“Ten Commandments (Leviticus 24-25)" | 4/7/24
Leviticus 24-25 | 4/7/24 | Will DuVal
If you did your homework for this morning, and read chs 24 & 25 of Leviticus before you came, you may be a little confused by my sermon title: “Ten Commandments”. The 10 we’ll look at this morning are not “THE” 10, God’s TOP ten, that we unpacked together last year in our study of EXODUS. However, we WILL see quite a bit of OVERLAP this morning with that list. And in some ways, the commandments WE’RE gonna be looking at are actually more far-REACHING; as we’ll see, they teach us not just how to relate to God and one another, like the top 10, but how to treat ALL of God’s creation - the animals, even the LAND.
LOTS to get to. Typically I invite you to STAND for the reading of God’s word, but because this passage is so LONG, I’m gonna give your legs a break this morning, and we’ll simply read each section as we come to it in our outline.
But the first commandment we find here in ch24, #1- is Thou shalt rejoice in God’s PRESENCE. (24:1-4)
Vv1-4 read:
“The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Command the people of Israel to bring you pure oil from beaten olives for the lamp, that a light may be kept burning regularly. 3 Outside the veil of the testimony, in the tent of meeting, Aaron shall arrange it from evening to morning before the Lord regularly. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations. 4 He shall arrange the lamps on the lampstand of pure gold before the Lord regularly.”
If this law sounds familiar, that’s because God had already given these instructions to Moses back in Exodus ch27. The golden lamp - and specifically, the LIGHT on it, that was “kept burning regularly” - was a reminder and a representation of God’s PRESENCE with his people. OFTEN in Scripture, God manifests himself TO his people as FIRE - the “smoking firepot” with Abram; the burning bush with Moses; the pillar of fire through the wilderness. And NOW God promised his people that his presence would continually reside with them, on just the other side of the tabernacle curtain, above the ark of the covenant. So for 364 days a year, this lamp was the closest that anyone could actually come to God’s presence.
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And if you recall the DESIGN and SYMBOLISM of the lamp, it was a reminder that God’s presence is cause for REJOICING because with it, He brings us LIGHT and LIFE. That is the symbolism. Obviously lamps provide LIGHT, but remember the lampstand was made to look like a budding TREE, as a symbol of LIFE, as well.
In Psalm 27:1, David rejoices: “The Lord is my light and my salvation…”.
Deuteronomy 30:20, Moses rejoices: “The Lord… is our LIFE”.
And in the NT, the apostle JOHN rejoices that JESUS was God’s WORD made flesh, and “In him was life, and the life was the light of men” (1-4). Jesus came to bring us LIGHT and LIFE. And NOW, Jesus continues to fill us with his presence - and with his LIGHT and his LIFE - through his Holy Spirit, living WITHIN us.
But here’s the real focus of the passage, actually: notice how Israel’s EXPERIENCE of this light - God’s presence - was dependent upon their OBEDIENCE - to bring the olive oil (if they weren’t priests), to “arrange the lamps” - refuel and rekindle the flame, if they were priests. And the lesson for US, if we have trusted in Christ and been filled with the Holy Spirit, is that God’s presence is always with us, just like He was always with THEM, in the Holy of Holies. But our AWARENESS of God’s presence, our ENJOYMENT of his presence, is to a great extent dependent upon our OBEDIENCE.
Like Israel, God is calling US to stoke the fire - in 2 Timothy 1:6, Paul exhorts Timothy to “fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you… for God gave us [His] spirit”.
How do we FUEL that fire, the Holy Spirit within us?
Well, 1 Thessalonians 5 exhorts us not to “QUENCH the Spirit” (v19); don’t PUT OUT the flame. But then Paul instructs us how to AVOID it, how to FUEL the fire instead; he writes: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances… Do not despise prophecies, [i.e., God’s WORD] but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.” (vv16-22)
If you wanna feel CLOSE to God, to experience His presence in your life, THAT is your fuel. If God feels DISTANT to you right now, is it possible that you’ve been neglecting the lamp, and you’re all out of OIL?
We refill our lamps by 1) REJOICING, by 2) PRAYING, by 3) practicing GRATITUDE, by 4) consuming God’s WORD, by 5) pursuing HOLINESS and by 6) slaying our SIN.
#2 - Thou shalt remember God’s PROVISION. (24:5-9)
Vv5-9 now:
5 “You shall take fine flour and bake twelve loaves from it; two tenths of an ephah shall be in each loaf. 6 And you shall set them in two piles, six in a pile, on the table of pure gold before the Lord. 7 And you shall put pure frankincense on each pile, that it may go with the bread as a memorial portion as a food offering to the Lord. 8 Every Sabbath day Aaron shall arrange it before the Lord regularly; it is from the people of Israel as a covenant forever. 9 And it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place, since it is for him a most holy portion out of the Lord's food offerings, a perpetual due.”
Once again, this is a REMINDER of the instructions God had already given Moses back in Exodus 25. By the way: aren’t you GLAD that God doesn’t MIND giving us REMINDERS? Because like the Israelites, we are a FORGETFUL people, aren’t we? We need REGULAR reminders - weekly on Sundays; DAILY in God’s word.
But here’s what Israel was reminded of, specifically, with this “bread of the Presence”, as Exodus called it: they remembered God’s PROVISION. Represented by the bread in THREE ways:
First, the bread reminded them of the MANNA - the “bread from HEAVEN” - with which God fed Israel for 40 years in the wilderness.
Second, eating this bread would have reminded the priests of the fellowship meal that Israel shared with God back in Exodus 24 when God confirmed his covenant relationship with them.
And third, “the 12 loaves specifically symbolized the 12 tribes of Israel, and God’s provision of ONE ANOTHER, the covenant community of faith.
So God provides for us PHYSICALLY - our “daily bread” - he provides for us SPIRITUALLY - by drawing us into fellowship with HIM - and God provides for us RELATIONALLY - by drawing us into fellowship with one ANOTHER as well.
Our God is SUCH a generous Provider!” (DuVal, “Exodus 25-27”, 2023).
And we TOO, Church, are invited - actually we’re COMMANDED - to remember God’s gracious and lavish PROVISION in our lives - how he has met every ONE of our PHYSICAL, our relational, and most importantly, all of our SPIRITUAL needs in Christ Jesus.
May we remember Him this morning, with hearts of GRATITUDE and WORSHIP.
#3) Thou shalt revere God’s PERSONHOOD. (24:10-16, 23)
Now the STYLE of writing shifts in vv10-16 from LEGAL to NARRATIVE. In vv10-16 we read one of only TWO short STORIES found in all of Leviticus (the other was back in ch10, when Nadab and Abihu got incinerated); v10:
10 Now an Israelite woman's son, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the people of Israel. And the Israelite woman's son and a man of Israel fought in the camp, 11 and the Israelite woman's son blasphemed the Name, and cursed. Then they brought him to Moses. His mother's name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan. 12 And they put him in custody, till the will of the Lord should be clear to them.
13 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 14 “Bring out of the camp the one who cursed, and let all who heard him lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him. 15 And speak to the people of Israel, saying, Whoever curses his God shall bear his sin. 16 Whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him. The sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death.
Now are you starting to see some of the parallels with THE ten commandments; this story highlights the gravity of God’s THIRD commandment: “Thou shalt not… [WHAT?] take the Lord’s name IN VAIN.”
Why NOT? Because we REVERE God’s PERSONHOOD. That’s what God’s name represents - his CHARACTER, his very BEING. So while we can’t be sure exactly WHAT Shelomith’s son SAID, it probably WASN’T just the Hebrew equivalent of some crass 4-letter expletive. That is NOT what it means to “CURSE” here. V15 clarifies: “Whoever curses his God…”.
I think it’s telling that the kid was only HALF Israelite; his FATHER was an Egyptian. I think the implication is that this young man has a divided heart. He may be FOLLOWING his mother, and HER God, YHWH, out through the desert, but maybe he misses DAD, back in EGYPT; perhaps he was one of the grumblers from the “mixed multitude” back in Exodus who BEGGED God to take them BACK to Egypt. And he finally hits his LIMIT here in Leviticus 24. When this “man of Israel” confronts him, rebukes him IN God’s name, and the young man responds: “YHWH? I am SICK of YHWH! I’m sick of his MANNA… I’m sick of this DESERT… I MUCH preferred my FATHER’S gods, the gods of EGYPT. As far as I’m concerned, your God - YHWH - can go [BLANKity-blank]!”
Now, we may not stone blasphemers anymore. But the principle still stands: we do NOT talk about Almighty GOD that way! Not without GRAVE consequence, and I mean GRAVE - it can be DEADLY.
No, we HONOR God’s holy name. Not just in our WORDS, but in our DEEDS, in our thought life, in our decision-making… in ALL of life; the Bible says “whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God”; to bring him HONOR and reverence (1 Cor 10:31).
#4) Thou shalt respect God’s PRODUCTS. (24:17-22)
Vv17-22 read:
17 “Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death. 18 Whoever takes an animal's life shall make it good, life for life. 19 If anyone injures his neighbor, as he has done it shall be done to him, 20 fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him. 21 Whoever kills an animal shall make it good, and whoever kills a person shall be put to death. 22 You shall have the same rule for the sojourner and for the native, for I am the Lord your God.”
Couple notes:
First of all, the way I’ve TITLED this grouping of commandments - to “respect God’s PRODUCTS” - might SOUND “dehumanizing”. But that’s MORE than just a continuation of my “P” alliteration. Biblically speaking, it is precisely our product-ness, our having been produced, MADE, CREATED BY God - that is what GIVES us our intrinsic VALUE and dignity and WORTH as human beings. And not just US, but according to v18, there’s a certain “sanctity of life” even with ANIMALS!
Now, animals’ lives are not AS sacred and valuable as ours; an animal’s life had to be REPAID if it was taken unlawfully, while a human’s life could NOT be repaid; the murderer had to be put TO DEATH. Nevertheless, the principle remains that our lives - ALL life - has VALUE ONLY because God created and said, “It is GOOD”, and in our case, “It is VERY good.”
That is the very FOUNDATION of our JUSTICE system, still today. Otherwise, why NOT take a life? Why NOT take an eye, or a tooth, if it becomes personally advantageous to me to do so? If that other person is NOT created in the image of an INFINITELY valuable and loving GOD, then the only argument you can really make against something like murder is, “I don’t LIKE it. It FEELS wrong.” But you certainly can’t say it IS wrong, in any objective sense, if we’re all just APES whose only evolutionary purpose for existence is to live long enough to pass our genes on; Heck, APES kill each other all the TIME in the PURSUIT of a larger breeding pool.
If we are ONLY the products of evolution then jungle law RULES - it’s a dog eat dog world, so “kill or BE killed”.
But if we are the products of a loving Creator GOD, then HIS law rules, friends, and HIS law values and protects LIFE.
Second, quick note: because of our historical privilege - because you and I have the benefit of 2,000 years of Christian ethics behind us now, Jesus’s “...but I tell you, turn the other cheek, and love your enemies” (Matt 5:38-44) - WE are prone to read Leviticus wrong here. To read the lex talionis - “eye for eye & tooth for tooth” as retaliation, instead of how the ancient ISRAELITES would have understood it: as RESTRAINT.
Human nature is: “You take MY eye; I’ll take your HEAD off! You take MY tooth, get ready for DENTURES! You kill MY child; I’ll slaughter your whole FAMILY!” But God says: NO, the punishment has to fit the crime; it must be proportional. God wasn’t establishing a MINIMUM punishment here; he didn’t NEED to do that! He is outlining the MAXIMUM allowable punishment. Because he is a God of MERCY. Mercy AND justice, towards ALL his “products”.
#5) Thou shalt rest God’s PLOTS. (25:1-7)
Ch25 now:
ch25:1 The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, 2 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord. 3 For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits, 4 but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord.
We see God’s care for FOUR entities here:
First, for the land OWNERS. God knew it was good for them to take one year off every 7, not only to REST, but more importantly, to demonstrate and DEVELOP their trust in HIM, that God will continue to provide for us even in the “off years”. We’ll come back to that point later in #7.
But second here, God shows his care for the POOR. Vv6 & 7 promise that God would cause enough to grow naturally on its OWN in the 7th year to feed not just the land’s OWNER, but his servants and sojourners who were passing through, even the wild ANIMALS, God cares for.
Third, we see God’s care for the LAND ITSELF here. God understood the pitfalls of “overfarming” and stripping the ground of all its nutrients LONG before we humans started rotating crops, or fertilizing, RESTING the land; farmers still practice this today.
God called His people to PROTECT and NURTURE His Land. It harkens back all the way to Genesis 2 and God’s second command EVER to humanity in the Garden of Eden: to “tend and KEEP the Garden” (2:15) - cultivate and preserve. God gave us DOMINION over the earth, to CARE for it. We Christians, of ALL people, ought to be good STEWARDS of God’s good CREATION.
As a matter of fact, that was the reason God said he was evicting the CANAANITES from the Land, back in Leviticus 18; he said, “They sinned and POLLUTED the land, such that now the land is gonna VOMIT them out!” (18:24-25) But he warned Israel: “Be CAREFUL - be HOLY - or else I’ll cause the land to do the SAME to YOU one day!”
And sure enough, in the 6th c. BC, Israel was taken into EXILE, in BABYLON for 70 YEARS.
WHY? According to Jeremiah 25:11 and 2 Chronicles 36:21, they had to wait “until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths… to fulfill seventy years.” Apparently, in the 8 centuries that Israel lived in the Promised Land since the 14th c. BC, they went 490 of those years of neglecting the Sabbath - missing 70 Sabbaths. So God made it right, gave the land its due REST.
And I don’t want to get into a whole thing here, about climate change, but suffice it to say: I don’t think we’ve done a particularly great job of caring for God’s creation for the past 200 years or so now, and I DO wonder if eventually God’s gonna step in again and make it right; give the land its REST.
But the fourth and MOST important thing God is concerned with here is HIS OWN GLORY. Notice the wording of vv2 & 4: this 7th year was called a “Sabbath TO THE LORD”. This land didn’t belong to ISRAEL; they were just LEASING it, from GOD. This land didn’t exist for Israel’s personal profit and pillaging; NO, like EVERYTHING, it existed for GOD’S GLORY. So Israel was not to EXPLOIT the land.
Church: we ought to take this SERIOUSLY, today, in how WE farm and fish, how WE shop and consume, how WE reduce, reuse and recycle. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof” (Ps 24:1). And one day, He will demand an account of how we STEWARDED it, for HIS glory.
#6) Thou shalt restore God’s PARITY. (25:8-17)
EQUITY. Fairness. V8:
8 “You shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty-nine years. 9 Then you shall sound the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land. 10 And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan… In it you shall neither sow nor reap… For it is a jubilee. It shall be holy to you… for I am the Lord your God.
If the Sabbath year was all about resting and replenishing, the JUBILEE year was all about freedom and FAIRNESS.
A lot of evangelical Christians aren’t gonna love this part; this may be the REAL reason so many pastors avoid Leviticus. It’s one thing to BORE the Church with priestly rituals and obsolete holidays; but it’s ANOTHER thing to UPSET people by calling for creation-care and equity & JUSTICE for the poor.
I’m not talking about POLITICS. We can debate whether or not you think the government has a role to play in promoting equity & justice, in mandating creation care - but what is BEYOND debate is that GOD’S PEOPLE DO have a role to play.
Every 50 years, ALL property reverted back to its original owner. When God brought Israel into the land, he allotted property to EVERY tribe (except Levi), to EVERY clan and family, and the Jubilee ensured that the rich didn’t just keep getting richer while the poor got POORER - cuz the more land you HAD, the more you were able to PRODUCE and EARN and therefore turn around and buy up even MORE land. Vv15&16 explain that the COST of the land was relative to how many years were REMAINING for you to PROFIT from it, until you had to RETURN it, at the Jubilee, this mandatory RESET, to re-LEVEL the playing field every 50 years; give EVERYONE back their means of production.
SLAVES went free, as well. If you were REALLY poor, after selling off your LAND, you might even have to sell off YOURSELF, as an indentured servant. But again: only until the Jubilee. When “LIBERTY was proclaimed throughout the land” - that verse is engraved on the Liberty Bell, in Philly.
But this is pretty extreme stuff - ALL DEBTS, we will see, were to be FORGIVEN in the Jubilee. Biden wipes out student loan debt and we FREAK OUT - and AGAIN, I’m not saying we SHOULDN’T. Because America is NOT God’s chosen nation, and Joe Biden is DEFINITELY not GOD. God forgives debts.
I’M just pointing out that the same voters who CONFUSE America with “God’s chosen nation” wouldn’t actually LIKE it very much if GOD’S LAWS - like the Jubilee year - was actually the law of OUR land today. Cuz God doesn’t seem to respect “private property” very much; he says, “Actually, it’s NOT yours; it’s MINE. And every 50 years, I’m taking it BACK, and GIVING it back to the POOR. Because NONE of MY people will go homeless, indebted, enslaved, in perpetuity.”
That’s EXTREME - even BERNIE didn’t run on THAT platform 4 years ago. I’m guessing Trump edited Leviticus 25 OUT of his Bible, that he just released (if he MADE IT all the way to Leviticus).
Is EVERYONE offended? The LIBERALS won’t like God’s anti-abortion, anti-euthanasia, pro-death penalty platform… the CONSERVATIVES won’t like God’s environmentalism or the Jubilee year… but the CHRISTIANS will love it ALL, cuz it’s ALL God’s WORD.
#7) Thou shalt rely on God’s PROVISION. (25:18-22)
V18:
18 “Therefore you shall do my statutes and keep my rules and perform them, and then you will dwell in the land securely. 19 The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and dwell in it securely. 20 And if you say, ‘What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we may not sow or gather in our crop?’ 21 I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years. 22 When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating some of the old crop; you shall eat the old until the ninth year, when its crop arrives.
I mentioned it earlier, but PART of God’s purpose for the Sabbath was to TEST Israel, to see if they would TRUST him to provide, like he promised to. And it sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me - you get to take a whole year off farming… AND God’s still gonna give you THREE years worth of crops?! No brainer, right?!
But let’s take a look in the MIRROR now: how often do WE stress and worry and overexert OURSELVES when God has ALREADY promised to provide for us? Jesus said, “Do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or… drink, or… wear… Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to his span of life?” (Matt 6:25-27)
STOP worrying; START trusting.
We look not ONLY backwards, on God’s PAST provision, with gratitude (point #2), but we look forwards as well, TRUSTING in God’s FUTURE provision.
#8) Thou shalt redeem God’s PROPERTY. (25:23-34)
V23 now:
23 “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me. 24 And in all the country you possess, you shall allow a redemption of the land.
25 “If your brother becomes poor and sells part of his property, then his nearest redeemer shall come and redeem what his brother has sold. 26 If a man has no one to redeem it and then himself becomes prosperous and finds sufficient means to redeem it, 27 let him calculate the years since he sold it and pay back the balance to the man to whom he sold it, and then return to his property. 28 But if he does not have sufficient means to recover it, then what he sold shall remain in the hand of the buyer until the year of jubilee. [And we will skip vv29-34 for the sake of time, but they deal with some EXCEPTIONS to these property redemption laws, in the case of houses located within a CITY, because they weren’t tied to the LAND… exceptions for the LEVITES, who we will discover later in the book of Deuteronomy were the only tribe NOT included in Israel’s inheritance of the land, because God promised that he would HIMSELF be the inheritance of the Levitical priests.]
But this command to REDEEM your property - GOD’S property, that you had sold off to pay down your debts - this is sort of the COUNTER-balance to point #6 about the Jubilee year. God is saying, “You don’t HAVE to wait until the 50th year to get your land back; WORK HARD! You ought to strive to BUY it back. Also, be GENEROUS - and be willing to buy it back as a “kinsman redeemer” for your close relative who becomes indebted.
You see how this law confronts both the rich AND the poor? If you’re POOR: you are forbidden from being a FREE-loader, and gaming the system; being content to just wait on the Jubilee. No - work hard to REDEEM it - buy it BACK, respectably.
But if you’re RICH, don’t forget: “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity… you MUST allow a redemption.” No land tycoons, no farming monopolies.
Now, here’s the really interesting, SAD historical fact: there is absolutely NO record anywhere in the Bible or the annals of history of Israel EVER actually observing a Jubilee year. They missed 490 years of SABBATHS, but they may have missed more like 1400 years of JUBILEES!
And AGAIN, we’re tempted to think: “SHAME on them!” But then we remember all of God’s commands that WE tend to ignore: “”Whoever has two coats is to share with him who has none” (Lk 3:11) - how many coats in YOUR closet at home? I’ll confess: I’ve got more than TWO. But apparently if anyone out there is COAT-less - and I strongly suspect SOME folks are! - I’m supposed to SHARE.
And how about the FLIP side? Remember: both the rich AND the poor are confronted - God’s word ALSO says, “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat” (2 Ths 3:10). But we’ll ignore that TOO, won’t we, and give HANDOUTS to FREE-loaders, folks who COULD and SHOULD be feeding themselves, because it makes US FEEL good, and because it’s quicker and easier to give a fish than to TEACH someone how to fish for themself. But we do them no favors.
It is TOUGH to find that balance: to empower, but not enable. But it’s so important. BECAUSE… of commandment…
#9) Thou shalt respect God’s PEOPLE. (25:35-46) We want to LOVE and CARE for people WELL.
Here’s God’s specific instructions for Israel; v35:
35 “If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. 36 Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God… [WHY? Because v38…] I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God. [So… v39]
v39 “If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: 40 he shall be with you as a hired worker and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee. 41 Then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return to the possession of his fathers. 42 For they [ISRAEL] are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves.
Now, God will go ON in vv43-46 - which we’re gonna SKIP for the sake of time - to ALLOW slavery in the case of NON-Israelites. And I’m gonna spare you the whole slavery spiel about all the differences between 19th c. American race-based chattel slavery and biblical slavery, which was really closer to indentured servitude. We’ve covered that in a FEW sermons and podcast episodes now.
But the point God is making HERE is that HIS people - ISRAEL - they were NOT to be enslaved EVER again. 400 years in Egypt were MORE than enough, and I REDEEMED them from it, God says, “My people are just THAT: MINE! You don’t belong to PHARAOH. You don’t belong to ONE ANOTHER. You belong to ME!”
And so do we TODAY, Church, if we have been redeemed by CHRIST: the Bible says, “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.” (1 Cor 6:19-20) The highest price of ALL: Jesus’ precious BLOOD. We belong to HIM.
Just CONSIDER how that ought to affect the way we love and care for one ANOTHER, within the CHURCH. EVERY human being deserves respect, just by virtue of being God’s “product”, made in His image. How much MORE respect, then, should we show God’s PEOPLE, whom Christ DIED for?!
So, Galatians 6:10 exhorts us, “let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.”
Lastly, #10- Thou shalt redeem God’s POSTERITY. (25:47-55)
Not only was Israel forbidden from enslaving one ANOTHER, God commanded them to redeem - buy back - one another OUT of slavery to NON-Israelites; v47:
47 “If a stranger or sojourner with you becomes rich, and your brother beside him becomes poor and sells himself to the stranger or sojourner with you or to a member of the stranger's clan, 48 then after he is sold he may be redeemed. One of his brothers may redeem him…
And we won’t read the rest, but the point is: God didn’t just want ISRAELITES to avoid enslaving Israelites; he didn’t want them to be slaves AT ALL. And he says, “You really ARE your brother’s keeper: if he falls on hard times and has to take drastic measures - sell himself off - I want YOU to buy him back. WHY? Because not only are YOU his BROTHER, but you are BOTH my CHILDREN. My posterity; I ADOPTED you, at Mt. Sinai, back in Exodus 19. You belong to ME.” God reiterates in v55: “the people of Israel… are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”
The spiritual application for US today is this: if God has brought US out of slavery to SIN, then not only are WE warned against “submitting again to a yoke of slavery” (Gal 5:1), but we are exhorted to warn OTHERS against doing so as well. We really ARE our brother’s - and sister’s - keepers.
James 5:20 “whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.”
CONCLUSION: Now as we CONCLUDE, if you’re anything like me, at this point you’re thinking, “Thanks, Pastor. Now I understand the lex talionis, the Sabbath, the Jubilee, the kinsman redeemer - I understand them all better. Maybe I even understand how the principles BEHIND them might apply to my OWN life today. But I ALSO now understand how often I VIOLATE these 10 principles. How often I quench the Spirit… how often I forget God’s past provision, and GRUMBLE instead of being GRATEFUL… how often I FAIL to respect fellow Image-bearers, FAIL to promote equity & justice, FAIL to respect God’s creation, FAIL to respect and revere GOD’S holy name!
Pastor: is there any good news for a Law-BREAKER, like ME?
YES, friends: his name is JESUS. And he not only KEPT the Law perfectly, on our behalf; he FULFILLED the Law for us. Such that now ALL of the righteousness that you and I need to get right with God and to get into Heaven can be found - can ONLY be found! - in CHRIST.
*When we FAIL to keep the lamp burning, Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (Jn 8:12)
*When we FORGET God’s provision, and forsake the bread of God’s presence, Jesus says, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” (Jn 6:35)
*When we DISHONOR God’s name, we can know and trust that Jesus honored God PERFECTLY - “For our sake [God] made him [Jesus] to be sin who knew NO sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor 5:21)
*We disrespect people; JESUS loved others PERFECTLY - even the tax collectors and prostitutes, those whom NO ONE else loved. Even his ENEMIES; he said, “You’ve heard it said, “An eye for an eye, but I tell you: love your enemies”.” And he DID, all the way to the CROSS: “Father, FORGIVE them, for they know not what they DO.” He prayed it for US, friends. It was MY sin that held him there - WE were his enemies, his crucifiers.
*Jesus respected God’s CREATION, he RELIED on the Father with PERFECT faith, he came to restore JUSTICE for the OPPRESSED - “Jesus said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.” (Lk 6:20-21)
*Jesus declared “I AM YOUR JUBILEE!” He stood UP in the synagogue and opened Isaiah’s scroll and read: ““The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”” - the JUBILEE!
But THEN, he rolled UP the scroll, and declared: ““Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” ” (Lk 4:18-21) - I AM your Jubilee!
Y’all FAILED to observe it for 1400 years, so I’ve come to fulfill it. To bring GOOD NEWS to those who are “poor” not just financially, but SPIRITUALLY - those who are morally BANKRUPT.
To proclaim LIBERTY to those who are “enslaved” not just societally, to a human master, but SPIRITUALLY, enslaved by their own SIN. I’ve come to SET YOU FREE!
*And how did Jesus DO it? He became our KINSMAN REDEEMER. He had to become a BROTHER, a “close relative”. Hebrews 2 says Jesus “had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might… make propitiation for [our] sins… therefore he himself partook of [flesh and blood], that through death [Christ] might… deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.” (14-17)
Church: Jesus is your kinsman redeemer, who took on flesh and suffered and DIED to redeem you from your slavery to sin, and from the very power of death. Trust in him today, and be set FREE.