Leviticus 26:14-35 Bible Study | Episode 723

July 17, 2024

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Leviticus 26:14-35   Bible Study | Episode #723

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to hope alive, applying God's word to your daily life. Hi, this is Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up his word to you and allow you to see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today, in Jesus name.

Well, good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's morning Bible study. We are in Leviticus, chapter 26. Leviticus 26. And yesterday, we talked about all the promises of God that he gave the children of Israel. And mainly it revolved around walking with him, the relationship with him being his people and them being his God. Now, the rest of this chapter deals with the consequences of no relationship with God. That deals with what happens when you choose your own will over God's will, or when his people choose their own will over his will. And I think that is very important, because to understand, he's not talking about the world. He's speaking to his own, his own people, his own children. He's not talking about how he's going to deal with the world. That's a whole nother subject matter for a whole nother day. But what he is talking about, and it's going to be a long rest of the chapter. He talks about the consequences of those who are his not walking with him. Now you go, well, how do you know you're his or not? And I think that's very important to understand. We are not his by our will, but we're his by his will. He has chosen us. He is. He is. He has redeemed us. He has. He has begat us again. He's given us a new spirit placed in us, and he dwells in us by his holy spirit. And the way that you know that you are his and he is yours is you feel the call of God in your heart, and you hear God wooing you in your heart or drawing you near to him. And when the Holy Spirit draws you, you understand God's plan, and you understand his call to repentance, which means to turn and go to him, to chase after him. And when we are, when we have that call for repentance. In fact, didn't that what Jesus and John the Baptist preached, they preached and baptized under the, under the message of repent. For the kingdom of God is at hand, meaning it's about to be instituted right here. And you need to turn and grab that kingdom of God. Well, the kingdom of God is now. And in fact, Jesus said, the kingdom of God is in you. Well, what is that? Well, that's you're being born again and you having the Holy Spirit live inside of you, that is the kingdom of God that is at hand. And with the kingdom of God being at hand and the kingdom of God being in you, you are called by God to turn and choose his will and his way over your own will and your own way. And doing that is, is the conversion experience, is the time when you choose God over yourself. Now, there's going to be a lot of messing up and not doing it well. That is the plague of the christian life, is we just really don't do the christian life well. God knows that. God knew that that would be the case and he has provided for us as such. But just because we don't do it well doesn't mean that God is not walking with us, leading us, guiding us, but when we choose to disobey. Now remember, obedience. We're obedient. Obedient to the revelation of God through his word, and we walk by faith in it. Okay? When we rebel against God's word, God's God's commands, but, but for us it's more. It's far more deeper than that. God gives us his word, which is his revelation of his son, but then he gives us his personal revelation from that word. Meaning. Meaning that he's not just giving us. This is the model of how to live your life. He's teaching us each and every day how to do his word in our own personal lives. Okay? So he's. He's showing us how. How to live out his word in the daily experiences that I have. So that is personal revelation. That's God revealing himself, his word, in the midst of my life. When he's doing that, we need not turn from that. We need not rebel against that. We need to listen and hear and walk in it. So it's a far more intricate, deep, personal wreck with God. Now, he's never going to reveal to you to do something that's outside of his word because remember, that revelation comes by his holy spirit through his word. But once he's revealed how, then you should live your life today, the next style. And once he's given you that revelation, then you ought to live it out. Now, there's precepts to live by that are all the time, but in each and every situation, you have to search out God's, God's personal will for you in light of his revelatory word through his son. I know that seems so weird, but really, you've got to think about it that way. That's how you gotta, you gotta personalize it and take it in. If you don't personalize and take it in that way, then you, you begin to either become legalistic and try to live just by the law without having God personally have that relationship and walk you through it, which means you just got the manual, and you don't have the master teaching you. And having the manual without the master is of no value. I can tell you that. Because if you don't have the holy spirit to reveal it to you, you don't have the son to be the be, to be the embodiment of it. You don't have the father's will. All you've got is the manual. You're not going to understand it. There's no way to understand it. And so, so you, it's not about just going by the manual, okay? It's by about walking with God with the manual, because the manual tells me about God, and so it's not about that. But once we do, once we do walk with God through those things. And by the way, it's not about walking with God without the manual because God's not acting without the manual. And you're going to be walking with some other spirit other than God if you're trying to do things that are clearly outside his divine revelation in the Son. So you can't do it without God and with the manual. And you can't do it with God and without the manual because. Because you're gonna end up not with God. You're gonna end up with your own personal desires, or you're gonna end up with some other spirit leading you and you're gonna end up in trouble. All right? So once God gives us these revelations, he tells us that if we walk with him, he's gonna bless us. But if we don't, there's gonna be some problems. And that's what he's telling the children of Israel. And I want to spiritualize it a little bit and allow us to kind of see how this works out for us. Also, he says, verse 14, but if you do not obey me and do not observe all the things, all of these commandments, and if you despise my statutes, and if your soul abhors my judgments, so that you do not perform all my commandments, but break my covenant, you know, he's using all the words here. He's saying all the revelation. I've given you my statutes. If your soul abhors my judgments, my commandments, my covenant. If you, if you don't observe the relational terms that we entered into this eternal contract, this covenant, uh, on, if you don't do that, I will also do this to you. Now, that's what he's saying. I'm going to do this to you. If you don't do what I'm, um, I told you to do, I, he says, I will even appoint terror over you, wasting disease, fees, fever, which shall consume your eyes and cause sorrow over your heart and you. So, so he's going to, there's going to be, there's going to be sickness, he says. He says, and sickness is a picture of two different things, by the way, when we get a bacterial infection or a viral infection, that's a picture of sin in the world coming in and plaguing you. It's a picture of that. Now, disease in our own bodies, meaning our bodies rotten and dying as they always do. That's a pin. That's a picture of sin that is innate to humanity, having its effect on us. So remember the things that you get out in the world that make you ill. That's a picture of the sin of the world plaguing you. And then the diseases that are outside of you. I mean, inside of you. That's a picture of your own sin, your own fleshly rot that is carrying its fullness out in your life. Now, we're going to all die. But God would, would prefer that we not have, have those plagues upon us. And he tells them, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to make sure that the sin of the world that you're turning to, you get the fullness of it. And he says, he says, and you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. What he's saying is, I'm going to make the product of your labor available to everyone else, but not to you. I'm going to make the product of your labor eaten away by the people who are your enemy and who are the enemies for us, there's a spiritual enemies. And so you need to see that. He says, I'll set my face against you, and you shall be defeated by your enemies. Meaning he's not going to be. He's not going to function as our lord, as our king, as our defender. He says, I'm not doing that. I'll set my face against you, and you shall be defeated by your enemies. Notice when he says, I've set my face against you, he says, he said, that's a picture of turning his face from being, being yours. That personal interaction, that seeing each other face to face, eye to eye. And he says, I'm gonna set it against you. I'm gonna turn it from you. He says, and he says, and you'll be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you shall reign over you, and you shall flee when no one pursues you. The sinful flee when nobody pursues them. The wicked flee, because even when nobody pursues them, why? Because they have a, they're given over fully to their fear. He says, I'm going to give you over fully to your fear. And after all this, if you do not obey me, and then I will punish you seven times more for your sins, meaning you're going to reap the fullness of your sin. If you're going to be his children, you're going to walk the earth and you're not going to walk with him, then the fullness of your sin. God has to judge your sin fully while you're alive because he's not going to judge you after you're dead. He's not going to judge your sin after you're dead. He's going to judge your works of faith after you're dead. So, so there's going to be, there's going to be God bringing about the fullness of his judgment on your sin in this life. And so, and remember, we're not talking about failures. We're not talking about, uh, we're not talking about things that you didn't know or you've not figured out or you just can't quite break. We're talking about rebellious. You know what to do, and you don't walk in it. You know how you should live. You God's revealed that to you and you refuse to do it. And there are so many who just are just going to be hard hearted and not do what God has clearly revealed and shown you good stuff from. And there's going to be payment for that. There's going to be payment for that. After all this, if you do not obey me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. I'll break the pride of your power. I'll make your, I'll make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze. What he's saying is there's. There's not going to be any help from heaven. There's not going to be any help from the earth. He's gonna. He's gonna make the punishment for you walking in your sin complete, and your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land shall not yield its produce, nor shall the trees of the land yield their fruit. He's saying, I'm gonna make sure that you do not benefit any from this life. Hmm? How many, how many believers have you seen live this way in their lives and end up with this? Then if you walk contrary to me and are not willing to obey me, I'll bring on you seven times more plagues according to your sins. Notice I'm going to allow that world to send its sin upon you and set it upon you in its fullness. I'll also send wild beasts among you. Now, this is a picture of demonic oppression which shall rob you and your children, destroy your livestock and make you few in numbers, and your highway shall be desolate. Notice their children are going to suffer from it. You're not going to have any commerce. There's not going to be any benefit to knowing God. And if by these things you are not reformed, notice he's asking for reformation here. He says, and if you're not reformed by me, but will, but, but rap contrary to me, then I will write contrary to you, and I'll punish you. Yet sometimes, now he's gone from turning his face to acting. He says, I'm going to wrap contrary to you. You walk away from me, I'm gonna walk back away from you, he says, and I'll bring a sword against you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant. When you are gathered together within your cities, I will send pestilence among you. Boy, he's saying, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take your life. This is the pretext for understanding that when you're, when you're a prodigal son, you're in a dangerous position. Because if you're never, ever willing to return back to the father, then there's no use in you living on the earth, because the whole purpose of you living on the earth is to glorify God. And if you're not glorifying God with your want, and you're never willing to, well, there's really no reason to leave you here. And he says, I'm going to bring the sword against you, and we'll bring pestilence against you, he says, and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. When I have cut you off supply of your when I've cut off your supply of bread, ten women shall bake, break bread, bake bread. And they shall bring back your bread by weight. And you shall eat and not be satisfied. What he's saying is, even the things that you have, the product of them will be less than you could imagine. And he says, and after all this, if you do not obey me but walk contrary to me, then I will also walk contrary to you in fury. Now notice he's gone from turning the spouse to walking away. Now he's walking away in, in, in holy and righteous anger. Then I also walk away, contrary to you, in fury, and even I will chastise you seven times your sins. Now he's saying he's allowing the world to punish you. He's saying, now I'm going to come punish you myself. He says, you shall eat of the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat of the flesh of your daughters. What he's saying is, I'm going to utterly destroy your families. Now, I want you to leave it. Leave it there. He says, I'm going to utterly eat your families alive. I'm going to destroy them. Why? Because you, you're either. You, you were made to glorify him. And if you're not going to do it, and you're just going to continue walking your own ways, active rebellion against God. Active choosing to deny the holiness and the mightiness of his word. He says, I'm going to let your sons and daughters get eaten alive. I'm going to destroy your family. Why? Because he made us to have families that produced holy children, produced children of righteousness. He says, I'll destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars. He says, I'm going to destroy all your idols up there. I'll cast your carcasses on the lifeless forms of your idols. And my soul shall abhor you. He says, I'm gonna make sure they just totally destroy you. And your bodies are gonna lay among the idols. I'll lay your cities waste and bring your sanctuaries to desolation. And I will not smell the fragrance of your sweet aroma. Meaning he's not gonna listen to their prayers or he's gonna hear their cries. I'll bring the land to desolation, and your enemies will dwell in it and be astonished at it. He says, I'll. They're gonna be astonished at how terrible it is. He says, I'll scatter you among the nations and draw out a sword after you. Your land shall be desolate and your cities waste. Then the land shall enjoy its sabbaths as long what he's saying is, I'm gonna get you out of it so at least the land can enjoy glorifying me. And he says, as long as it lies. That passage has a whole lot of meaning to it. I don't have time to spend on it today, but a powerful meaning to it. He says, then the land shall enjoy its sabbaths. Verse 34. He says, it'll be desolate and your, and, and in your enemy's land. Then the land shall rest and enjoy its Sabbath. As long as it lies desolate. It shall rest for the time it did not rest on your Sabbath when you dwelt in it. And that's a true picture of Israel being cast out of, cast out of the land and spending basically 2000 years not in control of their land anymore. Tomorrow we're going to come on and finish this. But you can see that God has steps in his anger and his judgment. He doesn't just immediately bring about terrible judgment. He starts out by telling them to listen and follow. Then he starts out by turning his face from them. Then he starts out. By then he, then he begins to walk against them. Then he begins to walk in fury against them. Then he comes and chastises themselves, meaning he brings about his, his power and his might against them. That is not something that a believer needs to experience. Okay, now you say, well, can we experience that? Not in eternity. No, you will not. You've been redeemed by the blood of the lamb. But if you are a believer and you are prodigal, meaning you've heard God's word and you've heard his revelation and you just decided to live your own life, you've, you, God has revealed himself to you, then, then maybe a lot of the things you're dealing with today is because you've decided to walk in your own will, in your own way. You've not decided to walk with God. The reason you're not being blessed and the reason you don't hear God and the reason you don't your family isn't seeing the fruits of and the promises of God in their life is because you've chosen something else. You need to repent as you did at the first. What I mean by that? Well, when you first heard from God and you turned and was converted, you need to turn again and turn back to him so that you can know the goodness of God and so that you and your family might not be destroyed. This is very sobering to think about. And for those who just totally chose to throw God away, it's a, it's a, it's an eye opening message. I trust that that won't be the case for you. If you're listening to this Bible study, your, your heart has turned toward God already and you're wanting to have the best of his hand which is available to you. All of God's promises are yes and amen for us who believe him and what I mean by believing, we hear his revelation and we trust him and we walk in it as best we can. That's available to you and it's available to me. May we have it? May we walk in it.

As you go today, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you and that he will give you hope and peace today. In Jesus name.