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Thank you very much. Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to Strouhold Baptist Church. If you can grab your hymnals and open it with song number 30. Hymn number 30, Nothing but the Blood. Hymn number 30. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow. No other fount I know. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. For my part in this I see. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. For my cleansing this my plea. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow. No other fount I know. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Nothing can force sin at all. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Not of good that I have done. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow. No other fount I know. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. This is all my hope and peace. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. This is all my righteousness. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow. No other fount I know. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow. No other fount I know. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. On the first Jesus, what a friend for sinners. Jesus, lover of my soul. Friends make fail me for a sale me. He, my Savior, makes me whole. Hallelujah, what a Savior. Hallelujah, what a friend. Save me helping, keeping, loving. He is with me to the end. Jesus, what a strength in weakness. Let me hide myself in Him. Tempting, fighting, sometimes failing. Heed my strength, my victory wins. Hallelujah, what a Savior. Hallelujah, what a friend. Save me helping, keeping, loving. He is with me to the end. Jesus, what a help in sorrow while the bells o'er for me roll. Even when my heart is breaking, He, my comfort, helps my soul. Hallelujah, what a Savior. Hallelujah, what a friend. Save me helping, keeping, loving. He is with me to the end. Jesus, what a guiding keeper while the tempest still is high. Storms about me, nights o'er take me. He, my pilot, hears my cry. Hallelujah, what a Savior. Hallelujah, what a friend. Save me helping, keeping, loving. He is with me to the end. On the last, Jesus, I am now receiving. More than all in Him I find. He hath granted me forgiveness. I am His and He is mine. Hallelujah, what a Savior. Hallelujah, what a friend. Save me helping, keeping, loving. He is with me to the end. Amen. All right, great singing this afternoon. At this time we'll go through our announcements. If you do not have a bulletin yet, slip up your hand real high and we'll make sure that we get one out to you. And if you open up to the first page, we've got our service times listed there. There's always Sunday morning at 1030, Sunday afternoon again at 4 p.m. Wednesday night 7 is our Bible study. We're going verse by verse through Isaiah chapter 23 this week, so come on out and make it to our Bible study if you can. We've got the soul winning opportunities listed there as well as the salvation and baptisms for the month of September as well as for 2021. And we're going to add one more baptism here. Now we just had one right before church. Someone out soul winning, so that was great. Let's go ahead and count up any salvation. Now, I already asked this morning for anything previous to today. Anything in the week that I missed, didn't count up from earlier this week? Anyone have anything to report? All right, then how about for today? If you went out soul winning today and add any salvation, slip up your hand, one here. Three, amen. Was that out soul winning or was that at the... Okay, cool. Okay, hold on. All right, I got his, yeah, that's not double up here, so I've got, all right, brother Matt and one and one, all right. Yes, I got both. Okay, I think we're good. We've got one, one, one, three and one. Yes, we got them all? Amen, all right. It was a great day out soul winning. Seven people saved today in total and one baptism, so praise the Lord. That's a great day. And then we've got the offering totals listed down there at the bottom of the page for the month of September. Pray requests, obviously continue to pray for our ladies who are with child. Mrs. Rogers is the first one expected here. She was, she's going a little bit past the estimated date, but you know what, ladies, you know, with my wife, we've had six children. And they've all gone late. So they've all been past due, overdue. You're talking to my wife about that. Don't freak out. It's okay. You know, I know I'm not a lady and I don't know what it's like to have to carry around one of those things for so long. And I know right near the end is when it gets like really, really difficult and you just want that child out. But, you know, just give a little patience. Don't get nervous if it's, oh, I'm a day late or two days late or whatever. Talk to my wife about it. Like I said, we've had them go three weeks late. So they came out, they all came out fine. You know, praise God. And some just take a little bit longer to cook than others. And those estimated due dates are averages, not an exact science. And there's nothing wrong with going a little bit past those estimated dates. Anyhow, be in prayer for them. Obviously, we hope that God blesses the deliveries of all the ladies here. I think the order definitely is Mrs. Rogers and I think Mrs. Carter is due next and then Mrs. Taylor is due third. So be in prayer for those ladies. Be in prayer for everyone here. There's not a whole lot that has changed except we are, Mida is doing very well after her recovery from the procedure that she had earlier this week, which is great to hear. And then we added Brother Jesse for his licensing for electrical contractor. And then Brother Joseph's dad, he's actually out of the hospital. I believe he said, I heard him this afternoon. So that's good. He's been released from the hospital, which is always a good sign, right? I think he's still really sick, so we want to pray for him, but not so bad as to require hospitalization. I think he's being sent home with some oxygen because I know he's having some breathing problems with this, so continue to pray for him. But the good news is he's not hospitalized any longer. And then my brother, Mike, is on here. He also has COVID. He's not hospitalized and he doesn't have respiratory problems. But he's just been sick for a long time and not really seeming to get any better. So if you don't mind praying for him, we appreciate that as well. Churches and pastors, I mentioned this before, if you don't know what's going on in Australia, look it up. There's a lot that is, a lot of very, very, very serious restrictions going on there, kind of requiring vaccinations to work and all kinds of stuff. So we're praying for our brothers and sisters in these churches that are over there that are being pastored by Pastor Kevin Sepulveda. And just pray for them, for their churches, and for the situation that's going on there. On the next page, there's a photo after the wedding of Brother Denzel and Kristen. And they'll be, we'll have another addition to our church family here with Kristen coming and joining us with Brother Denzel. We're going to have three generations of Miller, of Millers here. One of my daughters, I forget who said it, maybe it was Abigail, that said, Now there's three Mrs. Millers in church. And it's right, so we've got three generations, and that's a great testimony to have there, having three generations of, now of a family in church. So we will be, you can see their upcoming events, we're going to be holding a reception for them next week. We'll have some food provided, and just a celebration of their marriage, so you can wish them well and congratulations when they come back. I believe they're spending their honeymoon in Alaska, so just pray for their safety too, everything will go well. They really like the outdoors stuff, I tell you, they got married on top of a mountain, like some 11,000 feet elevation I think is what it was. And it was something else. It was something else. It was a lot of fun though, had a great time, and great, great young couple there, so we're going to wish them well when they come back. The September challenge is the church attendance challenge, trying to challenge you to come to church more often than you normally would. Hopefully three times a week you'll come to all the church services, love to see you here. A lot that's going on, church is really important, I'm not going to preach that sermon right now, but that is the challenge, try to make it for the entire month, try to make it to all the church services. We've got those various events coming up, now these upcoming events for those of you that maybe are newer here at our church, these aren't all happening here. So the Mountain Baptist Church Camp, that's in West Virginia, it's a friend of mine pastors that church, pastor Jason Robinson, known for a really long time. Fire Breathing Baptist Fellowship is in the Fort Worth area of Texas, and that is pastored by Jonathan Shelley, and that's a conference, so these are both kind of conferences with different preachers that are going to these, preaching at these events, and I happen to be preaching at both of these events. And then the Soul Winning Marathon, that is something local here, we're going to be traveling to Athens, Georgia on October 23rd, it's a Saturday, it's an all-day event, we'd love to have you come out and join us any part of that day, but these Soul Winning Marathons is what we do, is we take an entire day and we go from morning to evening, and we just go out and knock doors, and church will provide breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If you stay for all of it or any part of that, your laborer is worthy of his reward, so we're going to be feeding you and taking care of you while we're going out and knocking on those doors, and it's just kind of fun to go out to another area. We're going to be joining up actually with Sword of the Spirit Baptist Church, which is a church in Bowman, Georgia, and they're going to be joining us and we're going to be teaming up and knocking on those doors out there, so that's going to be really exciting, hopefully you can plan on making that. Gingerbread house making activity on December 4th is another Saturday, of course the whole church is invited to this, and we'll have all those supplies, and there's a sign-up sheet for this as well, I don't know if it's out yet or not, and the sooner you can let us know if you're coming the better, because we generally get the gingerbread houses from Costco, and whenever we see them we try to snag them up, because they don't last very long, and we need to buy a lot, so we're buying a lot for church, so we try to snag up a whole bunch of them before they run out, and we have to go and downgrade to the Walmart style gingerbread house, so if you get the earlier let us know the better, and we'll get enough for everybody here, and that's always a fun time, and then the camping trip is scheduled for May 9th through the 14th, and we don't have a sign-up sheet for that yet, but I probably should start one. We're limited on the spaces there, of course there's plenty for everyone in our church to attend, but we usually invite people, I already have people asking me from all over the place, people who came last year that want to come again, because it was so much fun this year, so this is a huge event, try to get off of work if you can for this, you won't regret it at all, lots of fun, there's a lake, you know the beach, we bring our kayaks, and you know there's all kinds of fun stuff to do, in addition to the great preaching, there's gonna be a lot of different pastors that are gonna be coming in, and preaching for us at this event, so great time, love to see you there, Bible memory passage, we're about halfway through with Colossians 3 verses 1 through 11, if you could commit these verses to memory, and be able to quote them out loud to someone else, they could check your work, make sure you've got all the words in the right place, then you will earn a prize for that, upcoming birthdays, tomorrow we've got Hebron Freeman's birthday, as well as my son Jonathan, and then you can see there my wife and I have an anniversary on the 27th, and then brother Moe and Nancy are having their anniversary on the 30th, homeschool field trips, this is the last chance you have today, talk to my wife, RSVP on Tiny Town, because that's coming up, I think that's Friday the 17th, 11am is where you're meeting, so just make sure if you're planning on attending, if your name was not written on there, you're good, if your name was not written on that sign up sheet, make sure you talk to my wife, make sure she knows that you're coming, and we'll see you there for that, and then the rest of the schedule is down there, that is about it for, oh, one more announcement real quick, I'll put this in the bulletin again, in two weeks from today, I'm planning on doing a whole sewing workshop church wide, okay, I'm going to make a church wide thing, we're going to bring in some lunch, so next, you're lucking out man, if you come to church the next couple Sundays, next week we're having food provided for the reception for the Millers, and that's going to be awesome, because I think Mrs. Lea is preparing a lot of that food, so you're definitely in for a treat, she is I think one of the best cooks in the entire church, she's won the chili cook-off I think consecutively here year after year, and anyone who's had children where she's made some food for your family, you know what I'm talking about, excellent cook, you don't want to miss that, come next Sunday, just for the lunch if nothing else man, I mean come to church, but it's a good motivating factor, get some good lunch there, and then the following week, what I want to do is just do a sewing workshop basically, because we've had a lot of newer people now that are coming to our church regularly, and I just want to make sure everyone on church, even if you're not newer, people who have been here for a while, that everyone's on the same page on how we go sewing, I'm going to do some demos, we'll probably have a couple of interactions, and it'll be a time to answer questions, and just try to be pretty thorough with how we go sewing, it's not a substitute for actually going out yourself and getting some hands-on training, but if you're interested in this, two weeks from today, we'll feed you, we'll go through the whole thing, and I just want to make sure, because I like to go out with different people, and just kind of see where everybody's at, but I'm only one person, and I want to make sure, especially with, there's a lot of people I never get a chance to go out sewing with, and just make sure we're all kind of on the same page, I appreciate, I didn't get a chance to listen to all your sermon, Brother Carter, but Brother Carter on Wednesday night, preached a sermon on some soul-winning, what was it called, soul-winning reminders, right, so you probably went over a lot of basics and fundamentals of soul-winning and reasoning behind why we do some of what we do, so if you missed that Wednesday night sermon, go back and catch that from Brother Carter, and then we'll be going over some of those fundamentals as well in two weeks from today. So we'll be feeding you for that, like I said, stick around, and we'll be going through that, so that's it for the announcements for this afternoon, Brother Peter, please lead us in our next song. Church, you can open up your hymnals again, the song number 343. Song number 343, revive us again. Song number 343. On the first, we praise thee, O God, for thy sons are thy love, for Jesus, who died and is now gone above, hallelujah by the glory, hallelujah, amen, hallelujah by the glory, revive us again. We praise thee, O God, for thy spirit of life, who has shown us our Savior and scattered our time, hallelujah by the glory, hallelujah, amen, hallelujah by the glory, revive us again. All glory and praise to the Lamb that was slain, who has borne all our sins and has cleansed every stain, hallelujah by the glory, hallelujah, amen, hallelujah by the glory, revive us again, revive us again. Really smart with thy love, may so be rekindled with fire from above, hallelujah by the glory, hallelujah, amen, hallelujah by the glory, revive us again. Amen. Amen. Great singing. It's time for our Sunday afternoon offering. Ask Brother Lindsay if you can please do that for me. And while Brother Lindsay is getting the offering plate for us, we can open up our Bibles to the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 15. That's the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 15. And as we do customary here at Stronghold Baptist Church, we're going to read the entire passage. I'm going to ask Brother Carter if you can please read that for us. Once again, that's Deuteronomy, chapter 15. At the end of every seven years, thou shalt make a release, and this is the manner of the release. Every creditor that lendeth art unto his neighbor shall release it. He shall not exact it of his neighbor or of his brother, because it is called the Lord's release. Of a foreigner thou mayest exact it again, but that which is thine with thy brother thine hand shall release. Save when there shall be no poor among you, for the Lord shall greatly bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it. Only if thou carefully hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all these commandments which I command thee this day. For the Lord thy God blessed thee as he promised thee, and thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow, and thou shalt reign over many nations, but they shall not reign over thee. If there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren within any of thy gates in thy land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother. But thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need in that which he wanted. Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart, saying, The seventh year, the year releases at hand, and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest him naught, and he cry unto the Lord against thee, and it be sin unto thee. Thou shalt surely give him, and thine heart shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him, because that for this thing the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thy works, and in all that thou put his thine hand unto. For the poor shall never seize out of the land. Therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy in thy land. And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sowed unto thee, and serve thee six years, then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee. And when thou sendeth him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty, thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress, of that wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee, thou shalt give unto him. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a-bombing in the land of Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee. Therefore I command thee this thing to-day, and it shall be, if he say unto thee, I will not go away from thee, because he loveth thee in thine house, because he is well with thee. Then thou shalt take it all, and thrust it through his ear unto the door, and he shalt be thy servant forever, and also unto thy maidservant thou shalt do likewise. It shall not seem hard unto thee when thou sendeth him away free from thee, for he hath been worth a double hired servant to thee, in serving thee six years, and the Lord thy God shalt bless thee in all that thou doest. All the firstling males that come of thy herd and of thy flock thou shalt sanctify unto the Lord thy God. Thou shalt do no work with the firstling of thy bullock, nor shear the firstling of thy sheep. Thou shalt eat it before the Lord thy God year by year, in the place which the Lord shall choose, thou and thy household. And if there be any blemish therein, as if it be lame, or blind, or have any ill blemish, thou shalt not sacrifice it unto the Lord thy God. Thou shalt eat it within thy gates. The unclean and the clean person shall eat it alike, as the roebuck and as the heart. Only thou shalt not eat the blood thereof, thou shalt pour it upon the ground as water. Let's have a word of prayer. Brother Jesse, would you mind praying for us please? All right, one last announcement. I apologize for not having the waters in stock. We were out of town this week and I knew we needed to get them, just kind of ran out of time and decided to go soul-winding instead of go shopping this afternoon, so we will have those filled up again. But we still have, we have coconut waters and we've got Gatorades in this fridge. Help yourself to that if you, you know, if you're thirsty, especially if you want out soul-winding. That's normally what we have that stuff for. Anyways, anyone who goes out soul-winding is to be able to, you know, kind of open up the beverages for that. But since we don't have any water, go ahead and help yourself to what we have in the big fridge over here. So I forgot to mention that. All right, Deuteronomy chapter 15. So this evening, this afternoon, I'll be preaching a sermon, hopefully just to help you get a better understanding. Maybe you've read through this before and you kind of didn't understand it fully or didn't, you know, didn't kind of get all the meanings here. A lot of the stuff that we read in the Old Testament, a lot of the old practices and the sacrifices and much of the Levitical priesthood and the things that went along with that have, they have practical meanings and practical applications and things that were just made sense to do at the time, in addition to having extra spiritual meanings as well built into that. So there's kind of dual purpose for a lot of this stuff. And we see, you know, one of the obvious things with the sacrifices is just the foreshadowing of a Savior to come, who's going to shed his blood for us and the sprinkling of his blood in the mercy seat and things like that. And a couple of weeks ago, I preached a sermon on the veil, on the veils, actually the two veils, the one with Moses veil and then one with the veil being rent in twain at the temple and separating the holy place from the most holy place and how that was, you know, all the symbolism in that. So if you were here for that sermon, this is going to, we're going to be touching on one of the passages in relation to this. And what I'm preaching on this afternoon is two events, one that's called the Lord's release, and that's found here in Deuteronomy chapter 15 and the other one is the Jubilee. So some of you are nodding your head, you're probably familiar, every 50 years there's this Jubilee, and there is a practical reason that God has instituted these things, as well as a spiritual application for these both. And one of the things, I think this is really cool, and we're going to see this right off the bat here, look down in your Bibles, Deuteronomy 15, we're going to start reading again in verse number one. The Bible says, at the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release. And this is the manner of the release, every creditor that lendeth ought unto his neighbor shall release it. He shall not exact it of his neighbor or of his brother because it is called the Lord's release. Of a foreigner thou mayest exact it again, but that which is thine with thy brother, thine hand shall release, save when there shall be no poor among you, for the Lord shall greatly bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it. Now, before we continue on any further, this is clearly a mechanism to help the poor of the land, because he gives these first three verses saying, okay, here's what you're going to do, now he's allowing you to, and what it says here, a creditor, right? It's someone who's lending, and then the person that's borrowing is in debt. I mean, we all know what that is, right? We're in a debtor's society today. You've got a credit card, you're racking up, okay, someone's giving you credit, that's the creditor, the bank, whoever, you know, Visa, MasterCard, and then you're going off and spending their money, and then you owe them, you have to pay them back. That's how this works, it's how it's worked all throughout history, now we just have it more conveniently with these little cards, and it's all digital and everything like that, but what the Bible's saying here, though, is that you can't hold a debt for longer than seven years, like that's the max term debt that you're going to have in God's economy, in the nation of Israel, and here's the thing, you say, oh, but that's just for them, look, there's wisdom in all of the law of the Lord, especially, you know, God gave mankind how he wants them to govern, you know, the crimes that need to be instituted, and the punishments for those crimes, as well as just the authorities and the powers that are established within the home, within the government, you know, within the church, and the way that God wanted everything to operate, and these things are good and right, and I always say this, who are you to argue with God on what's better or what's right for a society, you know, even when it comes to, and you know that this is true, you know, I'm not some communist up here, right, by any means, by any stretch of the imagination, but, you know, a lot of people are just, rah rah, just like this, you know, the capitalism to the extent of it being like, you know, this almost religious belief. Now look, I'm not anti-capitalism either, so you should understand that, and I'm not going to get very political tonight, but this is, in a sense, a little bit political, because what this has to do with is a system of credit and debt, and we're also going to see a little bit later a system of like, you know, pricing with supply and demand, but the way that God designed things is better. It's a better system, because one of the flaws, and this is what people who are, you know, people get to these extremes, right, and one of the flaws of the capitalistic system is that it can be very greed-motivated, and people can end up buying up and kind of owning everything. It kind of gets to this point where you just keep accumulating more and more and more, and some people who are really wealthy and powerful just continue to get more and more wealthy and powerful, right, and so if it's just completely unchecked, at least the theory is that, you know, then you're going to have people that are going to end up owning everything. And see, God understands this, and God knows this, and he didn't want that to happen, because it's not a good thing, it's not a good thing. Then you end up in a situation where you have lords and serfs, right? We have this royalty class that just owns everything, and everyone else is a peasant, and everyone else just works for them, and there ends up being a lot of abuse when that happens, and if we're going to, you know, look to, you know, looking to Scripture is always the best place to look to when we want to understand what is the best way? What would be the closest to the right way of doing things? Well, God's release here of not just having this perpetual state of debt is an excellent system, and if you think about it, it kind of keeps a lot of things in check. What are some of the biggest debts that people have today? There's student loans and there's home loans, right, mortgages and student loans, and what do we see right now are the prices of both of those just completely out of control, way, way, way more than the actual value of what you're receiving. I mean, you're purchasing homes today, you think about the material costs and everything that's going into some of these homes, and these homes that have already been built, you know, like my home, now just in the past few years, has changed so much to the point where if we were going to try to buy my home now, like, we would never be able to afford it. Not even close. Now, do you think the actual intrinsic value of my house has really just gone up that much? No, of course. I mean, it's actually just getting worse. Every year that passes, the floor is getting worse, everything else. Obviously, we try to do things to keep up and maintain, but you know what I'm saying? I mean, these physical stuff, it's not like it's just $100,000 more, but if we were going to sell it now, it would be like that much more, whatever. You know, it's crazy, but if you weren't, you know, the only reason people can even afford any of this is because you're getting, like, 30-year loans, right? Now, if no one was able to do that, because you say, okay, well, this is what I could afford and this is what I could pay, but then the people giving the money already knows, well, in six, in seven years, like, this is wiped clean, because this is what's being described here would be you getting this loan from somebody and you're paying it back, you're paying it back, you're paying it back, but then by the time that seven years comes, it's back to zero. That's it. It's a loan forgiveness program that is designed so that people who are poor are not just going to forever be tied to being a debtor, because God doesn't want the poor just to remain poor all the time. You know, they ought to have an opportunity, but the problem is that, you know, when you don't have any resources, when you don't have money and you're poor, it's a lot harder because it's easier for other people to keep you down and to ever get ahead. Well, this helps to mitigate that. Now, in human society, human beings are sinners, so you're always going to find people abusing systems and you can say, oh, but there's a problem with this. What I'm saying, though, is this is the best way, because it's God's way, and when we understand these things, it could help influence the way that we think about other things as well, because let's face it, I mean, you deal with politics, you deal with the way that the land is governed to one degree or another, whether it be through voting or, you know, even just talking to people and talking about politics and stuff. We ought to have our minds on what scripture says, knowing what the Bible says, to have the right viewpoint, and let this form and fashion and mold all the rest of our beliefs, because this is truth. And I'm not here, I'm not going to, you know, spell out exactly what you need to believe on any political thing, but understanding what God teaches here and a little bit of the reasoning behind it, it makes sense. It makes sense not to have these forever debts, and, you know, people coming out of school, you know, thinking that you have to go to college and they get $50,000, $60,000, $70,000, $100,000 in debt just because they think, well, if I don't do this, then how am I going to survive in this world or whatever? Well, in God's society, that just wouldn't happen, because if it did, you'd be a fool to be a creditor to give someone that much money or that much resources when you know you're not going to get it all back. So, I mean, you wouldn't be taking on that extra risk. I mean, you know, the housing crisis that we just had 10 years ago or however long ago it was, I don't know, 2007, that era, 2007, 2008? It's because banks were giving out all these loans like nothing. Unsecured, essentially, just people who weren't able to pay it and then, oh, all of a sudden, you know, we need help, government help, pay us out, you know, bail us out, whatever. And again, I don't want to get into all the politics of that, but you can see, like, under God's economy here, this prevents a lot of those problems, because no one's going to want to have to be on the hook for that, so you're going to have much tighter reign on crediting, and then also on the debt side, too, people won't be able to, you may not be able to get as many loans, but people are still going to want to sell housing and do all this other stuff, so you're going to find a way to make it work. And it's going to be able to fit and work for more people to be able to benefit from, ultimately, and so you don't have just exorbitant profit on stuff just because you can, right? So it kind of helps eliminate that part, that problem of capitalism where just, like, and you see it happen, you know, people who need things, then all of a sudden, because you have the demand, and maybe there's no other game in town, and then you get charged whatever you want, and just tough. Well, you can't really charge as much as you want if there's no one to pay for it, right? So anyhow, that's kind of one of the practical reasons why this is going to be part of God's law, and we're going to read a little bit more about this, but you can see from verse number 4, this is definitely regarding the poor, because he says, you know what, this is the way things are going to be, except when there's no poor among you, for the Lord shall greatly bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it. Now, the thing about that, though, is that he says the only way that we're not going to have this rule is if there's no poor, but then later down in verse number 11, the Bible says, for the poor shall never cease out of the land. So it's like, God says, hey, you know what, we could stop this program and you can have this debt longer when there's nobody that's poor in the land, right? There we go. You could do this later, but guess what? There's never going to be no poor in the land. There's always going to be poor people. There always are. So because there's always going to be poor people, this was always going to be the way that God had intended for things to be done. Let's keep reading here. It says, verse 5, only if thou carefully hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God to observe to do all these commandments which I command thee this day, for the Lord thy God blesseth thee as he promised thee, and thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow, and thou shalt reign over many nations, but they shall not reign over thee. And one of the things, as we're going through this, that I hope you could glean is just some personal, maybe some things that might help you in your personal finances in understanding debt, and debt is never a good thing to be in. And it's something that's sold to you all the time. I mean, we were literally on the airplane back from Montana, and we're being sold a credit card in flight, in the air. I mean, you can't get away from this stuff. They're saying, you could get a bonus 200,000 miles if you sign up right now for our credit card. The pilot was on the mic pitching a credit card. This is the society that we live in. I mean, it's a credit-based, a debt-based society, and you know what? This debt-based society is going to crumble. The U.S. debt is, I don't know how many trillions we are now. I mean, with all the spending from COVID and stuff, I have no idea anymore. I haven't heard, I haven't seen it. They don't want to talk about that, because I think we probably doubled the debt that we already had in the past couple years. I don't know that for a fact. Don't quote me on that, but I'm just like, it just seems like these huge spending bills. Where does that money come from? Well, they print it out of thin air, but you know what? Those notes, those are debtors' notes that they print. And you know where we really get our financial base? It's from other people investing in our dollar. That's not from really anything. It's just credit. It's just saying we're good for it. It's debt. And the time's going to come due sooner rather than later, in my opinion, in this country, where you're going to have to pay the piper. But without me going on and on about our society with our debt, let's use the principles of just what the Bible actually says. When God blesses a nation because they're obeying His commandments, He said, if you hearken unto My voice, you observe these commandments, then I'll bless you. So what He's going to do, He's going to bless the land. He's going to bless the nation to be fruitful, to be able to produce that God's going to make things go well. And He's going to prevent a lot of hardships. He's able to prevent famines and disasters and all these other things. And He said, well, you'll be blessed. If you keep on following Me, then I'll make sure that things continue to go well. God can control how much crops and fruits and everything else just comes out of the ground. God can bless that and multiply the seed and multiply the abundance of a nation that's choosing to follow the Lord and obey His commandments. And that's what He's promising right here. He's saying, don't worry about it. You'll be the lender, which is going to put you in the position of power and not the borrower. The Bible says in Proverbs 22 verse 7, the rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender. That's just the way it is. I mean, if you owe money to someone else, they've got power over you. They've got some control over you until you can finally free yourself from that bondage, free yourself from that debt. Whew, man, that's paid off. Otherwise, they'll be breathing down your neck and saying, you know what, I don't care what you've got going on because you owe me money. That's the way it is. That's the way of the world. That's why you don't want to be in debt. And then in Proverbs 22, continue on, verse number 8, the Bible says, he that soweth iniquity shall reap vanity and the rod of his anger shall fail. He that hath a bountiful eye shall be blessed, for he giveth of his bread to the poor. And this is another concept that you're going to see throughout Scripture as well because we are not financially driven. We shouldn't be. We shouldn't be motivated by the things of this world and by money, you know, filthy lucre, the Bible calls it, or mammon, right? Because you can't serve God in mammon. Commonly, it's called money. You can't be serving money and looking after it to get all these financial benefits and be serving God at the same time because you can only spend your time devoted to so much. I mean, we only have so much time on this earth to do work, to do anything. And if you're going to be invested in trying to make a lot of money, that's going to consume all your time. So there's no way you're going to be able to serve God if you're just financially motivated. Now, God knows we all need to work, right, to be able to just provide and to make ends meet in order to make sure that we could continue just living and surviving, but that's not where our focus and attention should just be dedicated completely to in order to just make and earn more money because God wants us spending our time to serve Him. We're His servants, right? And God also teaches in the Scripture that, you know, Christians ought to be generous and ought to be giving, that you don't care so much, oh man, no, this is all mine, I'm going to hoard this and keep this all for myself. The Bible says, He giveth of His bread to the poor. He says, He hath a bountiful eye shall be blessed. So when you kind of freely give and you lend unto people and you lend hoping not to receive again and you're able to have this type of an attitude, God blesses you for that. And in Deuteronomy 15, look at verse number 7, the Bible reads, If there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren within any of thy gates in thy land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother, but thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need in that which he wanteth. And wanteth means that's what he lacks, what he doesn't have. And he's saying, look, abundantly, you know, like open your hand wide, be generous, be helpful. Now, don't confuse this, because as I mentioned this morning, you know, we need to take the Scripture all in context and as a whole in understanding how everything fits together. You know, you can read in 1 Thessalonians, the Bible says that if any man would not work, neither should he eat. So there's also this concept that, you know, God doesn't want, you know, he's not talking about just a bunch of freeloaders, right? Someone who's poor and is lacking because they're lazy and a sluggard and won't work, that's not who the Bible is talking about here. There's plenty of people, though, however, that are poor for other reasons, and it's not because they're lazy and it's not because they're not willing to work. They have other reasons that causes them to be poor, and they have needs, and you know what, the Bible's saying, you help those people out. Okay, help them in their needs. And then also, notice, when it's talking about people with needs, I've addressed this many times before, but we need to be reminded of this in our covetous culture. There's a huge difference between a need and a want. And my kids are probably getting sick of hearing this because I go over this all the time. There's a difference between what you need and what you want. You don't need another iPad. You don't need any iPads. You don't need any phones. I said it. You don't need any phones. You don't understand. You don't need a phone. I'm not super old, but I'm not super young. You'll never believe this. There was a time when a phone would hang on a wall, and if you weren't home, you didn't talk on that phone. Because it stayed at home. I remember when answering machines came out. I mean, you could call someone, and if they didn't answer, you didn't even get to leave a message. For real. And people would go out to restaurants and actually talk to each other. Imagine that. But look, it's not a need. All this technology, all these gadgets, all these things, you know what you need? Food and clothing. Maybe some shelter, right? Those types of things. Those are needs. And when we have brethren in need, hey, let's help them out. Absolutely. But I'm not too keen on someone who's just, well, I don't have all the luxuries. Well, sorry. You know, seriously. And it's not because I'm unloving or uncaring, but let's understand here what's a need and what's not a need. Because it's not just total communism either. I know people will teach that, like, oh, no, you're supposed to just have all things common and everything else. Look, the church, and I don't want to get into all that. We go on that another day. We go through the Book of Acts. We go through Acts 5 where people were giving to the church. And the church was helping to supply the needs of everyone who's doing the work of God and everyone who is going out and preaching the gospel and doing everything else. And, you know, people who didn't have very much, they were able to be supported. But that is not the same as what a lot of people will politically argue for communism and things like that. But again, I don't want to go down that path. I'm trying to stay away from going off that deep end. But what the Bible teaches us here is that we ought to be generous. In 1 John 3, I'll just read this for you. Stay in Deuteronomy because we're going to stay in Deuteronomy for quite a while. 1 John 3, verse 17, the Bible says, But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? You say, look, if you have this world's good, God has blessed you. You have some finances. You actually have resources. God's blessed you with that. And you see your brother that has need, and you don't help him out, and you shut up your bowels of compassion from him. The Bible says, how dwelleth the love of God in you? Like, you could say that you've got the love of God, and you're not helping people out when you totally can. You have it. Now, look, not everyone has resources. You've got two poor people next to each other. It's not like this guy is going to be able to help that guy and give it. They don't have anything. There's nothing wrong with that. If you're not able to give because you don't have it, that is what it is. But if you have this world's good, if you have it, then help people out. And that's what the Bible is saying here. And I also want to point this out, too, because it says, you see your brother have need. It's not just every single person on the planet. Also, in Deuteronomy 15, this is talking explicitly to God's people, right? Because he says, hey, to the foreigners, to the strangers, it's okay to keep that, you know, to lend unto them for longer than this release, what the Bible is calling the Lord's release. That's okay. But among the brethren, among God's people, he's saying that's not the way it is. And, of course, his nation is supposed to be comprised of his people, but obviously there's still foreigners and strangers that would come in and dwell in the land. Now, verse number nine here in Deuteronomy 15, it reads, beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand, and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest him naught, and he cry unto the Lord against it, and it be sin unto thee. So if people, you know, you've got someone who has this world's good, and it's like one year until that release knowing, say, hey, if I help this guy out, if I lend unto him, I mean, the year of release is coming up next year, right? So I know that this is going to be absolved, so, you know, I'm just not going to give unto him. The Bible says that's a sin. So God knows, I mean, he knows the heart of man. He knows people are going to be thinking, like, no, you know, but what's more important, what's more important is that God's saying, you're helping your brother out, right? Even if the release is coming up, he's saying, lend to him anyways, because if he's not able to get any help from anybody because of that, he's saying, then that's going to be a sin unto you, and you don't want to be in that situation with God, because now you're sinning against God, and you're going to have to deal with the Lord about that. Verse 10, thou shalt surely give him, and thine heart shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him, saying, and don't let it bother you either, because that for this thing, the Lord thy God, look at this, shall bless thee in all thy works and in all that thou putest thine hand unto. So what's God saying? He's saying, you know what, you're not going to lose out. He's making this promise, saying, you know what, I know that if you lend to him and that release is coming up, you're going to have to forgive that debt. He's saying, but do it anyways, because when I see you do that, I'm just going to bless you, and you're going to be then ultimately just compensated already for what you've lost in that release, but because you did the right thing and because you helped out your brother who had need, I'll bless you for that. And that's a promise. God says the same thing about the tithe in Malachi. He says, hey, look, just test me, right? Because a lot of people say, well, I can't tithe. I mean, 10%, that's a lot of money. I don't have very much money. If I give this much money, whatever. He says, look, just test me out. Just see if I'll open up the windows of heaven. And this isn't a story about tithing, but this is something that I've held for a really long time, and I could give a testimony that absolutely 100% from the time I started paying my tithe to the Lord, God's taking care of me every single time. It's true. Guess what? The word of God is true, again. But this is a similar concept. Basically, we're going to say, like, well, I don't want to do this because I'm going to lose this, and I won't, you know. He's saying, look, I'll bless you. I'll bless you for it. I like God's promises, especially the ones where he's promising a blessing. You should take him up on that. Seriously. Because God is good. And God is generous. And I found that God, when you get a blessing from God, man, it's always, for me, it's always more than I would expect. It always has been. Wow. Like, I'm always kind of blown away a little bit going, you think, by this point, I wouldn't be, but it's just, wow, that's great, God. And it's not, look, I'm not just saying this is all about money, either. This, specifically, we're kind of talking about that, but God's blessings comes in many forms. And when you stand up to do the right thing, especially if it's going to come at a cost to you, God will bless you in various ways to cover what you've done. And it's a great promise. Let's keep you reading here, verse number 11. It says, For the poor shall never cease out of the land. We saw that. Therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, to thy needy, in thy land. And if thy brother in Hebrew man or Hebrew woman be sold unto thee and serve thee six years, then in the seventh year, thou shalt let him go free from thee. And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty. So now, this is talking about a bondservant. And this is where people get all crazy. Atheists, especially, they want to attack the Bible. The Bible condones slavery and all this other stuff. Look, I'm going to hit this again real briefly. I've touched on this in the past. I already preached a sermon on slavery in the Bible. Being a bondservant makes sense. This isn't talking about the slavery that often comes to people's mind of people being kidnapped from one country and just brought over in chains and forced into servitude. That's different. Being a bondservant is someone who says, hey, I'm poor. I don't have any money. So I'm going to agree to work for you for six years or whatever. You're going to give me what I need. And usually you're going to give me what I need now because they'll have a need now. They need to have a place to live or they need to have whatever. So you're going to say, OK, well, I'm going to work for you for all these years if you give me now. And then what you're doing is you're kind of working off that debt. You're working off what they've been giving you. And you have to work. So you're bondservant. You have to do it because you've already kind of received an advance on that payment of the work that you're going to do. But what the Bible is saying here is that even in that situation, you're still limited to six years of service because in the seventh year you're going free. God didn't want people to have to be in perpetual bondage and perpetual poorness and poverty, right? He wanted there to be a way to be able to get ahead, to get out for anyone who's going to work, anyone who's going to do something that they can continue to move forward and not just be kept down all the time. And he says here that not only when you have a brother, a Hebrew man, a Hebrew woman be sold unto thee and they serve you six years, he says when you send them out, they don't just go away, okay, now we're done, like you're just empty. Verse 14 says thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock and out of thy floor and out of thy winepress of that wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee, thou shalt give unto him. You say, well all these blessings God has increased you. You're going to give him some of that blessing that God's given you when you send him out and say, okay, here you go, now here's a good start for you. Go free and I'm going to help you out and here's some food and here's some money and here's, you know, God bless you, thanks for your service and go on the way. This is the way that God designed it and verse 15 says and thou shalt remember that thou was the bondman in the land of Egypt and the Lord thy God redeemed thee, therefore I command thee this thing today. You're saying, don't forget, no matter how much blessings you've received, no matter how prosperous you've become, don't ever forget where you came from. You say, past versions, we weren't ever in Egypt, well look, you're a born again child of God, you were in bondage to sin, don't ever forget the forgiveness that God has granted you, what you've received from the Lord, don't ever forget that, don't ever forget where you came from, because you were a hellbound sinner with a huge debt that you owed to God for your transgressions. So don't, and this is basically the point of what he's saying, don't forget where you came from and start looking down on people and not helping people when they need the help, because that's wickedness. So besides being a mechanism to help the poor, the Lord's release also symbolizes salvation, right? Because think about it, all of your debts are cleared. Everything you owe to any debtor that you have is completely wiped clean. So you can rack up this debt and then all of a sudden, boom, it's like a new man is born. A fresh start. And that's what you get the moment you get saved. Hey, all of your transgressions are cleared, all of your debts are paid. That's also, there's a great symbolism there as well. And the Lord's release would happen every seven years and clear the debts. And also, of course, the servants are set free, also the bondservant. This also carries symbolic meaning with the Sabbath, because the Sabbath is a day of rest. Man, I could go on and on about the Sabbath, but how you see, the way God uses these numbers, the seventh day is a release here, I mean seventh year, excuse me, just like the seventh day is a Sabbath. And it's supposed to be this freedom and this rest that God gives you and this relief that God has provided through all of these things. And what's cool about learning about this stuff is how all of these great biblical truths and concepts, even just regarding salvation, regarding Jesus Christ, regarding these really significant spiritual truths are just embedded and incorporated in day-to-day life, year-to-year life. If you are living under God's rule and God's command in the nation of Israel, all of these things are reflective of some greater truth. I mean, you'd be loving every seven years, that release, right? Man, I love that. Well, guess what that's like? Your sins could be wiped away completely, and not just every seven years, but once for all. On top of that, there was the year of Jubilee. So, first of all, every seven years, there's a release of debt. And if you are serving someone as a bondservant, then you get released also every seven years. But then once every 50 years, we're going to turn to Leviticus chapter 25, there is the year of Jubilee. And this had to do with the land itself. If you remember, the tribes of Israel were all given different portions of land as their inheritance. So the tribe of Judah, the tribe of Simeon, all these various tribes had a geographic location, a plot of land, that was dedicated for their people, for their tribe. And the way that God designed things was not, because again, he didn't want to just have one tribe just taking over the whole nation. And just let's say one tribe, let's say it's, you know, even Judah is prospering. And then they're just being blessed and being blessed, and they're following the Lord. Well, God still designed it so that they couldn't just eat up and buy up all the land of all the other tribes. And then it's just like, well, now we own everything, and the rest of the tribes, y'all are slaves to us, because we own all your land. Now, there is an allowance, we're going to read about this, for people to sell their land to someone else. But that sale of the land was not a permanent thing. Because this is what the Jubilee is about, is that in the year of Jubilee, it would go back to the actual owner of that land. So it was more like a land lease than anything else for a period of time. It wasn't a total transfer of ownership. And when we get to this verse, I'm going to point this out as well, is that the actual interesting thing is that the way that the Bible teaches, the way that God looks at it is, you know what? All of the land belongs to God, and we're just all His servants anyway, so no one really owns the land. Like, the property that I own doesn't really belong to me. Even if I owned it outright and didn't have a note to pay from the bank, even if I didn't have that, it still doesn't really belong to me. Now, it could be considered my possession, and we'll see that here, I'm possessing it, but the ownership belongs to God. Because God's a creator of everything. We're just strangers and pilgrims here, and this is what the Bible actually says, we'll see that in a minute, in Leviticus 25. Let's actually start reading here, because I'm just keep on preaching what's already in this chapter. Look at verse number one, the Bible reads, Neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed, for it is a year of rest unto the land. Now, just as a side note here, besides the clearing of debts every seven years, which is the Lord's release, we just read about that, the land was also supposed to get rest every seven years. Now, this also has a practical application, it makes sense, because now, I'm not a farmer, I'm not some expert in this area, but I do know enough to know this, is that if you continue to cultivate a land and continue to grow the same crops, you just keep on growing, growing, growing, you're going to deplete the earth of the nutrition, of the minerals, of what you actually need in that food anyways. And what God has prescribed is saying, look, every seventh year, just let the land rest. Don't go out and you can't go out and harvest or do anything else. Don't prune it, don't keep it, just let it grow wild for one year. Let all the fruits that come off of there, let them fall to the ground, let it nourish the land, give the land rest, you're not just trying to drain everything out of it, and let it go. Because every time when you're pruning it, you're making things more bountiful, more fruitful, right, you're doing all this stuff to make it better and to produce more, you say, you know what, just let it go. And he was okay with you maybe picking up something to eat just right then, but in general, you're not harvesting, you're not reaping, you're not bringing it all in and just clearing everything out, you're just pretty much just letting it go. And that also just makes sense, because he's giving away of sustainability. He also provides a mechanism to say, well, what are we going to do for that year? I mean, a whole year that we can't reap? What are we going to do? Another instance, have the faith, and this is what he says, have the faith and I'll give you enough to provide for you for all that time. And we'll see that a little bit later, I'm kind of getting a little bit ahead of myself. Look at verse number six, the Bible says, And the Sabbath of the land shall be meat for you, for thee and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee, and for thy cattle, and for the beasts that are in thy land, shall all the increase thereof be meat. And thou shalt number seven Sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years, and the space of the seven Sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. So you're saying there's seven times seven, right? There's seven, every seven years is a Sabbath, and then every seven of those sets of seven is like a super, we'll call it a super Sabbath, right? But the Lord calls it Jubilee, it's a year of Jubilee. But it's like the super Sabbath, the Sabbath of Sabbaths. And in verse number nine, it says, Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound, on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement, shall you make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. So what's kicking off this Jubilee is this day of atonement. And flip back, keep your place here in Leviticus 25, just go back to chapter 16, because even this day is very significant. And the fact that the Jubilee is being kicked off on this particular day also carries very significant symbolism. This particular day, the seventh month, the tenth day of that seventh month, is what the Bible's calling here the day of atonement. And this is what I was talking about, if you were here for my sermon on the veils, we went over these sacrifices, we're not going to go over them again, but this is where the high priest essentially goes in once a year on this particular day to offer the sacrifices for himself and for all the people, and to sprinkle the blood and do all this stuff once every year going into the most holy place. This is that day. And Leviticus 16, we'll just reread a portion of this, starting in verse 29, the Bible says, and whom he shall consecrate to minister in the priest's office, in the father's stead, shall make the atonement, and shall put on the linen clothes, even the holy garments, and he shall make an atonement for the holy sanctuary, and he shall make an atonement for the tabernacle of the congregation, and for the altar, and he shall make an atonement for the priests and for all the people of the congregation, and this shall be an everlasting statute unto you, to make an atonement for the children of Israel for all their sins once a year, and he did as the Lord commanded Moses. Now, this special year of Jubilee happens on this day, which I already covered all the symbolism, how this is showing Christ, right? When the veil is rent and twain, that's when Christ died on the cross, okay? That the access to the most holy of all was taken down, the division there, the divider was taken down because we go to the Lord through Christ, and the symbolism here of all of your sins being remitted, everything being done, because when Jesus Christ came, obviously the blood of bulls and goats doesn't save you, it can't save you, like Hebrews 10 says, it's never been able to save, it was all symbolic of the Savior to come, who once paid the debt for the whole world, for everybody, that atonement, the thing that makes us be able to be reconciled back to God, that blood that was shed by Jesus Christ was paid and was symbolized all throughout the children of Israel's history by making this one sacrifice on this one day, and then it's exemplified in the year of Jubilee, a Sabbath of Sabbaths, because the Bible teaches in the New Testament that Jesus Christ is our rest, He is our Sabbath, He fulfills the Sabbath, and that we rest from all of our works, we're not trusting in our works to be saved, we're trusting in the finished work of Jesus Christ, we're trusting in what He did, that's our rest, which is why we no longer observe the Sabbath from that particular point of view, because Jesus already fulfilled that, so the aspects of God's law that have already been fulfilled would no longer be in effect, which is why the Levitical priesthood, all those laws regarding all the carnal ordinances and the washings, the New Testament teaches that we don't observe those anymore, the Sabbath would also be one of those, because Jesus Christ is our rest, and that's what we understand and know now, but this was all being foreshadowed and taught in the keeping of these things, and especially this day of Jubilee, because think about the Jubilee, that's also when you receive your inheritance, so if you sold off your land, if you became a debtor, if you did anything, by the time the year of Jubilee comes around, you know, you've already, every seven years, you're being free from your debt that you owe, but now, in the year of Jubilee, any land that you may have given away comes back to you, and you receive that inheritance, that inheritance never fully goes away from you, you always have that inheritance, which is also a great picture of eternal security, because if you're a child, in this case it would be like the child of Israel, if you're a child of God, your inheritance, you have a home in heaven that never goes away, that inheritance is always there, it's already been bought and paid for, and that's what the year of Jubilee symbolizes and represents, that eternal inheritance that is always there forever. Let's go back to Leviticus 25, verse number 10, so on that day, on the Day of Atonement, you sound the trumpet, and this was after every 50 years, they're making this, every 49 years, in the 50th year, there's 49 years, and then you sound the trumpet throughout the land in the Day of Atonement, which symbolizes the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, his death, burial, resurrection, verse number 10 says, and ye shall hallow the 50th year and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof, it shall be a Jubilee unto you, and of course the Jubilee is a time of celebration, right, it's a big event, man, this is awesome, and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family, so the Lord's release dealt with individual debts being paid off, and the Jubilee would deal with the land ownership, because if you think about it, you know, if you possess land, you possess inheritance, you're probably going to end up selling that off first, to pay debts or to get what you want, if you need something, if you need to get by, if things are not going as well for you, and you have this property, you say, hey, well, I can sell my land, you're probably going to do that before you sell yourself, right, you kind of sell yourself as like a last, I don't have anything else to offer, so here, I'll just belong to you, and you can put me to work as you see fit, right, but there's an opportunity, always, God is giving an opportunity, no matter what condition you're in, no matter how much debt you have, no matter how much you've lost and you've given up, there's always a way to come back, and to be basically at equal, to be at zero, right, to be in good standing with the Lord, and it's all through grace, because whatever you've done to get in a position of poverty, whatever's happened to you, it's just by grace that you're receiving, your debt's being cleared, it's by grace that you're receiving this land back that you've already sold, God's grace covers all of that, it's an amazing picture, and this is something that is just, it's supposed to be incorporated, now, it doesn't mean that everyone always followed this, in fact, we know that they didn't follow this, we know that they weren't giving the land the rest, because when God judged them, and the children of Israel went captive, he said, you know what, you weren't giving the land its rest, so you're going to be held captive, now for every year that didn't get its rest, now you're going to be in captivity, and so we know that they were just ignoring a lot of God's laws, but see, had they just believed it, had faith, weren't greedy, and just stuck to the Lord's plan, then you can see how things would go well, and that God would bless them, but unfortunately, people have this evil eye, and they want to just do things their own way, and feel like they know better than God. Let's look at here, let's keep reading here in Leviticus 25, verse 11, the Bible says, That fiftieth year be unto you, ye shall not sow, neither reap, that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed, for it is the jubilee, it shall be holy unto you, ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field, in the year of this jubilee ye shall return every man unto his possession, and if ye sell aught unto thy neighbor, or biased aught of thy neighbor's hand, ye shall not oppress one another. So God's commanding him, saying, look, if you're going to sell or buy anything that doesn't belong to you, he's saying you can't oppress each other, you say, well, how would you oppress someone just through a purchase? Well, by charging a ridiculous amount of money, or, you know, something that's just not equal to the value of that, that's an oppression. Because you say, oh, you need this? And you have more than you need, right, and you're willing to sell, oh, but you need this? Okay, well, that's going to cost you, you know, that's oppression. And he's saying, don't, I mean, how else are you going to oppress someone just through a sale? That's how you're going to do it, is by messing with the pricing there, because then in the next verse also, verse 15, when it says, you know, you shall not oppress one another, verse 14, colon, according to the number of years after the jubilee, thou shalt buy of thy neighbor, and according unto the number of years of the fruits he shall sell unto thee. He said, the way that you establish the price, and saying, well, however many years there are until the next jubilee, you kind of, you calculate, well, this is approximately how much the land should produce, so this is the value based on what that land is going to do for you, and there's this many years, so this is the value that this land would offer. And you're not jacking it up, or, you know, whatever, you're not messing with the price, that's how you calculate what you're going to do. And so it says, verse 16, according to the multitude of years, thou shalt increase the price, and according to the fewness of years, thou shalt diminish the price of it, for according to the number of the years of the fruits doth he sell unto thee. And in verse 17, reiterates, so in between these two phrases is just that this is how you price it, ye shall not therefore oppress one another, but thou shalt fear thy God, for I am the Lord your God. So it's clear the oppression he's talking about is don't mess with the prices, this is how you do it. And it's a real simple calculation, whatever that value is, of however much land you're selling, you can do this much with it, that's what it is. And there's this many years, and if it's like two years into the land of Jubilee, then you've only got two years of being able to make a profit with that land, of being able to work it and turn it over, then that's what you get. But if there's 40 years until, you know, then it's going to obviously come at a higher price, because you can work that land a lot more. And so God's not against people being able to, you know, if someone doesn't have the resources and they have this property, and they're not really able to work it for whatever reason, maybe it's just them, maybe they don't have a family, you know, saying, you know what, I'm going to be better off just selling this to someone else who's got the tools, got the resources, they're able to work this land, great. It could be a win-win situation, but then beyond that, so this person who does have all these resources, they're not going to just end up buying up everything, because every 50 years there's a reset. So you don't have these great dynasties, these family dynasties that are just going to end up taking everything over, because the more they eat up, the less competition there is, you know what I mean, they're just able to continually eat up more and more and more. God says, no, every 50 years, guess what, all that land goes back, so you have to rebuy it again or release it every 50 years, you know, and give that money again to the person so that you can work that land. And that's how that works. It's a great system. It's a great system. People have to follow it, right? Like I said, we know that children of Israel didn't always follow this, and then they ended up receiving the judgment of God. But if they'd follow it, things would work out great. Verse 18, wherefore ye shall do my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them, and ye shall dwell in the land in safety, and the land shall yield a fruit, and ye shall eat your fill, and dwell therein in safety, and if ye shall say, what shall we eat the seventh year, and this is what I was talking about where that faith comes in, well, what are we going to eat the seventh year? Behold, we shall not sow nor gather in our increase, then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years. So you're saying, you just trust me. And here's the thing, you've got to not get greedy, because that sixth year is just going to be great. God's saying, I'm going to pay you up front. Sixth year. But unfortunately, what happens is some people go, man, that was awesome. They want to just get more and feel like they're getting ahead. Never works out. Just say, okay, thank you, God, for blessing me so much this year. We're going to plan and be able to get through the next couple years, because we're going to follow your word and continue to do things God's way. But he says here, verse 21, then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years, and ye shall sow the eighth year, and eat yet of old fruit until the ninth year. Until her fruits come in, ye shall eat of the old store. So basically saying, you lose an entire year, which also affects the next year, because you're not able to then sow the new seed and get everything ready for the year to come. So he's saying, there's going to be this lag that you're not reaping, but I know that. So you're going to have food for that year that you reap, and then the next two years. So that way, by the time you're running out of that three-year supply, you're reaping again. And you know what? That only can be done by faith. You just have to believe God. Say, how can I plan on this? Just believe God. God will bless you. God will give you enough to get through. And this is very similar to what God did with the manna. If you remember when children of Israel were wandering in the desert, they were fed every day with this manna, this bread of God, that just showed up for them with a dew on the plants and stuff. But they weren't allowed to gather it on the Sabbath day, because it was Sabbath of rest. So what did he do? He gave them enough food on Friday, the sixth day, to have enough for that day and the next day, which any other day, if they tried to get more than their share, it would breed worms, it would stink, it would just go bad right away. But miraculously, on that sixth day, it would not go bad the next day. They had enough food to sustain them. Again, it all boils down to having that faith in God and God sustaining you and God taking care of you. And if you can just do things God's way, he will take care of you. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you, the Bible says in the New Testament. Commit yourself to the ways of God and don't lean on your own understanding. Don't think that, oh man, if I do this, if I speak up against anything, I'm going to lose my job. Don't lean on your own understanding. I can't make a stand for the Lord because this will happen to me or that bad will happen to me. Look, God will bless you for doing the right thing, for making the right stand, for taking the right course of action. When you follow and obey the word of the Lord, he blesses you for it. I mean, how many times do we have to see that over and over in Scripture? And what I think is amazing about here with the children of Israel, this was just part of their culture, as part of their nation, as part of their laws, just completely built into it. And I think that's amazing, that's awesome, and it's a continual reminder to have this faith in God as a part of a way of life for an entire people. I want to be part of that society, but guess what? I will be able to be part of that society, and you will too. Because when Jesus Christ comes back, you know what he's going to do? He's going to set up a kingdom here on earth, and how do you think he's going to choose to operate his kingdom? I'll tell you what, I don't think he's going to come with a whole brand new set of laws, and a whole brand new economy, and a whole... Why? Why would he have to? He doesn't. We're going to get to see how God intended things to be run when Jesus Christ is at the helm, and ruling and reigning with his rod of iron. It's going to be awesome. And then you will be able to enjoy the fruits of your labor, and not worry about the stealing and everything else that goes on and happens in our society. I'm going to close this up real quick here. I'm almost done, actually. Let's keep reading through Leviticus 25, verse 23. The Bible says, The land shall not be sold forever, for the land is mine. And this is why I alluded to it much earlier in the sermon. The land is mine, for ye are strangers and sojourners with me, and in all the land of your possession you shall grant a redemption for the land. So, he still calls the land their possession, because they're possessing it, but it ultimately doesn't belong to them. All the land belongs unto God. And this is the way we need to view things. The things that you think, like you own, you don't even own your body. You don't even own your body. My body, my choice. No, it's God's body, his choice. Seriously. You're a steward of the body you live in. The Bible says your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost. And the Bible says that you have been bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body, with your soul and your body, but your body which is God's. It belongs unto him. He paid for you in total. And he's going to redeem you. He's going to redeem your body and change it from the sinful flesh into glorified flesh. But you belong unto him. This land belongs unto him. You know what you have? Your house, your possessions. They ultimately belong unto God, because God's the one who allowed you to even have that to begin with. God's the one who gave you the abilities that you have to go out and earn the money, to buy the things, to have the luxuries and the conveniences and everything that you have. And we need to have this mindset. You know what? It all belongs unto God. Like Job said, hey, naked came I into this world and naked shall I return thither. The Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. So anything that you have is God's anyways. Be thankful for it. Be happy for it. Bless God. Praise God. Hey, amen. Thank you, Lord, for all that you've given me. And whatever state you're in, be content there with. Don't be seeking after more and after these other things. Just thank God for what he's given you. Because you know what God hates is a murmurer and a complainer. You stop murmuring and complaining over all these things that you don't have and I want this and I want that. You know what's going to end up happening? You're going to end up losing what you have. The same way that a father's going to do that with his children. I do that with my children. If I'm going to start hearing them complaining about these things, oh, we want to have this. Guess what? You're not going to have the things that you have then. You want to start complaining about what you don't have? Just be thankful. Because no one wants to hear murmuring and complaining. Nobody does. Nobody. Moses was ready to kill himself over the murmuring and complaining. Just don't forget that. The land is mine, the Bible says here. It's talking about the Lord. The Lord says, this is my land. You're just strangers and sojourners with me. And in all the land of your possession you shall grant a redemption for the land. If thy brother be waxen poor, verse 25, and hath sold away some of his possession, and if any of his kin come to redeem it, then shall he redeem that which his brother sold. And if the man have none to redeem it, and himself be able to redeem it, then let him count the years of the sale thereof, and restore the overplus unto the man to whom he sold it, that he may return unto his possession. And basically the Bible is just allowing here, if you did sell your land, there's always a buyback option. You don't have to wait until the year of Jubilee that you actually have the right to have that redeemed. Say, no, no, no, I want that back. Now you have to pay the person that you sold, you have to pay them back. You have to be like, okay, well here, I'm paying you now for all of this that you paid, and this overplus, and saying, okay, now we're good, but then you get to go back in and redeem your land. And that's the reason. Why? Because it still belongs to you. Obviously it belongs to the Lord, but it's still considered your possession. Let's just finish this off, verse 29, and then it gives us, I'm not going to get into all this, it gives this thing for, you know, if you're dwelling in a house, in a city, versus like actually having property out in the land, and some unwalled area, you know, it's the actual land and that property that stays with you. If you just own some house in some city, obviously there's very little value to that anyways, and basically you get a year to be able to redeem that and whatever. And this is all, I'm not going to get into all that, we're kind of out of time anyways, but jump down to verse number 35. The Bible says, And if thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee, then thou shalt relieve him. Yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner, that he may live with thee. Take thou no usury of him, or increase, but fear thy God that thy brother may live with thee. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy bittles for increase. I am the Lord your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, to give you land of Canaan, and to be your God. So the final thing here, because this all does have to do with finances and things like that, is we're not allowed, especially as children of God, if you're going to lend money to someone, because that's what a lot of this was, hey, there's a poor brother, they have need, you lend unto them, they've got seven years to pay you back, if it takes longer than that, then you need to forgive them that debt, but at no point, even when you lend to someone, can you be charging interest? That's what usury is. When you're basically saying you're gaining more than what you're originally giving, with brothers and sisters in Christ, with believers, it is wicked and it is sinful to be charging interest if they need some money and you lend to them, and saying okay, well I'm going to lend you the 200 bucks that you need, but you know, it's 10% interest. Or 5% interest, or 1% interest, or I have a service fee, I'm going to give you 200 bucks, but you've got to pay me 220 bucks, or whatever. You can take as long as you want to pay me back, but there's a service fee. No. It's wrong. The Bible teaches completely against usury, it says thou shalt not give them thy money upon usury, nor lend them thy vittles for increase. So increase takes care of, well it's not a percentage, it's some other, you know, because there's people always trying to find a way around God's laws, which you never should by the way, you should go with the spirit of God's law and just be like okay, well I'm not even going to get close to that, but just in case people are going to try to say oh, well it's not usury because it's not a percentage, it's just an increase. No, you can't do that either. And again, it's because God is a heart for the poor, because usually the poor don't have anyone else to look out for them, but God looks out for the fatherless, for the widows, for the poor of the land, and God instituted these types of laws to protect them and to help give them a way out so that they're not indebted forever, which obviously also just symbolizes our own salvation. So that we don't have to worry about being indebted forever from our sins. There's eternal life, and it's all by grace through God's goodness and his mercy. Praise God. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord we thank you so much for all the truth and wisdom that we can gain from your word, and so many people just overlooked the Old Testament too much, dear Lord, but there's so much guidance here and instruction that we could learn. Lord, may He please help us in even our personal lives, just practically, that we could avoid debts and to be able to lend with a cheerful heart and be able to help out, brothers and sisters in Christ especially, and Lord, if we have this world's good, to be able to not withhold from those that have needs. We thank you just for even the time and the place that we live in, that you've blessed so tremendously, and that we are still living off of the blessings of the past of people who have served you, Lord, and I pray that you please help us as our society gets darker and darker to be shining lights, to be able to reach as many people as possible and convince people through our lives and through your word especially, to turn to you and to receive their wisdom and light from your word, and God just ever increase our knowledge and understanding. We love you, in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Alright, we're going to sing one last song before we're dismissed. Brother Peter, please lead us in that song. Right church, if you don't open up your handrails, it's song number 208. Song 208, Grace Greater Than Our Sin. Name 208. On the first, Lord of this great storm, our loving Lord, grace that is seen, our sin and our guilt, yonder on Calvary's mount, outboard, there where the blood of the Lamb was filled, grace, grace, God's grace, grace that will pardon and cleanse within, grace, grace, God's grace, grace that is greater than all our sin, sin is spared like the sea waves flow, threatens the soul with infinite loss, grace that is greater, yes, grace untold, points to the refuge of mighty cross, grace, grace, God's grace, grace that will pardon and cleanse within, grace, grace, God's grace, grace, grace that is greater than all our sin, dark is the stain that we cannot hide, what can avail to wash it away, look, there is blowing of crimson tide, wider than snow you may be today, grace, grace, God's grace, grace that will pardon and cleanse within, grace, grace, God's grace, grace that is greater than all our sin, on the last, marvelous sin, when it has his grace, freely bestowed on all who believe, you that are longing to see his face, will do this moment his grace receive, grace, grace, God's grace, grace that will pardon and cleanse within, grace, grace, God's grace, grace that is greater than all our sin. Amen, great singing, thank you so much for coming. Thank you.