In this sermon, the speaker discusses God's covenant with Moses for the children of Israel. God promises to do marvelous works that have never been seen before, to protect the Israelites from their enemies. The speaker emphasizes that the "terrible thing" God refers to is not something negative, but rather something that incites terror in the enemies of the Israelites. God commands the Israelites to observe certain laws and rituals, such as the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Feast of First Fruits, as they prepare to enter the promised land. Additionally, God warns them not to make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land and instructs them to destroy altars, images, and groves of the people living there.

Verse 10, and notice, And he said, Behold, I make a covenant, now it's God speaking to Moses, for the children of Israel. Before all thy people I will do marvels such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation, and all the people among which thou art shall see the work of the Lord, for it is a terrible thing that I will do with thee. Now, the terrible thing here isn't quite like it sounds to us. It means to incite terror, and it doesn't mean it's terrible in the way we think of a thing being terrible. Now God says he's to do this, why? Well, it was part of the shield that God was putting around these people. They would have been devoured by the enemy had he not done this. Verse 11, Observe thou that which I command thee this day, behold, I drive out before thee, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, the Jebusite, and the Electrite light. He's driving them all out, and this is about the third time he's mentioned this. Now he says, Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee. Now God warned them not to make a covenant with the people in that land. Now when the Gibeonites came, you will recall, to Joshua after they got in the land, they pretended they had come from afar, and they had old stale bread to prove it, at least it proved it to Joshua. Now will you notice verse 13, But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves. And the reason they were to do this, God says it would be dangerous for you to make a covenant with them, and association would bring you back to idolatry. For thou shalt worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. You'll worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. And you don't need to apologize for God being jealous. I heard a wife once say, My husband is not jealous of me, and she was boasting of that. Well, I want to say this, and I didn't say it, but I wanted to at the time, and I said, I think you could also say that he doesn't love you then, if he's not jealous of you. You see, anything or any person you love, you're jealous of them, not in a wrong way or an evil way, but since you love a person, you have a concern and a care for them. Verse 15, Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a-whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods. And one called thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice, and thou takest their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a-whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a-whoring after their gods. Thou shalt not make thee molten gods. Now that land was absolutely just covered with idolatry, just like a dog's covered with fleas. That land was filled with idolatry and with gross immorality. And God is warning them to be separate from those people. Make no covenant with them at all, and they are to be destroyed, actually, or driven out of the land. And, of course, the critic down through the years has sure harped on that. Well, why? Well, because he hasn't really understood or apparently investigated just why God did want them put out of the land and warned his people not to make a covenant with them. Of course, his people did go into idolatry. That was the thing they broke at this particular point, and that's the reason they were sent into Babylonian captivity, was because of idolatry. They had gone into idolatry, and you find out they did this very thing here. But there's something else, venereal disease. It was epidemic stage. That's known today that that was in that land. And it would have polluted the entire human family had God permitted them to remain in the land. But he didn't. He had to clean them out, and it was a clean-up job that he did. Now we find that he goes on here with these directions that he's giving them. He speaks to them here in verse 18, "...the feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep." You see, now he's beginning to prepare them to enter the land. And he says in verse 23, "...thrice in the year shall all your men and children appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel." And then he gives a great many details here concerning different things. For instance, verse 25, "...thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven." And he says in verse 26, "...the first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the Lord thy God." They were to put God first. And later on he gives them the feast of firstfruits, by the way. And these are all very wonderful laws, but I'm not inclined to spend too much time right in this section.