Promise of Blessing and Retribution

Follow God and the blessings wil
l be upon us. Reject or disobey Him and the wrath of God will be upon us. These are the things non-believers would hate to hear. Even modern believers may find this hard to accept or explain to their friends. But Scripture says that God is unchanging - He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. So how can we reconcile this fact with the promises of Jesus?

The bad news first, the wrath of God has not changed. But by the grace of God, if we repent and commit to Jesus, then the wrath of God for us has been transferred and paid up fully by Jesus. In short, those who feel the wrath of God are those who rejects Jesus. So wait, this bad news is not in fact all that bad, because Jesus has turned it into Good news. But wait there's more .....

Now for the good news. The promises of Jesus is by far greater than the promises about to be listed below to the children of Israel in the Old Testament. Some of the promises of Jesus, without going into detail, nor giving the complete list include, being in Heaven for eternity, being adopted into God's kingdom and enjoying full inheritance as Sons of God, and much more.

But here are some of the promises made in the Old Testament and I believe are still valid to believers today. So the conditions, which are still valid today are: not worship any idols or anything else besides God and keep the Sabbaths. In modern day equivalents, idols may be other religions' idols or committing to another cause more than God. Sabbath is keeping one out of seven days for God in a practical manner, ie, physically going to church is a definite one.

Modern day promises of blessing equivalents
- Our income producing work will be blessed in effectiveness, yield and increase. Our work will be enjoyable and easy.
- we will have peace in our country, state, neighbourhood.
- we will enjoy fellowship and relationship with God, we will walk with God and He will be with us. (ie. Holy Spirit)

Modern day consequences of the wrath of God equivalents
- our work will be unproductive even though we put much effort into it.
- we will live in terror of something
- we will be faced with diseases
- our pride will be broken for us (instead of us willingly giving up our pride)
- our enemies will overcome us at any levels.
- we will not have fellowship with God.
- our possessions will be destroyed.
- Ultimately when our sins are on the national level, then our penalties would be on the national level too. That is, we may be invaded and taken away from our lands. This may be hard to believe for modern developed nations. But it was not too long ago (WWI, WWII) that developed nations were conquered and millions lost their lives. Today, some undeveloped nations are still facing this reality.

However, even the worst of sinners is not without hope, as it is written: "
 40 ‘But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, with their unfaithfulness in which they were unfaithful to Me, and that they also have walked contrary to Me,

 41 and that I also have walked contrary to them and have brought them into the land of their enemies;
if their uncircumcised hearts are humbled, and they accept their guilt—

 42 then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham I will remember;
I will remember the land.


Leviticus 26

Promise of Blessing and Retribution

 1 ‘You shall not make idols for yourselves;
neither a carved image nor a sacred pillar shall you rear up for yourselves;
nor shall you set up an engraved stone in your land, to bow down to it;
for I am the LORD your God.
 2 You shall keep My Sabbaths and reverence My sanctuary:
I am the LORD.

 3 ‘If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments, and perform them,

 4 then I will give you rain in its season, the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.

 5 Your threshing shall last till the time of vintage, and the vintage shall last till the time of sowing;
you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.

 6 I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none will make you afraid;
I will rid the land of evil beasts,
and the sword will not go through your land.

 7 You will chase your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword before you.

 8 Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight;
your enemies shall fall by the sword before you.

 9 ‘For I will look on you favorably and make you fruitful, multiply you and confirm My covenant with you.

 10 You shall eat the old harvest, and clear out the old because of the new.

 11 I will set My tabernacle among you, and My soul shall not abhor you.

 12 I will walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people.

 13 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves;
I have broken the bands of your yoke and made you walk upright.

 14 ‘But if you do not obey Me, and do not observe all these commandments,

 15 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,

 16 I also will do this to you:
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.

 17 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.

 18 ‘And after all this, if you do not obey Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.

 19 I will break the pride of your power;
I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze.

 20 And your strength shall be spent in vain;
for your land shall not yield its produce, nor shall the trees of the land yield their fruit.

 21 ‘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.

 22 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.

 23 ‘And if by these things you are not reformed by Me, but walk contrary to Me,

 24 then I also will walk contrary to you, and I will punish you yet seven times for your sins.

 25 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.

 26 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.

 27 ‘And after all this, if you do not obey Me, but walk contrary to Me,

 28 then I also will walk contrary to you in fury;
and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins.

 29 You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters.

 30 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.

 31 I will lay your cities waste and bring your sanctuaries to desolation, and I will not smell the fragrance of your sweet aromas.

 32 I will bring the land to desolation, and your enemies who dwell in it shall be astonished at it.

 33 I will scatter you among the nations and draw out a sword after you;
your land shall be desolate and your cities waste.

 34 Then the land shall enjoy its sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies’ land;
then the land shall rest and enjoy its sabbaths.

 35 As long as it lies desolate it shall rest—
for the time it did not rest on your sabbaths when you dwelt in it.

 36 ‘And as for those of you 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 though fleeing from a sword, and they shall fall when no one pursues.

 37 They shall stumble over one another, as it were before a sword, when no one pursues;
and you shall have no power to stand before your enemies.

 38 You shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up.

 39 And those of you who are left shall waste away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands;
also in their fathers’ iniquities, which are with them, they shall waste away.

 40 ‘But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, with their unfaithfulness in which they were unfaithful to Me, and that they also have walked contrary to Me,

 41 and that I also have walked contrary to them and have brought them into the land of their enemies;
if their uncircumcised hearts are humbled, and they accept their guilt—

 42 then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham I will remember;
I will remember the land.

 43 The land also shall be left empty by them, and will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them;
they will accept their guilt, because they despised My judgments and because their soul abhorred My statutes.

 44 Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, nor shall I abhor them, to utterly destroy them and break My covenant with them;
for I am the LORD their God.

 45 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, that I might be their God:
I am the LORD.’”

46 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.