You are created in God’s image, and as such you are given the freedom to choose life or death.
Many people may agree with this truth, but what they may not understand is that with each choice comes temporal as well as eternal consequences.
Even though your lifespan is only about 100 years here on earth, what you choose each day affects you for ETERNITY. This is a sobering truth. As such, it is supremely important to choose carefully and wisely.
In the book of Deuteronomy, God admonishes the Jewish people through Moses:
This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to His voice, and hold fast to Him. (Deuteronomy 30:19-20)
Chapter 28 of the book of Deuteronomy lists the blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience:
BLESSINGS for OBEDIENCE
If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God:
You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.
The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.
Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed.
You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.
The Lord will grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven.
The Lord will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to. The Lord your God will bless you in the land He is giving you.
The Lord will establish you as His holy people, as He promised you on oath, if you keep the commands of the Lord your God and walk in obedience to Him. Then all the peoples on earth will see that you are called by the Name of the Lord, and they will fear you. The Lord will grant you abundant prosperity—in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your ground—in the land He swore to your ancestors to give you.
The Lord will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. The Lord will make you the head, not the tail. If you pay attention to the commands of the Lord your God that I give you this day and carefully follow them, you will always be at the top, never at the bottom. Do not turn aside from any of the commands I give you today, to the right or to the left, following other gods and serving them. (Deuteronomy 28:1-14)
CURSES for DISOBEDIENCE
However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all His commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you:
You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.
Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed.
The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.
You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.
The Lord will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking Him.
The Lord will plague you with diseases until He has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess.
The Lord will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish.
The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron. The Lord will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed.
The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven, and you will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms on earth.
Your carcasses will be food for all the birds and the wild animals, and there will be no one to frighten them away.
The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured.
The Lord will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of mind. At midday you will grope about like a blind person in the dark.
You will be unsuccessful in everything you do; day after day you will be oppressed and robbed, with no one to rescue you. (Deuteronomy 28:15-29)
You will build a house, but you will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will not even begin to enjoy its fruit. (Deuteronomy 28:30)
Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, and you will wear out your eyes watching for them day after day, powerless to lift a hand. A people that you do not know will eat what your land and labor produce, and you will have nothing but cruel oppression all your days. The sights you see will drive you mad. (Deuteronomy 28:32-34)
You will sow much seed in the field but you will harvest little, because locusts will devour it. You will plant vineyards and cultivate them but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes, because worms will eat them. You will have olive trees throughout your country but you will not use the oil, because the olives will drop off. You will have sons and daughters but you will not keep them, because they will go into captivity. (Deuteronomy 28:38-41)
The foreigners who reside among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower. They will lend to you, but you will not lend to them. They will be the head, but you will be the tail. (Deuteronomy 28:43-44)
All these curses will come on you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the Lord your God and observe the commands and decrees He gave you. (Deuteronomy 28:45)
Because you did not serve the Lord your God joyfully and gladly in the time of prosperity, therefore in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and dire poverty, you will serve the enemies the Lord sends against you. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you. (Deuteronomy 28:47-48)
The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the ends of the earth, like an eagle swooping down, a nation whose language you will not understand, a fierce-looking nation without respect for the old or pity for the young. They will devour the young of your livestock and the crops of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine or olive oil, nor any calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks until you are ruined. They will lay siege to all the cities throughout your land until the high fortified walls in which you trust fall down. They will besiege all the cities throughout the land the Lord your God is giving you.
Because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you. Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will have no compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his surviving children, and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It will be all he has left because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of all your cities. (Deuteronomy 28:49-55)
If you do not carefully follow all the words of this law, which are written in this book, and do not revere this glorious and awesome Name—the Lord your God—the Lord will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants, harsh and prolonged disasters, and severe and lingering illnesses. He will bring on you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you. The Lord will also bring on you every kind of sickness and disaster not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed.
You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left but few in number, because you did not obey the Lord your God. Just as it pleased the Lord to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please Him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess. (Deuteronomy 28:58-63)
God is omnipotent and can do whatever He pleases and even though we are free to disobey Him, no person in their right mind would desire to have these curses come upon them; and yet many people today live in defiant disobedience to God. The result?
Cancer is widespread along with many other strange diseases all over the globe.
Depression is treated with opioids that cause people to go mad.
Abortion has taken the lives of billions of innocent children.
Our land, soil and air is polluted and increasingly so with each passing day.
Our oceans and ecosystems are dying because of so much pollution.
We have genetically modified food that causes cancer and strange diseases.
Our food is so full of pesticides that we have to pay double for ‘clean’ food.
The list goes on.
Many people are too busy to serve God. They have other ‘important’ things to do: job, family, etc. Little do they realize that God controls all these: job, family and all the rest.
Who is more important? God or job, family and the rest?
Listen to what God says in the book of Deuteronomy:
See now that I myself am He! There is no god besides Me.
I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of My hand.
I lift My hand to heaven and solemnly swear: As surely as I live forever, when I sharpen My flashing sword and My hand grasps it in judgment, I will take vengeance on My adversaries and repay those who hate Me.
I will make my arrows drunk with blood while my sword devours flesh: the blood of the slain and the captives, the heads of the enemy leaders. (Deuteronomy 32:39-43)
Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, said:
Those enemies of Mine who did not want Me to be king over them—bring them here and kill them in front of Me. (Luke 19:27)
God’s words may be difficult to read, but God is serious and God is also omniscient and omnipotent.
God will not be mocked.
You would do well to take God’s warnings seriously and to “choose life, so that you and your children may live.”
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He who has ears to hear, let him hear!
Now that you know the TRUTH, let the TRUTH set you FREE!
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