All through the Bible we find evidence of God’s foreknowledge. That is, He knows beforehand all that will happen. Whether the rise and fall of world empires (Daniel 7) to individual actions just hours before they occur — “Assuredly, I say to you that this night, before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times” (Matthew 26:34) — the Lord knows the end from the beginning. His foreknowledge, even of our free choices, has no bearing whatsoever on the freedom of those choices.
Thus, the Lord knew, even before He brought the children of Israel into the land, what they would do when in the land.
Read Deuteronomy 4:25-28. What did the Lord say that the people would do after they had been in the land promised them?
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In the verses before, the Lord tells them specifically not to make idols and not to worship them (Deuteronomy 4:15-20). Yet, the following verses pretty much say that making idols and worshiping them is exactly what they are going to do, despite all the warnings.
Notice that in Deuteronomy 4:25, Moses is clear that it won’t happen immediately. After all that they just had experienced, they weren’t likely to fall into idolatry right away. However, over time, after a generation or so, the tendency to “forget” (Deuteronomy 4:9) what the Lord had done for them, and what He had warned them against, would lead them to do exactly what He warned against.
Read Deuteronomy 4:29-31. What does the Lord say He will do for them in this specific situation?
God’s grace is amazing. Even after they fall into the horrific evil of idolatry, even after they have received the due consequences of their sins, if they turn to the Lord, He will forgive them and restore them. In short, if they freely choose to repent, He will accept their repentance.
The word in Deuteronomy 4:30, often translated “turn,” really means “to return.” That is, they are going back to the Lord, to where they were supposed to have been all along. The Hebrew word teshuvah, from that same root word for “to return,” means “repentance.”
Thus, at the core, whatever else is involved in repentance, it is a return to God after we have been separated from Him by our sins.
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