Deuteronomy 30:9 And the LORD thy God will make thee plenteous in every work of thine hand, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy land, for good: for the LORD will again rejoice over thee for good, as he rejoiced over thy fathers: Moses told Israel that they would enjoy abundance and God's full provision in the land He would give them if they did one thing: be righteous before Him by obeying the law. At Sinai, Israel said all that Moses had said they would do (Exodus 19:8). They had told him they accepted the law of God to do it. It was not hidden to them on how to be righteous before their holy God. We know they failed at keeping it because the result of trying to keep the entire law was impossible. Man in his fallen condition could not keep it to the letter, and that was the point God tried to make to them. It was their schoolmaster to lead them to Christ when He would come. Thus, in the New Testament, Paul could tell the Church,
In verse 10, Paul gives the good news. Where Israel tried to keep the law for righteousness, Paul states that Christ is the end of the law as a means to be righteous before God simply by believing on Him in His finished work. The very next verse says this: "But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise." It wasn't a matter of doing the things of the law, but the "doing" was now a matter of placing faith in Christ who would make believers keepers of the Law, which He would write on their hearts. Moses related to Israel the law; Paul preached the word of faith about Christ. And, there is a choice in both instances:
In giving them the law, God laid before them "life and good, and death and evil," meaning there were blessings to be had in the land if they walked righteously according to the law, and curses if they didn't. The call of Israel seemed simple: just love the Lord God, walk in His ways, and keep his commandments, statutes and judgments. But they failed. The law didn't fail, man did, and they would not enter the land permanently and what blessings they had received would be lost. What would especially cause them to not possess the land and prolong their days there was falling into idolatry, the worship of false gods:
Moses gave the Law to Israel, but he also gave Israel a promise:
In the book of Acts 3:22-23, Peter repeated this passage, as did Stephen in Acts 7:37. Jesus is the Prophet they all pointed to, Moses looking to the future, Peter and Stephen to the past. God first gave the Law, then He gave the one who, at the cost of His shed blood, would send the Holy Spirit to indwell all who believe. Moses had said, "If thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law, and if thou turn unto the LORD thy God with all thine heart," then they would enter the land permanently. Through faith in the shed blood of Christ and His resurrection, He would send the Holy Spirit to indwell them and would cause believers to "hearken unto the voice of the Lord." He would bring the love of God into the heart of the believer also:
Finally, He would work in the believer to sanctify him through the word so he could "turn unto the LORD thy God with all thine heart." Yet, even here, in Christ, the words of God to Moses and Peter and Stephen take on an ominous reality: In Christ, God has laid before the world "life and good, and death and evil." Many will fall into the idolatry of the last days, and there will be an image the whole world will pay homage to. They won't accept Christ, and God will judge them because they have rejected Christ and chosen death and evil. But, there will be those who have believed and received the Spirit. It will be these who will have "hearken[ed] unto the voice of the LORD thy God, . . . keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law [by the Spirit], and . . . turn[ed] unto the LORD [their] God with all [their] heart, and with all [their] soul." These are they who will have listened to God's Prophet, our Lord Jesus Christ, by His Spirit through His word. Just as Moses brought to Israel the sacrifices for sin by which their sins were covered, so Christ, in His first coming, brought about eternal salvation. Moses did not enter the land, but died before Israel entered. This foreshadowed Christ, who entered heaven on our behalf to establish eternal redemption, but will come a second time, foreshadowed in Joshua, to lead all who have believed into the Millennial kingdom. Life and good, death and evil - it is clear who holds the keys to these:
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