The part of the chapter that I would like to focus on this morning is beginning in verse number 16 where the Bible reads, "Thus saith the Lord God, 'If the prince give a gift unto any of his sons, the inheritance thereof shall be his sons'; it shall be their possession by inheritance. But if he give a gift of his inheritance to one of his servants, then it shall be his to the year of liberty; after it shall return to the prince but his inheritance shall be his sons' for them. Moreover the prince shall not take of the people's inheritance by oppression, to thrust them out of their possession; but he shall give his sons inheritance out of his own possession that my people be not scattered every man from his possession."
What I want to preach about this morning is the subject of what the bible calls here in verse 17 the Year of Liberty, but this is referred too in Leviticus 25 as the year of jubilee. Go if you would to Leviticus chapter number 25. Here in this passage in Ezekiel 46:16 through 18 God explains the importance of each person's inheritance of their possession of the land that belongs to them and how important it is to make sure that rulers don’t come in and take it away from them that the government doesn’t come in and take it away and give it to their friends and give it to their servants and so forth, but that every man's possession and his inheritance is sacred unto him and belongs unto him.
We didn’t have time to look at it but in the next chapter in Ezekiel 47 God even talks about the strangers who sojourn among the children of Israel, how they would get an inheritance in whatever tribe they lived among, they would inherit with that tribe. Every person who lived in the nation of Israel back in the Old Testament whether they were the son of a stranger or whether they were a descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, those who were circumcised and obeying the Lord and living in the land they had a right to a certain inheritance or certain piece of land within Israel.
In Leviticus 25 we see in great detail the subject of the Year of Jubilee or the Year of Liberty. I want to explain to you why this was such an important law of the Old Testament and there are a lot of things that we can learn from it today. Look if you would at verse number 8 of Leviticus chapter 25. It says, "Thou shalt number 7 sabbaths of years unto thee, 7 times 7 years; and the space of the 7 sabbaths of years shall be unto thee 40 and 9 years. 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 ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land."
"And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof. It shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession …" that’s what we saw in chapter 46 of Ezekiel, "… every man unto his possession and ye shall return every man unto his family. A jubilee shall 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."
Here's the thing. I'm 33 years old. I grew up and Baptist Church as my whole life. I have never heard a sermon in my entire life on The Year of Jubilee or any preaching that explained this concept of the Year of Jubilee. Not only that, I've read all types of political books and political tracks and materials and philosophies of all different sides of the political spectrum. I've never seen anyone make reference onto the Year of Jubilee as being something that will be a good idea or something to be incorporated in economic or political theory.
It's just something that people just don’t talk about. You just don’t hear about it, but actually it is such a wise statute that God put in the Bible. It actually is something that would be great if we had it in place today but yet it's something that’s completely ignored. What's interesting is that the passage that I just read to you about the Year of Jubilee 1 little part of that is actually inscribed at the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. Has anybody ever been there to Philadelphia, the Liberty Bell with the big crack in it? Has anybody seen it? Richard Miller and I have seen it, because he's from that part of the world.
On the Liberty Bell there they have an inscription that says from verse if you want to look at verse 10. It just says this, "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof." That’s the part that’s on the Liberty Bell. Not only that, but the Liberty Bell was even built in honor of the 50-year anniversary of William Penn's Charter of Privileges which was Pennsylvania's original. Basically, it had been 50 years as William Penn had had that charter in Pennsylvania. They took a scripture about the jubilee, the 50-year jubilee and they put it on the Liberty Bell where it says, "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof."
That quote is a famous quote and you'll see that quote everywhere, but yet this idea of the jubilee has been completely forgotten. This morning I'm going to explain to you what it is and what it meant. This is something where I don’t even know ho long the children of Israel even obeyed this. If you read the Bible, there's no mention of them ever obeying it. I'm assuming that they at least obeyed it in the early days you'd think, but there's no mention of them ever doing it.
We know for a fact that around the time of King Saul and King David they completely stopped doing the sabbaths of years all together. They completely ignored it. In the period of judges they did rest the land every 7 years like they were supposed to. By the time we get into the times of the kings they completely ignored it about the space of 400 and some years and Jeremiah explains that.
What is the Year of Jubilee? Let me just give it to you in a nutshell real quick. Basically, what the Year of Jubilee was every 50 years there would be like a reset button that would be pushed where anybody who owed any debt they're debt was forgiven. It was gone. I think you're like, "This sounds great. Where's this thing been all my life?" That’s what I'm saying people it's a great thing. Every 50 years all debts go to zero. Everything just resets and reboots. Not only that, but every person goes back to the land of their inheritance. There was a certain land that is there, ancestral land or their family land and they might have become poor and fallen on hard times and had to sell the farm as it were. Every 50 years that land would revert back to them their homeland.
Not only that, everyone who had sold themselves into slavery, sold themselves into indentured servitude and had to work off dead and with someone else's slave they would all be freed every 50 years. This was a time of great rejoicing. They would sound the trumpet and proclaim liberty throughout all the land, to all the inhabitants thereof. Everyone would go free. The servants would go free. All debts are forgiven and everybody just starts over as it were. It's just a brand new start and a reset button.
It sounds great to me. I think it's wonderful and it was an exciting time. Also it was a year of rest, because every 7 years they weren't supposed to farm the land. The reason for that was to let the land rest, because if you just keep farming the land year after year you deplete it of nutrients. They were supposed to let the land go wild once every 7 years. Then every 7 7s, 49 years would go by then they'd have a fiftieth additional year of rest that was called the jubilee.
Not to say that no one would do any work during that year, but they just wouldn't plant or harvest any crops. They would just eat that which grew wildly. They would just go out in the field and eat what's there. They would just leave off the land as it were for that fiftieth year. It was a time for everybody to return to their inheritance, start over, get a clean start, et cetera. You say, "What's the point of having that?" a lot of people would look at this and be offended by that. If somebody owes me money they better pay that money or you better pay off that loan, you better pay off that mortgage and this and that, private property and blah, blah, blah.
Here's the problem with that. If you give people just complete unfettered private property rights where basically people could just buy up as much property as they want and pass it down unto their children, what's going to happen is that eventually the whole land is going to become enslaved. This is what we know as feudalism where 1 person owns a whole bunch of land called the landlord. Then everybody who lives on that land has to follow his rules and they're all paying rent and they're all his surfs.
This is a bad system that enslaves people. God's system is actually a perfect system and let me explain to you a few reasons why it's a perfect system. First of all, it stops all of the wealth being accumulated in just a few people's hands. Nobody can just sit there and just amass huge amounts of wealth for hundreds of years passing it down to their children and their children's children and children and just owning everything. Imagine if we were to just say because there a lot of people that call themselves libertarians. I agree with a lot of libertarianism, but a lot of libertarians they just want to have just a complete anarchy as far as no government, but they want to respect property rights. It's important, private property.
The problem with that is where if you just say complete property rights and people can do whatever they want in their property, what will happen is you have people that are multimillionaires and multibillionaires. What they could do? They could just buy the whole state of Arizona for example. They just have so much money they just buy everything and then say, "I own all of this. You who live here are on my property now. You're going to pay rent tome." Instead of having the government taxing you, you just have a private individual taxing you and you're paying a rent. Instead of having a government giving you all their rules you have a landlord that has all kinds.
I've had the landlord from hell when I lived in Indiana. This guy was insane and this guy was worst than any government. This guy who rented out and it was the only time we rented a house it was a really bad experience. This guy he wrote all this stuff. Just reading the contract you can tell the guy is a psycho. He says, "If any pet is found on the property he will kill it immediately." No question ask he will exterminate any dog or cat that he finds and this and that. He has in the contract he tells you what to clean the floor with, what to clean the toilet with, what to clean. He says, "You must use these brands."
This guy was crazy. We're constantly having problem where he thought that he could just let himself enter the house whenever. I was like, "No, no, no. We're renting this from you so from now on it belongs to us. This isn't your house. You don’t just walk in. We're renting it from you." This guy was crazy. There have been abusive landlords all throughout history. In feudal times all you have to do is read about it in Europe where you have these landlords that just own these huge areas of land and everybody has to obey them and pay them and whatever.
This Year of Jubilee would stop that from happening. If you stop and let me read to you some of this from the chapter so that you can understand it a little bit. It says in Leviticus 25 verse 12, "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 thou sell ought unto thy neighbour, or buyest ought of thy neighbour's hand, ye shall not oppress one another."
"According to the number of years after the jubilee thou shalt buy of thy neighbour, and according unto the number of years of the fruits he shall sell unto thee. According to the multitude of years thou shalt increase the price thereof, 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."
What does that mean? He's saying, "The Year of Jubilee happens every 50 years." If you buy land 2 years before the jubilee you know you're only getting it for 2 years so you're going to pay a much lower price. If you're buying that land 40 years before the next jubilee you're going to pay a high price because you get to keep that land for the next 40 years, but you don’t get to keep it forever. The only thing you get to keep for forever is your inheritance. You say, "What's your inheritance?" It's the land that you actually live on and use and that where you actually live, not just buying other people's land and other plaintiffs stuff.
Go if you would, stick your finger on Leviticus 25, but flip over to Joshua chapter 17, Joshua chapter number 17. I'm going to take you back in time a little bit here to when the people were inheriting the land. Let's say they're in the land and the jubilee is happening every 50 years, but let's go back to when they actually inherit the land and when they actually are giving out the inheritance to people in the first place.
Look at Joshua 17 verse 14. It says, "And the children of Joseph spake unto Joshua, saying, 'Why hast thou given me but one lot and one portion to inherit, seeing I am a great people, forasmuch as the Lord hath blessed me hitherto?' And Joshua answered them, 'If thou be a great people, then get thee up to the wood country, and cut down for thyself there in the land of the Perizzites and of the giants, if mount Ephraim be too narrow for thee.' And the children of Joseph said, 'The hill is not enough for us and all the Canaanites that dwell in the land of the valley have chariots of iron, both they who are of Bethshean and her towns, and they who are of the valley of Jezreel.'"
"And Joshua spake unto the house of Joseph, even to Ephraim and to Manasseh, saying, 'Thou art a great people, and hast great power Thou shalt not have one lot only. But the mountain shall be thine; for it is a wood, and thou shalt cut it down and the outgoings of it shall be thine for thou shalt drive out the Canaanites, though they have iron chariots, and though they be strong.'" What I want to point out here is that it was the children of Israel's responsibility to go in and prepare the land and make it ready for use. It's a forest. There are bunch of trees there. It was their job to go in and cut down the trees, drive out the enemy and parcel off that land to be used by them and to be lived on by them.
This reminds me a little bit of in the earlier time in our country the homesteaders, the Homestead Act. We had something like this in America where you could just go and claim land for yourself and homestead it, but there were certain rules about homesteading land. These were the rules. You had to build a fence around it and you had to use it meaning you have to cut down trees and plant things. You have to make some good use of the land. You had to build a house on it and you had to live there for at least 6 months out of the year. You had to build a fence, use the land, tame the land, build a house and live there for at least 6 months out of the year.
If you did that for at least 10 years then that would become your land. That land would become your inheritance and your possession. You say, "Why do you have to build a fence around it? Why do you have to live there? Why do you have to do something with it?" Because there's no point in somebody just owning huge amounts of land that they don’t use where they don’t live except to just abuse other people to just own huge gigantic amounts of land and have everybody working on it as your slave and your serf. It's better if everybody just has their own land.
The problem is you say, "You sound like a hippie or communist or something." Here's the difference so. The hippie or the communist is going to basically want me to give free stuff to people and give them my money and basically they don’t work they just receive everything in welfare or whatever. Here's the thing. God had no welfare plan, but you know what God did allow people to do? He allowed people to have a chance to work and survive and do something with their lives. Even the poorest person in the land would at least inherit a piece of land.
They had to go out and work it. They had to go out and till it. They had to go out and make something grow. They had to cut down trees and work by the sweat of their face 6 days a week, but at least they had the opportunity to work and build something and make something of themselves and not just be a slave for the rest of their life. Even if they goofed it up, they're children don’t have to grow up in bondage and servitude because every 50 years that reset button was pushed and everybody gets a new start. Everybody gets a chance.
Then of course God also cared for the poor by making a law that said, "You could walk through anybody's field and whatever you can pick, but you're not allowed to bring any container." You can’t bring a backpack and fill it up with fruits and vegetables. You can’t bring a wheelbarrow, but whatever you could just take in your hand you could eat and survive as a way for the poor people to live. They could go into the apple orchard and pick apples and eat them as long as they don’t just harvest a bushel of apples. These are the ways that God had set forth.
Listen to me, "The law of the Lord is perfect," the Bible says. We can sit there and say, "Our American Democratic, Republican, capitalistic, whatever system is the perfect system." No, this is the perfect system. This is the perfect system where yes there's private property, yes there's inheritance, but there's a limit on how much wealth someone could amass in the form of land and make everybody else a slave, because every 50 years it all goes back to where everybody owns the same amount of land. Every 50 years everybody owns the same thing.
They're going to have different amounts of gold and silver and fruits and vegetables, but at least they all own the same land. This was a way of God keeping it from where you just get an ultra-rich ruling class that owns everything and feudalism where all the serfs are just paying rent. They can never get ahead. They can never have opportunities because they don’t have any land or anything and they're enslaved. It's really a great system. It's very interesting.
Look at verse 23. It says, "The land shall not be sold for ever for the land is mine, for ye are strangers and sojourners with me. And in all the land of your possession ye shall grant a redemption for the land. If thy brother be waxen poor, 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."
This is the same you get poor, you sell the farm and then later you had the opportunity to buy it back even before the jubilee. When the jubilee comes, you just get it back for free because that’s the end of it. If a man sell a dwelling, look at this in verse 29, "If a man sell a dwelling house in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a whole year after it is sold; within a full year may he redeem it. And if it be not redeemed within the space of a full year, then the house that is in the walled city shall be established for ever to him that bought it throughout his generations. It shall not go out in the jubilee. But the houses of the villages which have no wall round about them shall be counted as the fields of the country. They may be redeemed, and they shall go out in the jubilee."
What's he saying? He's saying this doesn’t go for like apartments and houses inside of a walled city in the metro center. There's no jubilee for that. If you buy dwellings inside the city those are just perpetually. You could buy as many of those as you want. When it comes to all the fields and all the unwalled villages, which is the vast majority of the land, that stuff goes out in the year of jubilee every 50 years. The stuff in the cities is the exception to that rule. Then he talks about how the cities of the Levites are a different story. I don’t want to get too complicated this morning, but he talks about in verse 39. Look at verse 39. We'll look at this lastly in chapter 25.
It says, "And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee; thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bondservant, but as an hired servant, and as a sojourner, he shall be with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee. And then shall he depart from thee, both he and his children with him, and shall return unto his own family, and unto the possession of his fathers shall he return. For they are my servants, which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt. They shall not be sold as bondmen. Thou shalt not rule over him with rigour; but shalt fear thy God."
This is really a beautiful thing. You have to imagine yourself in the position where you fall on hard times. You sell everything. You don’t have any land. You're going to be looking forward to that year of jubilee because when that year of jubilee comes, you get a fresh clean start. It doesn’t mean you're not going to have to work for it, but at least you have your land back, your house back and you can start over and do it again and do a good job.
Let's talk about some of the spiritual applications of this. Go to Romans chapter 8, Romans chapter number 8. First of all, I want to just very clearly say to you that this system and all of the systems of the Old Testament law the children of Israel, we would do well in America to enact all of these. Why not? If God's wisdom is perfect and His system is perfect anytime we look at how the Lord governed the people and His rules they would always be better than the rules we have in place in now.
What happens now when people inherit stuff from generation to generation? The wealth can accumulate in a few hands, but not only that. The government takes huge amounts of it and it builds up the real ruling class, which is the government. Of course our government is out of control, way out of bounce, very powerful huge-overarching government. Then there are others who would say, "Let's go to the other extreme and say, 'Let's just have total privatization, total private property.'" Without the year of jubilee that could lead us into another type of enslavement where it's not a government enslavement, but we will be enslaved unto bankers and multi-billionaires who would control us using privatized means.
God's system is really the only system that would actually work and actually did work for the children of Israel where you have yes private property, yes everybody's got an inheritance, but there's a limit on what you can inherit. It's basically what you can end up inheriting forever is what you could actually use and live in. Just that area of land that is what you personally actually use and live in that is your inheritance. Anything that you buy beyond that you can own it for up to 50 years, but there's a limit where it doesn’t all just go into a few people's hands. Every 50 years, that reset button is pushed and everybody goes back to owning the same amount of land. It's a great system.
What's interesting though is that the jubilee the significant thing about it was that a trumpet was blown. They would sound the trumpet and proclaim liberty throughout all the land. There's an incident that’s coming in the future where a trumpet is going to sound, which will be what we call The Rupture or the first resurrection. Christ is going to come in the clouds and a trumpet is going to sound and that is exactly what the trumpet of the jubilee pictures. It pictures the second coming of Christ when the trumpet sounds and we're caught up together with him.
Let me show you that in the Bible, it says in Romans 8. Remember the year of jubilee … What was the year of jubilee called in Ezekiel, the year of what?
Group: Liberty.
Speaker 1: The year of liberty. He said in Ezekiel the year of liberty and Leviticus is called the year of jubilee. Look at Romans 8:21. It says, "Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage …" bondage is the opposite of liberty, "… from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God." Let's see what God is talking about when He talks about the glorious liberty. Verse 22, "For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body."
What God is teaching here is that the glorious liberty of the children of God that we're waiting for, when we're going to be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glory of liberty of the children of God that is going to be at the redemption of our body. What is the redemption of our body? That’s the rupture. That’s when our body is resurrected. That’s when our body is changed. The Bible says, "We shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye. The trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible." Did you hear that? The dead shall be raised incorruptible. Remember he's going to deliver us from the bondage of corruption to the glorious liberty of the children of God.
If we put together Leviticus 25, Romans 8 and first Corinthians 15, it becomes clear that the trumpet of jubilee sounding was a picture of that day when the trumpet will sound and we will be either resurrected or those of us who are alive and remain will be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye. Why is that the glorious liberty of the children of God? Let me show you a few reasons.
First of all, you don’t have to turn back there, but in Leviticus 25 this is what characterized the jubilee. It said, "Ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof. It shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession and ye shall return every man unto his family." What does that showing? At the rupture where when we're caught up together with the Lord, we're going to our possession, our inheritance because the Bible says we have an inheritance in the heavens incorruptible.
The Bible says that Jesus said, "Let not your heart be troubled. Ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." When that trumpet of the jubilee sounds at the second coming of Christ when he comes in the clouds, we are going to our inheritance in the heavens. We are going to a place that is prepared for us and at the time of jubilee it was a great reunion of families, because everyone would go back to their ancestral homelands and they would go back to their families. If you think about it that’s when we're going to see our loved ones again that we've lost.
The Bible says that God would have us to be ignorant of them which are asleep that we sorrow not even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with them. He said, "Comfort one another with these words." One day we're going to get to see our loved ones again that were saved; those are Christians. We'll be able to be reunited with our family, our brothers and sisters in Christ and hopefully our literal brothers and sisters if they are saved we will see them also as well at this great liberty of the children of God. It's the jubilee. It's liberty. It's going home again. It's being in your possession. It's receiving your inheritance. All these things are connected.
When the Bible talks about us at rupture or at that first resurrection being delivered from the bondage of corruption, that’s where we basically get rid of this physical flesh body and receive a new spiritual body. Paul said in Philippians 3:21 that he shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.
Why is it that this body that we live in, the flesh that we walk in is considered the bondage of corruption? Why is God saying that we don’t have total liberty? We're not really completely free until that day comes when the trumpet sounds. I'll tell you why. Because we today living in the flesh commit sin and the Bible says that he that committed sin is the servant of sin. If you would go to John chapter 8, John chapter number 8.
Here's the thing. What we've learned so far today is that what some people consider liberty is not really going to bring true liberty and freedom. Some people would just say, "If we just completely got the government out of the way and just privatize everything and just give everyone just complete private property rights then everything will be fine." We can’t illustrate it that no you actually need to have the year of jubilee in place in order to really safeguard liberty or else everyone is going to be a slave to the person who has the most money and the most property who can buy everything and control everything.
There was also a law in the Bible that people were never to be forced to sell their land. Did you see how that could be a safeguard? A guy comes in and says, "I just want to buy up all of Arizona because I have billions of dollars." There are people today who have billions of dollars, but there is a rule that said, "People don’t have to sell." In America we don’t have that law. In America people are forced to sell their property all the time. It's called imminent domain where they come in. Even the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution says that it's okay for the government to take away people's land as long as they compensate them for it. That’s even in the Bill of Rights, thank you for that right.
In reality the Bible teaches that no one should ever have to sell their property if they don’t want to, to keep it from accumulating in a few hands. No had … Remember Naboth? He didn’t want to sell the vineyard to King Ahab, the government. King Ahab tried to force him to sell and he would not sell it and he didn’t have to sell because the law of the land according to the Lord was you don’t have to sell. What did he do? He murdered Naboth and of course God punished him and his whole family as a result.
Where did I return, John chapter 8?
Group: Yes.
Speaker 1: All that political aspect of this or economic aspect of this just shows us that sometimes what we think liberty is or what our philosophy tells us liberty is or what a politician or somebody's ideals tell us what liberty is, it might not really be true liberty once it's carried out. You ever see people where they elect someone and they think, "This guy is going to fix everything and change everything," but then, "This isn't what we expected." There's a deceptive liberty, isn't there, where people think they're getting liberty and they're not because they didn’t do it through the ways of the Lord. They didn’t follow God's program.
It's not just that way with the government or with private property or with economics. It's that way in our personal lives, too. The Bible teaches that false prophets will promise people liberty and actually they are the servants of corruption. How is that? Not only is there a false liberty promised unto us by politicians, there's also a false liberty in our personal life where the devil tells us do whatever you want to do and that is liberty in your life. Isn't that what people think? I just want to be free. I don’t want to be in bondage. I don’t want people telling me what to do. I want to just do whatever I want. If it feels good do it. They say, "That is liberty."
Today people will tell you that sodomy they say, "That’s a liberty issue." If you're going to be for freedom and liberty you need to be pro-homo. Aren't there people out there who say that? Even abortion, murdering unborn, they say, "It's the freedom of choice." It sounds like it's just this liberty concept of choice and freedom and liberty. The devil promises a false liberty that’s not real. Let's see what Jesus about it in John chapter 8 verse 30, "As he spake these words, many believed on him." By the way, anybody whoever believed on Jesus? It's because they heard the word, "Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God."
Verse 31, "Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, 'If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.' They answered him, 'We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man. How sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?' Jesus answered them, 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. And the servant abideth not in the house for ever, but the Son abideth ever. If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.'"
It's interesting because this scripture alludes to Ezekiel 46 where we started this morning. I don’t know if you remember the scripture we read when we started about how the prince gives gifts unto his son it's his forever if it's from the inheritance. If he gives gifts unto the servants it's only theirs until the year of jubilee and then it's not theirs anymore. This is showing us that we're not just servants of Christ. We're actually his sons according to Galatians chapter 4. You don’t have to turn there. I'll turn there for you. This is in my notes.
In Galatians 4 it says in verse 1, "Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." Watch this, "And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant …" are you listening, "… thou art no more a servant but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ."
The Bible says we have a greater status with Jesus Christ than just being his servants. We're his sons and so we're going to inherit an inheritance that last forever, an eternal inheritance. God says, "We will abide in the house forever," makes you think of Psalm 23. What I'm showing you here is that these people said, "We've never been in bondage to any men." Jesus said, "You're in bondage because you're living a sinful life and if you live a sinful life you are the servant of sin."
When we reach that day of the trumpet sounding, we're going to be totally free at that point because we're not going to sin anymore. We're going to be delivered from the flesh and we're going to be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye. Let me tell you this according to what we've learned from scripture. The more sin you have in your life the less free you are and the less sin you have in your life the more liberty you have in your life. That is what the Bible teaches. It's what the Bible is saying.
The true liberty is when you're completely free of sin, which will be when the trumpet sounds and no sooner. Those who were just the servants of sin, those who are just living a life that is characterized by sin they're in total bondage today. Those who are alcoholic, those who are drug users, those who commit any number of sins whether it's addiction to pornography, addiction to gambling, they're servants to sin. They couldn't even stop those things if they tried because they're addicted. They're enslaved. They are not free or liberated in any sense. To the degree that you obey the Lord you will have freedom and the less you obey him the more enslaved to sin you're going to be.
Go to Romans 6 and I'm going to show you how you're going to serve one or the other. You're either going to serve the Lord or you're going to serve sin, that’s what the Bible teaches; Romans chapter number 6. There are people out there who call themselves a libertarian, these atheistic libertarians and to them their goal is just, "If we could just allow sin to abound then we'll have freedom." Just let the homos abound and let every kind of inequity and filth abound. That doesn’t bring freedom because justice in my personal life the more sin I have the less freedom I'm going to have.
Actually, in a nation it's the same way. The more sin a nation has through less freedom it's going to have. In fact if just look at the curve of our nation, as the morality in our nation has gone like this, have you noticed that freedom has gone like this? If you're to graph it, it would be right together. Freedom goes down as morality goes down. Even he founders of our nation, they said, "This system of government will only work for a moral righteous people." If you read the history that’s what … This will work for a moral righteous people, this system of government that gives a lot of liberty and freedom.
When people are wicked and godless, then they end up having to be herded like cattle and being enslaved by a big government. Why? Because animals need to be herded. When people go away from the Lord's principles, they start acting like animals and then you go to a school system where you're taught that you are an evolved animal. Then you act like an animal, you think you're an animal and then guess what's going to happen next, you're treated like an animal.
You use n electric shock thing to make the cattle do what you wanted to do, but that now they'll use that on people just to get you to comply and to get you to do whatever and just shock you, electrically shock you with a Taser just to get you to obey. Why? Because that’s what our country is turning into because of sin my friend. You know what? You think, "Man, if I go Tuesday …" Isn't there an election going on on Tuesday? Am I right about that? Somebody help me out. Is it this Tuesday or next Tuesday?
Speaker 2: Next Tuesday.
Speaker 1: You know why I don’t care? Because I'm not going to be there. I don’t care. I'm going to do something else. I've been to church they say, "If you don’t vote you're not right with God." Chapter verse on that? If you don’t vote you can’t complain. If you don’t vote you're not right with God, [inaudible 00:39:48]. If you don’t vote you're supporting Obama, whatever.
You know what the bottom line is? Going down there and voting on Tuesday is not going to fix our country. One reason why is that all the candidates are the same, that’s 1 big reason. I don’t have time to go into that. None of them are for the biblical principles that we believe in and uphold; none of them. Why won’t I go down and just vote for the flavor of the month or whatever? When the government has their boot on your head, it doesn’t matter whether it's the right boot or the left boot that’s stepping on your head.
Number 2, you have to understand is that what's really going to bring freedom to our nation is if we get right with God. If we get right with God, if we actually obey God, if the pastor; forget the politicians, if the pastors would actually start preaching righteousness and holiness and if the Christians would start seeking out to the Lord and cleaning up their lives and living a godly life, God would bless us. When God sees people that are doing right, He blesses them. When He looks down upon those that are wicked and ungodly, He punishes them.
How does He punish them? He brings them into bondage. All throughout the history of Israel when they sinned they were put into bondage and when they did right they were liberated. It's all through the Book of Judges. Live a wicked life, you go into slavery. Live a clean and godly life, God gets you out. God sends the deliverer. God sends the judge. We're looking for some savior today that’s going to come in 2016 and save us from the course that our country is on. God is not going to send us a savior like that, because we're still in that phase of judges where we're still worshipping other gods.
God is not going to send Othniel. God is not going to send Ehad. God did send Barrack but it's the wrong Barrack. God is not going to send Gideon. God is not going to send Samson. God is not going to send the deliverer until we get right with Him. Instead of worrying so much about, "Man, if we could just get …"
I was at this thing the other day and these people are coming up to me, handing me all kinds of brochures and telling me, "You need to vote for the Republicans or we're all doomed. We're all going to be destroyed if you don’t vote for these Republicans because the Democrats are destroying everything and everything I got." I basically just said, "I quit voting many years ago." They're like, "No. You have to vote. You're destroying America. It's you fault," and they're like. I said, "Motivate me to vote." I said, 'I’ll vote if you motivate me. Give me a reason to vote." I said, "Tell me who to vote for. Give me some moti- …" They're like, "You need to vote for Wendy this and Rebecca this and Barbara this."
I was like, "Man, you're talking to the wrong person." I don’t even know who those people are. You know what? That’s not biblical. All these women are going to come save us. No, they're not. The Bible says that men are supposed to be in leadership and in authority. I'm just like, "I knew I was asking the wrong person." The Bible says it's a curse when the Bible says that women rule over you and children rule over you, Isaiah chapter 3 maybe verse 21 I think, somewhere in Isaiah chapter 3.
They come to you and they just said, "This person is going to fix everything." No, they're not. It’s the same thing. We're in Bush's fourth term right now is the way I see it. I love that shirt that Ramon had on a couple of nights ago. It said like, "Barrack W. Bush." There was a picture of a guy. It was like a picture that merged the 2 in a 1 person. Same thing, same policies, same spending, same deficit. Obama is doing more though. Yes, but Bush did it more than Clinton and then Obama did it even more. Do you not see the pattern here? You know what the real problem is? It's a spiritual problem. There is no political solution. You know what I'm voting this week? I'm not voting on Tuesday November 4th. I'm only voting at the soul-winning time. That’s the voting.
You say, "You're the problem." No, you're the problem with this country when you're not out voting at the soul-winning time. The real voting is when we go out and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and win people to the Lord. That’s actually going to fix something. Not only will it fix things in the short term, it will actually fix things for people's eternity. You're wasting so much … You're going door to door for Wendy so and so. Why don’t you go door to door for the Lord Jesus Christ and actually fix something?
Man, I'm going to donate all this money and I'm going to give my time. I'll be out there at the poll. Why don’t you be at church? Why don’t you be out soul winning? Why don’t you clean up your life? That’s what we mean and it's not a political solution today. It's a spiritual solution that’s needed. That’s what we need.
Everybody gets mad at me when I don’t get all excited about the newest little political craze and trend. I don't care because I know that that’s not going to fix anything and that as long as we are not living the Christian lives that we need to live both parties will always be bad if that’s what we do. I don’t mean we because our church is a good church, but I mean in general Christianity is in a sorry state today. It’s a mess today.
We need to try to influence more people for the kingdom of God. That’s what going to fix things, not if we can just explain to them some libertarian principle. Not going to work folks because God is not going to bless it and without God blessing it, it won’t work. God has to bless anything that we succeed at. If we succeed it's because God is with us. If God is not with us we can’t prosper. We can’t have freedom. This country will never have freedom and liberty again unless there's a revival of God's word and a revival of righteousness.
You're what's wrong with this country because you're not going to vote, Pastor Anderson. I know you're standing behind the pulpit and now you're discouraging people from voting and you're going to destroy us all. No, you're going to destroy [inaudible 00:46:26]. This guy that walked up to me and he's all into voting and everything and he had some Ben Carson. I don’t even know who that is. Dr. Ben Carson, does anybody know who that is? I trust your judgment. Do I need to get behind this guy or what?
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 1: Thanks. I knew you're going to give me the right answer. This guy [inaudible 00:46:45] Ben Carson, blah, blah, blah. This is our guy and he's going to fix it in 2016. Like I said, I don’t even know who the guy is. I don’t anything about him. I'm just trusting Brother Mike's judgment here. He's Ben Car- blah, blah, blah. He's a very old man and he told me. He said, "Keep doing what you're doing sonny boy because you're going to fix things." Here's what he told me. He said, "Mrs. so and so is a great preacher. You need to have her come preach in your church."
I'm thinking myself like, "You're the problem." It's you liberal Christians that ignore the words of Jesus Christ when he said that a woman should keep silence in the church and that I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silent. You're going to sit there and tell me, "Man, we need to fix this country. We need to get things back. We need to take our country back. If you just show up on Tuesday and vote for the Republicans and if you just show up in 2016 for Dr. Ben Carson, it's going to fix everything. Here's the woman preacher to come preach in your church."
No, that’s the problem. It's when we ignore the Bible and we're bringing in the woman preacher and when we don’t stand for the old paths and when we don’t stand for God' word. God's word matters today and when we ignore it we fail. Jesus said, "Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. But whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." It's little things my friend.
That’s why people always tell me, "Listen to this Bible teacher, Rabbi so and so." I'm already done. Jesus said, "Be not ye called rabbi." Pastor Anderson, you need to listen to this Bible teacher, Father so and so. You lost me at father. You lost me at rabbi. The Bible says, "Don’t be called rabbi. Call no man father upon the earth." You say, "Come on. You're being picky. It doesn’t matter," but it does matter. When we sit there and just ignore what Jesus said, just ignore the fact that he said not to have a woman preacher, just ignore the fact that we're not supposed to call anybody rabbi.
Think about how many people would just save themselves from these false teachers that they would just learn that one thing. Don’t listen to a guy called rabbi. I would just … Have you read this? What is it The Harbinger by Rabbi Jonathan Cahn? I was like, "What? I'm a Christian." "So am I." "Then why you listen to somebody who is called rabbi? What in the world?" what I'm saying today is that when we throw out these rules and what God gave us as guidelines, we throwing out is liberty. Sin is the transgression of the law. When we're just breaking God's laws, we lose liberty. When God says, "Don’t call people that. Don’t do that. Don’t have a woman preacher," and then we just say, "I did break that." There goes liberty.
Here's the thing, the Old Testament. You know this year of jubilee? That was just something that they just didn’t really do. I don’t know how long they did it. Maybe they did it for a little while. I hope they did it for a few hundred years. There's no record in the Bible them ever observing the year of jubilee. I'm assuming they must have done it a few times. We know that at least probably for the last 500 years of Judas' existence before they went into captivity to Babylon, there was no year of jubilee happening.
In Jesus Christ's day there was no year of jubilee. You know why they went into captivity? Because they didn’t celebrate the year of jubilee. That’s what God actually specifically listed as one of their grievances. He said, "You worshipped other gods. You've shed it some blood. You've committed adultery." He also said, "You did not observe the Sabbath for the land every 7 years." He put them into captivity for exactly 70 years because He said, "You skip 70 of the years where you were not supposed to plant anything." Not the Sabbath day, the Sabbath year. He said, "You ski- …"
By the way, these Seventh Day Adventist and everybody and this Hebrew-roots people who tells us to observe the Sabbath, I don’t see them taking a whole year off. If you're really going to observe the sabbaths, it wasn't just the Sabbath day. Every 7 years you had to let the land rest for that, too. When was the last time you saw these Hebrew roots or Torah observing or Seventh Day Adventist doing the year of jubilee? Not anyone of you seeing them doing that. They don’t do it, so it's a selective thing and they won’t stand for a lot of God's laws back.
What I'm saying is that that’s part of their problem in the Old Testament, why they went to captivity for so long 70 years was be they ignored the sabbaths and the jubilee. They didn’t think it was important. We think in America today that we could have freedom and liberty and just ignore the part about the jubilee. When we're setting up our government, you say, "That’s a dumb idea. That’s weird." In fact let's not even talk about that. I called in to a radio show one time when I was driving in the middle of the night. I was just in the middle of the night just driving and I was really bored. I had the XM Radio and it was some talk radio and they're talking about Occupy Wall Street and this stuff about debt forgiveness and whatever.
I just wanted to just call in and just tell them about the year of jubilee because I was like, "This is the answer. This will solve everything." It is the answer. You know what though? It's a laughing stock into the world. The wisdom of the world is foolishness with God and the wisdom of God is foolishness unto man that’s why man is born free but he's everywhere enslaved billion of the fact that we don’t listen to this stuff. We need to listen to God.
Last place we're looking at Roman 6. It says in verse number 15, "What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you." Watch this; it's very important, "Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness." Jump down to verse 20, "For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness." Verse 22, "But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God."
Do you notice how you're either a servant to God and free from sin or you're free from righteousness and a servant to sin? You're either free from sin and serving righteousness or you're free from righteousness and serving sin. You're going to serve somebody in your life my friend. You either serve the Lord or you become the servant of sin, which leads to death and bondage and corruption, or you can serve the Lord which release a blessing and liberty.
You say, "I just don’t get it because I just think freedom just means doing whatever I want and just whatever I feel like doing. That’s really freedom." Then the freest person in the world is a homeless person. Absolute total freedom is a homeless person. Why? Because that person has no alarm clock. They have no boss, getting on them about that deadline. They have no dress code. I guess there is a basic dress code of just be dressed in the United States. They don’t have a dress code. No name tag. No hair net. They really don’t have anybody forcing them to work. If they want to work they can collect cans. If they want to take the day off they can just sit around and do nothing.
I think that if you observe the life of a homeless person it doesn’t really exemplify the kind of liberty that you would want to have. You know why they don’t have liberty? I would say I have more liberty than a homeless person. You know why? Because I have money that I can buy things that I need or that I want. If the homeless person wants something they might not be able to buy it because they didn’t work. They don’t have the money.
Then I think I have more freedom because I actually like … I sleep exactly where I want every night in a bed, in a comfortable climate-controlled bed. Who likes to sleep on a bed in an air condition? We're sleeping exactly where we want every night. In fact I wake up and I eat for breakfast what I want. I eat for lunch what I want, eat for dinner. When you're homeless, you don’t always have that luxury because you might have any money. You might not have any food or you're just at the mercy of whatever they're feeding at the soup kitchen.
The typical homeless person and of course obviously not all homeless people, but the typical homeless person is usually a drunk or a drug addict. How is that freedom if you have to drink today, if you have to do drug? Today I get to decide whether I drink today and the answer is no. It's been no every day of my entire life. I get to decide whether I do drugs today. The answer is going to be no every day. I get to decide whether I want to smoke cigarettes or smoke crack. I'm going to do neither.
Today there are people who must smoke cigarettes today. They must drink today. They must take drugs today. They must gamble today. They must look at pornography today. That isn't freedom because if you could ask those people, "If you could push a button and never want to drink again, would you do it?" A lot of them would say, "I'll push that button." If you could push a button and never want to gamble again, if you could push a button and never look at pornography again or have any desire to look at pornography again, if you could push a button and be free from sin they would, but they're a servant to sin. They're in bondage to sin.
We as Christians can live a free life where we do what we want to do, because God actually also will help us to want the right things and to have the things that we want and to delight in righteousness. Don’t be deceived by this deceptive liberty that’s out there that just says, "No rules is liberty." Sin is liberty. Drinking, partying, that’s all are going to bring freedom and liberty. That’s going to bring bondage. It's going to bring pain. It's going to bring suffering. Just as much as all the politicians are promising, your liberty is fake anyway.
You want to know what political-economic liberty is? It's time to open the Book of Leviticus and dust it off and learn about it, chapter 25, chapter 26, chapter 27. If you want to know what it means to have liberty and freedom and power in your personal life, you know how you're going to get it? By serving the Lord and cleaning up your life. You're going to feel a freedom and liberty that you never felt in your sinful days if you'll just obey the Lord and become His servant. Serving Him is like freedom in this world and being free in this world makes you the servant unto the devil and servant unto sin.
Freedom. We should all have our own private property and inheritance and everything, but not the freedom to just go out and just live a wicked life. It's just going to enslave you in the end and it's going to enslave our whole nation and you're part of the problem.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for Your word Lord and thank you for the liberty. We know the Bible says that where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. Lord, help us to be filled with Your spirit. Help us to be in a spirit-filled church. Help our nation to be a nation that is spiritual and not carnal so that we can have freedom Lord. I pray that someday there would be some decent candidates that would actually change things and fix things, but Lord I know that it's going to achieve through serving You and through spiritual means, not through a carnal means. In Jesus' name we pray.
