But if you say, “What are we going to eat on the seventh year if we do not sow or gather in our crops?” then I will so order My blessing for you in the sixth year that it will bring forth the crop for three years. When you are sowing the eighth year, you can still eat from the crop, eating the old until the ninth year when its crop comes in. Leviticus 25:20-22.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלוהים) says:
The Shabbat (Sabbath), the Sabbatical year (Shmita), and the Jubilee year that I commanded My Covenant people to keep as a nation set them apart has very different from any other nation. There was no other nation that required by law for all, from the least to the greatest, to be given a day of rest and sanctification every week. There was no other nation that required the release of debts and of slaves for its citizens every seventh year. And there was no other nation that declared a Jubilee year every fiftieth year whereby all ancestral lands were returned, debts were forgiven, slaves released, and properties and lives restored.
Moses told the people: “See, I have taught you statutes and judgments just as the LORD my God commanded me, that you should do thus in the land where you are entering to possess it. So keep and do them, for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as is the LORD our God whenever we call on Him? Or what great nation is there that has statutes and judgments as righteous as this whole law which I am setting before you today?” Deuteronomy 4:5-8.
I wanted My people to be a light to the nations, a people that walked with Me in love and justice where there were no poor among them and all from the least to the greatest knew Me and followed My commands because of love for Me and their fellow man.
“You shall therefore keep every commandment which I am commanding you today, so that you may be strong and go in and possess the land into which you are about to cross to possess it; 9 so that you may prolong your days on the land which the LORD swore to your fathers to give to them and to their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey. For the land, into which you are entering to possess it, is not like the land of Egypt from which you came, where you used to sow your seed and water it with your foot like a vegetable garden. But the land into which you are about to cross to possess it, a land of hills and valleys, drinks water from the rain of heaven, a land for which the LORD your God cares; the eyes of the LORD your God are always on it, from the beginning even to the end of the year.” Deuteronomy 11:8-12.
And there was more blessings that I longed to shower on them:
“It shall come about, if you listen obediently to my commandments which I am commanding you today, to love the LORD your God and to serve Him with all your heart and all your soul, 14 that He will give the rain for your land in its season, the early and latter rain, that you may gather in your grain and your new wine and your oil. He will give grass in your fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied” Deuteronomy 11:13-15.
They could trust Me to bless them with abundance. Just like the manna from Heaven and the double portion the day before the Shabbat. If they were willing and obeyed they would eat the best of the land. I so ordered My blessing in the sixth year that the land would bring forth the crop for three years. So that when they would sow again in the eighth year, they could still eat from the old crop, eating the old until the ninth year when its crop came in. Like the life of good deeds I have prepared for you in advance in Christ Jesus that you might walk in it.
A people that I blessed. Why? It all goes back to Abraham.
It all started with the blessing of Abraham and his descendants because he followed Me unreservedly and believed in My Words. At the time of Abraham I had found no other person who would fellowship with Me, follow Me, and walk with Me. And I credited his faith in My Word to him as righteousness. I called him “My friend,” and I call him your father in the faith.
I explained this to Moses, I am compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness, faithfulness, and truth; keeping My lovingkindness for thousands of generations for those who obey and follow My Words. Exodus 34:6-7. And Abraham did just that. And in blessing upon blessing I blessed him and increased him. And I promised him that the land to which I had called him to sojourn in tents was to be the land owned by his descendants. And his descendants were set apart from all other nations as My covenant people, My own special treasure, and blessed to be a blessing to every family on earth.
I called Abraham and he answered My call and never turned back, “Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you; and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing; and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” Genesis 12:1-3.
Abraham trusted Me in all things. He immediately obeyed with joy and enthusiasm whatever I told him to do. Why? He knew Me as the one who blessed him and prospered him and kept all My promises to him. He knew I worked all things out good for him no matter what.
Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. Romans 4:18-25.
I cut Covenant with Abraham after he believed My promise of a son and that his descendants would have the land to which I had called him. And I promised him that after 400 years of slavery, I would judge the nation that had enslaved them and bring them out free and wealthy and give them the land I had shown him where he sojourned in a tent.
God said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions. Genesis 15:13-14.
Abraham was in Covenant with Me by faith, and just as when David made covenant with Jonathan that covenant extended to his descendants, so did Mine with Abraham. The Hebrew people and the land I gave them were Mine. I was their portion and they were Mine. They were never to be slaves, they were to be a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people set apart called out of darkness into My own marvelous light. The land was to be free as well. I told the Israelites that if they did not go in and take the land from those who occupied it that the land would vomit them out because of their perverted and evil practices, even offering up their children to idols as holocausts!
Do not defile yourselves by any of these things; for by all these the nations which I am casting out before you have become defiled. For the land has become defiled, therefore I have brought its punishment upon it, so the land has vomited out its inhabitants. But as for you, you are to keep My statutes and My judgments and shall not do any of these abominations, neither the native, nor the alien who sojourns among you (for the men of the land who have been before you have done all these abominations, and the land has become defiled); so that the land will not vomit you out, should you defile it, as it has vomited out the nation which has been before you. Leviticus 18:24-28.
For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him (Adam) who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. Romans 8:19-21.
And My laws of rest in Me, sanctification, release, freedom from debts and freedom from oppression and slavery, were so important to Me that My. people finally were conquered by Nebuchadnezzar and taken captive to Babylon for seventy years because they would not keep them. And during that time the land had its rest—the Sabbatical and Jubilee years My people had not trusted Me enough to obey.
Those who would not release their slaves themselves went into captivity. Be careful the standard you set, for the standard by which you measure will be measured back to you.
It was based on their refusal to open their doors to freedom and restoration that opened the door for enemies. Otherwise I could have protected them. But they were out of My jurisdiction worshipping idols and refusing to keep My laws.
Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, “Thus says the LORD God of Israel, ‘I made a covenant with your forefathers in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, saying, “At the end of seven years each of you shall set free his Hebrew brother who has been sold to you and has served you six years, you shall send him out free from you; but your forefathers did not obey Me or incline their ear to Me. Although recently you had turned and done what is right in My sight, each man proclaiming release to his neighbor, and you had made a covenant before Me in the house which is called by My name. Yet you turned and profaned My name, and each man took back his male servant and each man his female servant whom you had set free according to their desire, and you brought them into subjection to be your male servants and female servants.”’ Jeremiah 34:12-16.
Seeing the Chaldean army coming against the city, the king of Judah and the people obeyed My Word to Jeremiah and released their Hebrew slaves, but just like the Egyptians when they let My people go regretted losing the slave labor and went after them to take them back into slavery, so did the leaders of the people at the time of Jeremiah. That did not have a good result for the Egyptians nor did it for the king of Judah and his nobility and his fellow government officials.
Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem and took all the treasure and articles out of My beautiful house built by Solomon, and the treasures of the king and of his officers, and brought them all to Babylon. Then they burned My house and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, and burned all its fortified buildings with fire and destroyed all its valuable articles. Those who had escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon; and they were servants to him and to his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, when I inspired Cyrus to send My people back who had now repented of their idols and turned their hearts back to Me in their captivity to again seek My face, and to fulfill the word I gave to My prophet Jeremiah, and, yes, it had to do with the Sabbatical year, that they land would lie fallow until it had enjoyed its sabbaths. All the days of its desolation it kept sabbath until seventy years were complete.
Why was it so important to Me that the Israelites release the people they had enslaved from among their own people, release the debts against their countrymen, and give a shabbat rest not only to every person every week but also to the land every seven years and another year of release from slavery and debt and rest to the land but also a restoration of all ancestral lands to those who inherited them from the allotments given to them by Joshua every fiftieth year?
Because of covenant. Because they were Mine. Not so for any other nation at that time.
All because of one man who trusted and followed Me unreservedly. Abraham, your father in the faith. Your faith makes a difference for I am compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness, faithfulness, and truth; keeping My lovingkindness for thousands of generations for those who obey and follow My Words. Exodus 34:6-7. And in Jesus you too have the blessing of Abraham and in Him you have it forever.
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a cross,” in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Galatians 3:13-14. For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise. Galatians 3:26-29.
And I would like to close this Life Lesson with two passages from My Word that you will now understand if you did not before.
Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “Uncircumcision” by the so-called “Circumcision,” which is performed in the flesh by human hands. Remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near; for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit. Ephesians 2:11-22.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 1 Peter 2:9-10.
I love you. Jesus has released you from your sins by His blood and made you a kingdom, priests unto Me. Revelation 1:5-6. And in Him, your have the firstborn blessing of the double portion, the double portion blessing of Shabbat, and release from the slavery to sin and death, for whom the Son sets free is free indeed! Forever free in Me. The glorious freedom of the children of God with liberty and justification for all (by the blood of Jesus). I have ordered My blessing on you.
But if you say, “What are we going to eat on the seventh year if we do not sow or gather in our crops?” then I will so order My blessing for you in the sixth year that it will bring forth the crop for three years. When you are sowing the eighth year, you can still eat old things from the crop, eating the old until the ninth year when its crop comes in. Leviticus 25:20-22.