Perry Stone - Striking Bargains and Cutting Deals with God
Summary:
From the Judean Wilderness, the preacher teaches that God’s covenants—sealed by blood and cutting—are binding agreements granting believers negotiating power to «plead» with God, as seen in Abraham bargaining for Sodom and Moses interceding for Israel by reminding God of His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Under the New Covenant through Christ’s blood, believers gain authority to approach God boldly, claiming promises while fulfilling their own vows, as God remembers covenants to extend mercy to His people and judgment on those who mistreat them.
Welcome from the Judean Wilderness
Welcome to manifest. Today I’m coming to you from the heart of the Judean Wilderness in an oasis, a very special village. Many of the buildings in this village are constructed the way they would have been built in ancient times. There are Bedouin tents here made out of goat’s hair that people can stay in during tours. But I have a message for you today, and the title of my message is «Striking Bargains and Cutting Deals with God.» This is going to be a powerful manifest telecast, and I don’t want you to miss one part of it.
Isaiah’s Call to Plead Together
Now we are to begin in the Book of Isaiah with the word the prophet gave. Let’s read this together: «I am he, I am he that even blots out your transgressions for my own sake and will not remember thy sins. Put me in remembrance; let us plead together; declare thou that thou mayest be justified.» What did God mean when he said, «Let us plead together»? Well, I’m going to be sharing with you that the secret of negotiating with God is summed up in something called the Covenant.
The Meaning of Covenant
Now, the word Covenant is mentioned throughout the Bible numerous times. As a matter of fact, it’s mentioned 272 times just in the Old Testament alone, and it comes out of the Hebrew word «Brit, ” which comes from a verb we have written down here called „karat, ” which means to divide or to cut. Now, according to rabbinical scholars, the idea of Covenant is something that is an agreement, a very firm agreement made by two parties cutting Covenant. In cutting Covenant, it does mean something has to be cut.
In the very early times, way back in the time of Abraham, it was the cutting of animals, the dividing of animals on an altar that initiated what we call today the blood Covenant because the Bible said without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. God did not take in the Old Testament any form of human blood; He took only the blood of an animal. And on the Day of Atonement, for example, in the Tabernacle of Moses, the Temple of Solomon, or even prior to the time of Christ’s crucifixion in Herod’s Temple, the blood that was placed upon the altar on that day was for the priest, for the Levite, and for the Israelite, and it was an atonement for sin to bring man back into an agreement with God.
Circumcision as Covenant Sign
Now, something I want to share with you about this idea of the Covenant has to do with how God sees His Covenant. For example, since the word Covenant and the verb from which it comes has the idea of cutting something, we discover in the Book of Genesis that the Covenant was sealed with circumcision. Circumcision is a Jewish ritual that God established in the Book of Genesis, as far back as Abraham, in which God said, „When you have a male child that is born, on the eighth day after the male child’s birth, you shall circumcise the foreskin of his flesh.“
Now, people have asked me from time to time over the years, „Why Perry, do you think that God would say to Abraham to circumcise the foreskin of a male child’s flesh?“ Well, the answer is this: that once the foreskin has been circumcised and that young baby grows up to be a man, he will marry a girl. In the case of Abraham’s descendants, it would be someone of Hebrew lineage, or we would say today, of the Jewish faith.
Now, when that man consummates his marriage on what we call in America, the honeymoon night, then the seed of the man that is in his loins, the seed representing the children that will come in the future, has to pass through the cut of the Covenant or the mark of the Covenant before that seed enters into the woman. Thus, the child conceived in the womb is already pre-marked by the Covenant before the actual birth process begins inside the woman.
Now, I personally believe that the soul and spirit of an infant come at the moment of conception, the moment that the egg and the sperm meet, and the process begins. The life force called the soul begins at that moment. So, circumcision was the sign or the mark of the Covenant.
Covenant Lineage and God’s Favor
Now, in Old Testament times, when Abraham and his descendants experienced what we call the act of circumcision, they entered into this contract or Covenant with God. When entering into this Covenant or contract with God in Old Testament times, something unique began to happen because God, at that point, began to mark His people, the Jewish people, as His favored people. He began to mark the Jewish people with this dynamic Covenant force, Covenant agreement, and Covenant life that they were a part of.
So, Abraham had Isaac, Isaac had Jacob, Jacob then became the nation of Israel. Jacob had 12 sons, becoming the 12 tribes of Israel, which as their sons began to mature and develop, emerged into what is called the children of Israel, or today we now know it as the nation of Israel.
God Remembers His Covenant
Now, let’s go a step further in this because this is where I want to get to. When they were in Egypt, when the children of Israel were in Egypt for those 400 years, the Bible says this: „And God heard their groanings and remembered His Covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and Jacob, and God looked upon the children of Israel and had respect unto them.“ I love this phrase found in the Book of Exodus that God remembered His Covenant.
What does it mean in the Bible when God remembers His Covenant? Well, from my Hebrew studies of many years, two things can happen: one of these can happen, or the other can happen, or a combination of both. When God remembers His Covenant, first of all, He can release His mercy upon His people and special favor upon them. However, when God remembers His Covenant, He can also release judgment on a nation that is in actual disobedience to Him.
Now, the combination of mercy and judgment being released at the same time is found in the story of the Exodus. We discover that God brought mercy to the children of Israel who were living in the land of Goshen in Egypt. In other words, when darkness was in Egypt, there was light in the Hebrew homes. When there was a plague hitting Egypt, then there was safety and security in the homes of the Hebrew people. So, God established a covenant of mercy with them, and when God remembered His Covenant, He remembered to show grace and mercy toward the children of Israel.
However, something totally different happened as it related to Egypt. When God began to remember His Covenant with His people, He began to judge Egypt for mistreating His people. You see, you’ve got to understand something: whether it’s the church—which are the people of God—or whether it’s the nation of Israel, which represents God’s covenant people through the seed of Abraham, you cannot mistreat the people of God. When you begin to mistreat the people of God, eventually God’s covenant shall come up before Him, and He will either visit in judgment the individual that’s mistreating them or He can judge the nation that is mistreating them.
I mean, think about the nation of Egypt. Here was a nation that was the Empire of its day, and all of a sudden God sent 10 plagues and destroyed and defeated the entire nation of Egypt. Then Pharaoh, they call it the 11th judgment, is judged at the Red Sea waters, where he is crossing with his chariots and his army of over 20,000 men, according to Josephus and the Bible. The waters of the Red Sea covered him up.
Covenant Blessings and Relationship
Now, I’m saying that to you for a reason because I want to go into something here that is very powerful and has to do with how a covenant relationship with God is so significant in understanding the favor and the blessing of God that a person carries in their life. Let’s go back, for example, and look at old father Abraham. We discover in Genesis 12:2, God said Abraham would be a great nation. In chapter 17:4, he would be the father of many nations. In 17:5, nations and kings would come out of him. In chapter 18:18, mighty nations would come out of him and he would bless all nations. In chapter 22:18, all nations of the world would be blessed.
So, that is God’s blessing on Abraham. In other words, if you follow me, obey my commandments and my statutes, I’ll bless you coming in and going out, make you the head and not the tail, you shall lend and not borrow. The seed out of your womb, ladies, will be blessed; your children shall rise up and call you blessed. This is the blessing of God established through those who follow Him in Covenant or in agreement with His word, or today for us believers, it’s a covenant through the Lord Jesus Christ.
New Covenant Through Christ
Now, let’s go a step further. This is what a lot of Christians haven’t understood about our covenant relationship with Christ, and I’ve got to go there right now. And that is this: that somehow we believe that we just simply talk to God and He answers our prayers, and we worship God, and He does things for us. I don’t mean this in a negative way, but some people treat God like a cosmic Santa Claus. In other words, they don’t really go to church until they’re in trouble. They don’t ever ask Him for anything unless they really need something. They never pray to Him unless they lose their job. They never call upon Him unless they’re running out of money and can’t pay their bills.
God is not a cosmic Santa Claus; God is a heavenly Father who establishes a covenant with His children, a covenant relationship today through the Messiah, Jesus Christ, who is the Son of the Living God.
Now, in light of this, I want to take you here and compare Covenant to something. A covenant relationship with God is very similar to what we would call today a covenant of marriage between a man and a woman. When I married my wife, her last name was Taylor and my name was Stone. But when I married her, she took on my name. When I married her, whatever I had in the bank account, which was very little at that time, she now has access to my bank account. As a matter of fact, we didn’t even own a home, but if I had owned a home, my home would have been her home.
This is how it works in a covenant as it relates to the relationship with Christ. See, Christ came and said, „I’m going to give you my name to pray to the heavenly Father.“ We didn’t have access to God—are you kidding me? But through Jesus Christ, now we say, „Heavenly Father, ” in the name of Jesus and we get the attention of the Father.
Now, all of a sudden, here’s what Jesus says: because you’re in a covenant agreement through my blood and you’ve received my blood of the covenant, not only do you take on my name, but everything I have, I now give to you. All power is given to me in heaven and earth, Jesus said, and now I’m going to give you that authority as well.
Joint Needs and Supplies in Covenant
And not only that, but look at what we have to look forward to. Now here’s the other side of the Covenant—this is the part some people don’t like to hear but it’s true. If I have all these blessings from God, then in Covenant with Him, and He is my heavenly Father, and Christ is, so to speak, the Elder Brother of the Covenant, and the Holy Spirit is my comforter, you know what that means? That means when they need something from me, they can come to me and expect me to respond to what they have asked me to do.
I wrote a note down here, and I want them to bring this up on the screen: in Covenant relationship, there are what I call joint needs and joint supplies. In other words, God needs certain things, believe it or not, yes, God needs certain things on earth. Let me tell you a little bit about some of the things that God needs on earth. You ready?
God needs a voice on earth because God doesn’t just boom and speak out of heaven for people to hear. So, the voice becomes the voice of His people carrying His words. God needs hands on earth. See, those hands feed the poor; those hands bring clothes to the needy. In other words, our hands become the hands of God.
Our voice becomes as the oracles of God. Then we discover if we read the Word of God, God has to have feet—that’s right, God has to have feet on earth. What does that mean? To travel to the nations of the world, for missionaries to walk into the jungles and walk into the lands of these nations of earth and carry and bring the message of Christ to the pagan and the heathen nations of the world.
Then we discover that God has to have eyes. Our eyes become the eyes of God to see the needs of humanity and to meet them. And also, God has to have ears. What does that mean? That on earth, our ears have to be tuned in to the voice of God to hear what He is saying. The Bible says it this way: „He that hath ears, let him hear what the Spirit of God is saying to the churches.“
Abraham Bargains with God
Now, in line with this idea of having a covenant relationship with God, I want to talk for a moment about bargaining and striking deals with God. What do you mean by that, Brother Stone? Well, let me just talk to you about Abraham for a moment. In the Book of Genesis, God reveals to Abraham the power of circumcision, and He says, „Here’s what I want you to do: I want you to circumcise the male children that are born in your family from this moment on.“
Now, after God reveals to Abraham the power of circumcision, then we come to the next chapter in the book of Genesis, and something interesting is happening. Abraham is sitting outside of his tent, and as he’s sitting outside of his tent, the Jewish tradition is that he is recovering from circumcision because right in the verse before chapter 19 of Genesis, Abraham has been circumcised and he’s sitting in the tent.
Now, God comes with two angels and begins to negotiate. He begins to reveal to Abraham that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and four of the five cities of the plain are actually going to be destroyed. Now, we know that the intent was to wipe out all five of them, but through Lot’s intercession, one by the name of Zoar was spared in Genesis 19.
Now, watch what Abraham does. Abraham looks at God, who has come down with two angels, and says, „If you find 50 righteous, will you destroy the city?“ And God says, „No, Abraham, I won’t.“ Now, he could have stopped there, but Abraham goes from 50 to 40 to 30 to 20 to 10. He said, „If you find 10 righteous…“ You know, I honestly believe that Abraham had such Covenant Authority that if he said, „If you find one, will you spare the city?“ God would have said, „If I find one, I’ll spare the city.“
People have asked me for years, „Why do you think Abraham stopped at 10?“ I mean, why didn’t he go, you know, why didn’t he stop at 20 or 25? Well, if you read the Bible, you have Lot, which is his nephew, Lot’s wife, Lot’s two virgin daughters, and then the Bible says in Genesis there were sons-in-laws and daughters that died in Sodom and Gomorrah who did not believe Lot’s word that there was danger and didn’t come out. So, there were 10 people actually, approximately, that were in the city—that’s the last number that Abraham saw go into the city of Sodom and Gomorrah, and that’s the number that stopped his negotiation. Isn’t that interesting?
Now, watch what begins to happen. So, Abraham has the ability to now speak to God and actually bargain with God. Where did that authority come from? Please notice this: prior to Abraham being circumcised, you can go to the Bible from Genesis 12 all the way through 18. Prior to Abraham being circumcised, it was always God saying, „Do this, do this, do this, do this, do this, do this. Yes, build an altar. Yes, come out of the land. Yes, leave the land of your fathers. Yes, go into the Promised Land. Yes, go down to Egypt.“ Yes.
But all of a sudden, after circumcision, after the shedding of blood, through Abraham being circumcised, after the Covenant is sealed in blood, Abraham has a different negotiating power and a different status before God. He can then go before God and negotiate and cut a bargain and strike a deal with God because he has a covenant relationship that has been sealed in blood that he did not have prior.
Prior to that, it was all a promise: „I will make you great; I will give you a son; I will do this; I will do that.“ Prior to that, it was promises. But at the moment he became circumcised, check it out: one year later, Isaac is born. He waited 24 years for this child to be born, and the child was not born until one year—actually, it would be nine months—after Abraham was circumcised.
Circumcision of the Heart
Now, I don’t want to place the emphasis on physical circumcision because in the New Testament, the Bible says that the circumcision is the circumcision of your heart. In other words, there’s a callousness on men’s hearts, and through the word of God, we take the word of God—Hebrews 4:12, being the sword of the Spirit—and through the preaching of the word, the teaching of the word, and the power of the word, we cut off the hardness of men’s hearts through preaching.
You see, here’s the point: if you sit in a congregation, a conference, a camp meeting, a revival, whatever you wish to call it, and you come several nights, the Holy Spirit is going to penetrate into your spirit. The Holy Spirit is going to take the sword of the word and cut the callousness off of your heart, and you’re going to have a heart transplant through the power of the Holy Spirit. That is the actual circumcision of the heart that comes under the New Covenant of redemption.
Moses Intercedes by Covenant
Now, look at Moses, for example. Here’s another man that’s cut a deal and struck a bargain with God. Moses goes into the wilderness and goes up on Mount Sinai for 40 days and gets the commandments of the law. He’s so excited; the finger of God has written those commandments on his hand. Then, Moses comes off of the mountain and all of a sudden, what are the people doing? They’re worshiping a golden calf. Aaron had taken the earrings off of the young men’s ears and made a golden calf.
Now, my first question is, what are all the Hebrew boys doing with earrings in their ears to begin with? Here’s the answer: they were slaves to Pharaoh, and in that day, when you were a slave, they marked you with an earring. Now, you can read about this in the New Testament about being a bondservant and study Jewish history on how when you were a bondservant and you desired to serve your master, they put your ear up against the door, and they put an awl in your ear and marked you with an earring. You actually marked that you wanted to serve this master out of choice and not by force.
So, in other words, Aaron thought he was doing a good thing: „Let’s take the earrings off; let’s take the sign of our slavery off, and we’ll just build a golden calf.“ It almost looks like Aaron did it mocking the Egyptians, but the Hebrews turned the thing around and started worshiping the cow.
Now, when Moses comes off the mountain, you know the story: he breaks the commandment stones, and God sends him back up on the mountain. And you know what the Lord says to him? The Lord says to Moses, „I am going to kill this entire nation because they’re stiff-necked, and I’m going to take you and raise up a nation.“
Now, look—when you’re 20 years of age and God tells you that, maybe you can have a nation. Moses is 80 years of age; he does not have time for all of this. He’s already been 40 years in the desert. He doesn’t want to have to stay in a desert and raise another nation. Here’s what he says—watch this, I’m going to give you the verse. He says to God in Exodus 32:13–14, „Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self and said, ‘I’ll multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of I will give to your descendants, and they will inherit it forever.’“
Look at this: „So the Lord relented.“ Now the King James will say „repented, ” and that word „repent“ does not mean to repent in the form of sinning. As a matter of fact, when God tells you to repent in the Old Testament, He uses the Hebrew word „shuv, ” which is the word you know, the „teshuva.“ You’ve heard me talk about the seasons of turning and repentance called „teshuva, ” but the word „shuv“ is to turn.
So when God tells you to repent, he uses the word „shuv.“ In this particular word, the way God repented means to pity, consult, to be sorry for, to have pity for. So in other words, when it says, „God repented, ” it doesn’t mean God is saying, „I am repenting of something I did wrong or something I thought wrong.“ He is saying, „I’m turning because I’m going to have pity and mercy upon my people.“
Now, what did Moses do? Moses said, „Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.“ Why would Moses pray that way? The reason Moses prayed that way is because that is a covenant prayer. That is a covenant prayer. Here’s the point: in the Old Testament, if you wanted God’s attention, you screamed in the name of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and God would remember His Covenant.
Application: Keep Your Vows and Pray Covenant Prayers
Now, what does that have to do with you and me today? Here’s what it has to do: What is it that you’ve promised God? What is it that you said to Him that you were going to do? Did God heal your child one day that was dying and you said, „Oh God, if you heal my child, I’ll serve you, ” and you’ve not followed Him? Did you lose your job and tell God, „Lord, I’ll support the ministry if you’ll give me a job, ” and He gave you a job and you haven’t supported the ministry yet?
What is it that you made a bargain or an agreement with God that you have not yet done? I want you to consider that. I want you to consider the promises you have made to the Lord that you have not kept. I want you to think about the goodness of the Lord in your life and the things that you told Him that you would do, and He kept His side of the bargain, but you didn’t keep yours.
The second thing I wish to say to you is this: if you need deliverance, if you need healing, if you need any spiritual blessing from God, I want to encourage you to approach God by the power of the Covenant. The Covenant is the Redemptive Covenant that you have through Christ. So in other words, if you’re a believer, if you believe the Word of God, if you believe the New Testament, if you believe that Christ was buried, resurrected for you, and He sits at the right hand of the Father, and that He’s the High Priest of Heaven, if you believe that, then you have a covenant relationship with God.
So when you talk to the Father in Christ’s name, say, „Father, according to your Covenant promises that you’ve given me in the New Covenant, I stand on your Word.“ Start praying your prayers that way because the Covenant of Christ gives you a negotiating power that you did not have before. Wow, isn’t that powerful?
Closing Offer from Israel
Well, I’m coming to you from Israel, and I have a very special brand new television offer for you. I want to mention to the television audience that the only way that I can keep manifest coming to 180 nations of the world, and the only way that I can keep it coming into your home is either through your financial donations or purchasing material such as this on a consistent basis.
So, our announcers are coming right now, and I’m going to be sharing with you a brand new offer, and I want you to keep watching because we’ve gone to Israel. We’ve taped brand new programs; most of you absolutely love these programs from Israel. We’re so happy to present them to you, and we’re going to be coming to you with brand new programs from Israel for the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned.