We need a release from deep-rooted limitations in our thinking that may have escaped our attention. Because we have been conditioned not to take hold of the full provision of the Lord, we are often not aware of our unbelief. It is difficult to understand this unless we review briefly what takes place in our lives.
We begin with a glorious promise from God which we believe to be simply wonderful. Then as we go through a period of delay, we decide that perhaps we should strive for a lesser goal, something more attainable. Abraham prayed, “Lord, would You spare Sodom for fifty righteous?” When he realized there were not that many righteous people in Sodom, he worked on down until he came to ten (Genesis 18:23–32). With prayer after prayer he changed the goal.
It is human nature to start out with wonderful hopes and ambitions. Often young people have lofty goals. A young girl may decide to go to college to study dress designing. She hopes for a career as a famous designer of clothes or a world traveler and buyer for a large department store. Her goals seem wonderful. Then she encounters problems and difficulties; and after two or three years of the hard grind of school, she changes her goal. Now she will settle for just being a seamstress. Finally she gives up even that goal and decides she will be lucky if she can get married. Her goal changes: instead of a lofty career, now she will give anything if some man will come along and marry her.
God does not want us to accept lesser goals than the fullness of all He has provided. He gives us goals, and He does not expect us to constantly accept something less, nor to compromise with Satan until finally we are content to just go along from day to day, hoping we will make it to the end and not flub too badly. We must not lose sight of the great goal that God has set before us and of all the things He has already done for us. We must not forget His promises—that He has given us all things which pertain to life and godliness (II Peter 1:3), that no good thing will be withheld from them that walk uprightly (Psalm 84:11). We are often quite content to walk with much less. We must be rid of that contentment with less than God’s best.
God has made a provision for people who have lost sight of the goal or have been conditioned to a lesser goal, people who at first believed that God had everything for them, but who later became reconciled or resigned to having much less. God has a plan and a program, but in the battle our vision sometimes dims, and we minimize what we do possess until we seem to have less and less.
God planned that the land of Canaan should be divided among the tribes, and this was done. Then the tribes divided up the plots and the farms among the different clans and families. Every man could rejoice in what God had given him. It was as the days of the Kingdom when every man shall sit under his own fig tree, when everyone shall receive a portion (Micah 4:4). But hard times came to Canaan. There were times of drought; there were raids as the heathen nations came to steal and plunder. At times there was no food to eat; some people had to borrow money, and some sold their inheritance. It was for such people that God provided the year of jubilee. God was saying, in effect, “The title of your land remains yours forever. Because of circumstances, you may have been put in a position where you had to relinquish it; but I have a plan for you. I want you to be released from your pressures, and I will restore to you what I have provided.” During the year of jubilee all land was returned to the original heirs (Leviticus 25).
The year of jubilee was observed every fiftieth year. Every seventh year was considered a sabbatic year and seven sabbatic years (forty-nine) were followed by a year of jubilee. It began on the Day of Atonement, the tenth day of Tishri, with the blowing of the trumpet. On that day all debts were cancelled, everyone went back to his old inheritance, and slaves were set free. Every Hebrew who was an indentured servant or a slave, because he had sold himself as a slave for his debts, walked out of his slavery at that time. He was free.
The year of jubilee gave the Israelites a way by which they could go back and reclaim everything they had ever lost. It was an excellent arrangement. It kept the rich from getting too rich and the poor from becoming too poor. History has proved that revolutions often result when the few rich and powerful people build up great estates, and the poor finally end up becoming slaves to those who own the land. The year of jubilee would eliminate this happening. Probably within the lifetime of every man, the year of jubilee would be observed one or two times, at which time everything was restored to him.
We read about the year of jubilee in Luke 4:16–19: And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up; and as was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to read. And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the book, and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are downtrodden, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.” Jesus referred to the year of jubilee as the favorable year of the Lord. It was also called the year of liberty in the book of Ezekiel (Ezekiel 46:17). The doors of the prisons were opened, and all debts were cancelled.
When Jesus said, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your ears” (verse 21), we can assume that He was announcing that it was the year of jubilee. He had been baptized in the River Jordan a little over a year before this time. I believe that Jesus began His ministry in Nazareth on that day of the year of jubilee; or He would not have said, “This day it has happened.” He gave the spiritual interpretation of the year of jubilee as it was described in Isaiah 61. Not only did He give a spiritual interpretation, but we can assume that it happened on that very day. The Spirit of the Lord fell on the actual day of Pentecost. The time of Passover coincided approximately with that of the crucifixion, when the Lamb of God shed His blood for sin.
When Jesus read this Scripture from Isaiah, it probably was a year of jubilee. If Jesus was born about 4 B.C. and began His public ministry at the age of thirty, or about 26 A.D., this means that 27 A.D. was probably a year of jubilee. But subtracting the year 27 A.D. from our present time and dividing by fifty, we find there have been thirty-nine years of jubilee since Jesus read this Scripture. The year 1978 should be the fortieth year of jubilee. This calculation agrees with that of an eminent scholar who has traced the chronology on the basis of his study of Pyramidology. I am not making predictions or giving this very simple calculation as a hard and fast date, but it does seem certain that we are about ready to enter into another great year of jubilee. Does that mean we have to wait until 1978 before the Lord blows the trumpet and sets us free so that we can receive all the provisions that God’s Word says we have? No, this happens automatically on the year of jubilee, but any man who has had to sell his birthright, so to speak, can redeem it at any time during the preceding period.
The twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus is devoted to the description of the year of jubilee and also gives a picture of what should take place spiritually in the end time. It is good to read the book of Hebrews along with the book of Leviticus. The two go hand in hand, unfolding the significance of the offerings and the tabernacle and everything pertaining to the laws.
“ ‘You are also to count off seven sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years, so that you have the time of the seven sabbaths of years, namely, forty-nine years. You shall then sound a ram’s horn abroad on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the day of atonement you shall sound a horn all through your land. You shall thus consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim a release through the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, and each of you shall return to his own property, and each of you shall return to his family.
“ ‘You shall have the fiftieth year as a jubilee; you shall not sow, nor reap its aftergrowth, nor gather in from its untrimmed vines. For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you. You shall eat its crops out of the field. On this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his own property. If you make a sale, moreover, to your friend, or buy from your friend’s hand, you shall not wrong one another. Corresponding to the number of years after the jubilee, you shall buy from your friend; he is to sell to you according to the number of years of crops.’ ” They were not buying land, but only the use of that land and the crops it would produce during a certain period of time. The title remained as it had been with the original distribution of the land. “ ‘In proportion to the extent of the years you shall increase its price, and in proportion to the fewness of the years, you shall diminish its price; for it is a number of crops he is selling to you. So you shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God; for I am the Lord your God. You shall thus observe My statutes, and keep My judgments, so as to carry them out, that you may live securely on the land. Then the land will yield its produce, so that you can eat your fill and live securely on it. But if you say, “What are we going to eat on the seventh year if we do not sow or gather in our crops?” then I will so order My blessing for you in the sixth year that it will bring forth the crop for three years. When you are sowing the eighth year, you can still eat old things from the crop, eating the old until the ninth year when its crop comes in.’ ” Leviticus 25:8–22.
God is bringing us to the final year of jubilee and giving as much us a double portion with twice as much blessing and twice as much provision. When we read the Scriptures and see all that God has provided, we must say that the letter states that God would do this much, but the spirit of the provision means that God will do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think (Ephesians 3:20), that there must be an unlimited measure of blessing. This is the outpouring that James speaks of when the precious harvest of the earth comes forth (James 5:7). I am still believing for a great outpouring when millions of people will be saved through a remnant.
God always works through a remnant. It is very difficult to start a New Testament church with a large number of people, because they are not welded together. When God sorts them down to a remnant that have a like mind and spirit, then there is unity in the spirit and every one who is added is of the same quality and rises to the same spiritual level. Anyone who comes into a New Testament church will automatically be assimilated to the level the church has attained, or they will not be assimilated at all. But it is very difficult to begin with many people and bring them up to a high level. It is almost necessary to start with a remnant. Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Luke 12:32. “The smallest one will become a clan, and the least one a mighty nation….” is the promise of Isaiah 60:22. God works in the end time with a remnant. He makes one feel like a patriarch.
God uses a remnant, but He does not intend for it to stay that way. We see what has happened already. Church after church is springing up, and this is just a beginning. What will happen next? Millions of people will be brought to Christ in the days of judgment and tribulation. God is dealing with us to prepare us, so that we will know how to handle the floods of people that will come, and we can bring them up to a high spiritual level. He must have groups of people, little flocks, so that when the need comes, His people will be fed. The incubators will be warm and ready for the chickens to hatch. The churches will be ready to receive and to absorb them.
A New Testament church must have an adequate number of elders; and as the church increases, the number of elders must increase, for the pastoring and the fathering of the flock continues all the time. God is preparing these ministries now. God has something in mind, and He is dealing with His remnant because He is getting a people ready. When the time comes for the restoration of all things, He will already have accomplished the restoration in a remnant. Then comes the day of release when everyone will be swarming back into the blessings. What would happen right now if there were a sudden hunger in the world for more of God? People would not know what to do. But if there were enough New Testament churches and the word had gone out, people would know where to go. The guideline, the blueprints, the road maps would all be there, ready to direct their steps. It is very important for God’s people to see that their walk does not end with themselves. God does such a thorough work in them in order to prepare them for the things that are coming.
We must get rid of the doubts and the conditioning of the past, when hope deferred has made the heart sick. God gives His people a promise, and then He puts them into a wilderness. A wilderness is very decisive: we either come out of it as the little remnant who wholly follow the Lord their God, remembering the anointing of Caleb and Joshua; or we do not come out of it at all. As God tests us, we hang onto His promises, without accepting the vipers and other hardships of the wilderness. We do not allow the restrictions and the murmuring around us to condition us to accept just physical survival as our only motivation. We must aggressively keep the faith and determine as did Caleb and Joshua to take these giants. When we are asked to choose our inheritance, we will say with Caleb, “We want those high-walled cities, the land of the giants where the sons of Anak live” (Joshua 14:12).
It does not make any difference how long it takes; we believe to enter into the fullness of all God has for us. We will not be conditioned to accept a lesser goal. The key of our walk with God is that we never lose our objectives that God reveals. Does He honor that? Yes, He is raising up a people who are like-minded. Sometimes it takes a long time, but we still must be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as we know that our labor is not in vain in the Lord (I Corinthians 15:58). We know that God is not wasting our lives; He is leading us through the wilderness; and He wants us to come out of it with an aggressive, positive faith. He does not want us to grow weary and bow our heads, saying it will never be; He wants us to believe in the strength that He will give us to see the promises and prophecies fulfilled.
We accept the principles, the theory, the provision; but it is in the procedure of making an actual appropriation every day that we have our difficulty. Somehow we stop looking to God and become concerned about the adjustment to circumstances, until we almost become reconciled to them. How difficult it is to be content in Jesus Christ, but eternally vigilant and absolutely determined that those circumstances which seem to deny the unlimited blessing of the Lord will end.
We must learn to live with a song as David did. We must sing it in the night and in the morning. David’s psalms often speak of the midnight hour and the different watches in the night, and one might wonder if he ever slept at all. He refused to let many hours go by that he was not worshiping the Lord and making his contention before the Lord. How did he start upon this course? He remembered that when he was a little boy, Samuel had poured a horn of oil on his head and said he was to be king. Even while he was fleeing as a fugitive, hiding in caves, he was still clinging to that word, believing that God would fulfill His word and he would be king over all Israel. After a while it appeared as though he would have to be satisfied with the compromise of being king only over Judah. Then one day the people gathered together and claimed him as their king. He was no longer the boy of seventeen, who had pulled down a giant nine feet tall; he was now over forty years old. He had lived through his prime, waiting for something to happen, believing that it would. In a walk with God there comes the hour when we too must face the fact that we will either become discouraged and conditioned to accept a lesser goal, or we will believe to be the remnant of God and realize that He has something for us which we will not relinquish.
What should we do? In our thinking, in our appropriation, we must begin to redeem back to ourselves what God has given us as our inheritance. We must proclaim it. We do not wait for a certain year. The inheritance can be redeemed at any time. “ ‘If a fellow-countryman of yours becomes so poor that he has to sell part of his property, then his nearest kinsman is to come and buy back what his relative has sold. Or in case a man has no kinsman, but so recovers his means as to find sufficient for its redemption, then he shall calculate the years since its sale and refund the balance to the man to whom he sold it, and so return to his property. But if he has not found sufficient means to get it back for himself, then what he has sold shall remain in the hands of its purchaser until the year of jubilee; but at the jubilee it shall revert, that he may return to his property.’ ” Leviticus 25:25–29.
Have you lost something? Did you have to let it go? Do you feel poor and destitute? God’s Word says you are rich. How did you lose your inheritance? If you let it slip away with unbelief and rebellion, but are sorry about it now, pay the price before the throne of God and redeem it to yourself until every one of those promises is yours again. Wait before God’s face, determined to please Him, until He whispers in your ear confirmation again of every word that you have ever let go. The year of jubilee is the time of release for everyone who is a captive. It is the time to restore everything that has been lost.