Life in black and white: “If you walk in My statutes” or “if you do not obey Me.” What a difference!
Leviticus 26 underlines God’s amazing faithfulness. When we walk with Him, He blesses us (vv 2-13). When we disobey Him, He disciplines us (vv 14-39). But through it all, He never gives up on us (vv 40-45)! Notice His promises to those who walk with Him: “then I will give you rain in its season, the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.…I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none will make you afraid; I will rid the land of evil beasts, and the sword will not go through your land.…I will look on you favorably and make you fruitful, multiply you and confirm My covenant with you.…I will set My tabernacle among you, and My soul shall not abhor you. I will walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people” (vv 4-12). Although Israel’s blessings were primarily physical and ours today are mostly spiritual, yet the result in both cases led to intimacy with God. We are also promised fruitfulness through the Spirit’s ministry (Gal 5:22-23), restfulness in companionship with Christ (Mt 11:28), fearlessness because “God…always leads us in triumph” (2 Cor 2:14), assuredness because “He has made us accepted in the Beloved” (Eph 1:6), devotedness because we “are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit” (2:22), and nearness since “our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ” as we “walk in the light as He is in the light” (1 Jn 1:3, 7). As we read the painful pathway of Israel as they despised His statutes and abhorred His judgments (Lev 26:15), and all the grief that was caused—even to the murder of their Messiah—“yet for all that” (v 44) God loves them still, and will remember His covenant and restore them as His people.