Welcome to this weekend's In Touch podcast with Charles Stanley.

How committed are you to the people around you?

Let's continue the study of First Samuel to see the friendship between Jonathan and David

as a prime example of a covenant relationship.

Let me explain, first of all, what a covenant is.

And if you looked in the Hebrew and you look at that word, more than likely the explanation would be to cut a covenant.

Because a cutting was a part of a covenant when it was a certain type of covenant, which certainly, surely this was between David now a covenant is an agreement it's a contract it's more than just a

yes I will know I want kind of a thing but it's a binding thing and of course a person's

loyalty and their word and their faithfulness was the heart and core and the basis of all of that.

And when men made covenants in those days, they intended to keep the covenant and they did several things that would remind them of their commitment because with the responsibility oftentimes went blessing.

And of course, with a blessing, there was a responsibility.

If you go back in the scriptures, the first time you'll find that word is when God makes a covenant with whom? Noah.

I remember what God said to Noah. He said he's going to make a covenant with him. And what did he say? He says,

and this will be a sign of the covenant. What's the sign?

Rainbow.

Every time you see that, you ought to say, praise the Lord.

He's still keeping his word.

Because what he said was, I'm going to make a covenant between us that I will never destroy

the whole earth by water again.

So then, of course, you come on through the scriptures and you find the most familiar

covenant with Abraham, and you recall what God said to him. He said, I'm going to make of you a great

nation. He gave him lots of blessings there in the 15th, 17th chapters of Genesis. But the important

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