We are taking a look at the jubilee year. The Israelites were to count off forty-nine sabbath years and then the fiftieth year would be celebrated as a jubilee. No planting was done in that year and any land that had been leased out or sold to an Israelite outside the family would revert back to the original owner.
The people must be careful to follow the Lord's instructions and they will be blessed for their obedience. "Follow My decrees and be careful to obey My laws, and you will live safely in the land. Then the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live there in safety." (Leviticus 25:18-19) I know the Lord is speaking specifically to Israel in this passage but I believe His words can apply to any nation: if we follow His decrees and obey His laws, He will protect us and provide for us abundantly.
In a jubilee year, and in every seventh year (a sabbath year), the people are not to plow their fields and plant crops. Over the weekend we talked about how they are not to pick the grapes or the olives and they are not to harvest grain-bearing plants that come up on their own such as wheat and barley. Their human nature makes them wonder whether there will be enough to eat during a sabbath year or whether they will have to ration food and feel hungry part of the time. The Lord knows their thoughts and says, "You may ask, 'What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not plant or harvest our crops?' I will send you such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years. While you plant during the eighth year, you will eat from the old crop and will continue to eat from it until the harvest of the ninth year comes in." (Leviticus 25:20-22)
You'll recall the way the manna from heaven worked when we talked about it in Exodus. The Lord would send enough manna on the day before the sabbath to get the people through until the day after the sabbath when He would send fresh manna. He is using the same principle for the sabbath years and for the jubilee year. He will bless their harvest so abundantly that the food they preserve and the fruits and vegetables that voluntarily come up will be enough to see them through until they can plant and harvest again.
The Lord faithfully reassures the people because He knows their concerns. He knows it makes them uncomfortable to skip a year of planting and reaping. Pretty much anything that helps our faith to grow is going to make us uncomfortable, isn't it? It's going to take a leap of faith for the people to refrain from working their fields in a sabbath year or jubilee year. But their faith will be strengthened when the see the abundant provision of the Lord. As time goes on, and sabbath years continue to be observed every seventh year, their faith should grow stronger and stronger as they receive the Lord's bounty time after time after time.
Our faith should grow too as we live year after year in this world. How many times has the Lord provided for us when we couldn't see how He was going to do it? How many times has He answered prayers? How many times has He turned situations around that looked impossible? It would behoove us to meditate regularly on the things the Lord has done for us in the past because that helps us to have the confidence that He will keep on helping us. In a jubilee year the people could look back and say, "The Lord has provided for us during the past forty-nine sabbath years. He will provide for us this jubilee year as well. He will provide for us during all the sabbath years and jubilee years to come." When we think back over the things the Lord has done in our lives, we can say, "The Lord has provided for me thus far. I've had food in my belly and clothes on my back. He's going to keep on seeing to it that I have something to eat and something to wear. He's answered many prayers for me. I can keep going to Him with my requests in the confidence that He hears me and that, even when He doesn't answer my prayers in the way I want, He answers them in the way that is best for me."
The Son of God tells us not to fret about whether His Father is able and willing to supply our needs. The God who created us knows what it takes to sustain us. He urges us to take a leap of faith and trust that He will provide what is needed to sustain us, and we close with the beautiful and comforting words of the Lord Jesus Christ. "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will He not much more clothe you---you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or, 'What shall we drink?' or, 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly father knows that you need them. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." (Matthew 6:25-34)
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