Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction:

Covenant Requirements (vv.1-2)

Covenant Blessings (vv.3-13)

Covenant Curses (vv.14-39)

Covenant Rewal (vv.40-46)

1. Covenant Requirements (vv.1-2)

Two main requirements:

-Do not make idols or graven images

-Keep the Sabbaths and reverence the sanctuary

Essentially the people were called to exclusively worship God and keep His commandments.

It is interesting that the Roman Catholic Church has not kept the same ordering of the 10 commandments and have tried to eliminate by squeezing the second commandment into the first and breaking up the 10th commandment into 2 commandments.

The effort in doing this is to get around this commandment that explicitly says that we are not to make any graven image and bow down to worship it.

You will notice if you go into a Catholic church that there are statues everywhere and they most definitely bow down to them in worship.

They pray to the saints, Mary, and have an image of Jesus hanging in all of their churches.

Now, you can try to play around with the numbering of the Commandments to get around this, but you cannot interpret Ex. 20. 3-6 any other way and when you come to passages like Lev. 26:1, it is clear that this is a sin and it is idolatry.

But, lest we think that we get a pass in this, remember that the heart is an idol factory!

It will do anything it can to set up another God besides the one true God.

We do this to avoid accountability and to satisfy our own sinful lusts.

However, God says this.

Now, I actually searched to see how many times this phrase “jealous God” appears in the Bible and it occurs at least 36 times in the Old Testament.

I think God is tryin to tell us something about who we should worship!

He also says to honor the sabbath and not profane the sanctuary.

I read an article by Baptist Press the other day that was looking at different generations of people and their commitment levels in the church.

Among Millennials and Gen-Z Christians, of those that identified as committed, over 67 percent of them said they attend church less than once a month.

That is not a committed Christian, my friends.

And, I would seriously encourage a non-attending person to ask if they have truly committed to the King.

He’s not an optional commitment for us to fit into our schedule.

We also are not called to a personal private religion.

We are called to worship God in the community of faith.

2. Covenant Blessings (vv.3-13)

Here are few of the blessings that God promises to those who will obey and keep His covenant:

Rains in Season

Abundant Harvests

Security from Enemies

Peace in the Land

Growth from the Womb

God’s Dwelling Among the People

Today, we have grown a little immune from God’s blessings because we think we don’t need them anymore.

What about in your own life?

Can you live without God’s blessings?

3. Covenant Curses (vv.14-39)

Disease and Sickness

Barrenness

God Will Be Against the People

Wild Beasts in the Land

Cannibalism and Seige

Deportation

Rejection of Offerings

Every one of these things came true over time.

God says in verses 14-39 that these curses would come in phases.

I want to take you to the New Testament to talk for a moment about God’s curses on us.

Notice the progression.

Worship of God replaced with worship of creation and then man.

Man forsakes the image of God for the image of an animal

Man begins to dishonor their bodies in worship of the false gods.

Man then begins to turn to unnatural relations - homosexuality

Finally man then is given over to a completely debased mind

Society then disrupts into all out moral chaos.

Folks, we are there right now.

We are at the end of Romans 1.

We are in Genesis 6 right before the flood where God said,

4. Covenant Rewal (vv.40-46)

We are going to fail.

We cannot keep the covenant without failing.

God knew this and gave the people a promise of restoration.

If we will return to God, God will forgive us.

This is probably the passage that Nehemiah had read when the people humbled themselves and returned to the Lord as He brought them out of exile in the land of Babylon.

Nehemiah 9 records this prayer and confession of the people.

Application:

God has called us to be His distinct people.

God has called us to holiness.

God has given us forgiveness.