If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.
– Leviticus 26:3–4
If I kept reading this chapter at this point, you would hear all kinds of promises from God to bless his people as they obey him. If you walk in my statutes, observe my commandments, and do them, I’m going to bless you in all these ways. And then when you get to Leviticus 26:14, the whole picture shifts as God says, But if you will not listen to me and will not do all these commandments, if you spur my statutes, then you will miss out on all of my blessings and you’ll experience judgment.
And as we read verses like this specifically that are promising material reward, and blessing for obedience, like verse four, I will give you the rains in their seasons. The land shall yield its increase. The trees of the field shall bear their fruit. This is a promise of material blessing as God is establishing a nation and a people in a physical land, the promised land that will be flowing with milk and honey.
Leviticus 26:3–4 pictures God’s faithfulness in rewarding obedience.
That’s what God was doing here in the Old Testament in a way that’s different from what God is doing in the New Testament, in the New Covenant with us. Nowhere in the New Testament do you see a promise of material blessing for obedience. In fact, that’s what’s so shocking about Jesus going to a rich young man and saying, go sell all you have and give to the poor. Obedience for this man would lead to losing, and giving away all of his possessions.
That’s why we have to be really careful not to build a theology of possessions based on the Old Testament and think that, well, if I follow God, then materially things will go well for me. That’s not a promise from God that we have in the New Covenant. At the same time, we do have promises from God that blessing from God follows obedience to God. That truth is all over the New Testament, that when we walk in his statutes and observe his commandments and do them to use the language of Leviticus 26:3, this will always, always lead to our good.
Leviticus 26:3–4 pictures the connection between obedience and flourishing.
And when we disobey God, his statutes, when we don’t observe his commandments, this will always lead away from our good. It will always lead to our detriment. In other words, God always gives his commands, Old Testament or New Testament for our good, which is why I want to encourage you to trust him today, to trust his Word, to trust his ways to trust that they will lead to our good.
They actually may lead to things being harder in this world in a variety of ways. I just think about the command to make disciples of all nations. The more you give your life to spreading the gospel, the harder it will be for you in this world. I think about our persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ, the more they obey the Great Commission, the worse it will be for them in this world. But they believe they know that obedience is good, it’s good for them, it’s good for others. It’s glorifying to God. In other words, obedience to God’s Word is always, always worth it.
This verse shows that God’s commands bring life, not restriction.
And so we pray, God help us to obey you. Help us to believe that you are for us and everything you say to us, we pray that you and forgive us for thinking sometimes that your laws, your commands, that your Word is restricting us, is keeping us from something just like Adam and Eve and the garden thought that your law was not good for them, was keeping them from joy and life.
God, we pray that you would help us to realize today in a fresh way that obedience to your Word is the way to life. So help us today to walk in your commands, to do them, to be careful, to do them, to think, desire, speak, and act in ways that align completely with your Word. Help us to take your commands seriously and obey them, and in the promise, experience the blessing of walking with you, which is greater than anything this world might offer us.
Prayer for the Mamasani People
God, we pray specifically for our persecuted brothers and sisters around the world who are spreading the gospel and hard places. We pray today for the Mamasani people of Iran, 135,000 of them. A Muslim people group that’s yet to be reached with the gospel. Lord, we know it is costly for our brothers and sisters in Iran to share the gospel there. We pray that you’d give them boldness in their obedience to make disciples… Specifically of the Mamasani people, that they might be reached with the good news of your love and your grace and your blessing. For all those who know you, Jesus, we pray all of this according to your Word in Leviticus 26:3–4. In Jesus’ name, in the name of the one in whose steps are found all of your blessings. Amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder of Radical, an organization that helps people follow Jesus and make him known in their neighborhood and all nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, and Don’t Hold Back.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
