Leviticus 25:8-10 'Count off seven sabbath years -- seven times seven years -- so that the seven sabbath years amount to a period of forty-nine years. Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land. Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan.
Though the new cycle of Israel's feasts has concluded, I'd like to share one more observation about last week's high holy day, Yom Kippur. It is a day on which adults are afflicting themselves by fasting, abstaining from all pleasures, and repenting. But for the children, Yom Kippur is a very different holiday. This day is my son Obi's favorite holiday! Why? Because the kids are not fasting or recalling their sins or suffering at all – they are celebrating freedom!
On Yom Kippur in Israel, TV and radio stations are shut down and the children are playing jubilantly outdoors with absolutely no vehicles on any road. Everywhere you look kids are freewheeling on bikes, skateboards, rollerblades, scooters, and bare feet, with no restraint. The children are truly free on Yom Kippur. And unbeknownst to them, they are typifying a prophetic event that occurs only once every 50 years, on Yom Kippur.
Every 50th year, in this cycle, called the Yovel or Jubilee, freedom is proclaimed! All things are returned to their rightful owners – all debts are forgiven – and the entire year is a great celebration of freedom, restoration and joy. And the kids, without realizing it, are celebrating jubilee every year.
Prophetically, Yovel or Jubilee speaks of the Lord's return to establish His Millennial Kingdom, during which time the world will experience a peace and rest unknown since the fall of mankind. This will be the restoration of all things [Acts 3:21], a time of tremendous joy and true freedom during the reign of our Messiah King.
But take note that the atonement precedes the Jubilee, and without the atonement no one comes to the freedom, rest, and joy of the Yovel. The atonement provides our forgiveness of sins. Sin is slavery. Liberty and joy require forgiveness and restoration. Only through atonement can we truly celebrate liberty!
This day, every day, can be your jubilee if as a child of God you celebrate His forgiveness, walk in freedom and rest with your sins forgiven by the atoning sacrifice of Yeshua (Jesus) the Messiah. If and when you do, you are a living prophetic message to this world that the Lord's jubilee is coming!
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]There were thousands of people bundled up in freezing New York weather to witness a few short seconds during which a descending ball of light announces the arrival of a New Year — 2023. These hardy people endured the freezing air to mark the passage of time, but even more, because they were anticipating a “new beginning!” Saying goodbye to a tumultuous 2023, they were looking forward to making a fresh start in 2024!
As we approach the New Year, we’re back to making New Year’s resolutions … but this year is a bit different, since it’s not only a New Year but a New Decade! During the past ten years we’ve seen such radical changes in our society; the definition of marriage, millennia-old norms of gender identity, bath and locker-room privacy, have all been affected by court decisions as a sea change in social mores has swept through the western world. People of Biblical faith are witnessing the fulfillment of Isaiah’s warning, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” [Isaiah 5:20]
I came across an old legend about three cowboys crossing the desert on horseback by night. Suddenly, as they reached a rocky spot, a voice came from heaven and commanded them: “Friends, pick up some pebbles, put them in your pockets and do not look at them till morning.” The men looked at each other in astonishment and began to do as they were told. The voice went on to promise that if they obeyed, they would be both glad and sad. The perplexed men put a few pebbles each in their pockets and went on their way.
Once upon a time, there was a prince who received a very rare and beautiful bird. He named her Goldie and placed her in a lovely, 14K gold cage. But the poor creature was not impressed by the gold at all. She pleaded for her freedom but the prince loved her much too much to part with her. Still, she continued to beg. In final desperation, she asked that he at least allow her go to her relatives and tell them that, though captive, she was still alive.
This is a story relayed by Corrie Ten Boom, “It was Christmas, 1944. My sister, Betsie, had died. I was in a hospital barracks in Ravensbruck, a Nazi prison camp. Dark it was in my heart, and darkness was around me. There were Christmas trees in the street between the barracks. Dead bodies of prisoners had been thrown under the Christmas trees. I tried to talk to the people around me about Christmas, but they mocked and sneered. At last I kept quiet.
Charles Swindoll wrote about these men who bring in animals from Africa for American zoos. They say that one of the hardest animals to catch there is the ringtailed monkey. For the Zulus of that continent, however, it’s simple. They’ve been catching this agile little animal with ease for years.
When I teach about “understanding the will of God,” I’d like to talk about a story that is told in all the synoptic gospels, except that Luke’s account gives a significant nuance. (Many skeptical Bible “critics” point out differences in the gospels to argue that they can’t be reliable — yet it’s actually the differences that support the validity of these accounts because they reveal that the events recorded were simply experienced and told from slightly different viewpoints, a very common circumstance when people are telling a story.)