09/07/2025
Deuteronomy 30:15-20
SN: 0092
by Pastor Nathan Klusmeyer
As the movie Indian Jones and the Last Crusade reaches its climax, the heroic archeologist makes his way through a series of deadly obstacles to reach the end of his quest. Throughout the movie, Indy had been seeking the Holy Grail. As he enters the last room, he gazes upon a table covered with grails. Some are plain and simple, while others are rich and ornate. Guarding this treasure is an ancient knight who tells Indy that to complete his quest, he must choose the correct Grail and drink from it. The ancient knight warns him, “You must choose, but choose wisely.” Choosing the right cup will grant him health and long life, while the wrong choice will bring swift and terrible death.
In our Old Testament reading this morning, Moses gave the children of Israel a similar opportunity to choose wisely. See now, today I have set before you life and prosperity, death and disaster. After 40 years of wandering through the wilderness, they are camped on the plains of Moab, ready to enter the land of Canaan that God had promised would be their inheritance. Moses takes this last opportunity to preach a final sermon before his death and the beginning of the conquest of Canaan. Moses tells the people that they need to make a choice. The people can either choose to follow God or they can turn their hearts away from God. One of those choices will lead to joy and the other to disaster. This is what I am commanding you today: Love the LORD your God, walk in his ways, and keep his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances. Then you will live and increase in number, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are going to possess. Or they can choose to follow their own sinful desires and turn away from the Lord: But if your heart turns away, and you do not listen, and you are lured away, and you bow down to other gods and serve them, then I declare to you today that you will most certainly perish.
Moses and the children of Israel were well aware of the consequences of making foolish choices and disobeying the commands of God. They knew very well how not making wise choices could lead to terrible consequences. Moses had made a foolish choice when he chose to disobey God and strike a rock in the desert instead of speaking to it. For his disobedience, God had said that he would not enter the Promised Land. This generation of Israelites had watched as their parents had made a foolish decision 40 years ago, not to trust the Lord and enter the land he had promised. For 40 years, they had wandered through the wilderness as everyone from the generation had died except for Caleb and Joshua. Now they were being given an opportunity to make a wise decision. If they dedicated themselves to the Lord and kept his commands, God promised that he would bless them and give them the land he had promised to their ancestors. I call the heavens and the earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, a blessing and a curse. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live by loving the LORD your God, by listening to his voice, and by clinging to him, because that means life for you, and you will live a long life on your land that the LORD swore to give to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
The rest of the Old Testament is a record of the events after Israel made their choice. They chose wisely and followed the Lord’s appointed leader, Joshua, and took the land that had been promised to them. They trusted the Lord and received their reward. But we also know that the Old Testament records the wise and foolish choices that their descendants made. Some chose wisely and followed the Lord, and some chose poorly and followed other gods. Ultimately, those decisions led to the complete and total destruction of Israel and the destruction, exile, and restoration of Judah.
As Christians, God asks us to make a choice as well. However, the first thing that needs to be emphasized when we talk about making a choice to serve the Lord is that we cannot choose to believe in God. Scripture is crystal clear; by nature, we are born dead in our trespasses and sins. We are completely incapable of making any decision to choose to believe in Jesus. We are brought to faith by the power of the Holy Spirit working in our hearts through the power of the Word. This is what Luther means when he writes in his explanation of the Third Article of the Apostles’ Creed, “I cannot by my own thinking or choosing believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him.”
However, after the Holy Spirit has brought us to life through the power of the Gospel, God does call on us to make choices each and every day. We are presented with the same choice that Moses offered to the
Children of Israel on the plains of Moab. Will we love the LORD our God, walk in his ways, and keep his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances, or will we listen to the voice of the devil, the world, and our own sinful natures and fall into sin?
Unfortunately, just like the Children of Israel, we often try to do both. We have good days when we choose wisely. We resist the attacks of Satan and live according to God’s command. But on other days, and honestly on most days, we turn away from God and follow the desires of our sinful hearts. We know the good that we should do, and we choose not to do it. Or we willfully and eagerly sin because we know the instant gratification and pleasure that it brings. We know the consequences of our actions, we know how they displease God and often hurt others, but we love the feeling that sin gives us. We take the quick and easy path into temptation because it is so much easier to give in to temptation than it is to resist.
This is the wretched state that we find ourselves in. We want to choose wisely, we want to do what God commands, and yet so often we completely and utterly fail. We do not walk in God’s ways and keep his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances. Because of this, we are filled with guilt and shame. We know that we have not chosen wisely and should receive the death and disaster that our sins deserve. We make poor choices each day to sin, and because of that, we should be condemned to an eternity in hell.
But our heavenly Father also made a choice. When Adam and Eve listened to the lies of Satan and chose to disobey God’s command, he could have rightly condemned them. But instead, God chose to act in grace and mercy. God chose to send a Savior to this world to save us from our foolish decisions to disobey God. Think of the choices that Christ made as well, choices that seem completely foolish to our sinful human way of thinking. Christ chose willingly to leave the joy and splendor of heaven to live in this world. He chose to know what it was like to feel sorrow and pain, weakness, and hunger. The Creator of heaven and earth willingly chose to place himself under his own law and keep it in our place.
Think of how, when our Savior was presented with the opportunity to choose, he always chose wisely. When he was tempted by the devil in the wilderness, he chose to obey God. When he was tempted in Gethsemane, he chose to drink the cup of suffering that God had placed before him. Jesus, with all the power of God at his command, chose willingly to be humiliated and nailed to a cross. He willingly chose to endure all the torments of hell for you because he loved you so much that he wanted to suffer and die to save you.
We have not chosen wisely. We have often chosen to sin, but Christ has paid for our poor decisions with his death on the cross. By his death, he had removed our guilt and shame as far as the east is from the west, and by his resurrection, he has removed the eternal consequences of our poor and sinful decisions. Christ endured the punishment of hell that our sins deserved and has opened to us the promised land of eternal life in heaven.
You must choose…but choose wisely. God places the same choice before you that Moses gave to Israel on the plains of Moab. Will you live your life as God commands, or will you give in to the desires of your sinful heart? This should be an easy choice. We know where both paths lead. The path of righteousness leads to heaven, and the path of disobedience leads to death and destruction. And yet we know how hard it is to live as God commands. We know how quick and easy it is to listen to the never-ending voice tempting us to sin. And yet we also know the amazing love that God has shown to us. We know that we can resist the attacks of Satan because we have one who is far stronger fighting in our defense. And so, I urge you, dear Christian, choose to follow the Lord. Because even though the way is long and the battle is hard, God has promised you a rich reward. Amen.