THE PURPOSE OF ISRAEL’S JUDGMENT IS REVEALED
April 19, 2020
Deuteronomy 11:13-28
13 “And if you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul,
14 he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil.
15 And he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full.
16 Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them;
17 then the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you, and he will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and you will perish quickly off the good land that the LORD is giving you.
18 “You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.
19 You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.
20 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates,
21 that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth.
22 For if you will be careful to do all this commandment that I command you to do, loving the LORD your God, walking in all his ways, and holding fast to him,
23 then the LORD will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourselves.
24 Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours. Your territory shall be from the wilderness to the Lebanon and from the River, the river Euphrates, to the western sea.
25 No one shall be able to stand against you. The LORD your God will lay the fear of you and the dread of you on all the land that you shall tread, as he promised you.
26 “See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse:
27 the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you today,
28 and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside from the way that I am commanding you today, to go after other gods that you have not known.
I Kings 18:16-19
16 So Obadiah went to meet Ahab, and told him. And Ahab went to meet Elijah.
17 When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, “Is it you, you troubler of Israel?”
18 And he answered, “I have not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father’s house, because you have abandoned the commandments of the LORD and followed the Baals.
19 Now therefore send and gather all Israel to me at Mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.”