Well, today, even though we do have one chapter left until the end of Leviticus, chapter 27, nevertheless, chapter 26 very much feels like the conclusion, not just to the Holiness Code section, but to the book of Leviticus as a whole. And in many ways, it kind of is the conclusion, though there is one chapter left. For example, John Gill says of this chapter that it was given, quote, in order to encourage the Israelites to keep the various statutes and commands in this book, right? Michael Morales says, Leviticus 26, with its covenantal promises and threats, serves as an application of the whole book and is an appeal based upon the gift of the tabernacle. All that to say, this is kind of the end of the book of Leviticus. Now we do still have chapter 27 to look at next week, which deals largely with vows and redeeming things that have been vowed. And as we have done with other recent chapters, we will kind of ask, Why is this here? Particularly with chapter 26 when everyone's like, this seems like a great conclusion, why did we have something here? We'll see chapter 27 is not a throwaway chapter, it's given by God, it's inspired by Him, and we'll talk about that next week. But in many ways, chapter 26 is kind of the end of Leviticus. So we've made our way here in many ways. We see that it's the end in several ways, but namely in the fact that the whole chapter is basically just a giving of blessings for obedience on the one hand and curses for disobedience on the other. Gordon Wenham explains that a collection of such blessings and curses was the usual way to close a major legal text in biblical times. The main section of Deuteronomy, for example, ends in Deuteronomy 28 with a similar series of blessings and curses, and we find this pattern also in Exodus and Joshua. So we know that this is the conclusion to the book because, to put it simply, this is how God concludes other large sections of law in the Old Testament. Now the effect of concluding a book in this way is that it basically calls the reader, or perhaps originally the hearer, to look back upon all that has been delivered, to take stock of it, to think about it and meditate on it, God's laws about sacrifices. His priesthood, His Sabbaths, and His feast days, the call for internal holiness, it causes them to take all of that into stock, and then God essentially gives them an ultimatum. In many ways, God is in this chapter, in effect, saying to them, you are at a crossroads. Now that you have my law, Now that I dwell amongst you in My tabernacle, you are at a crossroads, and depending upon which path you take, you will either receive blessing upon blessing upon blessing, or curse upon curse upon curse." That's the reason why this is concluded in this way. Now, clearly, this is a passage overwhelmingly, if not exclusively, of law and not gospel. Praise be to God, brothers and sisters, that for us who have trusted in Christ, we do not find ourselves today, this afternoon, at such a crossroads. We do not, at least not in a covenantal sense. For us, Christ has merited the blessing and borne the curse. We might even say that rather instead of us, it was our Lord who is at the crossroads. He was at the crossroads of God's law, but He took the correct path. He took the path of obedience and thereby received the blessing, and He can now freely give it to any who come to Him by faith. As Paul says, Christ was born under the law to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons. For Paul, adoption is inheritance. Because you're a son, you receive an inheritance. That's blessing eternal life. Paul is saying Christ was born under the law that we might receive the blessing. So for you and I, praise be, and we really want to note this, we are not here today. We're not at this place. We are not at the foot of Mount Sinai. We are at Mount Zion, even though that's not our name, though it would have been a great name. We are at Mount Zion spiritually, okay? And we want to take note of that, because that's very important. That's the gospel, right? Now, There are some of us here today, however, brothers and sisters, sitting amongst us, who are at this crossroads of Mount Sinai in many ways. They do not yet sit at the base of Mount Zion, but are still back at Mount Sinai. Namely, I'm thinking of all those children here today who have not yet professed faith in Christ. They are not yet members of the covenant of grace, but they remain members of a broken covenant of works in Adam. For you children here today, it is my prayer that the law would thunder in your hearts. and that you would hear its thundering because you need to. Because you don't want to stay at the base of Mount Sinai, you want to flee to Mount Zion. In a certain sense, though, we might say that you are not at that crossroads. You children here who have not yet believed, no, no, you've already chosen a path. You chose the path of disobedience, as we all did when we are born as sinners. None of us are really born truly standing at this crossroads like Israel is. All from the room we have chosen disobedience, and this means what awaits us is curse. I beg of you, I plead for you to hear the thunderings of the law. The children of Israel covered their ears that they might not hear it. I pray that you would hear it, at least if it would let you flee to Christ. And yet, Though there is a thundering in this passage for us who have believed and for others as well, this does serve as a beautiful picture of gospel grace by way of contrast. In other words, the curse and the thundering of the law in this passage serves to highlight the betterness of what we have in Jesus Christ. We're not at Mount Sinai, we are at Mount Zion. We don't any longer have to fear the thunderings and the cursing of the law, but we receive blessing upon blessing, and those blessings far exceed the blessings of the Mosaic Covenant. See all kinds of blessings in these chapter, those have nothing on what we have in Christ. And by way of contrast, we see that as well today. For you kids, don't just hear the thundering of the law, hear the sweetness of the gospel as well today. You do need to hear the thundering of the law, but most importantly, you need to hear the sweetness of the gospel. Because the law can thunder and thunder and thunder, but no one was ever saved just by the mere thundering of the law. You have to hear the sweet gospel that you might come to Christ. We pray that the thundering draws you to Christ. But without the presentation and the sweetness of the gospel, you would just be without hope. So we want to see all these things for us today. And for us who are in Christ, there is much of what we already have. Amen? Well, having said that, let's go ahead and go through our passage, and we will kind of glean application along the way. Beginning in verse 1, it says, You shall not make idols for yourself, or erect an image or a pillar, and you shall not set up a figured stone in your land to bow down to it, For I am the Lord your God. You shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary. I am the Lord." Verses 1 through 2 are something of a preamble for what is to follow, but more than that, I would say it's kind of a summary of the book of Leviticus in a nutshell as a whole. Positively, in verse 2, it says they are to keep God's Sabbaths and reverence His sanctuary. But in those two things, so much of what we see in Leviticus is included. You have God's sanctuary, His holy dwelling place amongst the sinful people. It's there that they will worship Him with sacrifices, primarily on the Sabbath day. And so it's a fitting nutshell, if you will, of Leviticus. By contrast, we might say that the idolatry described in verse 1 is the antithesis of those things. It's false worship, not Sabbath worship. It's an utter disregard for God's holy sanctuary, not a reverencing of it. And so verses 1 through 2, either positively or negatively, kind of serve as a summary and a preamble for what is about to follow. Well, beginning in verse 3, we have the section of blessings for obedience. And there are really three subsections here. Verse 3 begins with the word, If, if, and each subsection begins with what God will give them if they obey. And he says in Hebrew, each section, though it's not translated like this, he says, I will give. So if you do this, I will give, I will give, I will give, okay? Also notice here, we'll see this with the curses as well, there's a crescendo that takes place. You go from one blessing to greater blessings to even greater. Just as later you'll go from one curse to worse curse to worse curse. Okay? Verse three. If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, then I will give, venatati, you your reigns in their season, And the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. Your threshing shall last to the time of the grape harvest, and the grape harvest shall last to the time for sowing. And you shall eat your bread to the full and dwell in your land securely. The first blessing that we have here really is a blessing of abundant crops, and I would say supernaturally miraculous crops that not even any other nation would have. It's interesting that in the ancient world, it would probably be considered a blessing enough to just have consistent crops in the first place. Most ancient peoples were agrarian, and most of them lived from year to year. We talk about paycheck to paycheck. They lived year to year. You were very dependent on what you harvested that year. And drought, although it didn't happen every year, yet it was still very common, which is why we read about it a lot in the Old Testament. You see it with the patriarchs, right? If you could just have the promise that there would be no drought, Even apart from these miraculously abundant bumper crops, that would be enough, but that's not good enough for God. He's going to give them tons and tons of food. It says that their threshing time would last them to the grape harvest. The grape harvest shall last to the time of sowing. Gordon Wenham explains what this means. Grain was usually gathered in the early summer. Then there was a gap of two months until the grapes and olives were ready to pick. Then, once the rains began in late fall or early winter, sowing would commence. So here, these crops are so abundant, there's no gap. They're harvesting food for months, for months. They're storing it up. They're harvesting grapes and fruit, whatever they might have, until the time of sowing, right? So just abundant, abundant blessings for them. Verse 6, the second blessing section. I will give, venatati, peace in the land. And you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid. And I will remove harmful beasts from the land, and a sword shall not go through your land. You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand, and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. I will turn to you and make you fruitful and multiply you and will confirm my covenant with you. You shall eat old store long kept and you shall clear out the old to make way for the new." The major emphasis on this section is safety, safety from enemies if we understood that either in terms of animals or other human enemies, right? Right there in the ancient world, those are probably your two biggest fears already taken care of. Drought or famine and somebody invading your land. In Israel, those things were not going to be a problem. He says in verse 6, I will give peace in the land and you shall lie down and none shall make you afraid. We'll see in the curses section that when God curses, he removes this peace and he really strikes the hearts of his people with like a panic and irrational fear. They are overcome. Their hearts, they have no courage whatsoever. This is kind of the opposite of that. God is on their side. Who can be against us? Right? Think very much of Proverbs 28, 1. The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as lions. And so they have great peace. The enemies mentioned are either animals or humans. Concerning animals, he says in verse 6, I will remove harmful beasts from the land. In ancient Israel, there were lions and bears and wolves. There's actually still wolves there way down in the south in the Negev. It's called the Arab wolf. But in Israel, those things would not be a problem. You wouldn't have to worry about your kids playing in the forest. Let them play. There's no natural predators. They don't have to worry about that. Concerning human enemies, God says that the sword shall not pass through your land. You shall chase your enemies and they shall fall before you by the sword." Just as we saw kind of this super abundant crop, here we see super abundant victory over their enemies. We might just glance over the phrase that they will chase their enemies, but that actually means something quite significant, that their defeat is so major, the enemy has broken and run. It's a route, right? And when you're routing your enemy, you can slaughter a lot of them. John Gill says, oftentimes multitudes of enemy are killed in a pursuit. Furthermore, God will not only give them major victories, but really miraculously against crazy odds. He says, five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase 10,000. So they will have abundant food, they will have abundant peace, their enemies will flee before them if they obey, and yet God now reserves the best for last. The blessing without which none of these other things make are anything, right? He says, verse 11, I will make, venatati, the idea of placing or setting, establishing, I will make, I will set my dwelling among you and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you and will be your God and you shall be my people. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt that you should not be their slaves and I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you to walk erect. This, of course, is the ultimate blessing, the blessing without which anything else is not truly a blessing. You can go to heaven, but if God's not there, it's not truly heaven. So also here, God will not only give his people food, he'll protect them from enemies, but he himself, the greatest blessing, will dwell amongst them. Though they be a sinful people and He be a holy God, He says, my soul will not abhor you, rather I will love you, I will love you. Of course, God's tabernacle was already among His people and yet this is promising that if they obeyed it would remain and they would grow into deeper and deeper communion with God. Well, those are the blessings. And with that, we now turn to the curses of the covenant. And here, it's very interesting to note that the curses section is about three times as long as the blessing section. Gordon Wenham says, it is usual for the number and length of the curses to greatly exceed the number of blessings. Here, it's about three curses for every one blessing. In Deuteronomy 28, a similar passage, it's a little bit more than four curses for every one blessing. The real emphasis is on the curse. Now right there, as Dennis would say, I did some ponderings, okay? Whenever I call Dennis, just so you know, I say, hey, what are you doing? And he goes, talking to you, right, with all of his little things he says. But he also says, I do some ponderings. And I thought about this. It's so interesting that the emphasis is on curse, isn't it? I wonder if we see something of the nature of a covenant of works in that. It's interesting when we look at the actual covenant of works in Genesis 2, we also see a greater emphasis on the curse rather than on the blessing. Eternal life is implied in the text by the presence of the tree of life, but eternal curse and death is explicitly stated. In the day you eat of it, you shall surely die. I can't help but think that that's intentional, again, so that the law might drive us to Christ, that we lose all hope in light of the curse. You kind of don't have to focus on the blessing because it's never really truly a reality. It's a hypothetical reality, but no sinner will actually get there. The real focus, the real lesson they need to learn from the law is the curses for disobedience. It's interesting, Nehemiah Cox, early particular Baptist, he talks about this. He says in Genesis 2, he says, we have a more particular and express mention made of the curse threatened than of the reward promised. And so, a more distinct notion of that conveyed to our minds than of the other. Although we have reason to think that both were known to Adam with equal clearness. In other words, Adam knew both. They were both equally clear. God may have even expressly said, if you obey, you can eat of the tree of life to Adam. but it's not recorded. And he says that may be, to convey to our minds, the full impact of the curse. He says, this may be because it concerns us more, fallen sinners, to be thoroughly humbled under a sense of the present misery of mankind and their fallen state, so that we might not curiously inquire after that blessedness, which can never be obtained by us through that covenant. I think that something like that is happening in the law as well. The emphasis is on the curse to drive sinners to Christ. The blessing is there, but it's not a real actual on-the-ground reality for sinners. The emphasis is on the curse. Well, let's hear these curses then, picking up in verse 14. But if you will not listen to me, will not do all these commandments, if you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my rules, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant, then I will do this to you. I will visit you with panic, with wasting disease, and fever that consume the eyes and make the heart ache. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck down before your enemies. Those who hate you shall rule over you, and you shall flee when none pursues you." Notice, basically just the opposite, right? Rather than food, their enemies take it. Their enemies come, they rule over them. Instead of courage, there's fear. They flee when none pursue them. Furthermore, note two other things. As with the blessings, with the curses section, we We will also see a crescendo. It crescendos higher and higher into greater curses. And the way it expresses this is by describing God as taking a more and more direct hand in the curses. He'll kind of say, I myself will then come against you. And it's kind of this idea that, at first, God is just kind of removing His protection. Towards the end, the more they persist, He Himself, He's not just letting other bad things, He is the thing coming to deal with them. And it kind of goes higher and higher. Secondly, however, we do see that though this is a section of curses, there is mercy in this passage. Namely, that God gives sinners time to repent and He does not release all His curses at once. In fact, in verse 18, it starts off by saying, and if in spite of all this, you will not listen to me, then I will discipline you again sevenfold for your sins. And it goes like that through each section. God does something, hoping they will repent. If they don't, I'm gonna bring it up higher. If you don't, I will bring it up even more. And in that, we do see God's long suffering and patience for sinners to repent. Andrew Willett says, Thus the Lord proceedeth by degrees to see if he can draw his people by his smaller corrections to repentance till he pour out the whole vial of his wrath at once upon them. Something important to see. It's curses, but there's mercy here as well. Well, with that, let's continue. I'm just gonna read through the rest of the curses section, because it's basically the opposite of the blessings, and we do want to kind of make our way through it. It's a good chunk of text, but beginning in verse 18. And if in spite of this you will not listen to me, then I will discipline you again sevenfold for your sins. And I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze. And your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land shall not yield its increase, and the tree of the land shall not yield their fruit. Then if you walk contrary to me and will not listen to me, I will continue striking you sevenfold for your sins. And I will let loose the wild beasts against you, which shall bereave you of your children, and destroy your livestock, and make you few in number, so that your road shall be deserted. And if by this discipline you are not turned to me, but walk contrary to me, then I also will walk contrary to you, and I myself will strike you sevenfold for your sins. And I will bring a sword upon you and shall execute vengeance for the covenant. And if you gather within your cities, I will send pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. When I break your supply of bread, ten women shall break your bread in a single oven, and shall dole out your bread again by weight, and you shall eat and not be satisfied. But if in spite of this you will not listen to me, but walk contrary to me, then I will walk contrary to you in fury, and I myself will discipline you sevenfold for your sins. You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and cast your dead bodies upon the dead bodies of your idols, and my soul will abhor you. And I will lay your cities waste, and will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your pleasing aromas. And I myself will devastate the land so that your enemies who settle in it shall be appalled at it. And I will scatter you among the nations, and I will unsheath the sword after you, and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste. Then the land shall enjoy its sabbaths as long as it lies desolate. While you are in your enemy's land, then the land shall rest and enjoy its sabbaths. As long as it lies desolate, it shall have rest, the rest that it did not have on your sabbaths when you were dwelling in it. And as for those who are left, I will send faintness into their hearts in the land of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall flee as one flees from the sword, and they shall fall when none pursues. They shall stumble over one another as if to escape a sword, though none pursues, and you shall have no power to stand before your enemies. And you shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. And those of you who are left shall rot away in your enemies' lands because of their iniquity, and also because of the iniquities of their fathers. They shall rot away like them." not fun or light reading at all. The more Israel continues and persists in its sin, the worse the curses get, even getting to the point of cannibalism, which actually happened. I used to kind of joke, I was in a church and there was like a rec room and there was a verse from Lamentations. The first sign to them that they probably should not have put that verse is that it was from the book of Lamentations. But it says, lift up your children before the Lord. If you keep reading, it's saying that they not be eaten because it's talking about the siege of Jerusalem when actual cannibalism actually happened. They were also taken in captivity and many of them either died or they died in captivity. That's what happens here. This is how serious God is about sin and His holiness, about His tabernacle and His presence. Although Israel were His own people, He would become their enemy if they persisted in sin. This, children, is where you want to hear and meditate upon the thundering of God's law, because it thunders against you if you are not yet in Christ. Just as God's people eventually were cast off into curses, so also you are God's creation. In many ways, we could say He created you lovingly to know Him. But if you persist in sin, God himself will become your enemy. If you continue Sunday after Sunday, gospel sermon after gospel sermon, family worship after family worship, each week God mercifully delaying, giving you time to repent. No, I shall not pour out my wrath upon them. I shall give them more time to repent and you persist Eventually you will die and open your eyes to find God as your eternal enemy. You shall be eternally cursed. You know, all these curses we read about in this passage, sickness, famine, war, even horrible things like cannibalism, as bad as they are, and though they shall not happen, most likely in your lifetime actually, right? Nevertheless, children, those curses are as nothing to the great curse of hell. Oh, those in hell, if they could get out and live in such a land like this, a cursed land, just for a minute, oh, what they wouldn't give to get out of one moment of eternal curse in hell, a place of pain. There's no rest. You're endlessly awake, cursed forever. Each moment, children, that you do not repent, though God give you mercy, minute by minute, as though sitting on a train, you get closer to your eternal destination. Minute by minute, hour by hour, sermon by sermon, if you do not eventually get off that train, one day it will be too late and you will arrive at that destination forever. Children, come to Christ today. Let today be the day of salvation. Let this day, February 19th, 2023, be the day. Let it not be next week, let it not even be tomorrow. Let this be the day that you look back one day as an adult and say, it was today that I came to Christ, that Jesus worked mightily in me through His Holy Spirit, and I turned by His grace and entered eternal life. Children, hear the thundering of the law. It thunders against you. And if you do not repent, it will get you. No one can outrun it. If you come to Christ, he takes you off that train. He puts you on a good train, a train of life, a train of blessing. And minute by minute, hour by hour, sermon by sermon, Sunday by Sunday, you draw closer to your heavenly destination. And when you get there, the blessings of heaven, children, they're uncomprehensible to us now. I think for those who arrive in hell, sadly, they will think to themselves something along this line. I heard this place was going to be bad. I had no category for this kind of a bad. I didn't know this kind of a bad and this kind of a scariness and this kind of a hopelessness could exist. For those who arrive in heaven, They will say, I had heard this place was good. I heard it was good. I thought I had some ideas of how good it would be. I had no clue. I didn't know there was a good this good that existed. You take all my former joys, all the highlights of my life before this, and they don't even come close. That's what that trade is going to. And to get off one to go to the other, you just have to come to Christ. He invites you freely this day. For us in Christ, brothers and sisters, praise God that He placed you on that train. Dragging and kicking in many ways, and He's like, no, by my grace, you're getting off the hell train, I'm putting you on my train. You're like, oh. After I got saved, I said a couple days later, you can't do this to people. I'm so glad He did, He does that to people after all, right? We have not a covenant of works, but a covenant of grace. Not a covenant of do this and live, don't and die, but a covenant of Christ did it so live and he died so you don't have to. And that is our hope. And that is the first great part by way of contrast that we see of this covenant. And yet I wonder if here we might also consider another way that our covenant is better, namely in its spiritual blessings. These far exceed those of the Mosaic covenant. I want to be careful how I say this. We don't want to say the blessings of the Mosaic covenant were entirely unspiritual. I mean, God said, I will dwell among you. When you have God giving Himself to dwell among you, that's spiritual, right? And God did call them to spiritual worship. And yet, the blessings of the Mosaic Covenant are not spiritual in the sense that they primarily pertain to earthly blessings in the land, and that even though God does dwell amongst them in His tabernacle, Yet he was still really separated from his sinful people and their sinful hearts. There really wasn't access to God through the tabernacle and through the priesthood and through the sacrifices, which is the main argument of the book of Hebrews. But not so for us, brothers and sisters. We have true spiritual blessings that far exceed all that good stuff. I mean, if you didn't have to worry about food, Basically, the equivalent for us would be like we'd all be making like six figures or something. I don't know what it would be. We wouldn't have to worry about money. We wouldn't have to worry about national, international instability, things happening, enemies abroad, wars going on. The sword would never come. As good as that stuff is, it's got nothing on the spiritual blessings that we have in Christ. I think we see this in an interesting way, and this is where I did my Dennis ponderings. We see our interesting betterness of our covenant. I think we see it in this way. Namely, that if we look at a lot of the curses in the chapter, we see that Christians who belong to a better covenant are not immune from them, and yet they are still considered blessed. Turn with me to Romans chapter 8. Turn with me to Romans chapter eight. I thought this was, I was kind of blown away by this. Romans eight, look at verse 31. Paul says, what then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? Now God being for Israel in the Old Testament meant they would have plenty of food, they need not fear the sword of their enemies, and his tabernacle should dwell amongst them. But now Paul says it of those who are blessed in a better covenant. So it must mean something more profound. Then look at verse 35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?" Now, all those things in the Old Testament are signs of a cursed people, not a blessed one. Many of those things, famine, sword, we could say nakedness, poverty, distress, tribulation, those are like verbatim from the curses in Leviticus 26. Paul's argument, however, is that so great are our blessings in Christ that even if we have all these things to come upon us, we are still blessed. They can't take away our blessedness because our blessedness is so great in Jesus Christ. You couldn't say that in ancient Israel. You couldn't say, necessarily, we have tribulation and distress and persecution, famine, nakedness, sword, and we are blessed. What was the sign you were cursed under the law? Under the gospel, you can still be blessed and experience all those things. Why? Well, Paul talks about it earlier in the chapter. I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. Yeah, we have all those things. And in the Mosaic Covenant, that meant you're cursed. But what we have is so amazing. You can still find all those things. And many are the afflictions of the righteous, brothers and sisters. We are still blessed in Christ. And so Paul says, after listing all those things, no, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us, for I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. You see the blessings of the Mosaic covenant, They might give you a ton of food. They might give you protection from your enemies, and even outwardly, the tabernacle dwelling of God. What it did not give you is the last thing that Paul says, the love of God in Christ Jesus. That's revealed in the law, but it does not come by way of the law. You could have all those blessings, brothers and sisters, but if you don't have that, you are cursed. By contrast, if you have that and you have none of the other blessings in Leviticus 26, you are still blessed. So great is the love of God in Christ Jesus. How sad then is the prosperity gospel? If you think about it, health and wealth. Isn't that what God blesses in his earthly blessings of the Mosaic Covenant? That's all they have their eye on. Well, brothers and sisters, we have something far greater in Jesus Christ. Well, let's finish our chapter in verse 40, or continuing in verse 40. This is a section about the hope of restoration after curses and exile. It says, but if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in their treachery that they committed against me, and also in walking contrary to me, so that I walked contrary to them, and brought them into the land of their enemies. If then their uncircumcised heart is humbled, and they make amends for their iniquity, then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac, and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land But the land shall be abandoned by them, and enjoy its Sabbath while it lies desolate without them. And they shall make amends for their iniquity, because they spurned my rules and might, and their soul abhorred my statutes. Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not spurn them. Neither will I abhor them, so as to destroy them utterly, and break my covenant with them. For I am the Lord their God. But I will for their sake remember the covenant with their forefathers whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations that I might be their God. I am the Lord. These are the statutes and rules and laws that the Lord made between himself and the people of Israel through Moses on Mount Sinai. Here we have promises that God will bring his people back into the land, take them back to him in covenant once they are humbled and they repent. This perhaps then is a fitting place to close our sermon with a call to repentance. For you kids here today, you are at a crossroads. That crossroads is not really the crossroads of Leviticus 26, whether or not you will keep God's law and therefore go to heaven, or whether you will break God's law and therefore go to hell. As I said, from birth, we've all chosen the latter. We've all chosen disobedience, and all of us are born destined to hell. But you are at a crossroads in another way. Will you come to Christ and receive forgiveness and blessing and eternal life? or will you continue on in your path of sin, which will eventually lead to hell? The choice is yours. The gates to heaven are wide open right now. At four o'clock, whatever time it is, on February 19th, 2023, the gates are open for anyone here to come through and enter and receive forgiveness. You don't have to pay a ticket. You simply walk into it by faith. Jesus once told a story. He said, a man once gave a great banquet, a great feast and a party, and he invited many. And at the time for the banquet, he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, come, for everything is now ready. But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, I just bought a field and I must go out and see it, please excuse me. Another said, I just bought five yoke of oxen and I go to examine them, please excuse me. And another said, I just married a wife, therefore I cannot come. So the servant came and reported those things to his master. And the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city and bring in the poor and the crippled and the blind and the lame. And the servant said, sir, what you have commanded has been done and still there is room. And the master said to the servant, go out into the highways and hedges and compel people to come in that my house may be filled. For I tell you, None of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet." From this we see, brothers and sisters, kids, the one who rejects Christ's invitation, the great King, shall not enter heaven. All those who do accept the invitation Though they might be the spiritual equivalents of poor, blind, lame, crippled, yet they are invited, and they will be received and not turned away, and that invitation is in your very hand right now, children. It's yours. What you will do with it is up to you, but you will not be turned away if you come. Amen? Let's pray. Oh God, we thank you that we are not at Mount Sinai, but we have come to Mount Zion. Oh God, you took us, Lord, such people who were in such a lamentable, hopeless state. Condemned for sin, but born as sinners, Lord. We could do no other but sin because of our forefather Adam. And yet, Lord, you sent the second Adam who obeyed instead of disobeying. And Father, what can we say but this is just your pure grace and mercy. We thank you, Lord, for the great blessing that we now have and what awaits us. Oh, Father, would you help us by faith to taste more and more of what that is? Though, as Paul said, right now we see as through a glass darkly, but then face to face. Right now, Lord, we can't fully see it. Yet we do pray that you would give us a greater inkling of what that is that awaits us, that we might live accordingly. And Father, we do pray for our children. We pray that today, this day, February 19th, would be the day of salvation for all of them or some of them. Father, we ask this in Christ's name. Amen.