MOVING INTO THE PLACE OF RENEWAL
We have thus far studied all of the blessings and curses God proclaimed over Israel in detail. Today we will explore Deuteronomy 29, which speaks of how God renewed the Covenant with the people before they entered the land of promise.
These blessings and/or curses were to work for them in accordance with their obedience or disobedience to the Covenant after they entered the land of the promise.
Just before they crossed over from Moab; God clearly gave them some new terms to add to the Covenant he had made with them already.
NEW INSTRUCTIONS
Moses called all of the people together and explained these new clarifications. In Deuteronomy 29: 1-6 He said:
“Your eyes have seen all that the LORD did in Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his officials and to all his land. With your own eyes you saw those great trials, those signs and great wonders. But to this day the LORD has not given you a mind that understands or eyes that see or ears that hear. Yet the LORD says; “During the forty years that I led you through the wilderness, your clothes did not wear out, nor did the sandals on your feet. You ate no bread and drank no wine or other fermented drink. I did this so that you might know that I am the LORD your God.”
The people with Moses now were the sons and daughters of the Egyptian slaves who had been freed from Pharaoh.
All of them had been very young when all of this activity among God’s people was taking place and it surely must have made an impression on them.
They saw with their own eyes and heard with their own ears the facts that when God said something and Pharaoh disobeyed; Pharaoh suffered.
These young (at that time) children would have lived through all ten of the plagues and they would have seen their own families miraculously survive them.
They would have seen their parents obediently placing the blood of a lamb over the doorposts of their homes. The next morning they would have realized it was this act of obedience that had saved them. Also they would have witnessed that Pharaoh’s disobedience had cost him his precious son.
STILL BLIND AND DEAF IN SPITE OF GOD’S GOODNESS
Yet; in knowing all of these miracles; these people were still not very wise. Their eyes and ears had not fully grasped the power and might of the God that had led them now for 40 years through the sands of the dessert.
How long do your clothes usually last?
I DO have a shirt that is almost rotten which I have kept for 30 years. For some strange reason I have left it hanging in my closet. It is ripped in several places and has holes in the fabric, but it is very soft and I have kept it for no good reason to sleep in sometimes.
Each time I throw it in the laundry I think it might be the last time. Every morning when I pull it off I think; I should throw this old shirt away and buy something new to replace it. That ripped old shirt has only survived 30 years; and it isn’t fit to wear anymore. The clothes of the Israelites survived 40 years with no signs of wearing out!
THE ABUNDANT MIRACLES OF GOD
The sandals of the Israelites at the end of their journey were as new as they had been at the beginning of their journey, though they had walked through miles and miles of hot dessert sands for forty years.
That was surely God looking after them; there can be no other explanation.
Moses reminds them that in all of the last 40 years they had eaten no bread nor drank any wine.
They had lived through years in the dessert without having grown crops or fermented drink. Nothing had been provided through the fruit and labor of their own hands for their nourishment.
We could go so many places with that statement.
Today; we can all know the significance of the bread and the wine sent down from heaven.
In those days the people had experienced the shadowed and typed significance of knowing that their source of physical nourishment came straight to them from heaven. They did not have to toil in the soil to produce food; they were given the Manna from God.
THEY DRANK FROM THE ROCK
They did not have to look for water; they drank from the Rock that followed them through their journey.
Never once were they hungry or thirsty; God always provided.
It was truly a physical miracle as well as a spiritual miracle.
They were unknowingly living out the shadows of how we in the modern day have come to receive communion.
As I’ve mentioned so many times before; God was letting them become the pattern for all nations to follow.
They were trusting God for both their physical and their spiritual nourishment.
NEVER LET THE MIRACULOUS BECOME ORDINARY
Yet; these people had begun to take such things for granted. It all had been there for them for forty long years. The miraculous had become the ordinary to them.
Can you imagine?
So: God reminds them again.
He says: “I did this so that you might know that I AM The LORD your God.
Were they paying attention?
I AM THE LORD YOUR GOD
They were about to cross into the land of promise and these words might have been going right over their heads; just as they sometimes go right over ours.
Like the Israelites traveling into their promises; God has also brought those of the country in America into a place that flows with milk and honey.
Have we had enough discernment to realize our blessings?
We did not deserve anything; it was all a gift from God.
EXPERIENCING THE RENEWAL OF GOD’S COVENANT
As we speak of the people of Israel in this story who were experiencing a renewal of their covenant with God; there is also a renewal taking place across the land in America.
Some people of discernment have finally opened their eyes and ears and realized that we MUST repent and become obedient to God again. We are so like those old Israelites!
The godly that are left in the nation seek to turn and reverse the curses of disobedience and once again receive the blessings from obedience.
Some once more want to live out and become “One Nation Under God.”
PRAY THAT WE WALK INTO THE NEW PLACE UNDER GOD
May God prosper that message, and may the hearts of our people change and turn back to the ways that God established for us to live.
As the people were setting up to walk into the new place; the Ark was equipped with God’s laws and it moved before them.
Can we do this too?
Will we learn to move under the guidance of God’s laws again?
Our survival as a people depends upon it.
Pray that The Renewal comes and sweeps the hearts of each and every one of us.