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In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
"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.”
Leviticus 25:8-34
This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
As we see in the twenty-fifth chapter of the Book of Leviticus, much of the major tenets within the Year of Jubilee had to do with land and as we can see on our passage today, there were some rather unique transactional requirements, ones that seem odd to us given our 21st century ways of handling real estate business.
For example, in our present times, someone will own a home and land that they purchase and will continue to own it until they decide to sell it. This wasn’t always the case in the Old Testament for if you were the original owners of land and happened to sell that land to someone else, the land would still technically belong to you because you were the original owners. The people who bought your land would only possess it temporarily, up to the year of Jubilee when they were required to transfer custody of the land back to its original owners.
Completely radical, right?
But wait, there’s more because there was also provisions in these ancient real estate laws that would allow a person to recover land even before the Year of Jubilee rolled around.
As we see in our scriptures for today, let’s say that a person became impoverished and had to sell his land and home off to alleviate their financial burden. Well, we see that one of two things could happen that would allow the original owner to get the home back before the Year of Jubilee.
1. Either the person could get back on their feet financially and reacquire the property.
or
2. A relative could step in and redeem the property for the relative. This relative would have a title associated with them, kinsman-redeemer, and we see how this matter plays out in a real life situation when we look at the Book of Ruth and a man named Boaz.
Now, we should notice that if the land was repurchased by the original owner prior to the coming of the Year of Jubilee, the person losing the home and land weren’t evicted without compensation. For we read where they were to be properly compensated using the remaining years before the next Year of Jubilee as the calculation factor for the amount to be remitted.
We also see that land within walled cities fell under a different set of rules than land and homes in the countryside. Ditto for homes that has Levitical ties.
In regard to homes within walled cities, the scriptures tell us that those homeowners were safe from having the home rebought before the next year of Jubilee once a year had passed after purchase. This was because it was a privilege to live within the walled city and real estate there was at a premium. In contrast, homes in the countryside could be bought back anytime between the Years of Jubilee.
As for the Levitical, priestly homes, the Lord makes it clear that they would "always have the right to redeem their houses in the Levitical towns which they possess”. Their property was “redeemable” which meant that any “house sold in any town they hold” was to be “returned in the Jubilee” because “the houses in the towns of the Levites” were “their property among the Israelites”. As for the pastureland that was allotted to the Levites, it could not be sold because it was their “permanent possession.”
Indeed, there were many rules and standards regarding real estate dealings that had been established by God in Old Testament times, and maybe you, like I, are sitting there thinking, “I’m sure glad we don’t have to live under those rules today.” Talk about complicated, right?
But although we aren’t under these same directives today, there was one statement that the Lord speaks in this passage that transcends ages and generations, as true in the Old Testament as it is in present times. Here’s what He had to say about the land:
“The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants.”
Take a moment and ask yourself this:
Does the land that I live on belong to anyone more than it does to God, the One who created the land?
Friends, the Lord God Almighty is the Creator and Maker of all things. Nothing existed until He spoke it into being. And so He owns the earth, every square inch it. His Word is truth and He has said that “the land is mine” and we “are but aliens” and His “tenants”. And although we know in context that He is referring to the Promised Land here in this passage, we also know that He owns more than just Old Testament Canaan. He has been, is, and will always be our holy and divine Landlord, blessing us with the privilege to live as tenants on the land that is totally His.
Unfortunately, people, who are in the world and of it, don’t quite see things this way because they don’t acknowledge or respect the Lord. Unbelievers are in the world and of it, and Christ believers, if not careful, can be sucked into this sinful mindset, turning away from recognizing God as the Supreme Creator of everything.
Friends, we need to see how good our Lord is to us, so good that He would allow us to live on a land that belongs fully to Him, a land that He created with His own Holy Hands. Further, God’s only Son Jesus has prepared another place for us in the Kingdom of Heaven, a new mansion we will inhabit one day for all eternity. It will be a glorious and permanent change of address where we will abide with our Savior and His (and our) Father God forever.
Brothers and sisters, can you rejoice with me today over how blessed we are to serve such an awesome God who is also an awesome, Holy Landlord?
For He is so good and worthy of all our praise and gratitude, not just today but forevermore.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
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