Can I pray for you in any way? Send any prayer requests to faithhopegodlove@aol.com In Christ, Mark
" 'Count off seven sabbaths of years—seven times seven years—so that the seven sabbaths of years amount to a period of forty-nine years. Then have the trumpet sounded 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 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 countryman on the basis of the number of years since the Jubilee. And he is to sell to 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 fruit, 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 land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants. Throughout the country that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land. " 'If one of your countrymen becomes poor and sells some of his property, his nearest relative is to come and redeem what his countryman has sold. If, however, a man has no one to redeem it for him but he himself prospers and acquires sufficient means to redeem it, he is to determine the value for the years since he sold it and refund the balance to the man to whom he sold it; he can then go back to his own property. But if he does not acquire the means to repay him, what he sold will remain in the possession of the buyer until the Year of Jubilee. It will be returned in the Jubilee, and he can then go back to his property. " 'If a man sells a house in a walled city, he retains the right of redemption a full year after its sale. During that time he may redeem it. If it is not redeemed before a full year has passed, the house in the walled city shall belong permanently to the buyer and his descendants. It is not to be returned in the Jubilee. But houses in villages without walls around them are to be considered as open country. They can be redeemed, and they are to be returned in the Jubilee. " 'The Levites always have the right to redeem their houses in the Levitical towns, which they possess. So the property of the Levites is redeemable—that is, a house sold in any town they hold—and is to be returned in the Jubilee, because the houses in the towns of the Levites are their property among the Israelites. But the pastureland belonging to their towns must not be sold; it is their permanent possession.
" 'If one of your countrymen becomes poor and is unable to support himself among you, help him as you would an alien or a temporary resident, so he can continue to live among you. Do not take interest of any kind from him, but fear your God, so that your countryman may continue to live among you. You must not lend him money at interest or sell him food at a profit. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.
" 'If one of your countrymen becomes poor among you and sells himself to you, do not make him work as a slave. He is to be treated as a hired worker or a temporary resident among you; he is to work for you until the Year of Jubilee. Then he and his children are to be released, and he will go back to his own clan and to the property of his forefathers. Because the Israelites are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt, they must not be sold as slaves. Do not rule over them ruthlessly, but fear your God. " 'Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly. " 'If an alien or a temporary resident among you becomes rich and one of your countrymen becomes poor and sells himself to the alien living among you or to a member of the alien's clan, he retains the right of redemption after he has sold himself. One of his relatives may redeem him: An uncle or a cousin or any blood relative in his clan may redeem him. Or if he prospers, he may redeem himself. He and his buyer are to count the time from the year he sold himself up to the Year of Jubilee. The price for his release is to be based on the rate paid to a hired man for that number of years. If many years remain, he must pay for his redemption a larger share of the price paid for him. If only a few years remain until the Year of Jubilee, he is to compute that and pay for his redemption accordingly. He is to be treated as a man hired from year to year; you must see to it that his owner does not rule over him ruthlessly. " 'Even if he is not redeemed in any of these ways, he and his children are to be released in the Year of Jubilee, for the Israelites belong to me as servants. They are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt. I am the Lord your God." Leviticus 25:8-55
Every fifty years change came to Israel. Scripture states:
" 'Count off seven sabbaths of years—seven times seven years—so that the seven sabbaths of years amount to a period of forty-nine years. Then have the trumpet sounded 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…" (Leviticus 25:8-11)
The Lord required four distinct things to take place in the Year of Jubilee:
1. The people and the land were to enjoy a year off. There was to be no sowing or reaping. The land was to remain untended to with the people feeding off only what they had accumulated in advance of the jubilee year or what the land produced without human intervention.
2. All debts were to be cancelled. A jubilee year was a year of fresh starts and this included being liberated from anything owed to another person.
3. Those countrymen who were enslaved, mostly to pay off debts, were to be set free.
4. Possessions or inheritance that had left the hands of a family for reasons that included paying off debt were to be returned to that family.
Indeed, it was a year of joy and jubilation. People able to rest vice labor in the fields and vineyards. Debts forgotten. Slaves freed. Lost possessions/inheritance returned. What a blessing it was to so many people!
I want to revisit the words of the Lord as He gave directions on how the Israelites were to manage their food supply before, during and after the Jubilee year. He stated, "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 Year of Jubilee involved no working of the land. It was to remain fallow for the entire year. So how would Israel have enough food to survive during that time? Well, scripture tells us that the Lord would send enough food in the year prior to the Year of Jubilee that the people of Israel would have an abundance of food, enough to last until the next harvest would take place...and that wouldn’t happen for over two full years (the Year of Jubilee followed by the next year when the new crop would be planted. The new crop would take around a year to produce a steady food supply and be available in the ninth year.
So what can we learn from the Lord in this message? Well, we learn the Lord knows what our needs are and will provide for them in accordance with His will and toward His purpose. The Lord knew that the people would not have enough food to eat without Him intervening. And so He enhances the blessing of the sixth year to help Israel get through the seventh and eighth ones. The people would save in the sixth year for the lean years to come before they were able to have the privilege to once again experience a harvest from the land.
Question: How well do you manage what the Lord gives to you? Do you have a savings fund to fall back on when you might enter a fallow financial time in life…a time when you find yourself short of money at a time of need?
Friends…today, we need to properly manage what the Lord gives us to ensure we can make it through the fallow years of life, when we might find ourselves needing more than we would normally have. For the Lord richly blesses us…not giving us everything but what we need to fulfill His will for our lives. And He will also guide us as to how to use what He gives us so we don’t squander His blessings and find ourselves in a place of financial hardship. We only need turn to Him for help and guidance…and He will deliver. Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
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