Living in Obedience to God's Covenant

The whole chapter of Deuteronomy had been focused on the renewal of the contract between God and His people. And He's talked about what He requires of them, talked about what He would promise to do, and how He would bless them if their faithfulness to Him. And He told them that they were to carefully follow the terms of the covenant so that they would prosper. In verse 9, He says, so that you may prosper in everything you do. All of you are standing today in the presence of the Lord your God, the leaders, chief men, elders, all the people in the nation. You're standing here in order to enter this covenant with God and to confirm this day the promises that you made to Him. And this is the same covenant that was made with Jacob and Isaac. And with each of those, He promised them that there would be an effort that God would bless them as a result of their commitment to Him. Now, He comes to the end of it where He's talking about the curses that fall to those that fail to keep the covenant. In verses 19 through 21, He focuses on a person who hears the words of oath and invokes the blessings on himself. And thinks that he's going to be safe because everyone's made a pledge to God, even though in his own mind he's not going to keep it. And He talks about what's going to happen to that person, that all the curses written in this book will fall on him. The Lord will blot out his name from under heaven. The Lord will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster according to all the curses of the covenant written in this book. And there were a significant number of those. In fact, if you went back to chapter 27, almost the full chapter is talking about the curses that fall to people who fail to keep the promises of God. And in that setting, what they did was the curses would be read. And then the people of Israel would affirm that they would want the curses to fall on them if they fail to do what God told them. Cursed is the man who carves an image or casts an idol, thing detestable to the Lord, the work of the craftsman's hand, and sets it up in secret. And all the people shall say, Amen. The Amen is, you make this curse fall on us if we fail to keep this. And they did this through all the rest of that chapter, one curse after another, that was to fall on them if they had violated that for individuals. Now, in verse 22, he starts, turns a different direction. Not only, he's not talking about the individuals now, but he's talking about the composite of all the people of Israel. Now, we know that whenever you talk about the curse falling on the nation of Israel or disobedience in the nation of Israel, you're really talking not about 100% of the people who are faithful, nor 100% of the people who are not faithful. There is a line that God draws, we don't know where it is, where he says, well, the nation is mostly not obedient or the nation is obedient. And we don't know where that line draws, but God draws it. So here he talks about this nation as a whole. Verse 22, your children who follow you in later generations and foreigners who come from distant lands will see the calamities that have fallen on the land and the diseases with which the Lord has afflicted it. Now, he's talking about the individual who at the time of the covenant is saying, I'm going to make the covenant and I'm going to make this promise, but in my heart, I'm not going to do it. I should go back, I guess, and read what he says at the last part of that, that this person then will be like a dry root or a poison that will come against the nation. So if there are individuals who are resistant to obedience to the covenant that God gives them, they will be like a poison spread among the whole nation. It spreads, rebellion and disobedience spread. And you see this in a lot of settings. For example, if you watch television and you see some country where they're protesting, you have a few people get out there and pretty soon flocks of people come and are protesting. Protest and rebellion draw people to it. So what happens in the nation is people are drawn to that. And he says whenever it begins to multiply in such a way, here's what God is going to do. The children who follow you in later generations, foreigners who come from distant lands, they weren't a part of the contract that they'd been made. Since they weren't a part of it, they haven't committed themselves to be obedient to it. So the number of rebellious people grows, either by the influence of people within the nation or from the influence of people outside the nation. And the foreigners who come from distant lands will see the calamities that have fallen on the land and the diseases with which the Lord has afflicted it. What he's talking about are nationwide events that would draw attention to the people that God has withdrawn his protective care. I will guide you so you'll make good choices. I will protect you and I will provide for you. So now the protection and the guidance of God is off and his provision for them is off and the result is calamities strike the land. One thing after another come and people begin to see that the Lord is behind the affliction. The twofold thing, one is the people have failed to follow God and the other is the result of disasters that come and they're tied together. They are the sign of God removing his hand of protection and bringing on them the suffering that he promised he would do if they failed to keep the land. Verse 23 says, the whole land will be burning, waste of salt and sulfur, nothing planted, nothing sprouting, no vegetation growing on it. It will be like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Adma and Zeboim, which the Lord overthrew in fierce anger. All the nations will ask, why has the Lord done this to the land? Why this fierce burning anger? Now in this last two verses, Moses introduces God's response to this failure to serve him. And what's at issue here is the first commandment, you'd have no other gods before me. Now we talked about some time ago, a couple of weeks ago in our own groups about what are the things that become idols for us? What are the things that control our lifestyles? What God expects for us is when we say to him, I give you my life, I pledge to live in obedience to you, he expects us to know what he wants by reading the Bible, finding out what he wants us to do and then to do that or live in obedience to him, make the decisions consistent with what he wants. So he wants us to know what he wants and he wants us to put it in practice. There are two ways by which we put things in practice. One is by the way we think, changing the way we think about things. Paul describes this as not thinking the way the rest of the world thinks. So you find yourself in a situation, it comes up and the reaction of people around you would be one thing, but you might look at it and say, God, I think you want me to do something else. For example, someone does something that insults you or hurts your feelings. What is the normal human reaction to that? Pardon? Anger. And so you say, okay, I get angry about this. And when you get angry, what do you do? You lash out. Lash out, insult someone. You strike back to hurt. You hurt me, I hurt you in return. That's a very normal human instinct. Now, whenever you see what God asks us to do, what does he say whenever somebody makes you angry or hurts you that you should do? Excuse me? Forgive them? Pray for them? Turn the other cheek? Excuse me? Serve them? An entirely different set of actions that result from thinking about the situation differently. So when somebody strikes you or hurts you, insults you, your first thought is going to be, that's not fair, I want to get even. And when that thought comes to your mind, you're to think, okay, what does God say I should do when someone does that? And a new thought comes to your mind, different than what you may have had in the rest of your life, and now it compels you to do something different in terms of your behavior and action. Now, whenever the thought comes to you, I shouldn't lash out, get angry, strike back, that thought is God bringing to your mind the teachings that he's given to us. So you're caught in that moment between your human feelings and this new information that's in your head. What you do in that moment, that represents the God of your life. If you lash out and strike back, you've allowed your human nature to control your thinking and your behavior. If you stop and say, this is what God tells me to do, and I'm going to honor what he tells me to do, then you're saying, Jesus Christ is the Lord and ruler of my life. I'm going to do what he told me I should do. All the things you said were things that Jesus taught, turn the other cheek, return good for evil, pray for someone, serve them. All of those things Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. So what you're saying when you do that is, Jesus Christ controls my life. In every circumstance, in this one and all the other things in my life. So this idolatry is, when you hear that, and then you say, I don't care, I'm mad. And I'm going to do what I want to do. In that moment, you have become an idolater. You're listening to another force that is going to cause you to think a certain way and act in a certain way. So we don't have to necessarily build a little house in our backyard and put a statue in that to be idolaters. It happens to us every day in our minds. For we're caught between what the people around us say and do, what we've heard in the past, our emotions and feelings, in contrast to what God says is the right thing to do in so many situations. It's not just a matter of anger, but there are all kinds of situations in which God has given us specific concrete instructions about how he wants us to live. And we have a choice to make as to whether we're going to put those in practice in our life, or we're going to do something else. So what he's talking about here is a nation that has chosen to say, we know what God told us to do, but we're going to do something else. Now, how could that strike a church? What could happen that would cause a church to say, we're going to do something different than what God tells us in the Bible we should do? What can happen in a church that would cause a church to do that? Yes, Greenwood. Division. Division. And in division, that's not sinful to have difference of opinion. But what could come out of that? Pardon? People fighting until they say, there's resentment and bitterness builds up until one group says, OK, we can't get along with you anymore. And the other group says, we're not going to cooperate with you anymore. And so they separate. Yeah. And they break the unity that should be a part of the church. Now, what the Bible teaches is, if everybody listens to God, there should be a way for reconciliation and forgiveness to come. So what happens in a church in that situation is their human nature. This church years ago, before I ever came here, was a church that had a human nature. This church years ago, before I ever came here, had a business meeting one time in the church, and two men got in a fistfight in the church building. And the church I was in in Texas, before I got there, the church there had had a conflict, and two men were wrestling. I don't think they hit each other, but they threw each other down in front of the Lord's Supper table in the church. And they had a fight. Powerful feelings. I went to see one of those guys that had been on one side, knocked on the door, and he came to the door, and I said, I'm the new preacher of the church down here. And he said, I don't like that church. I'm not going to that church, and I'll never go in it as long as I live. He had his mind made up. Anger, resentment, and bitterness can cause us to put our own agenda ahead of God's agenda. I want you to reconcile, care, and love for each other. But instead we say, I have to win no matter what. That's one way a church can do that. Can you think of other ways that it could happen in a church? A church would just reject what God wanted? People in church sometimes can get in positions where they think they ought to have the authority and the power to do whatever they want to do. And they can claim the authority of God, the will of God, and say this is the will of God. And other people could think it wasn't the will of God, and you could have a fight over that. It wouldn't necessarily be because they were angry, or because they were unsure about what the will of God really was, and they were unprepared to listen to each other. We're trying to look at how we're going to redo the building. We're looking at, okay, how can we find what God wants for us? And when you look at that, you say the will of God is to find his direction. So now the nation of Israel were charged with the responsibility of saying, if these people who don't trust me in their heart have harbored this self-centeredness, and if they continue to do that, the time will come when I will turn against them and turn their land into a wasteland. Nothing can sprout. Nothing planted will grow. No vegetation will be on it. It will be like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, where the land was completely destroyed. I think the fire, hail come down or some destructive force and completely destroyed those cities. I will do that. Why? Because the Lord overthrew in fierce anger. God gets angry when we say to him, I do not trust you to rule my life. And when a nation or church, in this instance, the nation in the Old Testament is like the church today. When a church gets to the place that their stubbornness, they say, we are going to do what we want regardless of the fallout or the consequences. When they get to that place, God brings destruction. The church that got in a fight and left, they are now dead. Been dead and gone a long time. God does not withhold his judgment from circumstances like that. The anger of God is so powerful that he will not withhold it to people who consistently are determined to reject his authority over their life. When they have promised him that they are going to. Every person that gets in a Baptist church has to stand in a Baptist church and say, Jesus Christ is my Lord. He is going to rule my life. I am going to submit to his authority. It does not mean you have to be perfect. But if you have a strain inside of you that says, now I am no longer going to do that. And the church gets in that mode, God just destroys it. God is concerned to be able to make sure that his people live in obedience to him. If you look in Revelation, the last book in the Bible, you will see that as God is addressing the churches in that time, in chapter 2, he is addressing one of the churches. He is addressing the church at Ephesus. Now, the book of Ephesians written to us tells us a wonderful story about this church and all the good things that took place in it. But here the writer tells them of some things that they are doing. These are the words of him who holds the seven stars. And he tells them some things about them and says, Yet I hold this against you, you have forsaken your first love. I heard a lot of people preach a lot of sermons on the first love. And the first love is to love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind. That is what the first one is. You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen. Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. No longer will that church be in existence. God's judgment is powerful and strong because he cannot allow his church to be rebellious toward him. If you look at this beginning of verse 23, the word anger is repeatedly used. The Lord overthrew in fierce anger all the nations. All the nations will ask, Why has the Lord done this to this land? Why this fierce burning anger the second time? The answer will be it is because the people abandoned the covenant of the Lord, and the covenant he made with them when he brought them out of Egypt. The contract that he made with the people of Israel had been violated. And the very first part of it is, No other gods before me. Verse 26, They went off and worshipped other gods, bowed down to them, gods they did not know, gods that had not been given to them. Therefore the Lord's anger, third time, burned against this land. So that he brought on it all the curses written in this book. In furious anger, the fourth time, and in great wrath, the fifth time, the Lord uprooted them from their land and thrust them into another land as it is now. He's predicting that if they do turn against him, that they will go into captivity. They will be driven out of the land of Canaan. When God brought them to the land of Canaan, he said, I'm giving you this land because the people who lived before here polluted it with their sin. And because of their pollution of this land, I'm now telling you go in and kill everybody there, and you can now possess this land. And then he said to them, And if you do the same things that they did, I'll do the same thing to you. His promise, his covenant with Abraham, his covenant with Israel, was always a covenant that required them to be faithful. And if they stopped it, then they were rejecting his authority, and God gets angry. He's angry because they have said to him, the ruler of the world, the creator of the universe, we do not accept your authority over our life and our lifestyle. And whenever they reject that authority, they rejected God. And so he responds in anger. Verse 29, he says, 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 the law. He's simply saying that there are things that we don't know about. Sometimes in the process of living your life, you have violated the teachings of God and didn't know it. Maybe it was before you read the Bible very much. Maybe after you became a follower of Christ and committed yourself to him, you still didn't know all these things. And you read sometimes in the Bible and you say, Gosh, I never thought of that. You find out something that's in your life or the way you think or the things you've done that are new to you. He's saying the secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us. The responsibility for taking care of the sins that you don't know you've committed are in God's hands. He holds those. He doesn't hold you accountable for them. But the things that you do know that you're doing in direct opposition to what God wants, he holds you accountable for that. Now, that makes good sense to us. If you don't know the rules and you do something because you're ignorant of those rules, it's one thing. If you know the rules and you do something in conflict with the rules, knowing that you're doing it, it's a whole different issue. One of them is the sin of ignorance, which can be cured with knowledge. The other is the sin of rebellion, which can only be cured with a change of direction or of your heart. So he's saying to the nation of Israel, I'm not going to pick on you. It's not that I'm going to bring all this destruction on you simply because you're not, well, you didn't know better. But I'm going to watch you to see if the choices you make in your life are the result of the fact you know what you ought to do, but you consistently refuse to do it. And that kind of open sin brings God the kind of anger that is described here. I will wipe you off of the face of the earth. There is no place in the kingdom of God for a rebellious spirit. For the kingdom of God is based on one thing, our submission to the authority of the king. That's why knowing what the Bible says and putting it into practice is essential to growth in the Christian life. God will judge open rebellion against knowledge that we have. There's a sense in which knowing the Bible is dangerous. Because the more you know you're supposed to do, the more accountable you become for doing it. And when you read the Bible day by day, it gives you an opportunity to know what God wants you to do and how he wants you to live and think. And for what you do know, the responsibility is increased and the demand of God on your life grows. The wonderful thing about that is the more you know and the more you put in practice, the more God can bless your life. That's the great thing about it. But the more you know and the more you refuse to do it, the more you open yourself to the curse that God brings on those who rebel against him. God makes sure that only the things we know that are revealed to us and they refuse to do is the basis of the judgment that he has on us. The things revealed belong to us. They're our responsibility. They're our requirement. And to our children who know better that they may follow all the words of this law. What God wants for us to do is day by day begin our day by saying, Lord, today I want to do all the things you tell me you want me to do. If you will tell me today what you want, I will do it. And he wants us to live in submission to him day by day, every day. If we know what God wants and we just say, no, I'm not going to do it. Then we place ourselves in a position where at the end of that day we need to stop and say, God, I had a rebellious spirit today. It's not my heart, but it's just I got caught in a situation where I did something I shouldn't do. To fail to correct that gives us an ongoing spirit of rebellion. And that's what brings us to judgment with God. So you bow your heads, please.