Good morning everybody. If you'd
like to turn to Leviticus chapter 25. Leviticus 25. I've been thinking about you all all
this week. I've been thinking about what you guys are going
to celebrate after the service today. 50 years. It's a long time. I was talking
to Jimmy before this. I have no frame of reference for how
long that is because I'm not 50 years old. Might have said
a million years. I don't know. 50 years is an exceptionally
long time. This is a very special occasion. Very special that the
Lord would grant his gospel 50 years here. I'm always amazed
by that scripture where the Lord says, where two or three are
gathered in my name, I'm there in their midst. That means he's
been trodding these holes for 50 years. It's very special. So it begs the question, did
anything special happen in the scriptures on the 50th year?
Anything special happen? Did the Lord command anything
special to happen? It turns out he did. Look down
at verse 10. This is the Lord speaking to
Moses from Mount Sinai. And ye shall hallow the 50th
year. and proclaim liberty throughout
all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof, it shall be a jubilee
unto you. And ye shall return every man
unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. What did the Lord command on
the 50th year? That the year of Jubilee should
be ushered in. Now what happened on the year
of Jubilee? Well, Leviticus 25 is a very
long chapter, so I'm going to give you the cliff notes. Here's
what happened. When Jubilee was ushered in, when it was sounded,
everyone stopped working. This was a year of complete and
utter rest. There was no sowing, there was
no plowing, there was no harvest, there was no weeding. Everybody
sat around and did nothing. They just rested. This was the
commandment for this year. If you had found yourself destitute,
so incredibly destitute that you had to sell yourself into
bondage, you had to make yourself a servant in another man's house,
and you were indebted to him, to that servitude. When Jubilee
was ushered in, you were free. You were absolutely free. There
was utter liberty. You went free, and you had to
go free. You had to. If you had lost everything,
let's say you'd fallen on hard times, you had a bad harvest,
and you went to your neighbor and said, I'm going to sell you
a piece of my land. I've got to get this off my hands so I
get some food to eat over the winter. Everything you had lost
through that destitution, it was all returned to you. You
got everything back. You were completely and utterly
restored. And finally this. everything they needed to make
it through that year, and not just to skim by by the skin of
their teeth, but to make it well, to live well for that entire
year and for all the years affected by this jubilee year, this year
of rest. The Lord just freely provided it. That's an amazing
thought. It's an amazing picture, an amazing
illustration of the gospel. A picture of the full, complete
salvation every believer, every member of the elect has in our
Lord Jesus Christ and all the blessings, the blessings of Jubilee,
the blessings that come from that salvation. I'm going to
give you about six things this morning to consider about this
day. Here's a question for you. When did the Jubilee begin? Is
this important? It turns out it's very important.
Look down at verse 9. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet
of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month,
listen to this, in the day of atonement. Now this is where
jubilee began. It began on the day of atonement. What happened on the day of atonement?
I'm not going to go into all the ins and outs. This is where
we get the story of the scapegoat. the goat of the sin offering,
and the scapegoat. And here's what would happen.
The high priest, Aaron, he would select two goats. And he would
cast lots between those two goats. The lot that fell to the Lord,
that was the goat of the sin offering. And that goat was killed.
Its blood was shed. It was caught in a basin. And
Aaron would slip underneath that veil. He would go into the Holy
of Holies. And he would apply that blood to the Ark of the
Covenant. The other goat, the scapegoat,
Aaron would put his hands, the high priest would put his hands
on the head of that goat and he would confess all the sins
and iniquities of all the children of Israel. And ceremonially,
I say ceremonially because this was all types and shadows of
our Lord Jesus Christ, ceremonially The sins and iniquities of the
people were transferred to that scapegoat. And the scripture
says that scapegoat was led away by the hand of a fit man, the
Lord Jesus Christ, to a land uninhabited, never to be seen
again. Now that, folks, is the cross
of our Lord Jesus Christ, our atonement. The father transferred
the sins of his elect to the son. He hath made him to be sin
for us, his people, who knew no sin. He did no sin that we
might be made the very righteousness of God in him. That is the gospel.
The sins of God's people was transferred to the Lord Jesus
Christ, and he suffered the punishment. He suffered under the wrath and
the perfect justice of God, and he died just like that goat with
the sin offering. And when he died, he put away
the sin. Just as that scapegoat was led
away to that land uninhabited, never to be seen again. The sins
of all God's people, everyone Jesus Christ died for, they are
gone, never to be seen again. Not covered, not just paid for,
removed, taken away, made to not be. And folks, we can't really
understand that. We can't enter into that as human
beings. We can't make something not to be that was. It's impossible. With God, it's possible. Our
sin's so very real, so very vile, so very wicked, he took it and
he made it not to be. He wiped it out. And folks, that
is the complete, full atonement our Lord Jesus Christ made for
every one of his people. It's finished. It's done. God
is satisfied. But before he could do anything
for us, Before the blessings of Jubilee could come to us,
that could come to His people, God first had to do something
for Himself. This is so important. He is a
just God and a Savior. He could not show mercy. He could
not be gracious. He could not open the floodgates
of Jubilee to His people unless His perfect sense of justice
was honored. It had to be honored. God's a
God of perfect justice, and on the cross, perfect justice was
honored. And you know, we get a beautiful
type of that. in the text here, the perfect justice of God. Jubilee
was a year of perfect justice. Let me show you that. Look down at verse 14. And if thou sell aught unto thy neighbor,
or buyest aught of thy neighbor's hand, ye shall not oppress one
another, don't defraud one another. According to the number of years
after the Jubilee, thou shalt buy thy neighbor. And according
unto the number of years of the fruits, he shall sell unto thee.
According to the multitude of years, thou shalt increase the
price thereof. And according to the fewness of years, thou
shalt diminish the price of it. For according to the number of
the years of the fruits doth he sell unto thee. Now this is
how Jubilee worked. On the 50th year, when the Trump
of Jubilee was sounded, everybody who had sold off their property,
they got it back. Your possessions became yours.
And you know what? That meant that everything they
sold, the price was based on when the next Jubilee came around.
So if your neighbor came to you, he said, I had a bad harvest.
I want to sell you 100 acres so I got some food. The way you'd
work out the price, well, how long is it till the next Jubilee?
Because when the Jubilee comes, it's going back to you. And if
it was 47 years to the next Jubilee, you paid the premium price. You're
going to be able to work that land for 47 years. You're going
to get the crops and the fruit for 47 years. You pay the premium
price. If it was just 5 years to the
next Jubilee, you pay a highly discounted price. Because he
was getting it back. As soon as Jubilee came in, that
land was going back to him. Everything was fair. Everything
was just. Everything was equitable. In
the kingdom of God, everything is just. This is my point in
saying all this. When the Lord looks at His people
and He says, I accept you, I love you, come into my presence, come
right in. You're heirs of Christ, just
like Him. Heirs according to the promise.
He's not sweeping anything under the rug. It is all just, it is
all perfect because of this atonement made by our Lord Jesus Christ.
Folks, this is salvation, no doubt. How did everyone know that the
Jubilee had begun? Israel was a big place. How did
everybody find out? Look at verse 9 again. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet. of the jubilee to sound. On the
tenth day of the seventh month and the day of atonement shall
you make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. How did everybody know that the
jubilee had come, that this year of rest, this year of deliverance
had come a trumpet blast? And this was no ordinary trumpet.
This was a ram's horn. A ram's horn that made a very
clear and distinct and sharp sound. Everybody knew what this
sound meant. It meant that the jubilee had
come and everybody was free. All possessions returned. What
is this, Todd? What is this? This is the gospel
message. This is the preaching of the
gospel. That clear, sharp, loud sound. Everybody knows what this
means. This is what 1 Corinthians 1.21 says, it says, for after
that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. You know what that means, it's
telling us? So we can't figure this out for ourselves. If the
Lord is going to save us in our experience, if he's going to
bring us to a saving knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, he's
going to do it through the preaching of the gospel. He's going to
send us a preacher. If he's going to save me, he's going to send
me a preacher. That's how he's going to do it. But listen how
the rest of it goes. It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. You ever find it interesting
you use that word foolishness, the foolishness of preaching?
You know what that means is the absurdity. the absurdity of preaching. That's what it actually means.
Why is this thing of preaching so absurd? Because the Lord does
not need preachers or preaching. Now, that is the mechanism by
which he saves his people and his experience. He is pleased
to do it that way, and it is the only way he does it. The
Lord's going to save you. He's going to do it through a
preacher, the preaching of the gospel. But the Lord does not
need preachers or preaching. He could have got his gospel
out any way he wanted to. This is just the way he chose
to do it. And as far as the preacher goes, folks, this is what Paul
says about them. They're earthen vessels. You
know what an earthen vessel is? It's a clay pot. What's a clay
pot? It's fragile. It's prone to cracks. It's prone to deterioration.
There is nothing special about an earthen vessel. He's just
a sinner, saved by the grace of God, just like everybody else.
Nothing special about him. An earthen vessel. What's special
is what's in that vessel. The message. The message that
God gives him. That's it. This message, this
is what's special. Here's what this message does
when God the Holy Spirit takes this message and he makes it
effectual to the hearts of his people. This is what it does.
It causes the walls to come down. Now I say that because of this.
Remember that story in Joshua 6 when Joshua took Jericho? Remember
I did it Lord said go around for six days. Here's what you
do You put the armed men up front and you put seven priests out
there behind them with seven rams horns That's that same horn
that was used in the Jubilee the rams horn and behind them
the Ark of the Covenant behind them the rearward the rear guard
and you march around that city that walled city of Jericho and
you blow that horn once and on the first day, once on the second
day, all the way through the sixth day. And on the seventh
day, the day of completion, the day of perfection, you march
around it seven times. And on that seventh time, they
blasted that horn, and the people shouted. And those walls of Jericho
came down, and the people took the city. That's exactly what
happens when the Lord makes his message effectual to a sinner.
The walls come down. The walls of natural rejection,
the walls of natural hatred, the walls of natural unbelief,
they all tear down and that man, that wicked sinner that would
not and could not believe the gospel does what he could not
and would not do before, he believes. He actually rests and he trusts
in Christ alone. And what is the message of that
one note horn? It's this, if you're a sinner,
Christ has made full atonement for your sins. It is finished. It's done. Enter into rest. That's it. That's the message.
Now, we've talked about when Jubilee
was ushered in. We talked about how it was ushered
in. Let's talk about the blessings
of Jubilee. Look down here at verse 11. A jubilee shall the fiftieth
year be unto you. Ye shall not sow, neither reap
that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes
in it of thy vine undressed. For it is a jubilee. It shall
be holy unto you. Ye shall eat the increase thereof
out of the field. The Jubilee, as I told you, was
a year of rest. This is the first blessing we
have of salvation. We have rest. Every believer
has rest. This was a Sabbath year. Now,
the Lord took the Sabbath very seriously. He commanded that
there was a one-day Sabbath for every week in the Old Testament
economy of worship. The seventh day, it was to be
a day of rest. No work was to be performed.
There was a once every seven years Sabbath, the seventh year.
of every cycle. The seventh year was a Sabbath
year, all year long, no work was to be performed, just rest.
And then we have this great year of Jubilee, the 50th year, once
again a Sabbath year, but especially restful. You want to know why?
Because you actually got two years rest out of this one. So
every 7th year, you had a Sabbath year. 7 times 7 is 49, which
means the 49th year was a Sabbath year, a year of rest, followed
by the 50th year, the year of jubilee. Two years, no work,
just complete and utter rest. That sounds good, doesn't it? What if you just got two years
off? Your employer said, I'm going to pay you. You're fine.
You're taken care of. You just get two solid years off. Sounds
utterly fantastic to me. Sounds great. What does it mean,
though, to rest in Christ? This is what Hebrews 4, verses
9 and 10 says. It said, There remaineth therefore
rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his
rest, he also has ceased from his own works as God did from
his. What does it mean to rest in
Christ? It's to cease from labor. to
stop working. I'm not trying to make my peace
with God. My peace with God has been made. It was made when the
Lord Jesus Christ hung his head and said, it is finished. I'm
not trying to keep the law. The law has been kept. The Lord
Jesus Christ kept the law. I kept it in him. I'm not bringing
anything to God. I bring absolutely nothing. You
should save me because I, you fill in that blank. You come
that way, that is the way to go to hell. That's the way right
there. We come with absolutely nothing. We stop working and
we simply rest. When he went to that cross, when
he bore our sins, when he died, when he was raised again, that's
my salvation. That's everything. That's what
it means to rest. And we get an instruction on
this in our text here. Look again at verse 11. It says,
a jubilee shall the fiftieth year be unto you. Ye shall not
sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor
gather the grapes of it of thy vine undressed. Now what does
he mean there? What is he saying? He's saying,
don't eat that which grows wild or naturally. Don't eat the natural
thing. What does he mean? Don't find
any comfort. Don't find any hope from anything
that comes from this old man and this old nature. It's a wicked
nature. It's a polluted nature. It's
a fouled nature. That means everything that comes
from me, the best I could possibly bring, it's polluted, it's fouled. Don't eat the natural things.
I bring nothing from me for the Lord. Don't eat that. Don't find
any confidence in that. Don't find any hope in that.
Find your hope right here in Christ and Him crucified alone. Don't eat that which is natural.
I want you to notice here why these people could rest and why
they could rest so easy. Look down at verse 20. And if ye shall say, what shall
we eat the seventh year? Behold, we shall not sow nor
gather in our increase. Then I will command my blessing
upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for
three years. Now this is how the Lord provided
for these people. Everything they needed to get
through that year of Jubilee and all the years that were affected
by this, it was all freely provided. Now the way their sowing and
harvesting schedule worked out, they were actually going to need
three full years of food out of this. That's how the sowing
and harvesting schedule worked out. To get through all this,
these years of rest, they would need three full years. And here's
what happened. In that last year before the
rest began, the Lord gave a great increase. A great increase. They
sowed for one year. That's all they were sowing for.
When they harvested, they harvested three full years worth. Miraculously,
out of nothing, the Lord gave this great increase. Before the
horn of Jubilee, that horn that commanded to rest, before that
horn was ever blown, they were given everything they needed
to live. What's my point in that? That's
the scripture right here. Hebrews 9 11 and 12 but pride
Christ being come and High priest of good things to come by a greater
and more perfect tabernacle not weighed with hands That is to
say not of this building neither by the blood of goats and calves,
but by his own blood He entered in once into the holy place having
obtained eternal redemption for us How long is eternity? It's always, it is now, before
there was ever a center. before any of his people had
ever committed one sin, before the call of rest ever came, all
the provisions have been provided. He is the lamb slain from the
foundation of the world. Christ has always been the acceptable
sacrifice to his father. Before man ever was, there was
an acceptable sacrifice for the elect of God. We have always
been safe and secure. And this is what a man finds
out when the Lord saves him in his experience. He finds out
he's been saved. The gospel is historical. It's
historical. It is simply documenting things
that have already happened, what has already happened. Every member
of the elect, their sins have been put away. The law has been
kept. They've kept it in Christ. They
are presently sanctified. They are presently just before
God. They are holy, they are unblameable,
and they are unapprovable in His sight. Everything is given
up front. We are not trusting someone who
is going to do something. We are trusting someone, the
God-man Jesus Christ, who has already completed all the work.
The storehouses are full. All provisions have been made.
Everything is done. There is nothing left for you
to do if you're a sinner. Now you just rest. That's it. And here's my final thought on
rest. This is something that Todd Nyberg said a couple Tuesday
nights ago here, and I was privileged enough to be here. I've been
sitting under him almost my entire life. I've never heard him say
this before. I'm going to paraphrase what he said. He said, it is
not our business to deal with things that have not been revealed.
It is only our business to deal on those things that have been
revealed. Now, according to this book,
before time began, God chose a people. God chose. That's so
important. Because he's God. If he didn't
choose, he'd cease to be God. God chose, the sovereign God
chose a people. His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ,
agreed to be their surety. And through His suretyship, all
those people are safe and secure in Christ. They are saved. That's the teaching of this book.
And the teaching of the book is this. That there is a book
in heaven. It's called the Lamb's Book of
Life. And the names of all those people, those chosen elect, are
written in that book. And that book has been from the
foundations of the world. It's a closed book. All the names
are in it. It's right there. And here's
the truth of the map. We have absolutely no access
to that book. Is there evidence that a man
is the elect of God? Absolutely. It's faith in Christ.
If right now your hope is in Christ and Him crucified alone,
have no fear. You are in fact elect. But I
don't have access to that book. That hasn't been revealed. I
can't see that. What has been revealed? Because that's what
I'm to deal with. This is what's been revealed in reference to
rest. Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and
I will give you rest. This is Christ speaking. Take
my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in
heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls, for my yoke
is easy and my burden is light. That's what's been revealed.
Are you labored? It means to be labored, it means
to be wore out. I've tried. I've tried to please
God. I can't. I've tried to keep the law. I can't. I've tried
to do something about my sin. I can't. I can't. I can't do
anything about it. All that work, all that toil,
I haven't moved an inch closer to God. If anything, I've moved
away. That's it. I'm wore out. Worked and can't
accomplish. Come to Christ. Heavy laden,
what does that mean? It means you got a big burden
on your back. A pack full of sin weighing you down like a
millstone around your neck. You can't do anything about it.
I can't do anything about my sin. I can't justify myself before
God. Here's what's been revealed.
If you're labored and you're heavy laden, you come to Christ,
you believe on him, you rest in him, and he says this, you
take my burden upon you. What's his burden? His burden
is nothing. The only thing he requires is
this. that you do nothing, that you
do absolutely nothing and you rest. And even that, that ability
to rest, He freely provides that too. That's what's been revealed
and that's what you and I are to deal on. If you are burdened,
heavy laden, labored, you are commanded to come to Christ right
now to believe on Him and rest upon Him. Now, what other blessings
came with the Jubilee? Look at verse 13. In the year of this Jubilee,
you shall return every man unto his possession. Now, we've touched
on this a couple different times. If a man fell on hard times,
he became poor. He had to sell off part of his
possessions. He'd sell it off to his neighbor. When that jubilee
horn went out, that strong blast went out, everything he had sold
off, it was returned to him. He got everything back. He was
fully and utterly restored. Now listen to this. This is David
speaking, but he's speaking in the Messianic. This is Psalm
69, 4. It says, they that hate me without a cause are more than
the hairs of mine head. They that would destroy me, being
mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty. Listen to this. Then
I restored that which I took not away. Full restoration. Christ says, I restored that
which I did not take away. What happened in the garden?
Adam sinned against God, and when he did, he died. He died
spiritually, and he became wicked. He lost that upright and innocent
nature, and he took on a sinful, evil nature. And everybody who
was in him, they inherited that nature, too. All of humanity. And whose fault is that? Whose
fault is that? Well, it says right here, the
Lord says, I restored that which I did not take away. Now what
happened in the garden? Did it happen according to the
purpose and the will of God? Absolutely. Folks, he's either
God or he's not. He's either absolutely sovereign
and absolutely omnipotent or he is not. Either his purposes
are all coming about and they all come about or they don't.
Or something can happen outside his control. Nothing happens
outside his control. The cross was not for the fall.
The fall was for the cross. that the great glory of our Lord
Jesus Christ would be achieved. Make no mistake about that. That
happened. What happened in the garden happened
according to the purpose and the will of God. But who's at
fault? The Lord says, I didn't take
it away. Adam's at fault. And you know what that means?
That means you and I are at fault. Who's Adam? What's Adam's place
in this whole thing? Adam was the house that housed
all of humanity. Adam is humanity acting in union. Every one of us, we're in Adam.
We're all in the loins of Adam. You want to see what happens
when humanity gets together and makes a decision. It's this.
We will not have this man to reign over us. We want independence
from God. We're going to eat that fruit.
So if I'm looking for someone to blame for the sinful state
that I was born into, I have to look no further than right
here, because I made that decision. I sinned against God. But Christ
says this for his people. I've restored them. completely
and utterly restored. Everything that Adam had, full
communion with God, full friendship with God. He could walk in the
presence of God without fear, having full acceptance. Adam
had all that, but we have it so much better, and it's for
this reason. Adam's blessedness with God was conditional. He
had a rule, he had a law, do not eat that fruit. His blessedness
with God was based on the condition that he keep that law. That he
cease not eating that fruit. He keeps from eating the fruit.
If he wanted to stay in that blessed state, he had to keep
that law. Well, any covenant that is made
between God and man, and man has to keep up his end of the
bargain, always ends the same way, with failure. But we have
it so much better, been restored to a so much better state because
this status of acceptance every believer has with God in Christ. It is unconditional in the sense,
it's not conditioned on us at all. It is completely and utterly
conditioned upon Christ's obedience, not mine. That means it's all
up to Him, and He was completely and utterly obedient. That means
this status between God and His people, the status of peace,
the status of blessedness, it never changes. This is never
going to go away. It's immutable. It is eternity, just like this. Now, let's look at the final
blessing of Jubilee. Look at verse 39. And if thy brother that dwelleth
by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not
compel him to serve as a bondservant, but as a hired servant. And as
a sojourner, he shall be with thee, and shall serve thee under
the year of Jubilee. And then shall he deport from
thee, both he and his children with him, and shall return unto
his family, and unto the possession of his fathers shall he return. Now, this may be the lowest of
all impoverished and destitute states. A man becomes so destitute
that he actually has to sell himself. He's got to sell himself
into bondage, into servitude in another man's house just so
he can pay off his debts, just so he can feed his family, just
so he can put some food on the table. This is the lowest of all impoverished
states. But when the jubilee horn was
sounded, when that 50th year came in, that man was free. He was set at complete and utter
liberty. And this is how serious this
was. If you notice what it said here in verse 41, it says, and
then shall he depart from thee. This was not optional. It didn't
matter whether this servant had a good relationship with his
master and he wanted to stick around and they'd struck a deal. It
didn't matter. God commanded there had to be
liberty. There had to be freedom. You
have to return to your family. You have to be free. You have
to be free. There's no ifs, ands, or buts
about it. Why does the Lord make such a
big deal about this thing of liberty? Because He does. In Jeremiah 34, King
Zedekiah attempted to institute this thing. He attempted to institute
the freeing of all the Israel bond servants. He made a covenant
with them. And he did this under duress, and he was probably trying
to manipulate God when he did this. But he tried to do it.
And he went to all the masters, all the princes. He said, you've
got to let all your bond servants go. Let them all go free, for sediment
and liberty. And so they did. They let them all go. And as
soon as they let them go, you know what happened? I don't have
anybody to serve me anymore. I've got nobody to till my fields.
I got nobody working in the woodshop. They went back out, and they
got all those servants back together, and they put them all in bondage
again. And here's what the Lord said to them. This is what he
said to these people. Therefore, thus saith the Lord, you have
not hearkened unto me in proclaiming liberty. Everyone to his brother
and every man to his neighbor, behold, I proclaim a liberty
for you. I'm going to give you up to something,
to the sword. to the pestilence, and to the
famine, and I will make you to be removed into all the kingdoms
of the earth. How serious does our Lord take
this issue of liberty? Sounds like it's pretty serious
to me. Why? Why is this issue of liberty
so important? Because of the atonement of our
Lord Jesus Christ, every believer, every member of the elect, we
are at complete and utter liberty. We have complete and utter freedom. There is no bondage of the law
whatsoever. And this is why it's so important.
If you add just one ounce, one droplet of bondage to this message,
this message of free and sovereign grace, salvation freely accomplished
in Christ, you add just an ounce of bondage to that, you've ruined
the entire message, no one will be saved, and Christ is dishonored.
Christ there is complete and utter freedom and liberty listen
to these scriptures. This is Romans 7 4 Wherefore
my brethren ye also are become dead to the law by the body of
Christ Now if you'd like to have an interesting conversation with
someone find your local police officer Walk up to and ask him
how much time he spends patrolling a graveyard to see if the corpses
are acting up. I He's going to look at you kind
of funny, but I know what his answer is going to be. None. The law is not concerned
with them. Their time spent under the law
is over. Folks, if you're a believer,
you're dead to the law. Your time spent under the law
is over. The law has already rendered
its judgment. This is the judgment. Righteous. Perfect. I've been kept. I can require absolutely nothing
more. Your time under the law is over. It was over when Christ
kept the law. He kept it. You kept it in him.
The law was completely and utterly satisfied, and now you're dead
to the law. It has nothing to say to you. Your time under the
law is over. Now listen to this scripture.
This is Romans 611. Paul says, likewise, reckon ye
also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin. The only way I can
be reckoned dead to sin is if I am actually dead to sin. What does it mean to be dead
to sin? I don't have any. I have absolutely no sin. This is the work of our Lord
Jesus Christ. This is this great work of atonement. I really don't
have any sin. Every member of the elect, every
believer has no sin. Completely contrary to our experience. Completely and utterly contrary.
Sin seems real, lively in me. Sin shall not have dominion over
you. Sure feels like it does. Sure feels like it does. What
about the sins of tomorrow? What about the sins I haven't
even committed yet? Hebrews 9.12, he entered in once
into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption. Even the
sins of tomorrow, they're put away. They're gone. They're gone
before the foundations of the earth were ever built. What liberty
we have in Christ. What sin? It's gone. What does
the law have to say? It has nothing to say. We're
dead to it. Our time under the law is over. Now, rest. Rest in Christ and do what you
want to do. And people get squeamish when
you say that. Say, it makes me uncomfortable. It doesn't make
me uncomfortable at all. Believe Him, rest in Christ, and do what
you want to do. You have complete and utter liberty
in Christ. Somebody said, that's going to
lead men to using this as a license to sin. It didn't in Bartimaeus.
The Lord gave that man sight, and he said, go thy way. Your
faith hath made you whole. Do whatever you want. Your sins
are forgiven. You kept the law. You have complete
sight. Do whatever it is you want to do. What did Barmaes
do? He followed Jesus in the way.
When the Lord sets a man free, sets him free of his captivity,
what does he do? He just spends the rest of his
life coming back to Christ. Just coming back, coming back, coming
back for grace. Coming back for mercy. Coming
back for rest. He just keeps on coming back. Complete and
utter liberty. And I want to be so clear about
that because the Lord makes a big deal about this. How much liberty
do you have? You have complete and utter liberty.
You're free. You lack nothing. Now I conclude with this. It's
an interesting fact. How many times do you think we
have a record in the scripture of the year of Jubilee actually
being observed? None. Not once. Not once in the scripture do
we have a record of the children of Israel ever actually observing
this year of Jubilee. Now why do you think that is?
Because there were a whole lot of people who thought they had
a whole lot to lose if the Jubilee came in. If you just bought a
bunch of property, you owned a bunch of servants, you had
a whole bunch of stuff people owed you money, in the year of
Jubilee, that was all gone. All the possessions went back,
all the servants went back, all the debts were canceled. Whole
bunch of people in power who thought they had a whole lot
to lose by this year of Jubilee. I suspect that's why it was never
actually put in place. Who's the only person that would
have loved this Jubilee trumpet? was a man who was in bondage,
a man who was destitute, who had lost everything, and was
completely and utterly forsaken. That man longed to hear the jubilee
trumpet. Now, if you are that man or that
woman, completely and utterly destitute by sin before God,
I tell you right now, today, right now, it's jubilee. Christ
has put away your sin. You have complete and utter liberty
in him. You've been restored, absolutely
restored. Everything we lost and added,
it's been restored to you. You have it so much better. And
now, this is your only commandment, this is it, that you rest. You
cease from your work, and you simply rest, and you trust Christ.
Amen.