Deuteronomy 7:9

The Bible says in Deuteronomy 7:9, “Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations;” This verse says two great truths about God and what He is like: God is faithful and God is merciful. Neither one of these traits are common among human beings. What does Jesus do that shows how faithful He is? The second part of verse 9 gives us the answer. God keeps His covenant and God keeps His mercy. God’s covenant in the book of Deuteronomy was the Old Testament: the covenant of the law. The covenant of the law was an agreement between two parties: God and man. God always kept His side of the bargain. The problem with the law is that man did not keep his side. Today we live under the covenant of grace. Thankfully, the covenant of grace is an unconditional covenant. There is nothing for man to keep because Jesus did it all and paid it all. God keeps His side of the covenant of grace, and that is all there is. The failures of man cannot ruin it. One of the reasons that we have eternal security in Christ is because we are in an unconditional covenant, and God is faithful to His covenant.

God is also faithful to His mercy. Once Jesus decides to have mercy on someone, Jesus never takes His mercy away. That cannot happen. If I am always the object of God’s mercy, then I am always going to be forgiven. I can count on that. There is no such thing as, “God will never forgive me,” because God is faithful to the principle of mercy. God is always merciful to anyone who has once received mercy. Once you come under the mercy of God through faith in Christ, you remain under God’s mercy forever. God will never take His mercy away. That is who He is.

God rewards those who love Him and keep his commandments. God said at the end of Deuteronomy 7:9, “with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations.” Of course, He mentions the keeping of the commandments because we are in the Old Testament, and the keeping of the law is man’s part of the covenant of the law. Notice that the first thing mentioned is ”love.” God wants human beings to love Him. That is why He created us. The great Lover of the universe wants love from people. That is what He seeks and longs for.

There will always be benefits and rewards and blessings for anyone who loves and serves the Lover of their soul. How long can a believer hope to receive such benefits? God says, “to a thousand generations.” A generation in the Bible is about forty years. Therefore, a thousand generations is about 40,000 years, and this is talking about life on this earth. Since recorded human history only goes back about 4,000 or 5,000 years, the promise of 40,000 years will probably never be reached because most would agree that the events of the book of Revelation will probably come our way long before 40,000 years pass by. When you love the Lord Jesus and keep His commandments, the benefits of doing that will go on and on and on. Lives will be touched. The name of Christ will be glorified. And then the lives that are touched will touch other lives, and this will keep going on. The reason this passes on to generation after generation is because God is at work. God is faithful to His promises, and God uses those who love Him and keep His commandments. Make sure that your life is useful for the most important of all work: God’s work.

The Bible says in Deuteronomy 7:10, “And repayeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face.” Just as there are eternal benefits to believing on Jesus, loving Him, and serving Him, there are great negative consequences to not doing so. It only makes sense. Since there is a God, there must be justice. There will be justice. That is the constant warning of scripture. You need a Savior to save you from the judgment. People who refuse to believe will certainly deserve their judgment. They are sinners. They have broken God’s commandments many times. God loved them with an eternal love, and they rejected His love. Jesus came and died for their sins, and they rejected Him. The Holy Spirit spoke to them to bring them to Jesus, and they refused the Holy Spirit. God did everything to save them, and they would not be saved. Instead of turning to Jesus and believing in Him and serving Him, they continued on in their stubborn self-will. Such people hate God. Here is their destiny that God will give to them. It says in Revelation 20:10-15, “And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.[11] And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.[12] And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.[13] And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.[14] And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.[15] And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.”

The Bible says in Deuteronomy 7:11-14, “Thou shalt therefore keep the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments, which I command thee this day, to do them.[12] Wherefore it shall come to pass, if ye hearken to these judgments, and keep, and do them, that the LORD thy God shall keep unto thee the covenant and the mercy which he sware unto thy fathers:[13] And he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee: he will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep, in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee.[14] Thou shalt be blessed above all people: there shall not be male or female barren among you, or among your cattle.” There are two principals involved in this passage. The first principle has to do with the Covenant of the Law. That covenant is much different than the Covenant of grace that we who believe in Jesus live under. The Covenant of the law had conditions to it in order to receive the blessings: the conditions were obedience to all of God’s commandments. In the Covenant of grace we receive the blessings through belief. The emphasis is on belief instead of works. If you have faith in Christ, you will please God. Paul understood this great New Testament principal very well. Paul wrote in Romans 4:3-5, “For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.[4] Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.[5] But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”

The principal of the new covenant is faith. You are under the blessings of the new covenant by faith: faith in Christ. But that does not mean that good works do not have their proper place. It is just that good works are not the basis of the new covenant. In the old covenant, the people under the old covenant had to obey in order to get the blessings of the old covenant. It was a requirement of the covenant to obey. That system did not work because of the failure of man. And so God replaced the old covenant with a better covenant: the new covenant that emphasizes grace and that comes by believing in Jesus. So instead of a covenant that obligates good works in order for the covenant to be in effect, the new covenant is only based on faith, and then prescribes that good works will follow faith. Good works always follow true faith. If no good works follow your faith, then you do not have faith. The principal of reaping what we sow is still in effect. We cannot do wrong even under the new covenant and benefit from wrong-doing. We will suffer the bad consequences of wrong doing. The principle of faith is not a license to sin. But the reason to do the good works is a little different under the New Testament. Do good works in order to be rewarded at the judgment. Do good works in order to show your love for Christ. Do good works in order to be a witness to a lost world. But do not do good works in order to enjoy the blessings of the new covenant. The blessings of the new covenant such as eternal life, forgiveness of sins, and fellowship with Christ come by faith and faith alone.

It is sad what happened to the nation of Israel in the Old Testament. God said in Deuteronomy 7:14, “Thou shalt be blessed above all people.” But that was a conditional promise. It was conditioned upon Israel’s obedience to God. The covenant that they were under was conditioned upon their obedience, and they failed. How fortunate we are to live under the New Covenant. We only need to look to Jesus and believe on Him to receive all of the blessings of God that He has decided to give in the age in which we live.

The Bible says in Deuteronomy 7:15, ”And the LORD will take away from thee all sickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest, upon thee; but will lay them upon all them that hate thee.” One of the benefits of being a Christian has to do with your health. Jesus is not going to cure all health problems until we are in the new kingdom. But the best health that is possible for you will come based upon how well you obey God’s commandments. One of the negative consequences to sin is bad health and then even death. That is why it says in First Corinthians 11:30, “For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.” It also says in First John 5:16, “If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.” It also makes it very clear that if a Christian is sick, that he or she needs to make sure their sins are confessed as a part of getting better. It says in James 5:14-15, “Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:[15] And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.”

The Bible says in Deuteronomy 7:16-19, “And thou shalt consume all the people which the LORD thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them: neither shalt thou serve their gods; for that will be a snare unto thee.[17] If thou shalt say in thine heart, These nations are more than I; how can I dispossess them?[18] Thou shalt not be afraid of them: but shalt well remember what the LORD thy God did unto Pharaoh, and unto all Egypt;[19] The great temptations which thine eyes saw, and the signs, and the wonders, and the mighty hand, and the stretched out arm, whereby the LORD thy God brought thee out: so shall the LORD thy God do unto all the people of whom thou art afraid.” The Old Testament is written to people who are under the covenant of the law, and the Old Testament is not just written to guide individual behavior, but is also written to a nation to tell that nation how to act. As happens with all nations, there were evil doers to punish and wars to fight. The punishments were quite severe. The people of Israel were told to completely annihilate their enemies. In other words they were told to fight a war for the purpose of winning that war. We should be as harsh today, but there are some principles to notice. God told them in verse 16 concerning the evil doers that they were supposed to punish, “thine eye shall have no pity upon them.” Once people have made their decision to do evil, they deserve to be punished. Do not feel sorry for them, feel sorry for their victims.

Another important principal to remember is what God said to the children of Israel in verse 18, “Thou shalt not be afraid of them.” Everyone has enemies, especially if you believe in Jesus. Everyone has competitors. But God has promised to help you with His almighty power. What can they do against the almighty power of God: nothing. Be confident. Be happy. Be at peace. It will all work out for the best. It will all work out just the way it is supposed to in the will of God. It says in Romans 8:28, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God and to them that are the called according to His purpose.”

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