No Excuses

Deuteronomy 29:19-21; 30:11-19: "When such a person hears the words of this oath (God's Covenant [29:12-13]), he invokes a blessing on himself and therefore thinks, 'I will be safe, even though I persist in going my own way.' This will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry. The LORD will never be willing to forgive him; his wrath and zeal will burn against that man. All the curses written in this book will fall upon him, and the LORD will blot out his name from under heaven. The LORD will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law . . . . Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, 'Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?' Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, 'Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?' No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it. See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed . . . . This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses."



Here is the crux of salvation. God has given his covenantal oath that He will be our God (29:13). Still, the covenantal stipulations dictate that we must be yielded to God alone as our Lord and Savior. The one who would conclude that he can go his own way, to satisfy his own desires and seek his own adulation, is in effect saying that he is his own god. By his actions, this man proclaims that he has himself on the throne of his life, not the Lord. God in turn pronounces that a curse will befall that man. The Lord's wrath and zeal will burn against him, and God will enact curses upon such rebellion. Such a person has no hope for heaven, for God will "blot out his name from under heaven."

No one will have the excuse that God's Word was not readily available to all, for God has made His Word of truth readily available. That truth proclaims that we are not God; rather, we are the mere creation of a Holy, Sovereign Lord. We have all rebelled against God by seeking our own desires above Him, and this quest for personal satisfaction and aggrandizement above God (made manifest in many different forms) is called sin.

Sin (rebellion) against God brings God's wrath. Because we are not able to satisfy the penalty for our sins, God had to come to pay the penalty for us. This is why Jesus, who is the Second Person of the Triune God, came to the Earth, lived a sinless life, died on the cross, and rose again from the grave. His death paid the penalty for our sins; his resurrection proclaimed His victory over sin and death. His precious gift of salvation necessitates a response from us; to refuse to submit to Jesus as Lord and to renounce His gift of his death and resurrection for the payment for our sins is to commit treason against God. Such treason will result in utter destruction (30:18).

Even for those who do not have access to the Bible, God has revealed his "eternal power and divine nature . . . from what has been made [i.e. creation], so that men are without excuse" (Romans 1:20). All men have within them the conscious understanding of right and wrong; thus the understanding of God's expectation of righteousness is not "too difficult or beyond our reach" (Deuteronomy 30:11). Heaven and earth stand as witnesses against those who do not submit to the Lord. Eternal life and eternal death weigh in the balance. What will you decide today? You have no excuse!