R.C. Sproul

This would be true among the Sumerians and the Kadians and other peoples of antiquity as it was with the Jews.

And so when God would enter into covenant, he would identify himself.

He said, I am Yahweh.

I am the Lord your God, who?

brought you up out of the land of Egypt, did this and did that.

He would give this historical prologue, and then the terms of the covenant would be set forth.

And with the terms of the covenant, we call those the stipulations.

Any covenant has stipulations.

When you get married, you enter into a covenant, then you say, I promise to do certain things, to love, honor, obey, and so on.

Or when you sign an industrial contract with an employer, you may say, I promise to work eight hours a day, and he promises to give you so much money and so many benefits, so much vacation time.

Those are the stipulations.

But in the ancient world, every covenant had sanctions.

and we speak of dual sanctions, a two-fold sanction, that these would be the rewards and the penalties.

Rewards for keeping the terms and the stipulations of the agreement, penalties if you violated the terms of the agreement.

Now, in the Old Testament, the reward for keeping the covenant was called a blessing.

And the penalty for violating the contract was called a curse.

And let me just direct your attention for a second to chapter 28 of the book of Deuteronomy, where God is speaking and he says, if you fully obey God,

the Lord your God, and carefully follow all his commands that I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all of the nations of the earth, and all these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God.

Now listen to this litany.

You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.