The Choice of Life or Death
Deuteronomy 30:
11 “This command I am giving you today is not too difficult for you to understand, and it is not beyond your reach. 12 It is not kept in heaven, so distant that you must ask, ‘Who will go up to heaven and bring it down so we can hear it and obey?’ 13 It
is not kept beyond the sea, so far away that you must ask, ‘Who will
cross the sea to bring it to us so we can hear it and obey?’ 14 No, the message is very close at hand; it is on your lips and in your heart so that you can obey it.
15 “Now listen! Today I am giving you a choice between life and death, between prosperity and disaster. 16 For I command you this day to love the Lord
your God and to keep his commands, decrees, and regulations by walking
in his ways. If you do this, you will live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you and the land you are about to enter and occupy.17 “But if your heart turns away and you refuse to listen, and if you are drawn away to serve and worship other gods, 18 then I warn you now that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live a long, good life in the land you are crossing the Jordan to occupy.
19 “Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live! 20 You can make this choice by loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and committing yourself firmly to him. This is the key to your life. And if you love and obey the Lord, you will live long in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
Answers to Isaiah 22:22 & Rev. 3:Revelation 3:7-8;20, Jesus ... I will place on his shoulder the key to the house of David; what he opens no one ... the answer is found in what the Lord himself says concerning David (Acts 13:22):
ReplyDelete"I have found David son of Jesse a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do."
I believe the Key of David is essentially the Heart of David. God calls him "a man after my own heart."
The heart of David is most eloquently captured in the words of Psalm 132, where it says of David,
He swore an oath to the Lord
and made a vow to the Mighty One of Jacob:
"I will not enter my house
or go to my bed-
I will allow no sleep to my eyes,
no slumber to my eyelids,
till I find a place for the Lord,
a dwelling for the Mighty One of Jacob."
The heart of David, above all, was to find a resting place for the presence of the Lord among his people, a "Dwelling for the Mighty One of Jacob." After David captured Jerusalem from the Jebusites, one of his first acts recorded in the Scriptures (II Sam. 6, I Chron. 13-15), before conquering other cities or lands, was to bring the Ark of the Covenant, the Ark representing the Presence of God into Jerusalem, and establish worshippers continually ministering to the Lord day and night. David was known as a Shepherd, a Fugitive, a Warrior, and a King; but most of all, and above all, as a Worshipper.
David was a man after God’s own heart. You see, God’s heart, above all, is to be in the midst of his people.