10/19/25 Lev. 25:8-24 “Jubilee for Everyone!”

15 Oct 10/19/25 Lev. 25:8-24 “Jubilee for Everyone!”

10/19/25    Lev. 25:8-24        “Jubilee for Everyone!”

We talked a little last week about parts of the Law that are found in the New Testament that we are supposed to follow.  I think that sometimes we don’t like to do things or follow things because they are old and out dated.  I read some place years ago that scientists and mathematicians reach their mental peak while they are in their 20’s and statesmen, theologians and philosophers reach their peak in their 60’s, 70’s and even their 80’s.  At first glance this might seem like just an interesting statistic.  However, I think that God made us with different talents for different times in our lives.  In other words, I should forget about math and science and run for state senator.  However, they would probably have to kick me out of the senate because I would begin every session in prayer.  Anyway, today, we are going to look at the ancient practice of jubilee.  Let’s see if we can apply this to our modern world in a way that is life changing.

Today, people do not celebrate jubilee.  This should be a joyous event and I hope and pray that we will learn to observe some sort of jubilee.  Jubilee in the Bible is the forgiveness of debt.  There is one way that this might happen and that is through the love and forgiveness that Jesus talks about.  Michael Raisbeck tells of a survey of 200 married adults regarding forgiveness.  The researchers wanted to see if there was a correlation between forgiving others and their marital satisfaction and personal well-being.  The results were astounding.  They found that 1/3 of marriage satisfaction is related to forgiveness.  They also found that forgiveness will positively affect personal well-being.  As the ability to forgive went up, people reported fewer symptoms of depression, anxiety and fatigue.  In other words, coming to church and learning about forgiveness and the other wonderful attributes of following Jesus will help you out much, much more than sleeping in on Sunday mornings.  Forgiveness is a very powerful part of our lives but unfortunately, like so many things that Jesus taught us, we cast it aside and go for ignoring it or revenge.  As I pointed out a couple of weeks ago, revenge is best left for God because we always blow it.  Obviously we need to develop our ability to forgive.

Now forgiveness started long before Jesus was born.  We find it in the early stories in Genesis and in the Law in Leviticus.  Today, we are going to look at the ancient practice of Jubilee.  Many of us might think that this is some sort of great celebration and you wouldn’t be too wrong.  It was supposed to be a great celebration so let’s talk about jubilee.

According to the Law, everything was business as usual for 6 years.  Then on the 7^th year, the land was not to be planted.  It was to be fallow.  This would be God’s early way of having the people do a sort of crop rotation and then letting the land rest for a year.  This was called the Sabbatical year.  It was likened back to creation where God worked for 6 days and rested on the 7^th.  It is like the Ten Commandments where we are to work for 6 days and rest on the 7^th.  I hope that you can see that the number 7 was a special number for these people and also that we were made to rest.

Then after 7 of these cycles of Sabbatical years, they have the year of Jubilee.  7 of these cycles of 7 years was 49 years.  Then on the 50^th year came jubilee.  Now this was big time.  On the 49^th year the land was fallow and also on the 50^th year the land was to be fallow.  This took a little planning so that they would have enough food for 2 years.  On the year of jubilee, all prisoners and captives were set free.  All slaves were declared to be free.  All debts were also cancelled on this year so the debt slaves we talked about a couple of weeks ago had no more debt so they would be free.  Basically the people were granted a year of Sabbath.  The biggest part of jubilee was that all the land was restored to its original owner.  So if you mortgaged your land to buy a new tractor, you would get it back during the year of Jubilee.

I would guess that this kind of goes against all we have in today’s society.  What would it be like if we released all the murderers and rapists?  I guess they didn’t have that problem in ancient Israel because all hardened criminals or capital criminals were put to death.  It would be pretty much just the debtors and minor criminals who were set free.  But what would happen to our economy if we let the land lay idle every 7 years and forgave all debt every 50 years?  The bankers and loan officers of ancient Israel would set it up so all payments were paid up before the year of Jubilee.  Ok, what about all the land that had to be returned to the original owner?  That would never work in today’s cutthroat economy.  But this was a way for Israel to keep the farmers farming and not to be taken over by big corporations.  What corporate farm would want your land if they had to give it back every 50 years.

If you really think about this, it was really a rather ingenious idea put forth by God.  Can you imagine that?  God is giving us yet another good idea.  However, there was just one problem.  There is evidence that every 7 years the Sabbatical year was sometimes kept.  However, there are no written documents that the Year of Jubilee was ever practiced.  As a matter of fact the Jewish people were not very good at keeping any of these practices.  As centuries past, there became many years where these celebrations were not kept.  An expert told me once that if you added all the years of disobedience up, it would equal 70 years which, by the way, is the amount of time the Jews were kept in exile.  I hope that this illuminates God’s justice a little.  He will have His way in the end and it may not be our way.

Anyway, it almost takes me half the sermon to set up the sermon.  I must be losing my touch.  There are 4 things I want you to notice about the Year of Jubilee.  The first involves freedom.  Notice that everyone is set free during Jubilee.  Prisoners and debtors are set free.  There would be people who are free for the first time in their lives.  There were people who would be able to start over without a debt.  I really think that this might be something we could work out in our world today.  There would be certain criminals who could not be freed but some could.  What is wrong with being free from debt every 50 years?

Right along with this freedom is restoration.  The land was restored back to the original owner.  Our capitalist ideas would be changed as far as land was concerned.  If you remember, the land was very important to ancient Israel.  This shows us that God wanted the land to remain in the hands of the descendants of the original owners.  This was one way in which God was trying to insure that these people would always be connected to the land.

Notice all the forgiveness that is involved here.  Debtors, prisoners, and slaves were all forgiven.  Their slates had been wiped clean by Jubilee.  Now I don’t think that God did all these things just for fun or just because He could.  I think that He is trying to tell His people that we are to all forgive each other.  We are not to hold grudges.  We are not to have feuds.  We are not to hate.  These people weren’t any different from us.  They had all the same bad emotions that we have.  God is telling them and us that He loves us and we are to love each other.  That doesn’t include keeping people in debt or slavery.  It means to forgive each other.

Lastly, notice the faith here.  The people had to have faith in God for any of this to work.  We could go back and talk about any part of the Law and find that it didn’t work if the people had no faith in it.  If God hadn’t done all the miracles of bringing them out of Egypt, through Red Sea and the wilderness and to this mountain, they would not have believed.  I mean why would anyone believe in a set of rules like the Law unless there was a powerful king backing it all up?  And here we have the very King of kings and Lord of lords showing them that He is indeed the very King of the World.  This generation was going to follow God on the faith that He is everything He says and more.

So that is a nutshell presentation of Jubilee and what was to take place during Jubilee.  They had freedom, restoration, forgiveness and faith.  Hopefully, this sounds like someone we know.  Then as we look at their history and we find that they fall away from God after a couple of generations.  Then they cycle back to God and this would be their pattern for years.  Finally they worked their way to no freedom.  They have no way to restore their lives or land.  They have no way of forgiveness and they certainly lack faith.  As a matter of fact, their faith was transferred from God to the very Law itself.  If they had just followed the Law and worshiped God above all Gods, things might have been different.

There is a famous Peanuts cartoon where Lucy approaches Charlie Brown with a paper and pen and says, “Here, sign this. It absolves me from all blame”. Then she goes to Shroeder with the same paper and says, “Here, sign this. It absolves me from all blame”. Finally she comes to Linus: “Here, sign this. It absolves me from all blame”. As she walks away Linus says, “Gee, that must be a nice document to have”. Well, the ancient Jews had that document and you can have it also.

Now, again we have freedom, forgiveness, restoration and faith, who does this sound like for us today?  I will give you a hint that it is not our church or our government.  The Jews had become so disobedient that God sent his only begotten Son.  He sent Jesus so that we could have new life.

Jesus Christ is our present day Jubilee.  He is the document that absolves us of everything.  He is all the things that God wanted to establish over 3000 years ago at Mount Sinai.  Look at this because it is unbelievable.  Jesus Christ came to give us freedom.  If you think that we are free in this country, I tell you it is a mere jail cell compared to the freedom you will have in Jesus Christ.  Some people get so beat up, so downtrodden before they decide to follow Jesus when none of this is necessary.  Jesus Christ is there all the time to help you with anything and everything.  Young people, old people, all people, go to Him.  Go to Him now so that you can have the freedom most other people never have.  Go to Him.

Besides freedom, Jesus gives us restoration.  He doesn’t restore us to the land like in ancient Israel.  He restores you to Himself.  You were made by God with a purpose.  When we enter this world, we become separated from God and need to be restored back to Him.  Long story short and we have talked about this many times, Jesus is the way you can be restored into the good graces of God.

You can only be restored and given freedom if you seek forgiveness.  This is the same forgiveness that is found in the Law only now it is found in Jesus Christ.  God sent us the chance for forgiveness when He put Jesus on the cross.  In this process Jesus beat the devil, pounded this scoundrel into submission.  All we have to do to claim the same victory that Jesus won is to ask Him for forgiveness.  This is part of the sinner’s prayer.  We confess our sins to Jesus and ask for forgiveness.  And do you know what happens?  You are instantly, instantly forgiven.  I praise God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit for all the love and forgiveness they have given me and this is for all of you also.

And of course, this all begins with faith.  The Jewish people had been led by God from slavery to freedom.  They got to see first-hand who God was and what He could do.  We get to see the same thing if we would just open our eyes.  There are miracles every day that are right in front of us.  This is why I try to focus on our God moments every regular service.  I know we see them every day but we get used to seeing this.  I am only trying to make you more aware of how great and awesome God truly is.  People who don’t know Jesus yet need faith also.  They need the faith to step out with God.

This is our job.  We are to help people to see who Jesus is.  We are to help people where ever they are in the name of Jesus to show them the love that Jesus has for all people.  We are to help them in any way we can to increase their faith to the point where they too will accept Jesus Christ as their personal Savior.  If there is someone here today who has never done this, then I ask that you confess your sins to Jesus, ask for His forgiveness, and ask Jesus to live in your heart.  It is that easy and the rewards are more than I can describe in a mere 19 years of preaching.  The benefits are far more than can be shown in the many years of existence of any church.  And this will happen instantly and you will be a far better person for doing this.

We should be celebrating Jubilee in our churches, all of them.  As we have seen, Jubilee is in Jesus Christ.  In Luke 4:18-19 Jesus tells us that He is Jubilee as he tells the listeners that He has fulfilled the prophecy.  He has fulfilled it and exceeded it.  Jesus Christ is the way to real life, the truth about all life and actually He is life itself.  He has done all these things so that you can celebrate with Him all the time the Jubilee that He has brought to the world.  This is because He loves each and every person here, no matter who you are or what you have done.  Jesus loves you.  Thank you, Jesus, for first loving us.  Let’s pray.