The Old Stores

O. T. #297 "The Old Stores"
May 28, 2014
Leviticus 26-Part 1
And ye shall eat old store, and bring forth the old because of the new.  Leviticus 26-10


LET IT GLOW

When I walk down Main Street of my hometown, I see in my mind what eating places existed when I was growing up here. Come go with me as I walk down memory lane. All these stores are long gone now, either torn down, replaced by another business, or used for storage.
There was the old filling station where dad got his flat tires fixed and I, as a preschooler, got a Butterfinger candy bar and Grapette. The old Center Café where we teenagers would congregate after school for a Coke and a song on the jute box. The grocery store stood in the middle of town, where I took a year's accumulation of pop bottles and cashed them. Oh, the corner drugstore was where my best friend and I stopped in to get malts and floats after junior high school classes. How could I leave out the Dairy Queen, where we ate hamburgers after the football games. Ah, such precious memories of the old stores where we ate while growing up.
Did you know that God told Israel that they would eat from the old store, which meant they would be eating last year's harvest, get rid of it, to make room for new food to eat? Blessed. Check it out.  

This chapter tells of the promises of blessing for obedience and chastisement for not keeping God's laws. Moses repeats some forty years later in Deuteronomy 28.

Israel is reminded to not worship idols or graven images, but to worship God alone; to keep the Sabbath; to reverence His sanctuary.

What are the promised blessings for Israel's obedience, by walking in God's statutes and keeping His commandments and doing them?

According to Liberty Bible Commentary, God will:

*provide proper rainfall and abundant harvests (verses 4-5);

          *peace in their land and easy victory over all enemies (verses 6-8);
          *many children (verse 9);
          *move out last year's harvest to make room for the new harvest (verse 10 NIV);
          *a perfect relationship with their covenant-keeping God, their Redeemer (verses 9-13).

What more could Israel want? What more could we want? Food, peace, offspring, and communion with our God. Does it get any better?

LET IT GROW

God broke the bands of Israel's yoke and made them go upright. They had been slaves in Egypt for 400 years and then God sent a deliver, Moses.
Israel was warned that if they did not hearken unto God, do all His commandments, despise His statues, judgments, then they would break God's covenant. (verses 14-15)
God's judgment of a wayward Israel was to take several forms:

• There would be disease, sorrow, foreign occupation, military defeat, rule by foreigners, and a preoccupation of fear (verses 16-17).
• The plagues would be multiplied in intensity (seven times more), and their efforts at producing will be fruitless, breaking the pride of their power (verse18-20).
• The plagues will intensify even more according to their sins (verse 21), and wild beasts would destroy both cattle and children (verses 21-22; 2 Kings 2:23-24).
• Continued disobedience would result in death to some by foreign swords, pestilence within population centers, defeat by their enemies, and near starvation (verse 23-26).
• Further disobedience, even after all these punishments, would yield starvation so severe that cannibalism would result (2Kings 6:25, 28-29, large scale death would ensue, and cities would be destroyed (verses 27-31).
• Israel would be scattered among the heathen Gentiles (verse 33).
• God would send fear among them (verse 37).
• Many would perish in foreign lands (verse 38).

[Resource: Liberty Bible Commentary]

Did you see God repeating the warnings that if Israel would not  hearken unto Him, walking contrary to Him, nor be reformed by Him such things would happen. And happen they did. we have the advantage of reading the rest of the story. Over and over again Israel would repent, then turn away. God would bring diseases, enemies, starvation, repeatedly.

Tomorrow, we will see what would happen if Israel would repent and turn back to God.

I wonder if Americans have deaf ears. Does God's warning fall on our deaf ears? Will we repent and stop killing unborn babies, stop living a homosexual lifestyle, stop bowing to and wasting our time in front of the television, being materialistic?
Pray for America, friends, for we are headed down the same road as Israel back in the Old Testament times. How it must sadden God's heart.

LET IT GO

Love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Teach our children and grandchildren to do the same.

Hid the Word in my heart so I don't sin against God.

REPENT.

Pray for our country.