The Christ Church Wednesday Bible Study Group is studying of the Old Testament book of Leviticus. The key to the book of Leviticus is found in verses 45 and 46 of chapter 11.
Leviticus 11:44-45 NIV I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy. Do not make yourselves unclean by any creature that moves along the ground. I am the Lord, who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy.
These are the notes to Session 26.
The statutes and instructions God gave Israel in Leviticus 26 and 27 illustrate four responsibilities that every Christian believer has toward the Lord.
1. OBEYING HIS COMMANDMENTS (26:1–13)
2. SUBMITTING TO HIS CHASTISEMENTS (26:14–39)
3. TRUSTING HIS COVENANT (26:40–46)
4. KEEPING OUR COMMITMENTS TO GOD (27:1–34)
Last week we talked about the responsibility of obeying God’s commandments, but we also have the responsibility of submitting to His chastisements because of disobedience.
Hebrews 12:5-6 NIV And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says, “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”
Israel’s special relationship to Jehovah brought with it the obligation to obey His voice and glorify His name. Privilege brings with it responsibility, and no nation has enjoyed more spiritual privileges from the Lord than the nation of Israel.
Chapter 26 of Leviticus describes 6 periods of chastisement for disobedience. The last one being the most severe. In the first five, Jehovah punishes the people in their own land, but in the sixth judgment, they’re taken out of the land and dispersed among the nations. Some of the chastisements are repeated from period to period, but they can be summarized as follows: distress and terror; disease; drought and famine; defeat before their enemies; death from war, animals, and plagues; destruction of the cities and nation; dispersement and exile among the Gentile nations.
The phrase “I will punish you seven times more,” which is repeated four times in these warnings means “a complete punishment,” since seven is the Hebrew number signifying completeness. Each period of chastisement would be full and complete, with nothing lacking, and the next period would be more severe than the previous one.
The six periods are:
Sudden terror
No rain
Invasion of wild beast
War
Famine
Removal from the Promised land
Sudden terror
Leviticus 26:14-17 NIV “ ‘But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands, and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant, then I will do this to you: I will bring on you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and sap your strength. You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it. I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you.
“Sudden terror” means confusion of mind, the kind of terror you feel when you can’t control what’s going on. There would be diseases that slowly wasted the body, like tuberculosis. During the book of Judges, the Gentile nations invaded Israel at harvest time and took their crops. If the Israelites had obeyed, God’s face would have shone upon them (Num. 6:22–27), but their disobedience made Him turn His face away from them.
Numbers 6:23-27 NIV “Tell Aaron and his sons, ‘This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them: “ ‘ “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.” ’ “So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.”
No rain
Leviticus 26:18-20 NIV “ ‘If after all this you will not listen to me, I will punish you for your sins seven times over. I will break down your stubborn pride and make the sky above you like iron and the ground beneath you like bronze. Your strength will be spent in vain, because your soil will not yield its crops, nor will the trees of your land yield their fruit.
God’s aim was to “break down [their] stubborn pride”. The rains would cease and the ground would become so hard that the seed wouldn’t germinate. There would be great toil but no harvests. You would think that all this suffering would bring the nation to its knees in repentance, but they refused to repent. It will be that way in the end times when God sends judgment upon the whole world.
Revelation 16:8-11 NIV The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the sun was allowed to scorch people with fire. They were seared by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God, who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify him. The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness. In Revelation John writes that the people cursed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, but they refused to repent of what they had done.
Invasion of wild beast
Leviticus 26:21-22 NIV “ ‘If you remain hostile toward me and refuse to listen to me, I will multiply your afflictions seven times over, as your sins deserve. I will send wild animals against you, and they will rob you of your children, destroy your cattle and make you so few in number that your roads will be deserted.
One judgment is named here: the invasion of wild beasts that would kill cattle and humans, especially the children. Imagine the terror that would prevail in a nation if hungry beasts were on the prowl! If only for the sake of their children, you would think the adults would repent and turn to God.
War
Leviticus 26:23-26 NIV “ ‘If in spite of these things you do not accept my correction but continue to be hostile toward me, I myself will be hostile toward you and will afflict you for your sins seven times over. And I will bring the sword on you to avenge the breaking of the covenant. When you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you will be given into enemy hands. When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will be able to bake your bread in one oven, and they will dole out the bread by weight. You will eat, but you will not be satisfied.
Verses 23–26. Warfare, famine, and plague usually go together. When people are crowded into a walled city, hemmed in by the enemy, they run out of food and become ill, and terrible plagues begin to spread.
Famine
Leviticus 26:27-31 NIV “ ‘If in spite of this you still do not listen to me but continue to be hostile toward me, then in my anger I will be hostile toward you, and I myself will punish you for your sins seven times over. You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars and pile your dead bodies on the lifeless forms of your idols, and I will abhor you. I will turn your cities into ruins and lay waste your sanctuaries, and I will take no delight in the pleasing aroma of your offerings.
Famine causes people to do things that are inhuman, such as killing and eating their own children. The enemy armies would destroy the idolatrous shrines the Jews had built and throw the dead bodies of the Jews onto their idols which could not save them anyway. Leviticus 26:31 suggests that the people would try to revive their worship of Jehovah, but it would be too late. Their cities and sanctuaries would all be leveled to the ground.
Removal from the Promised land
Leviticus 26:32-39 NIV I myself will lay waste the land, so that your enemies who live there will be appalled. I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins. Then the land will enjoy its sabbath years all the time that it lies desolate and you are in the country of your enemies; then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. All the time that it lies desolate, the land will have the rest it did not have during the sabbaths you lived in it. “ ‘As for those of you who are left, I will make their hearts so fearful in the lands of their enemies that the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to flight. They will run as though fleeing from the sword, and they will fall, even though no one is pursuing them. They will stumble over one another as though fleeing from the sword, even though no one is pursuing them. So you will not be able to stand before your enemies. You will perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will devour you. Those of you who are left will waste away in the lands of their enemies because of their sins; also because of their ancestors’ sins they will waste away.
This section describes the climax of God’s chastisements, made necessary because of the hardness of His people’s hearts. Up to this point, He had chastened the people in their land, but now He removes them from the land. In 722 BC, the Assyrians took captive the northern kingdom of Israel, and then in 605 BC, the Babylonians began their capture of the southern kingdom of Judah. The seventy years of Babylonian captivity left the land to rest and “enjoy her sabbaths”.
The Lord mercifully brought a remnant of Jews back to the land, but the kingdom never regained its former power or glory. Except for short periods of freedom, such as under the Maccabees, the Jews were always under the control of some foreign power. Their ultimate dispersion was after AD 70, when the Roman armies invaded and took Jerusalem captive.
3. TRUSTING HIS COVENANT (26:40–46)
If they trusted God and confessed their sins and obeyed Him here is what would happen. Remember it was God’s covenant and it really goes back the covenant with Abraham with predates the law that is addressed and referred to in Leviticus
Leviticus 26:40-46 NIV “ ‘But if they will confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors—their unfaithfulness and their hostility toward me, which made me hostile toward them so that I sent them into the land of their enemies—then when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they pay for their sin, I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. For the land will be deserted by them and will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them. They will pay for their sins because they rejected my laws and abhorred my decrees. Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or abhor them so as to destroy them completely, breaking my covenant with them. I am the Lord their God. But for their sake I will remember the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God. I am the Lord.’ ” These are the decrees, the laws and the regulations that the Lord established at Mount Sinai between himself and the Israelites through Moses.
His covenant with His people never changes, and if we confess our sins and repent, He will forgive and restore.
Leviticus 26:40-42 NIV “ ‘But if they will confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors—their unfaithfulness and their hostility toward me, which made me hostile toward them so that I sent them into the land of their enemies—then when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they pay for their sin, I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.
1 John 1:9 NIV If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
Whether in blessing, chastening, or forgiving, God always keeps His covenant and is true to His Word.
God may punish His people, but He will never reject them or cast them away. In fact, one reason for His chastening is to bring His erring people back into His arms of love, where He can enjoy them and bless them once again.
Hebrews 12:5-6 NIV And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says, “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”
God’s people may forget His law, but God remembers His covenant.
Even in the worst situations, however, there is always hope.
Exodus 34:6-7 NIV And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”
The cause of Israel’s rebellion was “uncircumcised hearts,” that is, hearts that had never been changed by the Lord. The Jews boasted that they were circumcised in body, but that wasn’t enough to save them. The mark on the body was the outward seal of the covenant, but it took more than that to change the heart.
Jeremiah 4:4 NIV Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, circumcise your hearts, you people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, or my wrath will flare up and burn like fire because of the evil you have done— burn with no one to quench it.
Jeremiah 9:25-26 NIV “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh— Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab and all who live in the wilderness in distant places. For all these nations are really uncircumcised, and even the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.”
Romans 2:28-29 NIV A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a person’s praise is not from other people, but from God.
When we disobey the Lord, the enemy accuses us and wants us to believe there’s no hope because God is through with us. King Solomon pointed out the promise of forgiveness when he dedicated the temple. (1 Kings 8:31–53)
I am going to read
1 Kings 8:52-53 NIV “May your eyes be open to your servant’s plea and to the plea of your people Israel, and may you listen to them whenever they cry out to you. For you singled them out from all the nations of the world to be your own inheritance, just as you declared through your servant Moses when you, Sovereign Lord, brought our ancestors out of Egypt.”
And it was that promise that Jonah claimed when he repented of his sins.
Jonah 2:7-10 NIV “When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple. “Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them. But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the Lord.’ ” And the Lord commanded the fish, and it Jonah onto dry land.
The promise of forgiveness in 1 John 1:9 should never be used as an excuse for sin, but it is certainly a wonderful encouragement to God’s people when they have sinned. God’s faithfulness to His Word and to His covenant is a great assurance to the believer. Since the Word never changes and God’s character never changes, we have every encouragement to come to Him and make a new beginning.
Next week is the final chapter which is our responsibility to keep our commitments to God.
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