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Text from Leviticus 25:1-22
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Text from Leviticus 25:1-22
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The speaker is talking about the concept of Sabbath and the importance of observing it. They mention that Sabbath is a command for God's people and a foundational characteristic for them. They explain that Sabbath is not just a one-day-in-seven regulation, but a broader concept that goes beyond our typical understanding. They emphasize that Sabbath observance is not just about resting on a specific day, but about having faith and trust in God every day. We are finishing our little series in Leviticus. Everybody say, yay! I know, Leviticus is not the most exciting text. I get it. I'm still waiting to see Leviticus on a bumper sticker as I'm driving down the road. Or I'm still waiting to see a Facebook meme that says, hey, Leviticus, it says this. Isn't this great? Better like this or this means you're going to hell. You know, you have to do that when you're on Facebook. Remember those memes that say, you know, tell everybody you love Jesus or this is going to be bad for you. So I've never seen that about Leviticus. I don't know why. Call me crazy. But anyway, we're in Leviticus chapter 25 and we're going to be looking today at verses 1 through 22. And this is God's word. The Lord said to Moses on Mount Sinai, speak to the Israelites and say to them, When you enter the land that I am going to give you, the land itself must observe a Sabbath to the Lord. For six years sow your fields and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops. But in the seventh year, the land is to have a Sabbath of rest, a Sabbath to the Lord. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards. Do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land is to have a year of rest. Whatever the land yields during the Sabbath year will be food for you, for you yourself, your manservant and maidservant, and the hired worker and temporary resident who live among you, as well as for your livestock and the wild animals in your land. Whatever the land produces may be eaten. Count off seven Sabbaths of years, seven times seven years, so that the seven Sabbaths of years amount to a period of 49 years. Then have the trumpet sound everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month. On the day of atonement, sound the trumpet throughout your land. Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you. Each one of you is to return to his family property and each to his own clan. The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you. Do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines. For it is a jubilee, and it is to be holy for you. Eat only what is taken directly from the fields. In this year of jubilee, everyone is to return to his own property. If you sell land to one of your countrymen or buy any from him, do not take advantage of each other. You are to buy from your countrymen on the basis of the number of years since the jubilee. And he is to sell you on the basis of the number of years left for harvesting crops. When the years are many, you are to increase the price, and when the years are few, you are to decrease the price, because what he is really selling you is the number of crops. Do not take advantage of each other, but fear your God. I am the Lord your God. Follow my decrees and be careful to obey my laws, and you will live safely in the land. Then the land will yield its fruits, and you will eat your fill and live there in safety. You may ask, what will we eat in the seventh year if we do not plant or harvest our crops? I will send you such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years. While you plant during the eighth year, you will eat from the old crop and will continue to eat from it until the harvest of the ninth year comes in. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Please be seated. So we're studying Sabbath, and we're studying the year of jubilee. And here's how we'll study this particular text, Leviticus 25. And we're not looking at the entire text. We're looking at a section of it. First we'll look at verses 1 through 7, and then we'll peak at 18 through 22, which talks about Sabbath that lasts all year. Then verses 18 through 17, it's rest, reset, redemption. And then in the last part of our message today, we'll take a few minutes to consider Jesus in the wilderness. So here we are, the fourth and final Sunday in May, and with regard to our current sermon series, we're finishing this little series in the book of Leviticus. It is certainly not everyone's favorite book. I, for one, don't count it as one of the highlights to read. It's not necessarily the book I go to. But I hope this has been a blessing to you as we have studied our time here in Leviticus. Even with our brief encounter with this book, we are seeing the absolute importance of its contents. Of course, the Apostle Paul reminds us that all Scripture is God-breathed, and when Paul said that, he was thinking about the Old Testament, and he was thinking about stuff like the stuff in Leviticus. There's an obligation among God's people, the people of God, to embrace Leviticus as part of God's authoritative word. And so also we've read Leviticus through the lens of prophecy, have we not? We've rightly witnessed that Leviticus contains the promise of God, the plan of redemption, which we see is really only fulfilled in Christ. So we read Leviticus, and Leviticus points us to Jesus. Leviticus articulates the worship and the conduct of God's people during their time in the wilderness, and it anticipates their possession of and life in Canaan, the promised land. And God has instructed His people in order they might function as a nation, a nation that would glorify God in all things. And so you and I, these past few weeks, have sampled the body of text that is Leviticus. Three weeks ago, we read of the flame upon the worship altar, which is to be continually maintained. Two weeks ago, we studied the celebration of the Day of Atonement. Last Sunday, we heard God's call upon His people to be a holy people. And today, God's word presents for us a further consideration of a concept that is both a command for God's people and what is to be a foundational characteristic for God's people. So let us today consider the regulation, the gift, and the blessing that is Sabbath. So let's consider a brief overview of Sabbath as it's described in God's word. Where do we first read of Sabbath? Where do we start? Well, of course, we start in the Garden. This is Genesis chapter 2, verses 1 through 3. This is the first description of Sabbath. Here's what the text says, Genesis chapter 2, verses 1 through 3. Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array, and by the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing. So on the seventh day He rested from His work, from all His work, and God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it He rested from all the work of creating that He had done. Recall in the Garden that God issues to man several directives. We call these creation mandates. These are commands that God gave to man back in the Garden, even before the Fall, and these are commands that have never been removed, commands that will forever be in place to govern the life and the conduct of God's people, and they've proven to be a foundational characteristic for God's people. So, for example, marriage is a creation mandate, as is having children, as is work or labor. And so we also recall that Sabbath is one of those. Sabbath is a creation mandate. Now, Sabbath appears later, of course, in Scripture. This is not the only place that we see Sabbath. The place that we all think of when we think of Sabbath is Exodus chapter 20. This is, of course, the Ten Commandments. So Exodus chapter 20, verses 8 through 11, and Scripture says this, Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days shall you labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant or your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them. But he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. This regulation, of course, we know as the Fourth Commandment. Sabbath, again, demonstrates to be a command that will forever be in place to govern the life and the conduct of God's people. And it proves to be a foundational characteristic for God's people. Sabbath, of course, popped up again a couple of weeks ago during our study here in Leviticus. We were considering the Day of Atonement. This is Leviticus chapter 16, verses 29 through 31. And the Scripture says, this is to be a lasting ordinance for you. On the tenth day of the seventh month you must deny yourselves and do not do any work, whether native-born or an alien living among you, because on this day atonement will be made for you to cleanse you. Then before the Lord you will be clean from all your sins. It is a Sabbath of rest. You must deny yourselves. It is a lasting ordinance. So as we pointed out two weeks ago, we would do well to consider this again. Sabbath observance is more than a one-day-in-seven regulation. Let me say that one again because I know it pushes against the grain of everything we think. But Sabbath observance is more than a one-day-in-seven regulation The broader consideration of Sabbath goes beyond our typical understanding. The fourth commandment is certainly civil law. It's found in our weekly calendar, is it not? We know what day we're supposed to observe Sabbath. And the fourth commandment is also ceremonial law for God's people. It's a day of worship. But now we see that the fourth commandment to honor the Sabbath is also God's moral law. It's also God's moral law. How do we truly observe Sabbath? That's the big question. How do we truly observe Sabbath, especially in our day and time where we're 3,500 years removed from this declaration that is there in Leviticus? How do we truly observe Sabbath? Because our obedience to God demands that we observe Sabbath all day, every day, and we do so by our faith and our trust in our Heavenly Father. We observe Sabbath by our faith and our trust in our Heavenly Father. So logic, of course, says that we should work all seven days, right? If you're someone who works and you earn an hourly wage especially, the logic would be, well, you better not quit. You better keep working all seven days because you've got to earn as much money as possible. So logic says we should work all seven days so we can meet our family's needs. We can purchase more things. But as you know, there is study after study after study that has been done and done and done again over the decades that confirms that man is actually more productive working six days and resting one than working seven. The studies repeat this thing every time. Man is more productive when working six days and resting one than when he labors all seven days. So we are wired to work to be sure, and we're wired to rest. In fact, work, as we saw, is a creation mandate. It's a command to us. But it is disobedience to work continually. God commands and requires that man adopt and embrace times of rest. It's a commandment in God's Word. Honor the Sabbath. And there's more. Sabbath is not just about rest, but it is also about renewal. We do not rest just for the sake of rest. We rest so that we might work again. Rest enables us to get back on our feet at the beginning of a new week. We say that our batteries are recharged. We say that we now have a full tank of gas and we can face the day and we can face the week and we can face this world because we are rested and we're ready for it. And then we're speaking here about physical renewal to be sure. But do we not also see that Sabbath is also about spiritual renewal? Our day of rest is also a day of worship and prayer and fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ. So Sabbath also recharges our spiritual batteries, does it not? Sabbath refills our spiritual gas tank. We can face the darkness of this world. We can face the sin that abounds. We can even face the lingering remnants of our own sin because we are spiritually rested and we are ready for it because we've taken time to gather and to hear God's Word proclaimed and to be with God's people on the Sabbath. But there's an even deeper level still because Sabbath also maintains a connection to our salvation. Sabbath also maintains a connection to our salvation. For the people of Israel, the Day of Atonement, which is all about salvation, the Day of Atonement was to be a Sabbath day. It was to be a day of rest so that it might also be a day of renewal which points forward to the redemption that God has for His children. Salvation, as we know, is not an end of itself. It's only just a beginning, right? Your sum total of your relationship with God and your status as a Christian does not finish and end when you're saved. That's only the beginning. That's only the beginning of the story. And as we know, we consider previously believers in Christ, we know that God's Word says that we were saved and we're being saved and we will be saved. We've seen all this in Scripture before. So the annual Day of Atonement was commanded as a day of rest. It was commanded as a Sabbath day in order that God's people might receive the renewal that Atonement brings and they might enjoy the redemption that God gives. And this, of course, is the message of the Gospel, is it not? And now we see that as followers of Christ, the true and full Sabbath observance is what? Is to receive Christ. Is to rest in Christ. In Christ we find true Sabbath rest. And this is what God's Word says. We're not just pulling this out of thin air. This is what God's Word indeed says. This is what the writer of Hebrews tells us. Hebrews chapter 4, verses 9 through 11. This understanding about the rest that we receive, this Sabbath rest and what it means for you and me. Listen to what the writer of Hebrews says. This is Hebrews chapter 4, verses 9 through 11. And he writes, There remains then a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work. In other words, the work to strive to earn salvation. You rest from your own work, just as God rested from the work He was doing, the work of creation. Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience. So salvation is Sabbath rest. Salvation is Sabbath rest. So now if anyone tries to claim that the gospel does not appear in the Ten Commandments, you may have heard that before. Someone says, you know, that's all Old Testament stuff, and there's no gospel in the Ten Commandments. You can gently now and humbly offer them a correction. Open the Scripture to them and offer to them that our true and faithful observance of Sabbath is found in our devotion to Christ. And in this way we faithfully honor the Sabbath as commanded in God's Word. With this, we come to our text for today. Here we find Sabbath regulation. The first thing we notice is this Sabbath directive is not for the present, but we notice that it's actually for the future. Notice verse 2 of our text for today. It says, Speak to the Israelites and say to them, When you enter the land, I'm going to give you. So previous Sabbath regulations were immediately applicable, whereas this instruction we see will not kick in until the Israelites enter into the Promised Land, until they occupy Canaan. When God's people cross the Jordan, when they establish their nation, and when they begin cultivating the land, then these Sabbath observances will be applicable for the people. And the second thing we notice is that Sabbath does not apply only to people. When we think of honoring the Sabbath, we think of the command that we receive to honor the Sabbath. But notice the last phrase in verse 2. The land itself must observe a Sabbath to the Lord. The land itself must observe a Sabbath to the Lord. God here instructs Israel that Sabbath observance will include a particular farming schedule. You will follow the schedule, and the land itself, over which you are stewards, must follow this practice of Sabbath. Notice verses 3 through 5. For six years sow your fields, for six years prune your vineyards, and gather their crops. But in the seventh year the land is to have a Sabbath of rest, a Sabbath to the Lord. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards. Do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. And here we find God's promise to His people, that He will indeed see to it that His people will be provided for. They will have food to eat. Notice verses 6 and 7. Whatever the land yields during the Sabbath year will be food for you, for yourself, your manservant, maidservant, hired worker, and temporary resident who will live among you, as well as for your livestock and the wild animals in your land. And whatever the land produces may be eaten. Okay, so that's the regulation. But how is this really going to happen? How will God bring this about? Well, let's skip forward a few verses. Let's look down to verse 18, and we see how God brings this about. Here's what the text says. Follow my decrees, be careful to obey my laws, and you will live safely in the land. Then the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live there in safety. And you may ask, what do we eat in the seventh year if we don't plant or harvest our crops? God says, I will send you such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years. And while you plant during the eighth year, you'll eat from the old crop, and will continue to eat from it until the harvest of the ninth year comes in. So here again, Sabbath seems to be the most illogical of strategies. Why, if you've got farmland, which is just, when you think about it, a big pile of dirt, it's just a big pile of dirt looking at you, why would you not continue to work that land? It's just land. It's just dirt. No, it's not just dirt, of course. Who made the dirt? Who gave the dirt? Who presented the dirt? Who maintains the dirt? Who rules and reigns over the dirt? God certainly must not know much about the need for man to work, apparently, if we would work all seven days. But here God promises to provide, as man would take care to follow what God has commanded. So we've always understood Sabbath to be a day of rest for man, but now we find it's a day of rest for land as well. Verse 5, the land is to have a year of rest. An entire year with fallow farmland. Does this not take a lot of faith and trust? A farmer looking out his window at his acreage in that seventh year. He's got nothing growing on it. Maybe a little bit of volunteer that's growing here and there, but he's got nothing growing on that land. And he said, gee, I wish I could be out there and I could dig that land up and plant some stuff. But he can't, and why won't he? Because he's going to trust God as God has promised here in the text. And there are benefits to this practice. Farmers today will rotate their land, and they'll leave certain portions of their land to rest each year while farming other portions of their land. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's a good practice to follow. We're certainly not now requiring farmers to follow Israelite farming and cultivation practices. They're not required to do that. But it does seem here to require that a farmer back in the day in Israel would keep all his land on the same schedule. And, of course, this would be a lot simpler to do, wouldn't it not? Because the land all belongs to God. The plants belong to God. The produce belongs to God. The dirt belongs to God. And the miracle of this system keeps working year after year and century after century is all relied upon the fact that it all belongs to God. The land itself must observe a Sabbath to the Lord. The land is to have a year of rest. So the command over the rest of the land and the way the land would rest. So what is our obligation then? We call this a Sabbath. What is our obligation when we see this text? Because obviously we're not all farmers, and we don't all have acreage that we're tilling and working. What is our obligation to God with regard to keeping the Sabbath, and how does this inform that? Well, most arguments tend to focus on the legal requirement. Of course, we think of one day and seven. To refrain from labor, to engage in worship on one day and seven. And, of course, the arguments extend to which day we're supposed to observe this. Of course, that's the big argument, as you know. Jews still maintain that the day we call Saturday is the necessary day. Seventh-day Adventists can be downright belligerent in their demand that it be Saturday. Christians have generally held that Sunday, the Lord's Day, is certainly the right day for the observance. But we've always made exceptions, have we not, for people who must work on Sundays? Police officers and firefighters and EMTs and 911 call center attendants and nurses and emergency room physicians… … as well as anyone whose job requires them to work on some or all Sundays. So if you go out for lunch today after church, if you go to do that, if you go to lunch or you go to the grocery store today after church… … but if you go out for lunch today after church, you've got to be really nice to the restaurant waiter or waitress. Because they don't get to worship and they don't get to fellowship with God's people. They have to work that day. And so when we sit at their table to be served, is it not right for us to bring something of the attitude of worship and fellowship to them? Yes, it is. It's another way that we honor the Sabbath. So this is Sabbath that lasts all year. And isn't this really the big picture as to how we honor the Sabbath? Yes, we worship and we fellowship with the Lord's people on Lord's Day. But this broader view of Sabbath, when we include the Day of Atonement and the Sabbath year in the picture… … means that the true Sabbath observance is a real and regular spiritual discipline based on faith and trust in God. Can I really give up working one day a week? Can I really let my farmland go fallow one year and seven? Well, of course, here's the real question. Can I trust God? Can I trust God with a process? Can I trust God with the things in my life? Can I look to Him and place my faith and trust that He will do what He has promised that He will do? That's the test of Sabbath. That's the test of Sabbath. And it doesn't matter if you're a farmer or not. For all of us, is that not the test of Sabbath? So we come to verses 8 and following. The rest of Leviticus chapter 25 describes one more piece of the Sabbath puzzle. It's what Scripture calls the year of jubilee. Notice verses 8 through 10. So you count off seven Sabbaths of years, seven times seven years, so that seven Sabbaths of years amount to a period of 49 years. Then have the trumpet sound everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month. On the day of atonement, sound the trumpet throughout your land. Consecrate the fiftieth year. God's people, when they're in the promised land, once they've settled throughout Canaan, once they begin to cultivate the land… … they are to settle into a pattern of Sabbath observance that will not only honor each seventh year, but also celebrate each fiftieth year. Each fiftieth year will also be a Sabbath year, and it has particular instructions as they list here in the text. And some of this instruction is already familiar. We read the text earlier about the way you care for the land. And verses 11 and 12 tell that a land must enter a year of rest. Do not sow, do not reap what grows of itself, or harvest the untended vines. For it is a jubilee, it is holy for you. Eat only what is taken directly from the fields. Instruction which is similar to what we've already seen concerning Sabbath year observance. And yes, this means the 49th year is followed by the 50th year. So God's people will actually observe two years of rest, two years of Sabbath, not just one. Both year 49 and year 50 are also going to be Sabbath years. But there's more here about the year of jubilee. A second area of instruction found in verses 10 and 11. And God directs that His people will all return to the land assigned to their families. Each one of you is to return to his family property, and each to his own clan, and the 50th year shall be a jubilee for you. This command requires people to be fair and honest when buying and selling land. If you sell land to one of your countrymen or buy any from him, do not take advantage of each other. Because God reminds people who really owns the land. Notice further in the text, verse 23. The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine, and you are but aliens and my tenants. So the year of jubilee is not just a year of rest, but it is a year of resets. And this is a glorious truth. For financial wrongs are righted, debts are settled and resolved, and the resolution of those debts is acknowledged. And everyone goes back home. Do you notice that in the text? Everyone goes back home. I'm one of those people that's just enough of a sentimentalist. So I love going back to the places that I grew up. And I love visiting the people that I've always known and loved. And I've always liked to drive by my old house that I used to live in. But it's more than that too, isn't it? I love visiting the old Boy Scout camp where I spent so many weekends as a kid. Or I love playing old golf courses where decades ago I played in some golf tournament. And we all do these kind of sentimental things. We drive through these old neighborhoods. There's something peaceful and comforting about visiting grandma's house, sitting on the front porch, drinking coffee in the kitchen. These things certainly recharge our batteries, do they not? They refill our gas tanks when we get to do these things. And maybe, just maybe, Sabbath observance is telling us that that is all by design, that that doesn't happen by accident. So when you go to your old stomping grounds or your old neighborhood and you feel rejuvenated, that didn't happen by accident. That was something part of the design. Perhaps there's something sacred. Perhaps there's something in the divine plan that enables us to plug in with what we had in the past. Memories you had with your parents, siblings, with a spouse, with kids, opportunities to revisit some of those places. Each of you has returned to his family property, each to his own clan, and the 50th year shall be a jubilee for you. And then there's one more area of instruction found here in Sabbath observance, and it's found in verse 10. And this is the one that we really love when we see this particular text. Look what it says in verse 10. It shall be a jubilee for you. Remember that the Israelite people were a people who until recently had been enslaved by the Egyptians. They knew what oppression and slavery felt like, and so do a world in which slavery and all forms of servitude were enforced in each and every culture. And I do mean each and every culture. Slavery was everywhere. It existed in every culture, as it has in our world all along. God here declares that His people will be a people which declares freedom. Something new on the horizon. A call to a nation has never seen this before. But yet God declares that His people will be a people which declares freedom. One commentator proclaims that this aspect of jubilee is probably the most radical social and economic idea in all the Bible. Its proclamation of liberty and its policies of justice have, like the Exodus, fired the imaginations and inspired the hopes of many subsequent movements of liberation. Going forward, everybody knows now, or at least most everybody knows, that freedom should be what we're at. Yes, oppression might be on the march. Yes, this world might look dark. But the truth of the matter is we know that proclamation of liberty, found here in Scripture, found in this chapter, found in Leviticus, is the blessing for the nations, if they would yet but follow the commands of jubilee and of Sabbath. So however the conditions of servitude came about, God's people knew that by the time that the year of jubilee rolled around, everybody was going to be free. This was going to happen in another country. So the year of jubilee is not just a year of rest, it's not just a year of reset, but it's a year of redemption. Because this is the pattern of Sabbath. This is the pattern of the year of jubilee. This is freedom that would be enjoyed by people in the land. Now a big question for us remains is this. Did the nation of Israel ever observe the year of jubilee? And the answer is, well, we're not exactly sure, but we don't think they did. Now that sounds strange because God commanded, when you enter the land, you're going to do this. And it doesn't sound like they did. Scripture never gives us any historical account of specific jubilee observance. Now it doesn't say with certainty that Israel failed to observe it. It doesn't quite exactly say that. But we found in the end of 2 Chronicles, this is 2 Chronicles chapter 36, verse 21. It's at the end of the 2 Chronicles. So it's the end of the story of God's people when they were in Babylonian captivity and then were going to come back to captivity. This is the nation of Israel, the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem by the hand of the Babylonians. Here's what the chronicler wrote about the people of God at the end of 2 Chronicles. He wrote this. He wrote, In other words, God used the destruction by the Babylonians and the captivity of God's people to give the land its rest that it never really had. To finally give the land its rest that it never really had. The nation of Israel, the land that was the promised land, would sit fallow for 70 years. And it would sit fallow for 70 years until the Jews returned back to the land and would rebuild the temple and reconstitute the nation. And there would be a Sabbath of 70 years. And that's true. That's exactly what happened. If we look at the history of the captivity in Babylon and subsequent returning back to Israel, they were gone for 70 years. So the nation, the land, rested for 70 years. The land enjoyed its Sabbath rest, and all the time of its desolation, it rested. Now, my over-the-centuries read this to say that the land never enjoyed its rest as required by God. And the Babylonian captivity gives the land its needed rest. And this infers that the years of Jubilee, and perhaps even the Sabbath years, had never been observed as God had called them to do so. They never observed this most glorious plan that God had given them. So do we ever see, and will we ever see, real Jubilee observance? Because the command is still there, as we've seen. Yeah, civil and ceremonial law is gone, but the moral command is still there. So will we ever see true Jubilee observance? Will there truly be a year of Jubilee that would one day come to God's people? Well, from Leviticus, let's fast forward 700 years. And we find that there's a promise in the words of the prophet Isaiah that seems to affirm the observance of Jubilee is coming. It's Isaiah chapter 61, verses 1 through 3. Listen to this promise that the prophet Isaiah gives. So this is God speaking, and Isaiah repeats the promise. God says this in Isaiah chapter 61. The spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and to provide for those who grieve in Zion. So we read this promise, and we say yes, God is still in the Sabbath business. He himself will bring Jubilee to his people. This is the promise we find in Isaiah. God will indeed one day bring true Jubilee to his people. What God's people could not or would not bring about, what God's people either could not do or would not do, were not willing to do, God will do for his people. See how that works. This is going to come about. God says this is the year of Jubilee. This will be the way the land rests. This will be the thing you will do. And if you can't do it, then I'm going to do it, God says. Recall that when the Sabbath and Jubilee are truly proclamations of rest and renewal and redemption, and this is precisely what God has promised a man. This is what God will do. Now, fast forward 700 plus years from the time of Isaiah, and turn with me to, if you will please, to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 4. Look at the text in our New Testament. Chapter 4 of Luke, verses 16 through 21. And this is when the Bible declares, when the Bible describes true Jubilee observance, true Sabbath observance. Remember we said in the beginning, we said that a true Sabbath observance is not just about the Sunday or whatever day it is, but true Sabbath observance is to place our faith and trust in Christ. We said that earlier in the day. Now let's look at the text and let's look and see who came up with that idea. Why would we ever think, where would we ever think that true Sabbath observance, true Jubilee observance would come in Christ? Where would we get that idea? Well, here's what we got. Chapter 4 of Luke, verses 16 through 21. Jesus went to Nazareth where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue as was his custom, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him, and unrolling it he found the place where it is written, The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, and recover your sight for the blind, and to release the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, the year of the Lord's favor. Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down, and the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began, Jesus began by saying to them, Today, this scripture, the promise of Isaiah, the promise of Sabbath, the promise of the true rest of God, the promise of the year of Jubilee, Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. Now, how could that be? How could Jesus say such a thing? Because according to the calendar, there's no year of Jubilee. They're not shutting down farms for a couple of years. Everybody's not setting aside their work for a couple of years. What is Jesus talking about when he says, Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. Scripture declares that Jubilee, as we have seen, represents the rest and the reset and the redemption, the freedom from sin and bondage, freedom that is granted to us how, who, where, by the Lord Jesus Christ. Leviticus requires Jubilee, Isaiah prophesies Jubilee, and the Gospel declares the fulfillment of Jubilee. At Christ's first coming, God's children enjoy freedom from sin. And at Christ's second coming, God's children will be returned, where? To the homeland, to the new heavens and the new earth and the new Jerusalem. When Jesus came and Jesus read the scroll of Isaiah, Jesus was right to say, I'm the fulfillment of the Jubilee of God. I am the fulfillment of the Sabbath observance. To this we cry, Amen. Listen to this promise, Isaiah also declared this, Isaiah chapter 11, verse 10. It says, And his place of rest will be glorious. Let's pray, shall we? Again, Heavenly Father, we have drank from the fire hose that is Leviticus. It's old text, it's old story, it's old regulations. But we thank you that you demonstrate to us through your word how this old story and this old text ministers and feeds us today. Because we see through the text that the thing we could not do for ourselves was follow your rules, Jesus did for us. And Jesus does for us by coming to be with us. Thank you, Father, that you sent your Son who is the fulfillment of all the promises of Sabbath. Thank you, Father, for sending your Son who is the one who brings true Jubilee to the people of God. Thank you, Father, for sending us Jesus who gathers his people unto himself and brings us home to dwell with you forever in a new heavens and a new earth where the former things will have passed away and where we will truly find rest. Rest for our souls. Rest for our tired and weary bodies. Rest for our broken hearts. Rest for all the things that bring us anxiety and fear. We can find true rest. And our true rest is found in Jesus who is our true Jubilee and Sabbath. Thank you, Father, for this blessing. Father, may this continue to equip us and strengthen us as we would serve you all our days. We praise you and we give you glory. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.
