get your bibles now as we go into the word of God we are going to read our text again Leviticus our text of today that's Leviticus chapter 26 the third book Leviticus chapter 26 and I'm going to read the whole chapter. Leviticus chapter 26 from verse one to verse 46 to the end and that says the Lord. You shall not make idols for yourselves or erect an image or 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 Sabbath and reverence my sanctuary, I am the Lord. If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, then I will give you your rains 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 lands securely. I will give 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 the 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 enemy 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 all stolen and kept, and you shall clear out the old to make way for the new. I'll make 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 make you walk erect. But if you will not listen to me, and 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'll 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 enemy 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. 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 trees 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 wrath 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 Myself will strike you sevenfold for your sins, and I will bring a sword upon you that shall execute vengeance for the covenant. And if you gather within your cities, I will send pestilence among you, and it shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. When I break your supply of bread, Ten women shall bake 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 fiery, and I myself will discipline you sevenfold for your sins. 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 unsheathe the sword after you, and your land shall be a desolate, and your cities shall be a waste. Then the land shall enjoy its sabbath, as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemy's land. Then the land shall rest and enjoy its sabbath, as long as it lies desolate, it shall have rest, the rest that it did not have on your sabbath when you were dwelling in it. And as for those of you who have left, I will send faithless into their hearts in the lands 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 tremble 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 enemy's land because of their iniquity, and also because of the iniquities of their fathers, they shall not, they shall rot away like them. 40. 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 their soul abhors 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 him and the people of Israel through Moses on Mount Sinai. Let's pray. Our great God, King of all glory, we thank you that you've brought us to this good time of hearing from you through your word. Use me, Lord, to share this word with your saints. Help us understand it and grasp some things from it, Lord. that will be beneficial for our work with you. Be with us then, Lord, to the end of this message. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. As you know, at our church, we've been, we are going to start our series in the covenants, biblical covenants today. So we will be beginning with the very first covenant today, but, I stopped that. We'll just do it together. Maybe if the live stream works, then we can maybe beginning with next Sunday, uh, we'll see what to do. But today I decided to, to, to, to, to, to preach from this chapter 26 of Leviticus under the title, the possible major reason for, for Corona virus. That's the title of this message. the possible major reason for coronavirus. That's the title. Because many people are bringing many reasons for coronavirus. Some are saying filthiness or bujama. People are dirty. People are not clean. Other people are bringing other conspiracies that maybe Americans made the virus, they made it. It's not natural, it's made, and they sent it to China to try to, I mean, punish them against their economy and what others are saying. Maybe it's China that made it by accident. So many theories. And everyone can have his own cause of coronavirus, but we who believe in the Lord, we who are born again Christian, we know really that this thing is not the first time for such a thing to happen on earth or in the world. We find such scenarios in the Bible. That's why the theme or the title of my message is the possible major reason. There might be other minor reasons, they might be there. But the possible major reason, and why I put the word possible, that's because God knows better. God knows better, but the possible major reason for coronavirus is what we want to study this morning. And I'll be posting this on summon audio just today so that other members of RBC will access it and try to see really what the Lord put into my heart for that. Yeah, obviously, we are going to go quickly through the whole chapter. It's a bit long, but I'll not analyze each verse, but I'll try to just give you the, because my attention will be more from verse, And on verses 14 up to 39. Verses 14, because that's where you find the curses. What are the curses in Luganda? Follow me. Put your attention to me. Don't put your attention anywhere else. What's the curse in Luganda? Ebikolimo. Yeah, Ebikolimo. But that's where I'm going to focus my attention on the curse, Coronavirus in the world is one of the curses as I find in the Bible. So I'm going to concentrate my attention from verse 14 up to 39. But let me first say something before we go there, because I need to also tell you something about the blessings. Yeah, you know, we have different types of warnings. When something bad is about to happen, you bring warnings. Even vehicles have got warnings. If your battery is dying, you can see some red lights. If the engine is getting the problem, you can see some red lights. And people who know how to interpret those lights, they will tell you, here, my oil. fluid, engine fluid is getting finished. So it comes to warn you. If you follow the warning and you put there brake fluid or whichever engine fluid and whatever, you'll be okay. The warning comes to even show you that your petrol, your fuel is below, I mean, average or below the capacity. So you need to fuel. If you don't follow the warning, then in the middle of the road your vehicle is going to stop and that is so shameful. If you don't follow the warning against the engine that is going to break and you need to pay a lot of money or to buy a brand new car. So the warnings come really to warn and this passage in this chapter 26 it is the warning of God to his people Israel. But also parents Many parents know how to react to wrongdoings when their children do something wrong, what they don't like. They react, they punish, they talk, instead of seeking to prevent what the children do. Yeah, I'm a parent and I know that that's one of our weaknesses as parents. When a child does something wrong, we just immediately react against that. But we don't know how to prevent what this child has done from happening. So this is the warning because remember the warning comes before anyone does anything wrong. So here, Israel had not done anything wrong. And the great God came to warn them, to give them the warning. and he gives them the warning in two folds positive and negative yeah so in our message here our text here let me break it down for you it has got what we call a preface preface maybe should I say introduction and you find that the summary of the mosaic covenant remember I've just told you that at our church we would be beginning the the covenants of the Bible today. Among those covenants, there's what we call the Mosaic Covenant. The covenant of God through Moses, that's what we call the Mosaic Covenant that happened at Mount Sinai. That covenant took place at Mount Sinai. So now, in verses one and two of chapter 26, where we are, you'll find the summary of the Mosaic Covenant. In summary, you find it in verses one and two, which reads, let me read to you. Let's go together. When I'm reading in the Bible, I want all of you to be reading. Do you have only one Bible there? And yet we have many. We have many Bibles in the house. I want everyone to have the Bible, so that when I read, We have many Bibles, open Leviticus, when I read, we read together. This is going to help you understand very well. So, verse 102, as I've just said, it contains the summary of the Mosaic Covenant. It says, You shall not make idols for yourselves, or erect an image or 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 Sabbath and reverence my sanctuary, I am the Lord your God. So that's in summary, wufunze, what God put in the Mosaic Covenant. That is like the introduction. Then, it is followed by three major parts of this chapter. Three major parts. The first major part is, promised blessings for keeping the Mosaic Covenant. Promised, I mean. That's the promise, he promises them He promises to do something for them if they keep his covenants. That is from verse three to verse 13. Then the second major part is the promised curses for not keeping the Mosaic Covenant. Again, katona naba subiza, ebikoli mo. God promises them curses if they fail to keep his commandments that are found in the Mosaic Covenant. That is from verse 14 and verse 39. That's why I'm going to concentrate my attention. Then the third major part is promise fulfillment of Abrahamic covenant. Again, God promises that he's going to fulfill the covenant between him and Abraham. That is verses 40 up to 45. And then we have the conclusion, verse 46. Yeah, so quickly, let us begin. I've already read for you the introduction that has got the summary of the Mosaic Covenant. Now, listen to what God says here. He's telling the people of Zelda two things. Don't forget, this was the warning. Okulabula, munokwe gendereza. You need to be careful. One of these things will happen to you, either blessings or curses. So now, he says, you shall not make idols. Now, let us check the verbs here. Those who are, I don't know, Luganda, which verb is used, but those who have English Bibles. God is saying two things here. You shall not and you shall. Verse one, you shall not. Then verse two begins with you shall. I want you to be following. I don't know, I'm using the ESV. I don't know the other version. Even this ESV, it's okay, we are on the same page. So you shall not make idols for yourselves. Te muja koe korera kundi, e mi wu mbe. Aha, or erect. an image or pillar, and you shall not set up a figured stone in your land to bow down to it. God is telling them what they shall not do before he comes to what he wants them to do. Are we together, friends? He's first telling them what they need not to do before he tells them what they need to do. Which lesson am I getting from that? We as we sit here, we as parents, we as big brothers and big sisters when we want to discipline our young siblings or younger siblings, you want to tell them what to do before you tell them what they should not do. But God is doing the other way around. God begins by telling them what He does not want before He comes to tell them what He wants. This is a very good, I mean, structure to follow. Do you remember the Ten Commandments? They also have the same. If you check Exodus 20, they have also the same name. Let me just read it for you quickly. God begins with, you shall not, before he comes to you shall. Exodus 20. It's amazing, you see. That's how he does things. He says, Exodus chapter 20, Verse one, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not have other gods. That's the first commandment. You shall not. Then the second one. You shall not have other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image. So you see, it can also begin with what you shall not. You shall not mention the name of the Lord your God in vain. He first finishes what he does not want. He first finishes them before he comes to what he wants now. You shall obey your parents. You shall keep the Sabbath day and keep it holy. You shall, you shall, you shall, you shall, you shall, you shall. Okay. So back to our text. Before we tell you You are our children, our church members, our neighbors. Before we tell them what they should do, let us first tell them what they should not do. You should not lie. It's not good. You should not steal. You should not trespass in people's land. You should not covet other people's things. And give them the reason why they should not do that, then you come and tell them what they should do. So let's continue. So now, that's our introduction that we have just ended with. Then we come to the first major part of chapter 26, divine blessings. That's from verse three to verse 13. You find there divine blessings. These are the results of keeping what is written in verses one and two. If you keep them, then this will happen to you. Because God himself says in verse three, if you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, them. So this is a conditional blessing. You need to play your part and then God will give you what he promised. These blessings are conditional, as I've just told you. God's obedience in both positive and negative ways. Negatively, you shall not, I've just Talked about that. Negatively, you shall not. Positively, you shall. So now, check what he says that people should not do. You shall not make idols for yourselves. So now, these idols, you might say, ah, we don't have idols. But you can, many of you have got idols. You have not built it with your hands, but you have built it with your memory, with your minds. You have idol of boys. You have idol of girls. You have idol of secularity. You idolize secular music. That has become your idol. God to you. So those idols, God says, you shall not build them if you want peace with him. Then, You shall keep my Sabbath. You see what I was telling you at the beginning of this service? For us to respect the Sabbath of God. Don't come any time you want. We begin at 11, you want to come 11, 10. Do you do that at your schools? Your places of work? No, you leave home early at six so that you don't reach late. But before God, you come the way you want, or whenever you want. He says, you shall keep, so God hates idols, and God hates people who break his commands. I mean, his Sabbath. You shall keep my Sabbath, and two things, listen, he wants two things. You shall keep my Sabbath, and two, you shall reverence, you shall, you shall reverence my sanctuary. Sanctuary, that is where people gather to worship Him. So now, the blessings of God to Israel can be summed up in three categories. Those blessings are many, but we can summarize them in three categories, okay? Number one, peace is one of the blessings. If you obey him, you obey his commands, you'll have peace. Two, prosperity, and three, the presence of God. Let's begin with peace. He says, if you obey my commands, if you don't make idols for yourselves, then I'll give you peace. Peace from what? Peace from their enemies, the people of Israel. Peace from their enemies. And when he says you'll have peace from your enemies, it does not mean that they will not have wars. No. But, even if they have wars, but it's going to give them victory over those wars. It's going to give them victory. But also, it's going to give them victory over wild animals. Wild animals that could come and eat people and, I mean, disrupt or destroy their peace. So, that's the first promise. promise is prosperity. And the first attention goes to agriculture. God says that he's going to give them needed rains at needed time. Needed rains at the needed time so that their crops can grow. for them to have food, to eat and sell and be rich. But also fertility to them and their cattle. You're going to make land fertile for them and their cattle. And the third blessing is presence of God, presence of God. Prince of God, let me read here verse 17. No, no, let me first go verse four. Verse four, let's go down. Let me begin from three. He says, if you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, then I will give you your rains in their season. You hear that? and the trees of the field shall yield their fruits. Five, your threshing shall last to the time of the grape harvest and the grape harvest shall last to the time for sowing. So this is what I'm summarizing because I've told you that my attention would be more on the curses from verse 14. But let me read verses 11 up to 13 on the presence of God. 11 up to 13, it says, I will make 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. So you hear. So now, the presence of God, by the way, for your information, of all the three categories of blessings, Blessings are many, but I put them in three classes. Peace, prosperity, and God's blessing. And this one, God's blessing, is bigger than all. The most important. Because the two previous, peace and prosperity, They are built on God's presence. Because if God's presence is with you, then you'll have peace. If God's presence is with you, then you'll have prosperity. And if God's presence is not with you, then forget about peace and prosperity. That's why that is the most important blessing that God can give to any human being. That's why even David in Psalm 51, he cried and said, Lord, don't remove your presence before me. Don't go away from me. Because once God goes away from you, then you remain desolate, you remain empty, void. And that's the biggest problem. And also the Bible tells us that the joy of heaven is God's presence. If you hear people say, our wonderful heaven must be, how will it be to be in heaven? The joy of heaven, the glory of heaven is God's presence. That's why that's the one of the biggest, not only one of the gods, but the biggest blessing ever that one can benefit from. So now let's go now to divine castles. That's where now I am. the heart of my message, from verse 14. Also, divine curses, we are going to summarize them in three categories, or three classes. Just like with the blessings, we have one, prosperity, I mean, from prosperity to poverty, two, from peace to peril, and three, from God's presence to God's absence. So it is just, it is just what we, the reverse or the opposite of the blessings. If you obey God's commands, you'll receive peace. If you disobey, you'll have peril instead of peace. If you disobey, you'll have poverty instead of prosperity, and if you disobey, God is going to abandon you. So now, instead of prosperity, disobedience will bring poverty. Let's read verse 16 and you'll hear what he says there. No, from 14, from 14 just. But if you will not listen to me and not do all these commandments, If you span, now there are three things here in verse 14 and 15. If you will not listen to me, for us, the voice of God that we have these days is in the written word. Nowhere else. You want to hear God's voice loudly? Read the Bible loudly. So the word of God is found in the Bible. It says, if you will not listen to me, if you will not listen to what the Bible tells you, that's one. So I want us to know the reasons why problems will come to us or are coming to us in the world. Not listening to the word of God, then two, it says, and if you will not do all these commands, it's not all about listening. Let this child sit where she has been, please. So it's not about listening. Are we together? Listening is one thing, and doing what you've listened is another. Many children, many parents cry about that with their children. You tell them, you tell them, do this, do this, they don't do. Don't do this, don't do this, they do. So listening is one thing, doing is another thing. So God is saying, if you want to be happy, to be out of problems, one, listen to my commandments, two, do the commandments, and three, if you spam my statutes, if your soul abhors my, that's the third, sorry, if your road abhors my rules, A boy is to hate your soul. You know, to hate the things of God. And many people, if your heart is not for God, then you'll hate the things of God. So he says, if these three things happen to you, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant, then listen out to the thing that he promised to bring to people. I will do this to you. I will visit you with panic. What's another word for panic? Fear. And yes, I cannot tell you, you know very well how the world is on panic today. Then I will visit you with panic, with wasting disease and fever. that consume the eyes and make the heart ache. And you know that coronavirus comes with fever. It's one of the... Because coronavirus, as many brothers are saying, it is just flu. And yet flu, flu and cough, we've been living with them for years here. So these are not really things to scare us. But this is now coming with fever, body temperature. And you see, God is saying that He will visit you with panic, with wasting disease, very terrible disease, and fever that consume the eyes. Are you hearing people telling you that you should not touch your eyes? That will consume the eyes and make the heart ache. And you shall sow your seed in vain. for your enemies shall eat it. Verse 17, 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. And if in spite of, now again, you'll see that God was was bringing, okay, he's not bringing punishments. Remember I told you at the beginning that these are warnings. Yeah, he's still warning. But now, in his warning, he's promising them curses, in what? In doses. And he begins with slight ones, and he goes increasing them. I see five different phases of of curses, a recording of five phases. So the first phase is from verse 14 up to verse 17. If you don't obey, I'll bring this and this and this and this to you. But if you don't still obey me with this punishment, Let's follow this well if I bring panic and these terrible diseases and you still still you continue sinning against me Then I bring the second phase of punishment beginning from verse 18 You hear what he says in verse 18 and if in spite of this you will not listen to me even after bringing coronavirus Still you will not listen to me. Then I'll discipline you again sevenfold for your sins. Sevenfold. And now he brings another dose of punishment. And I will break the pride of your power. Human beings, we are boasting that we have power. Technology and science. We are rich, we are what? God says he's going to break the pride of our power and I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze, 20. And your strength shall be spent in vain. You'll work for nothing. Just as we've just worked on our gardens and then you get nothing. You get tired for nothing. Then, So from verse 18 up to 20, that's the second phase of punishment. Then he brings the third phase from verse 28, 21, sorry. Then if you walk contrary to me and will not listen to me, I will continue striking you sevenfold for your sins. Then he brings the third phase of punishment. And I will let loose the wild beast against you, Ebisolo. He allows them to enter and devour us and eat our children. Listen to what they are going to do. When these wild beasts come, we shall bereave you of your children. They will eat your children and destroy your livestock and make you few in number. So they will eat not only your children, but also you to reduce on your number. So God is doing all this. to push Israel into repentance. He wants them to repent, to leave their sins and obey his commands. So then he says, if still, if you don't want to follow again, he brings the fourth. from verse 23. 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 myself will strike you sevenfold for your sins. This is the fourth phase. of curses or punishment. And I will bring a sword upon you that shall execute vengeance for the covenant. And if you gather within your cities, listen to this, if you gather within your cities, I will send pestilence among you. And this pandemic that we call coronavirus is a pestilence. It's one of the pestilences. The big city like New York City, people are not leaving their homes. At least for us there, in Uganda, they've just stopped us from gathering in large numbers. But in New York, even Italy, people are not even allowed to leave their houses. You see, I will send pestilence among you in your cities, and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. So that's the first faith, which goes up to verse 26. Then, the last phase, the fifth, beginning from verse 27. 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 fiery, and I myself will discipline you sevenfold for your sins. Jonah, I expected you to be with us, but you are far, far away from us because The institution cannot stop you from reading the Bible and follow these things, but you are far, far away from us. Yeah, so you see, this is the fifth phase of punishment, that I will walk unto you in fiery, fiery, that's busungo, and I myself will discipline you sevenfold for your sins. You shall eat the flesh of your sons. You know what that means? Injala. hunger. You'll have no food. It once happened in Egypt. You'll have no food until you start eating the flesh of your sons and shall eat the flesh of your daughters. And I will destroy your high places and cut down. So you continue, you continue reading in your free time, the punishments from the fifth phase of curses. Yes, so you can see briefly that really it is terrible. It's not only here. Throughout the Bible, you see that when people disobey God, when God is annoyed, he brings such things, calamities to mankind. I want to apply a few things here quickly. And this application, I got it, I got it from the bible.org on the internet. And I like really the way they apply these things here. Yeah, so I want to quote from them, because I liked the way they arranged this. So now, in this passage here, we find guidelines for discipline based upon this chapter. So, what we will be tweaking in this chapter is how to discipline our children. If we are teachers, how to discipline the children, our students. So, to finish, we will be working on how to discipline children here. We will see, we will learn something very, very important about how we can discipline. So now, let us follow the orders that you can learn from me about discipline. Even you, today you'll be parents, you'll have your own children. Follow what you're going to learn here about discipline. Number one, make sure that rules and their consequences are clearly communicated. Even in your homes, in your classes, everywhere. Before you discipline, don't just get a cane and cane someone. Before you discipline someone, make sure the rules and their consequences are well stipulated. That's why you find in some homes rules and regulations for the family. If you do this, this will happen to you. We don't want children who walk outside the home in the night. If you happen to do that, then this will happen to you. For example, if you arrive here beyond 8 p.m., you will not open for you, so you know where to sleep. It's just an example. So that's what I'm saying, rules and their consequences. Let them be well-stipulated and take them to your children, to your students, to whoever you want to discipline. Before you discipline, so that you don't just discipline before they knew, so put the rules down. This is very good for parents. Then number two, don't make threats, but promises. Don't threaten them. You, I'm going to weaken you. You're not going to eat food. I'm going to get you out of school. Don't make threats, but promises. In other words, don't promise what you can't fulfill. Promise what you know you can fulfill. Our great God, whatever he promises, he fulfills. This is a covenant-keeping God. Then number three, have a consequence, sorry, have a sequence of bad consequence or consequences, which get progressively worse and which come at specified points of disobedience. Let me explain here. As I showed you here, God was bringing punishments in bits and it began with the less strong and they went growing so that's what they are saying here most parents say most parents simply threaten their children with the worst possible punishment So when a child does something small, you bring the biggest punishment. God does not act like that. God does not act like that. So here they say, when a child does a big punishment, Mistake or a small mistake both for you just bring a big punishment You just bring a mugo, you bring a cane, you deny food, but so now they are saying you need to bring Punishments in beads you begin with light ones then if it continues then you increase just like that that that's what they mean here and have a sequence of bad consequences which get progressively worse and which come at specific points of disobedience. So from pouring their milk, a child pours milk, you bring the biggest punishment. And when they start rebelling against it, I'll not do that. They stand against it again, you bring the same big punishment. So he says, no, you bring them in bits, just the way we've learned from God here. We must serve our biggest punishments for the worst offense. Number four, make sure your rules include both positive and negative consequences. When you put those rules down, If you do this, this will happen to you. Make sure your rules include both positive and negative consequences. Not only negative, but also positive, so that the child is doubly motivated to obey. going to be in two ways. If I do this, this bad thing will happen to me. And if I don't do this, this good thing will happen to me. So not only punishment. If you come here beyond 8 p.m., we'll close the door for you. Only negative, negative, negative, but we need to put there also positive. Most of our children feel that we as parents only say no And there are few rewards to obedience. When kids do well, we don't reward them. We only wait for them to do wrong, and we punish. Oh, you did wrong. We'll punish you. But when they do well, we don't reward. Oh, thank you for this. Get this for you. It depends. A phone, we don't reward. So we need to learn to reward. So, good discipline gives positive incentives, rewards, along with negative ones, punishments. Good discipline gives both, punishment and rewards. Then number five, whenever you are involved in the process of discipline, always assure of your love, encourage repentance, and give hope for restoration. Whenever you want to discipline, Do it in love, assure love. Tell these children that you are doing all this, even if you are caning them, even if you are denying them this and that, you are doing it because of love. Then encourage them to repent, to say sorry, I'll not do it again, and give hope for restoration. Even the words we've been telling Joshua this morning here, They are not good. We need to encourage him. You will do well. If you don't work hard, you'll repeat. But you'll do well. You'll do well. This is what we are learning from this lesson. Some children lose heart. Feeling that there is no chance of pleasing their parents. I cannot please my parents. When I do wrong, they bark at me. When I do right, they bark at me. So they feel, I don't have a chance to please them. They feel that the rules are an expression of hostility towards them, rather than of love. When such an attitude is caught, the child has little or no motivation for obedience or repentance. No matter what the child does, let them know there is hope. Chona chevakora, whatever they can do, whether small or big sin, show them that there is hope. Watch Ali Osoobi. There is hope and that you will continue to be faithful to love them and to stand by their rules. We can see it here when we go back to our text, how God ended. Okay, let's go to this verse as we end, as I end and I show you how God really did things. God says this, after verse 39, verse 40, but if they confess, you hear now what God says, after promising all these punishments, 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 remember my covenant with Isaac, and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land." So you see, God is showing them hope. that even if I've promised all these to become very bad things that will come to you if you disobey, but there is hope. If you come back and repent, there is hope. So this is what we've been learning, that always give hope. Yeah, so as I end, these are warnings. Always let us warn people, let us warn our children of the bad things that can happen, but also of the good things that can happen if they obey our rules. as we learn from our great God here. So, you know very well that the world is going through coronavirus. Again, I want to end the way I started. Many people have different thinking of the cause of coronavirus. Uganda up to now, thank God, we don't have any case of coronavirus. We are still doing all this to prevent. But you hear people bring different reasons. Some say, we are experts. We fought against AIDS, HIV AIDS. We fought against Ebola. That's why Corona has not entered here. What? That's stupidity, that's nonsense. Can you be cleverer than all other countries that are suffering from Ebola? You just need to go down and kneel before God and say, Lord, thank you that up to now we don't have any case. We don't know whether it will continue like this or we'll be having. So it's all about God. I'm glad with what I heard from our Minister of Health yesterday, Madam Jane Acheng. She said when they were having a national prayer to pray for the country, she said, really, all our neighboring countries are suffering from Corona. But why not us? Even herself does not have an answer. And she says, only God can do something like this. Only God can be behind something like this. Not that, oh, we are stronger. We are very poor, one of the poorest countries. What do we have? Nothing. Technologically, we have nothing. It is only God, and we need to give all the credit to God, Ugandans. We need to give all the credit to God. Yeah, so other people say it was manufactured, it was made, because of the virus. But we who believe in God, we know that. It is, it is what? It is one of the punishments because there's too much sin in the world. Human beings are now behaving below animals. We are doing what animals cannot do. Homosexuality, can you see homosexuality with cocks, with chicken, with animals? So we are sinning greatly, seriously beyond measure, and God is not happy. We need to repent of our sins individually as we sit here. Don't look at the country, don't look at the world. You personally, how am I sinning against God? Then leave that, come to your country, come to the world. We need to repent, but also let us catch this opportunity when people are in panic and fear and preach Christ. Friends, if you fail to preach Christ in this period, when else are you going to preach Christ? People's hearts are melt. Go and show them the only solution, the only way of salvation is in Christ Jesus. I asked Gloria Yziti yesterday, do you think there is a disease that is stronger than coronavirus? among all the diseases. Yeah, this one will say no cancer. The other one will say Ebola. And people are saying, but no friends. The most dangerous disease of all is sin. Forget about cancer, Ebola, and whatever. Sin is more deadly. It kills more people, and it kills you in both lives. It kills you here, it kills you in the world to come. So please, and if you want to share the gospel, go with that question to people, even as they fear. Just because, you know, starting a conversation. You can begin with that question. That question does not need a person to be a born again question. Even Muslims like our neighbors here. Just start the conversation. Among all the diseases that exist and those that have existed, do you think there's one that is stronger than Corona? Ah, I don't think so. Or cancer, or what? Hear their answers, then tell them, no, you have not passed my question. Should I give you the answer? tell them sin. And then you have many passages in scripture that shows that sin is a disease. The Bible says everywhere, He loves all Lord. And some people who don't understand scripture, they say that Jesus Christ was bruised for our diseases. Yeah, it is written in Isaiah 53 that it was bruised for our iniquity, for our diseases. And it's even there, they say iniquity is then diseases. Iniquity is sins, it's another name for sin, iniquity, that is called again disease. It is there in Isaiah, but you hear many people say, no, even, is it Wilson Bugembe or someone, I think Wilson Bugembe, he said it clearly, that no, don't fear Ugandans, the world we should not fear, let us just believe in Christ and pray, because it is written that he was bruised for our diseases. So he believes that Christ was bruised for our corona virus. Christ was not bruised for malaria or for cancer, for Ebola. Christ was bruised for the most dangerous disease, which is sin. Christ's attention is not on you catching coronavirus. Even if you caught it, even if you catch coronavirus today, so long as you don't have the other sin, you are okay. So Christ was not bruised for Ebola or coronavirus. I want that to be clearly understood. Christ was bruised for the most dangerous disease that he's seen. It's killing people every day. That's why really, you need to also to make sure, as a Christian, to check the level of fear in you. Because again, if you fear like the heathen, the worldly, I mean, where is your hope? You find many Christians fearing just like the government officials. Yeah, many government officials are not Christians. They have all the reasons to fear like that. We are not here in these houses. We are not in our church because we fear or fear. No. Tomorrow, in the years to come, they will start stopping us from gathering to pray in the name of Jesus from using the Bible. Let that begin and you'll face being. I'm telling you the truth. Because you might think that we are here, we are not at our church with our brethren because of fear. No way. When Christ saved us, he removed all the useless fear and put only the fear of him in us. The fear we have is only the fear for him. We fear to sin against him, not the fear of the sword. Let that time come where they will say, now it's no longer coronavirus. We don't want Christ Jesus in this country. We don't have the Bible here. So don't go and gather and you'll see. So now I'm talking about the other fear, fear of death. Oh, Corona is going to catch me and I die and I leave my parents and I leave my children. So what? Will you be with your parents forever? Will you be with your children forever? If it catches you, you had planned it before you were born, that time will come on earth and corona will come and you'll be one of the people to go with it. So even if you take preventions, how? Even if you wash with soap and water, every single second, it will catch you and it will take you. So even as we take these preventions, I'm not saying you don't take the measures. We are taking them, and that's one of the reasons why we are worshipping in our house. So that you don't again misinterpret me and say, no, he does not want people to take the measures. No, we are. That's why we are not at our church in town. We are in our houses. Take measures to make sure we prevent the disease, but don't again elevate those measures beyond measure. Even normal flu, even normal what? No, you don't need to feel like the heathens who don't have hope. We have hope. What is death to us? Again, I told you as we were beginning, our brother Paul, can we pray that our faith will grow to the level of faith of Paul who say, for me, Paul, to live is Christ. If I live, it's because of Christ, to preach him. to make him known and to know him better myself. And for me to die is gain. Magoba, if I died to me is gain. Mr. Corona, you want to take me? You are most welcome. You'll be helping me because you'll be taking me from the troubles of this world to glory, where my father is. So even as we go through this Corona, whatever pandemic that has caused the panic and fear in the world, always remember, remember the words of brother Paul, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. So tell Corona, wherever you are, even if you entered Uganda, no problem. For me to die is gain. If you want to take my life, it is gain. And as we end, we'll be singing one 1, 2, 2 in the grace hymns. I know we don't have many, but we'll share them. I have the reason why I want us to sing 1, 2, 2 at a time like this. We'll share them. Sovereign ruler of the sky. I want to explain it to you guys before we sing this. Sovereign ruler of the sky. So God is sovereign. He is the one who allows each and everything to happen. This is not an accident. And even if it is true that some human beings manufactured or made the virus, it is not they. It is God who allow them to make it. Nothing can happen that the sovereign Lord does not allow. And so he's sovereign. He allowed the coronavirus to come. He will allow it again to go, to leave us alone. So this song is a sovereign ruler of the skies. He rules the skies, from the skies, sorry. He rules everywhere from the skies. Ever gracious, ever wise. He's ever gracious, he's ever wise. All my times are in your hand. Listen to this. All events at your command. Everything that happens, it was your command. Corona has come at your command. Verse two says, his decree who formed the earth fixed my first and second birth. The one who created the earth is the one who fixed my first birth when your mother produced you and your second birth when you came to Christ. Parents, native place and time all appointed Appointed by him. He's the one who appointed you to be born a Ugandan, a Kenyan, an American. He commanded everything. Verse three says, he that formed me from the womb, he shall guide me to the tomb. All my times shall ever be ordered by his wise decree. I'll not die. if he does not want me to die. Corona cannot kill you. So please have that in your mind. Verse four says, times the tempter's power to prove, times to test the savior's love, all must come and last and end, as shall please my heavenly friend. Everything that happens, again, just in Morphons. And lastly says, plagues, this is a plague. Those of you who understand English well, this is a plague. Remember before this, it was Nzige, locusts. Since I was born, I'd never seen them. I've been just reading them in scripture, but they entered our country. Locusts, Nzige. And I remember in Egypt, it was one of the punishments. Now, friends, what do you think if after locusts, and coronavirus comes. I'll assume in America they don't have locusts, but they have tsunami, tornadoes. All those are really signs that God is not happy with us, friends. We need to think twice. Plagues and death around me fly. They fly, they cannot reach on you. They fly, till he beads, I cannot die. Until he says, bead, die, I cannot die. Friends, if you have these words in your mind, you will not fear corona. Till he beads, I cannot die. Until he says, die, I cannot die. Let corona come, and the worst disease, worse than corona, let it come. Till he beads, I cannot die. Not a single chaff can hit me till the God of love sees fit. May the Lord be with us as we sing this hymn together before we end our service. May the Lord be with us and remove any form of fear. Again, get me well. Not having fear does not mean you should not take preventions or measures, but also taking measures should not say you need also to welcome fear. Trust your God. May the Lord bless his word. Let's pray. Father, I want to say thank you again for this word this morning. Thank you for sharing it with us. Help us that we put it into practice. That through it, Lord, you remove, you help us remove any kind of fear that the world is suffering from. Panic. Lord, we should not behave like that. We have hope. And also help us, Lord, remove the worst disease of sin in us. Those who are still far from you, bring them into the fold. And also use us, Lord, in this time to share Christ and preach Christ. Tell the people that sin is far more dangerous than corona, and that the only cure of that sin, of that disease, is Christ. We have only one dangerous disease that is sin, and only one cure for that disease, and that is Christ. We thank you, Lord, for these words. In Jesus' name we pray.