Seasonal Blessings
Leviticus 25:1-21
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. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. 5 You shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest, or gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. 6 The Sabbath of the land [the Sabbath produce of the land] shall provide food for you, for yourself and for your male and female slaves and for your hired worker and the sojourner who lives with you, 7 and for your cattle and for the wild animals that are in your land: all its yield shall be for food.
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. 11 That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; in it you shall neither sow nor reap what grows of itself nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines. 12 For it is a jubilee. It shall be holy to you. You may eat the produce of the field [countryside].
13 “In this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his property. 14 And if you make a sale to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, you shall not wrong one another. 15 You shall pay your neighbor according to the number of years after the jubilee, and he shall sell to you according to the number of years for crops. 16 If the years are many, you shall increase the price, and if the years are few, you shall reduce the price, for it is the number of the crops that he is selling to you. 17 You shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the Lord your God.
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.
Oh, yawn, Leviticus. This, and Deuteronomy, only have 17 ways to receive blessings. Who could be interested in receiving blessings. The now famous prayer of Jabez, is placed in the "dry parts." The purpose of the Ten Commandments is actually the key to be blessed. Makes you think maybe in the dry parts of our own lives, maybe actually this is a time of planting. The seeds not quite reaching the Light.
1 Chronicles 4:9-10
Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain.' So God granted him what he requested.
Father God! Any time You want to bless me with the prayer of Ibez - I second that emotion. In the name of Jesus Christ The LORD. Amen.
God tells us many things will pass away. Not His Word.
Matthew 24:35
Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
By HIS Word alone, God created.
Psalm 104 :5-9
5 He set the earth on its foundations;
it can never be moved.
6 You covered it with the watery depths as with a garment;
the waters stood above the mountains.
7 But at your rebuke the waters fled,
at the sound of your thunder they took to flight;
8 they flowed over the mountains,
they went down into the valleys,
to the place you assigned for them.
9 You set a boundary they cannot cross;
never again will they cover the earth.
So, God tells us some things have boundaries.
This is not so with God's plan for economics. You remember how the famous Vizier to Pharaoh received his employment raise. It was quite a raise from prison to Vizier. Joseph predicted famine. Pharaoh believed him.
We reach the same conclusions in economics every s i n g l e time. Invest in the infrastructure, invest in business, spend more, save more, flat tax. Increase minimum wage. Increase health benefits. Increase insurance coverage. Social Security. New Deal. Raw Deal. No Deal.
I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream. But no one 'EVah' says what happened to....
Psalm 104 - God provides
10 He makes springs pour water into the ravines;
it flows between the mountains.
11 They give water to all the beasts of the field;
the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
12 The birds of the sky nest by the waters;
they sing among the branches.
13 He waters the mountains from his upper chambers;
the land is satisfied by the fruit of his work.
14 He makes grass grow for the cattle,
and plants for people to cultivate—
bringing forth food from the earth:
15 wine that gladdens human hearts,
oil to make their faces shine,
and bread that sustains their hearts.
16 The trees of the Lord are well watered,
the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
17 There the birds make their nests;
the stork has its home in the junipers.
18 The high mountains belong to the wild goats;
the crags are a refuge for the hyrax.
and this little passage Psalm 104
3 Man goes out to his work
and to his labor until the evening.
24 O Lord, how manifold are your works!
In wisdom have you made them all
Our Grandparents counted upon one job to support their family. He counted on his wife to provide them with meals, clean clothes, sometimes from a large kettle and wringer. Mostly families prayed at meals. He and your grandmother counted on the house to be so affordable they would pay cash. And the car would break a lot, but would be very affordable and paid for in cash. The problems in the local school were relatively mild, and discussed calmly over a good meal with the family. There was one family room for gathering.
Now our college educations, for a nation considered to be one of the top 15 in the world, are more expensive than some 3 bedroom homes. My professors at Texas A&M University are still teaching and my college degree cost us as much as a VW Jetta, I bought (on time at 12.9% interest) for $12,500 total cost for 4.5 years. And now that same education is more for one semester, by far. Why in the world are we complacent about housing being 6 digits and college costs as well.
What does this say in Leviticus - have the government not arrange for long term debt. Why? Thomas Jefferson said a population not owning their own home, is bankrupt. Home ownership should be a benefit we should rely upon.
Ok. Political solutions? How about wanting economic freedom for the populace?
How frustrating for HIM to give us solutions and we do not even consider His Word.
I will command my blessing on you
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