You shall thus consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty through the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, and each of you shall return to his own property, and each of you shall return to his family. Leviticus 25:10.
The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the LORD. Luke 4:18-19.
So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:36.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
Every fiftieth year for My people Israel in the promised land was to be a year of Jubilee (in Hebrew the word is yobel ( יוֹבֵל), meaning a ram’s horn (a wind instrument)). And in that year all debts were written off and released, accounted as paid in full, all lands were restored to their original owners, and all of My people who had become slaves were set free by their masters. And the land was to be given a rest because there was abundance of bumper crops from the year before, which was a sabbath year. And how did the jubilee year begin? On the day of atonement with the blast of the ram’s horn.
Jesus is your Jubilee. And that is today’s Life Lesson on the unfathomable riches I have put for you in Jesus your Messiah: “Jesus, Your Jubilee.” He has set you free from all your debts by paying in full all that you owed Me, He has set you free from the slavery to sin and death by bearing all your sins, sickness, and pain in His own body, and He has restored all the devil stole from you. He has restored what He did not steal. Psalm 69:4. He has set you free. Whom the Son sets free is free indeed. He came and set the captives free. He released the oppressed. He restored your righteousness. He came to undo the works of the devil and give you a time of favor from Me. And that is Jubilee.
Jesus took care of everything that can bind you. Isn’t it time you received that? It is time to enjoy your Jubilee. He came to announce a year of favor from Me. And that was what happened in the Jubilee year—all lands restored to their first owners, those you had lost their inheritance got it back in full, and all debts were forgiven and cancelled as if they had never been, and those who had been taken into slavery because they had fallen into debt and could not pay were set free—redeemed! Jubilee was My idea and I made it a command. Why? It was showing what I would do in My Son. He is the substance that cast the shadow of the Jubilee. Jubilee is fulfilled in Jesus.
Jesus is your Jubilee, in Him I undo all the devil has done and restore your families, your property, your damaged bodies and souls! But just as the year of jubilee began with the blowing of the shofar (the ram’s horn trumpet) on the day of atonement, Leviticus 25:8-11, so must yours. Repent and believe in the good news and if you really do, you will be filled with gratitude. And thanksgiving enables Me to complete the good work I have begun in you. Thanksgiving accelerates healing, provision, prosperity, victory, and deliverance. Thanksgiving multiplies what you have in your hand—just like when Jesus raised the five loaves and two fish up in thanksgiving, they multiplied. And that was jubilee, provision where there had been lack.
When the Israelites blew the shofar to announce the beginning of the Jubilee year, they consecrated the fiftieth year and proclaimed a release (liberty) through the land to all its inhabitants. Leviticus 25:10. When the priests blew the shofar at the walls of Jericho and raised the joyful shout, the walls went down.
You may never have thought about it, but Jubilee is important in your life too. Jesus announced in the synagogue in Nazareth that He came to announce the year of favor—the year of Jubilee—that in Him there it is Jubilee. My anointing was on Him to preach good news to the poor (the Jubilee was very good news to the poor who had lost their riches—they got them back and their debts cancelled!), to set the captives free (slaves released to freedom) and heal the broken hearted (restore the lost years). He fulfilled that passage in the hearing of all in that synagogue and it is for you too. And He is with you always till the end of this age, and this is the age of grace, the church age, a time when all your debts owed to Me by your sin is forgiven and gone, wiped out by the Blood of My Son, and all is restored to you that you lost while taken captive by the devil to do his will. The “god” of this world, that Adam authorized as the lord of his life, has stolen from you—stolen your true identity, killed and destroyed your bodies, lives and destinies, and has enslaved you, but that is over for those who receive My Son and are diligent to enter into and live the Jubilee. My Son came to undo the works of the devil, release you from the slavery of the law of sin and death, and give you back your inheritance. Do not return to slavery a second time. Live the Jubilee. It is yours. But it is not automatic. Just as it was not for the Israelites. In fact, they never really kept it and that was one reason they were taken in exile to Babylon. They refused to set the slaves free. Jeremiah 34:17. And the land was given a rest for the seventy-years of shabbat years they had not kept. 2 Chronicles 36:20-21. But after seventy years I restored them.
And your restored inheritance is better than it was before. Adam was heir of the world and all in it, but you are heir of Heaven and earth. It has pleased Me to give you not only the kingdoms of the earth, but to give you My Kingdom as well when you belong to the flock of My Son. I have made you joint heirs with Christ and I have given Him everything
During the year of Jubilee, the Israelites were to let the land rest and plant no crops. I told the Israelites, “you shall not sow, nor reap its aftergrowth, nor gather in from its untrimmed vines. For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you. You shall eat its crops out of the field.” Leviticus 25:11-12. No toilsome labor in the Jubilee year, and indeed, this command to rest the land and refrain from toilsome labor was not just in the Jubilee year, but every seventh year the land was to have a shabbat (rest) where no crops were sown or harvested. Leviticus 25:1-7. And the Jubilee year came after seven sets of Shabbats, or in the year after the forty-ninth year, which would be a Shabbat year already. Leviticus 25:8-12. So the land rested two years every forty-nine years, the Shabbat year and the Jubilee year.
The Israelites had a problem with following this for they wondered how they would have provisions if they did not sow or gather crops. But I assured them that I would order My BLESSING on the year before the Shabbat year so that it brought forth the crop for three years. Thus when they could sow the year after the Shabbat year, they would still eat the things from the bumper crop they had the year before it started, until the new crops were harvested. So My BLESSING provided for the sixth year, but not just the sixth year as a usual crop would, but also for the seventh year and the eighth year (the year they sowed again), so it supplied a double over itself. Now in the Jubilee year, however, there was an extra year of Shabbat, so then I blessed them with the double double. Enough for the sixth year, the seventh year, the Jubilee year, and the year after the Jubilee year. They had enough from the bumper crop that preceded the Shabbat year for the Shabbat year and also for the Jubilee year and it would feed them abundantly through the year after Jubilee when they again planted crops.
To enter the Shabbat, the rest, you need the double portion. To enter the Jubilee you need another portion on top of that. Remember, I gave the Israelites double the Manna on the day before the Shabbat so that they did not need to do any labor on the Shabbat. They were fed with no labor on their part.
Why do you worry about what you are to drink, eat, and wear? Do you recall when Jesus sent out His disciples to preach the good news of the Kingdom, He told them not to worry or take a lot of supplies along. He told them to travel free and light and all they needed would be supplied when they needed it. At the Last Supper he asked them if they had ever lacked anything on their preaching travels. And they said they had lacked nothing.
The Israelites never kept the Jubilee. This was a real problem for them, primarily they did not want to release their slaves or give back property. They did not want to forgive debt. And so they finally went into captivity at the time of Jeremiah, My prophet, for he warned them about the Jubilee, and they started to keep it and let their slaves go, but then they changed their minds and took them all back into slavery. Jeremiah 34:17. So their enemies came in and found the devil already had a stronghold in the land, and took My people captive for the seventy years that they had never given a Shabbat to the land. 2 Chronicles 36:20-21 (“Those who had escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon; and they were servants to him (King Nebuchadnezzar) and to his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its sabbaths. All the days of its desolation it kept sabbath until seventy years were complete.”)
I take the rest seriously and so should you. I created you on the evening of the sixth day so that you would immediately enter the Shabbat (rest) with Me and in Me. And by “the rest” I mean the place where you have no anxiety about anything but in everything, cast your cares on Me through prayers and petitions with thanksgiving, and live in perfect peace knowing I am taking care of everything in your life that you entrust to Me. And the rest is a place where you exercise your dominion authority over the works of My hands, and you are having the things of the earth work for you, instead of you spending your life chasing things. You will never catch enough on your own, like Peter fishing without Jesus in his boat, but when you are in Jesus and He is in you, things come to you—seek first My Kingdom and My righteousness and all these things will be added onto you. Take My Word and your words seriously. And enter the rest, where work is declaration of My Word with accompanying actions as I direct.
Shabbat, Jubilee, Jesus—they are all My perfect plan to restore to you the Eden Blessing and make it like sin never happened.
I love you and that is why I gave you Jesus—so you could live in perfect Shabbat and Jubilee every day, all day, and forever. And how do you enter? By thanksgiving and praise. Those are the evidence of faith. Faith rejoices at the good things I have already provided for you in Jesus. And faith takes them. Grace makes them and faith takes them, and faith works by love. Thank Me for the double double and see it manifest in your life.