My Commands are not too Difficult

Deuteronomy 30 and the Claim That God’s Commands Are Not Too Difficult

Deuteronomy 30 verses 10 through 20. When you obey the voice of the Lord, your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes that are written in this book of the law, when you turn to the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul, for this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off.

It is not in heaven that you should say, who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it. Neither is it beyond the sea that you should say, who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it.

But the word is very near to you. It is in your mouth and in your heart so that you can do it. See, I have set before you today life and death, life and death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the Lord, your God, that I command you today by loving the Lord, your God, by walking in his ways and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rule, then you shall live and multiply and the Lord, your God, will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of.

Why Deuteronomy 30 Does Not Prove Libertarian Free Will

Now, this was used as libertarian freedom. Look, they were able to do it. It's not even hard. How would you interact with that? I mean, he didn't exegete the passage. He simply read it and kind of added some of his thoughts there.

But how would you respond to the libertarian freewheeler that this, not so fast, Mr. Freewheeler, this doesn't demonstrate what you're trying to demonstrate.

Well, these are certainly words that to a regenerate heart are very encouraging and speak life. And to a heart that has a love for God's law and a love for God, these things would make perfect sense. But what's amazing to me, as no one read Deuteronomy 28 and 29, which comes right before it, the blessings and the cursings that are then repeated by the prophets over and over again.

Chapter 30, after the blessings and the cursings is a exhortation that was ignored by the vast majority of Israelites, except for in the words of the Greek Septuagint, the lima, the remnants. It is that remnant that found in these words, guidance and light.

It was that remnant that found in these, it was the 7 ,000 that didn't bow the knee to Baal in the days of Elijah that suffered through the famine and the drought. They would find these words to speak to them.

But for the vast majority of those who fell in the wilderness, the vast majority of those who engaged in the rebellion against God and either didn't enter into the promised land or once they're in the promised land, brought the judgment of God upon Israel and then upon Judah as well.

They did not hear these words because why? Because they had hearts of stone and they needed to have those hearts of stone taken out and given hearts of flesh. And so it's just a matter of taking the entire testimony of the Old Testament scriptures.

I mean, like calling Old Testament scriptures the Hebrew scriptures as to the nature of man. And so to take one thing like this and then skip over your valley of dry bones. What's a valley of dry bones supposed to do?

What does it need? Until there is that supernatural enlivenment, that giving of life, words like this, to the heart that is in rebellion against God, how does any of this actually bring about a change of character?

You have to love God and a heart of stone doesn't love God. And so it's really a matter of recognizing the one thing that Molinists will not hear that we say, God ordains the ends and the means. This is a means, this is a means text whereby God instructs those that He has been gracious to and given them a heart of flesh.

These become words of life. But you simply have to read the rest of the Old Testament text to see how many times the people rebelled and rebelled and rebelled no matter how often God delivered them and God showed mercy to them.