The Rewards Of Obedience To God

God designed the world to function according to certain principles, and when we follow them, they naturally benefit us, as for example, the principle of letting the land lay fallow in the previous post.  If that were the only benefit of following God’s commands, it would be well worth the effort, but it doesn’t stop there.  If Israel would follow his commands, God promised that he would intervene miraculously on their behalf in other ways. 

Just as he had delivered them from Egypt and defeated the Amalekites, God would  defeat those who were living in Canaan, giving the land to Israel, according to Exodus 23:20-24.  “Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.  Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him.  But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries.  For mine Angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites: and I will cut them off.”

Many people think it unfair that one group takies the land that another group has held.  We forget that all the earth belongs to God, and like any land owner, if those who he allows to live there refuse to live by the terms of their lease, he has the right to evict them and let someone else use the land.  When people forget it is God’s land, and that they are responsible to him they violate his laws and terms of use.  God warned Israel not to make that mistake, in Exodus 23:24-25.  “Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works: but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images.  And ye shall serve the LORD your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee.”  They were to completely destroy all record of the other God’s so that they would not be tempted to follow the other religions. 

Exodus 23:26-31 describes the kind of things God would do for them if they would do as he commanded.  “There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land: the number of thy days I will fulfil.  

I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee.  And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee.  I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee.  By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land.

And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee.”

In Exodus 15:26, God had promised, “…If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the LORD that healeth thee.”  Now he also promised that if they would wholly follow him, he would ensure that there would be no barren livestock or women among them, and that no mother would lose a baby, and that they could expect to live the full natural term of their lives.   They wouldn’t have to worry about dying from some disease or as a result of complications in childbirth or other common causes. 

God would cause the people in the land to fear them, fleeing in panic and deserting their homes.  He promised to send hornets or wasps to drive their enemies out, but only as they needed more land so that they would not have to reclaim it, but would have houses and the necessary infra structure to use it immediately.  He would continue to bless them that way until they took over the entire area God intended them to have.  Their boundaries would ultimately stretch from Red Sea and the Mediterranean eastward to Mount Sinai (present day Jebel el Laws), northward to the Euphrates River and back to the west to Lebanon, as Deuteronomy 11:22-24 makes clear.  “For if ye shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you, to do them, to love the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cleave unto him; Then will the LORD drive out all these nations from before you, and ye shall possess greater nations and mightier than yourselves.  Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even unto the uttermost sea shall your coast be.” 

It was crucial that Israel stay faithful to God if they were to receive these promises, Exodus 23:32-33 warns, “Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.  They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee.

Israel constantly turned away from God and as a result have never possessed all the land God promised them, even under David and Solomon.  Isaiah 11 indicates they will control it all during the millennial period, when Christ sets up his earthly kingdom.