Revering the Word
Deuteronomy 30 Before all is life or death, choose life.
Good morning everyone. This morning we are in Deuteronomy chapter 30 and what a remarkable chapter it is. So here we are. We have just seen the pronouncement of the blessings and curses. Blessings if they are going to obey God and the curses if they disobey God when they enter the Promised Land. They are still on this side of the Jordan River in the desert and we are getting more instruction to guide them so that when they get to the Promised Land they will remember the Lord. And here we go chapter 30 of Deuteronomy. 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 nations where the Lord your God has banished you. And what is being foretold here is Moses already has an understanding from God that they are going to disobey and as a result they are going to be banished. There will be a time in the future Moses is saying that because of your unfaithfulness and your disobedience that you are going to be banished but where you will return and that is what he is saying here and you return to the Lord your God and obey him with all your heart and soul according to all that I command you today you and your sons then the Lord your God will restore you from 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 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 more than your fathers. Let's continue reading through verse 10 and then we're going to have to talk about and it's going to be very interesting the history of Israel. Moreover the Lord your God 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 the Lord your God one flipped all these curses on your enemies this is one future day and on those who hate you who persecute 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 in all the work of your hand in the offspring of your body and in the offspring of your cattle and in the produce of your ground for the Lord will again rejoice over you for good just as he rejoiced over your fathers 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 so God was always desiring that Israel would love him with all their heart and soul and mind and strength and that they would show that through obedience to the law and when they forsook the law and therefore really were showing that they were not loving the Lord their God the way they should he forewarned them that they were going to be punished and even banished from the land but in that distant land that if they would remember him that he would remember them and he would return them to the land that he would bless them once again and that when he blessed them once again he wanted them and he and God even is foretelling that there would be a season where they would turn back to the Lord and love and obey him again now here we are and Israel is not even in the land they're being promised the land and they're about to head in to take over the land and they indeed do take it over and through David and then ultimately through Solomon they have unbelievable prosperity and abundance of peace but although Solomon had a lot of wisdom he also got caught up in a lot of sin and he and then his sons turned away from the Lord their God and they did not honor him the way they should and future generations after Solomon and after Solomon's children also forsook the Lord and did what was evil in the sight of God and worshiped false gods and set up false places of worship and worshiped false gods and God brought about the punishment that we're reading about here in Deuteronomy chapter 30 one of the main times of punishment was through the Assyrian Empire that came in and took over most of Israel especially the ten lost tribes the ten northern tribes Judah and Benjamin remained which they occupied Jerusalem and areas to the south and they were able to withstand or God allowed them to withstand the Assyrian dominion over them but eventually the Babylonians came in that are King Nebuchadnezzar and God allowed even then for Jerusalem so the two southern tribes that still remained to be deported to Babylon and they lost everything the walls were torn down and the temple was torn down and people spent 70 years in Babylon and you might recall they forsook the Sabbath year and their land did not rest in the seventh year and they were for 490 years they didn't they didn't honor the Lord their God so then he rested the land for 70 years one one seventh of 490 that was the amount of years then that Israel was in Babylon 70 years but after 70 years you know King Nebuchadnezzar had died the Babylonian Empire got taken over by the Persians and God gave favor to Israel and through Ezra and Nehemiah you right right recall they came back and God gave them back not really their land though so the fullness of this promise it has not been fulfilled there was not fulfilled in this era but they were allowed to go back so a measure of it came to pass where they came back and they rebuilt the walls and rebuilt the temple and that's why there was a second temple a temple that was existent in Jesus's day when he came many years later they began going back to rebuilding around in the 400 BC range you know Jesus came you know as a babe sometime around one BC and then lived to about 33 AD and that new temple they built was still existent at that time but it wasn't their country they no longer were in the authority they no longer had the government they didn't have a theocracy anymore instead the Roman Empire at the time of Jesus was now leading the land and they were allowed to have the freedom of worship and the Pharisees and religious leaders were given some measure of authority over the temple area but they did not have a country again and they were being persecuted you know by the Roman Empire and they were looking for a day when God would return and restore them to their land well then in 70 AD so after the death and resurrection of Jesus about 37 years later Jerusalem got ransacked again and the temple got destroyed and you know at that time the Jewish people stopped doing their sacrifices because their temple was gone Christianity had dawned and was beginning to spread but now there was really they had been scattered the Jewish people had been scattered all over and there's really just a remnant and you know and that's the way it was for a long time think about that from 70 AD you know when when when the Jews were really scattered once again and what is incredible is that they were always then scattered for generation upon generation and they were heavily persecuted it's like the world has always been against Israel and the Jewish people and then all the way into you know the 1940s and we begin to have Hitler and the Holocaust and Jews being killed and looked at as not you know not worthy of life and and after World War II and after the great persecution of the Jewish people favor came upon the Jews got allowed is favored to come upon the Jews likely because the world just felt so much compassion for them for how they had been persecuted under Hitler and then after World War II the world decided to give them their land back isn't that interesting so they went they went from you know 500 some BC when Nebuchadnezzar took over Jerusalem and they lost their land even before that and the Assyrian Empire by the way but in 500 BC ish that they lost Jerusalem and and they didn't have a country again until about 1948 after World War II when Israel became a country again and that is a again another partial fulfillment you know one partial fulfillment would have been when they were allowed to return and rebuild their temple and their walls but they didn't have a country well in 1948 after all those years there's never been a country that wasn't a country in this case you know from 500 BC to 1948 so you're talking for 2,400 years they weren't a country and then they became a country again that's only through God that that could happen it's incredible you know but yet still it's not what it's going to be one day and I believe that these passages that we're looking toward today bring to mind in the church age that we're in now so one we've become grafted into the family line of Abraham through faith in Jesus and now we are to have faith in Jesus Christ and obey him because we love him and I believe that is it is referenced in here or are believed into this passage but the ultimate fulfillness of this is going to come in two future dispensations when Jesus Christ comes back for his millennial reign and they will get their land back and then finally in the new Jerusalem the new heaven and the new earth so I think this is being fulfilled this passage here in stages and in seasons of history that are yet to come but that's why you know what we still look to Israel and why a lot of the attacks and and even Christians who are opposed to Israel being in their land I honestly don't think that people that are teaching this kind of a thing they just don't know the Bible and we got to be careful to not be taught by people who don't know what they're talking about because God has a future plan for Israel and a future plan for that land and we need to be on God's side and that means that we do need to care about what happens to Israel in the land and you know I just think that's really important to be on God's side and he has a future plan for that land and for Israel and we're part of that as the church because we've been grafted into the family of God through Jesus Christ and now Israel really needs to the Jewish people they need to come to their Messiah they need to come to Jesus otherwise what's going to happen is they're going to pay a heavy price and I believe that the heaviest of that price is going to be paid during the tribulation when God's going to deal out his judgment his wrath upon people who have rejected the Messiah because Jesus is the Jewish Messiah and now those who have come to faith in him are part of his family and so that's a future age that's going to come as well during the tribulation well that's a lot to be said there but isn't it incredible that God already knew before they even crossed into the promised land that they were going to disobey that they were going to lose their land but that one day they would return and that they would obey and God would bless them again and we've already seen God begin to bless them again now through the existence of Israel but he's still got future blessing coming to those now who believe in Jesus Christ hallelujah all right verse 11 this is very interesting check this out for this commandment which I command you today is not too difficult for you so he's saying that even the commandment to obey the Lord their God and follow the laws not too difficult 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 for us and make us hear it that we may observe it nor is it beyond the sea that you should say who across the sea for us to get it for us 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 and although we learn that the law became a curse because the people just never obeyed it God is saying it's not that it was impossible but it turned out to be because they just didn't obey it and therefore they were under the curse but God is saying you know what you have an opportunity right now to obey and follow me do it and you know that is true for us today too not in adherence to the law but in faith in Jesus Christ we have the ability to come to faith in Jesus Christ and what he's about to say is choose life and we today have a choice to make are we going to trust in Jesus as our Lord and Savior and be forgiven of the curse because he became a curse for us and then because we love him to walk in obedience to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and that's a choice today as it was then listen to this see I have set before you verse 15 today life and prosperity and death and adversity what's your choice 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 which is always what he wanted for them to bear his image and likeness and be fruitful and multiply and that the Lord your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it 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 your days in the land where you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess it and listen to this what a strong and beautiful word this is 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 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 the Lord swore to your fathers to Abraham Isaac and Jacob to give them and see the Lord gave them that land and he's got future promises for that but here's the thing I've set before you life and death choose life and now we that's been set before us today through Jesus Christ Jesus Christ has been set before us as the Messiah as the Lamb of God it takes away the sins of the world and before us is life or death we can choose to trust in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior and be forgiven and be given the Holy Spirit and be promised eternal life and be brought into the family of God or we can deny him we cannot turn to him we can reject him and we can choose to live life our own way but if we do that we're going to face eternal punishment away from the Lord our God and before every person today is this choice of life and death will you trust in Jesus Christ he wants to he died to save all who will believe in him hallelujah so today this is partly fulfilled through the fact that today we can come to Jesus and may all of us choose life hallelujah I'm so grateful to know Jesus I'm so grateful that he came to reveal who God was and that he died and people saw him alive again I am grateful to be a believer in Jesus Christ I am grateful hallelujah to be welcomed into the family of God I am grateful hallelujah to have his Holy Spirit guidance and to have this whole Bible and to know the Lord because he's revealed himself through Jesus and to now be found in him and have purpose in his name and to have the forgiveness his sins and to be a child of God and to realize that while my time is up I've got a home with the Lord and heaven and I've got future heavenly places and and and ages to come where we're going to be with our Lord because of the forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ hallelujah yes I am grateful that the Lord God has allowed me to choose life and now I'm one of his children I pray that you would make that choice as well trust in the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul with all your mind and all your strength let him know confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead get water baptized do all of it place your faith in him get baptized be committed to the Lord your God and you can know that you have future heavenly places and ages where you be with the Lord to talk to your pastor get baptized place your faith in Jesus hallelujah and you've got a lot to look forward to God bless you all