Deuteronomy 30:11-14 (NKJV) 11 “For this commandment which I command you today is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off. 12 It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend into heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ 13 Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ 14 But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it.
We are looking at the role choice plays in our quest to walk in the favor that the Lord wants to provide for his church. We have seen that choice is at the heart of all aspects of man’s relationship with God. We have studied Deuteronomy 28 and found that the blessings of the covenant are dependent upon obeying the voice of the Lord and walking in his commandments. In Deuteronomy 30 the Lord sets before us a choice. We can choose life or death, blessing or cursing and the Lord encourages us to choose life.
According to Deuteronomy, the way we choose life is to obey the commandments of God. This is not living by law. Law is impersonal. It simply sets standards and established rules to which we must adhere. If we obey the law, we stay in the good graces of the lawgiver. If we disobey the law, we are punished. The Law of Moses that God gave to Israel was an outward thing. That is why it needed so many elements. That is not what we are talking about here.
Deuteronomy continually speaks of the voice of God, the ways of God and the commandments of God. The Law is simply about doing some things, not doing other things and the penalty that one must pay to stay in right standing according to the Law itself. The voice, ways and commandments of God assume we are in right standing and give us parameters to live by so we can take advantage of that standing.
They also provide parameters so that we will not step out of the covering of God and into a position of vulnerability. If we obey God’s voice and keep his commandments, we are in a protected and favored place. When we choose to disobey his voice and ignore his commandments, we make ourselves vulnerable to attack from the enemy. Since we have chosen to step into his domain, the Lord will not violate our choice and we will reap the consequences.
We live in a society that does not like parameters or consequences. Our media and education systems celebrate relativism where nothing is absolute. Bad behavior is excused as not the fault of the perpetrator. Personal accountability is looked on as too difficult for most people. America, which was built upon “rugged individualism”, is sliding towards a social structure where we do not take care of ourselves but expect others to provide for our needs.
My grandson asked me to coach his 8-10 year old basketball team. I do not think that we should pressure upon 8 to 10 year old kids to win. However, I do think that we should keep score and someone should win and someone should lose. The kids always ask me, “Did we win.” I am busy coaching not keeping score and I usually do not know.
Some will say that they should just play for fun and learning the game. Both things are true, but winning is fun. Learning to play the game right will lead to winning. Losing is not fun, but life is full of losing and winning. When they play with no accounting of the score, they do not learn to win. They also do not learn how to lose. Both are valuable lessons. Nevertheless, that does not fit with our feel good social structure.
You might say, “In the end they all had fun and they all feel good.” I say that in the end, they all feel the same and that is not life. You should learn to have fun even if you lose. You should also learn that winning is better. These are old-fashioned ideas I know, but I have a greater point to make.
God tells us that obedience has rewards and disobedience has consequences. He is not in heaven with a big hammer saying, “If you do right I will reward you but if you do something I don’t like I will hit you with my big hammer.” Rather he is saying, “You have a whole backyard to play in. Don’t play ball in the road where there is traffic. It is dangerous in the road!”
God speaks to us and shows us his ways in order to protect us. He gives us the choice to obey or disobey because that is what it means to be an adult. You will never rise above the choices you make. The problem with not learning accountability is that life is full of consequences and when you make the wrong choices, you will suffer those consequences. If you make the right choices, you will have good things. This does not happen because you are rewarded for not making God mad, but because you are choosing actions that lead to the good things available to you.
The question is whether this is just too hard for us. Is obeying God’s voice asking too much of us? Are his commandments too difficult to understand? Is keeping them unrealistic? The answer under the Old Covenant was yes. That is why God gave them the law. However, we live under the New Covenant. The New Covenant is completely different in nature. In today’s verses, we find that his commandments are not far off, they are in your heart and in your mouth. In Jeremiah, God speaks of the nature of the New Covenant.
Jeremiah 31:31-33 (NKJV) 31 “Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah– 32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
This is our covenant. The law is not just in a book. We do not need rules for every aspect of life. We do not need a list of sacrifices that must be offered when we break the rules. The Law still exists. God has not changed his standards. However, God has written those laws on our hearts. He has paid for the transgression of the law with the blood of Jesus. We can keep God’s commandments as well as hear and obey his voice because we have been born again. We are New Creatures in Christ. It is our nature to walk with God and to obey him.
That does not change the fact that we live in a world that still has a devil. We still live in a flesh body. We still have to renew our minds so that we can be transformed into his likeness while living on the earth. There is still danger, sin and temptation. God wants us to have life. He tells us the choices we need to make in order to be safe, favored and blessed. He lets us know that if we choose to ignore what he tells us, we will be subject to danger.
Brother and sister, this is not “rocket science”, as the saying goes. God tells us that some things are sin. The next time you read that word, do not see, “God doesn’t like that.” Instead, see, “Danger!” When you read a commandment of God, do not see, “God just wants to limit my fun in life.” Instead, see, “God is showing me the keys to victory and blessing.”
When God tells us not to commit adultery, it is because adultery will hurt us and faithfulness, even if it is hard will result in blessing. When God tells us we should not do certain things, it is not because it will annoy him if we do them. It is because it opens the door to bad things while obedience keeps us safe, prosperous and favored. Think about it.
Leave a Reply