Join us for our 2018 Women’s Conference, June 16 to 18 in Indianapolis. Browse the list of 56 speakers, 51 talks, and 14 “listening in” discussions. Register soon! TGC.org/2018

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It’s hard for me to imagine a book more obviously relevant to our generation than the book of Deuteronomy.

In certain respects, as a North American church we’re at a pivotal point—a moment of decision. Those who embrace the biblical gospel are facing enormous obstacles. Everyday, you and I are being tempted to grow cold in our love for God and for one another.

Even though we’re family in Christ, we’re often tweeting at one another in cheap disapproval rather than coming alongside one another in costly compassion. We grieve over fracture and division among us, and yet we’re still tempted to value our own rights more than the rights of others, even those neediest members of our family in Christ. And because we’re a strange people in a troubled world, we’re tempted to relate to our neighbors in fear or arrogance, or else to compromise our distinct identity as God’s blood-bought people.

Today is a day of decision for us—will we choose to listen to God’s voice above all others, and live the life he’s set before us? This is a momentous decision with far-reaching consequences.

It’s comforting to know that the Lord Jesus shows us how to make such a decision. We’re not alone in this. After 40 days in the wilderness, Jesus faced a crisis—a moment of decision. He was tempted directly by Satan to exploit his power and test his Father. How did Jesus withstand such temptation? He relied upon the Word of God. Specifically, he relied upon God’s breathed-out Word in Deuteronomy.

And this shouldn’t surprise us, because Deuteronomy mostly consists of sermons preached by a dying prophet to a people in crisis—a whole generation at a pivotal moment of decision. The Israelites are standing at the edge of the wilderness, peering into the Promised Land, and Moses is appealing to them, with all the urgency he can muster, to choose life and blessing, rather than death and destruction. To take hold of the good God is promising them—unlike the generation before them who had squandered God’s grace.

As he preaches to them, Moses is sober about their challenges; he tells them the truth about their predicament. Their most desperate dilemma is not that they’re facing a culture that despises them. Nor is it that they’re not big enough or powerful enough compared to the rest of the world. It’s not an out there problem at all.

No, their most desperate dilemma is that they have a heart that is hard toward God—a heart that is stubborn. These men and women need a new heart; they need God to renew them from the inside out. That’s the only way they’ll have the power to love God, and to love one another. Only by embracing the grace of God can they obey the commands of God.

Deuteronomy was written to the people of Israel, but it was written for them and for us—for their generation’s moment of decision and for ours. It’s a book that pulls us forward—because the solution to the book’s dilemma lies beyond it.

We’ll gather together at the 2018 women’s conference to see how God ultimately meets his people’s most desperate need in his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Only in Christ do we find God’s remedy for our rebel hearts. Only in Christ can we embody the way of life set before us in God’s Word. So we’ll ask God’s Spirit to conform us more and more into the image of Christ as we reflect on the very God-breathed words that helped shape him and his sense of mission.

In fact, Jesus quoted Deuteronomy throughout his ministry more than any other book of the Bible, after the Psalms. So we’ll study Jesus’s Scriptures and we’ll see how he fulfills them perfectly and beautifully.

This will equip us for our moment of decision—to listen and live, taking hold of the God of grace, who first has taken hold of us in Christ.

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