Sermon Series: The End of Everything

Are we near the end? Am I ready?

The Year of Jubilee, described in Leviticus 25

The celebration of the 7 major Jewish Feasts in the Old Testament corresponds with the major events of Jesus' life in the New Testament and gives us the timing of the events near the end of the age.

• Feast of Passover: Commemorated Israel’s deliverance from Egypt through the blood of the Lamb on the doorpost.
• Jesus was crucified on Passover as the Lamb of God. His blood on the post of the cross caused the death angel to pass over us.

• Feast of Unleavened Bread: Leaven symbolized sin and the Israelites celebrated this feast and ate bread without leaven.
• Jesus’ sinless (unleavened) body lay in the tomb without corruption during the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

• Feast of First Fruits: Celebrated the first sheaf of the harvest being offered to God.
• Jesus rose from the dead on the feast of first fruits because he was the firstborn or “first fruits.” The firstborn from the dead.

• Feast of Pentecost: 50 days after the First Fruits, the Feast of Pentecost was celebrated remembering the giving of the law and covenant at Mount Sinai.
• Jesus revealed the New Covenant on the day of Pentecost 50 days after his death, burial and resurrection and put his law in our hearts through the Holy Spirit—a New Covenant.

Jesus’ major life events coincided with the dates of Biblical Feast days and celebration.

It seems highly plausible that The Year of Jubilee will play a major role in the Second Coming of Christ.

The year of Jubilee is closely associated with the final three Feasts associated with Jesus’ Second Coming:

1. Feast of Trumpets: A new season begins.

2. Day of Atonement: Yom Kippur: Redemption and Restoration.

3. Feast of Tabernacles: Where God makes His dwelling place with us. He is our God, and we are His people.

Scriptures Concerning the Day of the Lord:

And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.

-Matthew 24:31 (NIV)

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

-1 Thessalonians 4:16 (NIV)

In a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

-1 Corinthians 15:52 (NIV)

The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign for ever and ever.”

-Revelation 11:15 (NIV)

The blowing of the shofar (or the trumpet) sets things in motion concerning the Second Coming of Jesus.

The blowing of the trumpet sets things in motion concerning the Year of Jubilee.

1. What is the Year of Jubilee?

2. How does it impact me here and now?

3. What is my response?

1. What is the Year of Jubilee?

Count off seven sabbath years—seven times seven years—so that the seven sabbath years amount to a period of forty-nine years. Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land. Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan. The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines. For it is a jubilee and is to be holy for you; eat only what is taken directly from the fields.

-Leviticus 25:8-12 (NIV)

The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers. Throughout the land that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land. If one of your fellow Israelites becomes poor and sells some of their property, their nearest relative is to come and redeem what they have sold. If, however, there is no one to redeem it for them but later on they prosper and acquire sufficient means to redeem it themselves, they are to determine the value for the years since they sold it and refund the balance to the one to whom they sold it; they can then go back to their own property. But if they do not acquire the means to repay, what was sold will remain in the possession of the buyer until the Year of Jubilee. It will be returned in the Jubilee, and they can then go back to their property.

-Leviticus 25:23-28 (NIV)

The Promised Land was a “forever lease.”

Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you enter the land I am going to give you, the land itself must observe a sabbath to the Lord.

-Leviticus 25:2 (NIV)

Giving: nathan (Hebrew): bestowed, appointed unto, a gift assigned, set apart for you.

achuzzah (Hebrew): leasehold

Every 7th year: Sabbath year for the land

This required two things:

Trust: Believing everything you had did not belong to you but was given to you by God.

More Trust: That God would provide enough during the sixth year harvest to meet your needs during the 7th year.

Are you living like an Owner or a Tenant?

Count off seven sabbath years—seven times seven years—so that the seven sabbath years amount to a period of forty-nine years. Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land. Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan.

-Leviticus 25:8-10 (NIV)

This is the picture of the Year of Jubilee.

Four things happen:

1: You don’t sow and reap or plant or harvest

2: All debts are released

3: The only food that could be eaten was that which the Lord had provided the previous years and had been stored away

4: Everyone returned to their own land

In this Year of Jubilee everyone is to return to their own property.

-Leviticus 25:13 (NIV)

This is the highlight of Jubilee!

God’s promises are not like ours.

Why did God establish the Year of Jubilee?

What is he communicating about Himself?

Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites. I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates—all the Hittite country—to the Mediterranean Sea in the west. No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them.

-Joshua 1:2-6 (NIV)

The Borders of the Promised Land:

West: The Mediterranean Sea Coast
East: The Euphrates River
South: The wilderness over to the Nile of Egypt
North: Lebanon

The year of Jubilee ensured that the land each family was given remained in their family.

In the Year of Jubilee all Hebrew slaves were set free.

Can you imagine the joy in the year of Jubilee?

In the 50th year, the year of Jubilee, whatever you have lost, you get back.

When you hear the trumpet of Jubilee, your chains are gone, and you have been set free. Debts forgiven.

Family restored!

Hope realized!

Kinsman Redeemer

Hebrew: Go’el

A Go’el is a close relative or kinsman within the immediate family who had the responsibility to redeem a person or his land.

1. If a family member lost his land, the nearest relative could “redeem” buy back the land on his behalf. The Kinsman Redeemer would have to be both willing and able.

If one of your fellow Israelites becomes poor and sells some of their property, their nearest relative is to come and redeem what they have sold.

-Leviticus 25:25 (NIV)

2. If a relative became so poor that he had to sell himself into slavery or servitude, the kinsman redeemer was responsible and could purchase his freedom.

If a foreigner residing among you becomes rich and any of your fellow Israelites become poor and sell themselves to the foreigner or to a member of the foreigner’s clan, they retain the right of redemption after they have sold themselves. One of their relatives may redeem them: An uncle or a cousin or any blood relative in their clan may redeem them…

-Leviticus 25:47-49a (NIV)

3. If a man was murdered or killed, a Go’el, (kinsman redeemer) could avenge his blood by seeking justice on behalf of his kinsman.

The avenger of blood shall put the murderer to death; when the avenger comes upon the murderer, the avenger shall put the murderer to death.

-Numbers 35:19 (NIV)

1. What is the year of Jubilee?

Debts are forgiven. Slaves are set free.

2: How does it impact me now?

Jesus is our Jubilee. Our Kinsman Redeemer.

The most famous Kinsman Redeemer in the Old Testament is Boaz.

If Jesus is a Kinsman Redeemer, who are His kinsmen?

On a physical and national level, His kinsmen are the Israelites.

However, from the time God separated one man apart from all other men on the face of the earth (Abraham), a provision was made that ANY human, from any nation, could be joined to Israel under full citizenship.

What does this mean for us?

How can Jesus be our Kinsman Redeemer if we are not born into his family and are outside Israel?

Who has the means to pay our debt? Only He who is perfect and sinless.

Who is willing to pay our debt?

For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

-Hebrews 12:2b (NIV)

For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

-Colossians 1:16-17 (NIV)

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

-Philippians 2:9-11 (NIV)

How can He pay your debt unless He is your kinsman?

I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I take pride in my ministry in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them. For if their rejection brought reconciliation to the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? If the part of the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; if the root is holy, so are the branches. If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.” Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but tremble. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either. Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off. And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!

-Romans 11:13-24 (NIV)

The olive tree: the nation of Israel.

A Gentile must be grafted into that tree.

Wild olive shoot: the pagan gentile world/our former roots.

Broken off branches: Jews who refused the Messiah

When we are grafted in—we are Israel!

Judaism is not separate to Christianity. Christianity is the continuation and fulfillment of Judaism.

Jesus becomes our Kinsman because we have been grafted in.

Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised. So then, if those who are not circumcised keep the law’s requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised? The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker. A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a person’s praise is not from other people, but from God. Romans 2:25-29 (NIV)

1. We lost our inheritance!

God has no obligation to give you anything. Yet, God has promised you everything!

2. Jesus restores everything we have lost!

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

-Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.

-Ephesians 1:13b-14 (NIV)

But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!

-Romans 5:15 (NIV)

The Kinsman Redeemer frees you from your debt to God.

All sins are forgiven.

Your land has been restored—the land that was meant to be yours from the beginning.

The wages of sin (death) have been paid.

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

-Hebrews 2:14-15 (NIV)

You are now in the family of God and your enemy has no claim over you.

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

-Luke 4:18-19 (NIV)

Year of the Lord’s favor: the language of Jubilee.

When Jesus read this, He declared that this prophecy was fulfilled in Him.

1. What is the Year of Jubilee?

Debts are forgiven. Slaves are set free. Land is restored.

2. How does it impact me now?

My Kinsman Redeemer restores everything that I have lost.

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.

-Romans 8:18 (NIV)

3. What is my response?

It’s time to live as though you have been redeemed.

Make a Decision