Please take your Bibles and turn with me to Deuteronomy 32. Deuteronomy 32. Title of the message, this is your life. This is your life. We will be in 46 and 47, but you don't need to start there, because we're going to walk through the entire context of Deuteronomy 32. It's an interesting title, is it not? This is your life. How would you define your life? What is your life? What is life to you? It's an interesting question. What is life to you? See, everyone is driven by something in their life. Something makes you get up in the morning. Something informs what you do. Something informs why you do what you do. Something drives your decision. Perhaps it's many things. Something drives you to do what you do, to go where you go, to say what you say, to think what you think. Something compels you to continue. There's a point in life that is oft spoke of called the midlife crisis. Now, it's not necessarily something that's biblical or something that should or could happen to everybody, but there is a common phrase regarding a defining point in someone's life where they realize they're getting older, and they start to wonder, what am I doing with my life? What have I done with my life? Where is my life going? Or they're getting older and they say, I'm not really that old and they try to start living younger. They try to start getting the most out of life while they still can. They start to perhaps see the twilight and they want to live in the light. They are motivated by the reality of their age to do things differently than they had done them before. The old adage goes, you make time for what is important to you. And that's right, isn't it? It's true. I remember once, I don't know if I'll ever forget it, my dad and I were at a, it was a public school field trip. It was a week, maybe several days, I don't quite remember anymore. And we went up to Estes Park and we stayed in the dorms. It's a, it's a, camping area up in Colorado in the mountains and we as a school, the whole class stayed in the dorms there and went and did several activities outdoorsy type stuff throughout the week and my dad volunteered to be one of the chaperones that week and so he and I were up there and I remember one morning getting out of bed and we had to make our beds and go down to breakfast and then we had a little bit of free time and I saw my dad reading his Bible during free time. And I asked him what he was doing. He said, I'm reading my Bible. And I recognized that he has done that regularly, and I was a little bit surprised that he was doing it up there at camp. And I said, you do that all the time. You do that every day. He said, yeah, I try. And I remember I asked him this question. I said, well, what happens when you don't have time? What happens when you don't have time to read your Bible? And I'll never forget his answer. He looked at me and he said, well, then I make time. What happens if you don't have time? Well, then I make time. See, because we have time for what is important to us on a daily basis, regardless of what we say is important to us, what we do reveals what is important to us. Well, Pastor, I just don't have enough time to pray. Yes, you do. If prayer was an important part of your life, you'd have time to pray. Pastor, I don't have time to read my Bible. If reading your Bible was an important part of your life, you would have time to read your Bible. Because we make time for what's important to us. I can say that something is very important to me and really convince myself of that fact. But if I'm not giving any time or any effort to it, my actions are revealing an inconsistency between what I think and what I say and what is actually true. I can say that my family, since we are at the tail end of family emphasis series here, I can say my family is very, very important to me. I can convince myself that my family is number one in my life, but if I don't spend time with my family and I don't make time to do those things that are best for my family, then there's an inconsistency in what I'm saying and who I actually am. I can say that God and His Word are the most important thing in my life. And I can convince myself of that fact. But if I'm not obeying God's Word, not actively making God the focal point of my life, then there's an inconsistency between who I think I am and who I actually am. In Deuteronomy chapter 32, we're going to take some time this evening to consider this. It's a final message in our family emphasis series. For weeks, we've been looking at the responsibilities of each member of the family. For weeks, we have seen what God desires for each of us within this essential institution within our churches and within our society. But my question this evening, and it's not really about the family as much as it is simply about you, each of you. We've talked to the fathers, the mothers, the siblings, the children. We've talked to everyone as far as the family role goes. And so, my question to you is, what has the last six weeks done for you? We've all been confronted with things we can do better. I have, I know. Maybe I shouldn't be speaking for everybody, but I think I probably can. We have all been confronted with areas of our lives as husband, father, wife, mother, child, sibling, areas that we can do better. But have we done anything with that? Will we do anything with that? In Deuteronomy 32, Moses is ready to die. He was about to die because he did not justify the holiness of God. You remember the story, right? The children of Israel murmur for water a second time. And God says, speak to the rock and water will come forth from the rock. And Moses gets up in front of the people and he says, must we fetch you water out of this rock? And he struck the rock and he said, come forth. And water came forth. but he was not told to strike the rock a second time. He was told to speak to the rock. He went beyond the bounds of the authority that God had given to him, and even though God did allow water to come from that rock, Moses, in doing so, usurped the authority of God and sought to claim some authority for himself. I'm just going to tack on a little extra to God's command here. This is my flourish to God's command. Look at what I just did. And because he failed to justify God's holiness before the people, and because he was such a representative of God to the people, God said, you may not enter the land of promise. You must die in the wilderness. And Moses is giving his farewell address here, if you will. And the passion that flows through this passage is incredible. And so what I would like us to do is walk through the first 45 verses of this very briefly together, and then we'll make our application in verses 46 and 47. So look with me if you would, Deuteronomy chapter 32, beginning in verse one. Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak, and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distill as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass, because I will publish the name of the Lord. Ascribe ye greatness unto our God. He is the rock. His work is perfect for all his ways are judgment and a God of truth and without iniquity. Just and right is he. They have corrupted themselves. Their spot is not the spot of his children. They are a perverse and crooked generation. Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise? Is not he thy father that hath bought thee? Hath he not made thee, and established thee? Moses begins his final admonition to the people of Israel by reminding the hearers of the most basic tenet of biblical truth, that God is truth, that His work is perfect, that God is just and God is right. But he also reminds Israel of the response since the very beginning of their existence by which they have responded to God. And it has been a response of corruption and perversion. Verse 5, he says, they are a perverse and crooked generation. And so his question in verse 6 is this, Do ye thus requite the Lord? Is this really how you're going to live your life in light of all that God has done for you? Is this how you are going to frame your priorities in spite of what you know about God? We get into this this evening. I'm not apologetic for the message I'm about to preach, but I will say this please prepare yourself because it is a little bit heavy this evening I'm not preaching this message intending to Hit each one of you as if you're doing something wrong, but if you if you haven't Responded properly to the past six weeks to the conviction of the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit is going to do some work in your heart this evening because the passion from this passage is so strong. And as I search my own heart and I read Deuteronomy 32, and please know that as I read this passage, there's such a weight on my heart about all that I'm not doing for God that I couldn't be. And so that's going to come forth in my preaching this evening. I'm passionate about this not because I think you all have a problem, but because I know I have a problem. And so I would imagine that maybe someone else in here does too. Let me just qualify this evening, because I'm going to say this. When we as believers read the Word of God in faith, when we hear the preaching of the Word of God properly expositing the Scriptures, and we are confronted with the realities of God's truth, His perfection, His justice, and His righteousness, What God asks us through Moses is this. Is this really all that you have to show for all that you know about God? Is the life that you live and the way that you live it, everything that it could be for God, everything that you have learned about God, everything that God has taught you, all of that study, all of that learning, the attributes of God that you know, the expectations of God that you know, the tremendous amount of knowledge that we have, Is your life a proper manifestation of everything that you know? Has God not made us? Has God not redeemed us? Has God not revealed himself to us? Yes. And these lives are what we have to show for what God has done for us. How's that life doing? This phrase that we see in verse six challenges me deeply. Knowing that to whom much is given, much is required. And knowing that by all accounts, my devotion to God is in no way reflected by how much I know him. My knowledge of God is so much higher than my devotion to him is what I'm trying to say. My obedience to God in no way requites even that which to this point in my life I have learned of God, much less all which I have yet to grasp of God and all that He has done for me." And so, this is an outpouring of my heart to you. Because we've heard six weeks of preaching on family. We've heard six weeks of preaching on the home. On being a good child. good sibling, a good parent, a good husband, a good wife. And this isn't going to come up all that often. And my prayer is that as you've heard the preaching of the Word of God and as the Holy Spirit has placed his thumb on things, we would not just walk away unchanged. that we would not know what we need to do and then just fail to do it. We can't afford that, folks. We cannot afford that in our lives. We have so much to work on. There is so much to do. There is so much growth. There is so much work that God has for us to do, much less the work that we have to do on ourselves for us to ignore our own faults. for us to be that type that's found in the book of James. Where we look into the perfect law of liberty and behold ourselves for who we are. And then we close the book and we straightway go and forget the manner of man that we are. And just say, oh well, I'll work on it later. Maybe in five years. Maybe in ten years. Maybe later I'll deal with that. I was reading a writing of a pastor friend this past week. He was talking about sin and temptation. And he was talking about how addictions in a man's life is nothing more than when a sin has been let go too long before you decide to deal with it. And he was talking about how temptation in our lives, at first when we're tempted, we might grab a hold on sin, but eventually if we don't get it taken care of, sin will grab a hold of us. And as he spoke of all of these things in the writing that he did that I was reading online, many of these thoughts came flooding back to me, realizing how many times I have read the Word of God and understood the Word of God and said, yep, I need that. I need to change that. I need to do that. And then, oh, there I go, time to mow the lawn. Oh, there I go, time to eat dinner. Oh, there I go, time to go shopping. And the important thing has to take a back seat to the temporal and the material. God forbid that we would be that way in our lives. Let's continue verse seven. Remember the days of old. Consider the years of many generations. Ask thy father, and he will show thee thy elders, and they will tell thee when the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance. When He separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. For the Lord's portion is his people. Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. He found them in a desert land, and in the waste, howling wilderness. He led them about. He instructed him. He kept him as the apple of his eye, as an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them. birthed them on her wings. So the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange God with him. He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the field, and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock, butter of kind, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats with the fat of kidneys of wheat. And thou didst drink the pure blood of the grain. But Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked. Thou art waxen fat. Thou art grown thick. Thou art covered with fatness. When he forsook God, which made him, and lightly esteemed the rock of his salvation, they provoked him to jealousy with strange gods. With abominations provoked they him to anger. They sacrificed unto devils, not to God. to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not. Of the rock that beget thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee. These verses describe the way that Israel, whom Moses calls Jeshurun in this passage, responded to God's goodness. The name Jeshuron in the Hebrew literally means upright one and is a name found only in Deuteronomy chapters 32 and 33. It's not found anywhere else in scripture. Nowhere else in scripture is this name used for Israel. Jeshuron, the upright one. It's intended to describe an ideal. how God ideally saw Israel. He saw them as that one in the midst of the nations that was upright. That one who He had called, who He had chosen, who He had blessed, who He had gifted to be upright. God recounts His goodness to this people, Jeshurun. A goodness which was realized through favor, and inheritance, and guidance, and protection, and comfort. He talks about butter, and milk, and fat, and the blessings on the prosperity of the land, and the prosperity of the sheep, and of the cows, and the prosperity of the vineyards, that the grape was pure and was... just flowing in its fatness. But in verse 15, Moses says, Jeshurun, this upright one, that is Israel, waxed fat and kicked. They got too big for their britches. They kicked back at God. They said, God, now I've got everything I need. I'm content. I don't need you anymore. One of my daughters has been going through a bit of a kicking phase. She's well provided for, she's cared for, and then something doesn't go her way, and immediately those legs start kicking when something doesn't go her way. That's kind of the analogy that God is giving here. I gave you everything that you could possibly need, and then when you got fat, when you got comfortable, when you felt like everything you had was in place, you kicked against me. They rebelled against the one who had given them all. They forsook the God who had made them. They lightly esteemed the rock of their salvation, God said. the source of all blessing, and the source of all life, and the source of all goodness, and the source of all truth, was not esteemed worthy of their obedience and their devotion. How quickly we are to forget. We're quick to need. We're hungry for blessing. We long for God's comforting presence in time of pain and in time of sorrow. We regularly recognize God as our source of health and life. It's quite regular that as I pray and as the men lead us in prayer in this church that we will hear thanksgiving to God for how he has provided for us and for the blessings he's given for our health. Sophia aptly reminded us a couple of Tuesday nights ago that we need to be sure that as we are taking time to pray and ask the Lord for these blessings, that we take time as well to thank Him for all of the ways in which He has blessed us. A tremendous reminder. But the question is, how often do we treat God in accordance with what we expect of Him? How often do we treat God with the same goodness that He treats to us? How often do we show God the same priority that He shows to us? How often do we treat God as if He is the only thing standing between us and a sinner's health? How often are we mindful of all that God has done and all that we ought to do in return? Continuing in verse 19 through verse 28, Moses says, and when the Lord saw it, He abhorred them because of the provoking of his sons and of his daughters. And he said, I will hide my face from them. I will see what their ending shall be, for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith. They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God. They have provoked me to anger with their vanities, and I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people. I will provoke them to anger with the foolish nation, that being the church. For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and shall set on fire the foundations of the mountains. I will heap mischiefs upon them. I will spend mine arrows upon them. They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction. I will also send the teeth of the beasts upon them with the poison of the serpents of the dust. The sword without terror within shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs. I said I would scatter them into corners. I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men. Were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave themselves strangely, and lest they should say, Our hand is high, the Lord hath not done all this. For they are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them." God has given us so much. God had given to Israel so much, and instead of them giving God back, Israel pushed back. They poked him. They ignored him. They defied him until God says he'll have no more of it. So he allowed them to lack. He allowed all of those blessings he had given them to dry up. He allowed them to be hungry even though he longed to feed them. He allowed them to be scattered even though he longed to gather them. He allowed them to be oppressed even though he longed to protect them. Yet the nation lacked the understanding to turn back to God. They lacked the willingness to do what they needed to do. Why do humans act this way? Our human nature is consumed with one thing above all else. You know what that thing is? Self. Self. We are selfish to the very core of our being. Our lives are consumed with our desire to sit upon our own throne. Our self will gladly be suppressed, it will gladly be disciplined, it will gladly remain limited as long as it's not killed. As long as self can remain upon the throne, it will gladly work in the background instead of the foreground. Self may not pursue the vilest sins of the age. We might look at ourselves and say, you know, I'm not stealing, and I'm not engaged in adultery, I'm not killing people and I'm not swearing and I'm not doing all of these things, all of the vices of this age. I'm not out getting drunk. I'm not out getting high. I've got all of these things in place. Yes, self is okay with that as long as it can maintain control of our hearts. You don't give up all of those things. One man put it this way, may I read it to you? The last enemy destroyed in a believer is self. It dies hard. It will make any concession if allowed to live. Self will permit the believer to do anything, give anything, sacrifice anything, suffer anything, be anything, go anywhere, take any liberties, bear any crosses, afflict soul or body to any degree, anything. if it can only hold sway. It will allow victory over pride, penuriousness, and passion, if not destroyed itself. It will permit any number of rivals, so long as it can be promised the first place. It will consent to live in a hovel, in a garret, in the slums, in faraway heathendom, If only its life can be spared, it will endure any garb, any fare, any menial service, rather than surrender. Another man put it this way. The natural man is a sinner because and only because he challenges God's selfhood in relation to his own. In all else, man may be willing to accept the sovereignty of God. In his own life, he rejects it. For him, God's dominion ends where his begins. For him, Lowercase self becomes capital S, self. And in this, he unconsciously imitates Lucifer, that fallen son of the morning who said in his heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will be like the most high. Yet so subtle is self that scarcely anyone is conscious of his presence. Because man is born a rebel, he is unaware that he is one. He is willing to share himself, sometimes even to sacrifice himself for a desired end, but never to dethrone himself. Sin has many manifestations, but its essence is one. A moral being created to worship before the throne of God sits on the throne of his own selfhood and from that elevated position declares, I am. What these wise men of God remind us is that self is a great enemy. Your greatest enemy, children, in this battle to be what you ought to be as a child and as a sibling is you. It's you. You want to be justified. You want to be in control. You want to be the one on the throne. Sure, God can have the world. God is in control of our government. God is in control of our church. God will grow our church in his time. God will plead our cause. God will build his church. The gates of hell will not prevail against the church. That's fine, but then when it comes to you, Yourself, your decisions, your obedience, your kindness, your love. Who's on the throne? Well, yourself will wrestle day and night to keep you on the throne of your own heart. To keep God off of it. Self dies hard. Through our own self, we can in fact stare God's blessings right in the face and then openly defy God's will. We can see God's blessings pouring all around us. I can see God in the trees. I can see God in the clouds. I can see God in the tremendous creation that is our bodies. I can thank Him for it. As long as self is still on the throne, I can very well see Him and still deny Him. And what is God's heart among people so devoted to self? Well, look at me as we continue in verse 29. God says, oh, that they were wise, that they understood. that they would consider their latter end. How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their rock had sold them, and the Lord had shut them up? For their rock is not as our rock, even our enemies themselves being judges. For their vine is the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are grapes of Gaul. Their clusters are bitter. Their wine is the poison of dragons and the cruel venom of asps. Is not this laid up in store with me and sealed up among my treasures? To me belongeth vengeance and recompense. Their foot shall slide in due time, for the day of their calamity is at hand and the things that shall come upon them make haste. For the Lord shall judge his people and repent himself for his servants, when he see it that their power is gone and there is none shut up or left. And he shall say, where are their gods, their rock in whom they trusted, which did eat that of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offerings? Let them rise up and help you and be your protection. God says here, if only my people would understand the end, instead of being so consumed with right now. If only God's people would look with eyes of humble faith and see what the end of the thing is, rather than looking with eyes of self in their rebellion. If only God's people would see that the sin that they are pursuing today isn't even a shadow of the joy and the blessing that is found to those that would submit themselves to God. If only God's people would understand that the end of the sinner is vengeance, and the end of the righteous is blessing. If only God's people would recognize that the gods that they serve in place of the true and living God are dead, are powerless, and are feeble. Continuing, let's look in verse 39 through 43. God says, see now that I, even I am he, and there is no God with me. I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal. Neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand. For I lift up mine hand to heaven and say, I live forever. If I wet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on judgment, I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them that hate me. I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh, and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives from the beginning of revenge is upon the enemy. Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land. and to his people. If only God's people would understand that Jehovah God is God and that there is no other, that it is Jehovah God that kills and makes alive, that it is Jehovah God that wounds and heals, that it is Jehovah God that delivers and that none can deliver out of his hand. Beloved, oh, that we would see with eyes of faith. Oh, that we would take God's word as truth, not just for the oppressor, or the unbeliever, or the openly rebellious, but for us as God's children, that we would see every word in this book that he has written to us, and we would say it is true, and it is worth living by. Oh, that we would see God, not just in terms of what He has done, but in terms of what He could do if we would only allow Him to. Oh, that we would see ourselves not just in terms of what we are, but in terms of what we could be if only we would submit to God. This is the message that God gave to Moses, God gave through Moses on that day. A message that culminates with his words in verses 45 and 46, excuse me, 44 through 46, and let's read them together. And Moses came and spake all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he and Hosea the son of Nun. And Moses made an end of speaking all these words to all Israel. And he said unto them, set your hearts unto all the words which I testify among you this day, which ye shall command your children to observe to do, all the words of this law. As we consider these words, I would again like to turn our eyes toward the last six weeks and consider with me one more verse in verse 47. For it is not a vain thing for you, because it is your life. And through this thing ye shall prolong your days in the land whither ye go over Jordan to possessions. God says it's not a vain thing for you. If you will just listen to the Word of God, it's not going to be empty. It's going to be, in fact, your very life. It's going to mean your prosperity. It's going to mean your peace. It's going to mean your joy. It's going to mean everything that will ever mean anything to you if you will but listen, if you will but consider the words of God. Father, husband, mother, wife, child, sibling, you have heard, young person, you have heard, single adult, you've heard what the Word of God has told you as a part of the family. You have heard why that matters to this church. Have you, like Israel, heard the words again and again only to openly defy God with your actions? Or are you indeed walking in humble submission to the Word of God, to the expectation of Scripture and with regard to the family? Are you an obedient child? Or are you a rebellious child? Consider these questions as we apply and close this evening. Question number one, have you set your hearts to hear and to obey the Word of God? Verse 46 begins with the command that Israel would set their hearts upon the Word of God. He says, set your hearts unto all the words which I testify among you this day. That they would take these words and that they would make them words to live by. That the words of God would become the very cornerstone of their living. Not that they would take the words of God and they would staple them to the side of their life. Not that they would take the piece of gum out of their mouths and stick it to the back of the words and stick it on the wall and say, okay, well that's there now. We're adding that to the plethora of things by which to live. Is it the very cornerstone? Is this book the very cornerstone of what guides your life? What guides your decisions? What guides your thoughts? What guides your intents? Father or Mother, have you set God's Word as the very cornerstone of your life? Have you ever come to the point where you have decided that if God said it, you believe it? Do you approach the Word of God with such determination and humility that you are willing to set aside, at the behest of the will of God, all of those other things that might be calling you to listen in order to follow the One who has redeemed you and called you by His name? Father, does your family leadership permeate with a careful submission to the Word of God so that anyone who looks at you and your family can recognize that you are following God and that your family is following you as you are following God? Mother, is your care for your family and for your household defined by a determination that fills your house with the light of the obedience of the Word of God and stands as an unavoidable beacon of godliness? Have you set your hearts to obey the Word of God? Children, have you determined that if my parents tell me to do something, I'm just going to do it? Because by obeying my parents, I am honoring my God and I am being a testimony to my family, to my friends, to my neighbors, to my church. Have you determined that if God's word indeed says it, I am going to believe it and I'm going to do it? Second, have you taught parents and demonstrated these words to your children. Verse 46 continues. He says, I testify among you this day which ye shall command your children to observe to do all the words of this law. Parents, have the principles of godliness as they pertain to the home and family been passed down to your children? Have the realities of redemption and justification and holy living found their way from you to them? Or are you trusting that others will do that work, hoping and praying that somehow they'll hear and understand everything they need to to become successful Christians? Or do your children see the same rebellion that the generations of Israel saw in their parents? Do your children see you, who boldly proclaims your redemption from the fields of sin, also boldly demonstrate the commandments of God in your own life? Do they see you claim to be a follower of Christ and yet turn around? and disobey the word of God through word or through action, parents? Do your children see you living a disconnected Christian life and look forward to the day when their selfish hearts can indulge with the same carelessness that your selfish heart is indulging in the field of sin? Have you taught and demonstrated the word of God to your children. Third and finally this evening, all of us, have you realized that these words are your life? The word of God is not just a part of your life, folks. The word of God is life. You were created by God, you were formed in the womb, and you are now an eternal being. Yes, your body will die, your body will decay, but you'll get a new one one day. And you'll live forever. And there's one of two places that each of you will spend eternity. You will either spend eternity with God in heaven, or you will spend eternity separated from God in a place of fiery torment called hell. See, the scriptures tell us we're all sinners. And that because we are sinners, the scriptures tell us that the wages of sin is death. That the payment for our sin, that because you have done wrong, you deserve not just physical death, but spiritual death. Separation from God forever in an eternal place of torment known as hell. But Romans 6.23 does not end with, for the wages of sin is death. It continues saying this, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. That's good news. That though we are sinners by birth and by will, God sent Jesus Christ his son to pay for our sins, to take upon him our sins. And when Jesus died on the cross and shed his blood, he cried out on the cross, it is finished, declaring that he has paid for every person's sins in the whole world. And the scriptures tell us that because Jesus Christ paid the price, we don't have to go to hell. We can go to heaven through his payment. He paid the price so that we could be saved. And the scriptures tell us in John 3, 16, that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, and here's how we receive it, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Whoever places their faith and trust in Jesus Christ, rejecting anything else to get to heaven, and accepting Jesus Christ alone as the payment for their sins, will be saved, the scriptures tell us. and we'll spend eternity with God in heaven, rather than eternity separated from God in hell. And the moment we accepted Christ as our Savior, if you have done that this evening, not only were you one who was created by God and formed by God, but you were one who was born again by the power of God. After you were born again, you are changed. You begin to fulfill the purpose that God created you to fill. You can please Him. You can serve Him. You can know Him. You can love Him, and you can obey Him. Not only can you do all of these things, but according to the Word of God, you're expected to. And so now you're saved, but you haven't arrived. You're saved, but you've only just begun. Your life now has purpose. As the hymn is said, life has purpose now it never had before. There is meaning to each day and even more for a joy and peace I can't explain is mine since I found new life in Christ, my Lord divine. And what the scriptures are telling us is this. The moment you were born again by believing on the name of Jesus Christ, Christ became your life. He didn't just become a piece of your life. He wasn't just tacked on to your life. He became the very source of your eternity, the very source of your eternal salvation. And so great salvation deserves not just one day a week or not just a few hours of your day. It deserves every moment of every day. God asked the nation of Israel in verse six, do ye thus requite the Lord? I've saved you Israel, I've redeemed you, I've blessed you. Is this how you're going to repay my love? Oh, that they were wise, he said in verse 29, that they understood this and that they would consider their latter end. And that's what I would like us to do as we close. I'd like us to consider our latter end. That means the end of the thing instead of just the now. When you get to heaven, Could be tonight, could be tomorrow, could be 20 years from now, 50 years from now. When you get to heaven, what will you have to show for it? Will the actions that encompass this past week of your life have any worth in heaven? Will the things that you do this next week be the same things? Will the sins that you commit next week and the week after and the week after that God has placed his thumb on over the past six weeks and said that is something you need to correct, father, mother, child, are those same sins going to perpetuate tomorrow, this week, next week, next month, next year? Are we going to hear what we need to do and then just say, eh, oh well? Are we going to leave ourselves on the thrones of our own hearts to do what we will, even at the expense of God's will? As Moses was about to die, he pleaded with Israel and he said, Israel, heed the words that I've told you. This is not just good advice, this is your life. This is the very lifeblood of your existence. And Christian, if you are a born-again believer in this room, this is the very lifeblood of your existence. This is not just a book with wise sayings and good advice. This is not just a helpful manual that will tell you how to get the most out of life. This is the manual that will tell you how you run properly. This will tell you how you get started in the morning, how you maintain through the day, and how you get to bed at night. This will tell you what to do in your waking hours. This will tell you where to go with your life. This will tell you what direction. This will tell you the attitude that you're supposed to have as you do it. This will tell you everything that ought to matter to you. It's your life. For six weeks, we've heard good advice from the Word of God. But it's been more than that. By God's grace, it's an every week thing at this church. Sometimes, maybe more than others. But every week, we hear the Word of God. And every week, we ought to leave either Asking God to help us become what we need to be or begging God to help us continue to be what we ought to be We ought to see every single lesson in this book as vital and if we will do that we will find that it's not just our life and that it consumes our life, but it is literally the source of all that is our life. It will be the source of our joy. It will be the source of our contentment. It will be the source of our testimony before. And that is what it needs to be. And by God's grace, let's make it this evening. Allow the Holy Spirit to work in your heart as He's placed His thumb on places in your life. Allow Him to work in you and through you. Let's pray together.