In Leviticus, chapter twenty-six, verse fourteen, reveals pathos, anguish, and heartache as He lamented that He might have to punish the people He had redeemed. If they, in utter ingratitude, rejected His love and were unwilling to have Him as their God, He would have no choice but to bring them sorrow and calamity. The Lord’s promises and warnings were from the depths of divine love and with a sincere desire that such discipline and judgment would never be necessary for His chosen people.
Leviticus chapter twenty-six, one through thirteen, are instructions for the children of Israel that the Lord gave to His servant Moses. However, before these verses, chapter twenty-five, verse fifty-five, God declares to Moses that the children of Israel are His servants and that He brought them out of the land of Egypt. The Lord knows the hearts of His people and decides to remind them that He is the Lord, their God. When people receive deliverance from trouble, they tend to forget the deliverer and where they came from and plan to live life the way they want. The problem with this approach is if God did not intervene, they still would be in trouble in Egypt, toiling away with the life they know: working for the taskmasters under Pharoah, the King of Egypt.
Today, churchgoers know God but do not want to follow His Word. They do not want to obey and live life on their terms. Like the Israelites, some potential Christians have a good understanding of what the Lord expects of them in being a child of God and contemplate not going in that direction but wanting to stay neutral, which is lukewarm. We know how God feels about that. There is a saying, “when people are in trouble, they run to God. When things are okay, they want to run away from Him.”