Leviticus Session 14 of 16 (Chapters 25) with Chuck Missler

[Music] we are in session 14 which will focus on leviticus chapter 25 and you can call the title of it israel in the land in this book on holiness we're now going to focus on israel in regards to real estate and its economy previously we had focused a couple of sessions ago on the calendar chapter 23. and now we find that the land itself is uniquely linked to the calendar and the word land is used 39 times in this in the next chapter there are 39 books in the old testament i know what you do with that piece of information but they if israel was to possess and enjoy the land that's been promised them they had to recognize certain fundamentals first that god owned the land we'll we'll find that emphasized in verse 23 and 38 it does not belong to the u.n it does not belong to the plo it doesn't even belong to israel god has chosen the creator of the universe has chosen to put his name on this piece of property you can say gee the earth is the lords and the fullness thereof in a broad sense that's certainly true but in addition god has chosen to put his name on this particular piece of real estate uh those that like to indulge in conjectures when you study the area of the garden of eden in the book of genesis we pretty much have reason to suspect that it is where the cradle of civilization the tigers euphrates river right there in mesopotamia but remember the garden of eden was east of eden so that means whatever eden was was west of the garden or what's west of mesopotamia israel no big deal here i would make doctrine out of it in in my uh suspicions i suspect there's a relationship between the eden of before genesis 3 and the place that israel presently occupies on the planet earth but in any case be that as it may god has chosen to put his name on this piece of property and israel is a tenant god's name is on it but he's given it to israel under conditions of obedience when they're obedient they enjoy it when they're not obedient they don't enjoy it by various issues either being in submission to some pagan group or in ultimately on the diaspora cast out of the land for time and but always even in those heavy passages that indict israel for its disbelief or its failure to obey there's always the glimmer of promise that they will ultimately be restored i want to keep that in mind the main point is as we watch the news every day with the u n this the u.s that appeal of that any time we're talking about the middle east we're poking our finger in the eye of god it's his land not ours not even theirs and so the second point that'll come up uh in this chapter is that god also owns the people of israel he purchased them when he redeemed them out of the egyptian bondage he speaks of that all the way through here and because they all belong to him he expects them to treat each other as brothers and sisters we'll see that verses 25 35 38 elsewhere they're not to take advantage of each other and they can take advantage of gentiles from time to time that's okay we'll see but not to each other especially regards to personal debts and property issues the other thing that will come up is that god gives the increase we're going to see he forces them from time to time to be totally dependent on his increase the sabbatical year the jubilee year we'll look into that we'll discover that he liberty puts them in position of total dependence on him where they can't even plow or seed they can live off the land in raw but not by cultivating they were expected to toil in the fields but of course god provides the sunshine the rain and brings the harvest and so they were taught to trust in his word obey his commandments and trust in his promises boy we need to learn those same things by the way had they obeyed his principles their economic system would have functioned smoothly the land would have provided all that they needed and everyone would have been cared for adequately but they didn't obey the lord and so the rich got richer the poor got poorer and the land was ruined well let's just jump into it in the first few verses seven verses plus a few later we'll be dealing with what is called the sabbatical year verse 1 and the lord spake unto moses in mount sinai there again notice almost everyone every one of these chapters opens up this book is general with a couple of small exceptions is not a narrative it's a direct dialogue or muscular even a monologue from god to moses god is dictating this book to moses that's why so many scholars believe it's the most important book in the bible it's the only book on the in the bible that primarily focuses on god's holiness we're not under the law yes but there's much to learn from the law the lord speaking of moses and mount sinai saying verse 2 speak unto the children of israel and say unto them when you come into the land which i give you then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the lord boy that must have been an exciting thing for moses to hear he doesn't say if he says when can you picture moses all that he's gone through they fail to claim their inheritance at kiddish bernie they're wandering in the wilderness to get that reassurance when god says to moses speaking of the children of israel and say to them when ye come into the land which i give you then shall the land keep the sabbath now that's a strange idea we think of the sabbath six days the seventh is the sabbath that's the sabbath for man six days your work the seventh year rest was god's pattern he set that pattern in eden not in not at mount sinai the sabbath was not given at mount sinai it was reminded remember the sabbath day in this ten commandments but it was it had been established long before much evidence of that in exodus 16 four chapters before the law was given they're observing the sabbath when the manna was being given sabbath was a pattern established with adam and eve but it was reestablished so to speak as a special sign that israel would keep it knowing that no one else would now it's interesting we have already observed what scholars would call the heptatic structure heptatic a fancy word for seven fold there are sevens everywhere in the scripture seven of this and seven of that and you can make lists of them i made lists and there's over a hundred of them explicit ones seven good years seven bad years seven of this all the way through just the ex the explicit sevens you'll also discover as you study your bible are implicit sevens certain lists are always seven meaning completeness there are also hidden sevens that they're discovering with computers underneath the text structural issues numerical relationships among the letters and the words that are astonishing now in the previous chapter uh chapter 23 actually chapter before last we studied the calendar and obviously you're very sensitive the fact that there's there are sevens all through the calendar there are seven days to the week but there's also seven weeks counting the omar omer and and uh to the feast of shiva there are seven months in the year from from nissan to tishri or from tishree to nisan either way you want to count it there are not only seven days weeks and months there are seven years the makeup is sabbatical uh a group of seven years we'll discover that there are sevens all through the structure the seventh week of daniel is the 70th week of years and so on now we're also going to discover it goes up a level more that there are seven groups of seven years 49 years then the 50th is especially called the jubilee we'll get into that shortly and of course this sevens all harked back again to the creation when god rested in his labors not because he was tired because it was complete it's interesting this concept of the word sabbath implies a rest we work six days and the sabbath is the day of rest the land was to be cultivated for six years the seventh year it was to be given a rest and that all has a spiritual meaning as is detailed in hebrews chapter four you might turn to hebrews four starting at verse nine nine ten and eleven where the writer in hebrews is points out there remaineth therefore a rest to the people of god it's talking about believers here for he that has entered into his rest he also hath ceased from his own works as god did from his the idea of resting here is to rely on god not to connive and scheme and do have your own energy but to rest in him trust him for he that has entered into his rest he also had ceased from his own works as god did from his let us labor therefore to enter into that rest lest any man fall under the same example of unbelief when you rely on your own judgment rather than god you are it's a form of unbelief that's really what the writer is dealing with there it doesn't mean rest like lay back and coast he's saying you labor therefore to enter into that rest what rest the rest to rely on god that's what the term means that's what it's usually that's what the writer of hebrews is speaking of here but here now in in leviticus 25 we have introduced this concept of arrest for the land and we smile at this as we read this because most of us have enough agricultural background to know that it is healthy to give the land a rest you can do that by not cultivating at all or you can do it by rotating crops so there's different nutrient requirements there's other ways that agronomists have dealt with but clearly this is this pretty advanced stuff here verse three god goes on and says six years thou shalt sow thy field and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard and gather in the fruit thereof but in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land a sabbath for the lord thou shalt neither sow thy field nor prune thy vineyard and that which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed for it is a year of rest unto the land and the sabbath of the land shall be meat for you for thee and for thy servant and for thy maid and for the hired servant and for thy stranger that so journal with thee and for thy cattle and for the beast that are in thy field shall the increase thereof be me but even the farm animals rested you see routine tasks to keep buildings from falling down or whatever were addressed but the normal activities of an agricultural economy plowing sowing and harvesting were prohibited now deuteronomy we're leading leviticus but if you go into deuteronomy you'll find that in deuteronomy 15 you might follow me turn to deuteronomy 15 we'll take the first dozen verses or so deuteronomy 15 because it deals with this some of these same issues deuteronomy 15 verse 1 at the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release and this is the manner of the release every creditor that lendeth ought unto his neighbor shall release it he shall not exact it of his neighbor or of his brother because it is called the lord's release of a foreigner thou mayest exact it again but that which is thine with thy brother thine hand shall release save when there shall be no poor among you for the lord shall greatly bless thee in the land which the lord thy god giveth thee for an inheritance possess it only if thou carefully hearken unto the voice of the lord thy god to do to observe to do all these commandments which i command you this day for the lord thy god blesseth thee as he promised thee and thou shalt lend unto many nations but thou shalt not borrow and thou shalt reign over many nations but they shall not reign over thee if there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren within any of thy gates in thy land in the land which the lord thy god giveth thee thou shalt not harden thine heart nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother but thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him and thou shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need in that which he wanteth beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart saying the seventh year the year of releases at hand and thine i be evil against thy poor brother and thou giveth him not and he cry unto the lord against thee and to be sent unto thee thou shalt surely give him and then heart shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him because that for this thing the lord thy god shall bless thee in all thy works and all that thou puttest thine hand unto for the poor shall never cease out of the land therefore i command thee saying thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother to thy poor to thy needy in the land if thy brother a hebrew man or a hebrew woman be sold unto thee and serve these six years then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee and when thou sendest him out free from thee thou shalt not let him go away empty thou shall furnish him liberally out of thy flock out of thy floor and out of thy wine press of that wherewith the lord thy god hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him and thou shalt remember thou wast upon men in the land of egypt and the lord thy god redeemed thee therefore i command thee this thing this day and so on goes on i might mention the verses that follow also go on one step further and establish the procedure for voluntarily electing to stay with the house if you were a jewish indentured servant in other words you because you were broke whatever bankrupt you sold yourself into indentured servitude you could serve no more than six years because the sabbatical year you went free but there were some that after being with the house serving the house for say six years sabbath year came they were free to go they chose not to they loved what they were doing had a good job steady provisions a master they could relate to they could on that day elect on their choice to commit the rest of their life to that house not for another six years for the rest of their life and that was called a doulos a bond slave and if they chose to do that and many did they would uh ceremonialize that commitment by taking that slave to the doorpost and they would take a a like a shoemaker's on all like an pick and pierce the ear to the doorpost implying that he is then tied to that house for the rest of his life and what he would typically do is we'd wear a special earring and to him within the culture of the slave it was a badge of honor the others might be there serving because they had to he was there because he chose to and he was called a doulos and it's interesting when you read the scripture paul and john and so on they speak of themselves as bond slaves of jesus christ not just slaves of jesus christ you can't pick that up in just the translation unless you understand the background the word in the greek is the doulos meaning the bond slave if it's properly translated what that mean what paul is saying he's making himself equivalent to having sold himself out 100 percent forever to his lord okay now because they pierced it with an all that has special meaning for us here in kurt lane because kurt lane is french is heart of the all it was given to the by the french canadian trappers to the local indians because they felt they were sharp traitors so it was a backhanded compliment they called the french call them the curdlings meaning that they had hearts of the all meaning they were sharp traitors but for those of us with a biblical background we know the word all appears only twice in scripture each time with respect to this procedure of the bond slave so for us we can view that title of this place coeur d'alene being the heart of the all the heart of the bond slaves and i hope that is our heart here so we move on um one of the purposes of the sabbatical year of six years you can use the land the seventh rest is to deliver israel from covetousness from covetousness if you think about the impact on an economy that caused them that plus some other things we can read about kept them from trying to build up excessive assets to oppress the poor and it was the breaking of this regulation the sabbatical year that caused israel to go into the babylonian captivity if you've studied your bible you know that one of the major events in the history of israel was when the southern kingdom the northern kingdom of course went from bad to worse and got destroyed but the southern kingdom also went down but because of god's commitment to the house of david and all the rest he put him into captivity but they were to return to the land which they did the first return was after babylon isaiah says the second return is the big one and that's the one we've been watching the last few decades but the point is is that babylon kept it why do you suppose god had them go into babylon for 70 years jeremiah predicted in in chapter 25 and 29 there would be seven years in fact daniel was reading jeremiah as a as a captive in babylon and he knew it was going to be 70 years and when he realized it was almost up he went to prayer about it just like we should is the lord coming soon are you praying thy kingdom come that's what it's asking for that's what daniel did he didn't say oh boy it's almost over he went to prayer pray that it would be over because he knew that's what god was god's will well the point is why 70 years it was 70 years by the way to the day scholars are astonished to discover it's to the day why 70 years well it's interesting in second chronicles chapter 36 verse 21 it says to fulfill the word of the lord by the mouth of jeremiah until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath to fulfill three score in 10 years let me paraphrase that god is saying to israel see for 490 years they did not keep the sabbatical years god says you owe me 70. so they put them in captivity out he exiled him from the land for 70 years they didn't keep the seven years rest they got the land got at seven years rest by taking israel and shipping him to battle 200 miles away for 70 years to the day when you discover these things are to the day that takes some homework but when you do that you know it starts to impress upon you that god means what he says and says what he means i don't i don't think the word approximate is in god's vocabulary i think when he says it it turns out to be precise we found that enough not in all of them but in places where we've looked carefully we find that it's exact so it's very interesting during the siege of nebuchadnezzar by the way zedekiah proclaimed a release for all the slaves but then he reneged on it that's in jeremiah 34 it's incidental now you say gee what's going on today you know may surprise you that while they didn't keep it in the old days they do today that should shock you um they do observe the sabbatical year sort of and i didn't bring it but i have a newspaper clipping from many many years ago they um in israel have a problem because the orthodox want to keep the torah and yet how do you keep this country into fruits and vegetables they're the number one supplier of fruits and vegetables to europe this little country the third the size of san bernardino county is the number one exporter to europe of fruits and so forth how do they do that if every seventh year they gotta leave the ground fallow well i'll tell you what they do many of them do they sell their land that year before the sabbath year starts to an arab under a contract which gives them the right to buy it back at the end of the year and leaves the guy a small profit for participating in this dodge and they actually do that it's very controversial because the one hand they're keeping the law technically and yet on the other hand it obviously violates the substance of what god had in mind but you'll find if you if you check the current events in israel that that's an issue that they argue about each year but that some do and and whether it's ign you know there's there's all kinds of debates about it there is a basic principle we need to remember as we play these games and that is that whatever we rob from god uh we'll never keep and enjoy for ourselves and let me give you the authority on that that's malachi it needs to be in your memory verses if you have malachi 3 verses 8 through 10. malachi in chapter 3 verse 8 to 10 it says will a man rob god good question huh god says yet ye have robbed me but you say where and have we robbed thee he says in the tithes and offerings ye are cursed with a curse and you have robbed me even this whole nation and that was one of malachi's burdens but then you go then god goes on and says bring ye all taught the tithes into the storehouse that there may be meat in mine house and prove me now herewith saith the lord of hosts if i will not open you the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing so that there will not be room enough to receive it wow you know it's very interesting even jesus emphasized even in the temp famous temptation scene in matthew 4 and luke 4 and so on that you do not test god do not put god to the test there's a lot of examples where you do not put god to the test that's an instructor that's a basic principle there's one exception there's one exception let's see it right here it's really astonishing to realize that the creator of the universe put himself in a box the creator of the universe announced a commitment here and dares you to take him up on it god is daring you he says prove me now herewith strong language prove me now herewith saith the lord of hosts if i will not open the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it and from here you can go into all kinds of testimonials of famous people who discovered this and and made their name around this applying this principle but there's one testimony that's better than all of those put together that's your own try it see what happens see what it does malachi 3 8 to ten let's move on the next topic is another strange topic it's also a topic that's very fascinating on the one hand and yet astonishing because they didn't keep it they didn't keep this it sounds very elegant when you read it but when you go through the history books and try to find out evidence wherever they kept it you can't find it starting in verse 8 and thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years we're not talking about seven years as a sabbath we're talking seven of those you follow me seven times seven forty nine in other words thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee seven times seven years and the space of seven sabbaths of the years shall be unto thee forty and nine years lord put that in there for those that couldn't do the math okay now being flippant i guess verse 9 then then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land and incidentally that hayobel shofar terura it's to sound the trumpet and the word for trumpet is the shofar that is a word for the ram's horn not the silver trumpets of the temple these are the ram's horn the military call and i brought back a few from israel for his gifts and i was tempted to have one here to show you i think you all know what a what the rams horn looks like i didn't want to bring it because then you'd ask me to blow it it takes real skill to do that right so so and i won't impose on mark to demonstrate it here i spared him that this evening but we'll move on the shofar see every new year start on the first of tishri which is starting with the blowing of the trumpets and the first of tishri the month of tishrei which is the the seventh month on the religious calendar but it's the first month of the civil calendars in the fall the first day of the new year is called rosh hashanah which is the head of the new year that's the civil label it also happens that same day in the religious side is the feast of trumpets the rabbis later added two days on that so the feast of trumpets they would record as a two-day thing but the point is they're both on the same day but they're different things rosh hashanah is the civil new year it's like our new year so to speak but the uh feast of trumpets was a religious celebration and the feast of teruah now 10 days later on the 10th of tishri is the famous celebration or day i should say remembrance called yom kippur which is the day of atonement it is the most solemn day in the jewish calendar we talked about all that a couple of sessions ago but you know what's rather strange about the jubilee year you would think that okay you got the sabbath years and then you got seven of those and you got the next year's the jubilee year you would think that it would start in the first of the year we've had 49 years go by so the following year is going to be a jubilee year you think it would trigger on new year's day it doesn't it starts on the 10th that's kind of weird that's that's sort of like saying gee we're going to celebrate the century or the millennium not on january 1st but on january 10th so to speak in our civil sense here yeah so it starts on yom kippur you can well why the 10th why does it start in rosh hashanah and it's significant i think the year of jubilee began on the day of repentance with the cleansing and forgiveness first before we enjoy this jubilee year and you'll get in that in a minute they had to go through the om kippur they had to be cleansed and forgiven and repented and i mean repented cleansed and forgiven i should put in the right order so verse to get to verse 10 god says and ye shall hallow the 50th year and proclaim liberty unto all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof it shall be a jubilee unto you and you shall return every man unto his possession and he shall return every man unto his family talk about that because it's very very important to understand this for lots of reasons but by the way this phrase to proclaim liberty throughout all the land and to all the inhabitants thereof do you know where that's inscribed you got it the liberty bell in independence hall in philadelphia the famous liberty bell that we all celebrate in our heritage of this country has that engraved on it to proclaim liberty throughout all the land that dwells it have it comes right out of the the bible at the start of the jubilee the people were commanded to release their indentured servants you had purchased or you somehow got these indentured servants that's fine but jubilee year they go free if they're unless they're gentiles that's a whole other issue the idea of the jubilee year is they all could go back to their families they could go back to their lands if you sold your family property you got it back we got it back see i should explain well let's see we'll get we'll get into this uh land thing in a minute but but the point is all people were freed go home all debts were forgiven all land returned to its original owners sounds bizarre doesn't it strange to our ears i'll explain why in a minute see a hebrew servant was to serve a maximum of six years and then be free we in exodus 21 verse two that's established all property was to uh refer to its original owner we'll get to that in verse 13 here in a minute verse 11 the jubilee shall that 50th year be to you you shall not sow neither reap that which growth itself in it nor gather the grapes of it of thy vine unrest so see just as the now what's interesting here this is the jubilee year the seventh year was a sabbatical year and that was true the the not being able to you know the land had laid fallow was the seventh year if that seventh year was the 49th and the next year was a jubilee year so now we have two years that the land had to lay fallow and by the time you get the third year you've got to plant and you've got to wait for most that year to go by before you can reap so you're without cultivated food for almost three years strange stuff why is god doing that to teach them that to trust him he would take care of them and they had to rely on the lord and that he would keep his promises you know it's interesting everybody talks about allah because of islam the allah of islam is presented aggressively in the quran is unknowable capricious he can do anything he wants that's the opposite of the god of the old testament the god of the old testament delights in being known the god of the old testament delights in making and keeping promises he's predictable he's that read that reliable trustworthy he's the opposite of the allah presented by the quran let's move on so they they had to trust him to supply sufficient food for almost three years because they couldn't work the land in the 49th year was the sabbatical year they couldn't work the land in the 50th year because the jubilee year the 50 first year they had a plow and plant and so you know that until it can get a harvest verse 12 for it is a jubilee it shall be holy unto you you shall eat the increase thereof out of the field so the people including the poor and the foreigners could gather from the fields and be god's guests if you will live on the wild so to speak now we get into another concept here that i want you to tune your ears to and that's what i'm going to call the restitution of all things let's start in verse 13 in the year of this jubilee ye shall return every man unto his possession if thou shalt unto thy neighbor or biased out of thy neighbor's hand he shall not oppress one another according to the number of years after the jubilee thou shalt by of thy neighbor and according to the number of years of the fruits he shall sell unto thee according to the multitude of the years thou shalt increase the price thereof according to the fewness of the years thou shalt diminish the price of it according to the number of the years of the fruits does he sell unto thee now let's back up and see in israel they did not sell property the way we're used to the way we buy and sell property in this country is what they call what attorney calls in fee simple to succeed to all your heirs and signs in other words when you buy a piece of land the concept is you buy it forever and it goes on to your you own it long run forever your heirs the signs whatever in israel only the use of the land was sold because they didn't own it god owned it see and they entered into what you and i would classify as a lease not a sale and fee simple so the land belonged to the lord and israel itself was only a tenant under conditions of obedience and the lord wanted his land to remain with the tribes and families to which it had been allotted there still was a form of private ownership because you won't you were owned and you responsible and that gave stability to the economy but you had a sense of proprietorship and caring for the property and by the and people usually take care of things that they own if you want to experience this all you need to do is visit a socialistic or communist country you go to russia for example they have these beautiful buildings but the maintenance is terrible dilapidated falling apart nobody cares you go through the whole place nobody because nobody owns anything it's all the state and who cares you don't see it they say you know we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us they you quickly recognize the penalties of ambiguities and the lack of accountability in public ownership and we even see that in this country not to that extreme but you can tell when there's something that's a government-run place it varies a lot by the kind of administration and yet it isn't the same as a corporation where the employees have built it up their sweat labor and care about it and so forth where people care because they own it they want a piece of it so anyway these laws in israel made impossible for wealthy real estate speculators to accumulate vast holdings and distort the economy and even the poorest israelite family received its land back and by working the land they could provide for their needs and perhaps even the needs of some others now there's a parallel here that many commentators make and i wouldn't disparage it but i think it goes beyond what we're going to talk about let me give this one parallel and that's this the year of the gospel see the the greek word for uh trumpet is corrupts the verb is caruso which means to proclaim or herald that's the emphasis of it and there are many commentators that suggest that this is all suggestive if you will of proclaiming spiritual liberty available through the gospel remember what jesus said you know now you're free through the word which i've given you and so far you may also recall when jesus announced his mandate for his ministry he's at the synagogue of nazareth and when he went to the singapore they gave he asked for the scroll of isaiah and he read this is in luke 4 verses 18 and 19 but he reads uh there it quotes it but he's reading from isaiah 61 what we would call isaiah 61. jesus read he says the spirit of lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted to preach deliverance to the captives the recovering of sight to the blind and to set at liberty them that are bruised and to preach the acceptable year of the lord period he sat down and many people recognize the parallel of the proclaiming of the jubilee and the proclaiming of the gospel the setting of captives at liberty and and so forth well jesus read that and then he sat down and he says this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears and to preach the gospel is to proclaim it in the same word and and of course it's indeed uh a liberating gospel as we discover the marvelous events of his ministry in the four different gospel accounts but when you examine the passage in isaiah that he was reading compare the luke passage luke of chapter 4 verse 18 19 with isaiah 61 verse 1 and 2 you recognize he's reading from that but he does something very strange he stops at a comma and closes the book the part that he doesn't read is and the day of vengeance of our god and what follows and many people recognize that that comma has lasted two thousand years because all what follows happens in the second coming i sometimes put my tongue in my cheek and say that proves that jesus was a dispensationalist meaning that there are intervals in history that are in which god deals in very specific ways see what follows after the day of vengeance of our god of course is that he would release his people and restore them to the land and bless them abundantly and it goes on so clearly i believe the jubilee thing prophetically yes it may fit the gospel period in a past sense but more relevantly i believe it refers the jubilee year points to his second coming and what follows and is coming in power and glory and so forth for your reading assignment your supplemental reading i encourage you to jot these down read isaiah chapter 11 read isaiah 35 and isaiah 40. that's isaiah 11 35 and 40. read jeremiah 23 read micah 4 and revelation 20. i'm going to suggest isaiah 11 35 and 40. jeremiah 23 micah 4 and revelation 20. i want to suggest to you those prophetic passages i believe color the prophetic implications of the of the jubilee and the acceptable year of the lord so i think the acceptable year of the lord is of god's grace is separated from the future day of judgment by a comma that's lasted 2000 years god's day of salvation as paul talks about it in second corinthians 6 2 has lasted as long as it has because god is long-suffering and wants sinners to come to repentance ii peter 3 9 and 15 emphasize that let's go on with leviticus 25 verse 17 god continues ye shall not therefore oppress one another but thou shalt fear thy god for i am the lord your god see the jubilee year has given a fresh new beginning for the released slaves and for the landowners and and thus it keeps poverty and inequality to a minimum it's interesting that in our own culture our own bankruptcy laws are motivated by much the same thing to provide a procedure in extremis where you can erase the blackboard and start over not have these things hang over a whole new another life the whole philosophy behind the bankruptcy laws are very similar to what was being accomplished here in israel by these laws in my own case as many of you know i i went down in flames many years ago i signed an 8 billion joint venture with the old soviet union and and when that started to get into trouble i was that was fine but i was foolish enough to try to save this public company with my own and my own efforts and i got what i was arrogant i got what i deserved i went down in flames the company went down and only went in bankruptcy i did too and as i was in that valley i discovered the irs thought i owed them two and a half million dollars and uh interestingly enough it took seven years to get that resolved with them and i remember not not because of the bible but i remember at the time thinking that was very very significant duration because it took seven years when they finally acknowledged that they they were willing to compromise that and something i could handle which we did so having been through that uh that was sort of my jubilee year if you will we'll move on verse 18 wherefore ye do my statutes and keep my judgments and do them and ye shall dwell in the land in safety now it's interesting that every sabbatical year at the feast of tabernacles and it was every seven years you get to the the rosh hashanah and then yom kippur then five days later you got the feast of tabernacles at the feast of tabernacles the book of deuteronomy was to be read publicly to all the people the entire nation had the book of deuteronomy read to them by the priests and that's ordained in deuteronomy 31 verses 9 through 13. that way the nation would really learn what it means when we say give us this day our daily bread to recognize not only god's provision materially but also to recognize god's provision spiritually and god promised them to protect them and to provide for them if they would but trust and obey him and that's what we're going to get dealing with here and as we noticed in our study of the book of judges this dismal period of israel's history called the book of judges if they had observed this very rule their entire history of servitudes to their enemies would have been averted they got what they deserved because they didn't keep the law they weren't even aware of the law the priest didn't read it every year et cetera and if they followed the specific instructions of deuteronomy 7 and wiped out their enemies they wouldn't have the the problems they subsequently endured in fact it's interesting that the headquarters of their enemies was jericho and hevron and gaza milan heights and we read all about that in the book of judges and where are they today the enemies of god are in the same pockets that they failed to deal with back there uh joshua started it but they didn't complete the job and that's what the book of judges is bearing the brunt of and they're bearing the brunt of that to this very day and if you want uh indication that there's a supernatural aspect to geography and it's history there it is it's history dependent let's move on verse 19 and the land shall yield her fruit and ye shall eat your fill and dwell there in safety that's if you're obeying but if he shall say what shall we eat the seventh year behold we shall not sow nor gather our in our increase then i will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year and it shall bring forth fruit for three years and you shall sow in the eighth year and eat yet of old fruit until the ninth year until her fruits come in ye shall eat of the old store now we get into another aspect of this which we'll call the law of redemption and here we're going to see emergent the role of what in hebrew is called the goal we would use the term kinsmen redeemer verse 23 the land shall not be sold forever for the land is mine and ye are strangers and sojourners with me and in all the land of your possession ye shall grant a redemption for the land if thy brother be waxing poor and hath sold away some of his possession and if any of his kin come to redeem it then shall he redeem that which his brother sold and if the man have none to redeem it and he himself be able to redeem it then let him count the years of the sale thereof and restore the over plus to the man to whom he sold it that he may return unto his possession but if he be not able to restore it to him then that which is sold shall remain in the hand of him that hath brought it until the year of jubilee and the jubilee it shall go out and he shall return unto his possession so this is this aspect of redemption understand again we're not talking about fee simple we're talking about weedy elise if a guy's in trouble and he sells his family property he really sells the use of it for some period of time if in the meantime he somehow prospers he has the right to go and redeem it he can pay the guy for the unused years left and get the land back that's the idea because god wants it ultimately to stay within the family now if he is destitute and can't do that but he's got a kinsmen that can do it for him that's okay too but by the so this introduces the concept of a kinsman redeemer and the kinsmen redeemer involves four conditions the person that would be the goel would have to be first of all has to be a kinsmen has to be a kinsmen secondly he obviously has to be able to redeem he has to have the resources or whatever to be able to perform the third thing he has to be is willing he wasn't obligated to he was able to if he was kinsman and was able and willing he could perform it if he undertook all the obligations of the beneficiary now we see that profiled for us in very colorful terms in this little four chapter book called the book of ruth because the book of ruth as you all may know uh naomi was a bethlehem and she and her husband went to and their two sons went to moab where it was things were better and while they were sojourning in moab over a decade the husband died the two sons died in the meantime they had two two wives two moabite women but they insist to go back with naomi you know meanwhile naomi finds out things by now are better in bethlehem so she's going to go back home to her own people 10 years 10 years later and the two daughters daughter-in-laws want to stay with naomi that tells you a lot about naomi she was quite a girl she talks him out of it gets serious girls they're almost no more sons in my womb and if they were you're not gonna wait around for them you know she argues in a very jewish way and uh finally the one does yield and stays with their own people but ruth insists upon staying with naomi where you go i will go where your people be my people your god will be my god the famous famous commitment and they go back to bethlehem while in bethlehem ruth is entitled under the laws of the torah to glean after the reapers if you owned land you could only go through once and only once and what was left which you missed which you couldn't get or what happened to fall belonged to the destitute the widows and orphans what have you and ruth was in that category for her mother-in-law so she was gathering boaz this wealthy landowner catches her eye he puts her under his protection and he even tells him to drop hands full on purpose so he's something going on here okay so when ruth gets back to naomi with all this extra abundance she renewed me that knows something's up and she figures out that boaz is a kinsmen and so boaz is in a position to restore naomi her original lands that were sold 10 years earlier which before the story is over he does but there's another issue and that's what's called the levite marriage he also is entitled if he wants to to marry ruth to raise up seed for that for her dead husband so to speak and so uh naomi coaches uh ruth how to handle the situation and of course she puts the the question too well as if he'll be the kinsmen redeemer and of course he wants to but there's a guy ahead of him in the lineup so he has to deal with that which he does uh the climax of the book of course is the big great love story where boaz redeems the land for naomi and takes a gentile bride and of course you begin to realize quite a way the modeling here boaz is in the role of the kinsmen redeemer who's our kinsmen redeemer jesus christ through his act of redemption israel naomi returned to the land and he takes a gentile bride it's an incredible study if you haven't gone through the book of ruth it's an important book of prophecy if for no other reason you will not understand what's going on in revelation 5 unless you understand the book of ruth now we're talking and i understand what the kinsmen dreamer had do he had to be a kinsman that's why jesus had to be a kinsmen of adam adam blewett it's his kinsman the second adam the last adam as paul calls him that is the kinsmen redeemer he has to be able to redeem and indeed he was because he was perfect he had no debts of his own he could take all of our debts he had to be willing it was his love that put him on that cross and kept him there for us for on our behalf he also had assumed all our obligations the previous guy that when boaz thing the the other guy that he was willing to buy the property but he couldn't marry ruth so he he blew it he couldn't he can't do part you have to wonder either going to do it all or done that's of course jesus did all of it on our behalf there is a very strange event that occurs in jeremiah jeremiah is a prophet he knows that the babylonian captivity is coming and god tells him to go and buy a certain piece of ground which he does because god told him he does it and you wonder well that's a little bizarre because jeremiah knows the captivity is not over he's not going to survive all this why is he buying this piece of ground the answer of course is that his heirs a generation or two later will come and claim the land he bought form and what did they do the way they did that was that the title deed that jeremiah paid for by buying this land was sealed and the details of redemption are written on the outside that when a scroll was written within and on the back side it wasn't generally a title d the backside held the conditions by which it could be opened and that's it it never talks about when it finally does get redeemed but you but you have to infer what obviously happens later eventually this thing is stashed in some jar somewhere will be picked up by his heirs and they'll lay claim to the land after the babylonian captivities after they come back and all that well that's all a pre-model of course of revelation chapter five where we see john in heaven and the seven sealed book is given is called who is worthy to open the book and loose the seals thereof and john understood what's going on you and i miss it but he understands he sobbed convulsively because no man was found had to be a man no man was found worthy to open the book and open the seal seraph someone says don't we we've not behold the lion of the tribe of judah hath prevailed to open the book and loose the seals thereof and john says he looked i saw the lamb as it had been slain and and we find then of course that's chapter five chapter six he's opening the seven seals he is taking it's the title lead to the earth and as he opens those seals he's taking possession of that which he purchased it's an escrow closing and it was purchased on the cross it's taken possession of in revelation 6. but you don't really appreciate all that unless you've been through the book of ruth you understand the way god has set up the dynamics here okay let's go to verse 29 we can still make this i think walled village is an exception here and if a man sell a dwelling house in a walled city then he may redeem it within a whole year after it is sold within a full year may he redeem it see a house within a walled village was much more valuable than a house out in the open field because obviously it afforded protection from invaders and so the former owner in this case if he had he had he sells the lease of it he has only one year within which to redeem it because whoever bought it doesn't want to be just out of you know it within one year fine but other than that it's his and that's that was an exception and if it not be verse 30 if it not be redeemed within the space of a full year then the house that is in the walled city shall be established forever to him that bought it throughout his generations it shall not go out in the jubilee but the houses of the villages which have no walls around them shall be counted as the fields of the country and they that they may be redeemed and they shall go out in the jubilee nothing notwithstanding the cities of the levites and the house of the cities of their possession may the levites redeem at any time it goes the other way around now see the levites had no tribal allotments they weren't given the allotments under joshua because the lord was their inheritance was the concept you find that in joshua 13 and 14 and 18 and so forth but they were given 48 cities and also the pasture lands adjacent to those cities those were the levitical cities their situation is a little different they could buy and redeem whenever and there would seem to be an exception when you read the book of acts uh you'll discover at the end of chapter four but the property there is in cyrus not in israel and so i'll let that go but anyway if a man purchase of the levites then the house that was sold and the city of his possession shall go out in the year of the jubilee for the houses of the levites of the cities of the levites are their possession among the children of israel but the field of the suburbs of their cities may not be sold for it is their perpetual possession well now we're going to shift a little bit to the bankrupt brother verse 35 and if thy brother be waxing poor and fallen and decay with thee and thou shalt then thou shalt relieve him yea though he be a stranger or sojourner that he may live with thee take thou no usury of him or increase but fear thy god that thy brother may live with thee interest free loans are in view here the niv says excessive interest but and probably from nehemiah 5 where that's implied perhaps but they were however allowed to charge interest to gentiles that's in deuteronomy 23 verses 19 and 20. but here we have the idea is within the family within the from brother to brother they were supposed to lend interest free and some scholars feel they did had a modest interest the idea was not excessive interest today we use the word usury to mean excessive interest be that as it may there's lots of debate about that among scholars we'll just move on verse 37 thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury nor lend him thy vittles for increase i am the lord your god which brought you forth out of the land of egypt to give you the land of canaan and to be your god norse matthew 10 would put it freely every seed freely give the early church was quick to adopt these principles helping widows and other needy believers you'll find that in acts 2 and 4 and 5 and 6 and so on so there's ample emphasis on that in the book of acts among the early church next we get into the indentured brother verse 39 if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be wax and poor and be sold unto thee thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond servant but as a hired servant as a sojourner he shall be with thee and thou shalt and shall serve thee unto the year of the jubilee never more than six years uh in one on the one hand because of exodus 21 2 he went free on the sabbath year right verse 41 and then shall he depart from thee both he and his children with him and shall return unto his own family and to the possession of his father shall he return for they are my servants which i brought forth out of the land of egypt they shall not be sold as bond men thou shalt not rule over him with rigor but thou shalt fear thy god both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids which thou shalt have shall be of the heathen that are round about you of them shall ye buy bond men and bondmaids moreover the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you of them shall ye by and of their families that are with you which they begot in your land they shall be your possession and you shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you to inherit them for a possession they shall be your bond men forever but over your brethren the children of israel ye shall not rule one over another with rigor so the jews were allowed to own slaves from gentile nations around them or aliens living in the land but a jew could never enslave another jew slaves were considered the property of their owner and could be part of a family inheritance gentile slaves had no hope of ever being set free unless they could secure the purchase price or the master chose to let them now it's interesting during the civil war era in our own country here uh americans used to use passages like these to prove that it was biblical and right for people to own and sell slaves but it must be noted that god's laws did not establish slavery they regulated it made it a little more humane and it was in god's principles in the new testament that ultimately from the grassroots up caused much of that to obviously disappear i had the jews treated one another as the law required they would have been a testimony to the gentile nations but instead israel failed to obey and eventually became slaves themselves and that's what the book of judges is all about during the roman empire by the way during the new testament period they estimate there were about 60 million slaves the message of jesus and paul were to individuals it was ultimately through that influence that the institution of slavery would eventually be abolished now we have the case where the jew is enslaved by a gentile verse 47 if a sojourner a stranger wax rich by thee and thy brother that dwelleth by him wax poor and self himself unto the stranger a sojourner by thee or to the stock of a stranger's family after that he has sold he may be redeemed again one of his brethren may redeem him either's uncle or his uncle's son may redeem him or any that is nigh of kin unto him of his family may redeem him or if he be able he may redeem himself and he shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he was sold unto him unto the year of jubilee and the price of his sale shall be according to the number of years according to the time of the hired servant shall it be with him it's interesting that the a gentile resident stranger in the land of israel still had to obey the law of moses even though he wasn't a member of the covenant community and the gentile was required to treat him as a hired servant and not treat him harshly if not redeemed he and his family would be released at the jubilee year it was unfortunate that israel did not obey the laws in this chapter because their selfishness and greed of course brought ruin to the land and their entire economic system the prophets rebuked the rich for exploiting the poor and stealing their lands and their houses even their children that's in isaiah 3 and all of isaiah 5 isaiah 10 amos 2 5 so on a very repetitive theme in most of the prophets so what do we learn from this one thing god is concerned on how we use the resources he's given us and he's concerned about how we treat one another in the marketplace as well as other places and he eventually judges those that exploit others and treat them in ways that are less than humane that's what amos 1 and chapters 1 and 2 deal with aggressively well we've sort of gone through the chapter let's touch on a few other things that are kind of i think unusually provocative and i'll call this area the eschatological conjectures here especially about the jubilee year the jubilee year was a year that all the debts were forgiven all the slaves went free and the land returned to its proper owners it was a time of the restitution of all things peter in his second sermon in acts we all when we read the book of acts we're all familiar with his first sermon the day of pentecost when he talks you are not we are not drunk because he supposed so we all remember that sermon his second sermon in fact by the way speaking of peter's sermons if you remember as you read the gospels peter had a unique gift of foot and mouth disease i mean he always said the wrong thing at the wrong time i mean he was you know we smile at his repeated mungling in general through the gospels this is this is this unlettered impulsive fisherman notice what happens after acts from acts 2 and on this same guy look at his sermons his first sermon in acts two read how it's structured how eloquent how well organized how focused it is read acts three his sermon acts three second sermon acts three it's eloquent we're so used to paul we take peter for granted no it this is this unlearned fisherman assisted by the holy spirit if you want to see evidence of what happens with the holy spirit infilling compare peter before acts 2 and compare peter after acts 2 and it's like a laboratory experiment it's interesting but anyway in his second sermon in acts chapter 3 peter speaks of the ultimate time of refreshing and he speaks of the time of restitution of all things but he's talking about the second coming of christ in acts chapter 3 starting at verse 19 the peter says repent ye therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the lord and he shall send jesus christ which before was preached unto you whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things which god hath spoken by the mouth of his holy prophet since the world began this is peter but he's using this expression the time of restitution of all things with the second coming and many prophecy scholars have sensed that the jubilee year is somehow eschatological everything else in god's calendar all the feasts we went through in chapter 23 they all have historical roots yes but they also have prophetic implications every one of them and i think the jubilee year is no different that somehow i think it speaks of the millennium second coming and all of that when all deaths are forgiven all the slaves are free and the land returns to its rightful owner to back to israel so to speak there will come a day the scripture tells us that the curse upon the ground we're talking about the land here the curse on the ground will be itself lifted from the creation romans 8 verse 20 21 22 deals with that isaiah 35 deals with that the ultimate ultimate restitution of all things now there's many that recognize this kind of thing and there's so many try to predict gee when is the jubilee year coming because every one of these other feasts that are prophetic get fulfilled on the day they're observed our passover was given it was crucified on the 14th of the sun the feast of first fruits was three days later that sunday morning and so on feast of pentecost was on the feast of pentecost well when's the jubilee year and you find all kinds of people with pamphlets and charts and and so forth and they try to predict when the jubilee is supposed to happen the problem is there are so many rabbinical debates about all the details the answer is nobody knows that a lot of people think they know some of the rabbis argue that the sabbatical cycle of seven years begins after the jubilee year in other words you've got seven years 49th year the next year is the jubilee year and they like to count the next cycle of seven as the starting the year following and there there are those that adhere to that view which complicates an already complicated situation i happen to lean the other way and those are rabbis that argue that you have a grid of seven years when you've got seven of those 49 the 50th year is the jubilee year but it's also the first year of the next cycle of seven that keeps the whole thing on a grid of seven seven sevens all the way through that you know instinctively from all the rest is the way i think god would deal with this the other problem is they can't find any evidence when it was really observed there's a fragment here and there and there's certain arguments that it may have more weight than i'm allowing here in this discussion but they were supposed to begin with the conquest of joshua they may have but there's no record that they ever kept the jubilee that's the part of the problem that's part of their that's why they're into captivity they didn't keep it so a lot of these little charts that get circulated presume also that this cycle begins again when the state of israel was established in may 14th and 48th there's no evidence of that nothing to do with that one that's one way or the other i don't think that's a civil thing it's a different thing and so uh no biblical basis for this reckoning now having said all that we do suspect that we're approaching closely the 70th jubilee since the joshua's conquest of canaan but again the lack of precision should constrain any conjectures here e.w bullinger reckons the nativity at 2 bc and as occurring at the 29th jubilee for his reasons and he generally is a pretty precise kind of scholar but that would make the 70th jubilee 41 jubilees later which would be 2009 years from that one but they and if he's correct with his date of lord being born at 2 bc that would make it on our you know that would make us on our calendar the year 2007. i thought i'd throw that out just to make this study a little interesting i can assure you it's probably as wrong as all the other conjectures are too because there's a lack of precision both in the mechanics of it as well as the calibration date so but i think i have no hesitancy to suggest that jubilee year probably is prophetic of the millennium second coming of christ and so we're getting uh close to the time of restitution of all things when all debts are forgiven yours and mine all slaves go free and the land returns to its rightful owners praise god so for next time you got a bit of an assignment i'd like you to go ahead and read the rest chapters 26 and 27 the rest of leviticus as we get ready for the wrap-up of this single book in the bible on holiness let's stand for a closing word of prayer let's buy our hearts father we we do thank you we do thank you that your grace and longsuffering has reached so far as to include us in your kingdom we thank you father for our salvation we thank you for our redemption we thank you father above all things for jesus christ our kinsmen redeemer who has taken all our debts and has delivered us from our slavery and who has assured us a presence with you throughout eternity we thank you father for these incredible blessings that you've showed upon us we thank you father for your word and we thank you for this book to illuminate your holiness and to give us an understanding of our unholiness oh father we do come before your throne acknowledging our sins repenting of our lives and the innumerable ways we find to grieve you we confess it father knowing that you are faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness so we claim that father that we might indeed be cleansed vessels that we might indeed be effective stewards that we might be pleasing in your sight is to how we exercise stewardship of the resources you've given us and as we shepherd our relationships with our brothers in the body we do pray father through your holy spirit you would make us ever more pleasing in your sight father not by power nor by might but by your spirit as we commit ourselves into your hands in the name of yeshua our kinsmen redreamer our lord and savior jesus christ amen god bless you [Music] you

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