Grains of Sand

Google Images Logically there should be no break between Deuteronomy 29 and 30 (or any other chapter for that matter). In what is designated for us as chapter 29, Moses has laid out the instructions that the nation-about-to-be must follow if it expects to enjoy God’s blessing. But God also knows that this people will not follow those instructions. As chapter 30 begins, Moses reassures the people that after God has punished them for their disobedience, He will restore them and bring them back to the land that He once promised their ancestor, Abraham. The beautiful forward look: “ The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul and live ” (30:6), is a reminder of what would one day be the result of Christ's coming. This issue of life becomes the theme a little later in the chapter as well. Basically Israel had options: life or death. From verse 11 to the end of the chapter, it is...

Google Images To prepare the way for the coming Messiah, John the Baptist, emulating the Old Testament prophets, called people to repentance. He also called them to physically demonstrate their renewed spiritual state by being baptized. It was, to the Jewish mind, a rite of purification similar to that of the priests who were to wash themselves, dress themselves in specially prepared garments and be perfectly clean before they began their priestly duties. “ People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River ” (Matthew 3: 5, 6). In some traditions baptism takes place at the same time as a person accepts Christ as his or her Saviour. In other traditions, there are intensive studies and often a waiting period between the time a person becomes a believer and the time he or she publicly confesses that faith. The arguments for or against either position are many. Personally, I suspec...