11/19/2008 8:11 AM
SPIRITUAL DIARY
My Worship Time Focus: Submitting to His chastisements
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Leviticus 26:14-39
Message of the verses: Due to the length of the verses to go over
today I will not copy and past all of these verses at one time, but will do so
when going over the material in detail for each chastisement.
A
reminder that at the beginning of this chapter in Dr. Wiersbe’s book that he
mentioned that there would be four illustrations from Leviticus 26-27 on
responsibilities that every Christian believer has toward the Lord and
“Submitting to His chastisements” is the second illustration. Under this section are five chastisements
that will be discussed. The first is
“Sudden Terror,” and the verses that are used in this section are Leviticus
26:1-17. The introduction to all of
these chastisements is found in Leviticus 26:14-15, “14 ¶ ‘But if you do not obey Me and do not carry
out all these commandments, 15 if,
instead, you reject My statutes, and if your soul abhors My ordinances so as
not to carry out all My commandments, and so break My covenant, (first
chastisement), “16 I, in turn, will do
this to you: I will appoint over you a sudden terror, consumption and
fever that will waste away the eyes and cause the soul to pine away; also, you
will sow your seed uselessly, for your enemies will eat it up. 17 ‘I
will set My face against you so that you will be struck down before your
enemies; and those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee when no
one is pursuing you.” It should be noted that some of these things happened to Israel
“Breaking
down their stubborn pride,” vv. 18-20, “18
‘If also after these things you do not obey Me, then I will punish you
seven times more for your sins. 19 ‘I will also break down your pride of
power; I will also make your sky like iron and your earth like bronze. 20
‘Your strength will be spent uselessly, for your land will not yield its
produce and the trees of the land will not yield their fruit.” The phrase “I will punish you seven times”
means complete punishment for the number seven in Hebrew means
completeness. It would seem that when
God was doing these things to His people that they would repent of their sins,
but they did not.
“The
releasing of wild beasts” vv. 21-22, “21
‘If then, you act with hostility against Me and are unwilling to obey
Me, I will increase the plague on you seven times according to your sins. 22 ‘I
will let loose among you the beasts of the field, which will bereave you of
your children and destroy your cattle and reduce your number so that your roads
lie deserted.” Even the children of Israel would be destroyed by these wild beasts,
yet Israel Israel
“Ravages
of war,” vv. 23-26, “23 ‘And if by these
things you are not turned to Me, but act with hostility against Me, 24 then I will act with hostility against you;
and I, even I, will strike you seven times for your sins. 25 ‘I
will also bring upon you a sword which will execute vengeance for the covenant;
and when you gather together into your cities, I will send pestilence among
you, so that you shall be delivered into enemy hands. 26
‘When I break your staff of bread, ten women will bake your bread in one
oven, and they will bring back your bread in rationed amounts, so that you will
eat and not be satisfied.” When war came
to towns and cities the result was that people were cooped up behind the city
walls and then the water supply would become tainted and sickness would then
come and food supply would be scarce too.
“More
ravages of war,” vv. 27-31, “27 ‘Yet if
in spite of this you do not obey Me, but act with hostility against Me, 28 then I will act with wrathful hostility
against you, and I, even I, will punish you seven times for your sins. 29
‘Further, you will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your
daughters you will eat. 30 ‘I then will destroy your high places, and
cut down your incense altars, and heap your remains on the remains of your
idols, for My soul shall abhor you.
31 ‘I will lay waste your cities
as well and will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your
soothing aromas.” After reading through
these verses it is hard to comprehend that things like this actually happened,
but they did and can be found in the pages of the OT history and prophets.
“The
final chastisement,” vv.32-39, “32 ‘I
will make the land desolate so that your enemies who settle in it will be
appalled over it. 33 ‘You, however, I will scatter among the
nations and will draw out a sword after you, as your land becomes desolate
and your cities become waste. 34 ‘Then the land will enjoy its sabbaths all
the days of the desolation, while you are in your enemies’ land; then the land
will rest and enjoy its sabbaths.
35 ‘All the days of its
desolation it will observe the rest which it did not observe on your sabbaths,
while you were living on it. 36 ‘As for those of you who may be left, I will
also bring weakness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. And the
sound of a driven leaf will chase them, and even when no one is pursuing they
will flee as though from the sword, and they will fall. 37
‘They will therefore stumble over each other as if running from the
sword, although no one is pursuing; and you will have no strength to stand up
before your enemies. 38 ‘But you will perish among the nations, and
your enemies’ land will consume you.
39 ‘So those of you who may be
left will rot away because of their iniquity in the lands of your enemies; and
also because of the iniquities of their forefathers they will rot away with
them.” Up until now the Lord said that
He would punish Israel inside their land, but in this chastisement God would
take them out of their land and one of the reasons that He would do this is
because they did not keep one of their Sabbath years, where they were to rest
and depend on the Lord by faith to care for them. All of these prophecies took place in Israel Israel was taken out of the land in the North in
722 BC and in the South in 586 BC and some of the remnant returned 70 years
later to Jerusalem Jerusalem and Israel land of Israel
Spiritual meaning for my life today: God will do as He says He will do and
sometimes it becomes necessary for God to chastise His children as seen in
Hebrews 12:5-6, “5 And you have
forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: "My son,
do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he
rebukes you, 6 because the Lord
disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a
son.’” It is important that when this
happens it happens because the Lord loves me and wants to make me more like His
Son Jesus Christ.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
- Trust the Lord when it comes to being disciplined by Him, because He only does it out of love for me.
Memory verses for the week: Romans
6:1-6
1.
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may
increase?
2.
May it never be!
How shall we who died to sin still live in it?
3.
Or do you not know that all of us who were
baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?
4.
Therefore we have been buried with Him through
baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the
glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
5.
For if we have become united with Him in the
likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His
resurrection,
6.
knowing this, that our old self was crucified
with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we
would no longer be slaves of sin;
11/19/2008 9:41 AM
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