Sword & Trowel 2016: Issue 2
people of the fatal consequences of putting their confidence in the broken covenant of works, and calling them to the covenant of grace and of life. ‘See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil...’
VERSE 16: ‘In that I command thee this day to love the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments.’ Evangelical life with gratitude, indebtedness, love and strength brings voluntary obedi- ence to the law, and blessing without measure.
VERSES 17-18: ‘But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and wor- ship other gods, and serve them; I denounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish, and that ye shall not prolong your days upon the land.’ This call of Moses here is all to do with the heart, and a sincere walk with God. Moses has said that the people (or most of them) have not yet tasted and known true spiritual experience. Sinai could not impart it; only the power of grace could secure it. The great lawgiver had evidently said these things to them before, over the 38 years, and can say that they were not hidden from them. But now his ministry draws to a close, and his appeal becomes yet more urgent. He calls for ‘witnesses’ and proceeds...
VERSE 19: ‘I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.’
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Readers may have read about how George Whitefield would end some of his sermons with words to this effect: ‘In the judgement I shall be called to witness against you that this day, this hour, I preached Christ to you, and grace, and you would not hear.’ He followed the steps of Moses – ‘I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death... therefore choose life.’ Some Calvinists recoil from those
words: ‘Choose life’. But the call is right and true, because it is the will of God that the vast majority of his elect should come to him by an intel- ligent, conscious process in which they are brought to feel their need of him, and long for his salvation. And though it is unquestionably the Holy Spirit who regenerates the heart, and opens the eyes, bringing the sinner under conviction of sin, and inclin- ing the will, they will be consciously persuaded by the reasonings of the Gospel, and personally brought to the point whereby they freely choose Christ. It is all God’s doing, but in such a way that we seemingly volun- tarily embrace Christ and salvation. May I repeat the point – we do not choose for ourselves, but because by regeneration the Lord opens our eyes and puts life within us, and so we grasp our need, and Christ’s work on Calvary, and repent, and believe. In this miracle of grace the preacher is given privileged instrumentality in appealing to hearts, wooing sin- ners, presenting grace, and pressing the lost to Christ. But the preacher knows that salvation is entirely due to the work of the Spirit within
The ‘Evangelical Covenant’ of Moses
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