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 we're finishing the chapter today. And Abu realized yesterday's Bible study was a little disconcerting. It was. I had. I had. Right when I went offline, I noticed somebody in the comments said, saying, that was really scary. And I thought that was really hilarious. It is funny that when you go through that, it is eye opening. It's sobering realization of God and his, what happens to his children when they decide to live as if they are not his children. And that's exactly what was happening. They were living as not their children. But that being said, anytime you have these pronouncements of judgment, or throughout scripture, when you have these pronouncements of judgment, many, many times you find a passage at the end of them like the one we have. And that passage is a passage of a road back, a road back to redemption. It's so here. And it is. It gives us a insight into how God brings us back to those things. And I think it's important that you look at this and see, because first of all, it speaks to the state of the individuals who are left, those who, those who are not totally destroyed by their. Their rebellion or their choosing to walk away from God's will. But the. It speaks to really, their emotional feats. And then it speaks to those feelings, being the opportunity to understand what's going on and to come back to God. And I think that it is very important that we see that as God saying, even in the midst of my judgment, there is always grace. Even in the midst of my judgment, there's always grace. And so verse 36 says, and for those of you who are left, I will send faintness into their hearts. This is an emotional feeling. Notice he's going to send faintness into their hearts in the land of their enemies. The sound of a shaken leaf shall cause them to flee. They shall flee as they're fleeing from the sword, and they shall fall when no one pursues what they. The proverb says, the wicked flee when no one chaseth or no one pursueth. And so, understanding that this is a state of fear, it is a state of not holy fear, meaning fear of God, but a state of fear of the circumstances. And so, he says, they're going to be the type that jump at any sound. They shall stumble over one another, as it were before a sword, when no one pursues. What he's going to say is they never can get anything done because they seem to be stumbling over each other. And I found that to be really, really, really true when dealing with a group of people, because they. They have no real answer. In fact, their minds are so, so consumed by the troubles that they cannot. They cannot sit down and come up with a reasonable way to get out of it. And let me say this, that that is. That is a. That is a gift of God because there's no way out except him. And so the inability to even think or consider comes from him, because you need to consider him and not consider continuing on in your rebellion against his divine revelation through his son and through his personal revelation that comes from that in your personal life through his son. We should always, always, always chase after God's will. When we don't, and we see the calamity that comes from it, and it always is. It always is just things go totally haywire when God's children decide not to do what God has told them to do, when it seems like there is no hope, there's no joy, there's no peace. And let me tell you something. I see this being played out in my life over long, long periods of time, in a lot of places where God's word has not become the. Has become less than preeminent, God's word has become a place of questioning. God's word has become a place of. I don't believe what God says. Now, I do need you to understand, I'm not talking about people trying to figure out God's word and not getting the answers to it. Remember, if you think God's word is in conflict with itself, that's not the issue, is not that God's word is in conflict. Issues that you don't understand how those two passages fit together. And I can say that with confidence. As being a pastor for over 30 years, I many times come across passages and things that seem to conflict in my own mind with what I understood God's word to mean. And what really was going on was God was expanding my understanding because I didn't understand how they fit together. Therefore, I didn't really understand the fullness of what they meant. And so once I came to an understanding of what God's word meant, how those things worked out, how they were revealed by God, they worked together. We're not talking about that. We're talking about when God is giving you clear, divine direction from his will and you have decided to not do it. And when you get to the place where you realize that it has caused great destruction in your life, when you realize it's caused a great calamity in what's going on, God also sends these emotions that say that, you know, you have put yourself in this position. Now I'm God. I want to get you out of this position. I want to give you a way to understand what's going on in your lives, and I want you to have the opportunity to. To get out of it. He says, he says you shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. What he's saying is, when you go into captivity in the world, when you allow the world to have its way in your life, you are in captivity to them and you can perish in them. And that is a God's not telling them this as if there's not going to be an opportunity for redemption, because why tell it? You're just going to die if you do that, he says, and those of you who are left shall waste away in their iniquity, in your enemy's land. Notice you're wasting away in your iniquity, under the yoke of the enemy in their land, you're going to be a slave to the world, and you're going to waste away in your iniquity, also in your father's iniquities, which are with them, they shall waste away. Now, God has given. That is, that is a sobering response. It really is a sobering response. It's something that God, when God responds to our sin, that it gets your attention, and God did get your attention. But, and that's the key, the word. But that's the key word in this passage, verse 40. But if they confess their iniquity and their iniquity of their fathers, meaning if you, if you realize that you have sin and you confess it, and then you realize the things that were passed down by your family to you, meaning you look back and say, what are the things that are causing this to happen in my life. If you confess your iniquities with, with their unfaithfulness, in which they were unfaithful to me, and they also have walked contrary to me, meaning, if you, if you look back and consider how, how did we get here? How did we get in this situation? And, and listen, that can be life changing. It really can. It could be family and future changing. So many people, and the numbers are myriad. The numbers are more than I can count of people that I know throughout my ministry and throughout my life, who have turned and chased after God, turned and chased after his will, his way, rejected the way of their forefathers, rejected the way of life that they lived, maybe even rejected the way of life they lived. And they were so called believers. They lived in the world. They lived as the world. They thought just some form of Christianity. They had a fern of godliness, but denied its power. And it caused great calamity in their life. And they decided that they're going to humbly chase after God. And he says in verse 42, then I'll remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham. I'll remember. I will remember the land, what God is saying. I'm going to remember my promises. If you turn to me, I'll turn to you. If you walk away from this false faith. And when I say the false faith, it is just a practice of religion rather than a relationship with God. Rather than walking with him and his statutes and his ways, you're walking in your own ways and then calling it christian. And so many times, so many times I hear people, why are our churches dying? Your churches are dying because your people are not walking in the ways of God. They're not chasing after God. There's no joy, there's no peace, there's no power. And you go, why is that happening? I've been asked this a lot. I've been asked this a lot over the last five years of my life. Why is this happening? Well, because you, you moved away from God's word. And so God's revelation did not, is not possible, because you're not, you do not treat it as what it is, God's revelation. And therefore, sure, you, you recognize God's revelation in nature, but everybody recognize that that which is God made is clearly seen and his character and nature come from that. Romans one says that that's not what we're talking about. What we're talking about is God's divine revelation through his word and through his son, Jesus. Christ in him was life. And that life was like to men. We're talking about the word of God, given by God through the Holy Spirit, inspired through many, many writers over thousands of years in three different continents, where God says, this is who I am and this is how I work, and the belief and trust in that. And not trying to figure out how it's not true, but trying to figure out how it is true. Not trying to figure out how to live your life the way you want to live it and make God's word okay with it, but trying to figure out what is the life that God has for you and how to walk in that. If you remember that covenant. And he's remembering, he says, I'm not. He didn't say, I'm going to remember Jacob, and I'm going to remember Isaac, and I may remember Abraham. He said, I'm going to remember my covenant with them. What is that? Well, covenant, say a divine. It's an eternal contract. He revealed his will to them. They revealed that they would, they would choose that will. He says, I'll give you ad these promises. They took the promises. There's a, there is a divine contract. I'm giving you my very best if you're that with me. And he says to you, you make me your lord and you receive the best that I have for you. And that is the covenant. And the covenant was made by Jesus in the Old Testament. He is, shows up all the time. He's a physical manifestation of God. That covenant was for, it's an eternal contact. It doesn't go away. And they chose to walk in it. But if you're in a place where, just be right down the road. If you're a place where God's words, not preeminent, where we try to figure out how we can do what we want to do rather than do what God's word clearly indicates we should do, we try to figure out how to, how to make God's word fit our traditions, our mindsets, rather than try to figure out what God has for us today, well, then you're not going to have that. He says, the land also shall be left empty by them. And I will and will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate with them. They will accept their guilt because they despise my judgments and because their soul adhooed my statutes. What he's saying is, you didn't want to know who I was. You didn't want to know my judgments, my statutes. You didn't want to know my heart. You didn't want to know what I thought. And because you. Because you hated it, the land lies empty. I'm going to remember my promises, and I'll remember where I want you to be. And even though you're in captivity in the world again, I'm going to remember that. He says, yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, nor shall I pour them to utterly destroy them or break my covenant with them. For I am the Lord their God. But for their sake, I will remember the covenant of their ancestors whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations. What he's saying is, I'm going to bring you out the same way I bet your ancestors out. Listen, if you. If you. If you come from a christian heritage, but that heritage involves not. Not seeking God's word and not seeking God's will because of some traditions or because of some way you've done things in the past, and you can clearly see that there's no joy, there's no peace, there's no unity of the spirit. There's no desire. There's no desire to really concentrate and allow God to reveal himself in your life. And it seems dead where you're at. I'm telling you that that is because you have rejected God's word and you have rejected not, maybe not you, maybe the ones before you, but you're in it. And God said, I gotta roll out. I'm gonna remember my promises to you, but you gotta turn to me. You gotta. You gotta begin to love me for who I am and who I am. How do I know who you are, Lord? Well. Well, I'm revealing myself in my road. No me, no my road, no my way, no my will, he says, but for their sake, I will remember the covenants of their ancestors 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. What he's saying is, I'm God. I'm the one whom you serve. I am the Lord. He says, these are the statutes and judgments and laws which the Lord made between himself and the children of Israel on Mount Sinai by the hand of Moses. Wow. That's one of those things that make your life. Well, it gives you fullness. It really does. It gives you the fullness of life. It makes it exciting to be a part of what's going on in the kingdom. And we need that. We need that excitement. We need that passion, we need that hope. We need to speak words of life and speak words of hope. Not dwell on the past, not dwell on the feelings of the past, not dwell on the deaths of the past, but dwell on the life that God has before us and walk in it. I pray that you'll do that. I pray that you'll make that a fundamental of your each and everyday living, that you'll walk in God's divine revelation in his word, and then you'll allow God to teach you his divine revelation for you, his personal revelation for you, and that you'll walk in that, too. And that you'll have his very, very best. You wouldn't be here if you weren't seeking it, so I expect you shall have 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.
