That's how we live too. We read our scripture, we learn these things, and we either go forward and obey or we don't. We either show love and kindness and grace Or we don't. We look to either uphold 1 Corinthians 13 or we don't. Ball's gonna come back into our court.
Now the voice of reason can lead to the voice of failure because of Disbelief. If not careful, This is Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Leviticus. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about cross-reference radio.
specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of Leviticus chapter 25 with today's edition of Cross-Reference Radio. Rest and reset. That's what we're going to get out of this chapter. the Sabbath year and the Jubilee year.
These were given to help restrain the greed. that is part of our fallen nature. and also to reduce Somewhat. The grind of life. to slow down the tendencies of the nation's uh sinful practices Pause in the routine.
It might not make sense to you what I'm saying now, but as we go through it, you might see these things: the busy pace, the rush hour of life, just bringing it all. Back down. giving the people rest, and reset. And to build the faith of the people. That's a big part of this: the building of the faith of the people to trust God.
It's one thing to believe God. that he exists, it's another thing to trust him. The devil believes in God. But not enough to submit.
Well, verse 1. And Yahweh spoke to Moses, on Mount Sinai. Saying, Speak to the children of Israel, verse 2. and say to them, When you come into the land which I give to you, Then the land shall keep a Sabbath To Yahweh.
Well, all land belongs to God. all that land on earth. It's Pronounced in Deuteronomy chapter two. There, we read about God telling the Jews, Don't go to Edom's land, I've given that to them. Leave the land of Moab.
Don't bother them either. I've given that land to them. And then there's Ammon. I've given them their land. And so there, God is exercising His sovereignty, and we see it in Scripture, which we like to do as Christians.
We like to see everything in print as much as we can. Psalm 50, verse 12: The world is mine. in all its fullness. Israel, however, Their land is singled out. and highlighted, and God invests himself in the land of Israel more than any other land on earth, any other people in the land.
God took the land from the other people as judgment, Not just because. It wasn't, you know what, I need to find a place for my people.
So I'm booting you out. You're getting evicted. No, that was not the case. The case was these people were evil. They were wicked, the things that they practiced, and God exercised judgment on them, and He used Israel to do it.
and gave them the land as a result. Whenever anyone to this day seeks to give away or divide up. Israel's land, they are defying God, whether they know it or not. We know it because it's in the scripture. He says here in verse 2, then the land shall Keep a Sabbath to Yahweh.
Now, this is a sabbatical year, not a sabbatical Sabbath day. It is a Sabbath year. Not a Sabbath day. That's what he is. Bringing out now, he's going to stay on this for a little bit, and then he'll get to the Jubilee year.
There is a Sabbath for man. And this Sabbath year is a Sabbath for man and the land. And the animals, the livestock, they will benefit from this too.
Well, they all benefited from the weekly Sabbath. But this will be a long a year-long one. Verse 3. Six years. You shall sow your field, and six years You shall prune your vineyard.
and gather its fruit. Verse four. But in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest. For the land. A Sabbath to Yahweh.
You shall neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard. What grows of its own accord. Of your harvest you shall not reap, nor Gather the grapes of your untended vine. for it is a year of rest for the land. Verse 6.
And the Sabbath produce of the land shall be Food for you. For your male and female servants, your hired man. And the stranger who dwells with you, verse 7, For your livestock and the beasts that are in your land, all its produce. shall be for food.
Well, they were not too harvest the land and for commercial purposes. Every seventh day is called a Sabbath. We get that. Every seventh year functioned as a year-long Sabbath.
Well, at least it was supposed to. They it really didn't do it. And we'll come to that. As we move through it, But in the Sabbath year, They were not to farm. They were only to gather the food they needed to live off of.
Well, there's more to the story than that, and it will Fold for us as we go through the verses.
So to eat only what naturally grew. God promised A bumper crop. In the sixth year, The year before the Sabbath year, he was going to give them an extra supply. of food so that they could get through that seventh year.
Now this would require faith. We should really have Our understanding from scripture is they never practiced this, not until it was forced on them, not until Nehemiah comes along many years later.
So, in the early days of Israel's kingdom age, the Jews neglected the Sabbath, the Sabbath year. Practice the Sabbath day. but not the Sabbath year.
Well, be mindful. These things require faith, and that's why we are students of the scripture, because we're always looking. For any advantage for our faith to overcome our flesh. to be useful to God. The Lord used the accumulative Neglected years Two.
sentenced them to seventy years captivity in Babylon. We know this because you look at 2 Chronicles 36, verse 21, and there I'll just take this section to fulfill the word. Of Yahweh by the mouth of Jeremiah.
Now remember, Jeremiah. He said there'll be seventy years of captivity. Daniel picked up on that from reading Jeremiah. The chronicler continues, until the land had enjoyed Her Sabbaths As long as she lay desolate, She kept Sabbath. to fulfill seventy years.
So, what he is saying here is that every seven years they were supposed to have a Sabbath. And they didn't do it. and they're going to have seventy years captivity as a penalty. For 490 years, Israel failed. to honor the Sabbath.
and subsequently every Sabbath year They would spend a year in captivity. 490 divided by 7, 70.
So now you know about that as much as I do. Nehemiah comes along. and he tries to reinstate the sabbatical year. It looks like it might have continued into the Maccabean Age.
something that was not well received. by the Jewish people as a nation. and a lack of faith. Distraction, those things would have been The culprits, I would think.
So the people. They were still to attend or tend to their livestock. Though it was a Sabbath sabbatical year, they still had to take care of their animals. But the work animals, they got to rest. They didn't have to be used to Till the land and haul burdens.
The donkeys would rest, the oxen would rest. And so there was this revitalization of the people. of the animals And the land and hopefully the faith. which they apparently missed out on.
So the people were to trust God to provide for them. But there's coming a curveball. An unexpected pitch. The Jubilee that's going to, he's going to get to this in a minute and get a little bit ahead of myself. That makes it a double Sabbath year.
Every seven years, they weren't supposed to work. But At seven ten. Times Seven forty-nine. That fiftieth year, right on the heels of a Sabbath year. Came the Jubilee, and that was to be treated like a Sabbath year too.
So it's going to take faith. to trust God. Commercial use of the land was halted. for the sabbatical year and then two years when you get to For every 50 years they would come to the Jubilee. Verse 8.
And you shall count seven Sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years. And the time of the seven Sabbath of years shall be to you 49 years.
So God does the arithmetic for them. In verse 9, Then you shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, the day of atonement. and you shall make the trumpet to sound throughout all your land. This is the Jubilee. It occurred in the fiftieth year on the Day of Atonement.
Now, the Day of Atonement came once a year. It marked the beginning of Israel's civil. Or agricultural calendar. The Passover marked their spiritual calendar, so they had two beginnings of the year. the Passover and The Day of Atonement.
But on the 50th Day of Atonement, or the 50th in this cycle, which would fall on the Day of Atonement. They were to start the Jubilee. An economic cultural and environmental and a national reset. Slaves would be returned to their homes, Jewish indentured slaves. Loans would be cancelled.
There was a reset. That's why I entitled this Rest, the Sabbatical Year. and the sabbatical year carried into the Jubilee. and the reset. All property reverted to its original owners.
So this is pretty radical. It curbed inflation. And it Moderated. Acquisitions of land. Slow down greed, slow down the pace.
returned everything to Mechanical zero, you could say.
so that they could begin again. It gave them a new canvas But not new artist. The artists got to demonstrate if if they learned anything. And the days leading up. to the Jubilee.
It gave new opportunity to people who had fallen on hard times. Couldn't pay their debts. Had to Service, servants. And then they were released from their debt, they were returned to their lands, and so if the previous failures were sort of just wiped away, and they got to start all over again.
Now the word jubilee here in verse 9 used in the New King James Version. And it, you know, that the translators sometimes have to work with idioms. And have to give an interpretive rendering to capture what's going on. And they do a good job at that. Every time they're a little off, Here, I don't know.
They should have made a distinction between the word Jubilee in verse 9 and the word Jubilee in verses 10 and 11. Here, it means a proclamation. The Jewish word. That's translated by the New King James translators as Jubilee in verse 9. But when you get to 10 and 11, The Hebrew word there is ram's horn.
And it would have been nice if they made that distinction. And why didn't they just use the word proclamation in verse 9?
Well, I guess they figured they didn't give us an interpretation that this all belonged to this. this Jubilee year And we're going to come back to it a little bit more in verses 10. He says, throughout all your land.
So They're not in the promised land, as we read in verses 1 and 2. They're still at Sinai and Mount Sinai. And when they get into the land, they've got to stabilize the land. And that's when they'll start. When they have that Uh Day of Atonement that will start their counter there.
Uh Or there's seven every seven years, seven times seven. Until they get to the Jubilee, then they were to practice it. They likely proclaimed the holiday or the Jubilee year, really not a holiday, it's a sabbatical on top of a sabbatical year. They really probably proclaimed it. by the blast of the horn at the temple.
And then it would just the next Station would blast the horn until it sort of relayed through the nation to the north or south. East and West. Israel's land by our standards today is not very large. In fact, today they boast about. They don't have to freeze their fruit and vegetables because the land is small enough.
What's picked that day is put in trucks and taken to the market. and all the fruit is fresh. It's just smaller than what maybe we're used to here. Anyway, they even grow bananas in Israel. That's weird.
Why would they mess up the land like that? If God wanted bananas in Israel, He would have planted them. I think it was blasphemy. But anyway, coming back.
Well, it could be worse. Is Eric here? Could be okra. Verse 10, and you shall consecrate the fiftieth year. He's with the children.
That's where he is.
So, if one of you would be good enough to tell him that, and even I'm kidding. Back to this, this verse 10, and you shall consecrate the 50th year and proclaim liberty throughout all the land and all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you. And each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return. to his family.
So Again, it followed the seventh sabbatical year. causing a double Sabbath year and that. That's gonna take faith. The temptation must have been almost overpowering for the farmers. Or maybe if you had a vineyard, I just got to prune that thing.
But you weren't to do that, you weren't to touch it.
Well, you could take the fruit from it. But you were not to Tend to it.
So Now the word here in verse 10 Translated Jubilee. The Aval in the Hebrew, it it means ram's horn, as I mentioned earlier, and they would use the ram horn. to signal the beginning of this Jubilee years.
So every fifty years Ten days after the feast of trumpets, Came the day of atonement, and then five days later would be the Feast of Tabernacles. That should have meant something to them. Uh the Jews should have certainly Understood that God had assigned their holidays for them. And they really didn't need to add any more, but they did. They added at least two more holidays, which The Biblical Jew would not be bound to keep, but in up To keep up with the culture, he would practice them anyway.
And that would be Hanukkah and Curum. which Mordecai and Esther started. the feast of Pyrrhim, to celebrate the defeat of Heyman. Anyway, in this Tenth verse, you notice the emphasis: proclaim liberty throughout all the land. to all its inhabitants And then he says, you shall return.
to his possession You shall return to his family.
So, the return, the return, that the big part of the Jubilee took faith to do this. And so. You can understand why they may have been reluctant to practice the Jubilee and the seven years, every seven years, sabbatical year, because of how much faith it took.
Now, for us as Americans, and Independence Hall in Philadelphia, there is The Liberty Bell, and inscribed on the Liberty Bell is this verse, proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof. Galatians 5:1. Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty by which Christ has made us free. Yeah, because Paul had to deal with all the time these religious. Fanatics is trying to take their liberty.
He even says in the Galatians letter, they came to spy out our liberty. And to this day in Christianity, There are Christians that look to take your liberty. There's no sin going on, they're going to take it anyway. You shouldn't be doing that. You shouldn't be doing this.
Oh, there's some things they There are a lot of things we shouldn't be doing. But there's also a lot of things we should do. Grace is very special, and I think it's an undeveloped. characteristic of our faith. there's more to grace than salvation.
There's that part of grace. that how does it treat others? Verse 11, the fiftieth year shall be a jubilee to you. In it you shall neither sow nor reap what grows of its own accord. nor gather the grapes of your untended vine, Verse 12, for it is a jubilee, it shall be holy to you, you shall eat its produce from the field.
So again, they couldn't mark it these things. Verse 13. It is in this Jubilee. In this year of Jubilee, each of you shall return to his possessions.
Well You'd have to trust God with your investments. If you borrowed, loaned money, you'd have to do your calculations. If you saw the So the Jubilee coming upon you. Or, if you bought and sold land, you would have to factor these things, you still have to be wise. But if they reasoned that Well, I'm going to incur losses.
Then they would go forward Either trusting God or distrusting Him. That's how we live too. We read our scripture, we learn these things, and we either go forward and obey or we don't. We either show love and kindness and grace or we don't. We look to either uphold 1 Corinthians 13 or we don't.
Paul's going to come back into our court.
Now the voice of reason can lead to the voice of failure because of Disbelief. If not careful, John Wesley, a great Hero of England and a great evangelist in England. He said, Beware of the reasonable devil. The devil that reasons and uses logic and calculations and factors faith right out of the picture. And that would have been the case for any who just did not trust.
They did not trust because that's why they didn't practice the Jubilee. Oh, uh, the the sabbatical year. Verse 14, and if you sell anything to your neighbor, or buy from your neighbor's hand, you shall not oppress one another.
Well Jesus said it this way. Whatever you want men to do to you, Matthew 7:12, do also to them, for this is the law. and the prophets. That that would be a good idea. A person from stealing from another person if they honor that, right?
Well, I don't want someone to steal from me. Why would I steal from them? I think this is another thing that a lot of Christians fail in. They want to be respected, but they don't want to give respect. May that not be us.
Now verses 15 through 17, if you insist, you can read those later. But they're just coloring in little details that I think we can sum up. That Jewish business transactions would have to factor in. In their agreement, The coming of the Jubilee Year. And that's what the verses 15 through 17 cover.
Verse 18: Now, you shall observe my statutes and keep my judgments and perform them, and you will dwell in the land. and safety. That's a promise from God. Then the land will yield its fruit. And you will eat Your fill.
and dwell there safely, So this is the part Entering into the sabbatical year, the You'd say God said he's going to take care of us. I'm going to believe that. Or not? And he says he's going to bless them. Two great opponents to obedience are faithlessness and self-will.
I want what I want. Romans 7. But I see another law in my members Warring against the law of my mind. And bringing me into captivity to the law of sin.
Now he's. He's speaking from the perspective of a born-again man. A born-again disciple of Christ, warring against the law of my mind. There's no war going on for the unbeliever in Christ. It may be some other level of conflict.
Maybe they want the control of their life back if they're under addiction to something, but it's not because of Christ. For the Christian, we want to obey Christ. We don't want to harm ourselves either.
Some people are addicted to all sorts of characteristics. that you just fill in the blanks. Maybe it's laziness. Maybe it's dishonesty. I'll just just pick a a virtue and corrupt it.
And you can find some one who's struggling with that in Christ. We all struggle with something. I only have one struggle. I struggle with other people having problems. Hehehehe Well What kind of monsters would we be if we could be perfect and everybody else could not?
The only one that could pull that off is Jesus Christ. The only one that could say, you without sin throw the first stone. and and could back it up. Um Anyway, verse. 20.
And if you say, What shall we eat in the seventh year, since we shall not sow nor gather in our produce? I did not read this section yet. out loud. Verse 21: Then I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, and it will bring forth produce enough. for three years.
Well, why three years?
Well, the l year leading up to the harvest. Then the year of year leading up to the Sabbath. He would Pour out on them, but then you had the Sabbath year, and then after the sabbatical year, You had to work the land to get it back up. And God is factoring in up, giving you a little space there to have an abundance. It's sort of like manna.
Just not just it's gr it's growing on Under the trees, in the vines, it's in and the whatever vegetables grow on.
So it's applicable to both the sabbatical year and the Jubilee. The God factor is the spiritual side of obedience, which we're not supposed to leave home without. What should a Christian carry with them wherever they go? For some Christians, it's water. But it's faith, trusting God.
Thanks for tuning in to today's edition of Cross-Reference Radio. Pastor Rick Gaston is currently going through the book of Leviticus. We're glad you joined us. We trust that you're gaining some valuable insights into God's Word as we go through this Old Testament book. Cross-reference radio comes to you from Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville, in Virginia.
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