Choose Life!

Reading: Deuteronomy 30.10-20

A few years ago on holidays, we read the C.S. Lewis science fiction trilogy. Alison had picked up a copy of the third book, That Hideous Strength, some time before from a second-hand shop for 50 cents. While that book said "you don't have to read the others before you read this one", I still went to Koorong before the holidays and purchased the other two - Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra - so that we could read them in sequence.

I don't want to spoil it for those of you who haven't read these particular books, so I am being careful of my references. The second book, Perelandra, is set on another planet whose life has been fairly recently created. The inhabitants of that planet are just facing the temptation of Genesis chapter 2. Two earthlings are there. The one, a representative of the devil, is presenting all the persuasive reasons for disobedience. The other, a representative of the Lord, is mainly watching the relentless temptation. As it goes on and on he speculates whether, if Adam and Eve had not succumbed, the temptation on planet Earth to disobey would still be going on. Must this beauty, this harmony, this trust be lost?

As I was reading that struggle this text kept running through my mind - " I am now giving you the choice between life and death, between God's blessing and God's curse, and I call heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Choose life. Love the LORD your God, obey him and be faithful to him, and then you and your descendants will live long in the land..." (Deut.30.19-20).

Choose life! That was it! Moses spoke in a different situation from Perelandra. It was some of the fallen race whom the Lord was graciously calling to choose life - in fact, people who had heard again his rules for living, who were to became a nation of his people. Moses had led them out of their slavery in Egypt. Soon he would die, and under Joshua's leadership they would enter the land of promise, their own land! Moses had been reminding them of the requirements and promises of God. There was no question of God's faithfulness. The call was for them - CHOOSE LIFE!

Life is a Gift from God

In Genesis 2.7 we read words about our Creation - "the Lord God took some soil from the ground and formed a man out of it; he breathed life-giving breath into his nostrils and the man began to live." In Job l.2l, we read of Job's response when word came that he had lost oxen, donkeys, sheep, camels and even his sons and daughters - "The Lord gave, and now he has taken away. May his name be praised!" We have often regarded those words as an expression of some sort of fatalism. Yet they state clearly the truth that life is a gift from God and must finally be accounted for to God.

God's gift of life is far more than physical existence - far more than the question of whether you are still breathing, whether your heart is still beating. The clear picture at the beginning of Genesis is of Adam and Eve living in a right relationship with God, walking and talking in the garden with their Maker. They also lived in harmony within themselves, with one another and with the creatures round about them.

The Gift is Rejected

But that is no longer a picture of our world. Truer to what we see is Cain's violent murder of his brother Abel, his personal anguish, his sense of loneliness, his desire and need for protection.

For students of the Bethel Bible Series this is forcefully portrayed in sessions 2 and 3 and the accompanying pictorials. The writers of this series believe it is so basic to an understanding of the Bible message that advanced students spend extra time on these studies. The second of the pictorials, "Harmony", has a musical note extended from heaven by the hand of God. The attitude of the people in the picture expresses harmony with God, with self, with others and with nature.

But the third picture, "Disharmony", shows the note broken. The face is turned away from God and shows inner turmoil and unhappiness. The figures show hostility. The ground is cracked and parched. The writers of Bethel say that understanding the Fall and its results is of vital importance to understanding the Bible message - and the world we live in.

How often we hear accusation levelled at God - "If there is a God of love, why does he allow this or that to happen?" The answer is that we live in a fallen world - no longer the world of beauty and harmony that he originally intended, but a world that is marred by sin.

Sometimes we hear of people wanting to get back to the Garden of Eden - set up their own nudist colony where everyone can be quite uninhibited about their nakedness. But it can't work! We are part of a fallen world. On the one hand, as someone has commented, pictures of nudist colonies show people carrying around a little cushion with them - there is toil to be done. But on the other, I cannot expose myself or watch the nakedness of others without experiencing myself and placing before others thoughts and desires that are wrong outside the marriage relationship. I am part of a fallen race and I live in a fallen world. An angel with a flaming sword prevents us from returning to the Garden of Eden. We cannot get back to a state of innocence. We face the judgment of God, the wrath of God upon sin.

But it is interesting the way Paul writes about the consequences of our sin - "sin pays its wage - death..." God is the source of life itself. To choose sin is to choose death. To reject God is to choose death. To turn away from God is to take a path that leads to destruction. We have this idea that sin is fun, that getting our own way is fun, that sex outside marriage is fun, that cheating the boss is fun, that being selfish is fun, that drugs and drunkenness are fun... and in the immediate, they are - or people wouldn't do them! But sin pays its wage - death!

Does the boss pay you every five minutes? does he break in to whatever you are doing to say, "Hey, that's terrific! Here's another dollar"? No matter how appreciative he is, it doesn't happen that way. The pay waits till pay day. Sin pays its wage - death. The pay day is coming. However sin may have felt in the immediate, don't be deceived - there is a day of reckoning, and sin pays its wage - death.

Offered Again

The most amazing news is that, against that backdrop, God is offering each one of us life. "I am now giving you the choice between life and death, between God's blessing and God's curse… Choose life..."

In fact, the same Bible verse that tells us that the wages of sin is death goes on to say, "but God's free gift is eternal life in union with Christ Jesus our Lord."

What is the difference between wages and a gift? You work hard all week and at the end of it all the boss comes up to you with a little envelope and says, "I appreciate all that you are doing for me. I want to show you that I care about you too. Here's a little gift for you." If that happened, you'd be boiling inside - "That's no gift! I earned every cent of it! I deserve it all - and more! The old skinflint has a hide calling it a gift!"

So wages are what we earn, what we deserve. A gift cannot be earned. It is given without reference to merit at all.

The gift of eternal life is offered on the basis of Jesus Christ our Lord, the one who came into this world and accepted the wages of sin on our behalf - dying on the cross on our behalf.

So the choice God offers us between death and life is a choice between wages and a gift, between what we deserve and what God is lovingly and freely offering us in his Son.

There is only one sensible choice to make - choose life!


(c) Peter J. Blackburn, Buderim Uniting Church, 11 February 1996
Except where otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the Good News Bible, (c) American Bible Society, 1992.

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