Today is Independence Day, 4th
of July, and this is when we celebrate our nation's independence
from Great Britain in 1776. One year around this time, it
was either the 4th of July or right around the 4th of July,
I knew there would be lots of flags flying, so I preached a
message on Jehovah Nissi, the Lord our banner. This week, all
week, all I've been thinking about is the subject of liberty. I think Brother Ravi and I are
thinking along the same lines. I actually have that passage
he read in my notes. If the Son shall make you free,
you shall be free indeed. That's the liberty that I'm talking
about. God's blessed us to live in a
country where we have liberty. If there's ever people who God
should hold to greater accountability, it's the citizens of the United
States of America. Because we don't have to hide
under cover of darkness to worship God. We don't have to hide for
fear of death. We have liberty. We have freedom
of religion. Use that liberty to search the
scriptures. Use that freedom to come and
hear the gospel preached. Don't take it for granted. There's
countries that do not have this liberty. They're not given this
liberty. There's some countries on that
sermon audio report that if they were caught listening to those
messages, they could be killed. It's a privilege that God's given
us to be in a country where we have liberty. Liberty. But I want to talk to you tonight
about the liberty that Christ gives us. If the Son shall make
you free, you shall be free indeed. This is a spiritual liberty. This is a liberty that's even
greater, far greater than even the liberty we have as citizens
of this nation. Let's read here again in verse
8. He says, Thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto
thee, seven times seven years, and the space of seven sabbaths
of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. In other words,
forty-nine years. And 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 you make the trumpet sound
throughout all your land. And you shall hallow the fiftieth
year and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants
thereof. It shall be a jubilee unto you.
Now listen to this, and you shall return every man unto his possession. All debts forgiven, all possessions
returned to the rightful owner. He says, and you shall return every man
unto his family. Every man that had sold himself
to be a slave, he was so indebted he had to sell himself, he'll
be returned to his family. A jubilee shall that fiftieth
year be unto you, and you shall not sow, neither reap that which
groweth of itself, in it during that year. Nor gather the grapes
in that year of thy vine undressed, for it's the jubilee, the whole
year long. It shall be holy unto you. You
shall eat the increase thereof out of the field." That means
that which God provided. He says, in the year of this
jubilee, you shall return every man unto his possession. And
if thou sell aught unto thy neighbor, or buyest aught of thy neighbor's
hand, ye shall not oppress one another. According to the number
of years after the jubilee, thou shalt buy of thy neighbor, and
according unto the number of the years of the fruits, or of
the jubilee, he shall sell unto thee. In other words, the jubilee,
the year of jubilee, how close you are to it or how far you
are from it, that's going to determine how you set your prices
on what you sell. Everything's going to revolve
around this year of jubilee. He says, according to the multitude
of years, thou shalt increase the price thereof, that is, if
there's a lot of years to go, and according to the fewness
of years, if it's just next year or the next, you'll diminish
the price for your goods. For according to the number of
the years of the fruits that they sell unto thee, you shall
not therefore oppress one another, but thou shalt fear thy God,
for I am the Lord your God. We'll stop right there. Basically
what this is telling us is every 50th year, the year of Jubilee
meant an entire new beginning for the children of Israel. The
slate was wiped clean. If they were in debt, that debt
was wiped away. If they had sold their possessions
because they were in debt, they got all their possessions back.
They had given up their inheritance, they got it back. Their land,
their goods, whatever, they got it all back. And this one that
had sold himself into debt and slavery, he got to go home. It was a new year. Everything
was new. And all the debt was gone. And
everything was starting from fresh. Now that is a picture
of salvation by the Lord Jesus Christ. In 2 Corinthians 5.17,
now listen carefully, this sums up the whole year of Jubilee.
2 Corinthians 5.17 says, if any man be in Christ, he is a new
creation. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become
new. It's a brand new beginning. When
you're called to faith in Christ, in Christ Jesus, all things are
new. All the old things, everything
that we were is passed away. In Christ, all things are new. That's the picture in the Jubilee. I want to show you three things.
I want to show you first of all the way the Jubilee was proclaimed. And then secondly, I want us
to see here the day, the specific day that it began. And then thirdly,
the blessings of the Jubilee. Now first of all, how was this
jubilee proclaimed? How did people get the news that
the jubilee had begun? There were people that lived
all throughout Israel and some didn't live right there in Jerusalem.
They were scattered about throughout the land. How are they going
to find out the jubilee has begun? He says there in verse 9, Then
shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound. And
He says at the end of that verse, He says, "...and make the trumpet
sound throughout all your land." Jubilee was proclaimed by the
blowing of a trumpet, a ram's horn. They blew this horn. It
had a specific sound so when anybody heard it, they knew that's
the trumpet of Jubilee. That's the trumpet of Jubilee.
And this pictures the preaching of the gospel of Christ. It pictures
what we're doing right here, right now. In Isaiah 27, if you
want to look there with me, Isaiah 27, our Lord said, speaking of
the day in which we live, Isaiah 27, verse 13, He says, It shall
come to pass in that day that the great trumpet shall be blown
and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of
Assyria and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, talking about
his people scattered throughout the world, and they shall worship
the Lord in the holy mount at Jerusalem. That holy mount at
Jerusalem, you know, is spiritually that's Christ seated at God's
right hand in heavenly Jerusalem. He's saying there's going to
be a trumpet blown and my people scattered throughout the world
are going to come to Christ and they're going to worship him.
seated at God's right hand. That trumpet is the gospel. He said in Jeremiah 6.17, I set
watchmen over you. That is preachers. And he says,
hearken to the sound of the trumpet. Hearken to the sound of the trumpet.
Now I want to show you something. I want you to turn with me to
Luke chapter 4. Now, the trumpet is blown by
the Lord's preachers, but the prophet The chief shepherd, the
bishop of our souls is the Lord Jesus Christ. The first public
message that we have recorded that our Lord preached is found
right here in Luke 4 and he's preaching from Isaiah and he
says this, In Luke 4 it says, he came to Nazareth, verse 17. Let's start there. There was delivered to him the
book of the prophet Isaiah. He's in the synagogue and they
call on him to read. And they brought him the book
of Isaiah. And when he had opened the book, he found the place
where it was written. And this is from Isaiah, this
is what he reads. The spirit of the Lord is upon
me. Because He, the Lord, this is
Christ speaking, He is speaking of God His Father, He hath anointed
me to preach the gospel to the poor. He hath sent me to heal
the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives,
that is liberty to those that are bound. He sent me to preach
deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable
year of the Lord. That acceptable year of the Lord?
That's the year of Jubilee. That's what it's called. The
acceptable year of the Lord. The year the Lord accepts His
people. That's what he said, I came to
preach. I came to preach the gospel. That's what he's saying.
Now watch this. And he closed the book and he
gave it again to the minister and he sat down and the eyes
of all of them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him
and he began to say unto them, this day is this scripture fulfilled
in your ears. He said, in other words, I'm
the one that scripture was speaking about. The Lord Jesus Christ. He is The prophet. Now, he went about preaching
the gospel. Here's the thing. God gave him
the preeminence. God gave him the glory to do
the work of the gospel. To redeem his people and save
his people. He gave him the glory of being
the gospel. He is himself the good news.
And he gave him the glory of preaching the gospel. And just
as real as Christ preached that day in that synagogue. Scripture
teaches us just as real as He preached that day in that synagogue,
wherever Christ's gospel is being preached, where there's a preacher
He has sent, not every preacher, but the preacher He has sent,
Christ is preaching through that preacher as real as He stood
there in that synagogue that day and preached. And He's the
one that makes it effectual in our hearts through the Spirit.
He's the one that does that. Paul said, speaking of preachers,
he said, we have this treasury, this treasure, this gospel in
earthen vessels. That's all a preacher is. He's
just an earthen vessel. He's a clay pot. That's what
it means. He said, we have it in these
worthless, useless, powerless earthen vessels that the excellency
of the power may be of God and not of us. I can preach to you,
I can blow this jubilee trumpet, but I can't make you hear it
with spiritual ears. I can't make you understand it
with spiritual understanding. And I can't make you believe
on Christ, but He can. And when this gospel is being
preached, Christ is preaching and Christ is the one who makes
His people hear it and believe it. And it takes Christ doing
that before we can hear it and believe it. As Paul said in 1
Corinthians chapter 2, the natural man receiveth not the things
of the Spirit of God. The natural man, the way we come
into this world, we don't receive the things of the Spirit of God.
They're foolishness to us. They have to be revealed by the
Holy Spirit of God. And Christ is the one that does
this through the preaching of the Gospel. Notice here that
in our text, now back there in Leviticus 25, this trumpet was
to be blown throughout all the land. Not just in some part,
but throughout all the land they were to blow this jubilee trumpet.
Listen to what Christ told us in Mark 16, 15. He said, Go ye
into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
Go preach the gospel to everybody. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. He that believeth not shall be
damned. This is why we spend the money to put the messages
on the internet. This is why we support our missionaries
preaching in other parts of the world. This is why you send me
all over the place preaching the gospel. Because Christ told
us, blow this jubilee trumpet all over the world. Preach it
everywhere. It's not our job to worry about
What comes of it? We can't control what comes of
it. He can, we can't. Our responsibility that he's
given us is you just blow the trumpet. We're just to preach
the gospel. That's it. People will want to
say how do you know if they had a successful ministry? And people
will start talking about how many people were saved or what
have you. That's not what makes a successful ministry. Did he
preach Christ and him crucified according to this book? That's
it. That's what he says to do. And also, this Jubilee trumpet
typified something else. It typified the trumpet that
shall be blown at the last day when Christ returns and delivers
us from this world entirely. Listen to this, if you want to
turn there, it's 1 Corinthians 15 verse 51. 1 Corinthians 15 verse 51, Paul
says, Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we
shall all be changed. Speaking of believers, he says,
In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump,
for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised
incorruptible, and we shall be changed. This corruption is going
to put on incorruption. This mortality is going to put
on immortality. Verse 54 says, Then shall be
brought to pass the saying that's written, Death is swallowed up
in victory. So, this Jubilee trumpet pictures
the preaching of the gospel of Christ. through which Christ
saves his people and it also pictures that last trumpet when
Christ returns and carries us home. Now secondly, I want you
to see the day on which this jubilee began. Go back to Leviticus
25, look at verse 9. He says in the second half of
it, In the day of atonement you shall make the trumpet sound
throughout all your land. in the day of atonement. So it's
only after the Passover lamb was slain and the blood was applied
to the mercy seat and ceremonial atonement was made, only after
that was this jubilee trumpet sounded and this jubilee began.
Only after atonement was made in the ceremony, in tithe. Now
God declares by this. What's He teaching you and me
by this? He's showing us that all the blessings of God come
to God's chosen Israel only, only through the atonement accomplished
by Jesus Christ the Lord. Only by the atonement accomplished
by Jesus Christ, our Passover. Before God can do something for
you and me, God's got to do something for Himself. God has got to honor
His holy character by honoring His holy law. Now, did you get
that? This is the gospel. This is critical. This is key. This is why Christ,
the Son of God, was sent forth into the world. God must honor
His holy character. God's holy. And He must honor
His holiness. His holy character demands this,
that He must honor His holy law. His holy law. Atonement means
two parties who were once enemies have now been reconciled as friends. That's what atonement means.
Brother Moose was here and he told you the at-one-ment. It means we've been brought two
parties that were enemies have been brought together now they're
at-one-ment. their atonement has been made.
That's what Christ was sent to do. Atonement required that Christ
be without sin. He had to be a man. He had to come. That's why the
Son of God whose spirit took flesh. He had to be a man. He
had to be a sinless man. He was born of a virgin because
if he was born of a man, he would be a sinner like you and me.
He was sinless. He had to be a sinless man. That's
what was pictured in the old covenant picture in the ceremony
with the lamb being spotless. That's why the lamb had to be
spotless. Atonement, in order for it to be made, it required
that Christ bear the sins of His people. That spotless lamb
that was brought was not slain. They didn't bring a spotless
lamb and then slay the lamb. Something had to be done first.
They brought that spotless lamb and the preacher laid his hands
on the head of that lamb and ceremonially and picture and
type, he transferred the sins of all of Israel onto that lamb. So now that lamb is bearing all
the sins of the children of Israel. That's a picture of Christ who
was made sin for His people. The spotless, holy, sinless Lord
Jesus Christ presented Himself to God the Father in the Garden
of Gethsemane and somewhere between there and the cross, I don't
know where, but somewhere between there and the cross somehow the
Lord made Him sin for us. So that He bore the sins of His
people when He went to the cross. That was required to make atonement.
And then for atonement to be made, it was required that Christ
die in the place of His people to satisfy divine justice. That
was pictured now that the sins of the people had been put on
the Lamb. Now the Lamb was slain. Then it was slain and it died. And that Lamb dying, God regarded
it as all the children of Israel dying. just in ceremony. It was
just to teach us a picture, show us a lesson. And it is that when
Christ died on Calvary's cross, when He laid down His life on
the cross, that was God's holy justice being poured out on Him,
slaying Him, crucifying Him, And when that happened, God said
all of His people, all of His elect that Christ died for, died. They all died. You can read Romans
6 and it tells us that our old man of sin was crucified in Christ. When Christ died, the sinner
that you were born being died. That sinner that I was born being
died. If you're a child of God, if
you're one of His chosen people, You died at Calvary under God's
law, under God's justice. This is why we don't preach universal
redemption. This is why we don't preach universal
atonement. It's because Christ actually
did accomplish something at the cross. He died for a particular
people with the sins of a particular people put on Him so that He
was answering to justice for a particular people. And when
He died, Those people died in Him. All of those people died
in Him when He died. Why is that important? We're
talking about God's holy character. We're talking about God's holy
law. If Christ had died for everybody in this world without exception,
then at the cross everybody died without exception. That means
God has to save everybody. He has to give everybody faith
and they all have to go to heaven because if one perishes now,
that's double jeopardy. That's God pouring out justice
at the cross and then turning around and pouring out justice
again on somebody. You see why we preach limited
atonement? It's limited only in this sense that Christ died
for a particular people. and He accomplished their redemption.
He really put away our sin. So that everybody for whom He
represented, they died when Christ died. If you go back and you
read the ceremony back in the Old Covenant, picture this. The
Lamb didn't die for all the nations around Israel. The Lamb died
for just the children of Israel. That's it. There was a bunch
of nations around Israel. The Lamb died only for the children
of Israel. Christ died only for God's Israel. I don't know who they are. We
preach this gospel. Those that are not God's Israel
say, I hate the message, I'm not going to hear it. They reject
it. And so do those who are God's Israel. They reject it the same
way. But God comes and speaks into
their heart and gives them a new heart, a new nature. Right beside
that old nature, they have a new nature now. And in that new nature,
He brings them to believe on Christ. But you see this atonement,
it required then that high priest took the blood of that lamb and
he went by himself into the holiest of holies and sprinkled the blood
on the mercy seat. Christ, Scripture tells us, entered
into the presence of God by himself with his own blood, having accomplished
eternal redemption for us. He accomplished it. Now, all
that has to be done is to call out these people that Christ
died for. That's what's going on now. I
know this is the gospel, so real. I know it so much. I know this
is the gospel and I'm willing to bank my whole soul on this. And I wouldn't tell you this,
I'm going to have to stand before God and answer to what I preach.
I'm going to have to stand before God and answer to what I'm saying.
Every word I'm going to give account of to God. If I spoke
truth or I spoke a lie, that's serious to me. I'm not going
to tell you something that's not according to this word. And what I'm telling you is so.
Ephesians 1 says, God the Father blessed us with all spiritual
blessings according as he chose us in Christ Jesus before the
foundation of the world. He chose us in Christ and right
then and there He blessed us with all blessings because Christ
agreed to do all the work. Christ gave the law everything
the law demanded in obedience and in death. So His people have
been redeemed. Atonement has been made. So all
these blessings that are given now in this Jubilee, they're
given through the blood of that Lamb, through the blood of Christ.
And it tells us that every blessing God has for His people are given
only to us through the atonement Christ has accomplished for us.
That's why this Jubilee comes to us, because He's accomplished
it. All right? Now, lastly, I want
you to see the blessings that were given on this year of Jubilee. This is the blessings given to
God's people through the preaching of the Gospel. First of all,
liberty. Liberty. Leviticus 25.10, he
says, you shall hallow the 50th year, you sanctify it, you consider
it to be holy, he says, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land
unto all the inhabitants thereof. It shall be a jubilee unto you.
The only people in that land was the children of Israel. And
that's who this jubilee trumpet was going to, the children of
Israel. And He says, and to all of them proclaim liberty. I'm here preaching and I pray
God's Holy Spirit makes you take sides with God against yourself
so that you're one that He accomplishes liberty for. Each man who sold
himself into slavery. Now get the picture here. You
have all these men in Israel. They sold themselves into slavery.
And so due to their debts, they had all this debt and they were
in bondage because of it. Now all their debts cleared. Completely cleared. And they're
set free. It would be like if you got giant
credit card bills or you got your mortgage and whatever else
you owe, just a horn blow, a trumpet blows, and you know what that
trumpet means. It means today all your debts
are covered. They're just taken off the books.
You don't owe anybody anything. And if you were in prison because
of your debt, the door swings open and you walk out. You're
a free man. Liberty. You got liberty. Well
listen, by giving the law perfect obedience, and by giving the
law the perfect justice it demands, Christ freed all His people. He procured this for His people. He made it so that the law says,
You've given me everything I demand. Everything the law demands, Christ
gave it for His people, including positive obedience and the negative
obedience of death. He gave it all. So, all the debts
of His people are gone. Completely gone. That's why we
just sang, Jesus paid it all. All the debt I owe. Sin had left
a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow. I
changed the song to O for a Thousand Tongues for this lyric right
here. O for a Thousand Tongues to sing my great Redeemer's praise,
the glories of my God and King, the triumphs of His grace. Listen
to this. He breaks the power of cancelled sin. He cancelled
it way back there on the cross. And then He comes to you and
He breaks His power over you by regenerating you and giving
you faith to believe Him. He breaks the power of cancelled
sin and sets the prisoners free. His blood can make the foulest
clean, His blood availed for me. Now what does Scripture tell
us? Galatians 5.1, if you want to go there and read it. Galatians
5.1 says this, Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ
hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke
of bondage. Behold, I, Paul, say unto you,
that if you be circumcised, and let me tell you, right there
for that word circumcised, whatever anybody tells you has to be done. They may say, yeah, you can believe
on Christ, and yeah, He freed His people, and yeah, your debts
are covered, but now you've got to be baptized. or you have to
attend church every week, or you have to keep the law, or
anything they put there. I don't care what it is, anything
they put there. Paul says, if there's something
else you have to do, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify
again to every man that's circumcised, if you think there's one thing
for you to do, guess what? You're a debtor to do the whole
law. If a man says you must do this or you can't be safe, Paul
said you have to go back and keep the whole law yourself.
And we can't do that. It's impossible. Christ has become
of no effect unto you, whosoever you are justified by the law,
you are fallen from grace. So, if you've heard the jubilee
trumpet, if Christ has made you hear this, and He said, you're
free now, I've saved you from that bondage of the law. The
Lord says, now don't go back and get tangled up in it again.
Don't go back and entangle yourself. Don't try to put yourself back
in debt. That's what He's saying. So that's the first blessing.
The second blessing is restitution. He says in Leviticus 25.10, and
you shall return every man unto his possession. He says it again
in verse 13. In the year of this jubilee you
shall return every man unto his possession. Whatever land, whatever
possessions, whatever it was that a man had sold or mortgaged
trying to get himself out of debt, every bit of it was restored
back to him. Every bit of it was given to
him again. Christ said this in Psalm 69
verse 4, Christ said, I restored that which I took not away. We're
the ones who did the sinning, we're the ones who got ourselves
into debt and lost everything. And Christ said, I restored everything
for my people and I'm not even the one that took it away. And
we remained and He restored more than we lost in Adam. You know,
if Adam had never sinned in the garden, there would always have
been a possibility he would have. If you and I had been born in
Adam's state, there would always be the possibility that we could
sin and fall. But Christ is eternal. He's the
God-man and by what He accomplished, all that He accomplished is eternal. So we can never fall and He'll
never lose one. He restored more than we lost.
We came out better by the fall than what we had before the fall. We ended up with more after than
we had before by what Christ has done. And then look at this,
they were united with their family. Leviticus 25.10, it says there
at the end, and you shall return every man
unto his family. Now you just imagine this man,
he sold himself into debt and he sold his possessions, he mortgaged
everything he had trying to get out of debt. Finally, he had
to sell himself into slavery basically to become a servant
to just work off his debt. And he couldn't leave. He had
to do that. He had to stay with that landowner until that debt
was paid. He couldn't leave. But on the
50th year, when that trumpet's blown, he gets to go home to
his family. Christ, by what he's done, every
believer is united with our eternal family. Our brothers and sisters
in Christ will always be our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Listen to what Christ told Peter. Jesus answered and he said, Verily
I say unto you, there is no man that hath left house, or brethren,
or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands
for my sake and for the gospel's sake, but he shall receive a
hundredfold. Now in this time, houses and
brethren and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions
and in the world to come eternal life." What's he saying? Before Christ saved me and before
he brought me to confess Christ publicly, I couldn't have went across this
country and just stopped and stayed for free anywhere because
I didn't know that many people. But now that Christ has called
me and saved me, I could leave here tomorrow and drive across
this country and I could keep gas in my tank and a place to
lay my head at night and food in my belly and a roof over my
head the whole way because of brothers and sisters in Christ
and fathers and mothers in Christ, fellow believers. That's what
He means. And in the life to come, eternal
life. And then they got rest with assurance
of full provision and safety. Look here in verse 11. He said,
ìYou shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself
through this whole year.î And He said to them in verse 18,
ìYou are going to dwell in the land in safety. The land is going
to yield her fruit.î He said, ìYou shall eat your fill and
dwell therein in safety.î and he tells them how it's going
to be. Verse 21, I will command my blessing upon you. He's talking
here about the 7th year Sabbath, but it was the same for the 50th
year Sabbath. He said, I'll command my blessing
upon you in the 6th year and it shall bring forth fruit for
three years. So you're going to sow the 8th
year and eat of the old fruit until the 9th year, until the
fruits come in, you'll eat of the old store. In other words,
God gave them the promise He would provide them enough in
the year prior to the Sabbath year that they would have plenty
in store to just eat what they had saved up all the way till
they planted and that next harvest came in after that 50th year. You know what he said? That whole
time they would be provided for. We obey God this way. It says there, if you keep my
statutes and my judgments, we obey God by believing on His
Son. Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ,
how you obey God. And believing on Him, the whole
law is fulfilled, everything is done. And believing on Christ,
God says He is going to fully provide and give us safety. Believing God is rest. Think about it. Believing God
is rest. Believing on Christ, we rest
from all our works for acceptance with God. We're not trying to
be accepted with God. We're not trying to be righteous or holy.
Believing on Christ, we rest from all those vain works. Believing
on Christ, we rest knowing God has and shall provide all spiritual
blessings so that we're provided for. Believing on Christ, we
know He's going to provide all temporal blessings for us. No
matter how bad it may look, He's going to provide everything you
need in this life that's a lot lesser than what He's already
provided in Christ. And so, believing on Christ,
we have rest. He said, I'm going to give you
safety. Christ is a bulwark, never ceasing. The Lord's a strong
tower. Believers running to Him are
safe, Scripture said. And so, believing on Christ,
We have rest. And those who can rest, that's
those who believe God. Those who can rest in the face
of tribulation and trial, rest in Christ. He's promised us.
You think about them. You know, there they were. It
came time to sow, I mean to start tilling the ground and they didn't
till the ground. And their neighbors were looking at them going, what
are y'all going to eat? And they said, we believe God.
And they didn't plant anything. And when everybody else was harvesting
their food, they're not out working in the field. But they had plenty
to eat. Why? They believed God. And God
provided. And that's what he's saying here. You believe on Christ, He's going
to provide everything you need for acceptance with God. And
that gives you great, great rest. Great rest. And then look at
this next thing. They had brotherly love. Brotherly
love. He says in verse 14, If you sell
all unto your neighbor, he buys all of your hand, you shall not
oppress one another. And he says in verse 35, If your
brother be waxen poor, then you strengthen him, he said, and
don't take any usury from him. Don't try to charge him interest.
Don't try to make money off your poor brother, is what he said.
Fear thy God, that thy brother may live with thee. And then
look at this now, look at verse 15. According to the number of
the years after the Jubilee shalt thou buy of thy neighbor, and
according to the number of years of the fruits he shall sell unto
thee. If there's a multitude of years, you'll increase the
price. If there's a few years, you'll diminish the price. So
that's how they regulated their prices. Now let's put all this
together spiritually. The year of Jubilee reminded
everybody who was buying and selling that the land belonged
to God. It didn't belong to them. He
said there at the end of that chapter, he said, I gave you
this land. I brought you forth out of Egypt
and I gave you this land. And they were constantly reminded.
They didn't own it. They just were temporarily living
on it. God owned it. they determine all their prices
and what they are buying and selling based on the year of
jubilee. They were constantly looking
to this year of jubilee because when the year of jubilee came,
whatever contracts they had, they ripped them up. And so if
there is a lot of years to the jubilee and you are entering
into a contract with Smythe, it is going to cost you more.
But if there is just a few years, it is going to cost less. Because
when the jubilee comes, it is all over. So they're constantly
looking at the Jubilee. Now here's the lesson. What does
that have to do with brotherly love? What does it have to do with
not oppressing and forgiving and relieving your poor brother,
strengthening your poor brother? What does it have to do with
that? Brotherly love is regulated and motivated by remembering
that everything we have, we receive from God. Nothing is ours. Everything we have, we got it
from God. He gave it. If we value all the things that
we have, material things, in light of Christ and His sacrifice
for us, just like they were constantly looking at that year of Jubilee
to determine what things were worth, what their value was.
If we're constantly looking at Christ and what He's done for
us, that will help you determine the value of your stuff. in your
temporal things. Want it? And if you, all your
business, their business between the children of Israel, it was
all conducted with this eye to the year of Jubilee. Now, if
we value everything in light of eternity, that makes all this
stuff not so valuable, does it? Doesn't it? It means we ought
to really be hanging on to everything pretty loosely. So if my brother
needs something, Makes it pretty easy to, here, take it. Same
one that gave this to me, he'll give me more. You get that? That's what keeps you from oppression
and feeling like, well, now I'll give this to you, but now you
have to give me three back. Where does that come from? Not
trusting God. That's a man thinking, this money
is my salvation. That's not my salvation. It's
not your salvation. You view things in light of Christ
and in light of eternity, And we'll hold on to these things,
these temporal things lightly and we'll use them for the furtherance
of the gospel and for the help of our brethren. And that's what
he's teaching us here. Then we'll value our brethren
over money and things. And then we'll not oppress but
we'll serve them in love, cheerfully giving whatever temporal possession
God's given us. Paul said, while we look, not
at things which are seen, but at things which are not seen.
For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things
which are not seen, they're eternal. They last forever. We know if
our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a house
in the heavens not made with hands, eternal. And that will
help you value things in this life. Now brethren, one day that
trumpet is going to sound, and it's going to mean Christ is
coming. And we're going to be with him and all of this is going
to be old and passed away. And all things are going to be
perfectly made new. All things. Now, today and the
rest of the day and this weekend as you're watching fireworks
and you're thanking God for putting you in a country where you have
liberty, Think about what Christ has given us, the liberty Christ
has given us. If the Son shall make you free,
you shall be free indeed. And thank God for that liberty. Aren't you thankful? I hope I
didn't confuse you on that. I hope it was a blessing to you.
Amen.