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The Things Revealed Belong to Us and Our Children Forever
The Things Revealed Belong to Us and Our Children Forever Deuteronomy 29:1-29 Key Verse: 29:29 “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.” Today’s passage begins Moses his final speech to the Israelite people. When we began our study of Deuteronomy in August of last year, I mentioned that this book is made up of the three final speeches that Moses made to the Israelites before he was to die and they were to enter the promised land. The first speech can be found in chapters 1-4 and it consists of a historical review of what God had done for the Israelites, Moses pleading with the people to Obey the law, and the setting apart of three cities of refuge in the land Israel had already taken over from Sihon king of Heshbon and Og king of Bashon. The second speech by Moses covered the requirements of the Covenant established at Mt. Sinai (or Mt. Horeb). This is the longest speech covering chapters 5-28 and topics ranging from the Ten Commandments, the various laws concerning food and moral living, and the blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. In this third and final speech before his death and the Israelites entrance into the Promised Land, Moses begins by speaking of another covenant between God and the people of Israel. Whetehr this was truly another covenant or simply a reference to the previous covenant made between God and the Israelites at Mt. Sinai has been a matter of debate among Biblical scholars for some time. The majority of scholars argue that in this speech Moses is simply referencing and reminding the people about the covenant made between God and the people 40 years earlier at Mt. Sinai. However, a few scholars including John Gill and John MaCarthur, argue that this is a different covenant completely. A covenant that covers not only the Israelites, but the Gentiles as well as can been seen in verses 11 and 15 and is spoken of in the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Which interpretation you choose to believe is not really that important, what is important is what the covenant consists of. A covenant is an agreement between two groups of people (or, in this case between a group of people and God) in which both groups promise to do something. So, in today’s passage we want to look at the beginning of Moses speech and the terms of this covenant that he was speaking about. I pray that God will bless us today as we study Deuteronomy 29 and open our spiritual eyes and ears so that we may see with our eyes and hear with our ears and turn to Jesus so that we may be saved. First, the covenant that the Lord commanded Moses to make with the people (1-9). Look at verse 1. “These are the terms of the covenant the Lord commanded Moses to make with the Israelites in Moab, in addition to the covenant he had made with them at Horeb.” This verse is where the confusion comes in regarding what this covenant that Moses is speaking of actually is. Is it simply a reminder of the covenant already agreed on by the people 40 years earlier at Mt. Sinai, or is it a “new” covenant to go along with the previous covenant made at Mt. Sinai? The key words to look at in this verse are the words “in addition” according to the NIV. The ESV, KJV, NASB and the RSV all translate this as “besides.” All of these translations seem to indicate that this is another covenant commanded by God and mediated to the people by Moses. How you choose to interpret this verse is not really that important, what is important is to understand what a covenant is and what the parties of this covenant are agreeing to. As I said before, a covenant is an agreement between two parties in which each side agrees to do something. In this case, the parties are God and the “children of Israel” according to verse 1 (later on we will take a little closer look at who the children of Israel are). What are each of these parties to do? Look at verses 2 & 3. “Moses summoned all the Israelites and said to them: Your eyes have seen all that the Lord did in Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his officials and to all his land. With your own eyes you saw those great trials, those signs and great wonders.” These verses tell us what God had already done for the Israelites when He brought them out of their bondage in Egypt. God had performed great wonders right in front of many of their eyes. Remember all of those who were 20 years or older 40 years before were dead because they had disobeyed God when He told them to go up from Kadesh Barnea and take over the Promised Land, but those between the ages of 42 and 60 were alive at the time God delivered the Israelites from Egypt. They had seen with their own eyes what God had done. More than that the people had all seen what God did as they were traveling around in the desert for forty years. Look at verse 5 “Yet the Lord says, “During the forty years that I led you through the wilderness, your clothes did not wear out, nor did the sandals on your feet.” Their clothes and shoes had not worn out in 40 years of being lead about in the wilderness. This seems like nothing, but if you think about it, it is quite remarkable. For the past four years, I have had a pair of sandals that I wear quite often. However, I never wear them in the winter and the roads that I walk on are mostly nice and smoothly paved – nothing like the land of a wildness. Yet those sandals are just about falling apart. They are completely worn out and I need to get a new pair. They lasted only 1/10th of the time the Israelites were wandering in the desert, yet their shoes and clothing did not wear out. This small thing was a miracle of God. What else had God done for them? Look at verse 6a, “You ate no bread and drank no wine or other fermented drink.” What did they eat and drink? They ate manna provided by God from heaven and they drank water that sometimes flowed out of rocks. This water was also provided by God for them. Finally, if you look at verses 7 & 8, God enabled this group of former slaves to defeat two powerful kings and take over their lands. There was no way they could have done that on their own. The point is they had all witnessed many things that God had done for them, so they should have known that God could, and would, keep His side of this agreement. But there was one big problem. Look at verse 4. “But to this day the Lord has not given you a mind that understands or eyes that see or ears that hear.” They had experienced all these things and they should have understood that all of this came from God, and yet they didn’t see this. Why? Because God had not opened their spiritual eyes and ears. The same is true for so many people today. What God has done in their lives and the world around them should be very clear to them, but they don’t see God’s hand on their life at all. When I look back upon my life, I can see very clearly that this principle applied to me as well. God blessed my life so abundantly. He gave me talent in many things and a brain that few others could match, yet I took all of these blessing for granted. Somehow, I thought all of that just came from me. I didn’t thank God and I certainly didn’t give him any glory, rather I abused the gifts that he had given me and went down the road of the prodigal son. When I was at rock bottom and had nowhere to go and no money to get there anyway, God rescued me and led me back to my parents’ house. From there God literally placed me in the college he wanted me to attend so that I could be invited to Bible study. I joined Bible study in UBF and God surrounded me with many Godly people who bore with all of my sins and helped me get my life back in order. Yet through all of this, I never saw God’s hand in any of this. Then, one day, God opened my spiritual eyes and ears, and I could clearly see that my entire life has been nothing more than one miraculous blessing from God after another. The fact that I am standing here today speaking to you is nothing more that God’s miracle working in my life. I see that now, but without God opening my spiritual eyes and ears I would be just like most people walking around today who never even come close to seeing or understanding how God has worked and is working in their lives. This was exactly where the Israelites were. Although God had done great and wonderful things right in front of their eyes so that, according to verse 6b, “that you might know that I am the Lord your God.” They couldn’t recognize God’s work because they were spiritually blind. Before we move on to who are the “children of Israel,” the other party to this covenant, let’s look at what the people were to do. Look at verse 9. “Carefully follow the terms of this covenant, so that you may prosper in everything you do.” This is the verse that many scholars use to say that this covenant is referring back to the Mt. Sinai covenant and they have a point, because there aren’t many terms listed in chapters 29 and 30 which describe this covenant. The terms of the Mt. Sinai are covered in great detail in chapter 5-28, so perhaps Moses is referring to that covenant. But again, the important thing is what the two parties were to do. The people were to obey the words of the covenant which means, they were to obey God’s word. And what was God to do in return? He was to see that they would prosper in everything they did. God had already demonstrated that He could make them prosper by doing everything I mentioned before. In order to keep God’s covenant we must obey God’s word and the only way that we can do that is by trusting that God can do great things for us. And the only way that we can trust that God can do great things for us is for God to open our spiritual eyes so that we can see the great things that He has already done for us. God wants to open peoples’ spiritual eyes but they must come back to Him and ask with a humble, repentant heart – we will see this more clearly next week. Second, who are the children of Israel? (10-15) Look at verse 10 and 11. “All of you are standing today in the presence of the Lord your God—your leaders and chief men, your elders and officials, and all the other men of Israel, together with your children and your wives, and the foreigners living in your camps who chop your wood and carry your water.” Moses lists the people involved in this covenant in the order most to least importance in the Israelite society of the time. He begins with the leaders, chief men, elders and officials of the people. It was very important for these people to be included in the covenant because as the leaders go so go the majority of the people. Then Moses lists the men of Israel. The men were the heads of their households so they were also very important. Where the head of a household goes, the family generally follows. Then Moses lists the women and children of Israel. So now we have all of Israel accounted for, but Moses doesn’t stop there. Moses goes on to mention the foreigners living among the Israelites. These would have generally have been slaves and they all would have been considered the lowest part of the society. The important to note here is that they are included in this covenant agreement. Moses doesn’t even stop there when talking about who is included in this covenant agreement. Look at verses 14 and 15. “I am making this covenant, with its oath, not only with you who are standing here with us today in the presence of the Lord our God but also with those who are not here today.” In other words, this covenant seems to be for anyone who chooses to accept it. It was for all future generations of Israelites and foreigners living among them who choose to believe in and obey the terms of the covenant. That means that this covenant can be for me and you. To me this covenant seems to be pointing directly to the New Covenant in Jesus Christ. Jesus did not come just for the Jewish people, He came to save everyone who would believe in Him and what He did for us. Now let’s go back to verses 12 and 13 to find out what this covenant is all about. Look at these verses. “You are standing here in order to enter into a covenant with the Lord your God, a covenant the Lord is making with you this day and sealing with an oath, to confirm you this day as his people, that he may be your God as he promised you and as he swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” The covenant was to confirm that the people listed above, all the Israelites, the foreigners living among them and anyone in the future who chooses to believe in and obey the terms of this covenant. It is truly remarkable that God is so inclusive in His covenant promises. God’s wants to save the whole world, not just one small privileged group of people. This is the message of the Gospel, but it is also found here in the book of Deuteronomy. Third, the evil of idolatry (16-28) Verse 16 and 17 set up this passage about the evils of idolatry and the terrible consequence that would result if God’s chosen people fell into it. “You yourselves know how we lived in Egypt and how we passed through the countries on the way here. You saw among them their detestable images and idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold. At that time, idols were everywhere. This was the accepted way to worship something that someone said was a god. But an idol is really nothing at all. It cannot see or hear or do anything. An idol is actually twice removed from the one true God. First, God created man, then man created an idol. What is even worse, the idol is man’s creation, yet then that same man falls down and worships what his own hands have made. You can see how it turns God’s creation order completely upside down. It doesn’t really even seem to make sense when you think about it, but people have been worshiping idols since man was created. God wants nothing of this from his people and verse 18-28 speak of the terrible consequences idolatry. First, it is important to note that idolatry starts small, but it quickly spreads, because it is like a poisoned root of a tree. The tree gets is life support from its root system. If one of the roots is poisoned the whole tree quickly becomes poisoned. Idolatry also leads to pride. One who thinks that their idols are more powerful than the God of the Bible will simply claim the blessing promised in God’s covenant but disregard the curses. The will pretend that their life is blessed even when they are not living according to God’s word. When a people or a nation get to that point God has to step in and punish those people and their punishment will be most severe. If it is just a single person, a family or a tribe God will single them out for punishment and blot their name out from under heaven. However, if it spreads to the entire nation, God promised to drive them out of the land completely and to make that good land flowing with milk and honey like the land of Sodom and Gomorrah. People would see this and know that God is the one true God and that idols are absolutely worthless. Fourth, the things revealed belong to us and our children forever(29) Let’s look at our key verse for today. “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.” Moses had just warned the people about the terrible consequences of idolatry, so here he tells the Israelites how they can avoid this. The simple answer is stick with what you know and can perceive. Idolatry and occult religions of today all deal with mystical rituals and incantation that are somehow supposed to open a person’s mind to things beyond what we can see, smell, hear, touch, or taste. The problem is that is not what God created us for. He created us to be fruitful, fill the earth, subdue and rule over it for Him. There is nothing mystical about that. God’s secret ways and methods belong to Him and are far too great for us even to understand, so why try to look into them? What He has given us is His wonderful creation and His perfect word in the Bible. All creation proclaims the glory of the Lord and His word tells us what we need to know about who He is and how we are to live our life. God has also given us the experiences of our life to convince us that He is good and able to save us. However, even though these things are right in front of our faces, we can’t see them unless God opens our spiritual eyes and ears. Therefore, to get a clearer understanding of who God is and what His plan for us here on this earth, we should fall down before Him in humble prayer asking that the scales be taken off our ears and our ears to be opened to hear His words. We should also be like the Bereans and diligently search the scriptures day after day to see and understand that what God says is absolutely true. In these things, we can find true happiness, joy and peace living in this world. This is what God has given us and it can be ours forever. Today we learned that God wants to establish His covenant with all people who will believe and trust him. This covenant is established to set apart a people belonging to God who can be His representatives here on earth. This is what God has revealed to us and it is ours forever if we choose to accept it. |
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