Thursday Night Bible Study

Deuteronomy 27-Deuteronomy 28

“Old Covenant Reality” • 2.28.13 • Calvary Christian Fellowship, Thursday Night Bible Study

Audio File Available Above 

* SPECIAL EDITOR'S NOTE: On the night when this chapter was presented, the recording was interrupted and not completed during the evening. Later that evening, I attempted to capture some of what was left of the message. While this is hardly ideal, it was necessary to attempt to capture the full essence of what the Lord ministered to us that evening. You'll notice a marked difference in the sound quality, which could not be avoided or improved upon. My apologies in advance.

Intro.

- This last Sunday, we covered a chapter that spoke of our New Covenant with the Lord, a agreement, a promise between God and man, based in the faithfulness of Christ.

- To put it simply, the new covenant says, "All that is needed for righteousness has been done." The old covenant says, "All you need for righteousness is to do."

- Tonight, we will get a vivid demonstration as to the difference between the old and the new covenant, as we study this new section of Deuteronomy.

Text

• Deuteronomy 27:1-8 : "Now Moses, with the elders of Israel, commanded the people, saying: 'Keep all the commandments which I command you today. And it shall be, on the day when you cross over the Jordan to the land which the Lord your God is giving you, that you shall set up for yourselves large stones, and whitewash them with lime. You shall write on them all the words of this law, when you have crossed over, that you may enter the land which the Lord your God is giving you, ‘a land flowing with milk and honey,’ just as the Lord God of your fathers promised you. Therefore it shall be, when you have crossed over the Jordan, that on Mount Ebal you shall set up these stones, which I command you today, and you shall whitewash them with lime. And there you shall build an altar to the Lord your God, an altar of stones; you shall not use an iron tool on them. You shall build with whole stones the altar of the Lord your God, and offer burnt offerings on it to the Lord your God. You shall offer peace offerings, and shall eat there, and rejoice before the Lord your God. And you shall write very plainly on the stones all the words of this law.'" : These stones were to be assembled as a witness to the conduct that God's people were agreeing to. They were expected perform the law.

- The stones or any altar, were never to be cut or hewn, but were to be assembled. God wants the message to be the centerpiece. Just make it clean and then make it clear!

- Too many people concentrate on the stone work, the medium. God's all about the message!

- Note where this is supposed to be: On Mt. Ebal. This is where they were to offer their burnt and peace sacrifices there and rejoice before their Lord. Remember that for a few moments.

• Deuteronomy 27:9,10 : "Then Moses and the priests, the Levites, spoke to all Israel, saying, 'Take heed and listen, O Israel: This day you have become the people of the Lord your God. Therefore you shall obey the voice of the Lord your God, and observe His commandments and His statutes which I command you today.'" : The King has spoken and we have heard His voice through His word. All that's left is our obedience to this King of all the Earth.

• Deuteronomy 27:11-13 : "And Moses commanded the people on the same day, saying, 'These shall stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people, when you have crossed over the Jordan: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin; and these shall stand on Mount Ebal to curse: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali." :  The tribes were to be divided into two groups on Gerizim, the mount of blessing and Ebal the mount of cursing.

- John Clarke tells us that this had a visual aspect to it, in that Gerizim was flush with beauty, while Ebal was bare as a rock.

- These two mounts are right in the middle of Israel's landscape, both are about 900 ft above sea level and only a third of a mile apart, forming a natural amphitheater between them.

- Shechem was located between them and later, Samaria would be located here.

- Before us is the script that Moses tells them to employ when they get in the land. They will actually perform this in Joshua 8, after the fall at Ai.

• Deuteronomy 27:14,15 : "And the Levites shall speak with a loud voice and say to all the men of Israel: 'Cursed is the one who makes a carved or molded image, an abomination to the Lord, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and sets it up in secret.’ And all the people shall answer and say, ‘Amen!’" : This will follow for the rest of the chapter, where the terms of the covenant are spelled out.

- The heart of the covenant is a love for God that emanates from the heart, soul, mind and strength of the person. That love manifests in obedience to these statutes.

- The Levites were to stand and lead this. Any man that would participate in the construction and the worship of an idol in secret would be inviting a curse from God over his life.

- Why? Because they were to live in the presence of God, not men! We are to be true worshippers of God and not simply people who pretend.

- In each case, the people are to agree by saying, "amen." So be it for me!

• Deuteronomy 27:16-21 : "Cursed is the one who treats his father or his mother with contempt.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen!’ Cursed is the one who moves his neighbor’s landmark. And all the people shall say, ‘Amen!’ Cursed is the one who makes the blind to wander off the road. And all the people shall say, ‘Amen!’ Cursed is the one who perverts the justice due the stranger, the fatherless, and widow. And all the people shall say, ‘Amen!’ Cursed is the one who lies with his father’s wife, because he has uncovered his father’s bed.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen!’  ‘Cursed is the one who lies with any kind of animal.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen!’" : You'll see expressions of the commandments here. Honor for parents, a prohibition for stealing in the neighbor's landmark, love for neighbors are included.

- Additionally, adultery or sexually immodest behavior reminds us of God's ideal for marital relationships. God condemns bestiality once again, as Canaan was a land that lacked any taboo.

• Deuteronomy 27:22-26 : "Cursed is the one who lies with his sister, the daughter of his father or the daughter of his mother. And all the people shall say, ‘Amen!’ Cursed is the one who lies with his mother-in-law.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen!’ Cursed is the one who attacks his neighbor secretly.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen!’ Cursed is the one who takes a bribe to slay an innocent person. And all the people shall say, ‘Amen!’ Cursed is the one who does not confirm all the words of this law by observing them.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen!’" : Incestuous relationships brought a curse upon one's life.

- Injustice, either solo or in conspiracy was an affront to God. You are inviting a curse from God upon your life if you live that way.

- All the words of the law were to be confirmed, not by confession, but by living them!

• Deuteronomy 28:1-6 : "Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God: Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country. Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out." : Obey God and there will be blessing in it for you! It's that simple, but notice that the blessing is contingent on their doing, which is a vital difference in the Old covenant.

- If they would do this, God's blessing would flood over them, whether they were in the city or in the country! This would include their family, their business, and their home provision!

- They'd be blessed coming in and going out! Every way they could be they would be blessed!

• Deuteronomy 28:7-14 : "The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face; they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. The Lord will command the blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand, and He will bless you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you. The Lord will establish you as a holy people to Himself, just as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in His ways. Then all peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of you. And the Lord will grant you plenty of goods, in the fruit of your body, in the increase of your livestock, and in the produce of your ground, in the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers to give you. The Lord will open to you His good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand. You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail; you shall be above only, and not be beneath, if you heed the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, and are careful to observe them. So you shall not turn aside from any of the words which I command you this day, to the right or the left, to go after other gods to serve them." : The land of Canaan would be a place of conflict for many years to come. The people would have many enemies, but God would defeat them if they obeyed.

- The goal was that He would bless them so completely that the world would look at them and fear because of their relationship to God.

- They would have plenty and God would give them a position among the nations that would allow them to be the lead and not the ones following. Stay close, obey and all this happens!

- These are tremendous blessings that God offers to His people. While we are not under this old covenant, the principle remains true today: Obedience to God brings blessing from God!

- Israel will be so blessed that nobody can believe it or so cursed that nobody can believe it!

• Deuteronomy 28:15-19 : "But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country. Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Cursed shall be the fruit of your body and the produce of your land, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out." : The exact opposite of the blessing is reserved for those who would disobey. Every good would be turned around in order to chasten them.

- Their turn from favor would remind them that if they simply turned back that God would again turn His favor toward them. Every reversal would be divine punishments that would overtake them.

- In other words, they would not be able to out run God. These consequences would happen!

• Deuteronomy 28:20-29 : "The Lord will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken Me. The Lord will make the plague cling to you until He has consumed you from the land which you are going to possess. The Lord will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with severe burning fever, with the sword, with scorching, and with mildew; they shall pursue you until you perish. And your heavens which are over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you shall be iron. The Lord will change the rain of your land to powder and dust; from the heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed. The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them; and you shall become troublesome to all the kingdoms of the earth. Your carcasses shall be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and no one shall frighten them away. The Lord will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors, with the scab, and with the itch, from which you cannot be healed. The Lord will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of heart. And you shall grope at noonday, as a blind man gropes in darkness; you shall not prosper in your ways; you shall be only oppressed and plundered continually, and no one shall save you." : The hand of the Lord will do all of these things.

- He will bring confusion. He will strike them. He will cause their defeat. The last line is just deadly: You shall not prosper in your ways. You shall be only oppressed and plundered continually!

- When God is against you, who can be for you!? Who will save out of His hand?

• Deuteronomy 28:30-44 : "You shall betroth a wife, but another man shall lie with her; you shall build a house, but you shall not dwell in it; you shall plant a vineyard, but shall not gather its grapes. Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, but you shall not eat of it; your donkey shall be violently taken away from before you, and shall not be restored to you; your sheep shall be given to your enemies, and you shall have no one to rescue them. Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, and your eyes shall look and fail with longing for them all day long; and there shall be no strength in your hand. A nation whom you have not known shall eat the fruit of your land and the produce of your labor, and you shall be only oppressed and crushed continually. So you shall be driven mad because of the sight which your eyes see. The Lord will strike you in the knees and on the legs with severe boils which cannot be healed, and from the sole of your foot to the top of your head. The Lord will bring you and the king whom you set over you to a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods—wood and stone. And you shall become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations where the Lord will drive you. You shall carry much seed out to the field but gather little in, for the locust shall consume it. You shall plant vineyards and tend them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes; for the worms shall eat them. You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; for your olives shall drop off. You shall beget sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours; for they shall go into captivity.  Locusts shall consume all your trees and the produce of your land. The alien who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail." : God's hand will actively inspire other nations to work against them!

- As you read this section, you'll note several matters of prophecy that eventually become a part of their story, especially regarding their captivity to the Assyrians and the Babylonians.

- Several times the prophets will say that the land has become an astonishment, a proverb and a byword among all the nations. They would become a symbol of destitution.

- The nations would come and be in awe of what was lost. Others would not come in and inhabit. A small group, a remnant would remain, but what a fall from grace!

• Deuteronomy 28:45-57 : "Moreover all these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. And they shall be upon you for a sign and a wonder, and on your descendants forever. Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness of heart, for the abundance of everything, therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of everything; and He will put a yoke of iron on your neck until He has destroyed you. The Lord will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you will not understand, a nation of fierce countenance, which does not respect the elderly nor show favor to the young. And they shall eat the increase of your livestock and the produce of your land, until you are destroyed; they shall not leave you grain or new wine or oil, or the increase of your cattle or the offspring of your flocks, until they have destroyed you. They shall besiege you at all your gates until your high and fortified walls, in which you trust, come down throughout all your land; and they shall besiege you at all your gates throughout all your land which the Lord your God has given you. You shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and your daughters whom the Lord your God has given you, in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you. The sensitive and very refined man among you will be hostile toward his brother, toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the rest of his children whom he leaves behind, so that he will not give any of them the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates. The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because of her delicateness and sensitivity, will refuse to the husband of her bosom, and to her son and her daughter, her placenta which comes out from between her feet and her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of everything in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates." : The curses would follow them wherever they went because they did not obey the Lord. Some would attempt to flee to Egypt, only to die there.

- Others sought escape when the Babylonians came through the forest and were found there. There was no escape.

- The judgment was brutal when need would drive them to cannabalism and the eating of things that you and I would never even consider!

- Distress would cause even the most delicate and sensitive among them to act with great cruelty, which was certainly witnessed in the last days before Babylon came to besiege Judah.

- Later in their history, this same story would be repeated by the Romans who came to besiege Jerusalem until it fell at the hands of Titus in A.D. 70.

• Deuteronomy 28:58-68 : "If you do not carefully observe all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, THE LORD YOUR GOD,  then the Lord will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary plagues—great and prolonged plagues—and serious and prolonged sicknesses. Moreover He will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. Also every sickness and every plague, which is not written in this Book of the Law, will the Lord bring upon you until you are destroyed. You shall be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of heaven in multitude, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God. And it shall be, that just as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good and multiply you, so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you to nothing; and you shall be plucked from off the land which you go to possess. Then the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known—wood and stone. And among those nations you shall find no rest, nor shall the sole of your foot have a resting place; but there the Lord will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and anguish of soul. Your life shall hang in doubt before you; you shall fear day and night, and have no assurance of life. In the morning you shall say, ‘Oh, that it were evening!’ And at evening you shall say, ‘Oh, that it were morning!’ because of the fear which terrifies your heart, and because of the sight which your eyes see. And the Lord will take you back to Egypt in ships, by the way of which I said to you, ‘You shall never see it again.’ And there you shall be offered for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.'" : Nobody would buy them because there were so many of them that the market was flooded.

Conclusion
- The old covenant is built on their performance. The new covenant is built on His performance. The old covenant says "do. The new covenant says "done!"

- The old covenant is conditional. The new covenant is sure. In every way, the new covenant is superior to the old, offering better promises and a better foundation, but a worse consequence.

- In the old, the curse was for life. In the new, if a person refuses, the consequence is eternal!