"Blessings & Curses (Leviticus 26)" | 4/14/24
Leviticus 26 | 4/14/24 | Will DuVal
Well, Polly’s been sick all week, so I’ve basically been solo parenting (thank God for my in-laws; otherwise one of y’all would be preaching this morning!). But with all the extra parenting, I found myself repeating one word a LOT this week: “IF”.
“Daddy, can we have dessert?” – “IF you finish your dinner.”
“Can we go play outside?” – “IF you can watch your brother.”
“Elijah, IF you lick Bo again, you will get a spanking.”
“Bo, IF you put the toothbrush in the toilet again, I’m gonna take it away.”
Whole lotta “IF”s! But this is what parents do: we clearly communicate loving, age-appropriate expectations and boundaries, and then give our kids the chance - the CHOICE - to OBEY, or not. IF they obey - make the RIGHT choice - they get rewarded. If they DISobey - wrong choice - they get punished. Some parents prefer the term “consequence”; “We don’t “punish”, we give “consequences”. Call it what you want - GOD calls it “punishment”; actually, he uses an even stronger word: God threatens to “CURSE” his children for their disobedience. And God is the best parent there IS! There is nothing wrong with punishing your kids’ sin; actually, it’s wrong NOT to! Hebrews 12 assures us:
“the Lord disciplines (paideuo - he CORRECTS or PUNISHES) the one he loves, and he chastises (masti-GO-o, God scourges or BEATS) every son whom he receives… God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does notdiscipline? 8 If you are left without discipline… then you are illegitimate children and not sons… We have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to [our heavenly] Father… and live? …He disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” (Heb 12:6-11)
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And this morning, we’re going to see God’s discipline on full display in Leviticus ch26, with his encouragements AND his exhortations, his welcome & his warning of BLESSINGS & CURSES, respectively, for obedience and DIS-obedience. Whole lotta “IF”s - 11 “ifs” coming our way, here in ch26. And as we’ll see: that one TINY little word, “if”... “im (eem)” in Hebrew… one of the SMALLEST words, but it carries perhaps the biggest consequence of any word - SO much is riding on God’s “IF” here.
Let’s begin by reading the chapter together; I invite you to STAND… Leviticus 26:
““You shall not make idols for yourselves or erect an image or pillar, and you shall not set up a figured stone in your land to bow down to it, for I am the Lord your God. 2 You shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord.
3 “IF you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and DO them, 4 then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. 5 Your threshing shall last to the time of the grape harvest, and the grape harvest shall last to the time for sowing. And you shall eat your bread to the full and dwell in your land securely. 6 I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid. And I will remove harmful beasts from the land, and the sword shall not go through your land. 7 You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. 8 Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand, and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. 9 I will turn TO you and make you fruitful and multiply you and will confirm my covenant with you. 10 You shall eat old store long kept, and you shall clear out the old to make way for the new. 11 I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. 12 And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people. 13 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. And I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.
14 “BUT… IF… you will not listen to me and will not do all these commandments, 15 if you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my rules, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant, 16 then I will do this to you: I will visit you with panic, with wasting disease and fever that consume the eyes and make the heart ache. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. 17 I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck down before your enemies. Those who hate you shall rule over you, and you shall flee when none pursues you. 18 And if in spite of this you will not listen to me, then I will discipline you again sevenfold for your sins, 19 and I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze. 20 And your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land shall not yield its increase, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit.
21 “Then IF you walk contrary to me and will not listen to me, I will continue striking you, sevenfold for your sins. 22 And I will let loose the wild beasts against you, which shall bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock and make you few in number, so that your roads shall be deserted.
23 “And IF by this discipline you are not turned to me but walk contrary to me, 24 then I also will walk contrary to you, and I myself will strike you sevenfold for your sins. 25 And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall execute vengeance for the covenant. And if you gather within your cities, I will send pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. 26 When I break your supply of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in a single oven and shall dole out your bread again by weight, and you shall eat and not be satisfied.
27 “But if in spite of this you will not listen to me, but walk contrary to me, 28 then I will walk contrary to you in fury, and I myself will discipline you sevenfold for your sins. 29 You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. 30 And I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars and cast your dead bodies upon the dead bodies of your idols, and my soul will abhor you. 31 And I will lay your cities waste and will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your pleasing aromas. 32 And I myself will devastate the land, so that your enemies who settle in it shall be appalled at it. 33 And I will scatter you among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you, and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.
34 “Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemies' land; then the land shall rest, and enjoy its Sabbaths. 35 As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, the rest that it did not have on your Sabbaths when you were dwelling in it. 36 And as for those of you who are left, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall flee as one flees from the sword, and they shall fall when none pursues. 37 They shall stumble over one another, as if to escape a sword, though none pursues. And you shall have no power to stand before your enemies. 38 And you shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. 39 And those of you who are left shall rot away in your enemies' lands because of their iniquity, and also because of the iniquities of their fathers they shall rot away like them.
40 “BUT… IF… they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in their treachery that they committed against me, and also in walking contrary to me, 41 so that I walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies—if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, 42 then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. 43 But the land shall be abandoned by them and enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them, and they shall make amends for their iniquity, because they spurned my rules and their soul abhorred my statutes. 44 Yet for ALL that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not spurn them, neither will I abhor them so as to destroy them utterly and break my covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God. 45 But I will for their sake remember the covenant with their forefathers, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the Lord.”
46 These are the statutes and rules and laws that the Lord made between himself and the people of Israel through Moses on Mount Sinai.”
[This is the word of the Lord… Seated…]
This is really the ENDING of the book of Leviticus; it certainly FEELS like the ending, doesn’t it? With v46 we just read there? Ch27 next week is really gonna be a kind of “APPENDIX”, a postscript, an “afterword”, tacked on. But ch26 here is really the ending PROPER, God’s conclusion to Leviticus.
And how does he wrap it UP? With 3 final reminders & promises:
#1) God BESEECHES & BLESSES the obedient. (1-13)
God says: “If you OBEY me, I will BLESS you” - it’s really that simple! OBEY God, OBTAIN Blessing.
Now, as my sermon title suggests, the BLESSINGS are the main focus of vv1-13, just as God’s CURSES will be the focus of vv14-39, and God’s MERCY for the REPENTANT is the focus of the LAST 7 verses (I probably SHOULD’VE titled the sermon, “Blessings & Curses & MERCIES”).
But you’ll notice I’ve included TWO blanks in your bulletins with each of the 3 points, and that’s important. Because before we even get to the blessings, we need to pause and appreciate God’s BESEECHING. His “urgent appeal” for OBEDIENCE. God doesn’t just say sort of indifferently, “You can lick your brother or not; your choice…”. No, God is PLEADING with Israel here, to OBEY him, to make the RIGHT choice: “I don’t WANT to spank you; I LOVE you; just OBEY me - it’s better for EVERYONE that way!”
And part of the way that God “beseeches” them is by REMINDING them of his rules; look back at vv1 & 2 here - they’re really just a recapitulation, a restatement of… WHAT?
The 10 Commandments. Or at least the top FOUR. Remember: the first four are the VERTICAL commandments, which regulated relationship with GOD; the last 6 are the horizontal ones that regulated relationships with others.
V1 here says: “No idols or images” - that’s commandment #...? TWO.
“Don’t BOW DOWN to them,” God says, “for I am the Lord your God”; you worship ME ONLY - that’s commandment #... ONE (“no other gods besides ME”)
V2: “keep my Sabbaths” - commandment #... FOUR.
And “reverence my sanctuary” - honor the place where I DWELL AMONG you; honor my PRESENCE; honor ME, God is saying; show reverence and respect for ME. That’s commandment #... THREE (“don’t take God’s name LIGHTLY”; we HONOR it, because we honor HIM - God’s name represents his very BEING.)
They’re all HERE in vv1 & 2 - God’s top 4.
And as for his “beseeching”, remember: they hadn’t invented ALL CAPS, BOLD FONT, ITALICIZING and underlining for emphasis yet; the way the Bible emphasizes a point is by REPEATING it. God is “Holy, holy, HOLY” - 3x means he’s superlatively holy.
And here in v3, God calls Israel to “WALK in my statutes, OBSERVE my commandments, and DO THEM” - three ways of saying the same thing, for emphasis: “OBEY ME!”, God pleads with them. By the way, God NEVER says, “Thou shalt FEEL like obeying me.” We don’t always FEEL like it, do we? But God says, “Just DO it; do it ANYWAY.”
Why? Cuz not only does God hate to SPANK - to punish - us, as a good Father; but conversely: God LOVES to BLESS his children! In the New Testament, Jesus invites us to:
““Ask, and it will be given to you… which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matt 7:7-11)
Jesus says, “Y’all aren’t even that great of PARENTS (actually, he calls us “EVIL”... OUCH!), and yet, you STILL give good gifts to YOUR kids; how much MORE, then, do you think GOD will?! Your PERFECT heavenly father.
Sometimes God doesn’t give us what we ask for because he knows what’s BEST for us, better than WE do. Elsewhere, Jesus reprimanded his disciples: “You don’t know what you’re ASKING for” (Mt 20:22). Sometimes you and I ASK for stones and serpents, without REALIZING it, and God is gracious enough to give us the bread and fish anyway, even though we failed to ask him for it.
This can be a hard truth. We prayed for Becca Hutchens again this morning. We’ve been praying for her healing for months now. And for a minute, a few weeks ago, after one very encouraging doctor’s appointment, maybe he misread her scan, but things looked really good. It looked like God was answering our prayers for healing. Now it does NOT look that way; they just moved her to hospice. And if I were in John & Gayle’s shoes right now, I’m betting I would feel like God was giving me a STONE, a SERPENT. I doubt this latest doctor’s visit and prognosis feels like a “GOOD GIFT”, a BLESSING from God. And yet, in John’s note to me, he said, “Obviously it’s not what we were praying for. But we know where Becca’s going, if and when she DOES pass.” We know the “good gift” - the BEST gift - that she’s gonna get to go enjoy - her BLESSED INHERITANCE, in HEAVEN, with her Savior - NO more pain, sickness, tears.
But here in Leviticus, God didn’t just promise some later, spiritual blessing; he promised Israel immediate, PHYSICAL blessings, FOUR of them, specifically:
1) PROSPERITY - rain for your crops, plentiful harvests, bread to the FULL…
2) PROTECTION - “you shall dwell in your land SECURELY”, “I will give you PEACE… NONE shall make you afraid.” No “harmful beasts” or “swords” against you; instead, you will “chase YOUR enemies” and defeat them, cuz I, God, will fight FOR you.
3) PROLIFERATION - “I will make you FRUITFUL and MULTIPLY you” - LOTS of baby Israelites! And lastly, but best of all…
4) His PRESENCE - God promises to remain WITH them, if they will obey him: “I will turn to you… confirm my covenant - my RELATIONSHIP - with you… I will make my dwelling among you, and [I’ll LOVE you!] and walk among you and be your God, and you shall be my people.”
Prosperity, Protection, Proliferation, and God’s PRESENCE. Pretty sweet deal, reward, BLESSING.
We should note, though, one thing God DIDN’T promise Israel as a result of their obedience: REDEMPTION. SALVATION. Because as God reminds them in v13, now: I’ve ALREADY done THAT for you - not as a RESULT OF your obedience, but as a REASON FOR it. Friends: our salvation is not a RESULT OF our obedience, but rather, a REASON FOR it: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you [past tense] out of the land of Egypt… I have broken the bars of your yoke.”
The single greatest blessing that you and I can receive - God’s deliverance from OUR enslavement to SIN - has **ALMOST nothing to do with our obedience and EVERYTHING to do with JESUS’s obedience - his obedience unto death on the cross, to pay the ransom for our sin. Now, I say “ALMOST nothing to do with our obedience”, because the Bible says we are “saved by grace through faith,” and God does actually COMMAND us to have FAITH! To BELIEVE! To TRUST in Jesus; and THAT is a command - God’s command of FAITH - that you and I HAVE to OBEY! In John 6, the crowd asked Jesus, ““What must we do, to be DOING the works of God” - to OBEY God? (6:28) And Jesus replied: ““This is [how you OBEY] God: you believe in him whom God has sent.”” You wanna obey GOD? Believe in ME!! And be SAVED, be ETERNALLY blessed.
It’s so SAD to hear FALSE TEACHERS promote a “prosperity gospel” that says, “If you obey God, he will make you healthy and wealthy in THIS life”. Granted, that WAS actually the promise God made here specifically to ISRAEL. But it’s NOT the promise God now offers US in the NEW Testament; according to Hebrews 8, we have inherited “BETTER promises”! ETERNAL promises!
I always search for sermons on the text I’m gonna preach the following Sunday, to hear how others preached it. One of the top Youtube hits for “Leviticus 26” this week turned up a “Bishop Someone” in lots of gold chains and the sermon title was something like, “God Wants to Bless you with PROSPERITY, Leviticus 26, vv3-5”. Which is just so SAD to me, because not only is he WRONG - God no longer promises to bless OUR rains and crops and trees today; that was a specific promise for ISRAEL, not for US - but even if it WAS, the guy still IGNORED the BEST promise in the whole PASSAGE - God’s PRESENCE. And he’s not preaching to NO ONE - there are people - LOTS of people - out there who FANCY themselves God’s people, when in reality they want the BLESSINGS of God FAR more than they want God HIMSELF. They love the GIFTS more than the GIVER.
How would that make YOU feel, as a parent?
“Mom, I need to borrow your CREDIT CARD…”
“Ooh, what do you NEED, Sweetie? Maybe I’ll come WITH you, and we can…”
“MOM! Just give me the CREDIT card!”
I imagine God feels the same way. The sad IRONY is that God DOES promise us that if we pursue HIM, He’ll still throw in every possible blessing we could ever need as a BONUS; Jesus said, “Don’t worry about what you’re gonna EAT or DRINK or WEAR… But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you” (Matt 6:25,33).
Jesus does NOT say, “Don’t worry about that PORSCHE you wanna drive, or the 4-car garage you’d like to PARK it in… all THESE things will be added”; NO - Jesus promises to take care of our basic necessities: food, water, clothing. Which is GOOD, by the way, because too MUCH material blessing from God USUALLY ends up being a CURSE. Jesus said, “It’s harder for RICH people to get into God’s Kingdom than for a camel to go through the eye of a NEEDLE” (Matt 19:24); in the OT, God warned Israel about TOO much prosperity in the Promised Land - that they’d get SPOILED by the gifts and forget all about the GIVER. Which is why if we are WISE TODAY, we will pray the prayer of Proverbs 30: God, “give me neither poverty nor riches;
feed me with the food that is needful for me,
lest I be full and deny you
and say, “Who is the Lord?” [I don’t need GOD…]
or lest I be poor and steal
and profane the name of my God.”
It’s the “Goldilocks” prayer: not too much, not too little, just enough.
Philippians 4:19 promises: “God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” Not every WANT; every NEED.
And friends, he has already supplied our GREATEST need of all, according to the riches of his glorious GRACE in Christ Jesus: our need for SALVATION! For FORGIVENESS of sin - Jesus has taken CARE of that need for us, by writing a check to cover our spiritual DEBT against God, in his own BLOOD!
And NOW he offers us the greatest GIFT of all: his PRESENCE WITH us. We who were once SEPARATED from a holy God, because of our SIN, the Bible says, “while we were enemies [of God] we were reconciled TO God by the death of his Son” Jesus (Rom 5:10). Such that now we can enjoy not just relationship WITH God - that would be blessing enough! - but we have God’s very own SPIRIT, his PRESENCE, now residing WITHIN us, if we are in Christ; he declares: “you are God's temple… God's Spirit dwells in you” (1 Cor 3:16) and he promises: ““I will never leave you nor forsake you.”” (Heb 13:5)
ALL these blessings - you want PROSPERITY? How about streets of GOLD?! How about ETERNAL protection - 1 Peter 1 says we now possess “an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for [us], guarded by God's power” (1 Pet 1:4). Proliferation? Jesus sends us out to “be FRUITFUL and MULTIPLY the gospel into new DISCIPLES - and make LOTS of baby CHRISTIANS, who are born AGAIN into God’s family and Kingdom. And BEST of all, because the job is too big for US to accomplish on our OWN, Jesus says, “I’m going WITH you - you get MY PRESENCE; “behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt 28:20).
All these blessings and MORE - Romans 8:32 declares “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us - how will he not also with him graciously give us ALL things?” God’s already GIVEN us his only begotten SON; what else do you think he’s gonna WITHHOLD from us NOW?!
All these blessings and MORE, if we will but OBEY him, by coming to JESUS, in humble FAITH.
But if we don’t - if we WON’T! Because you CAN, friend! The choice is YOURS - the Bible assures us that God does “not wish that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” and “be SAVED” (2 Pet 3:9; 1 Tim 2:4) - and as long as there is breath in your lungs this morning, you have the CHANCE to turn from your sin and come to Jesus this morning, and be BLESSED with ETERNAL life and peace and joy.
But if you WON’T, then you need to understand point #2; that…
#2) God CAUTIONS & CASTIGATES the DISobedient. (14-39)
God will and does CAUTION us - he WARNS us, very DIRECTLY here, of the CONSEQUENCES of disobedience. But if His warning goes un-HEEDED, God will CASTIGATE - “punish, reprimand SEVERELY” - the disobedient. God is NOT one of those parents who makes EMPTY threats - My kids were jumping in our bounce house in the backyard this week, and the next-door neighbors wandered over… and I watched their 4-year old son punch his 6 year old sister because she wouldn’t get off “HIS slide” (in MY bounce house)... Now, THAT I expect; HE is 4 years old. What HORRIFIED me, was watching his MOM then threaten, “I’m gonna count to THREE, and if you don’t come DOWN here, I’m taking you HOME!” And HE says, “NO you won’t!” and turns around and keeps BOUNCING… and Mom looks at ME, and just rolls her eyes and shrugs and SIGHS! **“Kids…”
Friends: God does not CAUTION us IN VAIN; he will DISCIPLINE us for our GOOD, when NECESSARY.
And in ISRAEL’s case, that discipline was SEVERE. 4 things we need to see in these verses, at a high level:
First - Did you notice there are TWICE as many verses for the punishments - the “consequences” of DIS-obedience - as there were for the blessings? 13 verses above; TWENTY-SIX verses now, of punishments. That’s not because God ENJOYS punishing us twice as much, but rather, because it’s twice as RELEVANT. Because as we see through the rest of OT history, Israel was twice as likely to DISOBEY God as they were to OBEY Him.
And let’s be honest this morning: are we all that DIFFERENT? Like Israel, we have been called by God to be “HOLY as He is holy”. And by God’s grace, and through the power of His Holy SPIRIT, you and I PURSUE that calling, we GROW in godliness, we increasingly learn to live unto the SPIRIT and to MORTIFY, to KILL our FLESH, our old sin-nature, and over time, we can and should and DO - we MUST! - experience real SANCTIFICATION; we become more and more HOLY.
And YET, if you don’t think you still SIN at least TWICE as often as you display perfect obedience to God, then I don’t think you have a very robust, thorough understanding of just what SIN IS - it’s not just the “bad stuff” we do; according to God, SIN includes the GOOD stuff we FAIL to do! Sin isn’t just everything we think, say and do that Jesus WOULDN’T; it’s everything we DON’T think, say and do that Jesus WOULD, at any given MOMENT! I don’t know about you, but that’s a very LOOONG LIST of stuff, most days, on MY rap sheet.
So the punishments are twice as relevant as the blessings.
Second: notice how the people’s rebelliousness ESCALATES in vv14 & 15; there is a progression - or a DIGRESSION, I guess we could say - in their DISobedience now: It STARTS with just “not listening” (“Psshh, whatever, Mom…”), and then it becomes “not OBEYING” (“I’m not coming down; I’m BOUNCING…”) and eventually you begin to “SPURN God’s rules”; you “reject them with CONTEMPT” (“Who are YOU to tell ME how to bounce ANYWAY?!”) - which left unchecked, festers and grows until you ABHOR - you HATE - God’s rules, v15 says, all the way down to your “SOUL” - your innermost BEING (“I HATE it when you tell me what to do! I’M the boss of me!”), which culminates in “breaking covenant” - breaking RELATIONSHIP - with God, altogether.
And it all STARTED with a simple failure to LISTEN, to pay ATTENTION. That’s why the most important prayer in JUDAISM, that orthodox Jews still recite twice daily - first thing every morning and last thing every evening - the “SHEMA”, from Deuteronomy 6 - it begins with that word, “shema” - “HEAR O Israel…”. They are reminding themselves to LISTEN to God’s word. It all starts there.
Third: not only does the disobedience escalate, but so too does God’s PUNISHMENT OF it, in vv16-39. If there were 4 “P”s of blessing - prosperity, protection, proliferation, presence - there are NINE “P”s, now, of PUNISHMENT; starting in v16 with:
1) Panic…
2) And Pestilence (“wasting disease and fever and aches”)
3) Plundering (“your enemies will eat your crops”)
4) Peonage (or subjugation; v17: “Those who hate you shall rule over you”)
5) Paranoia (“you shall flee though none pursues you. ”)
Btw: God’s “sevenfold” discipline means he’s gonna punish Israel COMPLETELY; remember: 7 is the biblical number of COMPLETION.
6) Privation (which is the OPPOSITE of “prosperity”: “I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze”; NO rain, NO crops)
7) Predators (“I will let loose the wild beasts against you”)
8) Paring (which is the opposite of “proliferation” - God threatens, I will “make you few in number, so that your roads shall be deserted.”)
9) Pillaging (“I will bring a sword upon you, and execute vengeance”)
And MORE pestilence, plundering, & privation, in vv25-26
But then the consequences of disobedience get WORSE, in vv27-39; WAY worse. And I’m outta “P”s, so I had to shift to “A”s: it starts with
(God’s) ANGER & ANTAGONISM in v28 (“I will walk contrary to you - God says, “I will OPPOSE you” - in FURY”). And God gives Israel over to her wickedness to SUCH an extent, that in the MIDST of all this famine and siege that he will send on them, they will resort to
AnthroPOphagy (cannibalism; “You shall eat the flesh of your sons and… daughters”; and they DID, under siege from the Syrians, in 2 Kings 6, and later from the Babylonians, in Lamentations 2 & 4.)
God threatens to ABOLISH them (“I will destroy your [idols] and cast your dead bodies upon them”)
And “my soul will abhor you.” That’s another difficult one for us: God doesn’t just “hate the sin, but love the sinner”; God’s word says he actually HATES sinners: Psalm 5:5 “you hate all evildoers”; Psalm 11:5 “The Lord[‘s] soul hates the wicked”. Praise God we are no LONGER sinners - we are “new creations in Christ” - we are now SAINTS! (who still, sometimes, fall back into sin; but it’s no longer our IDENTITY.)
But v32: IF Israel is disobedient, they will be APPALLED; even “your enemies… shall be appalled at your total devastation”
Israel will suffer ALIENATION; quite literally, they will become “aliens”, foreigners in a foreign land, in EXILE: ASSYRIA in the 8th c. BC, and then BABYLON in the 6th c. But even worse was their spiritual “alienation”, separation from GOD!
They would experience ANXIETY (“faintness of heart… The sound of a leaf falling will send them RUNNING in fear…”). And ultimately,
Annihilation (“you shall perish… And those of you who are left shall rot away in your enemies' lands”)
And YET, here’s the FOURTH and FINAL thing we need to note with point #2 and God’s PUNISHMENTS - not only is God GRACIOUS in giving us adequate WARNING here, DOUBLE the warning… not only is God’s escalating punishment DESERVED because of the escalating nature of man’s DISOBEDIENCE…
But did you notice all the opportunities for REPENTANCE, for COURSE correction, for a change of HEART… that God gave along the way?
V14: “IF you will not listen” - that “IF” is an INVITATION… to LISTEN!
V18: “if in spite of this you will not listen” - another “IF”, another chance; God is saying: “the very reason FOR the panic and pestilence and plundering of vv16 & 17 is that I’m trying to BREAK you and get you to RETURN to me, so you won’t HAVE to suffer the peonage and privation and predators of vv19-22… not to mention the anthraPOphagy and alienation and annihilation of vv29-39.
V21: “if you [STILL] walk contrary to me”
V23: “And if by this discipline you are [STILL] not turned to me”
V27: “But if in spite of this you will not listen”
5 “OFF RAMPS”, as it were, that God provides for them, to EXIT the “highway to Hell” they’re on - the WIDE path of SIN that leads to destruction, and re-join the NARROW path of OBEDIENCE that leads to LIFE.
How many “off ramps” has God offered YOU, in YOUR life, to leave your sin and come back to Him? Second chances, third… fifth… tenth… hundredth… THOUSANDth…
“the Lord disciplines the one he loves”, to turn us BACK to him again and again and again.
And praise God: v39 isn’t the end of the CHAPTER! You know, of all the “A” words I managed to match up with God’s punishments here, there’s one GREAT “punishment” word that I just couldn’t find a place for: ABANDONMENT. Because amidst ALL of His discipline - no matter HOW severe it gets - God still promises never to LEAVE OR FORSAKE us; He’ll never GIVE UP on us, consider us a “lost cause”, “irredeemable”. NEVER.
He’s the God who STAYS.
And who makes a WAY… for broken, estranged sinners to be FORGIVEN and RESTORED to relationship with Him.
That’s #3- God ACQUITS & ACCEPTS the repentant. (40-46)
What does it mean to REPENT? If we WANT God’s acquittal and acceptance, His forgiveness of sin, and restoration to right relationship with Him, we must REPENT; Jesus said so: “unless you repent, you will perish” (Lk 13:3); so Acts 3 exhorts us to “Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out”. But how DO we REPENT? FIVE STEPS, quickly:
1) CONFESS: v40 says, ““But” - “IF” may be a TERRIFYING word, for sinful people who can’t seem to consistently keep God’s rules; But “BUT” is a GLORIOUS word - BUT… if they confess their iniquity…”. Confession simply means owning up to your sin. Not making excuses, not making allowances for sin, but acknowledging: “God, I SCREWED UP. And I need your FORGIVENESS.” That requires, #2 - HUMILITY.
2) Second step in repentance is we must BE HUMBLED. In v41, God says, “if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled” - notice the passive tense of the verb; elsewhere, God does instruct us to humble our OWN hearts. But here, and OFTEN in Scripture, he makes it clear that the ONLY way we can find the kind of TRUE humility required for sincere confession and repentance is if HE - GOD - humbles us. If HE circumcises our hearts. We must BE humbled, by Him. And then, #3…
3) We MAKE AMENDS, wherever possible, v41b says. Our sin HURTS others - it hurts US, but it ALSO hurts those AROUND us, and most egregiously, it hurts GOD. And just saying, “I’m SORRY” doesn’t repair the damage. Some of it CAN’T be repaired; it can only be FORGIVEN. But what CAN be repaired SHOULD be, by us. We ask, “What do I need to do to TRY and make this RIGHT?” and then we DO it. That’s a mark of TRUE repentance.
4) We must MAKE PEACE with our punishment (God says in v43: “but the land shall STILL be abandoned…”). When we REPENT - confess, in humility, and make amends - that doesn’t mean we won’t still have to suffer the CONSEQUENCES of our disobedience. Even AFTER Israel was humbled, broken, repentant, God still allowed them to STAY in exile those 70 years. Repentance is not an immediate “Get out of Jail FREE” card we can play. That’s why finally, MOST importantly…
#5) Repentance means we TRUST GOD. Notice how Israel is once again PASSIVE in vv44 & 45, as GOD does all of the action - “I will not spurn them [not REJECT them; I will ACCEPT them], neither will I abhor them [I will return to my LOVE for them] so as not to destroy them utterly [I will RESCUE them again]... But I will for their sake remember the covenant [and will RESTORE them to relationship with me] that I might be their God: I am the Lord.””
CONCLUSION: Now QUICKLY, in CLOSING, but this is the most important part of ALL of it, so stick WITH me: How does ANY of this apply to US TODAY? Because this is all LAW - God says, “Here’s my LAW, obey it, and I’ll BLESS you; REJECT it and I’ll CURSE you.” But we are no longer UNDER the Law. Why?
Because Jesus Christ fulfilled ALL of the Law - its blessings AND its curses - FOR US!
He fulfilled its BLESSINGS - Jesus said, “I came not to ABOLISH the law but to FULFILL it, to KEEP it,” and he DID, PERFECTLY - Jesus offered God the perfect obedience that you and I SHOULD have but FAILED to - and then on the cross he supernaturally and sacrificially laid down his life to bestow all of his righteousness and the BLESSINGS that ACCOMPANY it… to US!
But that’s not ALL he did - Jesus ALSO took all of our UNRIGHTEOUSNESS upon HIMSELF and bore the CURSE of disobedience to God’s Law that WE deserved! Galatians 3 says, “all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.”... But Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us”. Jesus bore the PUNISHMENT - God’s righteous WRATH against sin - that you and I deserved, in our place.
Friends: this is the GOSPEL. Trust in your OWN obedience to God’s law, and you will be CURSED. But trust in JESUS CHRIST - his perfect obedience, and his willingness in LOVE to trade all of his blessings for your curses instead, to REDEEM you - and you will be SAVED.