Watered Land...Dry

Deuteronomy 29:19-20 – When such a person hears the words of this oath and they invoke a blessing on themselves, thinking, “I will be safe, even though I persist in going my own way,” they will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry. The Lord will never be willing to forgive them; his wrath and zeal will burn against them. All the curses written in this book will fall on them, and the Lord will blot out their names from under heaven.

Psalm 72:17 – May his name endure forever; may it continue as long as the sun. Then all nations will be blessed through him, and they will call him blessed.

Isaiah 65:16 – Whoever invokes a blessing in the land will do so by the one true God; whoever takes an oath in the land will swear by the one true God. For the past troubles will be forgotten and hidden from my eyes.

Application:

• ·         The language “all nations” recalls the promise to Abraham and suggests that it will be fulfilled through the royal son of David—ultimately the Messiah.
• ·         God is true to His promises.
• ·         Peter, too, says that those who deny the “sovereign Lord” bring “swift destruction on themselves”.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV

Root...That Produces Such Bitter Poison

Deuteronomy 29:14-18 – 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. 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. Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the Lord our God to go and worship the gods of those nations; make sure there is no root among you that produces such bitter poison.

Genesis 6:18 – But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you.

Exodus 20:3-4,23 – “You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below…Do not make any gods to be alongside me; do not make for yourselves gods of silver or gods of gold.

Exodus 34:15 – “Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land; for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you and you will eat their sacrifices.

Application:

• ·         God extends His loving concern to the whole family of righteous Noah—a consistent pattern in God’s dealings with His people, underscoring the moral and responsible relationship of parents to their children.
• ·         The contrast between the one true God “in heaven”, who “does whatever please Him”, and idols of silver or gold, who can do nothing at all, is striking.
• ·         “Root…that produces such bitter poison” was the poison of idolatry, involving the rejection of the Lord.
• ·         No deity, real or imagined, is to rival the one true God in Israel’s heart and life.
• ·         Because God has no visible form, any idol intended to resemble Him would be a sinful misrepresentation of Him.
• ·         Partaking of food sacrificed to a pagan deity invites compromise.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV

Covenant

Deuteronomy 29:14-15 – 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.

Exodus 19:5-6 – Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.”

Jeremiah 31:31 – “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.

Ezekiel 37:26 – I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant. I will establish them and increase their numbers, and I will put my sanctuary among them forever.

Application:

• ·         The covenant between God and Israel at Mount Sinai is the outgrowth and extension of the Lord’s covenant with Abraham and his descendants 600 years earlier.
• ·         As the old covenant was put into effect with the shedding of the blood of animals, so the new would be put into effect with the shedding of the blood of Christ.
• ·         Participation in the divine blessings is conditioned on obedience added to faith.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV

His People...Your God

Deuteronomy 29:10-13 – 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. 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.

Genesis 6:18 – But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you.

Exodus 19:5-6 – Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.”

Genesis 17:7 – I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.

Zechariah 8:8 – I will bring them back to live in Jerusalem; they will be my people, and I will be faithful and righteous to them as their God.”

Application:

• ·         God extends His loving concern to the whole family of righteous Noah—a consistent pattern in God’s dealings with His people, underscoring the moral and responsible relationship of parents to their children.
• ·         God’s people, both individually and collectively, are to be “set apart” to do His will.
• ·         God’s commitment to His covenant was forever, but descendants of Abraham could break it. To be your God was the heart of God’s covenant promise, repeated over and over in the Old Testament. This is God’s pledge to be the protector of His people and the One who provides for their well-being and guarantees their future blessing.
• ·         “They will be my people, and I will be…their God” was covenant terminology, pertaining to intimate fellowship in the covenant relationship between God and His people. Judah’s restoration to covenant favor and blessing rested on the faithfulness and righteousness of God.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV

Covenant

Deuteronomy 29:5-9 – 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. You ate no bread and drank no wine or other fermented drink. I did this so that you might know that I am the Lord your God.” When you reached this place, Sihon king of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan came out to fight against us, but we defeated them. We took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh. Carefully follow the terms of this covenant, so that you may prosper in everything you do.

Deuteronomy 8:3 – He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

Joshua 1:7 – “Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go.

Exodus 19:5-6 – Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.”

Psalm 25:10 – All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful toward those who keep the demands of his covenant.

Application:

• ·         Bread sustains but does not guarantee life, which is God’s gift to those who trust in and live by His word: His commands and promises. God’s discipline of His people by bringing them through the wilderness taught them this fundamental truth.
• ·         Success was not guaranteed unconditionally.
• ·         The covenant between God and Israel at Mount Sinai is the outgrowth and extension of the Lord’s covenant with Abraham and his descendants 600 years earlier.
• ·         “Ways of the Lord” are the Lord’s benevolent dealings with those who are true to His ways.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV

Hear

Deuteronomy 28:65-29:4 – Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the Lord will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart. You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life. In the morning you will say, “If only it were evening!” and in the evening, “If only it were morning!”—because of the terror that will fill your hearts and the sights that your eyes will see. The Lord will send you back in ships to Egypt on a journey I said you should never make again. There you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you. 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. 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. But to this day the Lord has not given you a mind that understands or eyes that see or ears that hear.

Deuteronomy 5:2 – The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb.

Isaiah 6:10 – Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”

Ezekiel 12:2 – “Son of man, you are living among a rebellious people. They have eyes to see but do not see and ears to hear but do not hear, for they are a rebellious people.

Application:

• ·         Adherence to the covenant would bring God’s people the blessings of the Lord, while breaking the covenant would bring against them the punishments described as “curses”.
• ·         One day, however, the nation will be able to see and hear.
• ·         The Israelites in Jerusalem refuse to recognize that the end has come for them.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV

As The Stars In The Sky

Deuteronomy 28:58-64 – If you do not carefully follow all the words of this law, which are written in this book, and do not revere this glorious and awesome name—the Lord your God—the Lord will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants, harsh and prolonged disasters, and severe and lingering illnesses. He will bring on you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you. The Lord will also bring on you every kind of sickness and disaster not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed. You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left but few in number, because you did not obey the Lord your God. Just as it pleased the Lord to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess. Then the Lord will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your ancestors have known.

Deuteronomy 4:25-26 – After you have had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time—if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing evil in the eyes of the Lord your God and arousing his anger, I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long but will certainly be destroyed.

Genesis 15:5 – He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

Nehemiah 1:8-9 – “Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations, but if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name.’

Jeremiah 18:17 – Like a wind from the east, I will scatter them before their enemies; I will show them my back and not my face in the day of their disaster.”

Application:

• ·         The pattern of the Israelites’ rebellion, resulting in expulsion from the land, and then their repentance, leading to restoration to the land, is prominent in Deuteronomy.
• ·         Ultimately, all who belong to Christ are Abram’s offspring.
• ·         Dispersion was the inescapable consequence of the people’s unfaithfulness.
• ·         His face symbolizes His gracious blessing and favor.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV