[0:00] Amen. Deuteronomy chapter 29. I'm going to go ahead and tell you that if you were to open up Jewish scripture, the very first verse of the 29th chapter would actually go with chapter 28.
[0:12] Many Bible scholars think that that is the case, but yet it makes a pretty good transition in our English translations of the Hebrew scripture, and we will see why in just a moment.
[0:27] But you take that in context because you cannot separate the 29th chapter from the chapters which have preceded it. And if you remember, we have just come out of chapters 27 and 28 with this pronouncement of blessings and curses. And really, it is almost as if Moses is setting before the people a choice. And they literally do this practice when they go into the promised land, and Joshua leads them in there, and they set up the two mountains, and they take the stones, and they put the words of the covenant upon the stones, and they pronounce the blessings and the curses, and they symbolize the choice that the individual is to make by the two mountains, whether one of blessing or one of cursing. And it seems as if in the 28th chapter that Moses, and it doesn't seem, it is a reality, he gives twice as much space and time to a discourse on what curses would come upon them. So it's almost implied, this is something we need to understand, it is almost implied from the very beginning that the nation will fail, that they will falter, okay, that they will stumble in their covenant keeping. Now this isn't to say that God appoints them to a failure, but we understand through the power of scripture that that God is not taken by surprise by the actions of man, okay, so these are comforting truths that we see. God realizes, even from the very beginning, that the nation of Israel is going to fail to keep this covenant, they're going to falter, they're going to walk through every one of these curses that come upon them, the primary one being that they will be displaced from their land, and they will be no longer a people of blessing, but they'll be a people of cursing, and he understands this from the beginning, because according to the law, no man finds perfection, right, no man earns his forgiveness, none can keep the law or the covenant, but we also understand that this covenant was not for the intended purpose of making man perfect, but rather for the purpose of putting one in a perfect relationship with Yahweh, right? The covenant is how God's people live in relationship with him. It is the bounds of their relationship, if you will.
[2:39] If you're going to live life with Yahweh, and you're going to live in a relationship with Yahweh, these things will be exhibited or displayed in your life. You will separate yourself from things that other people are doing. You will look differently and behave differently. Your business practices will even be different. The way you possess your land will be different. Your worship will be different, and God's just completely renewing this covenant, if you will, with his people, and we get into 29, so I say all that to say this. We're not reading a new covenant. We're reading, we've already looked at kind of the renewal of the covenant, which will take place in the promised land, the two mountains.
[3:22] Here in the 29th chapter, it is in the plains of Moab, so Moses is here. So it's kind of a restating of the covenant. This is important, because those who had entered into the covenant at Mount Sinai, that were 20 years and old and over, have all died, except for two, Joshua and Caleb, well, three if you count Moses. Moses is about to die. Okay, so this is kind of the restating and a reminder of the covenant that they are in throughout chapters 27 and 28, and really finds its conclusion here in chapter 29.
[4:00] So Deuteronomy chapter 29. These are the words of the covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the sons of Israel in the land of Moab beside the covenant which he had made with them at Horeb.
[4:15] And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, You have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh and all his servants in all his land, the great trials which your eyes have seen those great signs and wonders, yet to this day the Lord has not given you a heart to know, nor eyes to see, nor ears to hear. I have led you 40 years in the wilderness. Your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandal has not worn out on your foot. You have not eaten bread, nor have you drunk wine or strong drink, in order that you might know that I am the Lord your God. When you reached this place, Sihon, the king of Heshbon, and Og, the king of Bashan, came out to meet us for battle, but we defeated them, and we took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the Rumanites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of the Manessites. So keep the words of this covenant and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do. You stand today, all of you, before the Lord your God, your chiefs, your tribes, your elders, and your officers, even all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and the alien who is within your camps, from the one who chops your wood to the one who draws your water. Then you may enter into the covenant with the Lord your
[5:21] God and into his oath, which the Lord your God is making with you today, in order that he may establish you today as his people, and that he may be your God, just as he spoke to you, and as he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Now, not with you alone am I making this covenant and this oath, but both with those who stand here with us today in the presence of the Lord our God, and with those who are not with us here today. For you know how we lived in the land of Egypt, and how we came through the midst of the nations through which you passed. Moreover, you have seen their abominations, and their idols of wood, stone, silver, and gold, which they had with them, so that there will not be among you a man, or a woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turns away from the Lord our God, to go and serve the gods of those nations, that there will be not, that there will not be among you a root bearing poisonous fruit and wormwood. It shall be when he hears the words of this curse, that he will boast, saying, I have peace, though I'll walk in the stubbornness of my heart, in order to destroy the waterland with the dry. The Lord shall never be willing to forgive him, but rather the anger of the Lord and his jealousy will burn against that man, and every curse which is written in this book will rest on him, and the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven. Then the Lord will single him out for adversity from all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant, which are written in this book of the law. Now the generation to come, your sons who rise up after you, and the foreigner who comes from a distant land, when they see the plagues, the land of the diseases with which the Lord has afflicted it, will say, all its land is brimstone and salt, a burning waste, unsewn and unproductive, and no grass grows in it, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admon, and Zoboim, which the Lord overthrew in his anger and in his wrath. All the nations will say, why has the Lord done thus to the land? Why this great outburst of anger? Then men will say, because they forsook the covenant of the Lord, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods whom they had not known and whom he had not allotted to them. Therefore the anger of the Lord burned against that land to bring upon it every curse which is written in this book. And the Lord uprooted them from their land in anger and fury and great wrath and cast them into another land as it is this day. Verse 29, the secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever that we may observe all the words of this law. Deuteronomy chapter 29. Whether or not this passage in the first verse goes with that which precedes it, or if it goes directly with this chapter here really is irrelevant because we understand it this alone, this passage alone, this one chapter is not the entirety of the covenant. Rather Moses has been expounding the covenant throughout the book of Deuteronomy and he is seeking to make it clear.
[8:18] And here he is beginning to lay a foundation, if you will, and see the grounds for a covenant relationship in Deuteronomy chapter 29. He has stated the covenant. He has stated the blessings and the curses that come forth from the covenant, whether one obeys it or disobeys it. He has even implied the reality that disobedience will begin to take place within the nation because you are a stubborn and stiff-necked people. And we understand this. It is kind of history repeating itself.
[8:44] Even in this chapter, there seems to be the stated fact that these things will come about. But even in the midst of this, he lays the groundwork, if you will, for the covenant relationship in which they live. And it is a sure foundation. It is a sure ground on which they stand. And he is reminding them of this relationship which they have with Yahweh and the fact that this relationship rests upon a solid foundation. And it is not a foundation that is shifting. Rather, it is as we find Jesus teaching us in the book of Matthew, one that is laid on stone or a rock bed, right? It is one that is sure and firm and is going to hold the test of time. And hopefully with a reminder of the ground on which they build that relationship, they will be able to at least endure the temptation to fall, even though we know historically that they don't. But even in these truths, we understand the ground for our covenant relationship with Christ because God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. And while we don't live according to the covenant of the law, we do live in a covenant relationship with the Lord, our God.
[9:56] Our covenant is not a covenant of works and effort, but rather it is a covenant of His work and His effort. It is the new covenant of the blood of Christ. But it is a covenantal relationship. That is, we live in fellowship with a holy God. And because we live in fellowship with a holy God, our lives should look starkly different, right? They should be transformed as a result of that relationship. We didn't earn that relationship, much like the nation of Israel did not earn their relationship, and we don't keep that relationship. The nation of Israel did not earn the opportunity, but they were charged with the responsibility of maintaining the opportunity, right? That's what the law is.
[10:39] Do these things. I will be your God, and you will be my people if you obey me. It's not that way in the new covenant of Christ's blood because man cannot do that. So while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly, and He redeemed us and secures us eternally. But as a direct result of that, we understand the foundation on which we stand, the grounds of our relationship with Him. Because what the covenant is built upon will determine the security of it. And we see here Moses is laying a pretty good foundation for them moving forward. We see here a number of things. We see undeniable realities.
[11:23] He reminds them of the things which they have seen. He reminds them at the very beginning, you have seen all that the Lord your God did in the nation of Egypt. It is amazing all throughout the Old Testament, how there's always this constant pointing back, pointing back, pointing back. When we were going through the book of Exodus, we understood the reality that to rightfully understand salvation, we need to have a proper interpretation of the Exodus event. And the reason I said that is because so much of our salvation is described in New Testament theology and in New Testament teaching as with the Passover lamb. Jesus is the lamb slain before the foundation of the world. Jesus is our Passover, right? Jesus is the lamb slain at the right time. All four gospels account to the reality that Jesus was crucified on the day of preparation. And the day of preparation, that one wording there, the day of preparation is the day that the literal Passover lamb was slain so that the individual could prepare that lamb for the Passover meal. He is the true Passover lamb, right? And we have this. So we need to understand what happened at the Passover. This is why all throughout the Old Testament, there's this constant looking back and pointing back and pointing back of all that God did to rescue them. And the reality, their rescue came when they were sitting in their houses, right? At the Passover, they were eating a meal.
[12:59] God passed over and because of the blood, not because of their works, not because of their efforts, not because of all the goodness that was in their heart. We see this and he reminds them of the things that they had seen. You have seen all that the Lord your God has done. You have seen how he has led you 40 years and your clothes didn't wear out and your shoes didn't wear out. You didn't eat bread. You didn't drink wine or strong drink, yet you didn't go hungry because you ate manna and you drank water from a rock, which makes no sense at all. The theme here is you have seen undeniable realities to the power and presence of Yahweh. And he has testified to you. And now he puts the generation that was not present in Egypt back to it because he reminds them as God's people. What was true of that generation is true of them, right? And he reminds them of the realities that God has done over and over and over again. What's important in this passage is this reality, though. He tells them you have seen, you have seen, then he makes this statement. But God did not give you a heart that you might see and ears that you might hear. Because in Jewish line of thought, and I think even biblical line of thought, and what I think should be even a Christian line of thought, seeing is not witnessing physically. Seeing is understanding internally. It is having the comprehension. The heart is the seat of emotions in scripture, by the way. It's the seat of intellect. I know with us, that's the brain, right? But in Jewish history, in Jewish thought, Jewish literature, the heart is always the seat of emotions and intellect and kind of your bowels, what you think you think from the heart. And what he's saying is God hasn't given you a reasoning to understand what he's been doing. But he's reminding them that these are undeniable realities. I remember when I came to Christ, and even now,
[15:08] I look back over my life and things in my BC days, right, before Christ days, I can look back and things that I did not see then. Now I go back now and I go, oh, wow. I see what God was doing now. Now all of a sudden I have a heart to see. Even though I lived through them, and I definitely witnessed it, and I definitely, you know, saw it physically, now I have a heart to understand.
[15:36] I remember I wanted to read scripture before I became a Christian. I wanted to read scripture, and I thought, oh, well, I'll just read through the Bible. And it's actually Carrie and I got married. I started, I tried to do it before we got married. I was a young teenager. It didn't work.
[15:53] Then after we got married, Carrie thought it was a good idea. I have to give her credit for it because it wasn't me that we read the Bible together. And so every night, I think I've told you this, we would read two chapters a night and start it in Genesis, went through Revelation.
[16:05] She fell asleep every night because I always went first, so I just kept going. I'll be honest with you, the first time I read through the Bible, I didn't get a thing. Nothing. Because seeing they will not see and hearing they will not hear. I went through the motions. I went through the motions.
[16:20] I did it because I wanted to make my new wife happy. It seemed like a good idea, right? Everything was good. It made me a pretty good person, but I didn't see it. And I remember when I finally gave it up, I started seeking Christ, not fulfilling an obligation. And God was drawing me to himself.
[16:44] It was through the book of Romans that I came to Christ. And I began to see things I had never seen. Even though I had read that book, I began to see things I had never understood. And then from that moment on, all of a sudden, I see things and I see things and I see things. And I'll be honest with you. I was preaching. I was already a pastor. And I come to Christ and I taught young adults. I taught youth for a number of years. And I became a pastor. And I thought, oh, well, I'll tell you the book of Revelations. And God says, you're not ready for that, right? Why? Because having eyes, you will not see.
[17:13] And seeing is not a physical thing. It is a spiritual reality. But what we understand in the covenant relationship, look, we don't walk by blindness. We walk by faith in the realities which God has revealed through history. We walk by faith and not by sight, but that does not mean we walk blindly.
[17:39] Because in Christ, I can look back and see the character of God revealed in my past. And it gives me faith to trust him in the present. And faith to pursue him in the future. See, we have a great, merciful, gracious God. We don't have a God who is in hiding. We have a God of revelation.
[18:02] And we're not called just to blind obedience. We're called to faithful surrender. And if God can do it here, then faith tells me he can do it now. And there are undeniable realities that resonate throughout the history of God's people as he calls them to walk in a covenant relationship.
[18:27] Moses reminds them of those undeniable realities. And then he encourages them as a result of that in verse 9. So keep the words of the covenant and do them. These should be motivating factors.
[18:43] They should be motivating. In fact, the undeniable realities of what God has done throughout his people's lives should be motivating factors to their obedience in the present time.
[18:55] And we need to understand this. And we need to comprehend it because too often we forget what he has done when he's calling us to stand upon the realities of all that he's done. These undeniable realities are shared with the people. And then we see this truth that this is a universal appeal.
[19:15] It is a universal appeal. And I love this because we're speaking of a particular people, right? The Jewish people, the Hebrew nation, the descendants of Abraham, of Abram caught out of the land of the early Chaldeans in which God has rose up to become a nation. And one of the great things that we see throughout scripture is that that God didn't pick and choose a people so that he would pick a team.
[19:37] God picked and chose a people so that he could draw all men to himself. Big difference, right? God didn't pick Abram so that he could say, well, I've got my people and it's my people against the world.
[19:48] God called Abram to himself to be a revelation to the world of what a relationship with Yahweh looks like so that all would have the opportunity to respond. So if anyone ever tells you, isn't it unfair that God has a chosen people? You tell them very quickly, no, it is very gracious that God had chosen a people because if God had never chosen anybody, nobody would know.
[20:12] Because by his choice, he welcomed all. And if he had never chosen, there would have been no invitation because God works through the agency of man. I don't understand it. I can't comprehend it, but we see the reality of it. And he says here, you stand today, all of you. So we understand first that this appeal, this call, the grounds for their covenant relationship is not confined to just a select few, right? He says, you stand today, all of you before the Lord, our God. He says, your tribes, your elders, your leaders, your, your children, your wives, the young and the old. He says, everybody, all rank and file, everyone standing before the Lord, our God. And then he says, and the alien who is among you, as we've said this before, that's not little gray people or little green people.
[21:00] That's just non-Jewish people, right? That's people who are not of Jewish descent. That is foreigners. And the alien who's among you, even the one who chops your wood and the one who draws your water, which means that in the presence of God, it doesn't matter your heritage and it doesn't matter your rank in society, because this is a universal appeal. Everyone is standing on level ground before the Lord, our God. And this covenant relationship rests upon the ground that it has application to all people. This isn't something that has application to Moses and Aaron and the later Joshua. And this descendants of Aaron and Eleazar and all those guys. This isn't just an appeal that is for the prophets and the select few. No, this is an appeal that is for all people. Even when we study the prophets throughout scripture, I mean, we are met with people who, Isaiah seems to be of priestly and kingly descent, right? Isaiah would be one of the upper echelon of societies. Jeremiah, he seems to be one of the lowest of societies. We know this about Jeremiah because when Nebuchadnezzar came in and he carried all the people free, they only left the lower class people behind. And guess who was left behind?
[22:08] Jeremiah. And then you have the prophet who says, I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, right? I'm just a tender of sycamore trees. So you have a farmer. God's using all kinds of people. And it seems to be that this is a universal appeal that is applicable to all mankind.
[22:24] That's exactly what it is. Because as Paul says, there's neither Jew nor Greek nor male nor female nor slave nor free man. We are all one in Christ. And it's the appeal. Listen, the covenant relationship with God, with Yahweh, while it is narrow in its entry point through Christ and Christ alone, we're not talking about the law here. We're talking about our covenant relationship. There is but one door to enter into that covenant through Jesus Christ alone. That door is accessible to all men.
[23:03] It's not like it has a title above that door that only these people are allowed, right? You all stand before the Lord our God. Every one of you. And we stand amazed at that. That Moses is reminding them, this just isn't about us, right? This isn't just about us. This is about God welcoming all of us into his presence under his conditions. And at that time, it was the law. And now it is through Christ.
[23:33] But it is at least universal in its application. And even though this seems to have such a universal application, there's always this problem of man. So then we are confronted in this passage of the unrepentant man's discipline. The unrepentant man's discipline.
[23:54] We see in this passage as he encourages them because God is so faithful and because of the things he's done in the past. And because this applies to every one of us, this isn't just a covenant in which the upper class should live. This is a covenant that goes from priests and elders and rulers, even down to the ones who draw your water. Each and every one of us are called to live by the bounds and the confines of this covenant relationship. And it has application to each and every one of us. And he says, and you've witnessed the nations that we've went through, right? We've passed through them. And you've seen nations that trusted in idols of wood and stone and gold and silver. And you've seen how they didn't succeed in the presence of God. And then he says, so be careful not to go there. And then he goes into this statement. He says, but then there will be this man. Verse 19. We kind of lose a little bit in our English translation. So we'll read it and then we'll kind of flesh it out. It shall be when he hears the words of this curse that he will both say, I have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart in order to destroy the water land with the dry. In other words, he said, I know what God is calling me to do. I'm going to do what I want to do anyway. And I know the reality in his pride. He's saying, I can sin and get away with it.
[25:05] Because I'm going to live at peace, even though I'm doing what I want to do. And because of that, it says he will destroy the watered and the dry, which means the well-tended and the neglected. So there's this secret sin, if you will, who says this, this one individual, he says, don't have idols. Don't, don't, don't depart from the Lord your God. He says, but then there's going to be this man who says, I don't have to do that. I live in the covenant of people who are already doing that. So surely if I don't do it, no one will ever know. And I will live in the security of their obedience, even though I'm living in my personal disobedience. Which, and let's put it in today's terms, as long as I go to a church that's doing it right, it doesn't matter what I do.
[25:51] As long as everybody at the church is good, I can live however I want to, because I'll trust in their goodness, even though I'm living in my disobedience. And then God gets real with it.
[26:08] Because he says to that prideful individual, and this is a reality we see resonating throughout scripture. No sin goes unpunished, and no individual stands on an island.
[26:23] Because the private sins of the individual will always, always affect the corporate body. Always. Now this isn't a leader. This is just some man. Right? This isn't one who is a priest.
[26:44] This is just some man. He says, but that man, he will pay for his sins. He will be disciplined. And the nation will be affected by it, because the water will be destroyed with the dry. And he will be caught out of that nation, and the land will suffer because of his sins. And then we get into this listing of disciplinary actions that begin to take place, until it comes to the point where it says, and your descendants and the foreigners will come, and they'll say, what happened?
[27:10] Why is this land a waste? Why is it consumed with fire? Why is it not planted? Why is it so desolate? And then they'll make this statement, because they chose to go after God's, which the Lord, their God, did not appoint. See how it started? One individual said, I can do this and live at peace.
[27:30] Now all of a sudden, all the people are displaced as a result of God's discipline. And this truth resonates. The unrepentant individual has a dire consequence upon the corporate body.
[27:49] And this is a ground for a covenant relationship. And the ground is this. This is for all people. This is equally as important and true for all people.
[28:07] We see this truth being applied not just in Old Testament covenant relationship, you know, the sin of Achan, the cost of the life of a multitude of people. We see it happening even in a New Testament church.
[28:22] 1 Corinthians chapter 11 is a great passage. Often we'll read it or quote it while taking the Lord's Supper together. Taken in context, though, we need to understand why Paul is giving the church at Corinth such an admonition on how to take the Lord's Supper in 1 Corinthians chapter 11.
[28:38] We've said before that the church at Corinth is probably one of the most wicked churches found in the New Testament, not a whole lot of good said about them other than that they are the saints which are at Corinth. They are called saints, right?
[28:49] But then God begins to rebuke them through the writings of Paul. In 1 Corinthians chapter 11, where Paul recounts what Christ did on the night of his betrayal, and he broke the bread and he gave the wine and he told them to us, Paul is also encouraging them to everybody to eat and drink at their own house before they come.
[29:08] Because they had turned the Lord's Supper into a party. And people were coming, and yes, it was literal wine, and yes, it was literal bread, and people were coming hungry, and people were kind of, society's standing mattered.
[29:20] So if you were a little bit higher in society, you had first dibs at the table, that is, the communion table, so you'd get a little bit more wine. And people were going away not having the opportunity to take the Lord's Supper. And then Paul makes this stark statement.
[29:33] For this reason, many of you fall asleep. It doesn't mean you're going home and going to bed. He's literally saying, they're dying. Now they're believers, because the word sleep is used.
[29:47] But he said, because of the way certain individuals are taking the Lord's Supper together, many people in the church were dying. Because the appeal is to all.
[30:04] And the unrepentant man's discipline affects all. Absolutely affects all. And we see this truth resonating throughout Deuteronomy chapter 29.
[30:19] And this man, who said in his pride, I can live at peace, even though I do what I want to do, literally leads to the downfall of the nation, and the people being removed from their land, and people looking upon that land and going, what happened here?
[30:38] Well, they turned to idolatry. They turned away from God. And it starts with one man. Here's our challenge. Don't be that man. I tell myself that.
[30:49] I have to tell myself that. I'm studying this text. I was like, wow. Don't be that man. That's my admonition to myself. Repent of my shortcomings.
[31:03] Lay my life bare before God. I don't want to be that man who says, I can live at peace and do what I want. Because even in Christ, there's a standard. Your sins are forgiven.
[31:15] Go and sin no more. It's quite often repeated from the lips of Christ. It's still standard, right? We, as Paul say, don't use the grace and the mercy found in Christ as an excuse to sin.
[31:31] The very chapters which Paul confronts some saying, oh, well, because I'm forgiven, I can do whatever I want to. Those very passages, Paul says, we are to crucify our flesh.
[31:42] We are to not live according to the flesh, but to live according to the spirit. So don't be that man. Don't let my discipline affect the multitude.
[31:52] And this leads us to the final truth in this chapter. And it is this great, unchangeable truth. As much as we would want to change it, it is an unchangeable truth, which seems to just be tacked on there at the end, but really resonates.
[32:07] And it is the great answer to really all of our questions. And it is that last verse in verse 29. The secret things belong to the Lord our God. It's a great, unchangeable truth.
[32:18] This is something that you had this description a little bit earlier. It's something that Harper's met. There are some things we will never know. There are probably more things that we will never know than there are things that we do know.
[32:38] The wording there is the covered things and the uncovered things. But the secret things belong to the Lord our God. While living in a covenant relationship with Yahweh, we are living not by blind faith, but on intelligent faith, but it's still by faith.
[32:58] And there are some things we will not understand. There are things that are a mystery, that are secret. Paul speaks of those things quite often, right?
[33:12] Paul begs that the thorn in his flesh would be removed. And God says, no, my grace is sufficient for you. Other people have their thorns removed. It's a mystery. It's a secret. There are things, Paul speaks of the secret of the gospel, which really is that the Jews and Gentiles alike are one, and Christ died for all mankind.
[33:31] But even then, when we get to the book of Revelation, there seem to be so many things that are just unexplainable. And we need to just go ahead and admit, secret things belong to the Lord our God.
[33:42] That's an unchangeable truth. We will never know everything. Should we seek to know more? Absolutely. Should we strive, and should we push ourselves, and should we study scripture?
[33:56] We don't come to the place where we go, well, I just guess I'll never know. We don't do that. No, but we need to, this is, for every truth I feel like is revealed, there seem to be two or three secrets that I can't understand.
[34:07] For every one truth he seems to open up to me, there are a multitude of things that I'm like, I still don't get it.
[34:20] And I have to come to the place in a covenantal relationship through the blood of Christ that that's okay. They belong to him. But the revealed things, but the things revealed belong to us, and to our sons, that we may observe all the words of this law.
[34:41] Quite often, just to be honest, we tend to focus more on what we do not know than those things which he has clearly shown us. The things he has revealed are the things which belong to us.
[34:57] They're ours. We hold on to them. They're our responsibility, and they're our truths to lay hold of, not only for us, but to the generation after us, and to our sons. And here's this thing that we understand, okay?
[35:10] This thing that we must resonate. It is our responsibility to take the things revealed to us, and to reveal them to those after us. It is our responsibility, because it belongs to us and our sons.
[35:28] So the truths that have been revealed to us are our responsibility to therefore be used of the Lord our God to reveal them to those who come after us. So we can't just say, well, you guys figure it out on your own.
[35:43] Can't do that. This is why I'm always very cautious, and I don't mean this in any disrespect, and I don't mean this in any disarm. We need to be careful before we say, let's go back to the good old days of church.
[35:54] Let's go back to the good old days. And while I know there were glory days, and I know there are good old days, quite often what I find is, well, we need to go back to the good old days because we live in such a time of Bible illiteracy, and the onus is on us because the direct cause of Bible illiteracy is the fact that the good old church failed to pass it on to the next generation.
[36:15] So we need to be careful. Listen, the rampant Bible illiteracy running through our nation is not the nation's responsibility.
[36:30] It's ours. It was never the government's responsibility to ensure that its citizens knew Scripture. It's always been the church's responsibility.
[36:42] To take the things which were revealed to them and to reveal them to the generations after them. And to increase the biblical knowledge of those who follow them, to raise them up because that which was revealed belongs to us, not just so that we can say, wow, I know a lot of stuff, so that we may obey Him.
[37:08] It says, the great unchangeable truth is this, there are some things you will never know, but what He has shown you, He has shown you so that you will walk in faithful obedience to it. So until we are willing, as Henry Blackaby says, just keep doing the last thing God told you to do, right?
[37:28] Don't look for a new revelation until you have fulfilled the old revelation. When we are already doing what He has commanded us to do, then He will begin to reveal new things to us.
[37:39] And new things to us. We don't get to know more of the character of God and the person of God until we are more faithful to Him.
[37:51] I share this example quite often, but I think it's a good one. If on November 21st, 1998, that's Carrie and I's wedding day, if on November 21st, 1998, I had stood at the front of First Baptist Church in Normandy, which is where it was at, and she walked down the aisle, and her father reluctantly gave her to me, and we were wed.
[38:14] We were married there. And then I looked at her and said, hey, that's great, we're married. You can go your way, and I can go my way. And then she went and did her thing, and I went and did my thing. We would legally be married. We would be wed.
[38:24] Right? But I would know no more about her today than I did then. Because though married for a multitude of years, if that's the end of the relationship, if that day was the end of the relationship, there would be no further revelation.
[38:47] I tell couples when I do premarriage, you don't know each other until you've been married 10 plus years. Because it takes 10 years to figure out how much you don't know about yourself and about the other individual.
[38:58] And then, you know, Carrie and I got to 20, and I was like, ah, we're starting to get there. And I started meeting people who were married 50 and 60 years. I said, I don't know anything. Right? Because you just don't know. Because those revelations come as a direct result of an ongoing relationship.
[39:14] And they come as a direct result of continuance. What God has given us, He's called us to obey and live in a covenant relationship with Him.
[39:26] And as we continue in that, we come to further revelations, and we continue in that, we come to further revelations. There will always be some things we don't know. But based on the relationship we have with the Holy God through Jesus Christ, that's okay.
[39:42] that's okay. Because the moment I feel like I have God figured out, please, get rid of me.
[39:55] Because I don't want a God any man can figure out. The hidden things belong to Him, but the revealed things belong to us. This is the ground.
[40:07] You know, one of the greatest, and I promise you, you know, the ground which builds my relationship more than any, I know there's some things about God I haven't figured out yet.
[40:21] And I want to know more. And I want to know more. I want to know more. And it is that pursuit that He uses to draw me into Himself.
[40:34] and to build our relationship. It is a grand ground for that covenant that I live through Jesus Christ. We don't live according to the covenant of the law, but we do live in the covenant relationship through the blood of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
[40:52] Deuteronomy chapter 29. Thank you, brothers. Thank you.
[41:34] Thank you. Thank you.
[42:34] Thank you.