Listen and Believe!
Deuteronomy 32
Every once in a while, because I am a pastor, I get a call from someone who lives out of the area wanting me to contact their loved one and lead them to the Lord. The scenario goes like this. Their loved one, usually a child, has just moved in the area and they are in rebellion towards the family and towards the Lord. They have been sharing the gospel with their loved one but they have not gotten anywhere. So they want me to contact them and share the gospel and save them. Oh how I wish it were that easy.
God told Moses in Chapter 31 that after Moses dies and the people enter the Promised Land they will start to worship the idols of the people in the land. Their idols and beliefs are rooted in the ways of Sodom and Gomorrah we are told in Chapter 32:32-33. Even the people of the land figured out that their idols were no match for the God of Israel. Verses 30&31.
Chapter 32 begins with a prophetic song which describes who God is and what he has done. It also gives warning to the people who will become fat with prosperity and forget the Lord resulting in judgment for those who disregard the word of the Lord. In verses 46 and 47 Moses warns the people to take to heart the words he just sang and to observe the laws and commands for he was not speaking just idle words.
Moses has been with these people forty years. During those years he has spoken the Word of God that God gave him to speak. He has taught, he has led, and he has lived the Word of God in the eyes and ears of the people. Just the fact that he was not allowed to go into the Promised Land should speak volumes about the need to be committed to the Lord, but….
Moses knew what I had to learn. No matter how hard one tries, how passionately one speaks, how clever the illustrations, we can’t save anyone with our own ability.
Here is the bottom line. God declares His love and promises through His Word and His servants. The Devil denies God’s Word and Promises with the things of the world that falsely offer peace, security, and pleasure, all without consequence, and each person decides who they will believe.
God desires to bless His people and does so in Chapter 33. The people, standing before the Promised Land, are at a crossroads. It is not so much if they will go in or not. We know they will. The crossroads is who will they believe, God or the Devil? Truth or deception?
God declares it. The Devil denies it. Each individual person decides for themselves. We are free to choose but we are not free from the consequences of the choice we make and neither were the people standing at the border of the Promised Land. What really lay before them was a choice between the paths to blessing or curses.
Choose wisely!
Pastor Dave