“And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me; Then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins.” Leviticus 26:27-28
There are many stories in the Bible that divulge the relationship between God and the children of Israel. Over and over, they sinned. Over and over, they repented and received God’s forgiveness and restoration. Every time they sinned, they had to make a choice: ask forgiveness and change their behavior or be unyielding and continue behavior they knew to be sinful and displeasing to God.
Since the fall of Adam, every person has been born with a sinful nature. None of us are perfect. We all sin. Every Christian who has accepted Christ as their Savior and received the Holy Spirit in their heart has an internal battle between their sinful nature and their spiritual nature. There’s no question that we daily live this battle between pleasing the Lord and pleasing ourselves. The question is what will we do when the sinful nature prevails? How will we react? And maybe most importantly, do we understand how God views this breach of relationship and how He will respond to it?
Leviticus provides an example of how God views His children when we choose to do right and obey His Word and how He views His children when we choose to live contrary to His Word. Chapter 26 contains a comparison of God’s view of being obeyed and not obeyed. He starts the chapter by saying:
“Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it: for I am the Lord your God. Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord. If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them…” Leviticus 26:1-3
The Lord clearly outlines His expectations for His children: put Him first in life, keep His day holy, and obey. It’s that simple. He continues by outlining all that He will do for His children if they meet those expectations:
- Bless the crops (verse 4)
- No lack of food (verse 5)
- Safety from surrounding people groups (verse 5)
- Peace in the land from beasts and war (verse 6)
- Domination over their enemies (verses 7-8)
- Overall blessings and favor from God (verses 9-11)
- God walking among them and having a relationship with them (verse 12)
God views being obeyed very favorably! In return, he promises provision, protection, favor, and relationship. He doesn’t ask much of us, though what he does ask is not always easy.
Putting Him first:
The children of Israel were commanded not to have any idols, graven images, or anything else that might be worshiped instead of the Lord. God wants us to put Him first in our lives. When we choose to make anything else more important than obeying Him, we are making that thing an idol. If we choose to play on Sunday instead of being in church, we are putting playing above God. If we choose to a sinful behavior that we know is contrary to the Bible, we are putting that sinful behavior above God. If we choose to waste time in the morning playing on our phones or sleeping in, spending the time we would have for reading our Bibles on something else that then results in us rushing out the door to work, not having read our Bibles, we have put that distraction above God. Anything that we put in a place of priority or importance over God and over obeying His Word becomes an idol that we are worshipping.
Keep His day holy:
Many people wonder why some Christians choose to attend multiple church services on Sunday instead of only the Sunday morning service. Isn’t that one service enough? Recently, Dr. Gerald McKelroy explained it in a way I’ve never grasped before and helped me understand. He did the math on how many hours are in our week, and how much of that time we are giving to the Lord when we participate in church services. The Bible speaks in many places of giving our tithe to the Lord: the first 10% of our increase. When we attend Sunday School, the Sunday morning service, the Sunday night service, and a mid-week service, it adds up to 10% of the hours of our week. God blesses our lives when we tithe on our finances, it stands to reason He will bless our lives and be pleased with us when we also choose to give him 10% of our week in worshipping Him and learning more about Him. Sunday is not ‘fun-day,’ it is the Lord’s day. It is a day for us to spend time putting Him first in our week and resting from the busyness of life.
Note: In the Bible this day is referred to as the Sabbath which is Saturday. In modern society, Christians recognize Sunday as the Lord’s day because it is the first day of the week. In simple terms, the idea behind this change was to start the week worshipping the Lord.
Obey:
It’s easy to say that we should obey the Lord, but sometimes the actual implementing of obedience is quite difficult. Yielding to the Bible when we realize that something in our life is contrary to the instruction found therein is not always easy. But it is the right thing to do. Sometimes the needed change or adjustment is small and sometimes it requires that we examine life habits and re-train our thinking about them. No matter the case, once we are aware that the Bible instructs us to do or not do a behavior in our life, to not obey is to choose to be defiant to the Lord. We make ourselves like little children who think they can be rebellious without consequence. And just like little children who must learn that behaviors have consequences, and defying authority will not be met with a pleasant outcome: when we choose behaviors contrary to the Lord, the outcome will be less than pleasant.
Chapter 26 of Leviticus has a second part. The first part describes God’s expectations for His children and the positive results of choosing to put Him first, keep His day holy, and obedience. The second part of the chapter reveals God’s view when we choose to be contrary.
“But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments; And if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant: I also will do this unto you…” Leviticus 26:14-16a
A pre-thought to what the Lord will do in response to being disobeyed: when we choose not to obey His Word, he describes that choice as despising and abhorring His Word. Take a moment to think about that. God doesn’t view our disobedience as just selfishly choosing ourselves and temporary pleasures. His view is that when we choose sinful behaviors over Him, we despise and abhor His Word. That is a strong point of view! Stronger than I’ve ever considered when I’m in the heat of the battle between a temporary pleasure and obeying the Bible. Ouch. That realization cut me to the heart.
When we choose to live contrary to the Word of God, the results will not be pleasant. God will not bless our lives when we are despising and abhorring His instructions to us. Instead the results will be:
- Fear and sorrow of heart (verse 16)
- Our enemies reaping the fruit of our labors instead of us (verse 16)
- God will be against us, our enemies will be able to affect our lives (verse 17)
- We will be incapable of success, everything will be going wrong, and nothing we do will work out (verses 18-20)
- Crops will be cursed (verse 20)
- No safety from beasts (verse 22)
- No safety from war or natural disasters (verses 25-26)
- Never satisfied (verse 27)
When we choose to live contrary to God’s instructions, the result will be God walking contrary to us. He will choose not only to remove His hand of blessing and favor from our lives, but to send disasters.
We won’t always make the right choices. Our sinful nature is going to win. We are going to choose temporary pleasure and ourselves over pleasing God. Thankfully, we have the ability to stop being contrary and start obeying. At the end of the chapter, God addresses this very choice.
“If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me; And that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity: Then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land.” Leviticus 26:40-42
The Lord very clearly states that after we have chosen to be contrary, if we will ask for forgiveness and acknowledge our wrong choice, He will forgive and restore. He doesn’t want to throw us away. He doesn’t want to be contrary to us and sending disasters in our lives. He wants a relationship with us. He wants to restore us and move forward. All He requires of us is to acknowledge our sin, ask for forgiveness, and then adjust our behavior.
God wants to be first in our lives. God wants us to keep His day holy. God wants us to obey His Word. We cannot escape our sinful nature. There will daily be a battle within between that sinful nature and the Holy Spirit who lives in the hearts of those who are saved. We must daily choose God over ourselves and our sinful desires. When we aren’t sure what to do, we can evaluate the decision against the three things God has expressed He expects of us.
- Does this decision put God first or something else in my day?
- Does this decision take away from my ability to keep Sunday the Lord’s day?
- Does this decision obey or disobey the Bible?
These questions provide guidance that will help us make choices that will result in a stronger relationship with God and the results of pleasing Him. Every day we get to choose to please God or be contrary to Him. Each choice comes with specific results: which will we select?
