Kindly help me understand Leviticus 26:1-13, especially verse 5.
This chapter instructs us about obedience and the blessings that follow. The promised blessings to the nation of Israel under the law were always conditional upon their obedience, and what we have in this chapter is no different. We read in Leviticus 26:1-3, “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.”
There’s that small but very significant word…IF which denotes conditional blessings. IF the people walked according to the will of God and kept His commandments, there would be blessings. Let’s read verses 4-5 in the NASB, which makes the meaning much clearer. That says, “Then I shall give you rains in their season, so that the land will yield its produce and the trees of the field will bear their fruit. Indeed, your threshing will last for you until grape gathering, and grape gathering will last until sowing time. You will thus eat your food to the full and live securely in your land.” For their obedience, there would be ample supply of water and food. Before they could reap and thresh out their corn, it would be time to gather their grapes. Before they could press out all their wine, it would be time to sow again. We have a similar thought in Amos 9:13, “Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt.” Such is the precious consequence of obedience.
Leviticus 26 continues to show how the Lord would continually bless His people if they would walk in obedience to His Word. We then read in verse 13, “I am the LORD your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright.”
That verse reminds me of how we are set free today from the bondage of sin through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We read in John 8:36, “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” “FREE INDEED.” FREE from the PENALTY of sin. FREE from the POWER of sin. One day, we will even be set FREE from the very PRESENCE of sin when we are with the Lord in glory for eternity. My dear friend, do you know this freedom? Have you been set free by the Lord Jesus or are you still under the bondage of sin? For those who have put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ we read in Romans 6:22, “But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.” (333.6)