the covenant of newness’. “Our new testament is new because it is intended to be new and fresh ‘Each’ day.” Grandpa responded, “So are you saying, pastor, that the new covenant, written by the early disciples, is just as new now as when written close to two thousand years ago?”
The young pastor jumped out of his seat, snapped his fingers and then responded, “Exactly, no matter how long people have been in the new covenant, it should never grow old. It should stay just as new today as the day you first called on Christ Jesus to cleanse you.” One of the men was puzzled so he asked, “What if, for a believer, it is no longer something new?” Pastor nodded his head up and down a few times while thinking, then he spoke, “If it is no longer new to someone, then it is not the new covenant that’s at fault; it might be the individual reading it. The only way to know the new covenant is to know it newly, freshly, every day of your life. It must always be to you, fresh each day of your life. When it is, it will refresh your life; as if being cleansed like that very first moment the Holy Spirit came in to dwell within you. Do you remember that day?”
DO YOU?
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The new covenant is the continual covenant of newness to the Christian and should be refreshing each time we read it. Is it refreshing? Do you feel conviction at times? If not, then we, each of us, should examine ourselves and see what it is that we need to do; so that it is new. This is not what you or I may think but what scripture teaches us.
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Ephesians 4:17-24, 17 So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the [Heathen] Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, 18 being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; 19 and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. 20 But you did not learn Christ in this way, 21 if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus,22 that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit,23 and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24 and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.
Revelation 21:5, 5 And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.” [There is a new covenant; there will be a new Heaven and new body for us who have put our TRUST in Christ Jesus. HE is our atonement for sin.]
Jeremiah 31:31-32, 31 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. [Future or new covenant was/is atonement through Christ; the OLD Testament or Covenant fails to save a person’s soul.]
Since scripture interrupt’s scripture; look at Hebrews 8:1-13. It is a rewrite of Jeremiah with one addition. Verse 13 reads that the old covenant is obsolete. The Mosaic covenant was used by the Sons of Israel until the WORDS of the Newer Covenant took over as the Guideline. [Atonement thru Christ]
DG