[0:00] Children, just a word to you at this time. We're looking today at something else to do with moths. Remember, last time we mentioned the antler moth, which I discovered in the manse on one of the window panes.
[0:15] And today I'm just going to read a verse from John chapter 3. It's a very well-known verse, which Jesus said to Nicodemus. Jesus answered Nicodemus, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
[0:34] And there's another verse also in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, which is related closely to that verse, which says that if anyone be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creation.
[0:47] There's so much in the natural world that illustrates for us or helps us to understand some of the things that are important spiritually, especially in the teaching of the Bible. And moths and butterflies, as you know, proceed or move from being grubs or caterpillars to being fully-fledged moths or butterflies that are able to fly away.
[1:12] And if we think of the moth that we mentioned last time, for example, that moth will eventually come to spin a cocoon for itself. It's really just a very thin silk thread, which it spins around itself.
[1:28] The caterpillar spins this around itself until it's covered, and then it waits for a while, usually something like two to three weeks, I think, for most moths. And within that silk covering, which the cocoon, as it's called, that they spin around themselves, something amazing and something wonderful happens.
[1:48] That caterpillar, most of them are pretty ugly-looking things. They crawl around. They're not very attractive, although some are brightly colored.
[1:59] But they actually change from being the caterpillar that spun that cocoon around itself to being the beautiful moth or butterfly that comes out of the cocoon, or chrysalis, as the butterfly covering is called.
[2:15] And that wonderful change takes place inside that covering. You don't actually see it happening with your eyes. When I was a youngster, I used to sometimes, if I came across a cocoon, some of the moths actually have them in the ground.
[2:30] If I came across a cocoon, I would take it and put it in a little box and just look at it every single day over these two to three weeks, waiting for it to develop into a moth.
[2:44] And one of those days, when you opened the box, usually a matchbox, a large matchbox, there was the moth. It had come out of the cocoon. Its wings were fluttering. And I would open the box and have a look at it and just let it fly away.
[2:58] Now, what a change from that little caterpillar that just crawled around to this wonderful butterfly or moth that flies away out of the cocoon.
[3:12] And that helps us to understand something of the change the Bible speaks about, firstly in terms of what Jesus said to Nicodemus, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
[3:23] To be born again means to have a great spiritual change, a change of mind, a change of heart, a change of direction in your life, a change in your view of what's important and what isn't.
[3:35] It's a change at the very heart of our lives. And we become Christians through that. We become born again. We become new creations, as 2 Corinthians put it.
[3:48] It also helps to remind us of the wonderful change the Bible tells us that will yet happen in the resurrection of God's people from the grave. Our bodies are put into the grave.
[4:02] And on the day of the resurrection, as 1 Corinthians 15 tells us, we will be raised to be like Jesus bodily as well as in our souls.
[4:14] What a great change that is. From the body that's dead, completely dead, that's put into the grave, that returns to the dust. It's very solemn remembering these things, but they're essential things.
[4:29] And yet, on that day of the resurrection, when Jesus comes back, when the trumpet sounds, when the voice of the Lord will call us back from the dead, God's people will rise from their graves, beautiful, perfectly like Jesus, in contrast to what was put in the grave as that physical body.
[4:51] So today I hope that as you come to church and as you listen online, it's a wonderful thing that you're here. It's a wonderful thing that you're listening online as well.
[5:03] Think of these changes. Think of being born again. Think of the resurrection. Next time you see a moth or a butterfly, think where it's come from. Think of the change that's taken place between that caterpillar, what it was, and that moth or butterfly, what it now is.
[5:21] And think of how that helps you to understand how important it is to have Jesus as our Savior and to have that change in our life that he brings so that we go from the darkness of sin to the brightness of salvation, to the new life that Jesus gives us.
[5:42] Now we're going to pray the Lord's Prayer together. Let's pray the Lord's Prayer. Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come.
[5:53] Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
[6:08] For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Let's now read God's Word. We're reading today from the book of Deuteronomy. The book of Deuteronomy in the Old Testament and chapter 29.
[6:30] We're reading verses 1 to 15. Deuteronomy 29 at the beginning. These are the words of the covenant that the Lord commanded Moses to make with the people of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant that he had made with them at Horeb.
[6:50] 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 to all his servants and to all his land, the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs and those great wonders.
[7:05] But to this day the Lord has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear. I have led you for forty years in the wilderness. Your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandals have not worn off your feet.
[7:21] You have not eaten bread, and you have not drunk wine or strong drink, that you may know that I am the Lord your God. And when you came to this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon and Og the king of Bashan came out against us to battle, but we defeated them.
[7:37] We took their land and gave it for an inheritance to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of the Manassites. Therefore keep the words of this covenant and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do.
[7:50] You are standing today, all of you, before the Lord your God, the heads of your tribes, your elders and your officers, all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and the sojourner who is in your camp, from the one who chops your wood to the one who draws your water, so that you may enter into the sworn covenant of the Lord your God, which the Lord your God is making with you today, that he may establish you today as his people, and that he may be your God as he promised you, and as he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
[8:26] It is not with you alone that I am making this sworn covenant, but with whoever is standing here with us today before the Lord our God, and with whoever is not here with us today.
[8:40] And if we look at the last verse of the chapter, where we'll focus our minds for a short time, the secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
[8:59] The Bible is a precious book in so many ways. But one of the things that makes it really precious is that it is a book for families.
[9:14] God, from the very beginning, arranged human life in families. And as he arranged human life in families, he gave them his revealed will in his word through Moses, through the prophets, and eventually coming to have it written in its entirety as we have it today.
[9:33] And that's so evident throughout Scripture that the Bible is very much a family book, a book for families as well as individuals, not just for families in the sense of our being in homes as families, but families such as we are today, a covenant family, the family of the Lord in the world, family in the sense of people who worship together and worship this God.
[10:00] It's for us as a spiritual family, as a covenant family, as well as for our families in our homes, as well as for our lives individually. And throughout all of that, this Bible throughout the ages of the world has proved to be God's means of blessing to such family lives as we've mentioned.
[10:22] And here we find in this chapter the family of Israel, the people of Israel, the covenant people of the Lord at the time actually coming to stand here before the Lord, before Moses, in order to receive this teaching from the Lord through Moses as a covenant people receiving this covenant teaching, these covenant affirmations and promises and also commands.
[10:48] Now we mustn't extract verse 29 from the rest of the chapter or indeed the chapter or this verse from the whole of the book of Deuteronomy. If we do that, the tendency very often is that we'll focus on the first part of the verse and think of that as the major emphasis.
[11:07] The secret things belong to the Lord our God. Very often we've tended to do that and focus on the secret things that we have no access to or very little access to, things that God himself has kept to himself that he hasn't, he's chosen not to reveal to us.
[11:24] And that really imbalances the verse's emphasis for us because the emphasis really is on the second part. And the first part of the verse dealing with the secret things that's designed to actually emphasize the second part.
[11:39] In other words, he's saying the secret things belong to the Lord our God, but, this is the emphasis, the things that are revealed to us and to our children, they belong to us.
[11:51] The things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever that we may do all the words of this law. I want to explore that a little this morning, looking at it in the context of the chapter.
[12:07] So we're going to come back to the verse itself near the end of our study, but looking at it under two headings particularly, taking account of some of the things we find elsewhere in the chapter as we've read through it.
[12:20] First of all, here is a covenant renewal, covenant renewal. And secondly, here are set out covenant responsibilities.
[12:33] A covenant renewal and covenant responsibilities. Deuteronomy, as a book, is a covenant document. What we mean by covenant, what the Bible gives us to understand as covenant, when the Lord speaks of His covenant with His people, the covenant is basically a bond between God and the people that He has chosen to be His people, in this case Israel.
[13:00] And that covenant, as an outward covenant, is a covenant that's initiated by God. Nobody made Him do this. It wasn't the people themselves that came to God and said, Lord, we want you to be our God.
[13:13] Please make a covenant with us. Please bond us to yourself. It was the Lord that chose Israel to be His people. Out of all the tribes and peoples of the earth. That was His initiative.
[13:26] That was His loving choice of them. And it is that loving choice that provided them with this covenant, with the bonds that bind them to God, and with the conditions of that covenant, the terms of that covenant.
[13:40] And in doing that, the Lord is reminding them here on the plains of Moab, as they're about to enter the promised land, He's reminding them of their past and also taking them to their future.
[13:53] He's reminding them of what happened at Sinai because Deuteronomy, as a covenant book, really has to do more with covenant renewal than anything else.
[14:04] He's taking them back to Sinai, which is mentioned here at the beginning of the chapter as Horeb. These are the words of the covenant that the Lord commanded Moses to make with the people of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant, or along with the covenant that He had made with them at Horeb.
[14:22] Now, it's not a different covenant. It's a reissuing of it. It's a renewal of it. It's a re-pledging of God, of Himself to them, to be their God, and they are required to pledge themselves in return to Him as their people, as they're about to enter the promised land.
[14:38] It's a very critical moment for the people. It's a crucial point in their history. They're on the plains of Moab. They're about to enter the land of promise that He has promised them. They've been through the wilderness 40 years, and now they're here at this critical point, and here is God saying to them, this is my covenant with you.
[14:58] And in doing that, He's doing two things. He's asking them, or requiring of them, two things. First of all, to recall their past. And secondly, to anticipate their future.
[15:13] He's asking them to recall their past. The whole of Deuteronomy, in a sense, along with this chapter as well, is a recalling of their past. How God delivered them from the bondage of Egypt.
[15:24] How He brought them out of Egypt. How they saw His wonders in bringing them out of Egypt. How they were so privileged as a people, above any other people in the world, to see these things, to experience these things, to know this God.
[15:39] And as they look back to Egypt, they also are looking back to recall not only their deliverance, but the Sinai covenant, what He did on Mount Sinai, when He gave them the commandments, and the other regulations that you find specified.
[15:53] In the book of Exodus, and here repeated sometimes in Deuteronomy, of the terms of the covenant, the provisions of the covenant, along with the Ten Commandments, the other stuff that belonged to their relationship with God.
[16:08] And how they came through the wilderness. As they look back over the previous 40 years, He tells them in this chapter, what is it you see? I have led you for 40 years.
[16:19] Your clothes have not worn out. Your sandals have not worn off your feet. You have not eaten bread. You didn't have the facility for making bread. Instead, the Lord gave them wonderfully, miraculously, manna from heaven.
[16:31] Yet, they drank no wine or strong drink. They didn't have grapes to make, fermented alcohol anyway. But the Lord provided for them, so that you may know that I am the Lord your God.
[16:44] That was their past. They had to recall their past, but they also had to anticipate the future. They had to think ahead to settling in the land. They'd partially done it with the conquest of those kings that are mentioned, Sihon and Heshbon, and their territory had been given to the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh.
[17:06] But the main power still required to be conquered and settled in by the people. And that's what lay ahead of them. And now God is saying to them, not only do you recall your past, but anticipate the future.
[17:19] Look to my promises. Look at what I have promised to be to you. Look at what I'm providing for you. Look at the future in those terms. And both the recalling of the past and the anticipation of the future apply to that moment that they're gathered in the presence of God on the plains of Moab.
[17:37] What they know of their past, what they anticipate by God's promise for the future, it's all relevant to that moment, to the here and now, so that they will apply it and be the people they should be for the Lord, the Lord's people.
[17:52] Sinai, you see, is a step really in the covenant relationship. It's not the terminus. It doesn't stop at that point.
[18:03] It goes on into their life now and into the future in Canaan. So there are renewals of that covenant, such as here. And there'll be renewals in the future, even after they've established themselves in the land.
[18:17] Look at the word today as it's used in verses 10 to 15 there, the number of times you'll find the word today. You are standing today, all of you, before the Lord. All the way through these few verses, you'll find the word today is emphasized.
[18:33] Today, that he may establish you today as his people. The Lord your God is making with you today. It is not with you alone, but whoever is standing here today before the Lord our God and with whoever is not here with us today.
[18:46] It's just like a note going through a piece of music that's repeated for emphasis. Today, today, today, today. Remember that because that's what's happening here.
[18:59] Today. Today is the important point. Yes, you look to your past. Yes, you look to what God has done. Yes, you look to the great events of history in the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and what happened on the cross at Calvary.
[19:11] Yes, you look and anticipate the future wonderfully. You look with relish to that future. You look with hope to that future. You look with faith and believing trust to that future, but today, it's for today.
[19:22] It's what you are today. It's so that you'll apply it today, so that I'll apply it today, so that we'll renew our promises to God today and renew our covenant pledge to God and take God again today as our God.
[19:34] Every time we meet folks in this building or wherever else we meet, it's a today moment for us. And you recall how in Psalm 95, again, you have a similar emphasis.
[19:47] Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart. You see, because the people of Israel all the way through the wilderness didn't listen to the word today.
[20:00] And so often, we're the same. But it's for today that we look back and that we look forward. And indeed, essentially, I'm not going to widen out on this, but it's important that we take it with us.
[20:14] This is essentially what's happening in the Lord's Supper every time it's observed. And one of the things we've really missed is being able to celebrate the Lord's Supper as we did before.
[20:25] We trust it won't be long before we're able to do that again. Because what is happening in the Lord's Supper? What sort of emphasis do you find in the Lord's Supper? Well, you go to the Scripture and there it is.
[20:36] The Lord is saying when he established it, this do in remembrance of me. For Corinthians 11, Paul picks up that initiating of that covenant meal, if you like, that covenant event of the Lord's Supper.
[20:51] What he's saying is, this do in remembrance of me means you do this. You show the Lord's death. You're looking back. You're recalling the past. You're recalling what's foundational to your redemption.
[21:04] But you're looking forward because you do this until he comes. You're in the interim. You're in the in-between bit. And the today stands always at the very heart of that between bit.
[21:16] Today is the crucial moment for you and for me. It's important, of course, to look back. It's important to anticipate by faith what God has promised.
[21:28] But today is of such importance. This is a covenant renewal. This is a covenant renewal moment. Today, however long you've been a Christian, however long you've been following the Lord, however much you've come to know the Lord, today is a day when you renew your vows.
[21:47] You renew your commitment to God. That's so important because if we fail to do that, then the likelihood is that we'll stop remembering what is precious and what is foundational and what is important.
[22:01] And today, you anticipate as well. You look forward to the experience of more of God's promises being fulfilled on His part. You look forward to knowing more of God and of His relationship with His people and of His provision for you.
[22:18] If you haven't yet committed your life to the Lord, if you haven't come into that bond personally with Jesus, we'll see in a moment that the importance of that is mentioned in another way as well.
[22:31] But today for you is very significant because this moment is for you, that particular moment that God calls you to really take account of so that whatever's happened in the past and whatever you may anticipate or not know about the future, this is the vital moment for you if you're not in Christ already.
[22:53] God is saying, now's the time. Now's the day of salvation. This is your opportunity. This is for you. This is for you to pledge your life to God.
[23:07] And if you're on the way coming back from a time of lapse or if you're listening online and you've been away from following the Lord obediently for some time, that too is part of the covenant call of God.
[23:26] Come back into the bonds of the covenant. Come back into renewing your covenant vows. Come back into proper fellowship with me.
[23:38] Come and renew again our relationship one with another. Here's covenant renewal on the part of Israel and here's covenant opportunity and renewal for us here as well.
[23:51] Nobody here today, young or old, is left outside of this opportunity of covenant renewal or even of beginning to take God's covenant provision for ourselves.
[24:06] Second thing I want to mention is a covenant responsibility and a number of points we can mention under this. In verses 10 to 15, it's obvious that this is a covenant community.
[24:16] Maybe it's almost too obvious to say that the people of Israel were a covenant community, but that's an important point itself. You see, he's saying here in verse 15 to 10 to 15, you are standing today, all of you, before the Lord.
[24:34] The heads of families, your tribes, your elders, your officers, all the men of Israel, your little ones, your lives, and the sojourner in your camp. Because you see, the covenant that God made with Israel and the covenant that God has with us as his visible church in the world is a covenant where he says, I will be a God to you and I will take you as my people.
[24:56] All I require of you is that you respond in love to my covenant provisions and take me as your God. And that's essentially what's set before us here in terms of looking at this as the visible church.
[25:10] Take it into the New Testament. It's the same in principle, the visible church of God. God in covenant pledge and promise to his people. God having established a covenant with promises and provisions so that we can take these promises and provisions as ours.
[25:27] That's the logic in your baptism. It doesn't itself convey salvation to you, though God may use it for that, of course.
[25:38] But it does set out before you what God has promised to be to all who trust in him and what he wishes us and requires us to be as a covenant people in obedience to him.
[25:51] And that really includes our children. They're not left outside the covenant promises, the covenant provisions. And they carry the sign of the covenant in their baptism.
[26:04] And so the covenant people are a covenant community. But there's a bigger community than that or at least than those who are standing there today. Because you notice how he goes on to speak there in verse 15.
[26:16] It is not with you alone that I am making this sworn covenant, but with whoever is standing with us today before the Lord and with whoever is not here with us today.
[26:29] Of course, that doesn't mean, it's obvious that from what he said earlier, that doesn't mean those who were absent for whatever reason from that gathering. They were all gathered there as a people, young and old, infants, whatever.
[26:42] Verse 10 following. What these words mean in verse 15, whoever is not with us today means the future. Those who are going to be part of this community in the future.
[26:54] Those who will come themselves to be members of this covenant community of Israel in the future as the years go by. This covenant pledge and promise of God is for them. It stands for them.
[27:05] It goes on through time. It doesn't grow old. It doesn't need to be replaced. God is God. His promises are His promises. And so that is what he's reminding the people of.
[27:17] He's saying to them effectively, when you enter the land of Canaan, what you're pledging here today will go on in its relevance and in its importance for those who will come after you.
[27:28] And that's why, you see, today is an important day for us because we're not just here for ourselves. We are here for the future generations. We are here with a responsibility to carry on our covenant pledge before God and to transmit that to our children and to our grandchildren and to explain to them why it's important for them to be personally in covenant with God within the wider context of the covenant that He has with His people in the visible church.
[27:57] covenant community. But there's also a covenant responsibility. Look at verse 18. We didn't read through the whole chapter from verse 18.
[28:10] He says, Beware lest there be among you a man or woman or clan or tribe whose heart is turning away today from the Lord our God to go and serve the gods of those nations.
[28:20] Beware lest there be. It's the same thing. He's continuing a different description. A root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit. One who, when he hears the words of this sworn covenant, blesses himself in his heart saying, I shall be safe though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart.
[28:37] This will lead to the sweeping away of moist and dry alike. And so it goes on to say that that will affect the whole people if it's infect the whole people if it's not dealt with. You see what he's saying is, yes, you're a covenant community.
[28:50] You're a covenant people. But as individuals, you bear responsibility to that covenant community as well as for yourselves. And that's a frequent emphasis in the New Testament.
[29:04] You know, I used to, as a younger Christian or even as a younger minister, used to overly focus, I believe, on the individual rather than on the community of God's covenant people.
[29:16] Because we're not sanctified all on our own. We don't come to know more of God simply by ourselves isolated from other Christians.
[29:28] We grow within a covenant community. We are sanctified by God within a covenant community. The fellowship of God's people means I as an individual in fellowship with God.
[29:39] I'm in fellowship with others who are in fellowship with God. And I have responsibility to them as to myself. This is where the likes of COVID helps us in some way, devastating though it's been.
[29:50] Why are we wearing masks today? Why are we required to wear masks? Frustrating though it is. I appreciate that. But it's not just for our own protection in the way that the regulations have placed before us, at least whatever we might think of them.
[30:05] Not going to go into that in a moment, but this is the rationale behind them. They're not just for our own protection. It's to save as far as possible you transmitting the virus to somebody else.
[30:16] It's for the benefit of the community you as an individual belong to. That's how it is with your Christian life. With your covenant relationship with God.
[30:27] Your concern is not just with yourself. No man is an island, the saying goes, and that's true spiritually as well because we all have interactions with others within the visible church of God.
[30:42] And if one part of that church, as David reminded us a few weeks ago, suffers, then the other part suffers with it. We're all one community of faith in relationship with God.
[30:56] And you see what he's saying here about this one individual who may actually be saying to himself, I am within the sworn covenant, so I am blessing myself in my heart. I shall be safe, so I don't really need my personal obedience to God.
[31:11] Friends, make sure today, as I must make sure, I mean, the basis of my confidence regarding salvation is not the fact that I've preached however many hundred sermons I've preached in the course of my ministry.
[31:25] It's not that I've come to be brought up in a Christian community, in the church of God. A new basis of confidence for salvation is not that you're within the parameters of God's covenant provision that he's given to his visible church.
[31:41] Here is a man in Israel. Here is God saying, Beware lest there be someone among you who is within the provisions of the covenant as part of the community, but in his own private heart says, I am safe, even though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart.
[31:59] Your safety, friends, is not simply in belonging to the visible church of God, not even in being baptized, not even in taking the Lord's Supper. precious, precious things though these be.
[32:14] Your safety is in having Christ as your Savior and having a living relationship to God with him through Christ. I don't want to in any way give the impression that we're really treating as very much less important, things that are important, such as belonging to the church.
[32:39] such as being a covenant community. But our basis for salvation is Jesus. All that we need is in him.
[32:51] We don't add to him, we don't take away from him. And if you have him today, if your pledge, if your faith is in him, if your trust is in him, if you have accepted him as he's presented in the gospel, that's the ground of your safety.
[33:06] everything else of significance is in addition to that. So please be careful that you're not in that category of the man in verse 18, whose heart is turning away from the Lord and yet who says because he's in the covenant he blesses himself in his heart saying, I shall be safe though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart.
[33:32] There's covenant community and covenant responsibility but there's also covenant advantages and that's where verse 29 I think comes in. Covenant advantages in the sense that as they look to the future, they had the advantage of God being their God revealing himself to them and having revealed himself to them even up to that point.
[33:54] Now they didn't know what the future would entail in detail, neither do we. Sometimes we find ourselves asking questions in difficult circumstances understandably.
[34:08] Why Lord? Why this? Why did this happen? Why did it have to happen? Why did it have to happen to us? Why did it have to to me? Why did it happen now?
[34:19] Why is it so painful? Why did it have to scare me so deeply? Why did it have to experience this or that particular event in your providence?
[34:35] Well, we don't have the answer to these questions, most of them anyway. The secret things belong to the Lord our God. How can we possibly understand the relationships between the persons of the Trinity?
[34:50] We can only just hit the very, very outer perimeter of that as it's revealed in Scripture to us, but we don't know exactly how God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit relate in the minuteness of that relationship to each other.
[35:04] That is God. Neither do we know why God at times acts as He does, even in the life of His own covenant people. But then, you see, this is the emphasis.
[35:15] But the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever. In other words, God is saying to us, please don't lay all your emphasis or your study or your assessment on the things that you can never find out.
[35:33] Remember that's important when we're studying theology or doing theology. Don't take up your time on things to which there is no answer, to which the Bible has not given you an answer.
[35:45] What's important is the things that have been revealed, who are they for? Who do they belong to? They belong to us and to our children. The gospel, salvation in Christ, justification by faith, the work of the Holy Spirit.
[35:59] So many things that have been revealed, that are revealed in abundance, that are revealed in detail. What are they about? What are they for? Why are they revealed? You don't ask the question, why has God kept certain things hidden from us?
[36:12] You ask the question, why has God revealed so much to us? For our salvation, that's why. So, he says, that we may do all the words of this law, that we may walk in obedience to God, that we may prove ourselves to be his people, that we may convey to the world out there that he's a great God, that he's a wonderful savior, that we are pleased to be his people.
[36:38] God in Christ is what we have revealed to us. I remember in 1 Corinthians, and I'm nearly finished, 1 Corinthians, and chapter 2, Paul has been dealing with certain things that God has not revealed, or certain things that the rulers of this world did not know were not revealed to them, but to us, he said, not just to the apostles, but to the church.
[37:02] This is what has been revealed. No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined what God has prepared for those who love him. These things God has revealed to us through his Spirit, for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
[37:21] You know, sometimes we use that verse as if the emphasis was that God has not revealed much to us. What the emphasis is that things which were not known in previous generations or came to be known only gradually are revealed to us, and they're here for us and for our children, so that we may do the words of this law.
[37:44] The gospel, the provisions of the gospel, the Christ of the gospel, the life that comes through the gospel to us, that's the revealed will of God.
[37:58] And there's more than enough in all of that for us and for our children, for the entirety of our lives, and for the entire life of the church on earth. That's the emphasis of verse 29.
[38:13] Our covenant privilege, our covenant abundance from God, so that we may do all the works of this law. You see, the covenant is not a legal contract that you just come and sign formally in accepting God as your God.
[38:37] A covenant is a loving provision on the part of God. It requires a loving response on our part. A loving response, not a legalistic compliance.
[38:55] That's the gospel. gospel. That's the Christian life. That's today presented to us.
[39:06] May God bless these thoughts on his word. We're going to conclude our worship now. And we're going to sing from Psalm 78. And sing Psalms version, Psalm 78, verses 1 to 6.
[39:20] That's page 101 in your Psalm books. Oh, my people, hear my teaching. Parables I will unfold, give attention as I utter. Dark and hidden things of old, things that we have heard and known by our fathers, they were shown.
[39:36] We will tell them to our children, generations yet to come. We will show the Lord's great power and the wonders he has done. Laws for Israel he made statutes for him to be obeyed.
[39:49] And then verse 6, these he ordered our forefathers to their families to tell. So the coming generation not yet born would know them well. And their children in their turn, God's commands and laws would learn.
[40:03] These verses to God's praise. O my people, hear my teaching, but of course I will not know.
[40:21] Give attention as I utter, God's commands and God's commands and God's commands and things of old.
[40:36] Things that we have heard and known by our fathers they were shown.
[40:52] We will tell them to our children, generations yet to come.
[41:07] We will show the Lord's great power and the wonders he has done.
[41:22] So the Lord's great and the need should be seven bums and gums and he has did that.
[41:36] Oh, away. We will tell them, where they are, we will tell them, where they have gone with their homes and whosemium and they have What has their families to tell.
[41:55] So the coming generation not yet born would know them well.
[42:09] And their children in their time cross from hands and cross to death.
[42:27] Just for the benefit of any visitors, those who are downstairs will leave the church from the doors to each side here at the front. Those upstairs will leave through the main entrance at the back.
[42:38] Now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you now and evermore. Amen. Amen.
[43:00] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.