Revering the Word
Deuteronomy 15 Israel’s unfaithfulness in the sabbatical year.
Good morning everyone. This morning we are in Deuteronomy chapter 15. It is a challenging chapter and it is important that we see it like we have been recently as we've been going through the book of Deuteronomy to see it in context and to realize that God was seeking to establish in Israel a unique country that would have him as their God and where they would follow him in a prescribed way that he had guided them. It was actually foreign to them and foreign to the nations around them for him to do it the way for God to have them develop their country under his head the way that he is doing it and it actually does not appear that they did it. It does not appear that they honored in fact in many instances we know they did not honor the system that God had set up. You know today there is you know poor all over the world and even in verse 11 of chapter 15 it says for the poor will never cease to be in the land and Jesus echoed those kind of words also in the New Testament so that there is a reality of people are going to be poor and there's going to be some that are wealthy and some that are poor. However it does appear that God was trying to establish a system in the Old Testament people that would prohibit excessive borrowing and would give the poor a better chance at success. Let's take it in I don't think I'm going to read every verse today but let's begin taking in at the end of every seven years you shall grant a remission of deaths. This is the manner of remission every creditor shall release what he has loaned to his neighbor. He shall not exact it of his neighbor and his brother because the Lord's remission has been proclaimed. From a foreigner you may exact it but your hand shall release whatever of yours is with your brother. However there will be no poor among you since the Lord will surely bless you in the land which the Lord your God has given you as an inheritance to possess. If you only listen obediently to the voice of the Lord your God to observe carefully all of his commandment which I am commanding you today for the Lord your God will bless you as he has promised you and you will lend to many nations but you will not borrow and you will rule over many nations but they will not rule over you. God was going to create a theocracy a nation that he was going to bless abundantly. He was going to prevent excessive borrowing. He was going to say you're not going to borrow from the nations around you but they're going to borrow from you and you know I'm in my 50s now but you know as you go through life have you ever been in a situation where you've been in debt. Have you ever been in a situation where you've been really behind and you feel like you know you're not going to catch up and you're just never going to get you're never going to get beyond the debt you have. It's a horrible place to be is to feel like that and there are many people in our world today that have gotten so behind and are so in debt that they just feel like there's no hope and they're not going to get out of that debt and God was providing a system that would essentially limit you to borrowing for more than seven years and if you knew that on the sabbatical year that all debts were going to be canceled you wouldn't want to give a large amount of money as debt or borrow a large amount of money say that say you were in the cycle where the seventh year was only two years away and you're like well you know let's see you're going to borrow somebody today a hundred thousand dollars but they only have you know a forty thousand dollar salary well there's no way they're going to pay you back in two years the hundred thousand dollars you borrowed them so the system that guy was establishing would significantly limit borrowing and it would limit the amount and it would limit the amount of time that would be borrowed now you know borrowing which you know has a lot of negativity also allows for you know both people becoming poor but also prosperity if you're able to borrow a lot of money at low rates you know people are able to you know obtain more things with the money that they borrow I mean that's how we have houses today on 30 year mortgages and you know some have less maybe 15 year mortgages but it's very common when people are starting out to have 30 year mortgages and obviously they're able to afford a much nicer house by having a 30 year mortgage so basically what am I trying to say God was establishing a method of economy that was going to be very different than what we had now and it was going to limit the amount of poor people would be it was going to help the poor and it was going to limit the amount of borrowing and if the seventh year came all debts were canceled so therefore people would be debt free very often you know every every seventh year people would be debt free what a blessing to the poor right to to be debt free so this was what God was setting up however it doesn't appear that Israel followed it very well and in fact you might recall that earlier in the book of Exodus and in Leviticus we learned of the seventh year with the crops that Israel was not even supposed to plant but give the crops a rest and part of that was to trust God that he would provide in six years what they needed for the seventh year and to see God's miraculous hand work that they would have what they needed for the seventh year just like there was for the seventh day but that's so foreign right can you imagine having land and being able to plant crops but say no I'm not even gonna I'm not gonna even plant this year I mean we would look at that as irresponsible today but that is what God set up so that they would see the hand of God and learn to trust God but actually it appears they didn't follow it in fact when Israel ended up getting taken over by Nebuchadnezzar and sent into Babylonian captivity many years later they were said to be in Babylon for 70 years and the reason it was 70 years it was because for 490 years Israel did not honor God and do the seventh year of of resting the land and God said I'm going to because you've disobeyed me I'm going not that this is the only reason but it's part of it I'm going to get my land to rest my land's gonna rest because you guys didn't trust me you're supposed to trust me and you're supposed to let the land rest and because you didn't let it rest now I'm going to take you guys out of Jerusalem out of Israel I'm going to take you to Babylonia and the land's going to rest for 70 years one seventh of 490 years the 490 years that you didn't obey me in doing the sabbatical year so you know it would have been interesting to see what life would have been like God is telling them he was going to bless their socks off if they would honor him in not only the seven years of borrowing but also resting their crops in the seventh year but it appears when they got to the promised land they really didn't do it for a proof text if you go to you don't have to turn there but I'll tell you the passage if you go to 2 Chronicles 36 this is when they got deported it says those who had escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon this is a 2 Chronicles 36 20 and 21 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 to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah until the land had enjoyed its sabbath's all the days of its desolation it kept sabbath until 70 years were complete that was for their violation of not doing a sabbath on every seventh year so really interesting you know I don't know that we've ever seen this lived out you know what God is establishing here in Deuteronomy you know leave it to man when they got the promised land they wanted to borrow more they didn't want to rest their land and they didn't they didn't follow God's instruction and ultimately Israel paid the consequences of that and lost their country let me pick it up in verse 7 if there is a poor man with you one of your brothers in any of the towns in your land which the Lord your God has given you remember they're in the desert here about to take over the promise land you shall not harden your heart nor close your hand from your poor brother but you shall freely open your hand to him and shall generously land him sufficient or his need in whatever he lacks God always wanted his people to be generous with one another we talked about that a little bit yesterday in Deuteronomy chapter 14 and again now we've established a governmental system where you know there's food stamps and there's money for people in America anyways and money for people for rent and assistance and all kinds of things and that's kind of gotten taken out of the hands of people directly helping other people and now the government has stepped in but in this case instead of having the government tax do it you know God was asking them to be generous and what a special thing that would be for you know people to just be generous with one another and I think that even though the government is doing a lot of this today it still shows the heart of a Christian to be generous to his fellow man verse nine be aware that there is no base through thought in your heart saying the seventh year the year of remission is near and your eye is hostile towards your poor brother and you give him nothing then he may cry to the Lord against you and it will be a sin to you so like imagine if you're like oh wow I could borrow money to this poor you know say friend or whatever but oh there's only one year left to the to the seventh year the sabbatical year and anything I borrow is going to be forgiven and God is saying well listen don't use that as an excuse to not be generous you know maybe just give it instead of borrowing it so that's what he's talking about here you shall generously give to him and your heart shall not be grouped when you give to him because for this thing the Lord your God will bless you and all your work and all your undertakings you know God knows when you have a generous heart and he's saying I'll bless you for your generosity verse 11 which we quoted earlier for the poor will never cease to be in the land therefore I command you saying you shall freely open your hand to your brother to your needy and poor in your land and you know I would encourage you know churches to be generous with their church body and I know that we you know at our church at Christmas we take offering and plan ahead to have money to generously give and we typically look to to give that to someone in our community but many times we give that to someone in our church or multiple people in our church as a way of blessing people who have a need maybe someone who's in between a job or whatever so that's a good thing to do and we should continue to do that and all the more if your kinsman a Hebrew man or woman is sold to you then he shall serve you six years but in the seventh year you shall set him free so this is a version of slavery it appears that took place back in the Old Testament days but look at they're supposed to be set free every seventh year let them leave so I tell you that the Bible even when there was slavery that existed either old or new the conditions and what was asked of the owner as far as how he treated people was so much greater than what you hear about in the American slavery that took place you know on the 16th, 17th, 18th century god had a much higher standard for treatment than what people had late in later years so you're supposed to be able to set him free every seven year when you set him free you shall not send him away empty handed listen to this you felt shall furnish him liberally from your flock and from your threshing floor and from your vat you shall give to him as the Lord God has blessed you you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and the Lord your god redeemed you therefore I command you this today look at the kind of generosity you're supposed to have in that seventh year and send him away now sometimes people it was became like a job and they wanted to stay with the family and that's what's talked about here it shall come about if he says to you I will not go out from you because he loves you in your household since he fares well with you then you shall take an all and pierce it through his ear into the door and he shall be your servant forever and you shall do likewise to your maid servant so somebody wanted to continue to be part of the family and serve the family in that way and they just thought that's going to be a better life and you treated them well they could continue to to you know be with you that way and uh you know that would be more of like um you know having a maid that wanted to live with the family and and and chose to but they were had the right to be free so again look at the elevation that god has made for any type of slavery that existed in that day it shall not seem hard to you when you set him free for he has given you six years with double the service of a hired man so the lord your god will bless you in whatever you do you shall consecrate to the lord your god all the firstborn males that are born of your herd and of your flock you shall not work with the first born of your herd nor shall you shear the firstborn of your flock typically the firstborn was offered as an offering to god you could uh in earlier chapters or earlier books of the bible we learned that you could um make an offering as a substitute for your firstborn so if you had a firstborn cattle you you could make an offering but this was also a way of sacrificing unto the lord um and giving glory and honor to him with your firstborn of your herd uh but in this case he's saying you can you can eat it but i want you to eat it as a holy sacrifice to me you and your household shall eat it every year before the lord your god in a place which he chooses but if it has any defect such as a lameness or blindness or any serious defect you shall not sacrifice to lord your god you know when you were going to be sacrificing an animal unto the lord it could have been tempting to take one that's sick or that's not well has a broken leg or whatever because maybe it's more difficult for you to manage that animal but god did not want us to he wanted us to use an unblemished sacrifice say a good and right sacrifice to the lord and not use one that that was lame in any way you shall eat it within your gates the unclean and the clean alike may eat it as a gazelle or a deer only shall not eat its blood you are to pour it out on the ground like water which we have seen before we are not to eat the blood of a of a sacrifice and so here's what we have in deuteronomy 15 god was preparing them to establish a country where it appears there would have been much less significant problem with the poor and people would be generous people would not borrow people would as much people wouldn't get into debt of long-term debt it would be interesting to see what a country would have looked like that was established on godly principles like that now we don't have that today and we don't see in the new testament that you know first of all israel didn't have a country when jesus was here they were they were they were no longer a country so this kind of stuff wasn't enforced this is an old testament thing that's not enforced today but i'm sure it would have been beautiful i'm sure god knows better than us and it would have been a beautiful way to go about living if they would have obeyed it but they didn't and you know as a result there were consequences um there's so many things that god it you know it's hard to imagine what it would have been like right if everyone would have did things the way that god had prescribed it i'm sure it would have been a beautiful world but we never quite saw it played out the way that god had asked them to because man just gets in the way uh man has always had a sin problem and still does and hallelujah he has now given us jesus to atone once and for all for our sins hallelujah and um praise god for that we'll see you again when we get the deuteronomy 16 god bless you all [BLANK_AUDIO]