Abandonment
Leviticus 25:18 ”nWherefore ye shall do my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; oand ye shall dwell in the land in safety.” [1]
I. Do
A. Rely
B. Relay
II. Decide
A. Receive
B. Revere
III. Dwell
A. Rest
B. Repose
Introduction: For the past few Sundays we have been concentrating on the things that Moses told the people before they entered into their promised land. If there had not been an exodus there would have been no need for any sacrifice. Not that particular exodus from Egypt where the Israelites had been in bondage to a foreign earthly nation. That is not the exodus we are considering today. The exodus in mention is the exodus away from God’s will.
If we would stay obedient to God’s will for our lives then there would be no need for anything or anyone to die in our place. As soon as God’s chosen people were out and away from the bondage that they had gotten familiar with in Egypt, they began to grumble and complain. It got so bad that they took it upon themselves to lash out absolutely against God. Had it not been for Moses to speak on their behalf, God would have made an end to them and Moses’ offspring would have replaced them as God’s chosen people.
Be careful what you ask for. Now Moses was responsible for these people in a way that he had not been before. Now Moses had to instruct them in how to return to God’s will. If they had cherished this verse of consideration today they could have flown over the mess that they made for themselves. It is important that we concentrate on what it is that will keep us safe.
Last Monday evening a family in our community suffered a great loss. With all the things that the devil is attempting to divert our attention with elsewhere, we are here is this community and we grieve when one of our family grieves. There was no loss of human life. We must praise God for that. They did however lose a family member. They lost their puppy dog in the fire. We should not be so inattentive to our own community even though there are terrible things going on in other parts of the world.
God gives us the ability to answer His call with obedience. Often there are others who are put in great need as God watches how His church responds. We must not be so worried about the future that we forget the need today.
Why are hard things happening to those who they are happening to? More often than not they are happening to others so that we will respond with love. If we are so paralyzed considering our own safety that we ignore the needs of others, we will hear from Jesus later on and if we are truly Christians our consciences will burn inside us now.
The message today is not to change a group of people. I believe that this message from Moses is for each and every individual Jew and Christian. Each of us knows in his/her heart that which God has established to believe. The statutes were set when He conceived humanity. Nothing has changed except perhaps you. Forces from the outside have allowed callouses to form on your conduct so that it doesn’t hurt so much anymore when you sin. How can a person be saved from that? A person might be saved from eternal damnation but how can a person be saved from his/her own guilty conscience.
Scripture: The scripture today is Leviticus 25:18. Please stand for the hearing of God’s Word.
Prayer: Please be seated
Message: The Jewish commandment and observance of Jubilee allows a time to replace things to where they were. This concept is confusing to us who live in a capitalistic society because we have been taught that working for something that you have been allowed to purchase means that it is yours to keep and pass down. We don’t understand because none of us who are alive in this nation today have been slaves to some other person; especially in a Christian church.
This is something to be greatly praised and should cause us to worship God even more than those who have been forced into bondage by someone else. Maybe that is the greatest lesson that we should learn from this concept of the fiftieth year possession return. Without having been enslaved, or accepting the fact that you have been enslaved, you might not ever realize your good fortune in having lived in a time that this misfortune has not happened to you.
So what is the lesson to be learned as a Jew following this custom of the Jubilee? Here it is, Leviticus 25:17, “Ye shall not therefore loppress one another; mbut thou shalt fear thy God: for I am the Lord your God.” [2]
Now we are at our focal verse that begins with wherefore. Now since you know not to take advantage of others we will talk about what a person should do going forward; wherefore. For the Christian the wherefore is preceded by a decision.
We Christians begin to be Christians not as bondspersons to other persons but bondspersons to sin. Jesus came and died so that we might decide to follow Him. Once a person makes that decision then all subsequent decisions are to follow Jesus. If you have decided to follow Jesus that then that is your wherefore.
Verse eighteen applies to the Jew and the non-Jew. Since you have made the decision to follow Jesus then you shall do. You will not slip back to doing something that is against that which God decided for you. You are to rely on His promises and do that which you know He has which is good for you to do. Otherwise don’t do.
What else are we to do with His statutes? This particular passage does not implicitly say this here but elsewhere it is implied that we must relay His statutes. Others who are less aware may be caught in the trap of following things that are against His statutes. Are we to live and let die? No! We are to preach with patience and understanding. Otherwise how will those who come after us decide unless they learn His judgments from us?
To pass along His truth to others we must first decide to accept the judgment of God. If we have a problem receiving His judgments then all after us will be left to decide things that have once and for all time been judged as good. We must decide to receive His judgments as fair and good. Otherwise we will never see things as good. They won’t ever get better than they are. They will actually get worse and worse until the end, and there will be an end that He makes.
So God told Moses that we must do His statutes and keep His judgments. There is another comma. Not only are we to keep His judgments but we are to do them too. OK! It is one thing to keep and remember God’s judgments but how do we do His judgments. We must revere His judgments. You can’t do a thing unless you accept it as a part of yourself. That is to revere.
Have you heard it said, “Well I don’t believe that people should suffer because of the things that they do. Besides, he’s a good boy.” When people do bad things, when people do things that are against good, there must be punishment. Otherwise they will not learn and you have actually harmed them and those who they will hurt in the future. Unless you revere God’s judgments so that you understand them and carry them out there is no reason for you to keep them in your knowledge bank. Do something to make it better until He makes it good.
If you do His statutes and if you keep His judgments and do them, what does He say will happen? You shall dwell in the land in safety! Dwell is a funny word that we don’t use much in this time. I used to work on old Chevrolets that have a little allenhead screw inside the spark distributer. That screw adjusted the dwell angle of the opening and closing of the breaker points. Fords and Mopars were a little different. You had to use a feeler gauge to adjust the gap between the breaker points when the cam of the distributor was at the open dwell position.
Way too complicated right? Russel knows all that stuff. I expect most men in this church have an idea what we’re talking about. Dwell in an ignition system in a motor means how long something stays in a certain position; in this case either open or closed. In an engine ignition system the distributor acts as a modulator to flicker the direct current in the battery into an electrical coil. This produces thousands of volts of alternating current to the spark plug. The gap or opening in the breaker points must be at the right width or there will be no spark. The engine will not do anything.
What is the world does that have to do with this? We are not to stay in the position we are in here in this place you see. We are to dwell here for a time. His time! We can make that time comfortable as long as His rules are followed. We can rest safely knowing that we are following our Creator’s good things for our lives. The rest or dwell time between opening and closing of our eyes will be peaceful.
Sometimes I can’t sleep. I like to sleep. The better part of my career in electrical power generation was working in shifts. Firefighters and many other professions require shiftwork. Most of the folks that I spent nights with at the power plants were men. There were a few women too but mostly men; which made the conversation sound strange for a bystander coming in to hear our first comment to each other. The greeting was never, “how are you.” It was always, “how did you sleep.” You might say, “Well that’s a bit personal”, but you can’t understand unless you’ve worked swing shift for a while. If you can’t fool your mind into thinking that it’s time to sleep when it’s light outside you will not have the energy to do your job. How did you sleep?
If a Christian follows the will of God as long as that person dwells or temporarily lives in this foreign place; that person will be in repose when they finally lie down to sleep. Repose is a nice word. We have changed that word sleep now to mean something different. What we are talking about is the sleep you get when your mind is at rest and all is right between you and the God who created you. When you know that Jesus is the friend that you can count on no matter what the circumstances of this life affords you can find that repose. How do we get there? We won’t until we abandon our will to His. That is the abandonment that we need.
Prayer:
Invitation: Why is this world spinning seemingly out of control? Why is the climate really changing? Yes it really is changing. How can we get back to where it should be? We can’t. And He won’t as long as I continue to tell Him that I have got this and I can fix it.
So what must we do? We must do that which He stood up for us to do. His statutes! We must decide that His judgments are righteous and change our will to His will. And what does the next verse say?
Leviticus 25:19 "And the land shall yield her fruit, and pye shall eat your fill, and dwell therein in safety." [3]
One day sooner than yesterday if you are truly a Christian who is not ashamed of the Good News of Jesus, your time of dwelling here in this now place will eternally be over. We know that is true. God gave this particular word to Moses for the here and now. How can there be peace in an unpeaceful world? God promised us that we could find it deep in the recesses of our hearts.
Do you want to find that? It’s here and it’s now. It’s Him. It’s Jesus. Let The Comforter comfort you. God is holy and He is keeping heaven a holy place for us to live with Him one day. For here and now the question is this; do you have a burden that is weighing heavy? Bring it to the altar and there you will find the load to be lighter. Listen to Him as we sing…
n See ch. 18:4, 5.
o ver. 19. ch. 26:5. Deut. 12:10. Ps. 4:8. Ezek. 34:25, 28. So Job 11:18. Prov. 1:33. Jer. 23:6.
[1] The Holy Bible: King James Version (Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version., Le 25:18). (2009). Logos Research Systems, Inc.
l ver. 14.
m ver. 36, 43. ch. 19:14, 32.
[2] The Holy Bible: King James Version (Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version., Le 25:17). (2009). Logos Research Systems, Inc.
p ch. 26:5. So Deut. 11:15. Joel 2:19, 26.
[3] The Holy Bible: King James Version (Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version., Le 25:19). (2009). Logos Research Systems, Inc.
