A COVENANT OF SURRENDER

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

These are the terms of the covenant the Lord commanded Moses to make with the Israelites in Moab, in addition to the covenant he had made with them at Horeb.
Moses summoned all the Israelites and said to them:

“Your eyes have seen all that the Lord did in Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his officials and to all his land. With your own eyes you saw those great trials, those miraculous 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. During the forty years that I led you through the desert, your clothes did not wear out, nor did the sandals on your feet. You ate no bread and drank no wine or other fermented drink. I did this so that you might know that I am the Lord your God.”

“When you reached this place, Sihon king of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan came out to fight against us, but we defeated them. We took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh.”

“Carefully follow the terms of this covenant, so that you may prosper in everything you do. All of you are standing today in the presence of the Lord your God—your leaders and chief men, your elders and officials, and all the other men of Israel, together with your children and your wives, and the aliens living in your camps who chop your wood and carry your water. You are standing here in order to enter into a covenant with the Lord your God, a covenant the Lord is making with you this day and sealing with an oath, to confirm you this day as His people, that he may be your God as he promised you and as he swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I am making this covenant, with its oath, not only with you who are standing here with us today in the presence of the Lord our God but also with those who are not here today.”

“You yourselves know how we lived in Egypt and how we passed through the countries on the way here. You saw among them their detestable images and idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold. Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the Lord our God to go and worship the gods of those nations; make sure there is no root among you that produces such bitter poison.”

“When such a person hears the words of this oath, he invokes a blessing on himself and therefore thinks, ‘I will be safe, even though I persist in going my own way.’ This will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry. The Lord will never be willing to forgive him; his wrath and zeal will burn against that man. All the curses written in this book will fall upon him, and the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven. The Lord will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law.”

“Your children who follow you in later generations and foreigners who come from distant lands will see the calamities that have fallen on the land and the diseases with which the Lord has afflicted it. The whole land will be a burning waste of salt and sulfur—nothing planted, nothing sprouting, no vegetation growing on it. It will be like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in fierce anger. All the nations will ask: ‘Why has the Lord done this to this land? Why this fierce, burning anger?’ "

“And the answer will be: ‘It is because this people abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their fathers, the covenant He made with them when He brought them out of Egypt. They went off and worshiped other gods and bowed down to them, gods they did not know, gods he had not given them. Therefore the Lord's anger burned against this land, so that he brought on it all the curses written in this book. In furious anger and in great wrath, the Lord uprooted them from their land and thrust them into another land, as it is now.’ "

“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.”

Deuteronomy 29

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Covenant promises. We have seen them throughout the Old Testament thus far. God had made agreements with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob…all forefathers of the Israelites who now listened to Moses. In Deuteronomy, Chapter 29, God again confirms through Moses that the people of Israel were His people and He was their God.

To that end, Moses reminded the Israelites of their experiences in Egypt and what God had done to Pharoah and his people before delivering Israel from oppression into freedom. The people were also reminded how they were cared for throughout the desert exodus…how their clothes and sandals failed to wear out. Indeed, God had cared for His people and still did so. He wanted the best for Israel as they finally were about to enter Canaan. Still…we sense God was concerned.

Why? Because He continued to warn Israel just as He has done in the prior chapters of Deuteronomy. God knew that the hearts of the Israelites were vulnerable to temptation. After all, they were sinners. And given this, God persisted in cautioning Israel to not worship false gods or idols…not to decide to go their way instead of the way God wanted them to go and live in disobedience to His commands.
Just in case they were thinking about it, God once again warned about the consequences they could expect. Land destroyed like “Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim” with diseases and afflictions and curses abounding. All because Israel failed to keep the covenant with their God. Ultimately, the choice was up to the people. Their actions would reveal their faithfulness and God expected them to surrender their wills for His.

And so it is with us.

As Christians, we have a new covenant or new testament through Jesus Christ. God’s promise…His covenant…is one of eternal life to all who believe and trust in Jesus Christ. This is why the New Testament is centered on the three Christ-centered things:

1. Christ’s birth and life.

2. Christ’s crucifixion, resurrection, and subsequent command to make disciples of all nations, baptizing in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching all to obey what he commanded. In other words, our call from Jesus to spread the gospel…or good news about Him.

3. Christ’s return.

Has all this taken away our obligation to remain obedient to God’s word and will for us? Absolutely not. God hates sin today just as much as He hated it back in the early days of Israel. It was sin that led God to give His only Son Jesus…the perfect Lamb…as a sacrifice to atone for all our sins. Instead of all of us being nailed to the cross, God sent His Son to be nailed for us. Do we think about this enough as we walk through our lives every day, faced with our own choices and decisions to make? Do we envision Jesus bleeding, bruised and dying while hanging from nailed hands and feet when we are deciding whether to sin or not sin?

Friends, we can never afford to allow Jesus to feel as if He died in vain. He died so we might live and live abundantly. In order to fulfill our end of the covenant promise, we need to lay it all down for Him as He did for us. It’s the only possible way that we can hope to live fully in Him and model His life. So let us live out these verses of one of my favorite Christian songs as a sign of our covenant surrender for Jesus:

All to Jesus I surrender
All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him,
In his presence daily live.

I surrender all, I surrender all;
All to thee, my blessed Savior,
I surrender all.

All to Jesus I surrender,
Humbly at His feet I bow,
Worldly pleasures all forsaken,
Take me Jesus, take me now.

I surrender all, I surrender all;
All to thee, my blessed Savior,
I surrender all.

In Christ,

Mark

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