Sunday Evening Bible Study

October 14, 2001

Introduction

The name Deuteronomy means “second law”. It is Moses’ final address to the people. It covers the last 1½ months of Moses’ life.  He’s 120 years old.  It’s God’s “review” for the people to make sure they understand His ways before they go into the land.

Deuteronomy 28

:1-14  Blessings for Obedience

:1  that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth:

This is a promise again for Israel, but there is a sense in which it can apply to any nation.

(Prov 14:34 KJV)  Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.

:2 And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God.

I like the idea of God’s blessings “overtaking” me.

There was but a brief time in my life when girls actually chased me.  It was in first grade. Even though there was a part of you that was running for your life, there was a part of you that was glad to get caught.

God’s blessings will “overtake” us when we are walking in obedience to the Lord.

:4 Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body…the increase of thy kine

fruit of thy body – your children

kine – your cows

:5 Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store.

thy store – A wide, shallow bowl used to prepare dough for making bread.

:7 The LORD shall cause thine enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face

Lesson

Obedience leads to stronger victory.

Don’t let the Satan tempt you by saying, “Just do it this once …”

Each time you make a decision to obey, you will grow stronger in victory.  Each time you yield to temptation, you grow weaker and weaker.

:12 The LORD shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season

God, not Baal, provides rain from His storehouse to make the land fertile.

:14  thou shalt not go aside from any of the words

Lesson

Blessings come from obedience

When we are walking in obedience, there is no promise that we won’t have difficult times.

But God does promise to bring blessings because of obedience.

Sometimes we can fall into the trap of thinking that it’s not “worth it” to obey the Lord.  The unbeliever thinks that being a “Christian” means not having any “fun”.

But in the long run, you are WAY AHEAD by following the Lord.  You may not have the blessings of hangovers or venereal disease, but you will have God’s blessings.

:15-  Curses for disobedience

:21  until he have consumed thee from off the land,

Lesson

Getting our attention.

I sometimes joke about having to be hit over the head with a two-by-four to get my attention.  It seems that sometimes that is exactly what God has to do to get me to listen to Him.

You can get the wrong idea about these verses if you’re not careful.  You can get the idea that God is out to completely destroy His people when they disobey Him.  And it certainly sounds like that. 

But hang on and keep reading.  You’ll find that God will be progressively making things more and more difficult for His people for the purpose of helping them to turn back to Him.  If you hang on to the end of the chapter, you’ll see that all along, God will allow difficult times to come for the very purpose of bringing His straying children back to Him.  He’s trying to get their attention.

:22  consumption…with blasting

consumption – “wasting disease” (NLT)

blasting – “blight” (NIV), “plant diseases” (ICB)

:23 And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron.

It probably refers to a lack of rain.

We often think of this as prayer that can’t reach heaven.  Both ideas seem appropriate.

:25 The LORD shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies

Here’s where I’ve expressed my concerns about the safety of our nation.  We can tend to think that because we have such advanced weapon systems that we will automatically win every battle we are engaged in.  Even though I believe it is completely and totally correct for us to go after and punish the terrorists of the world, I am concerned about whether or not we will see God’s protection over us because of the moral mess our nation has been in the last fifty years.

:27 The LORD will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed.

botch … emerods – Better, boils … tumors or hemorrhoids.

the scab –  scurvy

the itch – probably scabies.

:34  thou shalt be mad for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see.

(Deu 28:34 NKJV)  "So you shall be driven mad because of the sight which your eyes see.

:35  sore botch

severe boils

:36 The LORD shall bring thee, and thy king which thou shalt set over thee, unto a nation which neither thou nor thy fathers have known; and there shalt thou serve other gods, wood and stone.

A prediction of the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities, which would be more than 700 years in the future.  One day God’s patience would run out for the nation, and God would allow them to be taken captive by foreign powers.

(Dan 5:1-4 KJV)  Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. {2} Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink therein. {3} Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which was at Jerusalem; and the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, drank in them. {4} They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.

Lesson

God will let you

If someone continues to live after the things of the world, there can come a day when God will let them experience all that they are craving.

It won’t be a pleasant thing, it will be a horrible thing.

:38 Thou shalt carry much seed out into the field, and shalt gather but little in; for the locust shall consume it.

(Joel 1:4 KJV)  That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten.

A sign of God’s judgment would be the poor harvest reaped from the fields.

:40  for thine olive shall cast his fruit.

(Deu 28:40 NLT)  the trees will drop the fruit before it is ripe.

:43  The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high;

The foreigners living in Israel would grow in power over the Jewish people.

:45 Moreover all these curses shall come upon thee, and shall pursue thee, and overtake thee, till thou be destroyed; because thou hearkenedst not unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded thee:

All this comes to a people who are stubborn to refuse to obey the Lord.

:47 Because thou servedst not the LORD thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things;

(Deu 28:47 NLT)  Because you have not served the LORD your God with joy and enthusiasm for the abundant benefits you have received,

Lesson

Attitude

(Psa 100:1-2 KJV)  A Psalm of praise. Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. {2} Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing.

Serving without the right attitude is a waste of time.

(1 Cor 13:1-3 KJV)  Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. {2} And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. {3} And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

(2 Cor 9:7 KJV)  Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.

What causes people to feel such great heaviness or pressure in serving the Lord?

Trying to bear burdens He did not put on us.

If the burden is heavier than you can bear you can be sure of one thing, He didn't put it on you

(Mat 11:28-30 KJV)  Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. {29} Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. {30} For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

God is concerned not just that we serve Him, but that we learn to serve Him with the right heart.

:48 Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the LORD shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and

:48  he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee.

A yoke was a picture of slavery, labor, an ox pulling a plow at the command of the master.

Just before the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem, one of the false prophets made a prediction that the Babylonians would go away.  Jeremiah had been wearing a yoke made of wood as a way of displaying that the people were going to be in bondage to the Babylonians.  One of the prophets took Jeremiah’s yoke and broke it, proclaiming that the people would soon be free.  God gave Jeremiah a message:

(Jer 28:13-14 KJV)  Go and tell Hananiah, saying, Thus saith the LORD; Thou hast broken the yokes of wood; but thou shalt make for them yokes of iron. {14} For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; I have put a yoke of iron upon the neck of all these nations, that they may serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; and they shall serve him: and I have given him the beasts of the field also.

God was telling the people that they weren’t going to get out of the bondage they were heading into.  They wouldn’t be able to break what was about to happen.

:49 The LORD shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand;

Several times this was fulfilled in different ways.  It happened in 722 BC when the Assyrian empire conquered the northern kingdom of Israel.  It also happened in 586 BC when the Babylonians conquered the southern kingdom of Judah.

(Hab 1:6-8 KJV)  For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwellingplaces that are not theirs. {7} They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves. {8} Their horses also are swifter than the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves: and their horsemen shall spread themselves, and their horsemen shall come from far; they shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat.

:53 And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters

This is speaking of cannibalism of their own children during times of siege and famine.

This also would happen several times.  One of the occurrences was when the northern kingdom of Israel had their capital city of Samaria besieged by the Syrians:

(2 Ki 6:24-30 KJV)  And it came to pass after this, that Benhadad king of Syria gathered all his host, and went up, and besieged Samaria. {25} And there was a great famine in Samaria: and, behold, they besieged it, until an ass's head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a cab of dove's dung for five pieces of silver. {26} And as the king of Israel was passing by upon the wall, there cried a woman unto him, saying, Help, my lord, O king. {27} And he said, If the LORD do not help thee, whence shall I help thee? out of the barnfloor, or out of the winepress? {28} And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? And she answered, This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may eat him to day, and we will eat my son to morrow. {29} So we boiled my son, and did eat him: and I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son, that we may eat him: and she hath hid her son. {30} And it came to pass, when the king heard the words of the woman, that he rent his clothes; and he passed by upon the wall, and the people looked, and, behold, he had sackcloth within upon his flesh.

:58 THE LORD THY GOD

Or, Yahweh, Thy God.

:59  Then the LORD will make …

The idea is that with each warning that is ignored, the next judgment becomes greater.

:62 And ye shall be left few in number

There would always be a remnant, as we read in Isaiah this morning:

(Isa 1:9 KJV)  Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.

This is because God’s judgment was out of discipline, and not for the purpose of destroying them.

:66 And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life:

Quite a picture of the person who has been running from God.  No rest, filled with fear, doubt, guilt.

:68 And the LORD shall bring thee into Egypt again with ships

After the Babylonian captivity, God allowed the nation to come back into the land and they rebuilt Israel.  But it was only for a while, for 500 years.  In AD 70, it was again a time for judgment, and the Romans leveled what remained of the Jewish nation.  At that time, according to Josephus, many were taken in slavery and transported in “ships” to “Egypt”.

Deuteronomy 29

:1  These are the words of the covenant, which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb.

Some feel this verse belongs at the end of the previous chapter (Deut. 28), referring to everything up to this point.  Others feel that it belongs to the next couple of chapters.

Basically, it’s just a reminder that the book of Deuteronomy is a second giving of the law, the first giving being done at Mount Horeb, also known as Mount Sinai.

:4 Yet the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.

(Psa 106:7-8 KJV)  Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt; they remembered not the multitude of thy mercies; but provoked him at the sea, even at the Red sea. {8} Nevertheless he saved them for his name's sake, that he might make his mighty power to be known.

For all that’s happened to them, the people somehow didn’t really grasp all that God had done.

It’s a sad thing for a person to live their life without having a clue as to what God has been doing in their life.

:5 And I have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot.

waxen – grow

Imagine going for forty years without having your shoes or clothes wearing out or having to change them.  I know for some gals this doesn’t sound like a blessing, but it is.

:7 And when ye came unto this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, came out against us unto battle, and we smote them:

This refers to the specific place where they were camped at the time that Moses was giving them this “second law”, on the “plains of Moab”.  They were camped on the eastern side of the Jordan, just north of the Dead Sea.  The kingdoms of Sihon and Og were the area on the eastern side of Jordan, from the Dead Sea up past Galilee.  These are the kings that they have already conquered.

:8 And we took their land, and gave it for an inheritance unto the Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and to the half tribe of Manasseh.

The two and a half tribes had already begun to settle on the eastern side of Jordan.

:12 That thou shouldest enter into covenant with the LORD thy God

They are here this day to make a contract with God, a covenant.

:13 That he may establish thee to day for a people unto himself

This is specifically a covenant that God had with the nation of Israel.  It’s not really a new covenant, just a renewing with this new generation the covenant that God made with Israel on Mount Sinai.  This is the Mosaic Covenant.

:15 with him that is not here with us this day:

The covenant isn’t just with this generation of people, but also with the future generations of Israelites.

:17 And ye have seen their abominations

Lesson

Danger at the eye-gate.

The Israelites would be facing all kinds of temptations because they had and will be exposed to the different perversions of the surrounding nations.

Over and over God warns them not to go after the gods of the other nations, nor to do the things that they did.

But part of the temptation comes simply from the fact that they’ve seen what goes on.

Sin is birthed when we are carried away by our own inner lusts:

(James 1:13-15 KJV)  Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: {14} But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. {15} Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

But sometimes the lusts are started by the very things we allow ourselves to be exposed to:

(Gen 3:6 KJV)  And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

Sometimes you can’t avoid what you see.  Sometimes you just can’t avoid the things in the world.

But sometimes you can.

Don’t expose yourself to more of the world than you need to be exposed to.  It doesn’t mean that you’re going to stop sinning, but you can at least cheat your flesh from finding more ways to sin.

:18 Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations;

God doesn’t want us following the examples of the world around us.

:18  lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood;

gall – ro'sh –  a poisonous plant, prob. the poppy (from its conspicuous head); gen. poison (even of serpents):--gall, hemlock, poison, and venom.

wormwood – la'anah; from an unused root supposed to mean to curse; wormwood (regarded as poisonous, and therefore accursed):--hemlock, wormwood. A plant known for its bitter pulp and often associated with poison.

The warning is that a person or a group could infect the entire nation with the poison of idolatry.

I believe that this is what the writer to the Hebrews is referring to:

(Heb 12:11-15 KJV)  Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. {12} Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; {13} And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed. {14} Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: {15} Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;

When we allow sin to go unchecked, it can cause a “root of bitterness” to spring up, and cause many people to sin.

Your sin doesn’t just affect you, it can cause a plant with seeds to spring up and spread.

:19 And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst:

(Deu 29:19 NLT)  Let none of those who hear the warnings of this curse consider themselves immune, thinking, 'I am safe, even though I am walking in my own stubborn way.' This would lead to utter ruin!

Don’t be thinking that you are the one person that is going to get away with it.

Lesson

Be real through and through

We cross a dangerous line when we think that all God is concerned about is our outward actions.

God wants us to be faithful to Him not only in our actions, but even in our thoughts, in our imagination.

At this weekend’s Men’s Retreat, I taught on Romans 12 –

(Rom 12:9 KJV)  Let love be without dissimulation (hypocrisy)

The point here was that love, or, “passion”, must be real.  There is no room for faking the “passion” or love that God wants us to be having.

Two of the studies at the retreat dealt with the two greatest commandments –

(Mat 22:36-40 KJV)  Master, which is the great commandment in the law? {37} Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. {38} This is the first and great commandment. {39} And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. {40} On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

When we talk about “love” being “real”, we should think of it in terms of both our love for God and our love for people.

God wants our love for Him to be real.  He wants our actions that seem to be “religious” to be things that come from a heart of passion for the Lord.  The Pharisees had fallen into a trap of only being religious on the outside and not in their hearts.

(Mat 15:7-9 KJV)  Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, {8} This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. {9} But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

We also need to think of our love for others being real, not just words, but actions as well.

There are people who will be nice to you just to achieve a certain purpose.

Illustration

A Mexican bandit made a specialty of crossing the Rio Grande from time to time and robbing banks in Texas. Finally, a reward was offered for his capture. An enterprising Texas Ranger decided to track him down. After a lengthy search, he traced the bandit to his favorite cantina, snuck up behind him, put his trusty six-shooter to the bandit’s head, and said, “You’re under arrest. Tell me where you hid the loot or I’ll blow your brains out.” But the bandit didn’t speak English and the Ranger didn’t speak Spanish! Fortunately, a bilingual lawyer was in the saloon and translated the Ranger’s message. The terrified bandit blurted out, in Spanish, that the loot was buried under the oak tree in back of the cantina. “What did he say?” asked the Ranger. The lawyer answered, “He said, ‘Get lost, you turkey. You wouldn’t dare shoot me.’”

(1 John 3:18 KJV)  My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.

:24 Wherefore hath the LORD done thus unto this land?

When the nations see the destruction upon Israel, they’ll say, “Why did their God cause all this to happen?”

:29 The secret things belong unto the LORD our God:

God doesn’t choose to tell us everything.  He doesn’t have to tell us everything.

His ways are far beyond ours.

:29  but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.

Lesson

Obey what you know.

We are responsible for what has been revealed to us.

There are times when we don’t know the answers to some of life’s questions.  But God doesn’t hold us responsible for what we don’t know, He holds us responsible for what we do know.

Deuteronomy 30

:1  And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse,

We find that these aren’t just vague warnings to Israel, things that might not ever happen.  These are actually prophetic words.  God would show His blessings on Israel, but they would also turn their back on Him multiple times and experience God’s discipline as He tried to bring them back to Him.

:3 That then the LORD thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee,

Lesson

Just come back

There are times when God disciplines us, allowing us to go through hard times because of our sins.  He doesn’t do this to punish us, but to get us to come back to Him, to get us to turn away from our sin.

Here with Israel, God promises to “turn thy captivity” if they would only turn around.

We see this actually happened.  When the nation had been taken captive to Babylon and had been there for seventy years, Daniel turned to pray:

(Dan 9:1-5 KJV)  In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans; {2} In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem. {3} And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes: {4} And I prayed unto the LORD my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments; {5} We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments:

It was shortly after this time that Cyrus made his decree to free the Jews and to rebuild the temple.

Twice God has allowed His people Israel to go into captivity, and twice He has restored them to their land.

:6 And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed,

Circumcision was always intended to be a picture of this very thing, a circumcision of the heart.  Some people have gotten all caught up in the ritual of circumcision, when God has always been after the circumcision of the heart, not just the foreskin.

Circumcision represents a cutting away of the flesh. It’s a choice of living after the Spirit instead of after the flesh.

This new heart is essentially a mark of the “New Covenant”

(Ezek 36:24-27 KJV)  For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. {25} Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. {26} A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. {27} And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.

:6  to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.

This is all that God has been after all along.

Jesus called this the “greatest commandment”, loving God.

But for us to have a true love for God, we have to be able to have a choice to not love Him.  You can’t have true love if there’s no choice, otherwise you’re just a robot programmed to say “I love you”.

But because God has given us a choice, we’ve often chosen the wrong way, choosing to sin.

God’s desire is that we come back to Him and learn to choose to love Him.

:7 And the LORD thy God will put all these curses upon thine enemies, and on them that hate thee, which persecuted thee.

All the things that had been on Israel because of their disobedience, gets dumped on their enemies when they turn back to the Lord.

:8  thou shalt return and obey the voice of the LORD,

Lesson

Discipline leads to obedience

This is what God desires when we are disciplined.  He wants to bring us back to doing what we should.

(Psa 119:67 KJV)  Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word.

:11 For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off.

God doesn’t ask us to do some mysterious thing that we have to guess at.  His words aren’t hidden from us.

Ironically though, for many it is as good as “hidden” because we simply don’t take the time to read what it says.

:13 Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it?

You don’t have to go on some quest around the world to discover God’s will for your life.  It’s not in an impossible place to reach.

:14 But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.

God’s Word is right here.  We have it right in front of us.

Paul used this passage to apply the gospel to us:

(Rom 10:4-9 KJV)  For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. {5} For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them. {6} But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:) {7} Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.) {8} But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; {9} That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

God’s Word is right here.  Just do it.

:19  I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life,

We have a clear-cut choice to make.  Follow Him and follow life, reject Him and choose death.

Lesson

God wants you to choose life

God doesn’t want you to fail.  God wants you to succeed.  God isn’t against you.  God is for you.

Even when God disciplines us, it isn’t to destroy us, it is to bring us back to Him.  God wants to restore, but we must choose life.  We must choose Him.