If you would turn with me this morning in your Bibles to the book of Leviticus, to the book of Leviticus chapter 26, I'm going to read the first 13 verses and our attention this morning will be paid in particular to verses 3 through 13, but we'll read 1 through 13 of Leviticus 26, hear now the very word of our God. Do not make idols or set up an image or a sacred stone for yourselves. And do not place a carved stone in your land to bow down before it. I am the Lord your God. Observe my Sabbaths and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am the Lord. And now our passage for this morning. If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, I will send you rain in its season. And the ground will yield its crops and the trees of the field their fruit. Your threshing will continue until the grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until the planting and you will eat all the food you want and live in safety in your land. I will grant peace in the land and you will lie down and no one will make you afraid. I will remove savage beasts from the land and the sword will not pass through your country. You will pursue your enemies and they will fall by the sword before you. Five of you will chase a hundred and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand and your enemies will fall by the sword before you. I will look on you with favor and make you fruitful and increase your numbers and I will keep my covenant with you. You will be still eating last year's harvest when you will have to move it out to make room for the new. I will put my dwelling place among you and i will not abhor you i will walk among you and be your god and you will be my people i am the lord your god who brought you out of egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the egyptians i broke the bars of your yoke enabled you to walk with heads held high thus far the reading of god's word may he bless it to us this morning well when i asked you to turn to leviticus this morning you had the decency not to groan out loud but maybe you were groaning on the inside this is a book that in many ways is tough to tackle maybe in your experience leviticus is best known as the book that serves as a speed bump on the road to reading the bible in a year there's a lot of tough stuff here there's a lot of stuff that's not very pleasant there's a lot about the sacrifices that God requires not just for sin but for other aspects of life there's rules about the construction of the tabernacle there's rules for the priests there's rules for cleanliness and holiness and there's blood throughout the blood of animals to sacrifice, to make things pure. And the book is even punctuated by the deaths that are recorded. The deaths of Aaron's sons for offering strange fire. The death of the Israelite who blasphemes the name of God. It's a tough book. It's a tough book to get through and it's a tough book to know how best to take it as the people of God living on this side of the cross. Maybe we have a tendency to think that this book doesn't have much to do with us and doesn't have much to say to us. But I think we do see something in this chapter of what God has to say for us. We see the blessings of His promises. The wonderful blessing that He keeps in store for His people throughout the generations. In God's providence, we think about that this morning as we have seen the promise contained in baptism. We see the glories of our God. So we'd like this morning to consider these promises. What is the character of the promise that's put before us? What is God promising to his people? And I think we see three essential things here. We see the content of God's promise. We see the condition attached to God's promise. And we see the character of God's promise. So I'd like to first consider the content of God's promise. We see that in the bulk of this chapter, verses 4 through 12. Talk about what is the content of this promise that God has given to his people. What has he set before them as this future glorious promise that the people are going towards? Well, I think that too has a threefold character. It's beautifully put together in Hebrew, and it's almost a shame that we have to sort of take it apart to see how it works. but as I don't think it would be very edifying for me just to go through the lines of Hebrew with you, it's better for us to just look at what is here. What is the promise? What is its content? And the first thing we see is provision. God's promised blessing to his people is that he will provide for them. We see that in verses 4 and 5 and 9 and 10. We have this beautiful promise that God will send rain in abundance, And that rain will cause the land to bring forth its crops. And we have a sort of wonderful picture of the extent of that blessedness. You'll be harvesting what's grown until it's time to plant again. And when you harvest what you've harvested, you'll go to the barn and find the barn still full. You have to deal with the problem of moving the old out to make room for the new. It's this glorious abundant promise that God holds out. for his people in the land. It's this glorious promise of provision. But provision doesn't do you any good if there's no protection. If you have all this wonderful blessedness, people are going to try to take it from you. And the Lord says, you don't have to worry about that either. Because I will be the God that protects you in the land. I'll protect you from the wild animals. I'll protect you from those who are outside the land who are going to try to come in and take what I've given to my people. And he says that will not happen to you. The sword will not pass through your land. In fact, if people come into your land, five of you will chase a hundred. A hundred of you will chase 10,000. Now how would they be able to do this? Five versus a hundred or a hundred versus 10,000 seems to be the mathematics of defeat. But it's not just provision. It's not just protection that the Lord promises. It's His presence. We see that in verses 11 and 12. I will put my dwelling place among you and I will not abhor you. I will walk among you and be your God and you will be my people. God will be among His people. That dwelling place is that language of tabernacling amongst them. God is saying, I will walk in your midst. I will be present with you. I will be your protection. I will be your provision. And I will make my dwelling place among you. It's a beautiful, future glorious promise that God holds out to this people. It's even more glorious when we think about where they were when they heard these promises. The last verse of the book of Leviticus tells us that all these words came to the people when they were at Sinai. And one thing we have to understand about Sinai is how barren and desolate it is. The National Geographic recently had a whole article on life in the Sinai Peninsula. And as part of that article, they had a number of pictures of what the Sinai looks like. And they had a very striking picture of a person riding a horse or a camel, I can't remember now, down the mountain. And the article was talking about how tourism is down thanks to the global economy problems. And they showed these tourist tracks that used to go up to Mount Sinai. Well, the picture is not just of the mountain, but of all the horizon around it. And if you look at these pictures, there's not a stitch of green growing anywhere. Not just on Sinai, but nowhere around on the horizon. It's completely desolate. It's completely barren. And this is the place where God says to his people, I will bring you to a land where there will be rain and where there will be abundant harvest. it's a reminder of how glorious this promise is in light of their present circumstances. And we can be tempted to think, yeah, that's just the nature of it. It's just a future promise. That's what they're hoping for. That's what they're driving towards. But the more we think about their life at Sinai, the more it forces us to realize all these things that God is promising to do in the future are future expressions of things he's doing in part now. It's not just a future promise. If we read about how God has been dealing with his people, has he been providing for them while they've been in the desert? Yes, they're getting manna, and we're told they get enough manna that everybody can eat their fill. So God is providing with his people now. It's a present reality. It's not just a future promise. We could just go right down the list. Is he protecting them now? We read the story of when the Amalekites attacked the Israelites in the desert. Maybe kids, you remember this from Sunday school. When Moses held up his hands and as long as he kept his hands up, the people triumphed and he got tired and his hands began to dip and they began to lose. And so people had to come and get a stone for him to sit on and he had to actually have help holding his hands up. And they were able to triumph over the Amalekites and the Lord said, I will make war with the Amalekites from generation to generation. I will completely blot out their memory from the earth. The Lord is a protector to his people now. Or think back to the Red Sea. The Lord split the Red Sea and let the people cross, and the Egyptians were pursuing him, and the pillar moved around behind the people. And the waters collapsed, and the Lord stood between God's people and God's enemies. He's protecting them now, not just in the future. And if we think about them being on Sinai, he's present there too, isn't he? Certainly he's removed, he's on the mountain, and the mountain's been fenced off, but he does make his presence known among his people. It's not just a future promise, it's a glorious present reality. The future is greater, but the present is still true. And scripture reminds us over and over again that we are one people of God. We're not two. We share a common theme with the Israelites. And we need to be reminded in this text that the promises to God's people are not just future promises either. There are certainly future and glorious promises held out to us. Adult Sunday school has had the opportunity to see some of these promises unfolding in the book of the Revelation. That there is this future promise. And again, we see these three themes coming up again and again. Provision. Heaven is where the tree of life is with its 12 kinds of fruit. Heaven is where there is the river of living water that flows where Jesus says, come and drink without price. There's the wedding feast of the Lamb where the people of God will partake. That's provision, a glorious provision promised to God's people. There's protection there too. We have the picture of heaven as that high and mighty city with huge walls. Eminently defensible, we're told, but the gates are open because no unclean thing can enter in because sickness and death, mourning have been done away with. There is nothing to threaten God's people. They're perfectly protected there. And of course, the most glorious of all is the promise of being present with the Lord. That glorious promise that we will see His face and live in the light of his glory. It's a future glorious promise that's held out to us. But it's also a present reality, isn't it? God doesn't just say, I will help you in the future, but you're on your own now. Even now, he's providing for his people. Even now, he's protecting his people. Even now, he's present with his people. I think Jesus gave expression of this when he told the disciples what to pray for. We're often told, what you should do is pray the blessings of God back to him. So what does Jesus say? Pray, give us this day our daily bread. Give us that provision you've promised. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Give us the protection you've promised. be present with us by kingdom come. That glorious reminder Christ gives us, I don't leave you as orphans, but I'll send my spirit and surely I will be with you to the very end of the age. The content of this promise comes to us as God's people. In a similar way, it came to them because we are one people of God. And that brings us to our second point because we've dealt with now the most of the verses, we still have two left out, the first and the last. So let's return to that first verse, verse 3. If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, then there's a condition attached to the promise. That's the second point we want to deal with. Kids, if you're trying to figure out what a condition attached is, if your parents say to you, if you get an A on your report card, then I'll give you ice cream. That's a condition. If you get an A, that's the condition. then you get the ice cream. That's the promise. And we have a similar thing going on here. The Lord has promised these glorious blessings to his people, but he's put a condition on it. He said, if you obey my commands, these things will be yours. If you're careful to follow. There's been a lot of confusion coming to deal with Israel and us. There are people that misconstrue what the Bible's teaching. They misunderstand what the point is. The point is not that there are two plans of salvation, one for Israel and one for us. There's one plan of salvation that's common to both. That's the point that Hebrews 11 makes. There's one promise. Abraham is saved by grace through faith. Isaac is saved by grace through faith. Jacob is saved by grace through faith. On and on and on. So we don't miss this point. God is not saying, if you obey me, then I will bring you to heaven. He's talking particularly about a promise that was attached to the land. A promise that was attached to the people as a whole. If you obey my commands. Because obedience stems from belief. And that really is what the writer to Hebrews says is indicated by their failure to have believed. Because remember, this is the people at Sinai. They've not yet come to the land. They're yet going forward. And if we know our history, our church history, we know what happens to these people, don't we? Do the people who heard God's word at Sinai enter into rest? Do they realize these future promises? Or do they fall short? Again, remember your history. Remember when they come to the land and the Lord says, send 12 spies. And 10 come back and say, there's no possible way we can triumph in the land. Two faithful ones come back, Joshua and Caleb. Another reminder of Caleb this morning. Joshua and Caleb come back and say, if the Lord is with us, we have nothing to be afraid of. And the people are so opposed to that notion, they even pick up stones to stone Joshua and Caleb for what they're saying. The Lord comes to Moses and said, How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me in spite of all the miraculous signs I have performed among them? See, disobedience stems from unbelief. So what about the next generation? This generation dies in the wilderness, but surely the next generation will do well. But what happens to them when they come into the land? They do well for a little while. But then the promises begin to fail, again because of their disobedience. Think about the time of the judges. What happens? They begin to commit idolatry against the Lord, and so what does he do? He removes his protection, and they're exposed to their enemies. Or think of Samuel when the people request the king. Samuel says, it's not me that you've rejected, it's God you've rejected who was your king. So God is going to send a rain to destroy your harvest. God's provision is removed. And as we've been hearing from Hosea, the prophets come and they stand to say, be careful, you're about to lose the promise. Return to your Lord. Return in faith and obey His commands. or are you going to lose what he's promised? Moses predicted that in Deuteronomy 31. When he records the Lord saying, Then my anger will be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them and hide my face, and they will be devoured. And many evils and troubles will come upon them, so they will say in that day, Have not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among us. His presence is removed. It's that vision the prophets have in Ezekiel and Jeremiah of the glory departing. That God's presence is gone. And the promise seems to have failed. The author of Hebrews ties this all together. If you're trying to help understand Leviticus, it's always helpful to read Leviticus with Hebrews open next to it. Because you go back and forth and see what this was all pointing to. And Hebrews does a remarkable job at the end of chapter 3 and the beginning of chapter 4 transitioning from this old covenant people to us and telling us what are we to take from this example that's set before us in Scripture. How are we to regard this? How are we to understand this? This is what Hebrews 3.15-4.2 says. Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion. Who were they who heard and rebelled? were they not those Moses led out of Egypt? And with whom was he angry for 40 years? Was it not with those who sinned whose bodies fell in the desert? And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest, if not those who disobeyed? So we see that they were not able to enter because of their unbelief. Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, Let us be careful that none of you have fallen short of it. For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did. But the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard it did not combine it with faith. That's what's held out to us. This serves as a warning to us. That a promise has been held out to us. Remember that future glorious promise that's been held out to us? A promise of entering God's rest? The writer to Hebrews says they fell short because they didn't combine it with faith. We need to be careful that we don't fall short for failing to combine the word with faith. Now maybe you find that unsettling. I hope you do. I find it a little unsettling. Because I've heard the Gospel preached. And if this rested on my work, I would be in trouble. And that's why we need that third point that we have before us, briefly to consider the character of God's promise. Is He saying it's up to you to get yourself in? Is He saying that it is up to you to keep yourself in? But that's not the character of the promise. That's why the last verse is so important. I am the Lord your God, verse 13, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves. I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high. The character of this promise is not to get you to do this on your own. We had a beautiful picture of that this morning in the baptism. Because Caleb couldn't bring himself forward. Caleb couldn't come up the steps. Caleb couldn't get up to the baptismal font. Someone had to bring him. His father had to bring him. That's the picture we have, and that's the truth for us. If the father does not bring us to the fountainhead of his grace, there is no hope. And that's the wonderful conclusion of this passage, where the Lord reminds his people, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt so that you will not be their slaves. I broke your yoke and enabled you to walk upright. The wonderful promise is the character of the God we have is a God who loves us. And when Adam fell, he could have looked back at his creation and say, you've got what you deserved. But he didn't. He saw Adam sell himself and the whole human race into slavery. And the Lord said, I will not let my people be slaves. I will not let them be slaves to sin and death and hell. But I will bring them out with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. And why does he do this? Because he loves us. That's the wonderful truth of this promise. It doesn't stand on us to perform before God as if we can earn our salvation. It's a reminder that, as one of my professors said this week, God loves us as much as he can. God can't love you any more than he already does. And he's demonstrated that by moving heaven and earth to bring you into his kingdom. Because he looks at a people that are enslaved, he looks at a people that need him, and he says, I will not let you be slaves. That's the glorious truth of the God we have. The character of this God who makes this promise is a God who loves you. And has sent us son, his beloved son, to save sinners, like you and like me. And so I hope you see the good news, the gospel in Leviticus, the wonderful promises that we have a God who loves us and who will not suffer to lose us, but who does everything to bring us into his kingdom and into fellowship with him. So believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Live in the glory of the promises that are ours, recognizing that there is help for us now and a glorious hope held out for us in the future. believe in that promise you will be saved Amen let us pray our Father in heaven we thank you for this glorious reminder of your promises and that even in passages that can be difficult even in parts of your word where Christ is not so clear to us that you make him clear by the power of your spirit we thank you Lord for that wonderful promise that you've held out to us that Christ has accomplished everything that was necessary that he has come and lived the life that we should have lived but cannot and he's died the death that we should have died but could not and that you have purpose throughout the creation of the world to bring a people into your heavenly rest we pray Lord that that rest might come quickly that you might send your son again in glory to bring us to be with him. But while you wait, gathering people into your kingdom, we pray that you would continue to bless us in this life with provision, with protection, with your presence until the age ends and Christ comes again. Speed his coming, Lord, and might we be diligent workers until that day. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you.