The Choice is Yours! Life or Death. Finishing Deuteronomy: Deuteronomy 29-34

You stare at the map, willing it to change.  The directions from your trusty guide were clear. FOLLOW THE MAP! Its a matter of life and death; but how could this be right? Ahead of you is a treacherously thin ledge shadowed with low hanging rocks, dripping water on the muddy foot path below. The river rushes some 30 feet down from the slippery edge filled, your sure, with some sort of flesh eating fish. Your mind fills in the terrors, your heart races and you feel a cold sweat on your face. Looking back the way you came causes you to wonder if the promises of beauty are worth it. Should you choose another easier destination? You look left and right at the paths leading in meandering, sunny, well worn directions. For a moment you picture yourself turning and finding out where they might lead. Then the words of you guide come back to you. "Listen to me carefully, this is a matter of life and death. Stay on the path I have marked for you. Trust me!. Any other direction leads to tribes and animals that will take kill you. My path is the only safe one, it leads to a glorious destination. You can't even imagine the beauty you will find there. You look up with the image of his concerned face in your mind, set your resolve firm, and move forward, placing all your hope in your guide. You choose to believe. You choose life!

Deuteronomy 30:15-16
See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. ¹⁶ For I command you today to love the Lord your God..........

Hope Wirta

Read Deuteronomy 29-34:

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+29-34&version=NIV

Digging Deeper into the Word:

Chapter 29 Moses renews the covenant God is making with Israel
Chapter 30 The choice is yours "Life or Death" both are being laid before you.
Chapter 31 Joshua chosen and commissioned to lead after Moses
Chapter 32 The Song Of Moses
Chapter 33 Moses blesses each tribe
Chapter 34 The Death of Moses

Below are selected passages from these 5 chapters with added commentary;

Deuteronomy 34:9-10
⁹ Now Joshua son of Nun was filled with the spirit^[b] of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands on him. So the Israelites listened to him and did what the Lord had commanded Moses.
¹⁰ Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, ¹¹ who did all those signs and wonders the Lord sent him to do in Egypt—to Pharaoh and to all his officials and to his whole land. ¹² For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.

29:14-15 All of Israel present and future are bound by the covenant God made with them that day. This enables them to lead to the new covenant that will bless all nations.

Deuteronomy 29:14-15New International Version (NIV)
¹⁴ I am making this covenant, with its oath, not only with you ¹⁵ who are standing here with us today in the presence of the Lord our God but also with those who are not here today.

John 17:20
²⁰ “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, ²¹ that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²² I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— ²³ I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

Deuteronomy 29:18-19

¹⁸ Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the Lord our God to go and worship the gods of those nations; make sure there is no root among you that produces such bitter poison.
¹⁹ When such a person hears the words of this oath and they invoke a blessing on themselves, thinking, “I will be safe, even though I persist in going my own way,” they will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry.

The key word here is "persist", this is an unrepentant heart that wills to go his own way.

29:29-30

The secret things of God could refer to His plan for salvation that will be revealed later through the Messiah. Paul refers to this mystery in Ephesians. he speaks of the unity God brings to the Jews and Gentiles through salvation by faith.

Deuteronomy clearly teaches circumcision of the heart. Although Moses gives the Israelites the law with the command to obey it; He also teaches them that obedience and devotion to God are a matter of the heart.
The law shows serves to show us God's holiness and our need for a savior (a rescuer).

30:6 ⁶ The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.

30:1-10 Moses sees beyond Israel's destruction to her redemption under the new covenant. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Destruction is prophesied because of their rejection of God, but they will not be abandoned forever.

Jeremiah 31:31-34New International Version (NIV)

³¹ “The days are coming,” declares the Lord,
    “when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
    and with the people of Judah.
³² It will not be like the covenant
    I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
    to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
    though I was a husband to^[a] them,^[b]”
declares the Lord.
³³ “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
    after that time,” declares the Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds
    and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
    and they will be my people.
³⁴ No longer will they teach their neighbor,
    or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
    from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the Lord.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
    and will remember their sins no more.”

2 Corinthians 3:6-18New International Version (NIV)

⁶ He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
⁷ Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, transitory though it was, ⁸ will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? ⁹ If the ministry that brought condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness! ¹⁰ For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory. ¹¹ And if what was transitory came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts!
¹² Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. ¹³ We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from seeing the end of what was passing away. ¹⁴ But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. ¹⁵ Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. ¹⁶ But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. ¹⁷ Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. ¹⁸ And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate^[a] the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.