It’s funny that today the very word “Deal” kind of makes me cringe. Sort of crazy when I think I spent over 40 years of my life working in “Deal’er-Ships”. I guess God knew the pain I had seen along these lines as the very reason I felt led to start this show. So on today’s show I would like to explore the bad deal, but I promise not to leave you there.  Simply, I have listed here the 5 fatal mistakes of making a bad car deal. I would ad that usually the culprit in a bad car deal is the “lure” of the deal itself. “But it was such a ‘GREAT DEAL’ I couldn’t pass it up.”

  1. The Vehicle Your Purchased Is Not Safe. (Truly a Fatal Mistake)
  2. The Vehicle You Purchased Is Not Reliable
  3. The Vehicle You Purchased Is Beyond Your Means To Pay For
  4. The Vehicle You Purchased Is Not What You Need, (ie.. you have 5 kids and you bought a 2door Civic)
  5. The Vehicle You Purchased Is Not What You Want

The classic saying on sin seems to apply to the bad car deal  doesn’t it…”Sin will take you further than you want to go, (like and unsafe car will take you to heaven, or worse), keep you longer than you wanted to stay, (sitting in a service department), and cost you more than you are willing to pay, (interest, insurance, gas).

Now, I listed these in the order of the harm you could do to yourself and your family in my view, but the thing that may surprise you would be that number five down there is by far and away the most common an extremely harmful mistake. Compromising on a car because of the deal and not getting what you wanted. Maybe it was something as simple as you wanted the red one, this mistake can actually really mess up your world, here is how.

If you love your car you will keep it and not trade or sell it, and keeping your car for decades will save literally thousands not to mention not be a distraction because, “I hate this car.” I can not begin to tell you the times I have seen people fall for this trap, they compromise on what they want because they, ‘Got A Deal’, sometimes as little as six months later they are back to trade..ARRRRGGGGGG…

However, you may be saying, “I have to be able to afford it and it has to be safe and reliable and what I need, HOW CAN I EVER DO ALL THAT?” That’s where Jesus comes in.

PRAYER, believing, prevailing, constant prayer. Jesus is the answer. How deep would you like to go today? Let’s take a swim as, Matthew Henry would say, where the elephants can’t touch bottom? The concept of a ‘real deal’ comes from a much larger and older word and transaction called a ‘covenant’. Below is the what the Jewish Encyclopedia describes as a covenant. From the Hebrew “barah” =to cut or to cut a deal. ***STAY with me you will see where this comes back to your car deal.**

“An agreement between two contracting parties, originally sealed with blood; a bond, or a law; a permanent religious dispensation. The old, primitive way of concluding a covenant (, “to cut a covenant”) was for the covenanters to cut into each other’s arm and suck the blood, the mixing of the blood rendering them “brothers of the covenant” (see Trumbull, “The Blood Covenant,” pp. 5 et seq., 322; W. R. Smith, “Religion of the Semites,” pp. 296 et seq., 460 et seq.; compare Herodotus, iii. 8, iv. 70). Whether “berit” is to be derived from “barah” =to cut or from a root cognate with the Assyrian “berit” = fetter (see Nathauael Schmidt, in Cheyne and Black,”Encyc. Bibl.” s.v.”Covenant”), or whether both Assyrian and Hebrew come from “barah”= to cut (compare “asar” = covenant and bracelet in Arabic; see Trumbull, l.c. pp. 64 et seq.), can not be decided here.

After the giving of the Law Moses sprinkled “the blood of the covenant sacrifice” half upon the people and half upon the altar of the Lord (Ex. xxiv. 6-8), to signify the mystical union of Israel and its God. Of this “everlasting” Sinaitic covenant between God and Israel the Sabbath is declared to be the sign forever (Ex. xxxi. 13-17). At the same time the tables of the Law upon which the pledge was made were called “the book of the covenant” (Ex. xxiv. 7), and the Ten Commandments “the words of the covenant” (Ex. xxxiv. 28); and so the tables containing these became “the tables of the covenant” (Deut. ix. 9, 15). Of peculiar significance to the people during its wanderings in the wilderness, and in its settled state in Palestine, was the Ark of the Covenant (Num. x. 33; Deut. x. 8, xxxi. 26; and frequently in Joshua, Samuel, and Kings), which was regarded as “the testimony” (“‘edut”) to the presence of the God of the Covenant in its midst.

The first time covenant is mentioned in the Bible is with Noah, but based on the definition above think about Adam’s rib and the picture of what would come from the side of Christ. Stay with me now, we will get back to the car deal. Jesus both as he explained to Nicodemus and to the disciples at the last supper was making a new covenant. Luke 22:20 “Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.“

Drinking Jesus blood, it’s what we Christians do as communion. Jesus cut a deal with us as clearly as it could be and it is the deal of deals many, many, many sermons and eternity will describe that and please chase it, but here is the car deal part.

We are one with  Jesus,  He is living His life through you and praying this very moment to The Father for you. He is not going to give you a scorpion if you ask. Trust Him and stay in the place of prayer and you won’t just get the car of your dreams you will get The LIFE.

I would also note that you have so many brothers and sister who would also love to help you and pray for you, but you have to humble yourself, yes humble yourself, (I get it it I do too), and ask.

I Love this Jesus side picture I made this week as I discovered from William Gurnall the ancient Latin saying for the Bride came from Jesus Side “E latere Christi morientis extitit ecclesia” then I found this song below …Used in my show today.