That is the agreement. Let us take a quick look at Deuteronomy 28. This is just before they go into the Land. Moses repeats this, in a little bit different fashion.
Here is a little bit of an expanse on that original promise.
You will be so special! God says, I'll do so much with you.
So here is the agreement. If you will do this, then I will do this. It is simple to understand. Simply stated, God was just stating, If you will obey My laws and statutes, I will do this for you. I'll give you wonderful physical blessings. This is something that each of us can understand in society. IF you do this, THEN I'll give you this. We do this all the time in the world. You put so much down on a home, the interest rate is so much, and that is in the agreement. If we buy a car and make the payments, the car is ours. We have agreed to it. The guarantee is there; and all of these things.
For instance in our contracting with the Capitol Plaza Hotel, there is a clause in our contract that states that if we do not attend the Feast, then we have to pay them $60.000. We asked that the clause be waived. So they sent the contract out this year, and that was not waived. It was not taken out of the contract. And so they said, Well, we agreed to it verbally. Well, we sent the contract back - not because we did not trust them; but because whatever we sign our name to (whatever is written there) that is the contract that we have to honor. So they sent it back to us with that amended.
The nice thing about these covenants is that everything is carefully listed for both parties to fulfill. It is a simple thing. When a question comes up, one can go back to the agreement and review what was agreed to in black and white. This is what I said that I'd do; and this is what you promised.
God's Old Covenant with Israel was this way: If you do this, I will do that for you.But how about the New Covenant - the better covenant. This deals with faith. This deals with believing the promises of God. This involves trusting in the statements uttered by Jesus Christ. It does not involve a list to check off against, so that we can feel secure. There is more to it than this.
I want to show you at the beginning here that these appear in the Bible; very clearly they appear. We are going to begin in Deuteronomy the 28th chapter and beginning in verse 1. This is the Blessings and Cursings chapter and two of the principles are very clearly stated here.
Now, there is the expectation or the hope of reward that, if you will just obey Me, I am going to reward you by making you the great nation on the face of the earth.
Now with those things in mind, which are not very happy things, let us go back to verse one.
We are going to look at another scripture that folds right into this one and it is the first time that healing is mentioned in the Bible. Turn to Exodus 15. Notice how close this is to Deuteronomy 28:1.
