Consequences

Focus verses: Leviticus 26:3-45

In today's reading, God sets forth the consequences for obedience and disobedience. Consequences are built in ramifications of a course of action.

Look at the natural laws. If you drop a ball, it falls down, not up. If you throw a rock in a pond, there are ripples. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Every action carries within itself the seeds of its own reward or punishment. There are a hundred other platitudes that carry this same thought.

Verses 14 and following are frightening, considering the world in which we live. "But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands, and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant, then I will do this to you: I will bring upon you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and drain away your life."

"I will bring upon you sudden terror..." Ouch! Could the Lord be withdrawing His protective hand from the United States? Lets see, we are condoning activities which He declared unlawful, we are murdering the innocent, and we oppress the less fortunate. How patient will He be with us? Perhaps we ought to take stock.

Father, God,

Unseal our collective consciences. Touch the citizens of this land with your love so that it overflows to make us generous to the less fortunate, protective of the innocent, and bold to speak out against the unlawful.

In Jesus' most precious name.
Amen.