The Big Payback - Leviticus 26

26:1-13 - Chapter 26 is so far one of my favorites in the Old Testament so far. The law has been given now toward the end of Leviticus and God is telling Israel what will happen if they both obey the law and if they disobey the law. The promises for keeping the law are: rain and a bountiful harvest every year to the point that you won’t be able to eat all the food you take in before the next harvest happens. He promises so much food, they’ll have to throw away the old food because of the abundance of the new harvest. This must have been unconscionable to the Israelites hearing this, after everything with the manna and hunger and not even having a land to farm at this point. This is like when Jacob was blessed by God when he was living with Laban and whatever agreement Jacob and Laban would come to, Jacob’s portion would be extraordinary and Laban’s would not. There is absolutely no way that Jacob could have arranged for more spotted goats to be born when that was his portion, but yet it happened, consistently. It’s like the only reality TV show that I like is called Below Deck and it’s about a yacht that is chartered by guests and they follow the crew and go cool places and cook cool food. But the point is that there have been several times when the weather was so bad that the boat couldn’t leave the dock and the guests would be furious. These billionaires with all their money and their power couldn’t even leave the dock on their super expensive vacation because of the weather. That is the power that God has, He controls the weather, He controls the crops, He controls the animals and He has promised to work all that for our good if we will obey Him and honor the covenants that have made with Him.

God promises peace, “ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land. And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall flee before you by the sword.” Compared to the great empires of history, Israel is relatively small, however they are promised safety, peace, and victory in battle if they are righteous. But here’s my favorite, verse 8 which says, “and give of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.” This is my favorite verse because it is essentially the entire premise of the book that I want to write about battle doctrine by the Book of Mormon, and all of scripture I guess. God doesn’t say “I will make you mighty warriors,” he doesn’t say “I will give you the best weapons,” and he doesn’t say, “I will make your fighters the strongest and smartest and most clever of all time.” He says, “I will drive your enemies from before you no matter how many there are of them and how few there are of you.” He says, “I will give you victory in battle regardless of how badly trained your fighters are, no matter how poor and broken your equipment is, and no matter how weak you are.” This is the promise that the army of God takes forward, none of that matters, the only thing that matters is personal righteousness, honoring your covenants, and promises to God. This is played out over and over again throughout the scriptures, I’ve seen it in the Book of Mormon so I’m excited to see it in the Old Testament as well because there’s definitely a heavy military emphasis here and I can’t wait to read more about it.

26:14-46- But if Israel doesn’t keep his commandments, then He promises to not only withdraw his blessings, but depending on how bad they get, He will personally fight against them. Some of it is just withdrawing His favor and letting the suffer the natural consequences of their disobedience, but if they refuse to repent, “I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies: they that hate you shall reign over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you.” This is an interesting threat because it promises anxiety and paranoia when it is not warranted. He promises to take away the rain, prohibit growth of food from the ground, plagues, destroy the health of their families and their animals, and send enemies to destroy and enslave them. And this happens in the scriptures multiple times so we can see that it is a valid promise. It’s interesting too that the promised blessing take up only 13 verses but the threats of disobedience comprises 33 verses, guess that just goes to show how much more persuasive the negative stuff is than the positive. So essentially if they break those covenants, death, starvation, suffering, calamity, and defeat in battle await them, and us too.

I don’t know if anyone is following along with TB’s lectures from this but chapter 26, in my opinion, is not worth listening too. What is interesting is that both TB and the IM teach that we are being punished by God for our disobedience. The difference is that TB suggests that our disobedience is coming from us not being supportive enough of Israel the country, which I vehemently disagree with, and have for 20 years. Almost his entire lecture is about how we (the U.S.) is too strict on Israel and don’t give them enough of what God wants for them. I disagree with that, and it takes up the bulk of the lecture, so not worth it in my opinion. The IM however, I do agree with, which says that we are being punished because WE are not obeying the commandments and disregarding our covenants by not praying, not keeping the sabbath day holy, and indulging in sexual immorality. The quote they gave was from the 70s when there was a drought but I would take it a step further and suggest that the division, hatred, and violence in our country is because we are not honoring the covenant to love God and our neighbor. How many of our neighbors are hungry and we throw food away, how many are strangers and we call ICE? How many are in prison and we don’t give them jobs when they get out, or we judge them? How many are homeless and we just drive by?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not letting homeless people live in my house with me and I’m not saying that that is the solution, and I can’t feed everyone, but how many of us vote for people who and policies that feed corporate greed while grinding on the faces of the poor? We have all been extremely propagandized by the very people who benefit from our division to the point that we vote against our own best interests and against the best interests of those whom Jesus has called “the least of these my brothers.” We were commanded to care for the poor and needy, the sick and the widow, and that doesn’t include voting to take away healthcare, take away free lunches, take away social services that could help lift people out of poverty and homelessness. Cheering as people are dragged away to be deported without due process is the exactly opposite of what Jesus commanded his followers to do. Immigration is a complex issue but the amount of people that are literally CHEERING while people are disappeared is absolutely disgusting and when I see that I think “no wonder we have problems, we are living the exact opposite of what we were commanded to do.” Again, all these are complex issues and no one person can fix it. We are individually called to exhibit love for God and our neighbor and if enough of us do it, then we can bring God’s peace and favor back to us. And to be honest, it’s going pretty good for us right now and it has for the last multiple centuries, but I think we are getting to a point where God will no longer allow us happiness in sin, and it will become a time of reckoning here shortly if we don’t start honoring our covenants.