We are having a great week. Our grand children from Boston, whom
we call our "Fresh Air Kids", are with us for a week. We are blessed and are
having a wild week. We will meet this evening at 6 PM for our mid-week
fellowship and study. We are planning for a special ministry with the children
at 6:30 PM that will conclude at 7:30 PM. The children and their families are
invited to join us for a special meal at 6 PM.
The reading for last Sunday, taken from Deuteronomy 30, was the
last sermon Moses preached. Michelangelo’s Moses is a towering figure, a
powerful figure, an incredible figure, much larger than life. Michelangelo’s
sculpture of Moses is enormous. And, figuratively, so was Moses. He seemed to
be larger than life itself. As
t he Israelites were getting ready to enter the
Promised Land, the land of Canaan, the people of the Lord had been in the
wilderness for forty years. Those who survived during the 40 year journey had
experienced God’s majesty, Mount Sinai, the parting of the Red Sea, and the
manna and the quail to eat in the wilderness.
Moses foresaw that the people of God would be ensnared and
brought down by the Canaanite religion in the land to which they were going.
They would be ensnared by the Canaanite people who sacrificed their children on
altars, burned their children as sacrifices, practiced witchcraft and idolatry,
and used cult prostitutes. T he people of God stood in front of
Moses, east of the Jordan River, before they entered the Promised Land. Moses
was saying goodbye to them, as he gave his last sermon. The Bible says he was
120 years old; that he was strong in body and his eyesight was still very, very
sharp. Moses stood before the people on the banks of the Jordan River,when he
gave his farewell speech. “Today, I am giving you a choice…between good and
evil, between life and death, between blessing and cursing. God is our
witness. I say to you: choose life. Choose life. Love the Lord your God.
Serve him. Obey him. Do his laws. Be faithful to God, and then…it will go
well for you in the land.”
The Christian faith has always been a faith of life. Life is a
good word, a core word, a key word. Our Lord said in John 10:10, “I have come
to give you life and give you life more abundantly.” Jesus said, “ I am the
bread of life. I am the water of life. I am the resurrection and the life. I
am everlasting life.” The opposite of Jesus is Satan who is the prince of
death, the source of death, the essence of evil. Jesus said, “I have come to
destroy the powers of death and hell.”
The love of life is found in the first pages and the last
pages of Scripture. In the first pages of our Bible in the story of the Garden
of Eden, we hear about the tree of life. At the very end of the Bible, in the
very last chapter of the last book of the Bible, we see that hell and death are
thrown into the fire, and all that remains is the tree of life, for God is life,
eternal life, everlasting life, immortal life, abundant life.
In the first book of the Bible that the living God breathed life
into Adam. God gave Adam the first breath of life. We human beings are sacred
because we are made in the image of God and we have the sacred breath of God
within us.
A t the very core of our Christian heritage, from
beginning to end, ours is a heritage of life. We are pro-life, because our
Lord is pro-life.
The people of God were standing at the edge of the Promised Land,
going into the land of Canaan, with all of its pagan degradation and child
sacrifice, burning their children on altars, and cult prostitution. God said to
his people through his prophet Moses: “Today, I am giving you a choice…between
life and death, good and evil, blessings and curses. God is our witness this
day. Chose life. Serve the Lord your God. Love God. Be faithful to God.
Obey God’s laws and … then…it will go well for you in the land.”
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