Deuteronomy 29–30

If you would open up to Deuteronomy chapter 29 Deuteronomy chapter 29 As we come to chapter 29 Both chapters 29 and 30 Which is what we'll cover here tonight At least that's the goal We pick up with the same theme That we picked up with last week And that's the ratifying of the covenant The ratifying of the treaty The nation of Israel Has made it all the way through the wilderness God has laid out for them Not only what he has done But what he expects of them And now it's time for them to make a commitment What we looked at last week Was the terms of the treaty The terms of the treaty were simple Obedience He laid out the law They were now to obey the law And of course, in the terms of the treaty He showed them the blessings

That would come with obedience And the cursings that would come with disobedience Well now as we come to chapters 29 and 30 It's decision time And so as we come to chapter 29 and 30 And so as we come to these chapters There's five things that I want you to pay attention to And we'll go through them one by one But these are the five things We're going to review the past We're going to see a call to obedience A warning of judgment A promise of restoration And then he'll call them to choose And so we pick up in chapter 29 verse 1 As he reviews the past It says these are the words of the covenant Which the Lord commanded Moses To make with the sons of Israel And the land of Israel And the land of Israel And the land of Israel And the land of Moab

Besides the covenant Which he had made with them at Horeb And Moses summoned all Israel And said to them You have seen all that the Lord did Before your eyes in the land of Egypt To Pharaoh and all his servants In all his land The great trials which your eyes have seen Those great signs and wonders Yet to this day The Lord has not given you A heart to know Nor eyes to see Nor ears to hear I have led you forty years In the wilderness Your clothes have not worn out on you Your sandal has not worn out on your foot You've not eaten bread Nor drunk wine or strong drink In order that you may know That I am the Lord your God And when you reach this place Sihon the king of Heshbon And Og the king of Bashan Came out to meet us for battle But we defeated them

And we took their land And gave it as an inheritance To the Reubenites The Gadites And the half tribe Of the Manassites Now as he starts chapter 29 in verse 1 I want you to take note of what he says Because this really sets the tone For where we go from here It says these are the words of the covenant Which the Lord commanded Moses To make with the sons of Israel In the land of Moab This covenant is besides the one That they made at Horeb Now this is if you will The same situation That they wrote to Moses They ran into when they were at Horeb If you remember Horeb Which you don't know if what If you don't know what Mount Horeb is It's also known as Mount Sinai Remember at Mount Sinai When Moses read the law to the people And they said

We will keep everything That the law has to say That was the initial covenant At Mount Horeb Which was being spoken of Now you know as well as I do That they didn't do very well With that covenant As a matter of fact They failed it Which is why They wandered the wilderness For 40 years This is the second time That they're making this covenant And the reason why They're having to make it A second time Is because most of the ones That made the covenant at Sinai Are no longer alive Most of the ones That had initially made that covenant Had died in judgment In the wilderness And quite frankly If there's anything That could speak to you About your need For the power of God For obedience It should be the understanding That the first ones

That made the covenant Couldn't keep it So they're not alive So God was making it again With you So he calls them to this And then as he calls them to this He does what is often done When God calls us To make a commitment He reminds them Of what he's already done He says remember what we did Remember what God did To Pharaoh in the land of Egypt And a lot of them Probably don't remember Because a lot of them Probably were not alive But you know what They'd heard the stories Because after all What had they been commanded To do over And over and over again Teach these things To your children So that they will know So that they will know What's taken place So that they will understand The God that they serve He said you know what God did

To the nation of Egypt How he absolutely obliterated Pharaoh and all of his armies As he delivered the nation of Israel In such a powerful way Out of the land of Egypt And not only what he did In Egypt As he brought them out Through great trials And signs and wonders Which their eyes See But notice what it says In verse four Yet to this day The Lord Has not given you A heart to know Nor eyes to see Nor ears to hear That I have led you Forty years in the wilderness I don't know that we always Fully grasp how well God takes care of us The children of Israel It says that God actually Did not give them A heart to see Or perceive that Because often times The only way that we can Really see How well God Has taken care of us Is if he actually

Pulls back the veil Of the spiritual things That are going on And allows us to see into All the things that are happening And we go Whoa I had no idea What was taking place I had no idea How God was at work In that entire time I had no idea How much God was taking care of me Well I'm not huge On the footprints in the sand Because that's given A little bit too much Precedence In the world And that's not actually A scriptural reading There is something Kind of interesting About that poem The footprints in the sand As they didn't realize That when there was only One set of footprints In the sand The reason why Is because God was Carrying them The entire time And that's what The nation of Israel Didn't realize And what's fascinating Is when we look back

And we say Lord where were you In all of those hard times And he says Well I don't know I was right there And we go I didn't see you I didn't see you Sometimes I think One of the best things We can do is say Lord will you just Every now and then Just pull back that veil So that I can see Just how much You're taking care of me So that I can fully Understand the provision That you have in my life And you know He's always really gracious To do that He's always really gracious To show us Those areas of grace That he uses in our lives To provide for us He says God didn't even allow you To see all that That for 40 years Your clothes didn't wear out Your sandals didn't wear out You didn't have to bake bread You didn't have anything Of your own to drink

Because God literally Gave it to you Everywhere that you went So that you might know That I am the Lord And that only had God Delivered them from Egypt Cared for them in the wilderness But he had shown himself Mighty on their behalf When Sihon and Og Came against them With all of their armies And as they came against The nation of Israel With all of their armies God brought them victory Such amazing victory That they were then able To distribute that land To all of the people Around them Why does Moses Take this time To rehearse what God Has done for them? Because brothers and sisters Were reminded of a truth In our lives A truth that I will Never stop telling people Because it's the only way I know to live my life And it's the only way

Scripture tells us To live our lives You and I were created To be responders We were created to respond To what God has done for us We never have to earn his love We never have to earn his care We never have to earn His provision in our lives As a matter of fact It tells us that he causes His reign to fall On the just And the unjust alike But we now come to God In response To everything that he's done for us Why should I commit my heart And obedience to him? Because it's the natural response Of what God has done for me And as he lays out What God has done for him As he reviews all of the past things That God has done He now calls them to obedience That's the second thing A call to obedience Notice what it says in verse 9

So keep the words of this covenant To do them That you may prosper In all you do You stand today All of you Before the Lord your God Your chiefs Your chief priests Your tribes Your elders And your officers Even all the men of Israel Your little ones Your wives And the alien Who is within your camp From the one who chops your wood To the one who draws your water That you may enter Into the covenant With the Lord your God And into his oath Which the Lord your God Is making with you today In order that he may Establish you today As his people And that he may be your God Just as you are Just as he spoke to you And as he swore to your fathers To Abraham To Isaac And Jacob Not with you alone Am I making this covenant And this oath But both with those

Who stand with us today In the presence of the Lord our God And with those Who are not With us here today As he calls them to obedience The very first thing that he says is So Keep the words of this covenant To do them That word so Links it to everything That he's just said Up to this point in time God has miraculously provided for you He's miraculously delivered you And he has miraculously kept you All of this time in the wilderness So the logical step for you to take now Is to keep the words of this covenant I can't help but equate this To our new covenant lives As believers in Jesus Christ When we look at Romans chapter 12 Verses 1 and 2 When he says I beseech you Therefore brethren By the mercies of God That you should present your bodies

As a living sacrifice Why do we do so? Because With everything that God has done for us The most reasonable service We can give back to God Is to dedicate our entire selves To him He says So Keep the words of this covenant But it's not just because It's the most logical thing To do It's the most protective thing For us to do Notice what he says in verse 9 That you may prosper In all that you do He's telling some young people this week The most protected place you can be Is by living in obedience It's the safest place you can possibly be Now listen That doesn't mean that We won't face the dangers of this world By living in obedience I think we know that that's not the case But if I'm at a really good place With my savior Then this world can do to me

What they want to Because it doesn't matter Because in the will of God I'm as safe As I can possibly be He says Keep the words of this covenant So that you may prosper in the land He goes on to say This covenant Is for everybody that's standing here today From the most mighty of you To the smallest service The one who chops your wood And it's not just with you That I'm making this covenant It's with everyone Everyone who comes out After you It's with the generations That will come after you Because that's the way God's covenant would be set up Is it wouldn't just be a covenant That would affect The one standing there today It would be a covenant That would affect the generations Until the coming of Jesus Christ When he would establish

A brand new covenant with them And so he calls them to obedience Not just them But everybody That will come after them But much like God often does After calling them to obedience He now warns them Of judgment Verse 16 starts off With a parenthetical statement here Do you notice this? It says For you know How we lived in the land of Egypt And how we came through the midst Of the nations through which you passed Moreover You have seen their abominations And their idols of wood Stone Silver And gold Which they had with them You see it starts off This warning of judgmentalism I want you to take notice Of what he first says to them You've seen what this world Has to offer Some of you remembered What it was like living in Egypt

And the gods that they worshipped In Egypt The false gods that they worshipped Often times in somewhat Heinous sort of ways You saw the gods of the lands That we came through And the awful ways That they worshipped God After all What was the very last thing That happened to them Right before Moses started Giving out this truth Of the book of Deuteronomy You had the instance with Balaam Where their worship of Baal Caused them to give in to Serial prostitution Cultic prostitution And because of that He says you've seen What the other nations have to offer You know the abominations That they have to offer And may I say Brothers and sisters in Christ Those of us that have walked with Jesus For any point in time For any amount of time

We've seen what the world has to offer We've seen what's in the world And it's nothing but abominations It's nothing but sin And it's nothing but death And as Paul said If we've been made alive in Christ Why would we go back And live in the death Because if you do It goes on to share The reason why he says that Is so that there Verse 18 Will not be among you A man Or woman Or family Or tribe Whose heart turns away today From the Lord our God To go and serve the gods Of those nations That there will not be among you A root Bearing poisonous fruit And wormwood It shall be when he hears The words of this curse That he will boast Saying I have peace Though I walk in the stubbornness Of my heart In order to destroy The watered land with the dry

The Lord shall never be willing To forgive him But rather the anger of the Lord And his jealousy Will burn against that man And every curse Which is written in this book Will rest on him And the Lord will blot out His name from under heaven Let's stop there Because I want to talk about Something real quick He says the reason why I want you to remember What the rest of the land Looked like What the nation of Egypt Had to offer What the world And all the nations That we came through Had to offer Is because I don't want To be a part of the world I don't want to be a part of the world I don't want any of you Whether it be a tribe Or a family Or an individual To give in to idolatry Why? Because sin Will become a poisonous root Among you In other words

It will spread like a poison And it will start off small I was sharing this With somebody just today I said remember Remember what we talked about On Sunday About sin Or about leprosy And they said yeah And I said you know Here's the thing That you have to know About leprosy Leprosy starts off small And it slowly but surely Begins to spread Until it covers The entire body And once it covers The entire body It will not stop Until the body is dead And that's exactly What sin does in our lives That's what idolatry does In our lives He says I want you to remember All of that abomination So that there will not be Amongst any of you Whether it be an individual A family or a tribe Any sort of idolatry Because once it takes its root

It will become a poisonous root It's what we've seen happen In our nation It's what we see happening In our churches today It's what we see happening In our families today And it's what we see happening In individuals today Sin has taken a poisonous root In the heart And as it takes that poisonous root Listen unless it's dug up And dealt with It will eventually destroy The entire thing Because brothers and sisters I know I'm preaching To the choir here But that's exactly What's happening To our nation right now Is the poisonous root Has taken hold And it's destroying The entire nation And the poisonous root Didn't just take hold In the democratic party The poisonous root Took hold in both parties Because it's taken root In the heart of the nation

And he says It's got to be dealt with If not This is what's going to happen There shall be one Who hears the words of the curse And he will boast saying Hey I'm worshipping idols Nothing's happened to me I've worshipped idols And I haven't had Any of those curses Happen to me Yet Because you know What happens to us God doesn't always deal With sin the first time God doesn't always deal With sin When it first starts Into our lives And often times As human beings Often times as believers We mistake God's patience For his approval And we say But nothing's happened to me Yet That must not be As big of a deal As I thought And we say When we mistake God's patience For his approval That root Takes hold In our heart But one thing We can know for sure

If we don't dig that root up And throw it away If we don't get rid of that sin In our lives And stop being What I would call Rebellious and presumptuous In our sin Eventually God has to deal with us And that's what he says Is going to have to happen To the nation And quite frankly I'm reading this book In the book of Jeremiah right now That is what happens To the nation As a matter of fact It's fascinating To come to the book of Jeremiah Because you know I read through the kings And then I read through the chronicles And I've been in Some of the prophets And now that I'm in Jeremiah You know through the prophets It's like hey turn Turn from your sin So that you don't go Into captivity Turn so that this Doesn't happen to you Turn from your sin

Because this is the punishment That's coming And in Jeremiah God's like Don't worry about it anymore Just tell him it's coming Turn from your sin Stop praying for them now Because whether they want To believe it or not Judgment is coming And that's the hard thing About reading the book of Jeremiah That's why Jeremiah Was the weeping prophet Because Jeremiah Had to stand up In front of everybody And say I know all the prophets Are telling you Everything's going to be fine But trust me Everything's not going to be fine I feel like that sometimes When I preach right I'm like listen It's going to get worse okay We just need to know that That's kind of how Jeremiah Had to be Everything's not going to be fine But God is still in control So he says

These are the things That are going to come on you If you decide That you don't want to get rid Of that Poisonous root Middle of verse 20 Every curse Which is written in this book Will rest on him That should just be enough Right there That's enough of a warning The Lord will blot out his name From under heaven And then the Lord Will single him out For adversity Can I just say this Say nothing would make me Want to soil my britches More than the thought Of the Lord singling me out For adversity Then the Lord will single him out For adversity From all the tribes of Israel According to all the curses Of the covenant Which are written in this book Now the generation to come Your sons will rise up after you And foreigners who come From a distant land

When they see the plagues Of the land And the diseases With which the Lord Has afflicted it Will say All its land is brimstone And salt Of the land of Israel A burning waste Unsewn And unproductive No grass grows in it Like the overthrow Of Sodom and Gomorrah Adma and Zeboiim Which the Lord overthrew In his anger And in his wrath All the nations will say Why has the Lord Done thus to this land? Why this great outburst of anger? And men will say Because they forsook The covenant of the Lord The God of their fathers Which he made with them When he brought them Out of the land of Egypt They went and served Other gods and worshipped them Gods whom they've not known And whom he had not Allotted to them Therefore the anger of the Lord

Burned against that land To bring upon it every curse Which is written in this book And the Lord uprooted them From their land In anger and in fury And in great wrath And cast them into another land As it is this day Take note of what it says About the things That God's going to do First he's going to bring the curses And then he's going to bring the plagues And then God will single them out For judgment So much so That everybody is going to look At the land of Israel Foreigners and all And say What the heck happened here? This used to be a place That was beautiful And now it's only Brimstone and salt It's kind of interesting Isn't it? Because when they were Coming into the land What did God call this land? A land flowing with Milk and honey

And yet what does their sin Cause it to become? A land full of Brimstone Salt Like the overflow Of Sodom and Gomorrah Remember Sodom and Gomorrah? Remember that land? Do you remember what God Rained down on them? He rained down fire Sulfur raining down on them Brimstone And do you remember on the way out? On the way out of Sodom and Gomorrah God said Just don't look back

Okay? Run till you can't run no more Just don't look back Lot's got a hold of his wife With one hand His daughter's with the other hand And they're running What does his wife do? She looks back Remember what she turned into? She turned into a pillar of salt Brimstone Salt He says That's what your land Is going to become And may I say I believe that this is true For any nation That stops honoring The Lord their God Is they eventually become A nation That produces Nothing And then all the nations Will ask Why?

All the nations will ask Why? Why did this happen? Why would God have allowed this To happen to this land? And you know what's fascinating? God says All the nations will say It's because they forsook The Lord their God Isn't it funny how Though the people of the world Don't understand what it is To follow God They can see the judgment of God In a believer of God

Can they not? They can see the discipline of God In a person of God They're like Whoa, what happened to that guy? He must have stopped doing What he was supposed to be doing I've shared this before But there is nothing worse Than being rebuked By the people of the world I remember working on a job At one time And I just All the cares of the world Were weighing me down Heavy And it was written all over my face Because I wear everything All over my face And somebody said What's wrong? I'm like man, I got problems They said I thought if you gave Your problems to God You wouldn't have any problems And I was like You know Shot through the heart You're to blame I'm giving Jesus a bad name Right?

And so It's an unfortunate thing When The world is able to identify The discipline of God in our lives But listen, they always can But it will be a way that others Can learn from our mistakes And that's the goal He says The anger of the Lord burned So that other people will look And they will say Let's not do what they did Now verse 29 As we end chapter 29 Is an interesting verse It's the verse that I call The elastic clause of the Bible It says The secret things Belong To the Lord our God But the things revealed Belong to us And to our sons forever That we may observe All the words of this law This is one of the most comforting scriptures I know of In all of the Old Testament Because I don't know about you But sometimes I have questions

Matter of fact I sort of keep a running file In the back of my mind Of things that I don't agree with That the Bible says That I have questions about I know I'm going to be wrong I know I'm going to be the one That's found wrong So don't start getting all worked up on me But I have a lot of questions sometimes And you know what Other people have questions There's a lot of things in life That I can't answer And in my line of work I have to try to answer A lot of questions And sometimes I legit Just have to say It's a good one We're going to have to file that one Under waiting for more information Especially when you're walking Somebody through grief Especially when you're walking Through somebody Through a really hard time Is you just have to say

Dude I can't tell you I have no idea Why God would allow this That's Sometimes that's not for me to know But the secret things They belong to God And I tell this to people sometimes There are going to be things in life That you will never Have the answer to The first thing I want to say To a lot of people Don't like that answer But I tell them Only what I got Is there's just some things in life That there's just no answer to But the important thing Is that we do What we're supposed to With the things that we do know Because while the world Is full of a lot of questions That I cannot answer There are things that I will Always come back to and say But the revealed things That's what belongs to me That's why anytime I teach something in scripture

That I don't fully grasp Or I maybe don't know I always try to bring you back To what's the point of Jesus That we need to get to here What about Jesus Do we need to see about this Because that's the one thing I can always point you back to Because the revealed things Belong to us Don't worry about the questions You can't answer Don't worry about the things That you don't know just yet You obey what you do know to do I tell the same thing to kids That want to know What they're supposed to do With their lives Well I don't know What I'm supposed to do next Well do the next right thing What do you know You're supposed to do tomorrow Show up to work Good Do that You know that right now You've got to finish strong In whatever school you're in

You've got to finish strong In whatever job you're in You've got to do The next right thing Because that's what God Has revealed to you You know that you're supposed to do Everything is unto the Lord You know that you're supposed To glorify Him In everything that you do You know you're supposed To seek Him In all of His wisdom And anything else Will let God answer in His time Because you know what we're told In the book of Ecclesiastes He makes all things beautiful In His time The secret things belong to God The revealed things belong to us Pay attention to what you do know Trust God with what you don't As we move into chapter 30 Things are going to get Just a touch happier Because now we're going to see The promise of restoration Chapter 30 verse 1

So it shall be When all of these things Have come upon you The blessing and the curse Which I have set before you And you call them to mind In all of the nations Where the Lord your God Has banished you I want you to take note Of one word It's an important word It says So it shall be When all of these things Come upon you When all of these things Notice he didn't say if He said when Why did he say when? He says when all of these things Come upon you When you've dealt with the blessings And the cursings And when you are where All the nations that he has banished you to What does he say when? Because he knows it's a foregone conclusion This is either Moses speaking In a very prophetic way Or Moses speaking to the people That have complained to him

For the past 40 years in the wilderness He's going when you guys screw this up And you will These are the things That you're going to need To pay attention to And you know what I can always rest In my ability to do I can always rest In my ability to screw things up It's really good to know That when I have hope He says when all these things Have come upon you And you call them to mind In the nations Where the Lord your God Has banished you And you return To the Lord your God And you obey him With all your heart And all of your soul According to all that I command you And your sons Then the Lord your God Will restore you And restore you from your captivity And have compassion on you And will gather you again From all the peoples

Where the Lord your God Has scattered you If your outcasts are at the ends of the earth From there The Lord your God Will gather you And will gather you From there He will bring you back The Lord your God Will bring you into the land Which your fathers possessed And you shall possess it And he will prosper you And multiply you Moreover The Lord Will circumcise your heart And the heart of your descendants To love the Lord your God With all your heart And with all your soul So that you May live What a beautiful promise That's made to them Because he knew It wasn't if It wasn't if they failed It was when they failed He says when you fail And you end up in All those other parts of the world Because I've banished you To all those other parts of the world

When you're there And you call to mind All of these things Then you return to me I will restore you And I'll bring you back To the land I've had the chance The past couple of days To do a lot of thinking About this particular section Of scripture And I'm reminded First of all Of what Jesus told in the Parable of the prodigal son How the prodigal son Lived in such a way As if he did not Want his parents To even be alive He came to his father And he said Hey I want my part Of the inheritance Now His father gave him The part of the inheritance Now And he went off And his scripture says He squandered it On riotous living Until he found himself Living in the pig pen Eating the pods Of the pigs And while he was in that place He thought to himself

Even the slaves In my father's house Eat better than I am Right now I'll go home And I'll tell my father I'm not worthy To be your son But if you'll just Accept me as a slave Then if you'll welcome me back I'll come home And of course He goes home And he's rehearsing The speech in his mind The whole way back And before He could even make it home His father ran to him And he greeted him And he welcomed him And before he could get The speech out of his mouth He said Somebody killed the fattened calf Because my son Has come home What a great story Because not only is it true of us Not only is it true of us But it's true of the nation of Israel There was going to be that point in time When the nation of Israel would say What am I doing?

I want to go back home But not only that I got to share With somebody this week About my own prodigal son's story That I'm going to go home And I'm going to go home And how there came a point in time Where I was like What am I doing? I just got to go home I just can't keep living In the pig pen any longer I got to go home And that's exactly what I did I went back home God restored me And so he says This is what's going to happen When that happens The Lord will restore you And he will gather you again And all the peoples From all the peoples Where the Lord has scattered you From your enemies Outcasts from the end of the earth From there the Lord your God Will gather you back Verse 4 And he will bring you back The Lord your God

Will bring you into the land Which your fathers possessed And you shall possess it And he shall prosper you And of course he moves into Alluding to the new covenant In verse 6 When he says Moreover the Lord your God Will circumcise your heart The heart of your descendants To love the Lord your God With all your heart And with all your soul So that you may live That same language gets used Not only in the book of Jeremiah But in the book of Ezekiel To speak of what God will do In giving a brand new heart To those who would be A part of the new covenant And he goes on from there To say the Lord your God Will inflict all these curses On your enemies And all those who hate you Who persecuted you And you shall again Obey the Lord

And observe all his commandments Which I command you today Then the Lord your God Will prosper you abundantly And all the work of your hand And the offspring of your body Will prosper you The offspring of your cattle And in the produce of your ground For the Lord your God Again will rejoice over you for good Just as he rejoiced Over your forefathers If you obey the Lord your God To keep his commandments And his statutes Which are written In this book of the law If you turn to the Lord your God With all your heart and soul For this commandment Which I command you today Is not too difficult for you Nor is it out of reach It is not in heaven That you should say Who will go up to heaven For us to get it That we may observe it Nor is it beyond the sea

That you should say Who will cross the sea for us To go get it And make us hear it That we may observe it But the word is very near you In your mouth And in your heart That you may observe it Now This statement of restoration Has implications first of all I believe for us as human beings When we get to that place of Being very far off from the Lord We can call to God From wherever we are And he will restore us And he will make us brand new again But of course there's also implications For the nation of Israel Because we have seen a progression Of this take place Within the nation of Israel The first regathering that we saw Was after they were gone With the Babylonian captivity And God gathered them back together again

And began to prosper them in the land That was a partial fulfillment of this And then of course what we're seeing now Is another regathering of the nation of Israel As they're coming back together As they started coming back together Since the beginning of the world Since the beginning of the world Since the 40s When they started When they became a nation once again And we're seeing God prosper them We've seen the land go from a land That wasn't producing anything To a land that is one of the major producers In the Middle East God is prospering them But he's not done yet Because the ultimate fulfillment of that That's mentioned here Will be of course in that millennial kingdom When God prospers the nation of Israel And pours out his blessings on them

To an even greater degree And of course he says This commandment which I command you today Is not too difficult for you Now we must understand something There were really kind of three aspects To this old covenant right Because while it is impossible to obey The way that God calls for us to To be perfect To be holy As God is holy We're reminded that first of all The old covenant meant obedience Obedience to everything that God had to say Second of all it meant a choice A choice to follow God with all of your heart But when you failed in those areas There was a sacrificial system That allowed you to continue to be right with the Lord In spite of your sin A sacrificial system that looked forward To the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ

So while it was a difficult law to keep Because it's hard to obey God There were provisions for those who failed And the provision was the sacrifices that God gave Well now as we finish off chapter 30 We see that it's now time to choose To obey God Notice what he says in verse 15 See I have set before you today Life and prosperity And death and adversity In that I command you today To love the Lord your God To walk in his ways And to keep his commandments And his statutes and his judgments That you may live and multiply And that the Lord your God May bless you In the land where you are entering To possess But if your heart turns away And you will not obey But are drawn away And worship other gods and serve them I declare to you today

That you shall surely perish You will not prolong the days Your days in the land Where you are crossing the Jordan To enter and possess it I call heaven and earth To witness against you today That I have set before you Life and death The blessing and the curse So choose to obey God Choose life In order that you may live And your descendants By loving the Lord your God By obeying his voice And by holding fast to him For this is your life And the length of your days That you may live in the land Which the Lord swore to your fathers To Abraham and Isaac And Jacob to give to them After he's laid all of these things out to them He says You now have a place to live in the land of Israel You now have a choice to make And the choice that you have to make

Is between obedience and disobedience Obedience will mean All of the blessings of God Will come upon you Disobedience will mean All of the cursings of God Will come upon you But the choice was even deeper than that Because not only was it the choice To obey or disobey It was the choice to live Or to die If you're a person that underlines I would underline that Verse 19 Because he says I call heaven and earth As witness against you today That I have set before you Life and death Blessing and cursing So choose life Choose life That you may live You and your descendants After you I don't know that we always put it In those kind of contexts To think about Following Jesus As the choice Between life And death But the choice is constantly Laid before us

So what does it mean for us To choose life For the nation of Israel it was very clear Choosing life meant I will keep the old covenant I will obey and when I fail to obey I will keep the sacrifices So I will keep myself right with God Obedient Or a Choosing life Meant choosing To follow the old covenant But what does it mean for us Because we're not old covenant saints We're new covenant saints So when he says choose life What does it mean Well I think it means three things Number one It means putting our faith in Christ It means to put our faith in Jesus Christ It starts with that step of salvation I think most of us here have made that choice But it's still an important choice That has to be made for all of us Where will my faith be

Will my faith be in my own life Will my faith be in Some form of hope Outside of Christ Or will I rest all of my faith Upon Jesus Christ Because after all I have to choose life And my only life is found In Christ The second thing that it means for us Is an abiding relationship With Jesus Christ After all What does he say here By loving Verse 20 The Lord Jesus Christ is my life The Lord Jesus Christ is my life By obeying his voice And by holding fast to him For this Is your life Well for us brothers and sisters in Christ Knowing Jesus Is our life I'm reminded of a beautiful quote From A.W. Tozer in his book Pursuit of God To have found God And still be searching for him Is the soul's paradox Of love Because the soul's paradox Is that pursuit Of God

That pursuit Of my relationship With my creator And my savior Is My life It's what we were created for It's what we were created to do But then of course The third way That we choose life Is that we choose a life Of obedience In response To his grace Similar to the way That we ended last week Now we're in a place Now that we have been saved, what manner of men and women ought we to be in all holiness and godly conduct? Brothers and sisters, Jesus has saved us from so much. He saved me from Egypt. He's preserved me, and He continues to give me victory.

So now, in response to Him, I choose to obey with my entire heart and soul, because He has shown me so much grace. It's the most natural decision I can make in my life. A choice lays before us. I sure hope we choose life. Would you guys bow with me? Father, we come to You, and thank You for the time that we've had in Your Word this morning. I do that every time. This evening, Lord, that we have been able to be here

learning from You, and Lord, that You have been faithful to Your Word, as You always are. So, Lord, use this Word in our hearts and lives as we go out from this place. Draw us near to You. Fashion in us the hearts of men and women of God that You want us to be. Lord, we thank You, and we praise You in Jesus' name. Amen. Be blessed.