Curses of the Covenant

Hey, hey, good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. That's where every day you and I, we get together, we have a little bit of coffee, we get into God's Word, we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, Lord willing, we'll make it from Genesis through Leviticus. I'm glad to be with you this morning.
But, you know, I already recorded this episode. The kids and I sat down, we worked all through it, went to the computer, it's gone. Somehow we accidentally hit record once, and then a second time, and it started recording, and then it recorded about three seconds of it and turned off for some reason. So you don't get the kid, you get me going through this again quickly.
But why don't we have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll get into God's Word. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for your Word, and we thank you for this day. Lord, we pray that you would please help us to understand this Word, and that your Spirit would please apply it to our lives. In Jesus' name, Amen. Well we're at Leviticus chapter 26 and we're going to be looking at verses 14 down through 40.
And so it's a longer section and it's essentially, there's a covenant king the Lord himself, and he's making a covenant with his people, the Israelites. And the first part is if they keep his covenant, if they keep his commandments, there's going to be blessings. But if they don't, there's going to be curses. And this is the curses section of that covenant. This is very, very typical of an ancient Near Eastern nation, where you would have a vassal, king blessings and curses.
So here we go. But if you do not obey me, and you do not observe all these commandments, and if you despise my statutes, or if your soul abhors my judgments, so that you do not perform all the commandments, but break my covenant I also will do this to you."
So they don't walk in His ways, they don't keep His commandments. They turn away and go contrary to Him. This is what He's going to do to them. Instead of all the blessings, He's going to flip those blessings on their head. I will even appoint terror over you, wasting disease and fever, which shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. I will set my face against you, and you shall be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you shall reign over you, and you shall flee when no one pursues you."
Do you see now it's flipped? They're going to have diseases and plagues. They're going to have fleeing away even when nobody pursues them. And so they're going to be defeated by their enemies. This is the opposite of what he had told them before, right? It would be five would chase away like a hundred. And a hundred would chase away a thousand, right? And now it's not, nobody's even going to be chasing you and you're going to run away. All right, so let's go ahead and dig in more.
And after all this, if you do not obey me, Then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. I will break the pride of your power. I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze. And your strength shall be spent in vain, and your land shall not yield its produce, nor shall the trees of the land yield their fruit." What does this mean? He's going to break their pride by shutting up the rain and hardening the ground. He's going to make them have no produce. Their work is going to be useless.
Then if you walk contrary to me, and are not willing to obey me, I will bring on you seven times more plagues according to your sins. I will also send wild beasts among you which shall rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number, and your highways shall be desolate." He's going to bring plagues, but he's also going to bring wild beasts who are going to attack them, attract their herds, and it's going to make them unsafe to walk around in the streets. And if by these sayings you are not reformed by me, but walk contrary to me, then I also will walk contrary to you. And I will punish you yet seven times for your sins, and I will 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, and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. When I have cut off your supply of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall bring back your bread by weight, and you shall eat. and not be satisfied.
This idea of he's going to pay them back sevenfold is this idea of perfection. He's going to pay them back perfectly for all the walking contrary. And notice the language here. If by these things you are not reformed by me, the Lord is bringing these judgments graciously We might say, like a father disciplining his children, that he might turn back to the covenant and walk in his ways.
But if they are stiff-necked, if they are hard in heart and they're hell-bent on walking contrary to him, this is what's going to happen. He's going to shut up their cities. There's going to be pestilence. And they're not going to have food. They're going to be hungry.
After all this, if you do not obey me, but walk contrary to me, Then I also will walk contrary to you in fury. And I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins. You see, the Lord is gracious. He gives them a certain amount of judgment to bring them back. They won't listen. He gives them more judgment to bring them back. They won't listen. He gives them more judgment to bring them back. They won't listen.
You shall eat the flesh of your sons. And you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars, and cast your carcasses on the lifeless forms of your idols. And my soul shall abhor you. I will lay your cities waste and bring your sanctuaries to desolation, and I will not smell the fragrance of your sweet aromas. I will bring the land to desolation, and your enemies who dwell in it shall be astonished at it. I will 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 as it lies desolate. And you are in your enemy's land, and the land shall rest and enjoy its Sabbaths. As long as it lies desolate, it shall rest. for the time it does not rest on your Sabbaths when you dwell in it.
The Lord says, okay, eventually I'm going to abhor you. I'm going to turn away from you. I'm going to have your enemies come and they're going to conquer you. I'm not going to put up with even what you do in the tabernacle anymore. No more incense, no more aroma. I'm going to take that from you and you're going to be exiled. But it's going to get so bad in your cities that you're going to eat your offspring.
This is the terribleness of God's judgment, not terrible in the fact that God is horrible, but that it is horrifying, it is terrifying. And it's meant to be that, and here's the thing, God isn't one who just makes threats. He told them this was gonna happen in 2 Chronicles 38. The Lord tells us these things came to pass. They did have famine. There was times without rain. There was pestilence. There were wild beasts.
As the people turned their back on the covenant, the Lord turned His face towards these curses in the covenant. And as for those who are left, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a shaken leaf shall cause them to flee. They shall flee as of fleeing from a sword, and they shall fall when no one pursues. They shall stumble over one another as if it were before a sword when no one pursues, and you shall have no power to stand before your enemies. You shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. And those of you who are left shall waste away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands. Also, in their father's iniquities, which are with them, they shall waste away."
It says they're going to pursue you and you're going to try to run, but you're not going to be able to get away. You're going to be so scared for your life, even when no one does pursue you. It's like you're walking out on a dark night and you hear the leaves rustling behind you. And even though no one's there but the wind, you're going to run like the wind. I'm going to turn you into cowards.
The brave hearts that they would have in Joshua's day would turn towards even their kings fleeing away from the king of Babylon. The Lord did these things, 2 Chronicles 36. The Lord remembered these curses, and so what's the best verse to summarize this? Well, I have a number of things underlined in my Bible. You might underline something else. But I would say verses 14 and 15 I think is what gets at the heart of this. Verses 14 and 15, but if you do not obey me and do not observe all these commandments and if you despise my statutes or if your soul abhors my judgments so that you do not perform all my commandments but break my covenant, I will also do this to you. I think that's the beginning of the clause of stipulation, the curses of not keeping his covenant.
We know what this is about, the covenant and the covenant curses. We know that these things came true. We read about it in 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles. We read about it in the major prophets when we read through things like Jeremiah and Isaiah. We read about it in the minor prophets. It's all over the place in the Old Testament that these things did come true. But that's Old Covenant. What does it mean for us now? How does this point us to Christ? Well, you see the Lord did remember these curses.
And we have to be careful. Because we might think of ourselves as being better than the Old Testament Israelites, but I'm no better. And you know you're no better. If we're honest with ourselves, we know that we are those who have stiff necks and hard hearts. That there are sins in our lives that are besetting sins.
They entangle us and we seem like we can't get away from them. But the Lord is doing these things for a reason. And the Lord is going to make us more and more into His image. But here's the thing, right? We deserve this death. We deserve these curses, but we're not Old Testament Israelites, but we are under the curse of the covenant of works. We're all still children of Adam. Go read Romans chapter 1, 3 and 4, and 5. But here's the thing, we can't keep these commandments, but Jesus has. Jesus has kept these commandments. Jesus kept the law perfectly. Did everything his father sent him to do. Kept the covenant.
And the Lord himself became our sin. He was hung on that tree. He became that curse for us that we might have eternal life. That we might also walk in him. And so look to Jesus. who took these covenant curses for us, who fulfilled the covenant of works.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day. Lord, we pray, thanking you for Jesus Christ, and we pray that we would follow after you. Lord, please, please let us know that you have avenged our sins perfectly upon that cross of Calvary. that the debt has been paid and that we have been redeemed from your wrath. Lord, please teach us to walk in the freedom now that you have given us in the new covenant. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. May the Lord bless you. May you walk in the peace that comes from knowing that Jesus Christ is your covenant king and the keeper of the covenant. I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.