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Sermon preached on Deuteronomy 30:1-10 by Rev. W. Reid Hankins during the Morning Worship Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 11/08/2026 in Petaluma, CA. This week’s message helped prepare the congregation for the upcoming Ezra-Nehemiah series, reflecting on the exile and revelation foretold by Moses.
Sermon Manuscript
Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
Today I begin a series of five sermons that I am calling “prelude” sermons. They will help prepare us for our upcoming Ezra-Nehemiah series which I plan to begin on January 10th. Ezra and Nehemiah are historical books that describe Israel’s restoration in 538 BC to the Promised Land after their Babylonian exile. This prelude sermon takes us back in time almost 900 years, to the time of Moses and the period of Israel’s wandering in the wilderness, just before they conquer and settle in the Promised Land. In other words, almost a millennia before it happens, Moses foretells the exile and subsequent restoration. That tells us this was all a part of God’s redemptive plans and purposes. So then, studying this passage from Deuteronomy will help prepare us to see how the restoration it describes finds a fulfillment in Ezra and Nehemiah. But it will also give us an opportunity to consider how we Christians are connected to this history and story too.
There is a repeated Hebrew word here that thematically ties the chapter together. It’s the word typically translated as either “turn” or “return”. It appears seven times in this passage, though it’s hard to see that in most English translations. But the text describes both Israel returning to the LORD and the LORD returning the people back to the land. In our pew Bible, the language of “restore” in verse 3 is this same Hebrew word. So, this idea of returning and restoring is highlighted through the repeated phasing in the Hebrew. In this spirit, my first point is titled “Returning to the Lord from Exile.” My second point is titled “Returning to the Land from Exile.” My third point is then titled “Looking Ahead to Ezra and Nehemiah.”
Let’s begin with “Returning to the Lord from Exile”. Moses here is preparing the people to enter the Promised Land. In the chapters just before this, Moses had been reminding them of the covenant God made with them at Mt. Sinai. He had told them that if they were faithful to obey God in the land, he would give them blessing. But he also warned them that that if they were disobedient, God would curse them instead, even up to removing them from the land in exile and scattering them all over the nations. Verse 1 then begins with Moses foreseeing a future time when this all happens. Not only will Israel enjoy blessing in the Promised Land, but eventually they will experience curse, even this threatened curse of being scattered all over in exile outside of the Promised Land. Moses foresaw the great sin of Israel that would lead to such terrible curse falling upon them.
While that is extremely sobering, Moses goes on in verse 2 to foresee a future repentance after that happens. Moses envisions that the people will remember everything that Moses had told them here after they find themselves in exile. The language in verse 1 is that all this “returns” to their mind. They remember the blessings and the curses and the law God had given them. In response, the people will then return to the Lord, verse 2. They, and their children, will experience a wonderful inner change and repent and turn back to the LORD, with all their heart and soul. They will turn back to the LORD and begin afresh to keep his commandments like they were supposed to all along. This “heart and soul” repentance is repeated again at the close of the passage, in verse 10. There is a wonderful tension here, that the restoration promised here is conditioned on Israel wholeheartedly repenting and turning back to the LORD in obedience. Yet, verse 6, the very center of the passage, explains that it is only by a work of God circumcising a heart that such wholehearted obedience is possible. Thus, in beautiful tension, we see that we are called to repent of our sin and yet recognize that it is God who works repentance in us by his Holy Spirit. Indeed, this very chapter recognizes that God is at work throughout this, that he ordained Israel’s failing of faith which led to exile to be the occasion for God to work redemptively to show them mercy. To God alone be the glory!
That mercy, which is referenced in verse 3, leads us to our second point titled, “Returning to the Land from Exile”. In verses 3-9, Moses vividly describes the nature of what a return from exile would look like for God’s people. I’ll begin with a basic description, walking us through the general terms. First, in verse 3, Moses says God will restore, or return, the fortunes of the people. Literally, the Hebrew wording describes a returning of the people from their captivity. Verse 3 goes on to explain that this will happen through God gathering up the peoples from where God had scattered them when he brought that curse upon them. Verse 5 continues this logic by explaining that he will return the gathered people back to the Promised Land, the land that their fathers possessed.
While God would take away their curse and return them to a place of blessing, verse 7 foretells the opposite for Israel’s enemies. It says that when God restores his people, he will also make their enemies experience these curses from God. If you think about this, these things really need to coincide. How can Israel be saved from exile unless the people keeping them in captivity are defeated? Two of my future prelude sermons will deal with that idea more. I’ll have us look at Psalm 137 which has Israel lamenting their divine chastening at the evil hands of the Babylonians while at the same time praying for vindication against them. And I’ll also have us look at an Isaiah passage where it describes God raising up the Persian King, Cyrus, to defeat Babylon with the result that Israel could then return home. And so, God promises that the previously cursed Israel would be restored in blessing even as the enemies of God’s people would be cursed by God.
Verse 9 then speaks of the prosperity that Israel would enjoy once they are returned to the Promised Land. It speaks of how God would make their wombs prosperous, referring to having many children. I remember of how Psalm 127 speaks of children as a blessing from God and likens having many of them as filling arrows in a quiver. In addition to such reproductive prosperity, verse 9 also foretells agricultural prosperity. Their livestock would be bountiful, as well as their produce and crops. Remember that the Promised Land was described as a land of milk and honey. Yet, such bounty would only come if the Lord showed them favor. Thus, verse 9 summarizes this prosperity as a result of returning to take delight in Israel again, as he had with their forefathers.
Now, as I’ve just walked you through the basic description of this restoration, I purposefully waited to draw your attention to some other details. Moses doesn’t describe this restoration in minimalist terms. This isn’t going to be a partial or meager restoration. No, the restoration promised here is high and exalted. It will even exceed what Israel had before the exile. Let me show you this in the text. Look at how verse 4 describes God’s gathering of the people. If God’s exiled people have to be gathered all the way from the uttermost parts of heaven, from there God will gather them. Not one of God’s elect will be left behind. No distance is too great to seek them out and return them. Then look at the second half of verse 5. It explicitly says that their return to the Promised Land will see the people more prosperous and more numerous than their fathers. The glory of the returned exiles will surpass what their forefathers enjoyed.
And then you have verses 6 and 8. God himself will circumcise the hearts of the returned people, including their children. Circumcision is the picture of cutting off what is unclean. Heart circumcision is a metaphor describing the removal of all that is unclean from a heart. That would result in them loving God with all their heart and soul, verse 6. And it would result in the people obeying all God’s commandments he’s given them in the law, verse 8. And most importantly, verse 6, it says that because of this they will live. The reason the people would fall under God’s curse and find themselves in exile is because of their failure to obey God’s commandments. They needed hearts that are fully circumcised. Back in chapter 10, verse 16, Moses actually commanded the people to circumcise their hearts and to no longer be stubborn hearted. But this chapter reveals the reality, that need God to circumcise our hearts. And so God says that when he restores his wayward people and brings them back from captivity, he will so change their hearts that they will never end up under such a curse again. They will never again have to worry about losing the land and be thrown into exile. They will instead “live”. What a wondrous promise God gives here through Moses about such restoration after exile.
This then leads us to our third point, titled, “Looking Ahead to Ezra and Nehemiah”. Ezra and Nehemiah are an initial fulfillment to what this Deuteronomy passage has foretold. Israel had been conquered by Babylon and taken captive into exile. God’s people lamented over their sins, as examples like the book of Lamentations show. Then we see the people praying to God in the sort of repentance described here in today’s passage. For example, Daniel 9 shows Daniel praying such a prayer on behalf of Israel just before the restoration period covered by Ezra and Nehemiah begins. Likewise, Nehemiah 1 shows Nehemiah also praying such a prayer and he specifically quotes verse 4 here. So then, Ezra and Nehemiah record the beginning of the people returning to the Promised Land after the Babylonians are conquered by the Persians. The Persian King Cyrus allows Israelites to start returning to the land. Chronologically speaking, the events in the book of Ezra happen first, then the events in Nehemiah. Ezra describes the first exiles to return and how they start by beginning to rebuild the temple. Nehemiah then turns to describe additional people returning from exile and how they then work on rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem.
Now while on the surface, Ezra and Nehemiah show something of a fulfillment to today’s promises in Deuteronomy, a closer examination shows that they events they record do not fully measure up to what God promises here in Deuteronomy 30. While they show restoration from exile, it is not as complete or as grand as what was promised here. I will walk us through several examples to prove this point. First, the scattered people of God are not yet all gathered back. Ezra-Nehemiah show that only some Israelites returned to the land. Even by the New Testament, we find in Acts 2, that there existed a continued Jewish diaspora scattered among the nations. Second, clearly those who return and rebuild in Ezra and Nehemiah are not more prosperous than their forefathers were before in the land. Nehemiah 9 clearly shows this. There, Nehemiah laments that returned Israelites were back producing in the land, but they had to send the bounty of the land back to the foreign kings that ruled over them. Nehemiah there laments that fact by saying they were slaves in their own land. Had they really been freed from captivity? Third, at the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, they are not more numerous than their fathers. Nehemiah 7 lists a census of those who had returned and the numbers are quite meager compared Israel’s former glory days. Fourth, despite verse 7 promising curse against their enemies, Ezra and Nehemiah record various adversaries that yet opposed them and their rebuilding efforts, especially Samaritans. Fifth, the returned people still struggled to fully keep God’s law. Ezra 9 shows Ezra lamenting as he learns of how God’s people had been violating God’s commandments and so Ezra tears his clothes and starts to fast and pray to God. His prayer expresses concern that the very reason God had exiled them before was because of the people’s faithlessness, and here they are falling back into their former sins again. God’s peoples here did not yet have hearts that were fully circumcised as they were not yet fully obeying God with all their heart and soul. No restoration will be glorious enough without the people truly and fully loving the Lord with all their heart and soul to thus live in righteousness. Indeed, until that was solved, the people would always be at risk of falling afresh under curse and again exiled from the land.
These facts reveal that the books of Ezra and Nehemiah show only an initial fulfillment to the promises here in Deuteronomy. But it is not as if the word of God has failed. Rather, as Hebrews 11:40 says, God had them waiting in faith for the fulness of the promises to yet come, so that we too could come to enjoy the fulfillment together with them. You see, there is something very important that is missing in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, and it’s the reason why the fulfillment of the promised restoration hadn’t yet come. It’s Jesus. Christ Jesus had not yet come. The fulness of the restoration would be something that the Messiah ushers in! Jesus inaugurated the fulfillment of today’s passage at his first coming. This passage said Israel must wholeheartedly repent to enjoy this restoration. Well, Jesus’ ministry begins with John the Baptist first calling people to repent and to express that in baptism. But even then, did any of them wholeheartedly do that? Yet, Jesus, who didn’t have any sin to repent of if, nonetheless identifies with Israel and himself wholeheartedly receives John’s baptism for repentance. Jesus then goes on to live a life of full obedience, heart and soul, earning blessings and life for all God’s elect people who would be found in him. Likewise, Jesus bore the curses in the place of God’s people, even the cursed death of the cross. He redeems the people who fall short of the heart and soul obedience required by today’s passage. As Christ did his earthly ministry, he described himself as coming to gather up the lost sheep of Israel. Jesus also said that he has sheep of another fold that he must also gather, so that there would be one flock. That is us being brought into today’s passage, because Jesus includes us saved Gentiles as part of whom Deuteronomy says would be gathered up! Since then, Christ has even poured out his Spirit upon the church to equip us to participate in this world wide gathering of the elect. And this ministry of the Spirit has begun that work of heart circumcision in God’s people. The Spirit regenerates our soul, and is sanctifying our soul, and will ultimately perfect our soul in glory. Colossians 2:11 even describes this as the circumcision of Christ! And so, this brief summary explains that Christ Jesus is the one who ushers in the fulness of the restoration promised in Deuteronomy 30.
Now while Jesus has inaugurated the fulfillment of today’s passage, but he will not bring it to its consummate fulfillment until he returns in his second coming. This explains why even today some of what is promised here in Deuteronomy awaits its final fulfillment. We, God’s people have begun to be gathered together as one, but there are more saints yet to be gathered. We, God’s people have begun to have victory over Satan and the world, but there is still opposition we face. Indeed, the Bible metaphorically calls us still living in Babylon today, and 1 Peter 1 refers to Christians today as elect exiles of the dispersion. Most of all, we Christians still struggle to fully obey God. Our sanctification is not yet complete. But it will be!
Thus, the end of Revelation shows that at Christ’s return the remaining items of what Deuteronomy 30 promises will finally come to us. It kicks off in Revelation 18 with the final fall of Babylon, no more to come again. Then Satan, Death, and all the wicked, unbelieving world receive the final and eternal curse of the lake of fire. Then, at Christ’s return, all the elect will be gathered unto him, even those saints who had already died, they will be gathered even from the uttermost parts of heaven. Jesus will then bring us into the new creation. Heaven and earth will be made anew. A New Jerusalem will come down from heaven to earth. There, he will bring us. And there, wonderfully, God and Christ Jesus our Lord, will dwell there with us, forever. Revelation tells us there will be no more curse there. In that New Jerusalem, righteousness will reign. None of us will sin any more because Jesus will have finished circumcising our hearts in the full. As verse 6 said that this would mean that we could live, well, we will live, indeed we will live eternally as there will be no more death! And, oh, there will be bountiful prosperity there! It’s pictured with a river of life and a tree of life that always bears fruit.
Trinity Presbyterian Church, this passage has told us that exile and restoration was part of God’s redemptive plans for his people. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah show a beginning of God’s restoration for them, but they were left waiting for more. That more has begun to come in Jesus, the Messiah. We’ve been included in that. But we can relate to Ezra and Nehemiah because we too are still waiting for yet more. And it will be so wonderful when it comes. Let us then trust in Jesus. Indeed, may we all turn our whole hearts to him who turns hearts. And may we all follow our shepherd who leads us lost sheep into the glory of his coming kingdom.
Amen.
Copyright © 2026 Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
All Rights Reserved.
