Deuteronomy 1-2

God inspired Moses to give a history lesson to the Israelites poised and ready to take the Promised Land. None of these Jews remembered the Exodus from Egypt forty years earlier. Most of them hadn’t been born when their parents and grandparents crossed the Red Sea on dry ground. Many of them weren’t even born when their parents refused to take the Promised Land forty years earlier.  So Moses wanted to be sure this generation knew the truth, knew exactly why their parents had turned about a two week walk from Egypt to Canaan into forty years of bouncing around in the wilderness.

Their parents were whiners. But it wasn’t their persistent complaining that caused God to shut the door on the Promise.

Their parents were disobedient. But their disobedience wasn’t the reason they were kept out of Canaan.

Their parents worshiped idols. But it wasn’t even their idolatry that caused them to die in the wilderness.

Moses wanted this generation – and ours – to know that the reason none of their parents and grandparents stepped foot into the Promised Land was because of unbelief. They closed the door themselves when they refused to trust God.

And that’s still true today. The only thing standing between an unsaved person and God is unbelief.

Do you believe God when He says Jesus is His Son, and the ONLY way to God? You may be a liar. God can forgive that. You may be an adulterer or a homosexual. God can forgive that. You might be angry, hateful, jealous, dishonest… All forgivable. You might even consider yourself agnostic, atheistic, Muslim, Mormon, Buddhist… all of which God can forgive…

if you believe. If you repent while your heart is still beating.

I John 1:9 If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.

But, friend, you will not see God or know what it’s like to walk with Him in this lifetime if you don’t believe in Jesus, if you don’t accept God’s forgiveness bought for you when Jesus died on the cross. The truth of Scripture as seen in the Old Testament and the New is that there is a “No Admittance” sign on the gate of heaven for anyone who has not believed in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Your past doesn’t matter. But what you do with Jesus really does.