Leviticus 26 - Eden's Blessing and the Consequences of Rejecting God

It's crazy to think, but we are almost all the way to the end of the Book of Leviticus.

We were in Leviticus 26 today, and it has been just a wonderful time in God's Word, for me at least, I don't know about for you all, but I have felt like now I have so much more of a grasp on what's in this book and some of why it's in this book.

And I've really enjoyed being able to become familiar with a portion of scripture that, I don't know if I would use the word scared before, that I was scared before to go through it, or just not really appreciate what was going on.

And now I feel like whenever I come back to the book of Leviticus, or whenever I read things elsewhere in scripture that are mentioned here, that it's made my Bible reading so much richer, that I know, oh, okay, this is why God is saying this.

This is why this is mentioned in Hebrews. And so I'm grateful for this time together. So thank you for tuning in, especially if you're here at this point in Leviticus 26, you are a trooper and I really, really appreciate it.

This is the hundred and something episode. I think this might be episode maybe 115 or something, maybe closer to like 106 or 107.

I don't vividly remember at the moment, but we have gone through Acts, Book One of Psalms, Zephaniah, Second John, and now we'll end Leviticus tomorrow and love this time that we get to spend in God's Word together.

And if you have any thoughts, any next portions of scripture that you would love to go through together, let me know. Let me know via text, DM, in person, whatever. Would love to see what you are interested in from God's Word.

I know 100%, whatever thing I'm going to do immediately after this will be a shorter study. And it will, Lord willing, be kind of a familiar, easy thing for myself because I've got a lot of things up coming just in the next few weeks.

And so looking forward to that. Leviticus is so rich and so many things that I've learned and had to read through and go, okay, why is this in here?

And I will definitely enjoy a little bit simpler read next and thankful for all the various types of things we read about in God's Word and how useful that is for us.

Leviticus 26 in verse 1 says this, do not make idols for yourselves, set up a carved image or sacred pillar for yourselves, or place a sculpted stone in your land to bow down to it, for I am Yahweh your God. Keep my Sabbaths and revere my sanctuary.

I am Yahweh. So here he's giving kind of two of the big things. This is commandment number two and commandment number four.

No graven images and keep the Sabbath. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Verse number three.

If you follow my statutes and faithfully observe my commands, I will give you rain at the right time, and the land will yield its produce, and the trees of the field will bear their fruit.

Your threshing will continue until grape harvest, and the grape harvest will continue until sowing time. You will have plenty of food to eat and live securely in your land.

I will give peace to the land, and you will lie down with nothing to frighten you. I will remove dangerous animals from the land, and no sword will pass through your land. You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall before you by the sword.

Five of you will pursue a hundred, and a hundred of you will pursue ten thousand. Your enemies will fall before you by the sword. I will turn to you, make you fruitful, and multiply you, and confirm my covenant with you.

I want to stop right there at verse number nine. Hear God saying the initial plan from when God created humanity, Genesis 1 and verse 28, God blessed them.

Genesis 1, 28, God blessed them, and God said to them, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. So God says, I'm going to give you that Eden blessing, the original plan for mankind you are going to get to fulfill.

Just follow these statutes, these ordinances, things that are not like contrary to you.

These are things that keep you healthy, that lead to human flourishing when there's no stealing, when there's no violence, when there's no betrayal and cheating and unjust business practices, when you are worshipping God alone and not following these

other gods that want sacrifices from you of your children, of so many things. He says, I want you to follow my ways. These are the ways that lead to life. And when you follow them, you will have plenty to eat.

There will be no danger for you. When there are enemies, just a few of you will be able to eradicate them all.

I think of even the story of Jonathan and his armor bearer from the Book of 1 Samuel, when everyone was scared in Israel and Saul was making dumb decisions, but his son Jonathan said to his armor bearer, there was a garrison of Philistine troops, and

Jonathan told his armor bearer, hey, will you go up with me? And the armor bearer says, hey, whatever God's put in your heart, I'm with you all the way.

And they too go up, and they were able to route the entire garrison of the Philistines that were attacking. And so many times that God works in ways that people could not have imagined.

You can think of the story of Gideon and how him and his 300 men were able to send back the Midianites and that God used confusion among them, that they thought there were a ton more people and that the enemies were in the camp, and so they ended up

attacking each other. And God works in incredible ways. And so God says, I'm going to bless you as you follow the way in which you were created to live. When you embrace the giver of life and his ways, you receive life.

Verse number 10. You will eat the old grain of the previous year, and will clear out the old to make room for the new. I will place my residence among you, and I will not reject you.

I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people. This is the exact same promise that he makes in the very last book of the Bible in Revelation and verse number 22.

The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. Actually, I need to go back one portion.

Yes, yeah, Revelation 21, sorry. Then I heard a loud voice from the throne. Look, God's dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them.

They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and will be their God. So there in Revelation, how God describes the new creation is in the terms of Leviticus 26, that exact same thing.

I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people. Verse 13, I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt so that you would no longer be their slaves. He has freed us.

He says, I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to live in freedom.

But, he says, verse 14, if you do not obey me and observe all these commands, if you reject my statutes and despise my ordinances and do not observe all my commands and break my covenant, then I will do this to you.

He says, when you reject life, you reap death. That's the only other option. He says, I will bring terror on you, wasting disease and fever that will cause your eyes to fail and your life to ebb away.

You will sow your seed in vain because your enemies will eat it. I will turn against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you and you will flee even though no one is pursuing you.

Here is kind of a play by play of what happens in the Book of Judges that the children of Israel, Godlike, gives them wonderful victory, gives them the land. And then they immediately turn to worshiping other gods.

And in turn, marrying and adopting the culture of the people that were in the land previously. And instead of saying, oh no, God's justice is why they no longer have sole control of the land. Instead, they adopted their ways.

And so God says, alright. And the Philistines, they conquer the Israelites. And the Midianites conquer Israel.

And many other groups come in. And in their time of need, they cry out to God. And God, instead of saying, no, I told you this was going to happen if you did this, He sends rescuers.

He sends judges and those that would be temporary saviors to be able to help Israel. And so God says, here's going to be the consequences of your actions when you reject life, you get death.

Verse 18, but if after these things, you will not obey me, I will proceed to discipline you seven times for your sins. I will break down your strong pride. I will make your sky like iron and your land like bronze.

And your strength will be used up for nothing. Basically, the ground will be hard, the sky will be dry. You can't grow your crops.

He says, your land will not yield its produce and the trees of the land will not bear their fruit. If you act with hostility toward me and are unwilling to obey me, I will multiply your plague seven times for your sins.

It's a complete plague, a complete multiplication of these things. That's what the seven times indicates is total, complete, like a complete week of seven days, a complete plague.

He says, I will send wild animals against you that will deprive you of your children, ravage your livestock, and reduce your numbers until your roads are deserted.

If in spite of these things, you do not accept my discipline, but act with hostility toward me, then I will act with hostility toward you. I will also strike you seven times for your sins.

I will bring a sword against you to execute the vengeance of the covenant. Though you withdraw into your cities, I'll send a pestilence among you, and you will be delivered into enemy hands.

When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will bake your bread in a single oven and ration out your bread by weight so that you will eat, but not be satisfied.

He says, and if in spite of this, you do not obey me, but act with hostility toward me, I will act with furious hostility toward you. I will also discipline you seven times for your sins. He says, you will eat the flesh of your sons.

You will eat the flesh of your daughters. I will destroy your high places, cut down your shrines, and heap your lifeless bodies on the lifeless bodies of your idols. I will reject you.

Hear God saying, and as we look at Israel's history, you can trace this over the course of hundreds of years, that as generation after generation after generation after generation, not just like had a turbulent walk with God and failed sometimes and

returned to Him, but wholesale over the course of centuries, rejected Him, did not worship Him, killed those that He sent to tell them and to warn them about their sin and about what happens when you reject the Giver of Life. They continue to reject

it. So then what here happens, you will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. These things happened.

You can read about Samaria and how there came, I forget if it was Syria or if it was another army that came down, they surrounded the capital of that northern kingdom of Israel, the capital city of which was Samaria, and they, because of the siege of

the city, they didn't have any food, and so it says like they even sold pigeon poop for expensive prices, and this was not something that God was like, yes, this is my design. This is what happens when over the course of centuries, a people wholesale

rejects God, wants nothing to do with him, wants nothing to do with repentance, doesn't even have that heart of David that through many failures, still went after God and said, God, like, I'm sorry. You know, you can read Psalm 51 or Psalm 32 about

what happens when David fails the Lord. He goes back to him and he goes, hey, like, I messed up, I was wrong.

And God gives incredible blessings to those that even through human failure, which is common, continue to pursue God, but those that set their face against God.

Again, not in one generation, not just one person, but over the course of, I think by that point, it's 500, 600 years of Israel's history that then God finally brings some of these things on and says, okay, you guys are going to literally do this

yourselves. Like, this isn't a divine thing that you go, oh, I can't, I don't have any responsibility for this. Like, some power came over me. God says, no, like this is the natural consequences of your actions.

That when you reject the one who will protect you, then when enemies come in and I no longer protect you because you don't want me, he says these are the natural things that happen without the protective hand of God. Verse number 31.

I will reduce your cities to ruins and devastate your sanctuaries. I will not smell the pleasing aroma of your sacrifices. I will also devastate the land so that your enemies who come to live there will be appalled by it.

They won't even want to live in Israel. He says, but I will scatter you among the nations and I will draw a sword to chase after you. So your land will become desolate and your cities will become ruins.

He says, then the land will make up for its Sabbath years during the time it lies desolate while you are in the land of your enemies. At that time, the land will rest and make up for its Sabbaths.

As long as it lies desolate, it will have the rest it did not have during your Sabbaths when you lived there. God says right at the very beginning, I know I set up these things so that your land would be able to rest and heal.

It's the same reason even today that people like alternate where specific crops are in their fields over the course of years that they'll plant in one place this particular crop for a certain amount of time and then they'll move it so that all the

nutrients and things in the soils don't go away, aren't completely drained dry by that particular crop. And God says, when I send you away to the land, to the nations, He says then the land is going to experience the goodness of the rest years that I

told you to observe, but I know right at the beginning you're not going to. I'm commanding this for your good, for the good of your land, for the good of your crops, and you're going to ignore me. And I know it. Verse 36.

Verse 26, I will put anxiety in the hearts of those of you who survive in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a wind-driven leaf will put them to flight, and they will flee as one flees from a sword and fall, though no one is pursuing them.

They'll stumble over one another as if fleeing from a sword, though no one is pursuing them. You will not be able to stand against your enemies. You will perish among the nations.

The land of your enemies will devour you. Those who survive in the lands of your enemies will waste away because of their iniquity. They will also waste away because of their father's iniquities along with theirs.

But when they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, their unfaithfulness that they practiced against me and how they acted with hostility toward me, and I acted with hostility toward them and brought them into the land of their

enemies, and when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, then I will remember my covenant with Jacob. He says, as soon as anyone goes, hey, like, God, we were wrong. We shouldn't have done this.

And you can look at the story of Nehemiah and the story of Daniel. Both of them follow through with this. They go, hey, God, like, yeah, we have sinned and I have sinned and my people have sinned.

They say, yeah, I'm not the one that was sacrificing idols, but my people did it, and I bear a responsibility because I am not just an individual. I am an individual in part of a nation and part of a family. And so, God, this is my fault too.

And he says, and when they confess their iniquity, he says, then I will remember my covenant with Jacob. He says, I'm turning it all around. Once someone goes, God, we were wrong, I was wrong, we need your forgiveness.

He says, I will also remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.

For the land abandoned by them will make up for its Sabbath by lying desolate without the people while they make amends for their iniquity because they rejected my ordinances and abhorred my statutes.

Yet in spite of this, while they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject or abhor them so as to destroy them and break my covenant with them since I am Yahweh their God.

For their sake, I will remember the covenant with their fathers whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God, I am Yahweh.

Which you can read about even the Book of Esther is a great example of this, that the people of Israel, they've been exiled, they are experiencing the results of their actions.

And yet, even when the forces of this world tried to destroy them, God made a way so that they were protected and they were saved.

Verse 46, these are the statutes, ordinances and laws Yahweh established between himself and the Israelites through Moses on Mount Sinai. Here are these blessings. It's God wants to foster human flourishing.

He does not want to bring, he doesn't want to allow disaster to strike. He doesn't want to allow hunger to strike. But for those that reject God, reject his protection, what else can we expect?

Sometimes it has been noted somewhat truthfully in different realms of nations and politics that those that reject God are often the first to blame him when things go wrong.

Those that genuinely don't believe or act in a way that God exists goes, why would God do this thing? And it's somewhat humorous of you don't want him, like you haven't sought after him.

The phrase has often been said as even we look at some of the situations even in our schools that people have remarked of the godlessness, of kind of the anything goes attitude within our halls of learning, that a rejection of a realization of God

has then meant that that's how people act. People treat others as though there is no God. People treat themselves, their bodies as though there is no God. People take actions as though they will not receive divine justice for what's done.

What's the recourse for? How do we help turn around a nation or a city or a state or a neighborhood or a family that is going against God? What is powerful enough to stop this rejection of the Lord?

And the answer is the Gospel. I think of Paul's words in Romans 1. He says, I'm not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile.

And I think also of what he says in, I can't recall which book it is. He says, I'm bound for preaching the Gospel, but the Word of God is not bound. That God's Word and God's Spirit can work in ways that you could never imagine.

But how do people hear the Gospel? How do they hear God's Word? It's through you both saying it, but if you're going to say it, then you better live it.

It better be obvious to people that you are a loving, kind, caring, gentle, patient, self-controlled, joy-filled person.

If you are filled with anger all of the time, if you're short and snappy with people, if you are cruel in your words or in how you talk about people or in demeaning people or by dehumanizing them with their language, if people are always the object

of your ridicule, if you never have anything kind to say even about those that would be against you, then how can they believe that you serve a God that wants to reconcile with them? The interaction that many people have with God is through you.

So are you communicating the heart of this God that says, yes, like rejecting God does invite destruction on our own souls and lives and culture, but turning to Him even in the middle of our struggles is the only way out.

Turning to God while struggling with homosexuality, turning to God while struggling with perhaps accepting everything that our culture does, turning to God while struggling with anger and harsh words, and saying, hey, like I was wrong in saying that.

I was wrong in doing that. That's not how my God wants me to act. That can show such a clear picture of what God does in a person.

I think of Romans chapter 2 where it says, the goodness of God is intended to lead you to repentance. Today, God has blessings for those that follow Him, blessings for those that will repent of sin.

He allows us to suffer the consequences of saying, we don't want God, we don't want His way, we don't want to follow Him. God says, all right, I'll allow you to experience what that's like. But His desire for you is blessing.

Are you showing others what a vibrant life and walk with Christ looks like? Are you showing them what it is to know the God who blesses, the God who has good intentions, the God who wants human flourishing?

Or are you exemplifying this kind of godless life, a life that might say many Christian things, but in how you live, your spirit, it doesn't exemplify the fruit of the spirit. It exemplifies the works of the flesh, which describes you.

You have an opportunity to live in that flourishing, in that Eden blessing that God promised. And you can do it not because you're so great, but because God is good and gracious.

And Jesus has made a way that we are reconciled to him, that we have received all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, as the book of Ephesians would say. Are you living that way?

Are you living as though you are under God's blessing? Or are you always acting as though you need this world's blessing as well? You need the finances.

You need the accolades. You need the praise of people. You need everyone to like you.

Or are you saying, I'm loved and blessed by God, so I'll show him to others around me, and if they love me, great. If they don't, it's okay. I'm living for the praise and the audience of one.

Well, tomorrow we finish out the book of Leviticus. Thanks for tuning in.