The Standard of Holding onto the Covenant (Deut. 29:14-29)
We’re trying to receive grace from today’s Word, Deut. 29:14-29. Deut. 29 was the message Moses gave to the second generation who was residing in the land of Moab. When God gives us His Word, He gives us that Word because there is some promise He is trying to fulfill. Something you must not misunderstand is, God doesn’t fulfill the things you desire, but it’s the promise He gives you.
In Deut. 29:14, He says, “I am making this covenant, with its oath, not only with you,” so there is a covenant and an oath, and that is the promise He made with the Israelites. So, what is that covenant? The covenant was the promise of Gen. 3:15, the offspring of the woman, that He gave to Adam and Eve from the very beginning. The Israelites were actually captives to Egypt for 400 years, but even when they came out of that, they came out of that, holding onto that covenant because God is a God of the covenant. Because, He is not the God I think about, but He is God of the Word. The God I imagine is not God; that is just my imagination.
Some people think it is God’s will for what they desire, but that’s not it. Some people just believe in something that has no content. But that is not God; that is just what they desire, it is their imagination. Even right now, God is moving according to His promises. The problems of my life come to me because I do not have this covenant and do not believe in this covenant.
Then, for the week, where must we place our standard on success or failure? We must place it on the covenant, because if you hold to the covenant for a week and nothing happens, that is still success. But without the covenant, if physically you do so well, that is a life of failure. It’s because, ultimately, the result of living a life without the covenant will come to you. That is why God had this covenantal relationship with the Israelites.
In Ex. 19:6, the Word God gave to the Israelites, “You will be for Me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation,” however, there is a condition He gives in Ex. 19:5, “Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, … then You will be my treasured possession.” This was a promise given to the Israelites before any other words, like the Ten Commandments. Out of the Ten Commandments, the Israelites actually broke apart and dissected the Ten Commandments and now they have 613 laws they must keep.
They broke it all up, and if they don’t keep one of them, they will be cursed, so they will continuously be cursed. But they shouldn’t live continuously cursed, and that’s why God created the Tabernacle. Through all the sacrifices, the blood sacrifice, the atonement sacrifice, God made a way for them to be with Him. However, even if it’s not the 613 laws, but if it were 1000 laws, what is the main thing? If I believe in God, my actions will follow. But if I do not believe in the Lord, I have no choice but to do idol worship.
But because I don’t believe in Him, I have no choice but to believe in idols. If I don’t believe in God, there’s no reason for the Sabbath, because I don’t believe it. If I don’t believe in the Lord, I don’t even have to listen to my parents, and because I don’t believe, I just start stealing other people’s things. But why is it that people don’t obey their parents and keep stealing from other people? It’s because they don’t believe in God.
But if they don’t believe in God, who do they believe in? They believe their own standards, and that is why they fight with their parents, and that’s why they keep arguing with other people. Instead of believing in God, they believe in their own standards as being correct. So if you don’t have any money, you have to lie because you don’t believe in God. If you believe in God, having no money is a chance for you to receive answers. But if you don’t believe in God and you see someone who has something better than you, you start to covet it because you don’t believe in God, you don’t believe in the promise God has towards me.
To be a nation of priests means He will make you into a nation of missionaries and evangelists to connect everybody to God. Only the one who knows the glory of this position will follow after it. But if you don’t understand the honor behind this position and instead you think, “This will be the end of me, I have to follow this law,” that will be a sad life for that person. Until people realize this, they will continuously suffer.
The fact that you’re a holy nation, a royal priesthood, set apart, if this doesn’t come across as glorious, you’re a failure. What is honor? People think idol worship and success will honor them. That’s why they keep failing, it’s the same even now. If you don’t think of entering into the 237 nations and going into unreached people groups as an honor, it will be very difficult for you.
The fact that He has called you as a holy nation, a royal priesthood, set apart, if this isn’t glory, whatever you do, you will fail because you don’t realize how big of a blessing this is. How much glory is it that God will do His work through Israel? But if you think of this as a nuisance or a burden and think, “Why do I have this?” then you’re cursed. A curse is nothing else except you not knowing what a blessing is. If you don’t know that, you’re already cursed, and no matter how much you try to live in this state, nothing will be a blessing to you. No matter how diligently you life, you cannot be a person of blessing.
The people of Israel have to look at themselves and say, “Wow, I am a royal priesthood, a holy nation!” “God created this church to do America and 237 nation evangelism!” this must be glory to you; otherwise you will chase after food and what to wear. Before you try to do anything, you must first know who you are. By believing in the covenant, you have become a person of God and God has entrusted world evangelization to you and your heart must race for this because if your heart doesn’t race for this, you will keep receiving heart attacks. This is a severe way of saying it, but what does your heart race for? When you think about the fact that God has called you to this church as a person to do world evangelization, your heart must start racing. If your heart doesn’t race for this, what will you turn back to? All your thoughts from before.
In Deut. 29:15, it says, I am not making a covenant with you “who are standing here with us today, … but also with those who are not here today,” meaning it is for the future, so it is not just Israel saved, but the royal priesthood, the holy nation, anyone who comes to know the covenant, so He made this covenant not just with the Israelites but everyone who is to come through the covenant.
In Deut. 29:16, it says, “You yourselves know how we lived in Egypt and how we passed through the countries on the way here.” He’s asking, “You guys know how you became slaves to Egypt because of idol worship, and how you were enslaved by other countries. Don’t you know why you were slaves in Egypt? How did you live at that time?” When they lived in Egypt, what did that mean specifically? In one words, it means that, without God, they lived as the masters of their own lives as slaves in Egypt.
They lived for the idol of themselves or of material wealth, because that is what they live for. Then, what is the result? It is curses, disasters, and suffering. He’s asking, “Don’t you guys know this, and didn’t I take you from that? You guys didn’t come out of that life with your diligence, but I gave you the covenant through Moses, so by holding onto the covenant, you’re able to come out of that suffering.”
In Deut. 29:17, “You saw among them their detestable images and idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold.” So, what is an idol? It is not the covenant that God gave, but it is the things of their heart, the things they think they can gain something from, so they go, holding onto their own idols. Ultimately, that is a life being dragged by and under demons.
Our idols could be the idol of ideology. All families have an idol of ideology because all the things the parents are trying to teach are all idols. Saying to their kids, “You have to eat and survive,” that is an idol of ideology. “No matter what you do, you have to eat and survive,” that becomes an idol of ideology for that family. “You guys should always try to please other people and succeed no matter what,” then for them, success is their idol. There are many instances like this,
Or people have a lot of idolatry in nationalism. They try to elevate their whole nation, “We are better than God.” In the midst of us, these things exist, and unbeknownst to us, it is buried deeply within us. Unbeknownst to me, where do all my decisions, choices, and values lie? It is towards my idols. But you have come out of that.
I have been nailed to the cross to the world with Christ. What does this mean? The past “me” that lived with the idols and standards of the world has been nailed to the cross. No, what does it mean for me to live with Christ? Christ my standard and the world is completely irrelevant to me. You must be sure in this; this is what it means for everything to be finished. Even though everything is finished, if you’re holding onto an idol, it is not finished for you because you will live, continuously seized by the world. By God’s grace, you may have received salvation, but you live as slaves to Egypt.
In Deut. 29:18, it says, “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.” Because, if we leave God and turn our hearts towards the idols we used to have, our bodies become poisoned with a bitter poison. What is that?
Deut. 29:19, “When such a person hears the words of this oath,” and says to himself, “I will be safe, even though I persist in going my own way.” There are many people like that, “Even without God’s covenant, because I am doing well, I will be okay,” but see what happens to them down the road. In Deut. 29:20, “The LORD will never be willing to forgive him; his wrath and zeal will burn against that man.” If you leave the covenant, it is not okay. There are a lot of students who say, “Even if I leave the covenant, I will be okay.” Students struggle with this, but for adults, they don’t. They say to themselves, “I was okay in the past, I’m okay right now, so I’ll be okay in the future,” and they create a sense of safety for themselves, but the moment you lose hold of the covenant, that is the beginning of problems. Once the time schedule comes, you will have problems that you can see.
For the heavens to curse you, it means He will not give you the blessings. What is the covenant? Blessings follow based on the covenant. But if someone says to themselves, “I’m okay, I can succeed without the covenant,” that person’s problems have already come and will manifest over time. They’ve already left the covenant, so what does it mean for someone to not receive blessings? They have left the covenant. God is bound to give you blessings, but you yourselves have left, so you cannot receive it. Because you don’t have a heart to go towards the covenant, the blessings will continue to not come. There are times when we can forget the covenant or lose hold of it, and that is why we come to worship and go towards God.
By His grace, we can hold to the covenant anew but if you continuously lose hold of the covenant, you will begin to see problems manifest. Some churches have problems that manifest together as a group. It’s actually something very regrettable, because the congregation is already suffering, but instead of the covenant, they want something else? That’s like giving them poison. Especially if leaders stand and do that, the church is done for.
There are pyramid schemes within the church, and I’m not saying those are bad, because we’re talking about pyramid schemes where they’re not trying to get some sort of prize, but they think, “These people will benefit me,” and that’s all they see when they go into church groups. But if someone stands up in front of the church and says this, what is going to happen? That’s like lighting a fire in the church. They should be lighting the fire of the covenant into new believers, but if they don’t see that and instead see the pyramid schemes, what is going to happen? The pyramid scheme itself is not a problem but the problem is, instead of seeing them within the covenant, you see people as a way of making money. That’s not just any kind of sin.
The church is a group organization so it’s a great place to do something like that; however, if they are not holding onto the covenant, they are being fueled by money. I’m not saying the schemes themselves are bad, but someone who loses hold of the covenant will lead others to lose hold of the covenant. But if you actually see people with the covenant, not just as a way of making money, then do it. But why is it not okay to do that? That person does not have the covenant, then they themselves and other people will become hurt. In Korea, they tried to uproot these kinds of things from happening so it took a very long time. Because in Korea, when you go to the regional churches, it’s a great place to have pyramid schemes, so it took five or six years to uproot all of that. This was 20 years ago.
What are we talking about? A church leader is not someone who should take part of that from the front; we’re talking about leaders like the pastors. They can’t even opine on whether it is good or bad because if it’s something that blocks the covenant, it doesn’t matter what it is; the leader should block it aggressively, isn’t that correct? They should be leading everybody to glorify God, but it’s hard for the congregation members to do that.
People become disadvantaged because of each other, so that becomes a channel for Satan, so the group falls apart. What am I talking about? “Without the covenant, I could just do this,” it’s the same concept. It might initially work out, but the result and evidence of you not having the covenant will slowly seep out. I don’t know if there’s any one of you here who partake in pyramid schemes, but we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about the covenant.
Deut. 28:21, “The LORD will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster, according to all the curses of the covenant,” simply put, this means He will not give you the blessings. If we do not receive God’s grace, we cannot survive. We need God’s grace, we need God’s mercy, because we continuously stand on the side of going against God’s covenant, and we keep wanting to live according to our own standards. We don’t try to live according to God’s covenant, but we keep wanting to live according to our own nature, so if I become a helping hand towards people holding onto the covenant, then wouldn’t God bless me?
In Deut. 28:22, “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,” so we’re talking about diseases, too. In Deut. 28:23, we’re going to have destruction like Sodom and Gomorrah. These aren’t realities that occur because we live in a bad manner, but because we live without the covenant, serving idols.
In America, many people gather thinking they can live without God’s covenant, isn’t that right? There are so many people who say, “Because I live in America, because I’m an American citizen, I can live perfectly fine without God’s covenant,” so what do they believe in? They do not believe in God’s covenant; they believe in America and themselves, so what will happen? It’s the things happening right now.
In the month of January, there have been over 30 incidences of gun violence throughout America. Look, America is the best nation in the world, and if you mess with America, they don’t just let that go. America is the land where even if you just know the English language, you can live anywhere in the world. If you have American citizenship, you will not starve until you die. The world’s smartest people come to America and gather to study here. Yes, it’s enough for the people here to misunderstand, and it creates a circumstance where they think, “Even if we don’t have the covenant, we’ll be okay,” But the result of you not having the covenant is disasters coming upon you.
This is the field of America. It doesn’t matter if you go to church or not. Even as people go to church, they keep failing. If you look at them, until the very end, they don’t try to look for the covenant; they try to survive in a different way, so that is why we need God’s grace, because we can’t realize that. Even if we’re half dead, we can’t realize it, and that’s the image of destruction of people who are seized by Satan.
To come before worship means we are looking for God’s grace, “I need God’s grace today,” that is what worship is, why? Because if you’re content with just what you have, that is what will rain down the curses. This is actually longstanding because you’ve just let it pass. But it isn’t like that; God’s grace has to continuously come upon you, then what happens? According to the covenant, God will work.
I keep talking about losing hold of the covenant and losing strength, but what happens if we hold to the covenant? If I hold to the covenant, then completely irrelevant to me, I live according to God’s standards. If I’m holding onto the covenant, then no matter what problems, incidences, and crises occur, it doesn’t matter; those become opportunities for me to gain blessings. That’s what the covenant is. It’s not about putting the covenant in my head, but it completely changes my life around. It is not I who am the master of my own life, but it is the Triune God.
He is my Master; what else could be a problem. He is my Master, why should I live by my lies and effort? Because we try to live by our own standards, we try to assert ourselves viciously, but I am wrong and you are wrong; only God’s Word is correct. Even if I look at myself, there are times when I get angry, and I think, “Why am I angry?” It is because I think I am correct. But do you think I am really correct? Where do you think the standard of my being correct comes from? It comes because I left the covenant, right? Because I’m holding onto the standard of Egypt, the problems keep repeating. But when this standard with which I live is nailed on the cross, then that is when my wrath and anger can settle down, and when you look at your life, you will see useless standards ruining your life.
Can I give an example? Confucianism. What is that? It is ultimately saying, “Live like this, don’t live like that.” For 500 years, it rooted itself into Korea. What do adults feel angry about? When the kids don’t greet them. But if they don’t greet them, why is that something to get angry about? They say, “It’s rude for them not to greet me,” but where does this standard come from? Confucianism. Does that relate to everyone else in the world? Adults will really come down on the kids as they hold onto a standard that came from Korea.
But why is that the standard? Can I, the adult, not greet them first? Is that not allowed? Confucianism doesn’t allow for it as you must greet the elders, but that is what Confucius says. What does the Bible say? Love one another, isn’t that correct? Because greeting someone is not respect; that is just greeting someone. Here, kids will greet each other with their eyes, so why do they have to bow to you for you to count that as a greeting? Because you hold onto this useless standard, you keep causing problems saying, “This is a problem.” What this means is, outside of Korean people, this won’t work. Just because you’re a first generation Korean, don’t try to impress that on the second generation. That is the ideology of the Pharisees, an ideology that will fail. “I am the chosen people so I am special,” it doesn’t seem like that to you, but that’s what you’re thinking. We all have stuff like that, unbeknownst to us.
Where does the problem lie? It lies with me, not the other person. The problem is, if there’s a problem with the other people, God will control that and take care of that. It’s an opportunity for me to look at my problems. “What about this and that person?” That’s not for me to judge, for me to be God. That’s when I look at myself. We used to have three banners at church, “Greet each other,” and the adults put it up because the kids wouldn’t greet them, and I said, “That’s not incorrect but you can’t do world evangelization with that.” Even though we’re living in 2023, they’re living with the Korean ideologies from the 1800s, from so long ago.
They themselves don’t know that, why? Because the ideologies they learned before they knew the gospel seem correct to them so they don’t even question it. You see these kids running around upstairs when they’re 3, 4, 5, 6 years old, and you get mad. Why do you get mad? “They’re noisy, they are disturbing me,” so you get mad. Kids are supposed to come to church and worship, but where will they worship? Children run around; they cannot just sit somewhere and listen to messages like adults, so you should be able to worship together. Why are you the only one worshiping? To this extent, my standards have become the absolute standard; you always think you’re correct.
Why am I talking about something like this? For us to keep going back to Egypt, that’s what we’re talking about. Instead of holding to the covenant, we go back to the standards of Egypt, so instead of going towards world evangelization, we head towards that and keep dying. Shall we change an example to a business example? Yes, working is hard, so everything is your standard; you think it’s difficult. You’re always frowning and it is regrettable but where is the evidence that this is difficult? It’s just difficult for that person, and if it’s difficult for that person, it must be difficult for everybody else, then where is God’s covenant? We’re talking about the covenant.
Joseph went as a slave, was that a curse? No, he’s in the slave field, holding onto the covenant, so the slave field is not a difficulty; it is a prize. What I must look at is, not whether it is difficult or easy, but whether there is God’s covenant and plan. But why am I speaking like this? We keep going back to the ideologies of Egypt. Even though we are holding onto the things of Egypt, we don’t even realize it, but that’s the way we think. No, because the Egypt ideology is all the thoughts and standards and values I used to live with as me as my master.
We’re talking about whether we are holding onto the covenant or not. In all different kinds of circumstances, the covenant is the standard. How you feel is not the standard. Your situation is not the standard. The news the world talks about is not the standard, but because you don’t have the covenant, you keep getting influenced by this, and that’s what it means to keep going back to Egypt. What is the result of this life? Going up and down and dying in the desert, and that is not what has been given to us.
Even though there was no food because they held to the covenant, manna came down. Because they held onto God’s promise of Canaan conquest, they were able to go into Canaan. God prepared all the houses they did not have to build, the crops they did not have to plant. God has given you the business and work after He had prepared the 70 regions and 70 disciples, but we keep looking at our situation. It’s the same thing as the 12 spies going to look at the situation and being deceived.
The content of today’s passage says, “Don’t do that, hold to the covenant.” It is not the covenant if you only hold onto it when the things around you are going well, and you lose hold of it when things around you are not going well. God’s covenant has nothing to do with my situation and you go, holding onto this faith. The Bible tells us that, according to this, God will fulfill everything and work towards this end. That’s why we say, when we come to church, there’s no need to listen to these words. No need to go into the world and listen to the words of people, but hold to the covenant and heed their words, why? Because those are not words that come from God. There’s no reason for me to listen to the words people keep saying based on the situation.
Just follow the covenant. Save people, save the church, the business that is for temple construction. If you hold onto this, God will bless you and work; if not, you’re just working to the extent of your skills. Even if you look in the Bible, out of the 12 spies, 10 did not believe; only 2 believed. The fastest method is not to ask, “Why do you not believe?” but show the evidence to the two who do believe. Don’t try to convince, “Why don’t you believe?” just let them be. The method is to show through the people who do believe so others realize on their own, “I was wrong.”
For you, the covenant has to be truthful and specific. The standards of Egypt, it’s not just some far-off concept, but realistically it is within me. Some people really believe in blood types. I ask, “Why do you believe in that?” They say, “There is a type of person,” but that’s actually something like fortune-telling. It’s something so useless like fortune-telling. They have nothing to believe in, so they say, “You’re AB? You’re either a genius or a fool,” but I’m neither. There are other things people try to keep basing their lives on.
They say, “Are you Irish?” But if you look, many presidents have Irish lineage. Everyone has some kind of standard and they keep trying to measure other people. “Are you from Seoul or a different region?” Why do they argue that? Everyone thinks there’s a standard for different regions, but you have to look at them from the perspective, “Do they have the covenant or not? Are they to receive the covenant or not?” there’s only two types of people.
Onwards, it only talks about curses, but it is all about the fact that my problems are finished on the cross, along with all my standards, so I look at everything from the perspective of the cross; all my standards are within that. Everything else is, if I have the covenant, it’s okay; if I don’t have the covenant, it’s okay. I hope you will believe in God’s covenant and be a witness of God’s covenant.
Let us pray, holding onto the Word we have received today.
Prayer
Let us pray holding onto your businesses because God doesn’t just work on any business, but upon the businessperson who holds onto the covenant. Let us pray for the businesses to be the ones that save the church, the future generation, and Temple construction.
Let us pray for the region. Right now, when you pray, God will send the Holy Spirit and His angels to work, transcending time and space. In this region when people of other religions pray, the evil forces will move, and that is why at this time, we gather together to receive the Word and pray. Let us be the church that changes the culture of the region. Let us be the church that changes the 50 states. That is the standard of God. Our standard is whether we eat or live well, but God’s standard is saving lives. God will give us finances according to this. Let us pray.
Our fourth prayer topic is for our missions fields and for our remnants because the remnants must arise and rise as the main. What it means for them to be the “main” is that they will go into America deeply. We believe it is the “main” to go into America with the culture and language, to find the disciples and do world evangelization. Pray for the remnants and the missions fields.