If you know you are a sinner, go to Christ, confess your sin, and find salvation in Him. Then, by His grace and the power of the Holy Spirit, get on with living the Christian life. Paul says, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved” (Rom. 10:9). Is salvation that simple? It is. But it is of vast importance. And whether we believe and act on our belief is a matter of spiritual life or spiritual death.
The third point is to urge the people to obey. Moses was a great preacher, and he rises to heights of eloquence here in Deuteronomy 29-30. Even after he spelled things out as sharply as he does in Deuteronomy 27-28, he goes on to urge his applications on the people even more. Moses reminds the people of the past, describes what entering into the covenant really means, gives an additional specific warning of disasters to come, and finally promises prosperity in the future, if, after having fallen away, the people repent of their sins and come back to the Lord they have deserted.
The second point of our outline has to do with the blessings and curses. When the people came into the land and had written the law on the stones and the altar had been set up, the Israelites were supposed to stand on these two mountains, in the area of the country known as Samaria now, about 3,000 feet above sea level. At one point, the two mountains come close together. Half of the tribes were to take their places on Mount Gerizim and the other half on Mount Ebal. The Levites were to recite the blessings and the curses. And after each curse and each blessing, the people would answer by saying, “Amen.”
Some scholars regard the book of Deuteronomy as the heart of the Old Testament, and some call chapters 27-30 the heart of Deuteronomy. In these chapters, Moses forcefully urges on the people the kind of life that is based on what God has done. In chapters 4-26, he has given the chief substance of the teaching. As a preacher, Moses is pressing this point home upon the people. He is about to die and will soon leave the people he has led for decades. He urges the people to choose righteousness and obey God, because that’s the way of blessing. The other way is the way of death.
