A week or so ago I was on my way home when the Lord started talking to me about his Jubilee's. I had no idea what he was talking about. All I knew was that there was a year of Jubilee and that was it. He said to me at that moment "study my Jubilee's" So I went home and did just that and this is what I discovered. There are mini Jubilee's that lead to the year of Jubilee, the 50th year. This is how they are counted:The Seventh day, the Sabbath is a Jubilee.
In the Seventh Month, they celebrated the day of Atonement which is also a Jubilee.
The Seventh year, the sabbatical or sabbath year is a Jubilee.
Seven Sabbath years, i.e Seven cycles of 7 Seven years each, i.e. 49 years are then counted off and God makes the 50th year a year of Jubilee.
So the Seventh day, the Seventh month, the seventh year, and the Fiftieth year are Jubilee's to the Lord.
I have always known that we go to church on sunday and that it is a Sabbath of rest, but I never knew that the sabbath was to be a lasting covenant throughout our generations forever. But the bible says so clearly:
Exodus 31:16
The Israelites are to observe the Sabbath, celebrating it for the generations to come as a lasting covenant. and we are spiritual Israel.
The Sabbath Covenant is a covenant of rest. It is a time when we enter into the rest of the Lord, not just physically, but in every dimension. Spiritually, emotionally, mentally, in our relationships, in our businesses, in every way we are to enter rest. On the Sabbath of the Lord, we are to think only of him, and to do good works in the Lord. To serve others, not just our own selfish ambitions. Jesus said that he is Lord of the Sabbath, and so on that day we are to Honor the Lord of the Sabbath, who is Jesus Christ. We are to take time out to refresh ourselves in the Lord. What a blessing!! And as we do so God will bring rest into every area of our lives. We will be able to say with King Solomon:
1 Kings 5:4
But now the LORD my God has given me rest on every side, and there is no adversary or disaster.
Entering rest in every area of your life is predicated on your observations of the Sabbaths of the Lord. You must have seasons where everything you do is focused in on him. Seasons where it is not about you but about Jesus. Seasons of rest and refreshing for your spirit and for your soul.
We are in the Month of Abib in the Hebrew calendar (God's calendar) the first month of God's year. The Lord said to me, observe my Sabbaths, on the Seventh day, on the Seventh Month, on the Seventh year and on the 50th year and I will give you rest. Of course the question arose in me, how will I observe a whole month of rest, or a whole year of rest? How do I translate this thing into my life now. So the Lord said to me (and this is not a command for you or anyone else, just what he led me to do), Give everything you earn at that time to me, to meet the needs of the poor, the needy, the widow, the orphan, set the captives free with it by financing ministries that are spreading the Gospel and bringing healing in the lives of many.
That was all fine and dandy except that I didn't know how I was going to support myself if I gave away all my earnings for year 7. How was I going to make it? The Lord has all these answers even before we ask the questions. It so happens that the Israelites had been in the same dilemma. And the Lord's answer to them, was his answer to me:
Lev 25:6
"Whatever the land yields during the sabbath year will be food for you"
He says you can eat food from it. You can get sustenance from it, enough for your necessities, but you are not to bring it in as a harvest for storage, in order that the poor and the needy, the alien and the fatherless among you may eat. In that seventh year I can have enough to sustain me. Enough for my necessities only, and the rest must go out. I must not keep it, because it becomes Holy to the Lord. He also gives a wonderful promise about the sixth year. He says this:
Lev 25:20-22
You may ask, "What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not plant or harvest our crops?" I will send you such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years. While you plant during the eighth year, you will eat from the old crop and will continue to eat from it until the harvest of the ninth year comes in.
You will have super-abundance in the sixth year, so that you have more than enough to live on in the seventh year, and you will still be eating of the sixth year even in the eighth year. And the word of God is true. That is the Sabbath of rest in action. You enter into serving God and giving to him, and taking seasons out to focus on him, and he in turn ensures that you will have absolutely nothing to worry about. Amen!!
After counting off this 7 sabbath years, I will then celebrate the Year of Jubilee, the 50th year!!! That will be a celebration and a half, for me and my generations after me. I intend to teach them this principle.
Now, let us look at the results of observing the Sabbaths of the Lord on the Seventh Day, Seventh Month, Seventh Year and 50th year.
Lev 25:18-19
" 'Follow my decrees and be careful to obey my laws, and you will live safely in the land. Then the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live there in safety."
Isaiah 56:2
Blessed is the man who does this, the man who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath without desecrating it, and keeps his hand from doing any evil."
Isaiah 56
3 Let no foreigner who has bound himself to the LORD say,
"The LORD will surely exclude me from his people."
And let not any eunuch complain,
"I am only a dry tree."
4 For this is what the LORD says:
"To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,
who choose what pleases me
and hold fast to my covenant-
5 to them I will give within my temple and its walls
a memorial and a name
better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
that will not be cut off.
6 And foreigners who bind themselves to the LORD
to serve him,
to love the name of the LORD,
and to worship him,
all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it
and who hold fast to my covenant-
7 these I will bring to my holy mountain
and give them joy in my house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar;
for my house will be called
a house of prayer for all nations."
What wonderful promises for those who keep the Sabbaths of the Lord! I am convinced that the enemy is against us trully understanding the word of God because of the amazing promise and power that doing so holds for us. And the sabbath of rest is still open to each one of us. Paul says in the book of Hebrews 4
"1THEREFORE, WHILE the promise of entering His rest still holds and is offered [today], let us be afraid [[a]to distrust it], lest any of you should [b]think he has come too late and has come short of [reaching] it...
7Again He sets a definite day, [a new] Today, [and gives another opportunity of securing that rest] saying through David after so long a time in the words already quoted, Today, if you would hear His voice and when you hear it, do not harden your hearts.(D)
8[This mention of a rest was not a reference to their entering into Canaan.] For if Joshua had given them rest, He [God] would not speak afterward about another day.
9So then, there is still awaiting a full and complete Sabbath-rest reserved for the [true] people of God;
10For he who has once entered [God's] rest also has ceased from [the weariness and pain] of human labors, just as God rested from those labors [f]peculiarly His own.(E)
11Let us therefore be zealous and exert ourselves and strive diligently to enter that rest [of God, to know and experience it for ourselves], that no one may fall or perish by the same kind of unbelief and disobedience [into which those in the wilderness fell]."
That is where I'm at. I am zealously exerting myself, striving diligently to enter the rest of God, to know him and experience him for myself on a daily basis, and especially by taking time off my own labour, labours to profit just me, that I may seek him, worship him, and do the works of him who sent me. That others may be set free, that others may eat and be filled of the bounty that my Lord has given me. And the Lord in turn has secured my portion. The Lot has fallen for me in pleasant places. My land is well watered, I eat my fill daily and live here in safety. For the Lord my God has given me rest on every side.
The Promise of rest is for you and me today. I step into the covenant of rest, rest from toil, from my human labors. Won't you join me?
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