Deuteronomy 29
“These are the terms of the Covenant that God commanded Moses to make with the People of Israel in the land of Moab, renewing the Covenant he made with them at Horeb.”
God is about to renew His covenant with the Israelites. This renewal is necessary because those who made the original covenant at Mount Sinai have died in the Wilderness. What is a covenant and how does it differ from a contract?
Covenants and contracts are both legal agreements, but they serve different purposes and have distinct characteristics.
Covenant:
- A covenant is a formal agreement or promise in a deed or contract that requires one party to do or refrain from doing certain actions.
- Commonly found in real estate, covenants can restrict land use or impose obligations on property owners.
- They are often enforceable in equity, meaning a party can seek specific performance or injunctions rather than just monetary damages.
Contract:
- A contract is a legally binding agreement between two or more parties that creates mutual obligations enforceable by law.
- Contracts can cover a wide range of agreements, including sales, services, and employment.
- They typically require an offer, acceptance, consideration (something of value exchanged), and mutual intent to create a legal obligation.
Key Differences:
- Nature: Covenants often relate to property and land use, while contracts can pertain to various transactions.
- Enforcement: Covenants may be enforced in equity, whereas contracts are generally enforced through legal remedies.
- Parties Involved: Covenants usually involve property owners and may bind future owners, while contracts involve specific parties at the time of agreement.
Understanding these distinctions helps clarify the legal implications and enforceability of each type of agreement.
Covenants have a moral effect while contracts are legally binding. How will God take His people to court, or how will the Israelites sue God? Covenants are formal agreements or promises in a deed or contract that require one party to do or refrain from doing certain actions.
Moses Blesses Israel on the Plains of Moab
2-4 “Moses called all Israel together and said, You’ve seen with your own eyes everything that God did in Egypt to Pharaoh and his servants, and to the land itself—the massive trials to which you were eyewitnesses, the great signs and miracle-wonders. But God didn’t give you an understanding heart or perceptive eyes or attentive ears until right now, this very day.
5-6 I took you through the wilderness for forty years and through all that time the clothes on your backs didn’t wear out, the sandals on your feet didn’t wear out, and you lived well without bread and wine and beer, proving to you that I am in fact God, your God.
7-8 When you arrived here in this place, Sihon king of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan met us primed for war but we beat them. We took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh.”
Wow! Not only has God fed and watered 2.4 million people in the midst of a wilderness but their clothing and their shoes have not worn out in 40 years. One pastor’s wife once told me that God also did this same miracle for her husband and her when they were beginning ministry and were penniless. God is Lord over everything, including our closets. And God has allowed the Israelites to conquer Og, one of the remaining giants, giving his land and that of King Sihon to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh because the grazing is so good.
“9 Diligently keep the words of this Covenant. Do what they say so that you will live well and wisely in every detail.” At this point, there are guys standing in the back of the crowd thinking, “Duh! As if we would EVER stray from this Covenant.” Too bad those men are wrong.
10-13 You are all standing here today in the Presence of God, your God—the heads of your tribes, your leaders, your officials, all Israel: your babies, your wives, the resident foreigners in your camps who fetch your firewood and water—ready to cross over into the solemnly sworn Covenant that God, your God, is making with you today, the Covenant that this day confirms that you are his people and he is God, your God, just as he promised you and your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
14-21 I’m not making this Covenant and its oath with you alone. I am making it with you who are standing here today in the Presence of God, our God, yes, but also with those who are not here today. You know the conditions in which we lived in Egypt and how we crisscrossed through nations in our travels. You got an eyeful of their obscenities, their wood and stone, silver and gold junk-gods. Don’t let down your guard lest even now, today, someone—man or woman, clan or tribe—gets sidetracked from God, our God, and gets involved with the no-gods of the nations; lest some poisonous weed sprout and spread among you, a person who hears the words of the Covenant-oath but exempts himself, thinking, “I’ll live just the way I please, thank you,” and ends up ruining life for everybody. God won’t let him off the hook. God’s anger and jealousy will erupt like a volcano against that person. The curses written in this book will bury him. God will delete his name from the records. God will separate him out from all the tribes of Israel for special punishment, according to all the curses of the Covenant written in this Book of Revelation.
22-23 The next generation, your children who come after you and the foreigner who comes from a far country, will be appalled when they see the widespread devastation, how God made the whole land sick. They’ll see a fire-blackened wasteland of brimstone and salt flats, nothing planted, nothing growing, not so much as a blade of grass anywhere—like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which God overthrew in fiery rage.
24 All the nations will ask, “Why did God do this to this country? What on earth could have made him this angry?”
25-28 Your children will answer, “Because they abandoned the Covenant of the God of their ancestors that he made with them after he got them out of Egypt; they went off and worshiped other gods, submitted to gods they’d never heard of before, gods they had no business dealing with. So God’s anger erupted against that land and all the curses written in this book came down on it. God, furiously angry, pulled them, roots and all, out of their land and dumped them in another country, as you can see.”
29 God, our God, will take care of the hidden things but the revealed things are our business. It’s up to us and our children to attend to all the terms in this Revelation.
Once more, God is warning His people: Keep this Covenant and all will be well. Fail to keep the Covenant and terrible consequences will happen. Notice the threats: God will reduce fertile fields to barren desert, like the area around Sodom and Gomorrah. When Lot chose to live in Sodom, it was because the area around Sodom was so lush that Genesis 13:10-11 describes the plain of the Jordan resembling the Garden of Eden. Once God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, there was only devastation. Finally, God continues to put His people on notice that they are responsible for teaching these things to succeeding generations, lest the Israelites fall into sin and be carried off from the land God has given them.
A covenant is the most serious kind of agreement imaginable, for it carries moral weight that cannot be argued away. God wants to covenant with each one of us so that we will be committed to Him forever. This is no time for joking; we have no idea how much of our lives might be left. Today is the day of salvation, if you will only commit yourself to serving God forever. What will you lose in the process? Despair. What will you gain? Eternal life. The choice is yours; choose wisely.
PRAYER; Father God, thank You for loving us and caring for us. Lord, we give ourselves to You, trusting that You will help us to make this gift complete. Please help us to follow hard after You all the days of our lives. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.
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