Everybody can identify who wants to serve Christ. You live long enough, you serve long enough, at some point you're going to get to a place where. God seems to have forsaken you. It's in our best interest in those times to continue to trust him. As a faithful creator, Peter said.
A hall of heroes, who had natural grounds to charge God with forsaking them. instead of charging him, decided or chose to trust and to learn. 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.
Now here is Pastor Rick in Leviticus chapter 25. As he teaches in this Old Testament book on today's edition of Cross Reference Radio. There are a lot of things we shouldn't be doing. But there's also a lot of things we should do. Um 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 market 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. The ball'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 of the sabbatical year. Yeah. 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. I'm it. That that would stay.
Keep 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. 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. He's speaking from the perspective of a born-again man.
Or 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 that 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. Yeah.
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 the year leading up to the Sabbath. Yeah. 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, I'll give 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.
Hehehehe But it's faith, trusting God. and not presumptuously. God anticipated their concerns, and so He's addressing it here. You know, Moses just shows up with this law. He comes from Mount Sinai, he thus says the Lord.
They don't see this coming. Every seven years we gotta stop. And then on the 50th, Yeah, we you know, we stop twice. But that's the law. None were ever too old.
To be refreshed. To be reset. in their ability to trust and obey God. Publicly. This was public.
You couldn't, if you would sneak off, you'd get busted. And You weren't. To do this. All for one, one for all. And you know there's strength in camaraderie.
I think if I think in wartime Though many of the troops begin fighting for their comrades. more than a cause. It's so I just cannot undervalue the strength Yeah. camaraderie and the Christian word should be Koinania. A fellowship of believers.
The iron sharpening iron. Remember now that might cause It's going to cause friction. even sparks. Verse 22, and you shall sow in the eighth year and eat old produce until the ninth year until its produce comes in. You shall eat of the old harvest.
Again, as God provided manna in the wilderness, He will provide harvest for the sabbaticals. The nation cannot emphasize it enough. had to trust God, they had to say, Give us this day our daily bread. Basic prayer when they came to Christ, how to teach us how to pray.
Okay, I'll show you, I'll give you an outline. You put your adoration and praise to the Father first. And then, as you move, you get to that point. Give us this day, our daily bread, which was a recognition that God will sustain us and that you're going to trust Him. It is always in our best interest to trust God, even.
When he seems untrustworthy, which is part of vilo iloi lama sabaktani. Not only was he the scapegoat of God, who took the sins of the people on him and he was cast out. But also still quoting scripture. Everybody can identify who wants to serve Christ. You live long enough, you serve long enough, at some point you're going to get to a place where.
God seems to have forsaken you. It's in our best interest in those times to continue to trust him. As a faithful Creator, Peter said. a hall of heroes who had natural grounds to charge God with forsaking them. instead of charging him decided or chose to trust and to learn.
Nonetheless, Just think of Joseph. Joseph suffered because he was obedient. He wasn't punished by God. Job, of course, no comment necessary. Just mention the name Job, and everybody gets it.
David, anointed but yet suffering. This Saul hounding him to kill him. even though he was innocent. His own father-in-law. Jeremiah, look how much he suffered bringing the truth to the people that should have gobbled it up.
Hosea. A heartbroken prophet. Unrequited love. Habakkuk. Ends his prophecy with: everything can fail.
I'm going to trust you. Habakkuk chapter 3, verse 17. I think it was seventeen and eighteen. Of course, Peter, Paul, Stephen, James. Antipas.
Trusting God. went out Modern. Executed. It is always in our best interest to trust God even when we feel forsaken. And that is what God's message is to man.
The Bible's message is to man. It's not all about you. It's about me. But I pay up. and I'll make it worth while.
I'll give you a heaven so fantastic Words can't describe it. won't even try. The best I could do for you is tell you what's not in heaven, some of the things that aren't in heaven. If the Bible were written in our time, traffic would have been one of them. There's there be no traffic in heaven.
You get your own highway. Could you imagine your own interstate? I wouldn't get lonely. Not only that. Anyway.
There shall be no more death, no sorrow. More tears. What is not in heaven?
Well, verse 23: The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land is mine, for you are strangers and sojourners with me.
Now, everything he's saying. Verse 22 is the kingpin that holds all of this together. Here God reminds them he owns creation. Psalm twenty-four verse one. The earth is Yahweh's.
in all its fullness and the world and those who dwell therein. In Psalm 50, God talks about through the psalmists. Don't live your life against me and then come to me and think I hear your prayers. I'm not interested. And we see a lot of this.
We see a lot of people thinking that God listens to them.
Well, they don't care anything about His Son. Crucifixion means nothing to them. They probably don't even own a Bible. Many cases, and even if not blasphemers, full-out blasphemers nonetheless.
Well, even the people of Israel are only tenants of their land. He owns it all. Therefore, ownership of property was temporary, not permanent. And it's being exercised in the year of Jubilee. They've got to.
Sort of proving that this is God's land and we have to give it back to whom He is.
sort of leased it to. These law laws made it pretty much impossible. for real estate investors to accumulate vast amounts of wealth. It you know, you just you had to turn the land over eventually. That would help stabilize the economy, actually.
You could not You could not take this system and apply it to another system. You couldn't apply it to our economy or some other. in a theocracy. Where God is controlling the people. And we have details left out, of course.
You see, you cannot mimic this. But so you just can't criticize it. You have to understand by faith, we understand. as the scripture Clearly says in Hebrews 11. By faith we understand.
And the rest of the verse is just as beautiful, but that alone. that part of the verse alone. is substantial. Coming back to this, even the poorest Israelite family received back their land. If they went bankrupt and they're going to have to give the land to somebody else to pay off their debt, and then they're going to have to go indenture themselves as slaves.
If they lived this long, or if they fell under the cycle and it was practiced, they would be delivered back to their land debt-free. The only thing a man really had a right to in Israel was his labor. That which was the result from his own labor, and even that was subject to tithe and tax.
So Don't cling too tightly to the things of this world is also an Old Testament teaching.
Now we come to possessions, verse 24, and in all the land of your possession you shall grant redemption of the land. If one of your brethren becomes poor and has sold some of his possession, And if his Redeeming relative comes to redeem it, then he may redeem what his brother sold. Verse 26, or if the man has no one to redeem it. but he himself becomes able to redeem it. Then let him count the years since the sail its sail, and restore the remainder to the man to whom he sold it?
that it may return to his possession.
So God is saying it's fair to everyone. It's fair to the man who got in debt and sold his land. He has a chance to buy it back, whether it's a Redeemer, a Goel, in the like Boaz in the story of Ruth. Or or if he just, you know, s comes along, maybe stumbles across a bag of gold, fell off an armor truck. I mean of course.
He'd have to read the label and report that. Anyway. There goes my fantasy. Anyhow, to come back to this, if if he could get free, he would be, but He it was a It was a clean deal.
So if a Jew went into slavery because he could not pay his debts, then his family member could pay it or he himself could pay it.
Well, that brings us to the New Testament. A verse that sums up all of this is in Mark 10, verse 45. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve. and to give his life a ransom for many. He's paying a debt.
that he did not owe. a debt that we couldn't pay. As the Redeemer here in this section, the Goel, a family member who could pay the debt for the other family member. who could not pay him back, So, that, of course, is a type of Christ woven into this. Jewish law.
In verse 28, but if he is not able to have it restored to him, Then what was sold shall remain in the hand of him who bought it until the year of Jubilee and in the Jubilee It shall be released. And he shall return his possessions.
So if he sold himself and five years before. The Jubilee comes along. You could only enslave another Jew for six years. According to Exodus twenty one, And then you had to let them go anyway.
So they had these checks and balances built in. To their system. But if If you were five years into it, but the Jubilee fell. On your Fifth year, you can you go free. Go back to your land.
You're knowing anything. You go back and work it and try to make a living. Verse twenty-eight, but if he is not able to have it restored to himself, Then What was sold shall remain in the hand of him who bought it until The Jubilee year of Jubilee, and in the Jubilee it shall be released, and he shall return his. To his possession.
Now, if I read a verse twice, understand I've read these verses several times today and yesterday. And actually Monday too. And so I don't know when I read it last. If Anyway.
Now we come to houses. In verse 29. Or structural possessions. If a man sells a house in a walled city, Then he may redeem it within a whole year after it is sold within a full year. He may redeem it.
Now, remember, you're going to be tested on these things next week. Fortunately, we're not under the law. But he continues, verse 30, but not this law at least. Verse 30, but if It is not redeemed within the space of a full year, then the house in the walled city. Shall belong permanently to him who bought it.
Throughout his generations it shall not be released in the Jubilee.
However, The houses of villages, which have no wall around them, shall be counted as the field of the country. They may be redeemed, and they shall be released in the Jubilee.
So, now here's the rules for different. Properties, urban properties versus whether they are walled cities or urban properties, versus the agricultural lands and villages.
So a city property When it changed hands. The Klan members at the Jubilee had it one year. make their claim. And if they did not make the claim, then whoever Had that house, whoever leased it. or rented it, however you want to say it, he got to keep it.
You got to claim it now. You've got a year to claim it. If you don't, then it's gone. And likely because it was a developed property. And an investment, a a larger investment versus the the village area where there were you know Houses likely not as built up as you would find in a walled city.
And it was part of the land. If you were in a village or out in the country then Whether they claimed it in a year or not, it was theirs. You didn't get to keep it. I hope I'm not confusing you on that. And if I am, feel free to read verses 29 to 31, because it.
Just what it says is what it means. all of this taking place under the Jubilee. You know, you're kind of amazed at how many Christians that want to live in the Old Testament don't know the Old Testament. It's like, you know, you're not getting the point. God is reaching forward.
through Gentile worlds where these things will not function well. And We may come to that. Verse 32: Nevertheless, the cities of the Levites and the houses in the cities of their possession, the Levites may redeem at any time. And if a man purchases a house from The Levite Levites then the house that was sold in the city of his possession shall be released In the Jubilee The houses and the cities of the Levites are their possession among the children of Israel.
Well, the Levites, of course, are the clergy. They assisted the priests, and collectively they were clergy. They were the spiritual leaders of the land. And this, we'll get this again in Numbers and Joshua 21. But their lands are protected.
You know, by the time David comes along, they're working in shifts, you know, in divisions of the Levites and the priests. But when they weren't on duty, They were back at their land. and they would work their land, and they'd live off of their land. There's no It's very difficult. to be lazy.
in that society. Verse 34, but the field of the common land of their cities may not be sold, for it is their perpetual possession.
Well, the tribal lands that everyone benefited from. The realtors could not gobble them up and put a development in there with houses two feet from each other. Woe unto those who dwell house to house and field to field, till there is no space to dwell alone, says Isaiah the prophet. And I say, Amen.
So why can't you give at least an acre to everybody? At least. It'd a buffer for that loud music. Before you do a night mission on his sound system, you could low-crawl for a little bit. All right, never mind.
Verse 35. If one of your brethren, you know, I'm sorry, just people who play their music loud. I mean ridiculously loud. It should do jail time. It just, that's the way it should be.
If it's going into your neighbor's house and shaking his furniture, Yeah. You should I'm I'm I mean What's the Pappy on? Devil's Island?
Something far away in the Pacific I'm talking about. All right. What would grace? You know, you just be kind to them. Verse 35.
Yeah. If one of your brethren becomes poor, and falls into poverty among you, then you shall help him like a stranger or a sojourner, that he may live with you. Oh great. Yeah. What are you talking about?
Yeah. You know, their laws, the Jews are very careful in their law how they treat. non-Jewish people who live in their land. They've always been that way. to some degree, as long as they didn't stir up trouble.
And Moses, as I understand this verse, is saying to them, well, you know, you treat.
Sojourners, people who aren't used pretty well because of the law.
Well, don't forget you can do that to your brother and sister too, then they fall on hard times. The New Testament version is, you know, you who are spiritual, restore such a one.
So, when a family member again fell on hard times, they were not to be disgraced or shunned. They had a habit of smashing up their car. You just take them in, you just don't ever give them the keys to your car. 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. If you'd like to subscribe to our podcast, you can do so by going to your favorite app store. and downloading from there.
For any additional information about this ministry, we invite you to visit our website, Crossreference Radio.com. Make sure to come back again for the upcoming edition in the book of Leviticus, as Pastor Rick has much more to share. We thank you for being with us right here on Cross Reference Radio.
