“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. You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it.”
~ Leviticus 26:16
Hi James and Ellen,
Have you ever had your dad and/or ma lay down the law to you? Do you know what it means to have the law laid down? Do your dad and ma have house rules that they are expecting you to obey? If your dad and ma have house rules that they are expecting you to obey, what will happen to you if you break a house rule that your dad and ma have made that they are expecting you to obey? Are you spanked if you break a house rule? Are you sent to your room if you break a house rule? Are you made to take a timeout if you break a house rule? Do you think that it is a good thing for dads and mas to have house rules for their kids to obey? When your grandmaa and grandpaa began the Centro de Capacitación (Center of Learning) in Concepción, Ñuflo de Chávez – in Bolivia, your grandpaa made a list of rules that he expected each student and his wife and kids – if he was married, to obey. There was a house, a storage building and a church with a three room manse and garage located on the quarter of a square block piece of property in Concepción where your grandmaa and grandpaa implemented the rural resident leadership training program. The classes that were taught at the resident leadership training center – which were taught in two week modules, began near the end of January in 1982. When your grandmaa and grandpaa returned to Bolivia from their first yearlong furlough break in the United States, your grandmaa and grandpaa were asked to return to Concepción to administrate the rural resident leadership training center. For a guy to be a student at the rural resident leadership training center in Concepción, the guy – if he was married and had kids, was to bring his wife and kids with him to the rural resident leadership training center. Family units would live in small rooms on the training center property during the six – thirteen week trimesters that made up the Centro de Capacitación program. Twelve married guys and four single guys were at the rural resident leadership training center when the Centro de Capacitación program in Concepción started up for the year in January of 1985. Along with the twelve wives, there were about forty kids who lived for nine months in 1985 on the rural resident training center property. Your grandmaa and grandpaa really liked being around all the kids. Your grandmaa was always walking around with different rural resident students’ babies. Your grandpaa liked taking one of the rural resident training center kids – Eucletes, with him when he went fishing. Eucletes’ dad and ma lived in a jungle village. Eucletes knew everything about the jungle.
Do you think that kids are good at obeying rules? If your dad and ma made house rules for you to obey – if they do not already have house rules, would you obey their house rules? When your grandpaa made the list of rules that he expected the guys, gals and kids at the rural resident training center to obey, your grandpaa typed up his list of rules on a piece of paper and tacked the paper with the list of rules in a place where the Centro de Capacitación students could easily read the rules. One of the rules that your grandpaa made was that the gate that led out to the street was to be never left open. Your grandpaa always gave the reason for a rule. The reason for this rule to never leave the gate open that led out to the street was that if the gate was left open, the dogs that roamed the streets would come through the open gate and . . . another rule that your grandpaa made was about the different flower and garden areas. Your grandpaa liked to have flower plots on the rural resident training center property. Your grandpaa also liked to have vegetable gardens where he had the Centro de Capacitación students grow lettuce, tomatoes, okra, eggplant, beans and other kinds of vegetables. Your grandpaa did not want to have to put fences around the flower and vegetable garden plots. Your grandpaa made a rule that said that no kid was to ever go into a flower or vegetable garden plot because if he or she did, that he or she might accidentally step on a plant causing the plant not to flower or grow food to eat. Do you think that the kids who lived on the rural resident training center property obeyed your grandpaa’s rule to not go into the flower and vegetable garden plots on the rural resident training center property?
God in Leviticus 26 laid down the law to His specially chosen guys and gals. God told His specially chosen guys and gals to obey the words of His law that He had given them through Moses or . . . verse 16 says, “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. You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it.” God also told His specially chosen guys and gals that if they obeyed His law that He had given them through Moses that He would bless them by letting their numbers grow, giving them super crops, having the land that they lived in be peaceful and . . . God really did not want His specially chosen guys and gals – the Israelite people group’s guys and gals making gods out of wood, stone and metal and worshipping them instead of Him. God also really did not want His specially chosen guys and gals to forget to keep the day of rest – the Sabbath day, holy. Would being punished by your dad help you to obey house rules? God warned His specially chosen guys and gals that He would punish them if . . . God’s specially chosen guys and gals would still disobey Him – and God would have His specially chosen guys and gals suffer the consequence of being disobedient to Him. Your grandpaa made a designated punishment for a rule that a guy, gal or kid at the rural resident training center did not keep. When a guy, gal or kid disobeyed a rule, the dad would have to chop the firewood that would be used to fix meals. No kid ever went into a flower or vegetable garden plot. Do you think that your dad would let you disobey a rule if he was the one who would be the one who would be punished?
Leviticus 26 (322)