Deuteronomy 30:19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.
It is all too easy in our work-a-day world to take sin impersonally, to take righteousness impersonally, and to take God impersonally, yet you and I need to be reminded of the fact that God does not take any of these things impersonally. How amazing that a holy, infinite God would even care about us let alone regard us! Yet, He does. He cares about us.
So many times we think our choice is between God’s code of rules and the world’s kind of freedom, where we can choose blessing or we can choose destruction. Well, the truth is that you do have a choice, but it is not primarily between two different codes. It is not between whether you are going to follow the Ten Commandments or the world’s way of thinking, whether you will choose destruction or blessing. If that were the case, then wouldn’t everyone choose blessing? Yet most people do not choose blessing.
Deuteronomy 30:19 says, “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.” Moses feels passionately about what he has just said. He is invoking the universe to hear what he is saying. He is setting before them a choice. He says “Life or death…blessing or cursing.” He tells them to choose life because it will affect both them and their children after them. But notice the less familiar but very important next verse.
Verse 20 says, “That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.” He says to choose life, and then he says, “For he is thy life, and the length of thy days.” They weren’t merely to choose a code of conduct. They weren’t really to choose the end they wished to see. They were to choose a god.
Throughout this chapter he says, “Look, it is your heart that matters. Return unto the Lord your God with all your heart and soul. Return to God. He’ll return your captivity when you return to Him.” That is revival, a turning back. Verse 6 says, “And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.”
“Return and obey,” he says, “Hearken,” he says, “Turn unto the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul. This is not a mystery that is hidden from you or your kids. It is not far off. Any ignorance here would be willful ignorance. The word is nigh. It is in your mouths and your hearts, and it is given in order that you can do.”
Today, don’t think that when you sin God takes it impersonally. No, this is not primarily a choice between two different ends. It is not a choice between two different codes. It is a choice between the world that hates you and the God Who loves you.