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Uh tonight's topic is um one that I kind of wish there had been more people here um because there's probably not many in Leviticus more applicable to our current world situation, especially in this country and in the 21st century than the
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discussion in Leviticus 24 or 25, excuse me, of the sabbatical year and the year of Jubilee. Uh now that may seem counterintuitive. In fact, for most
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people it is. They they don't even think about the the principles inculcated in scripture concerning the sabbatical year and the year of Jubilee would brand
0:43
someone today as a communist or a socialist if not a communist. And I know that from personal experience. Uh it was a passage like Leviticus 25 that that
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convinced me of my dissertation topic for my doctorate on biblical economics. And when I
1:05
treated the part of the economic role of the land and of the sabbatical year and the year of Jubilee
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and then the other redemptive laws that we were were going to get into in Leviticus 25, that is when my faculty adviser asked me if I was a communist.
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Um, I assured him I was not, but I also assured him that I did not believe that capitalism was supported by scripture. Capitalism just happens to be the most
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efficient economic tool for exploiting the resources of the earth, but it does so in a way that runs as contrary to
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Leviticus 25 as mankind could possibly be. And so Leviticus 25 is generally looked over as just an archaic quaint practice
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uh which was never actually practiced by the ancient Hebrews. Uh it was so not practice and so quaint that liberal Jewish and Christian scholars considered
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it to be metaphor. Okay? Because no one could actually do any of this stuff. And so um I think the first thing we need to do is to recognize our own sitben
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the situation of our economic development and of our countries and the fact that in the United States Christianity has wetted itself with capitalism.
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Now maybe not the liberal branch of Christianity but I don't actually consider that to be Christianity. Uh but within evangelicalism within evangelicalism um we we honestly many of us think that
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um capitalism is god-given economic system and u and there there is no other uh but I think we'll find that if we allow the scripture to speak especially
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in the context of a holy nation which is what the church is supposed to be in the world today but a holy nation at the foot of mount si
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we quickly realized that The economic principles that are laid down in Leviticus and the holiness code are not capitalistic, nor are they socialistic, and they are
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most certainly not communistic. So the the basic economic systems of modern times modern times really have no support
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from scripture. from scripture. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't be done because the world is not intended to work according to scripture right now. But what we see in scripture in the Old
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Testament represented typologically both the remembrance of Eden and the prospect of the new earth.
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So while we look at the s the social and economic structure of Israel in the wilderness where where it is in its most concentrated and concise or compact form
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when the law is given and the priest code is given and the holiness code is given. We have to remember
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that much of what we're reading, and we've we've touched on this a few times already, but much of what we're reading is actually reminiscent of the relationship God had with man in Eden before the fall. even the language
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that God uses that'll come more in Leviticus 26, but the the idea of I will walk with you, which is what God did with Adam in the garden. So the the
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typology of Israel looks backward to Eden. But then we we know from the prophets
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especially prophets like Ezekiel whose language is is especially um seeped in Leviticus 25. Okay, not just Leviticus 25 but but heavily echoed in
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in um Ezekiel's prophecy and Ezekiel is prophesying the messianic age, the age to come. Now we have further understanding with the advent of Jesus
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Christ, his ministry, his death, resurrection, his ascension, and then the revelation of the New Testament shining light on that work. We know that the messianic age is inaugurated
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but is not consummated. And so while this typology looks backward to Eden, it also looks forward to the new creation, to the new earth.
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irrefutable even if impractical. I'm going to put that up on the board because
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Si represented the way man lived in Eden before the fall and the way man will live in the new earth where righteousness dwells.
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righteousness dwells. So why not live that way? Now that that's the basic argument of the holiness code. Okay. You say why not? Well,
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we know that because of sin we cannot attain that. attain that. But that does not mean that we do not
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try. The argument again is if the principles of God's righteousness are reflected in the relationship he had with Adam in Eden and the relationship
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he will have with mankind through Jesus Christ in the new earth. Then why would they be any different now? Why would we why would God lower the bar
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during the interim in terms of the requirement of holiness? He doesn't
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seems to it does. His invisible attributes um are already made known through his creation. His revelation reveals his holy nature
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which doesn't ever grade on a curve. It doesn't ever bend to accommodate the abilities of his creatures. His creatures are called to attain his
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level. Be holy for I the Lord your God am holy. am holy. That is this that is the the goal that we set before our eyes. What we actually do, however, is we
8:27
bifurcate life between the present and the future the future and we live life the way we must. Okay? knowing that someday when in that great
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by and by we will live in a in a happy state of perpetual bliss but we'd have no intention of trying that now that now and to me um and I I've used this
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anecdote before anecdote before um in my dis in my study for my dissertation one of the books uh written by a very popular contemporary
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um finan Christian financial counselor and actually I don't think he uses the adjective Christian anymore, but he did then. And the book was about um e
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economic or financial teaching in the Bible. Everything the Bible has to say about money and wealth. That's the subtitle. The book starts in the Gospels and except for a few dashes of Proverbs
9:26
here and there. Never goes back to the Old Testament as if it had nothing to say about
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economics. That is totally off base. Economics is the one thing that every human being partakes of. They they might not become economists,
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but we do economics every day. And we're impacted by economics even if we don't understand it. You know, you're wondering why the gas prices are so
10:02
high. Because the CEO of oil companies like to make money. make money. Not because there's any shortage of oil because we get less than 2% of our oil through the Persian Gulf anyhow. Beside the fact that the oil companies I used
10:13
to work for one purchase their oil weeks ahead of time. And so the fact that you know you get a news announcement and then or you know that yeah that's all futures. It's all commodities. But
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doesn't it impact you? You know you just you just pray that as your gauge goes down they talk about peace you know. And once you're in full, I don't care. Bomb
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them, you know, right? I got two weeks. I mean, there see you're economic. We are economic creatures. So, how can the
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how can the Old Testament, which establishes the the the criteria, the characteristics of a holy people of God, how can it not touch on economics?
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And it's incredible how it actually does touch on the economic life of Israel. It's it's it's not just um not harvesting into the corners of your
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field. It's it's far more than that. And Leviticus 25 is really the epicenter because what it represents is so incredibly radical and unique that not
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even Israel ever did it. And we know that because their time in Babylon was calculated on the basis of the sabbatical years. They
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did not observe the years that the land did not receive its rest. We'll read in Leviticus 26, the land will enjoy its rest. And that will be the exile. And
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then Jeremiah and Ezekiel both look at it the same way. Daniel calculates the length of the exile and the basis of of that fact. So we know they didn't do the
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sabbatical years. And it's highly unlikely if they didn't do the sabbatical years that they did the jubilees. Okay. So I think you're all familiar with the mechanics of it. Sabbatical year every seventh year the
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land was to lieowow and there would be no sewing and no organized harvesting. organized harvesting. Basically everybody grazed.
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And then after seven sabbatical years, 49 years, the following year, starting on the yom kapor with the blast of a trumpet, which this which sound is in
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Hebrew, uble, Hebrew, uble, which is where we get jubilee. Okay. Uh it's just the sound of the trumpet. And that sound of the trumpet
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means release and restoration. And it it becomes both um existential and economic in their day and
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esqueologgical almost immediately. But then through the prophets like Isaiah it becomes uh messianic. So that when Jesus is is in the
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synagogue in Nazareth, he reads the first two verses of Isaiah 61, the spirit of the Lord is upon me and then down a litany of deliverances
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and to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord, the Jubilee. Then he closes the scroll or rolls it back up and hands it back to the attendant and then says,
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"Today, this day, this prophecy has been fulfilled in your hearing." Okay. So, it's it it's it's incredibly messianic esquetological. Um, but it's not just
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that. And I think that's what has happened in modern evangelicalism is that we have we have it's not metaphor, it's just prophecy. And since
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the prophecy has been fulfilled in Christ, we now allegorize it and we know well that's the way the new earth is going to be. But today it's dog eat dog,
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you know, and and you you got to invest wisely and you got to go for all you can get. Um you know what's what's the what's the phrase? Get all you can can
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all you get and then sit on the can. Okay, that's the economic life. work hard, save, and then retire. That's your life. Wow. Um and that's not biblical.
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Not at all. So when I read these over the years, um, Leviticus 25 and the sabbatical year, the year of Jubilee, probably had the
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most profound impact on my social and economic thinking um, in the world we live in, but also as I read history um, and and look at the way the church uh,
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especially, but also just Western society has treated the land, has treated things like property, the concept of property has treated the
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concept of labor and servitude and slavery, all of which are touched upon in Leviticus 25.
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So that's where we're going. And and so to start to start where we often do
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the enlightenment, we we are there a lot uh because our um modern social, political, even religious world in the west, even
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evangelicalism has been impacted by the Enlightenment in ways that very few people I think uh acknowledge or understand. We think more like our 17th and 18th
15:50
century forebears than we would like to admit. And because as we think more like them, we think less like the Holy Spirit in scripture.
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in scripture. Not that these men were not brilliant and not that the political system that that arose out of the Enlightenment called the United States of America,
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not that it's not the greatest thing that mankind has managed to do, but it's what something that mankind has managed to do. to do. And so what we cannot do is somehow
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sanctify it, bless it with with some scriptures and call it God's will except in the sense that it is his will because it came to pass. But that this is
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somehow God's intended economic system is what we're living right now. Uh I'm not even sure that when we look back on it we will find that God was very happy
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with it at all because it does in in its um major aspects major aspects it does resemble Israel
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in the state it was when it was being chastised and later condemned by the prophets. The accumulation of wealth
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in the hands of a few is the capitalistic version of medieval feudalism where the land was owned by the the
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nobility or the royalty and not and the rest of the people the vast majority of the people were peasants or surfs. They were not technically slaves, but their
17:33
economic bondage to the land was complete. And so their life was as much uh cattle slavery as what was in the south and the and the Caribbean uh during the 19th 18th 19th century. So um
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you know ju just because you you're not actually the property of another person um if if your livelihood is so bound to the mill that and and you have no escape
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um that is a form of economic bondage uh and and that is something that Israel experienced and we looked at this um
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when when Aaron Aaron was teaching through Deuteronomy through Deuteronomy uh very significant ificant passage in Deuteronomy 15.
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Three verses that that should cause you to really stop and think again. They are so different from each other that liberals say they're obviously from different source
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material. Which the only conclusion then is that the redactor was a flaming idiot and would keep three contradictory statements in the same chapter and pass
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it off as divine revelation. Okay. Um the argument about redactors and whatnot is is really very facious and and very shallow. Levit Deuteronomy 15:4.
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However, there shall be no poor among you, since the Lord will surely bless you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess. Number one, there shall be no
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Hey, Deuteronomy 15 4. No poor, no poor. No king, no king.
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Verse seven, Verse seven, if there is a poor man with you, one of your brothers, in any of your towns, in your land, which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your
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heart, nor close your hand from your poor brother, of which there are none. That's an easy one. I can work with that. Okay, I can be gracious to those
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who don't exist. And he makes it very clear here, not a poor man because that could just
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be a an alien, a stranger passing through. No, a poor brother, a poor Israelite. So no poor. Well, if there's a poor man, and then there's verse 11,
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for the poor will never cease to be in the land. Therefore, I command you, saying, you shall freely open your hand to your brother, to your needy and to the needy and poor, I'm sorry, your your
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needy and poor in your land. Not only will there be poor, they're yours. Okay?
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I'm not going to exedute this passage just going to set it up as um very very challenging knowing as we do that the scripture does not contradict itself.
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Um we are challenged to interpret this passage in a way that allows all three of these statements to stand. Bob, however,
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Bob, however, Right after 4 goes on to say only if you carefully
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Right? There's a condition but the verse four is very assertive for the Lord will surely bless you in the land. So it's it's very assertive and then there's the condition if you but still the statement
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there shall be no there will always be. So it's like it doesn't even matter if you obey there will be poor there will be poor there will always be poor among you. Now you can say okay God
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knows they're not going to obey. That's not that's not feeling the text. Okay to feel the text is like there's no poor. Well if there's poor there will always
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be poor. That's that's what the text leaves you with. And the the harshness of the statements relative to one another is important to the exugesus of
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that passage. Yes, obedience is the requirement of blessing, but it always was. There's no there's no sense of saying verse four the way it's said.
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Yes. Summary sum summary statement. It is contingent upon obedience and that obedience at the heart of that obedience is the way the community cares for the poor. So the poor are necessary. It's
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kind of like saying Adam's fall was necessary for the glorification of the father through the son, right? Okay, we don't really understand everything, but it was obviously necessary for his whole
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redemptive. Well, the poor are necessary. That's why I say to you, do not withhold your hand. Do not harden your heart because the essence of obedience is not
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sacrifice. It's compassion and mercy. And so it's right there at the beginning in Torah. It's like now it's not your sacrifices that matter. It's how you treat your brother. And so you will
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always have poor. Now Leviticus 25 does not discount that. In fact, what Leviticus 25 does is it defines the nature of that
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poverty, at least within a holy nation, a nation living in obedience to Yahweh's command. The nature of that poverty is never
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Poverty will not become systemic within your nation your nation if you obey my commands. Conversely, neither will wealth.
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Wealth will not become generational. It will not distill and concentrate into the hands of the few. So there will there will not be
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generational wealth, the Rockefellers. Okay. But there will also not be the generational poor. Jenny
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that that is the yes that is the the nature of obed I would say that is the nature of obedience and the purpose of the prosperity if you okay we well but the blessing is also God's deliverance through the obedient child
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of the disadvantaged child. So the blessing the blessing is is not just the prosperity. The blessing is received both by the
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giver and the one who receives. And as Paul puts it um that what we have been given is is not we don't give it away to impoverish ourselves but the the bounty
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he calls it you know the bounty that you've received is for the the temporary relief of others. Okay. But but the idea is that especially in the Jubilee, the
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idea is to hit the reset button once every generation. every generation. You hit the reset button and everything goes back to to go back to go, you know,
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get $200 and off you go again. Right? The ultimate purpose is the increase of of on both sets, both the
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poor and the wealthy. Give thanks and praise to God. But also the the emphasis is on hope and not despair.
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Israel was to be a people of joy and hope and they were to they were to uh manifest this to the world. And one way
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they did that was that that nobody despared of their children of the next generation being as bad off or worse than them
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because somewhere intervening there would be a jubilee and everything would go back to the way it was. Now that that's a again it's a remarkable concept if you if you dig
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into it and think about it economically and then you think well how could we do such a thing in the 21st century we can't I mean we we can't thanks to the
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enlightenment particularly now people give Thomas Jefferson credit for the declaration of independence okay today um he would be accused of using chat GPT
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okay he did not site his sources Okay. But everybody recognized them. One one of the major sources was John Lockach in his uh second treatise on government. Um
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that that is almost quoted verbatim in many places except where except where Thomas Jefferson is dissing on King George. Pretty much the rest of it comes lifted right out of Lach. Uh and
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Lockach's emphasis was the on idea of ownership of property. Although our country has not followed lock in principles but this is where
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we don't we don't realize that the idea of individual ownership of property was ridiculous was ridiculous in this in the millennia
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leading up to the 17th century and the writings of John Lock and and others like him. like him. property was owned by the powers, the
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king, the baron or the church. They owned all the property and the rest of mankind were tenant farmers at best. Okay, that's it. They they they held
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they held no land in in ownership. It was always in in thief. It was always at the at the behest and the grace of the
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Lord, whoever that may be. and they owed him a certain tax and then service for that land. Okay. So the idea you know coming out and saying that as Loach does
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that a man just as a man's body is his own possession which was also radical still is in some countries today so that which he improves
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is his property. Okay. Now lock approaches the ownership of property in a way that would be very foreign to modern lawyers.
29:00
modern lawyers. Basically if you till the land and plant a crop that property is yours because you have improved it from its state of nature. Okay? You have you have taken it
29:10
from its state of nature. Now this argument will be used by the Anglo-Americans against the Native Americans who didn't improve. they just hunted.
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Okay? Because generally speaking, the the Indians were not farmers. That that's not entirely true. They did grow vegetables and um corn. I mean, they
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weren't they weren't devoid devoid of farming. Uh and in that case, Lach would say that land is theirs. Land that is tilled, land that is improved, um a creek that that becomes a source of a
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water wheel, anything that removes. So this is lock.
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But it also has this definition has its builtin limitation. builtin limitation. Lach says that a man can only improve to the extent of his own need. And so his ownership can only extend to
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that of his and his family's need. Beyond that, the land is still available for others to improve. So, Lock's principles are actually a bit
30:40
more biblical than than what we did actually end up with here in in the uh United States. And so, uh you know, first of all, all you had to do is farm it. You you cut down the trees, you pulled out the stumps, you tilled the
30:51
ground, and you planted a crop. That's your property because you have removed it from the state of nature in which it once was. Or even if you if you harvest the apples from a tree or the acorns
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from an oak or what? I don't know what you do with those. Okay. Pecans. Okay. All right. What are you going to do with acorn? Just throw them at the Indians. I guess um just remember they're not
31:13
edible for us. Yeah. Right. Feed this within squirrels own it. Whatever you collect if you that labor it's it's a matter of the labor is part of your body. Your body your body is an
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inalienable possession of yourself. And therefore your labor is an ex is a claim upon the earth and constitutes ownership of that plot
31:36
of land that in whatever way you improve. Okay. Now obviously that's somewhat subjective what constitutes improvement. Okay. But it but it's limited. It was limited
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So Lach was not advocating land barons. land barons. He was not advocating the the the accumulation of of great uh swaths of land into the
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hands of of a few or of a family. And and I think that um uh Isaiah 5:E8 is uh is the prophecy or the
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condemnation of the prophet, the prophetic um condemnation. Woe to those who attach house to house and join field to field until there is no more room and
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you are alone. You alone are a land owner in the midst of the land. Okay, that that verse Isaiah 5'8 is the negative summary of Leviticus 25.
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This is not to happen in Israel. Okay. Now, if the framers and founders of framers of our constitution, founders of our country and our system um were in
33:10
fact um biblical Christians, then the laws, the property laws that they would have instituted would have been different than they are.
33:22
We have instituted a a a system that is based on um a concept
33:32
that Aristotle famously said was impossible and that is the fertility of money and the idea of interest
33:43
that money can grow without producing anything of any use. Okay. Now again, that's not a con that's a concept that we just we just take for
33:54
granted today, but it's not a concept that was prevalent in in human history in the ancient world. And it's not a concept that is acceptable to biblical
34:05
economic principles. economic principles. Israelites were forbidden to charge interest to fellow Israelites. Your money did not make money. The only thing
34:17
that made money was the produce of the land. that that was it. In fact, um and I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself, nobody actually owned any land in Israel. God makes it clear in
34:29
Leviticus 25:23, Leviticus 25:23, the land is his. Every Israelite, every family, every clan of every tribe was a tenant farmer.
34:41
And so when they sold the land, they were only selling the produce of the land, not the land itself. The land remained the lord's and because of his
34:53
will in allocating the land by lots that land belonged to the clan at least if not the family to which it was
35:03
allocated. So they didn't sell land. There was no transfer of deed. The land simply gave up its produce to whoever owned the production of the land. the the grain or
35:14
whatever the the grapes, the olives, that's what you bought and you would buy it on the basis of remaining years until the jubilee. If there were only a few
35:25
remaining years left, the value of that sale is is greatly reduced because at that year of Jubilee, it goes back to the original owner. If it's year one, then and you paid
35:37
upfront, you didn't pay annually. You bought it. Okay? you you paid the whole thing on the basis of what you were going to harvest from that land for the next 49 years because after 49 years it
35:49
would go back to the original owner and so the calculation of the purchase price was based on years to the jubilee. Okay. Um again incredibly remarkable system.
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And when we think about money, we also here have to think um other than just the the bills in our wallet if we have any. I don't um or it money that is that is just a a form of trans of financial
36:30
transfer is all that is money is value. Land is money. Time is money. Okay? Anything that is of value is capable of
36:42
being used in economic exchange. Okay. Now the the increase that the buyer gains in terms of purchasing the produce of
36:55
the land comes from his labor. He has to work the land. Now he already has his own land like Boaz for example. And so
37:06
yes, he buys other land and he produces from that land and he becomes a wealthy man. That is true. But he cannot become a wealthy man in
37:20
perpetuity because that land that was not originally his will not be his or his sons at the Jubilee. It will all go back to the original family who gets a fresh start. Okay? and
37:32
whatever misfortune befell the the father um might be overcome by the son but he now he has a chance whereas if
37:42
you don't have this system then what happens is that the the second generation the third generation is paying the price or reaping the rewards
37:54
of either the mistakes or the labor of the first generation. Okay. So what we're what we're not seeing and and this is the word that it all really comes down to. It's not equality, it's equity.
38:06
Credible difference between those two words. Equality is socialism or communism. That doesn't work. The land wasn't equal. wasn't equal. The productivity of the land was not
38:17
equal. Some plots in some areas were more fertile than others. Okay? So even the distribution of the land was not equal. But it was equitable
38:29
so that each man had what he needed for his family. However, you could fall upon hard times. You could have a bad harvest. You might fall into bad health and not be able to run your farm for a
38:40
year. Debts mount up. You can't pay off your bills. And so, you have to sell the produce of the land. Normally with it, your own labor. Okay? You went with the
38:51
land. you were the one who continued to farm the land, but now the produce of the land was going to someone else who has paid for it. You would get enough to live on and eat. And in some cases, you
39:02
would actually get paid because the provision is actually there in Leviticus 25 for self redemption.
39:16
Yes. Yes. with your income, but you're not paying off your debt because until you pay back the
39:28
uh amortized uh amortized um uh remaining balance, it remains the produce remains the property of the buyer until Jubilee. So
39:40
you can work 49 years and then in year 50 you get it back. Okay? But you you haven't paid anything against it. All the produce has gone to the one who who
39:51
buys it because that's paying him back for the lump sum he gave you up front. It's calculated on each year's produce. Okay. What was not built into the
40:02
system. So what we're dealing with here in these laws
40:15
is the concept of equity, not equality. not equality. The system was by no means designed to create equality, nor did it. No man was impoverished by Jubilee.
40:33
He would only be impoverished by his own foolishness of the additional wealth he gained through the years of the owning the production of the land that he bought. Okay? But he was not impoverished because of Jubilee. In
40:45
Jubilee, nothing was taken from him of the 50 years that he had accumulated. He just the land went back to the he would not continue to accumulate from
40:56
that land. that land. So he wasn't impoverished and in fact he might not be set back at all in terms of his current economic status. He might have to look elsewhere to buy
41:07
someone else out, you know, but um it just it prevented the the whole idea which is incredibly inequitable and that is generational wealth and generational
41:18
poverty. Those two things are incredibly unbiblical. They should bother Christians. Okay. The idea of generational wealth and generational
41:29
poverty are are um integral systemic features of fallen human society but not of the kingdom. Okay. All right.
41:42
So this idea of the fertility of money I don't agree with this fellow very often.
41:53
Um, in fact, I don't necessarily agree with him on this, but but he he very famously said, and I think it's in in his um Niko McKonan ethics is that money is sterile.
42:05
That money cannot reproduce money. Now, for whatever Aristotle was, he was he was no economist. Um because money has
42:15
has always made money. Interest is called usery. Um, but it's essentially the same thing is is nothing more than money be getting money. Okay? It's it's
42:26
money making money without producing anything of any value or worth except time. Time is that which
42:38
fertilizes money. The longer you hold it, the more it reproduces in the hands of the one that loaned it to you. That's
42:49
interest. Okay. So, you buy a house for $100,000 and after 30 years you have paid about $210,000 because of interest. That's the
42:59
fertility of money. But it's a concept that hasn't been universally agreed upon throughout the ages. Nor is it a concept. It's a concept you will find in scripture. You are allowed, an Israelite
43:11
was allowed to charge interest of a foreigner, but not of a fellow countryman. And I would I would venture to say I think it follows by biblical
43:22
reason that you could not charge interest to a foreign convert to Judaism because at that point when they were
43:33
circumcised they were Israelites, non-native Israelites, and therefore you could not charge them interest. The charging of interest to countrymen was one of the sins that the prophets railed against in
44:09
Right. This is one place, one of the one of the exceptions that proves the rule. However, where there is not the same law for the stranger as for the native and that is in the in the interest of of interest that the um you know that you
44:22
you could charge the stranger interest but not the the brother the countryman. Okay. So, Aristotle's old view is is money is sterile. You can't make money from money. But I think he's been proven
44:33
profoundly wrong. I think he was not actually saying you can't do it but you shouldn't do it. The idea behind this was recognized I think even by the Greek
44:43
philosophers and that is the laborer of one's hand ought to improve one's life and the life of those around him. Okay. The idea of worth it derives from the
44:58
production of good or goods. It does not derive from the um what's the word almost the impersonal
45:11
and anonymous growth of money. You you think about money and interest and and what does the interest actually
45:23
produce? What what good is is being produced? What benefit, what improvement from the state of nature is coming from the fact that $100 today will cost you $110 in a
45:35
year? What what does what does that produce? And so Aristotle's argument was not that you can't make money out of money, but it is contrary
45:58
value are associated and derived I should say
46:18
improvement. I think this is something that mankind has always sort of understood
46:31
at least in his philosophical mode. This is what John Lock is talking about. This is not what we end up with though. Okay? This is not what the the man whose harvest was so so abounding that he tore
46:42
down his barns and built bigger ones. Okay? What what Jesus is talking about in that in that parable is Leviticus 25. The whole idea of storing up wealth for
46:53
yourself for many years to come. When the principle is um the sbatical
47:05
underlies the social and economic life of the community first of all but the esqueological and prophetic nature of that community to begin with
47:17
the the six days you shall work on the seventh you shall rest. That language is almost verbatim repeated in Leviticus 25 with respect to the sbatical year.
47:28
For six years you shall plow the field and harvest, but in the seventh year the land shall rest. Okay, so Exodus 20 is
47:39
just banging in your ear as you're reading Leviticus 25. What counted every week counted for the years. Okay? And as well, just as in the wilderness, God
47:51
provided sufficient mana on the sixth day to carry them through to the eighth.
48:01
In Leviticus 25, he goes a little bit further. He argues from the greater to the lesser because no doubt they were worried how are we going to live not not farming for a year. Okay, so let's let's look a little bit at first of all the
48:13
sbatical year. Okay. Uh the language is from Exodus
48:41
I have it in there somewhere. Anyhow, Exodus 20. Have it in the notes. If you remember the verses, that's good. But the the six days,
48:54
six days labor, one day rest. And everybody rests. The Sabbath is is a is not so much a day of rest as it is a day of no work. And the same thing is
49:07
true in the description of the sabbatical year. You don't pull out your plow. You do no organized seeding, harvesting, pruning, anything.
49:20
Now you want you might ask what do you do? Well, actually in the seventh year, everyone was to uh come together and read the law and the Levites were to
49:30
read the law in every village. The year was a year of study, a year spent not laboring day in and day out from sunrise to sunset, but rather in Torah. Okay,
49:43
that's that really becomes the idea behind the Pharisees. And then after the destruction of the temple in AD70, the idea that Torah now
49:53
replaces the temple. And the study of Torah is is as bringing sacrifice to the temple. It's replaced it. Um, but this this comes from the concept of what did
50:05
I do during that whole year? You know, do I go to Florida? What do I do? I mean, take a get in my RV and drive around. No, you you study the law. You study the word of the Lord. And every
50:17
seven years, it was like you went back to to school, continuing education. And as far as what you ate, well, God says, "I'll give you enough in the sixth year." But if you if you add up the
50:29
numbers, you've got seven sabbatical years takes you up to year 49. Then year 50 is like the high Sabbath of the feasts.
50:40
It's like the feast of first fruits which comes after seven weeks from passover. Okay, feast of unleaven bread. Seven weeks then pass or um first
50:53
fruits, Pentecost. Okay, it's like, okay, these are days and weeks. Now we're going to years. Okay, you got seven Sabbaths and then the day after. Now you got seven sabbatical years and
51:04
the year after. So you see the patterns. See, their whole cadence of their life is oriented around this, oriented around the Sabbath because it's the Sabbath rest that we're all looking forward to.
51:15
See, there's the esqueological and prophetic angle is that it's all imbued in this idea that God rested on the seventh day. And and the thing is so important, you know, say I I told you
51:27
this already, but during Milton, I was just in there. I think I was getting a Fig Newton. Um and the the girls were in there and and one of them said, "Well, how many days did it take God to to create?" And someone said, "Seven." And
51:38
I said, "Nope, just six. Just six." You know, all the arguments he created in seven literal days. Well, no, it's just six. Okay, not seven. Just six. Because
51:49
on seven, he did nothing. That's it's it's a day of no work.
52:03
what is really our perpetual regular study of the word. Well, yes, we live within that reality in perpetuity constantly. perpetuity constantly. And that's what we're trying
52:14
that's what a a lot of of modern evangelical teachers are trying to get across to the church is to recover this idea that Paul had so deeply within him that we live within that reality. Behold
52:27
a new creation. All things passed away. Behold, all things are new. Okay? So we live within that reality, which means that the the typology of that reality
52:39
pertains to us. So if we're saying that what we're reading is all typological and that we have we are now experiencing the first fruits of this,
52:51
this is what it's supposed to look like. But not in the world, in the church, in the people of God, in the community of God's people is where
53:02
it was supposed to. It didn't work in in Syria or Babylon or Egypt. It was supposed to work in Israel. And just in that context
53:22
right, there were no need, right? Yeah. No needy among them was the first character written about the early church. And it wasn't because anybody was impoverished. was impoverished. And it wasn't because they reenacted these laws. These laws cannot be lifted
53:35
wholesale out of Leviticus like some want to do. Theonomists and whatnot. You don't. If you do that, you're really violating the typology, which means you
53:46
are not only ignoring, but to some sense, you're blaspheming its fulfillment. Okay, you've got to recognize that that
53:56
typological events are are historical. They are cultural, but they don't abide. Type typology by its very nature must be replaced with
54:10
the antitype. And once the antitype has come, in this case the church as the community of God's people, then you have to use wisdom to apply the principles of
54:22
the type to the reality of the antitype. Okay? So um and you'll read this in the notes. I think excellent discussion by Christopher Wright on on the fact that
54:32
you can't just lift these things out of um 1,200 BC or 1500 BC and put them into the 21st century through legislation.
54:43
That that's not what's intended here. It would never work. When it's been tried, it has failed. Even when it's been tried in small scales in in closters or, you
54:53
know, it doesn't work that way. What it ends up with is communism, the distribution of the materials by the
55:04
powerful which becomes corrupt and oppressive and destructive. So um the the the the idea of the sabbatical year. So the language
55:26
produce to get you to year eight. But that's not how Leviticus 25, that's not how the Lord describes it. He actually picks if you're if you're
55:37
afraid and actually it says that how will we live if you're afraid of making it one year then what are you going to do from year 48 to year 51 because you've got two sabbatical years
55:48
back to back and so that's the one that the Lord says I will give you enough in year six to last you to three years to the harvest I will give you enough in
56:01
the harvest of year 48 to last you to the harvest of year 51. And obviously this is um and so
56:20
the idea was that the farmer himself did not really have to glean his crops. They were left for the whole year for the poor, for the widow, for the orphan, and for the stranger. That's what they were for. and also for the beasts, also for
56:33
the animals. Um, they could just go and graze and they could har they could pick as they desired. And the farmer would have enough from his harvest in year six to last him through to year the harvest
56:45
of year eight if he if he obeyed if he obeyed. Now, I I've long maintained that there's only one biblical example of a man who who might have done this and
56:56
that's Boaz. that's Boaz. um read some very interesting things I'm talking about the idea Boaz in that narrative we'll talk about next week um but but he does some very interesting
57:07
things in his negotiation with the nearer kinsman redeemer
57:20
he pulls a legal colony you'd like this okay he pulls a legal maneuver of questionable biblical foundations And yet his near kinsman does not argue.
57:32
He combines the um the idea of redemption with the leverit marriage. He combines those two.
57:43
Something that the man the other man was not thinking about until Boaz said it and they said, "Oh yeah, no, you you can have it. The woman goes with the land."
57:55
And we'll talk about that next week. But what it does in that situation, it just shows first of all how important the land is. It's the arbiter of Israel's obedience. It it is the representative
58:06
of God. Okay? It here. Ever since the murder of Abel, the land shows up as God's abiding
58:17
witness. You the blood of your brother cries out to me from the earth. Okay, that that's way back in Genesis 4. Okay,
58:34
he asks and heard to be what he did, right? While the men were scooping up the land, I I get that's that's a good point. Nehemiah Nehemiah upheld I I put it this
58:47
way. Maybe this is the way to put it. Nehemiah upheld the whole thing legislatively. Boaz seemed to have upheld it practically. Nehemiah wasn't a farmer. He was a government official. Um but he
58:58
his own expense. Yeah. He he put himself in the place of and I think what we're seeing here is the concept that Paul later calls the
59:21
And and I think this is what James means when he says that faith without works is dead. The faith that saves, the faith that is real obeys. And obedience is not cheap.
59:34
It it's simple in principle. Many many of it's very simple in principle. This is what you do. Um, and especially the the sabbatical year, it's very simple, okay? You wake
59:46
up at the beginning of year seven and you don't go out in the field and plow. You don't plant seed. In the fall, you do not harvest for the whole year. Okay?
59:58
Instead, you get out your Torah and you read. You study the law. So um in principle it's all very easy but in in actual practical application it was it was well it seemed
1:00:10
to be impossible for the nation as a whole it it proved to be impossible. Um, we've been talking, this is an analogy, but in in um in in history, US history, we've been
1:00:23
going through the first half of the 1800s leading up to 1860 and basing it on the uh alleged response that Benjamin Franklin gave in Philadelphia after the
1:00:35
con constitutional convention. He was asked by a woman, "Sir, what form of government have you given us?" And he said, "Ma'am, a republic if you can keep
1:00:45
it. And the next 80 years were basically to show that we couldn't keep it. We couldn't. I mean, we could tried compromise, you know, we created Maine to get Missouri, you know, we all the
1:00:57
bleeding Kansas and but we couldn't. It had to go finally to war. In a sense, a a self-imposed exile by a number of the states and then a civil war. So, could
1:01:10
Israel keep it? No, they couldn't keep it. Here it is. It's it's simple in principle. Just do this. Trust me that I
1:01:20
will take care of you. And it couldn't do it. I don't think we'd have done any better. Honestly, that's why I use the analogy. I mean, it was much much less. We weren't given divine promises that
1:01:31
the republic would last. We weren't even given a divine promise that the republic was godly. Uh we were just doing it. We were trying it out. Um but we couldn't keep it without actually going to arms.
1:01:43
We had to keep it by force of arms. Well, the Israelites could not keep it in spite of all of the disciplines Amos
1:01:53
talks about. Even after this, you did not return. And Leviticus 26 is going to say the same thing. I will do this to you and you still won't honor me. I will do this to you and you still won't honor
1:02:03
me. So, I mean, it's like Deuteronomy. you know, you're you're going to grow fat and you're going to kick, but I'm telling you, here it is. I will take
1:02:14
care of you if you will obey. So, this is where the law again becomes that school master that leads us to Christ realizing that as Peter says, this is a burden that our neither we nor our
1:02:25
forefathers were able to bear. So what's being asked being asked this is this is where the the mystery of God's command and and human
1:02:37
responsibility come into play. Does the impossibility of the task on account of human sin nullify the demand?
1:02:50
The answer is no. That's a fundamental question in the argument between Armenianism and Calvinism. The impossibility of obedience does not
1:03:00
nullify God's righteous right to command it because he did not give us the inability. We did.
1:03:11
The the inability is entirely ours. God did not create Adam to fall. He only created him with the possibility of falling. The fall was entirely Adam's.
1:03:22
That's Romans 5. So um here here is a righteous legislation that would that would provide equity rather than equality within the society. Now what
1:03:34
this means is that now the sabbatical year did provide to some extent with release. Um indentured servitude for example would end in year seven. the the
1:03:48
Hebrew slave, Hebrew servant. It really shouldn't even be called a Hebrew slave because they were they were never the property of their Hebrew master. Okay? Um and they were always released either
1:04:00
in the seventh year or the Jubilee unless they chose to stay and became the the bond servant of of that person. Um so the the sabbatical year was like a micro jubilee. Okay. the land rested.
1:04:13
There was release. But the the purchases of of both land and homes, as we see later in Leviticus 25, but this is a two-eek study, Leviticus 25, um the land
1:04:26
and the homes outside of walled cities remained the possession of the purchaser through sbatical year after sbatical year after sbatical year until the
1:04:37
jubilee. Then it reverted. Okay? So whatever records they kept was not about who bought what and who owns the title because Yahweh owns the title. It's to
1:04:50
which tribe, clan, and family was this allotment made. It is theirs in perpetuity. The produce of it can be
1:05:00
sold, but not the land, not the not the lease, not the title of it. It belongs to that. Maybe not the family because families did die out but the clan and it was so important that even women the
1:05:12
daughters of daughters of Zelop Fed something like that Zeloped Zel yeah and Z guy Zan who had four
1:05:23
daughters um they went she they were allowed to inherit so the the principle we we're establishing the principle of the land and the people now that's an
1:05:33
important principle because of the concept cept that is so popular among many American evangelicals that the prophecies cannot be fulfilled until the land is returned to Israel. The land
1:05:44
must become the Jews again. And and there is there is merit to that argument. Okay? until you realize that that is all all of that is within the
1:05:59
covenant the old covenant and all of it was itself typological itself typological there there I don't believe that there is any esqueological significance of the
1:06:10
fact that the state of Israel exists in the Middle East today I think it's politically and historically fascinating biblically irrelevant
1:06:21
biblically irrelevant because they are not in the Messiah. Okay? So they they are not in any way oriented toward the fulfillment of the prophecy of scripture because they are
1:06:32
not in any way oriented to Jesus Christ. So they they are at best among evangelicals a distraction. At worst a dangerous error.
1:06:45
the the idea it that they have, you know, that land again, which they don't have all the land that was promised Abraham actually. Um, so they're they're
1:06:55
not quite there. But the the notion of the land and the people being so closely and intimately united is a biblical
1:07:06
notion. But that doesn't mean that it is it is uh produced a biblical conclusion regarding current events and future events. Okay. Nor does it mean that
1:07:20
Christians are biblically bound to support the state of Israel
1:07:30
regardless of of its actual actions and behavior. The idea that it's somehow commanded in scripture that we are to support Israel in whatever it does is very prevalent in our country among
1:07:42
evangelicals. I don't think it has any basis in scripture. I really don't. I I I don't think we should be looking at what's going on in current events as if they're actually fulfilling prophecy that was
1:07:53
fulfilled by our Lord Jesus Christ and is being fulfilled in his new creation. And as long as any country in the world is outside of Christ, that it is outside
1:08:05
the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. So, um, as Paul says, for the sake of the gospel, they are your enemies.
1:08:15
That's a remarkable statement. For the sake of God's promises that they are perpetually his people, but for the sake of the truth of the gospel and the power of the gospel, unbelieving Israel in
1:08:26
wherever it is, whether Israel or New York City or South Florida, they are your enemies. your enemies. Not that we should go out and shoot them or anything like that. I don't want to be taken for an anti-semite. just they
1:08:38
it makes sense to me why people would think like Scoffield and and um what was his name um JN Darby that they would think okay the land and the and is the
1:08:49
land and the people were so united in the covenant that they must be reunited okay now that's that's an error that is logical within the system of
1:08:59
dispensationalism but it's not logical within the system of biblical ex Jesus so we have the the uh the sabbatical year And um as I said earlier um it's observed
1:09:10
mainly in its non-observance. Okay. The the the later discussions of the sabbatical year in scripture are entirely there's there's no example or record of it ever being observed
1:09:23
nor any jubilee. And the only historical record we have is of its non-observance. In fact, that comes in the very next chapter where it's basically prophesied that you
1:09:36
you will not do this. But let me tell you, the land will enjoy its Sabbaths. So you have again that pervasive personification of the land. The the
1:09:46
land is not simply metaphorical here. It it represents the earth that Paul says is is groaning, waiting for the revelation of the sons of God. Israel was a mic the land of
1:09:59
Canaan, the promised land was a microcosm of that bigger um um frustration and vanity the whole earth is feeling and what it was supposed to
1:10:10
experience under the holy nation of Israel was a foretaste of what the whole earth will experience in its restoration. Okay, there there'll be release, there'll be return, there'll be
1:10:21
restoration and the land will yield its crops. See, that's what God says in in Leviticus 25. He's basically saying, "I'm going to reverse the curse.
1:10:33
And in the sixth year, it will be as the garden. The lamb will yield its fruit in in in the crops, in the grapes, in the olives, in the fruit. it will yield all
1:10:43
of its fruit to where it he actually promises in Leviticus 26 that the you you'll be harvesting your wheat until it's time to harvest your grapes. And by
1:10:55
the time you finish bringing all your grapes, you got to harvest the barley. That's what I'm going to do. And we don't really comprehend that. We we have
1:11:06
the we live in the age of fertilizers, you know? We we don't think about harvests anymore because we don't ever have a famine. I mean, when when's the
1:11:18
last time we had serious crop failure in the United States? Anybody? I'm sure it's in recorded history, but was there were there any time that we had massive malnutrition and starvation
1:11:32
because Dust Bowl? Dust Bowl? Dust Bowl. Yeah. But that was not so much the East Coast. Yeah, the dust bowl. That's probably a good uh
1:11:51
And then that one day when someone parted the Mississippi, it was really it was in all the newspapers. Um, yeah. Again, my my point is that we we're so far removed from this
1:12:04
culturally that we can't really get our mind around the magnitude of either the curse or the blessing. Okay? Now, I might put
1:12:14
it in a in a different context. I might say, you know, if the Lord might say, if if you obey me and take every seventh year off, you will sign so many
1:12:26
contracts, you know, and you will have so many renovations and and you know, but I mean, that's that's kind of the modern equivalent of how we we labor. In
1:12:38
reality, if if I sign 25% of the proposals I put out in a year, I'm doing really well. industrywide, I'm doing really well.
1:12:49
That's one in four, you know. So, so to to to to have a a million dollars in revenue, I have to I have to put out $4 million in proposals.
1:13:05
That's the curse. Okay, does that make sense? I mean we can put it into our own context when we look at the the futility of our labor and the frustration of our efforts
1:13:16
and how much energy goes in and then how little comes out. Okay. So it is something that we can relate to. We just
1:13:27
can't relate to it in the in the form of of of grain and and grapes and olives. But the the language is to be taken I think literally.
1:13:38
think literally. I think God had every intention in showering such curse reversing blessings on Israel that the nations would flock to Israel. Just as Israel in one day
1:13:51
flocked to Egypt during a famine, they would flock to Israel and they would be a lender and not a borrower. So that's the obedience of
1:14:02
faith. Um I I do think that the this is a conclusion that I make in my dissertation is is that God's predisposition is to bless his people. I
1:14:16
don't believe in the prosperity gospel which has turned it into a formulaic mechanism by which we by which God is indebted to his people to prosper them.
1:14:27
No, they are indebted to their God to praise, to thank, and to obey. But his predisposition as as any father would would be that his children be
1:14:39
prosperous, that his children would have for every good work. That's what that's what the scripture says in both the Old and the New Testament. I think we have access to that. Okay. Again, the poor
1:14:53
you will always have among you. But that poverty was never meant to be perpetual. There was there was a generational reset button that gave every generation a
1:15:03
fresh start. But it did not necessarily do any damage to the previous generation. It set them it was like, okay, you're growing because you've
1:15:14
bought land and your wealth is increasing. Okay, now you also have to start over because all that land goes back to its original owner, but you don't start back here. You don't have to
1:15:25
repay, you know, what you paid to buy the land, okay? And all the produce that you benefited from and probably sold, okay? Because you didn't need it. Um, that that's still yours.
1:15:37
So you you you start here and then you start here, but you start over and so does the other guy. So it's not equality. It's equity.
1:15:48
It's equity. The God is allowed to bless one generation of one family and then later a generation of another family and that he is also allowed to challenge uh and
1:16:00
to distress because he does both. It's entirely up to him and it's according to his will. Um and so the the point being is that there's never there's never
1:16:10
cause number one for despair nor for um complacency which is illustrated by the rich man. You know I have goods laid up
1:16:22
for years to come. That's complacency. His reliance is no longer on the provision of Yahweh. It's on the provision of his own farm and that nope.
1:16:32
Okay. So the what would the world be like if this were the way we did business?
1:16:44
You know what if your mortgage was wiped out in the year of Jubilee?
1:16:54
Okay. We'd have to reset how just like they it's actually prescribed how they were to calculate the value of something on the basis of how many years were remaining. Yeah. So nobody actually gets
1:17:06
ripped off. The buyer doesn't get ripped off because the seller is selling a 49-year package for three years now. But it it just I've I've often pondered. I
1:17:17
don't I don't get me wrong, I I don't think I'm not some polyiana that thinks that this will ever actually happen until the new earth. But if God
1:17:29
created us created us to work the land, will we not work the land in the new
1:17:39
earth? Now, I don't I also don't think, and this is pure conjecture and also hope, I don't think we'll all be farmers.
1:17:53
Um, I don't know what it's going to be like. You know, it's a really interesting thought experiment for me to to think about the many generations of of mankind
1:18:05
and their situations in life and the believers of those generations and then the new earth where we will all come together.
1:18:16
come together. Okay. Um, but will some of us be wearing togas and some of us Levis's? And I mean, how some of us going to be engineers and other going to be, you
1:18:27
know, um, stomping grapes? I like I I don't know what it's going to be like, but we have we were given a commission
1:18:40
to fruify this earth and to promise both in Genesis and in Israel that on the condition of obedience and faith through obedience,
1:18:53
the earth would then willingly yield up its produce. its produce. So we would we would expend the labor and we would be rewarded proportionately
1:19:03
with the fruit of the earth. That's that's just the promise of of scripture. How it's going to look I I don't know. But but what we're seeing here first of all with the sabbatical year is that
1:19:15
it's not up to you. Okay? Just as those who gathered mana or went out to gather mana on the seventh day
1:19:26
or those who gathered more than they needed. For those who gathered more than they needed and saved it overnight the next day was moldy and inedible. And those who went out on the seventh day
1:19:37
found nothing but an angry god. Okay. And and I think that was the that is the principle that reminds us that it is God who gives us the power to make wealth. It is God who gives the former and the
1:19:49
latter rain. It is God who blesses in seed time and harvest. But it's also God who turns the sky into bronze. It's God who withholds the rain and turn
1:19:59
well actually the sky into iron and the and the earth into bronze. Okay. Um which I think he's done in upstate. You try to plant something around here. But
1:20:11
it it is it is even today. It's no less true today than it was then that it is God who gives the power to make wealth. You know, it it is God's will
1:20:24
to either bless or to curse. Don't get me wrong. I don't think, you know, I I I I don't think that when I don't get a contract, it's because I've committed some sin. I don't think as as
1:20:37
Job's friends thought that there is a direct onetoone relationship between one's current situation and one's standing before God. I don't think it was that way in Israel. I don't think he
1:20:48
hated those who were rendered poor and had to sell their property. In fact, those were the ones he was most especially concerned about. They were his vessels to receive mercy
1:21:01
and those whom he prospered were his vessels to give mercy. So in in both situations, the poor and the rich were representatives of God's nature
1:21:14
and of compassion and mercy. Okay. Well, we we're not going to get to the sabbat or the year of jubilee, but I do want to say just a few short things about it um in in kind of anticipation of next week.
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Um and and it's by way of of looking at the broad scope. So, we go from Leviticus 25. Okay, so we look at the Jubilee and I mentioned this earlier, but we go
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from there Well, I shouldn't do that. I should just say Isaiah 61. Um, but verses one and two are are
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particular is verse two that mentions the acceptable year of the Lord. And then from there, we go to Luke 4
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And as I started out by saying that that this this has solidified the interpretation of Jubilee as prophetic and esqueological within Christian
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teaching. But in doing so sadly in many commentators, commentaries and and I think in general attitude of the church over the
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millennia, it has removed it from the realm of existential economic life. that it doesn't really matter how we do economics now.
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economics now. That this is all prophetic. It's all new earth stuff. earth stuff. But Jesus said, "This day, this prophecy has been fulfilled in your
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So what whatever this meant was said to be characteristic if if not essential to the messianic age which has happened.
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Let's close in prayer. Father, we do pray that you would give us wisdom and understanding as we look at at these um repetitive uh events, these years that
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you intended your people to observe. and in observing to show the obedience of their faith and their trust in your provision, that you might bless them, that the
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earth might yield up its harvest and its fruit, that the nations surrounding might behold the great God and the great laws that that God had given Israel.
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Father, we know that they failed, but we know that we have also failed and that the principles, the heart attitude, the compassion, the mercy, the consideration
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of those disadvantaged has largely departed from our culture in the west today and even in the church.
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So, Father, I pray that the teaching of the Jubilee, the teaching of the sabbatical year might have profound impact on the way we view
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our own economic life, our own economic surroundings, our our own thoughts as to how things ought to be done and our own
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thoughts and judgments on how things are actually done. Not that we can change them, but that we could pray that you would change them and that we could live
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in the midst of the world as men and women who in their economic lives reflect your nature and not a man-made
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economic system. economic system. Father, you you know that we desire to see your glory and to see your will prevail in our
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lives and in our impact in our families, in our community. And as small as we are, we know that that you indeed are great and powerful.
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So we ask that you would glorify your name through your church through Jesus Christ in whose name we pray.
