The LORD Did Not Make A Covenant With Our Fathers, But With Us

I was telling my family as I was preparing to preach that I really didn't have any idea what I was going to say about this passage, the last few verses of chapter 4. I felt like it's something that has been a constant refrain up through these first four chapters. It's an exhortation to listen to the Word of God and to obey it, to remember all that God had done for them, and to warn them against idolatry. This seems to be the constant refrain of the passage of the text leading up to this point. And I really wasn't sure what I was going to say that would be new or interesting or different or helpful. And so what I decided to do was to include the first few verses of chapter 5 as well in this because I think that they fit together. I want to remind you that chapter breaks and verse numbers are not a part of the original inspired text.

And that I was struggling in part because I think I was limiting myself and saying, well, I think there's an end and a transition between chapter 4 and chapter 5. And really, it's a long discourse, a long talk given by Moses without the sort of breaks that chapters indicate to us. And so in our passage this morning, it begins with Moses reminding the Israelites of their obligations, again, to obey God's law. As Moses exhorts them to do this, he does it by talking about the covenant that they're under. But he does it in an interesting way. Up to this point, he's always talked about the covenant that God swore to their fathers. But in our passage, he changes the way he talks about it. The title of the sermon from the text is, The Lord did not make a covenant with our fathers, but with us. It's a new way to talk about it, a different way of looking at what's going on. I think the reason he did this is because when he's talking, when we talk about God's covenants with man as a race or with his people, it's easy to think of the covenants as being old.

and kind of dusty and something that happened a long time ago, something that's impersonal. It's just sort of been there. It's a holdover from the past. There's obligations that are incumbent because of it, but that it's not for us. We've just sort of received it as an inheritance, but that's not true. And I hope that this morning I'm able to show you that this covenant is both personal and perpetual, that God's made with his people. God didn't set the covenant up and then forget about it. He is still in covenant with us as his people today. and is still fulfilling his obligations to us every single day. And so my hope is that God will use this sermon to show you the steadfast faithfulness of God and that it will compel you to be more faithful to God yourself. Would you please stand now as you read the word of the Lord from Deuteronomy chapter 4 and chapter 5. Now this is the law which Moses set before the sons of Israel. These are the testimonies and the statutes and the ordinances which Moses spoke to the sons of Israel when they came out from Egypt.

across the Jordan, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, in the land of Sihon, king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon, whom Moses and the sons of Israel defeated when they came out from Egypt. They took possession of his land and the land of Og, king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites, who were across the Jordan to the east from Aror, which is on the edge of the valley of Arnon, even as far as Mount Sihon, that is Hermon. with all the Arabah across the Jordan to the east, even as far as the Sea of the Arabah, at the foot of the slopes of Pisgah. Then Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the ordinances which I am speaking to you today in your hearing, that you may learn them and observe them carefully. The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. The Lord did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, with all those of us alive here today. This is the word of the Lord.

You may be seated. Much of the beginning of this passage is a rehearsal of things that have been said before. The victory over the... kings of the Amorites of Sion and Og, or something that we've covered in greater detail in the earlier chapters. God notes how he's bringing the people up from the south of the promised land, up the east side of the Jordan, and they're having to go through multiple different territories or lands that are ruled by unbelieving kings. And that this land is not actually to be part of the promised land, but that they have to travel through. And as they're initially traveling through some of these lands, they're told, you're not supposed to go...

In there, you're not supposed to settle there. You're not supposed to take anything. You're not supposed to inhabit this place. You're not supposed to go to war. You're just supposed to make your way through paying for everything that you take. And so they make their way north along the east of the Jordan through a couple of lands. And they're just travelers. And God's teaching them, this is not your land. This is not where you're going to settle. And you're not to give in to your weariness and just say, well, this will be good enough for us. But then as they come further north, they come into the land of the Amorites with the two kings, sort of a northern and southern kingdom, Og being the king of the south and Sion the king of the north. And here the plan from God changes. He says, now you're going to take possession of these lands. You're actually going to do battle with them. And so they do. And they defeat, by the power of the Lord, both Sion and Og and takes their land. And so now they've come up the east as far as they're supposed to, and they've come down into this valley.

opposite Beth Peor. It's on the edge of the River Jordan. They're looking across the river and across the river is the city of Jericho, which if you know the conquest as they go into the land, Jericho is the first city they come to. And so they're standing there at that place receiving the word of the Lord, the law of God again before they go in. This is at the end of 40 years of wandering. This is during that time all of their men over 20 years old had passed away. This is a time of transition for them, a time of growing up, a time of maturing. They're about to receive the land that's been given to them. And so Moses, in the book of Deuteronomy, retells them everything that was initially said to them at Mount Horeb or Mount Sinai, two names for the same mountain, the mountain that they came to out of Egypt to worship God, to offer sacrifices, and to receive his law.

So where is it that they're standing and being reminded of all of this? Well, I've already covered that they're in a conquered king's land. Sion's been taken away. He's been killed. And they're standing there. And it says in our text that they're in the valley opposite Beth Peor. And they're receiving the word of God here. So I want you to think for a minute about this context. I realize if I asked you guys where Beth Peor was at, point to it on a map, probably none of us or maybe one or two of us could with any confidence point and say there. Right? But what the passage tells us is that there's things around them. It says that they're in the valley opposite Beth Peor. And it's the sort of thing we read and we're like, yeah, okay, there's some foreign place or something over there. I don't know what it is. But it's significant in this text.

Because Beth Peor is sort of a rise or a mountain, a hill off to the other side. They're down in a valley and, you know, the ground kind of rises. And on one side, it says they're opposite Beth Peor. What is that over there? Well, up on that mountain or that hill is a temple. And that temple is a temple to Baal. You may have been familiar in scripture when you read, it talks about Baal or Baal, however you pronounce it, Peor. This is the god of the Amorites. There's an idol temple up on that hill. And that temple and the people who used to worship there, God just wiped them out. He just killed them. Zion and all of his people, they've been destroyed. And there sits the remnant of their God, their temple, and he didn't save them. He didn't protect them. He didn't care for them. He was not able to. All through the book of Deuteronomy in the beginning, God's always concerned with this one thing for his people.

He's concerned time and time again. He warns them over and over and over again. Don't fall into idolatry. Don't fall into idolatry. As you go into the land, don't give yourself to the worship of these unbelievers. And so you have to think in this context. There's the words that Moses is preaching, that he's teaching, and there's substance to them. But there's also the context in which they're being given. They're being given. at the foot of a defeated people's temple. And the sermon that that empty temple is preaching to the people is, this is what idolatry produces. Why were Og and his people and Sion and his people, why did the Lord wipe them out? Because they were idolaters. It's because they didn't serve the true God. And so as the people of Israel are coming through, they're going, God is judging them through us for their rebellion and for their idolatry. And he's warning us not to become like them.

Don't become like them. Look around. See. Remember what's just happened. Remember what I've done to these people, to those who don't serve me. And so this setting is a testimony or a sermon, if you will, in and of itself. And it is God's way to often use our circumstances to teach us things or to warn us against Satan's temptations and lies. Do you have any memories of... something bad happening or some warning happening or some example in your life and you go, there's something for me to learn and remember from this. It sort of burned into your brain. I remember where I was when that happened or when that was said to me. My mom or my dad or my boss or my brother or my spouse, I remember what happened. When you hear of something bad happening, you think of Sion and his kingdom being destroyed, it was bad for the people. A lot of death. When you hear of something bad happening, what are your initial thoughts? Do you think, well, they got what they deserved? Do you think, well, they should have known better? Do you think God shouldn't have done that? He shouldn't have allowed that to happen to them. Do you think that would never happen to me? What we should be thinking and what we should be doing is taking

that example to heart and examining ourselves. It's really easy to look at other people and to look at the difficulties of their life and say, you know, they're just getting what they deserve. And you just move on with life and say, that's all the more there is to say about it. They're just getting what they deserve without ever entering into it and realizing that we only have life and good things in our lives because we're not getting a lot of what we deserve. There's a real danger to pride. And pride is going to be the thing that leads you to idolatry. Because pride says, I'm good. I'm all right. I'm better than. I'm protected from. This is what Sihon would have thought before the Lord wiped him out. And so when we see someone being chastened or disciplined or suffering, instead of looking down on them and instead of thinking, oh, well, I'm glad I'm not like you, like that unrighteous hypocrite of a Pharisee in the temple, you remember?

I thank you, Lord, that I'm not like these sinners. Rather, when we see other people suffering or being disciplined or judged by the Lord, it should be a call to us to examine ourselves and to discipline ourselves. We should take warning. We should take warning. Do you ever get mad at somebody in the car because they're on their phone and they don't go when the light changes? Is there any warning for you to be taken for you? Well, I pay attention to the lights. I only look at my phone during the red lights, and I have this innate sense. Of when the light is going to change. Until the guy behind you honks at you. I remember years ago I was driving. And this is sort of just a silly example. I was driving on 465 one morning. And I was making a phone call. And this was before Bluetooth and talk to your car. At least my car didn't have that. I actually had to like hit the call button. And that's all I did was hit the call button. I had my earbuds in. Because I couldn't talk to my car.

And it was before that was illegal. And just for a second, I hit the call button. Well, this cop saw me. All he saw was me look. And it really was for a second. I wasn't doing anything on my phone. He pulled me over, and he read me the riot act. And he wrote me a ticket. And those are costly tickets in terms of points. It's like six points on your license. It's a big deal. Now, why was he so upset with me? I don't know. I don't know how many accidents he's gone to and had to peel people out of cars. Somebody was on their phone and wasn't paying attention. So what was I supposed to say to him when he wrote me a ticket and was clearly invisibly upset with me? I was supposed to take warning. So I thanked him. I thanked him for doing his job. I didn't make any excuse about, well, I was just, it was only a second. I just thanked him for doing his job. I needed the warning. I needed to benefit from the hard things he, as an officer, had had to deal with, probably because people were on their phones when they were driving.

But don't we all think, I wouldn't run into somebody or run off the road? This is just an example to try to get you thinking how easy it is for you to just go, well, that would never happen to me. And it's foolishness to think that way. And if you know the story of the Israelites, as they go into the land, they're standing there in this valley, having just routed these two Amorite kings, and they think, we would never do something so foolish. It wasn't long until they were doing that very thing. And so God often uses our circumstances to warn us, to protect us, to cause us to examine ourselves. That's what we should be doing. We should respond with humility to God's judgments on others instead of with pride. If you think about the Israelites and how God had brought them to this point, there was no way they were going to get to where they were without God having laid the road for them and walked them down it. I said a few weeks ago in a previous sermon, I said, do you ever think that the Israelites

gone into the land and taken possession of and if God hadn't told them to? The answer is no. They didn't want to leave Egypt. Once they left Egypt, they wanted to go back to Egypt. And when they were brought to the land, after having been delivered from Egypt, they said, we're not going to go in there. You brought us out here to die. Time and time again over those 40 years, they say to Moses, you've brought us out here to die. But God sustained them. And he brought them through the wilderness. He brought them out of Egypt and through the Red Sea. spoke to them at the mountain and protected them and cared for them those 40 years and has brought them through these unbelieving lands, giving them victory over the last few. And now they're about to go over the river into the land of Canaan. It was God who had brought them to this point. They, by their own strength, would have died over and over and over again if God hadn't preserved and protected them. And whether you realize it or not, that exact same thing is true of you today.

You wouldn't be where you're at and have the things you have if God hadn't been merciful to you. You wouldn't have the stuff you do. You're not better than the people who are suffering or struggling with sins. You really have to recognize that and fight against this. You have to look up from the valley up to the hill and say, you know, if God hadn't been merciful to me, I would have been worshiping at that temple. That's what I would have been doing. And yet God's people don't get a free pass. Because they're God's people. He both judges the Amorites and he disciplines his people for their own sins. In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul talks about this group of Israelites wandering around in the wilderness. And he very much disciplines and judges them for their idolatry, for their unwillingness to serve him, for their rebellion. It says this, nevertheless, with most of them, these Israelites who are wandering in the wilderness, with most of them, God was not well pleased.

And you think, well, that's not too bad. And it says, for they were laid low in the wilderness, which means God wiped them out. They were laid low in the wilderness. Now these things happened as examples for us so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved. He's saying, learn the lesson from the things you've seen. Learn the right lesson. Paul goes on and says, do not be idolaters as some of them were. As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and stood up to play. Nor let us act immorally as some of them did and were destroyed by the serpents. I'm sorry. Do not act immorally as some of them did and 23,000 fell in one day. Nor let us try the Lord as some of them did and were destroyed by the serpents. Nor grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer. And Paul reiterates his point. Now these things happened to them as an example and they were written for our instruction upon whom the ends of the age have come. Therefore, let him who thinks he stands

take heed that he does not fall. No temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to man. And God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you're able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it. And so Paul teaches us about these people that their rebellion and their wandering away, even as a member of Israel, did not protect them or insulate them from the judgments or the discipline of the Lord. Many of them who were there at Deuteronomy in this valley, I should say it another way, many who were at Mount Sinai hearing this law the first time, they're not here to hear it now. They're the people who were destroyed over those 40 years because of their rebellion, because of their idolatry. And Paul tells us twice, these things were written as an example for us. And so when Moses said, we're standing down here in the valley opposite Beth Peor,

He's pointing that out as an example to them. Do not be like them. You see their end. And so we have to see what God is teaching us, not just by his word directly, but also as we observe what he does around us in lives of those that we observe. Lessons we learn and the judgments we make ought to be informed by the word of God. I think many times when we read the warnings of scripture, we just go, well, okay. And we carry on. So here, I'm going to read to you 1 Corinthians 6, 9, and 10. I'm going to ask you a question. This is what 1 Corinthians 6, 9, and 10 says. I think there's a temptation for us to read something like that and go, well, I'm glad I'm not any of those things. My question to you is, do you know anyone who is one of those things? And further, if you do, have you told them that they won't inherit the kingdom of God if they continue in their sins? Or do you just think that's not a lesson for you to learn or a warning that they need? Do you not know fornicators? Do you not know adulterers? Do you not know homosexuals or thieves or drunkards? Do you not know cheats?

When you think of the ones that you do know, are you warned by their example not to follow in their example? Not to do what they do? Not to covet the things that they seem to have and the ease that seems to attend their life? Do you take warning? Do you believe what Paul says here? That they will not inherit the kingdom of God? Or do you just go, eh, God wouldn't do that to me. He did do it to very many of them in the land as they wandered around. He did judge them. Because of their idolatry and their unwillingness to follow him. And so this is the lesson that the Israelites should learn from hearing God's law in the valley underneath this temple. This idol's temple. It says, There are a couple of different ways that...

The church in America approaches God's law. I think a lot of the church tends to just discredit it or kind of ignore it in favor of talking about Jesus, in favor of talking about grace, in favor of talking about healing or help or blessing. Just kind of ignore it. Don't talk much about it. There's another side that would focus on God's law and talk about it an awful lot. But God requires something more than simply talking about it or knowing it. Why is it that they're supposed to hear God's word? So that they can just have it in their heads? So they can just possess the knowledge? No. He says here, I'm speaking today in your hearing so that you may learn them and observe them carefully. The whole purpose of knowledge and knowing what God requires.

us is so that we can do it. Simple knowledge of right and wrong doesn't get you to heaven. It increases your judgment before God because you're not ignorant, but it doesn't save you. Knowing the difference between right and wrong is not enough. God actually does still today care about obedience and is still working in us to make us more obedient to him. And so you have to decide in your life every day who you're going to carefully obey. As I was thinking about this, I thought, you know, this idea of careful obedience, we all understand it. There's something in our lives that we are careful to do exactly right every time. Well, you're asking, what is it? And I'm saying, that's your job to figure out because it's not the same for everybody. But your job is to look at your life and to say, you know what, what am I unwilling to fail at?

What am I careful and scrupulous to make sure is done properly? What is it for you? I could give any number of examples. What is it for you? What I'm afraid is that for us, it's not God's law. It's not that we don't have a view of careful obedience for God's law. We're kind of like, well, yes, we know about it, and we're supposed to do it, and I'm trying, but we don't even have both of our eyes looking at it. We're focused on something else. We're distracted. Something else has got our attention. Something else has captured our hearts. But that thing that we're careful about, that thing that we attend to, the reason we do it is because we recognize the importance of it. We say, if we don't do this just like this, bad stuff's going to happen. I've watched men who are very passive in their lives and in their homes get all worked up about really inconsequential things.

And all of a sudden in that one area, his wife and his kids know exactly what's important and what's expected of them. And it could just be how they're supposed to behave during the football game. I mean, that's how stupid it could be. We've got to sit in the spot. We've got to wear the certain clothes. We've got to have the special food. I'm not making this up. I'm telling you an actual example of like a family's like. we don't know about abortion and we don't know about marriage, but boy, oh boy, we know what we have to do in our house so our team wins. It's pathetic. It's idolatry. We all have these things that we're careful about. It should be the law of God that we're careful about. In this last week, we were reading in the book of Numbers in our family, and we read the ordinance of the red heifer. You guys know the ordinance of the red heifer? First, I had asked my kids, I said, my family, I'm like, do you guys know what a heifer is?

And they're like, is it a plant? Is it food? And I said, no. A heifer is an unbred female cow, okay? So when we think of beef, we think they're cows. But there aren't. I mean, we think of them as cows, but we have bulls, and bulls are males that are capable of breeding. And we have steers. which are males that are no longer capable of breeding because they've been castrated. And we have cows, which are female cows, who have born a calf. And we have heifers, which are female cows, which have not yet born a calf. So they're young. Okay? That's what a heifer is. When she has a calf, she graduates. Now she's a cow. Okay? That's what a heifer is. Young female.

And so the ordinance of the red heifer is that it has to do with death. If someone has died, if you're unclean, this is what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to take a one-year-old red heifer that's without blemish, and you're supposed to kill it. You're supposed to sprinkle just a little bit of the blood toward the front of the sanctuary, and then you're supposed to burn the whole thing down to ashes. All the entrails, all the skin, you're not supposed to eat any of it. You're supposed to burn it to nothing, to... And you're supposed to throw some things into it. You're supposed to throw cedar wood into it. And you're supposed to throw some red or some scarlet material into it while it burns. I assume that the wood you're supposed to put onto it is just to help it burn. And so then you end up with this big pile of ash. And then someone's supposed to go out and they're supposed to collect all the ash. And they're supposed to take that ash and they're supposed to go mix it with water. And so now they've got this black water, basically charcoal in water. Okay? Seems arbitrary. What are you supposed to do with all of this?

Well, if someone touches an unclean body or is in the house with an unclean thing, even the furniture in a house with a dead body, the person is supposed to leave the camp. They're unclean. They can't be in there. And on the third day and on the seventh day, you're supposed to dip hyssop, which is just like a big plant that kind of absorbs and can carry liquid. You're supposed to dip it in this black water, and you're supposed to, like, shake it at the person who's unclean. You're supposed to do that on the third day. And you're supposed to do it on the seventh day. And they're not allowed to wash. So they just, it's like, could you imagine just someone pouring charcoal water all over you? Seems kind of, this is all very arbitrary and silly. And what's the point of all that, right? On the third day, on the seventh day, you're outside the camp. And on the seventh day after it happens, then you're supposed to go wash yourself. You're supposed to go wash your clothes. And then you can go back to the camp. Now you're clean. And there's other rules in the chapter about the people who do it and how long they're unclean and these sorts of things. And you're left being like, what is the point of all of this?

Like you're burning up this cow and you're sprinkling people with this ash water and they got to do it on the third day and they got to do it on the seventh day and then they can go take a shower and then everything's fine. But if they don't do it, they're kicked out of the camp. They're essentially excommunicated from the people of God. It's a really big deal to God that they follow these rules. If they don't do it on the third day and the seventh day, that's the end of it. They're kicked out. Now, all of this is just an example of one of the laws or ordinances of God that the people had to be very careful to obey.

Because if they weren't careful to obey, they were going to be kicked out of Israel. Sorry, I forgot. Hey, I was busy. Doesn't cut it. So what's the story? Like, what's the point of the red hat? Why do they have to go through all of this? Is God just giving them busy work? No, what I believe is that we're dealing with death. And what God was teaching them was death is an enemy. Death is bad. Death is dirty. Death is for you. And when you come near to it, you need to be reminded that you're going to die. And the way that you're going to be reminded that you're going to die is you're going to be removed from your people because that's what happens when you die, right? You don't get to be with your people anymore. And while you're out there, you're going to have this black soot put all over you because that's filthy. And it's to remind you, black, right? We associate black with death. It's to remind you of your own death that's coming.

and your need to be cleansed. And so twice, we're going to put this dirty water on you, and you're not going to be with your people. And then at the end of it, you're going to be washed, and you're going to be restored to your family. You're going to be, in some sense, resurrected or brought back to life. Not because you were physically dead, but you were separated, and now you're restored. There's a real gospel message in there for them to learn, but if they don't care about it, if they're just like, well, that's just, we've got better things to do, they miss all of that.

They miss the lesson. They miss the benefit. They miss, in that story, the gospel. And so it really did matter that they go out and follow the law carefully and not just kind of work in the direction of it. The consequences were grave for them. The instructions were particular. And this is what Moses wants them to do. He wants them to listen and he wants them to learn so that they're able to obey carefully. This was not something that was just for them. This is for us as well. He goes on and he says, It says, the Lord God made a covenant with us at Horeb or Mount Sinai. This is the place where they've come out of Egypt to receive the law 40 years previous to this. God reestablishes his covenant with them. In Exodus 19, it says, you yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself. Now then, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be my own possession among all the peoples. For all the earth is mine and you shall be to me.

a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel. This is what God says to Moses concerning the people. If you'll obey me and you'll keep my covenant, then I'll be your God and you'll be my people. This covenant that God makes with Moses is not really a new thing. It's an expansion or an explanation of a covenant that was made previously. This was not a new idea that they would be his people. That was a promise in a more elementary form that was given to Abraham. I'm going to multiply you as the sands of the sea or as the stars of the sky. You're going to be my people. I'm going to make you a great nation. These sorts of things. They showed up before. But at Mount Sinai, God reestablishes or renews this covenant. And I think one of the primary reasons he does it is because they're new people. None of the people who were around in Abraham's time were standing there at that mountain. And we do forget.

what we're responsible to and what we're responsible for. And so God's renewing this covenant with them, those people who are standing there that day. He reiterates an element of the Abrahamic covenant and he gives them all of the terms of the covenant. That was his, the giving of the law. He says, you'll be my people. What that meant was you'll obey all of these things. You'll do all of the stuff I require because I'm your head. So God gives them his law. And if you think about it, it really is helpful to know what's expected of you. You ever worked for somebody who you were never quite sure what they wanted you to do and if you'd done a good job. You'd almost rather them just tell you and then tell you that you failed than to like never know. And it really is gracious for God to say this is exactly what I require of you. Because then they know there's no more ambiguity. And now we come to the part where Moses says this strange thing. He says the Lord didn't make this covenant with our fathers but with us. With all of those.

of us who are alive today. This is incredible for a couple of reasons. Moses says that this covenant is not with the fathers, and that can be understood in two ways. The first way it can be understood is with the patriarchs. He says this covenant's not with the patriarchs. Why not? Is he really undoing something that God had established? No, he's not. But none of the patriarchs were there. They'd all gone. They'd all passed away. They were no longer able to fulfill the terms of the covenant because they had died. But the covenant, It succeeded them. It's still intact. It was not just some remnant of a commitment from a bygone era that God had to this group of people. It was a renewal of his commitment to these people, such as they were at that time, not as they had been originally. When God made the original promise to Abraham to establish him as a nation, Abraham didn't have one kid. He's like, he and his wife are these old barren couple. He said, I'm going to make you a great nation. And it's like, seriously.

And God's like, yeah, seriously, in a year's time, long, long before this day here at Horeb, God promised to do this. And so now they've, you know, fast forward these hundreds of years. The patriarchs are gone, but the covenant is still intact. But the people are different. And so God reestablishes it with these new people. Moses also goes on and he says that he didn't make this covenant with our fathers, obviously not the patriarchs, also not their biological fathers. You understand that the men who would have been standing there today would have been younger than 20 years old when that covenant was given at Sinai. And their fathers are all dead now. Because that was one of the judgments of their fear of going into the land. All of the men over 20 were killed. So their fathers, whom God had originally made that covenant with at Horeb 40 years before, they're not there anymore. And yet the covenant between God and his people still stands. And so he says, this covenant is not with our fathers, but it's with us. All of us.

who are alive here today. This teaches us something important about the perpetuity, the continuity of God's covenant with his people. As we live and as we grow, and as you young children become adults and start families of your own, your commitments to God and your parents' commitments and grandparents' commitments to God before you, if you've come from a Christian home, are still incumbent on you. One of the things that kids have to learn is that they don't start from ground zero. You were born into a family. And if you're here, you were born into a Christian family, your children. And that means that there's things that are true about you and expectations placed upon you because of God's providential work in your life and giving you a life in a Christian family. You have obligations to him. And you'll have obligations to him after your parents are gone. And he'll have obligations to you.

after your parents are gone. It really is a comfort because our parents aren't going to be here forever, but our God will. Our kids will grow up. Our grandkids will be born. And then God will take us home at some point. And yet his care for our children doesn't stop with us. And this is a lesson that you parents, especially young parents, need to learn. Your children belong to God. Your children belong to God, and you're responsible to God for how you raise them. You're not the be-all, end-all. You're not the top of the heap. You're only going to be here for a little while. And then you're going to go. And your kids are going to be here after you. And if you haven't taught them to serve God, you'll have failed them. Because you'll never have taught them about God's commitment to his people forever. And so the people of God had changed greatly from the initial giving of the law at Mount Horeb to this people who were standing there at the...

shores of the Jordan waiting to go over. But God's promise to his people was still intact. And if God was faithful to this promise in the Old Testament, in the old covenant, how much more is he faithful in the new covenant and in the covenant of grace to his people to do and to fulfill his obligations? Covenants are a weird thing. We don't think in terms of covenants in our day. We might talk about it as a theological construct, but our society is not set up to teach us how covenants work. The closest you get to covenants outside of Scripture is when you have to deal with building a house in a neighborhood. You have to go figure out what CCRs are. Many of you probably don't know what CCRs are. I think it's covenants, contracts, and...

or restrictions or something. Basically, the people who develop the neighborhood tell you what you're allowed to do in the neighborhood, what you're allowed to build, those terrible HOAs, right? But they tell you, this is what your house has to look like. This is what kind of your eaves have to look like. This is how big your driveway can be. This is what you can plant in your front yard. Yes, you can or no, you can't have a shed. This is how many windows have to be on your house and all kinds of things. And you're not allowed to change it. I remember years ago, Vanessa and I went out to visit her sister in Sedona, Arizona. And Sedona is a beautiful place. And everything is the same color. Everything. Even the McDonald's and the Taco Bells, which have their color schemes, right? They all look the same. It's all this earthy reddish brown. And they get their little sign that has their color on it. And that's it. Why is it that way in Sedona? Because the city said so.

And everyone who wants to do business in that city has to play by those rules. Do you ever notice when you go up to Carmel, their Lowe's and their Home Depots, they're just so much nicer on the outside. Why are their Lowe's brick? Are they just flaunting their wealth? Perhaps. But why would Lowe's as a company decide to build a brick warehouse and not tilt up panels, which is much cheaper? Because the city requires them to do it. They say, if you're going to build in this community, these are the standards. These are the covenants. These are the commitments. You will follow them. And you will follow them carefully. And we have people who will come out to make sure that you do it. And if you don't, we'll fine you and we'll make you change it. It's serious business, covenants. Our society has so few places where we run into this sort of firm expectation of covenants.

Everything to us is just soft and kind of loose and give and take. And yeah, we tried, but it's okay that we didn't. That's not how covenants work. That's not how they work. They're legal. They're binding. They're perpetual. You can't come buy a house in my neighborhood and decide you're going to just completely redo it because you don't want your house to look like your neighbor's house. You're not allowed to do it. You can make some changes, but there are other changes you just can't do. You're just not allowed. Is that constraining? Is that limiting? Yes. This is how covenants work. In a neighborhood, the whole goal is to protect property values and that sort of thing. But with covenants with God, it's to protect our souls. God makes covenant with us and he teaches us what we're to do as a protection to us, a guard for our souls. And so we ought not to just cast them aside and say, oh, well, I'll try or I'll get to it or that'll have to be good enough.

He says we have to observe carefully what he says. Now I realize some of you might be sitting here going, when are you going to tell us that our salvation is not dependent on our obedience? There you go. Our salvation is not dependent on our obedience. It's dependent upon Jesus Christ. But you're supposed to become like Jesus Christ who was perfectly obedient to his father and who was perfectly faithful in all things. You're supposed to become like him. And so the covenants that God makes with us and the law that he's given to us, are our marching orders to tell us how to become like Jesus. And so they are binding on us, not because of our salvation. If you were to read the commentaries on this, all of the commentators are like, we fail so miserably to do these things, and Lord have mercy on us. Nevertheless, these laws are still binding on us. God still cares about it. Even if he saved us, do you want to be the one who's saved, though as by fire?

The one who barely gets into heaven and who has no good works, no good deeds, and consequently no significant rewards in heaven. God will judge us according to our works. And he'll reward us according to our works. And some of us will do better than others when it comes to that day. And we'll do better or worse depending on our conformity to and our adherence to the law of God. Are we careful to obey it? So Moses is speaking to stir up their faith. with the promises of God, that those promises were not simply to their fathers, the patriarchs, or to their fathers who had died in the wilderness, but to them. It ought to strengthen their faith and their resolve and their desire to serve God and to be the beneficiary of all of the blessings that come with this covenant. I don't want you to think about covenants as only being the sort of thing that places demands on you. A covenant does place demands on you, but it also promises you blessings.

And if you're a Christian, if you're in Christ, if you're a member of the new covenant that Jesus established with his blood, then all of the good things that are promised to you belong to you. And you can't lose them. You're free to obey. You're free to obey. And if God's spirit is active in your life, your desire is to obey. You want to do these things. And when you don't do them, you realize this conflict that makes you grab your hair like Paul did in Romans 7, where he's like, I don't do the things that I want to do and the things that I should do. The exclamation of Paul at the end of Romans 7 is the heart cry of every Christian when they think about God and his mercies. He says, wretched man that I am, who will set me free from the body of this death? Like, who's going to fix this mess? Me. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. And so God is faithful to his covenant.

Our concern is not to question his faithfulness. That's interesting, often what we do. We don't concern ourselves with our faithfulness to the covenant. We concern ourselves, well, will God really give me these things? Will he really do these things? Am I really a Christian? What do I have to do to have security? God's faithful. He's perfectly faithful. The question of who's going to keep the covenant doesn't have anything to do with whether God's going to keep his end. That's all to do with whether we're going to do what we ought to do. what he saved us to do. So Lord, help us to do what we're supposed to do and to serve him with joy and with gladness and to turn to him when we're fearful and when we're worried, when we're angry, when we're frustrated, when we're suffering, when we're in the midst of trials. Our God is among us and in us by the power of the Holy Spirit. And so we need to learn to rely on him more and more each day. We need to learn to live by faith and not by sight. Let's pray.