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In this message we want to accomplish several things. Our main point is to teach on the "year of Jubilee" in Old Testament scripture and how it relates prophetically, salvationally, and spiritually to us today. There is nothing in the scripture by accident and there are basically three passages of scripture beyond the ceremonial law that refer to the "year of Jubilee." Two of them are mentioned in the New Testament and it is these passages that we will focus on toward the end of this study.

One cannot understand the festival called the "year of Jubilee" without understanding God's relevance to the number 7 and an Old and New Testament understanding of the Sabbath day.

There are thousands of "sevens" mentioned in scripture. It is a number that is special to God that signifies His perfect work of completion. Even though God could have created the entire universe with one simple command, He chose to create it through six days of work, and -- although He does not tire -- chose to rest on the seventh day, thus teaching us a principle that man needs one day of rest per six working to function, that we are to set aside one day a week as holy unto God where we can rest from our physical labors and have fellowship with God, and laying the ground work for the "Sabbath" principle of the Law. Despite all of the great scholars that have studied the Bible in the past 2,000 years, I do not know of a work or book that you can purchase that lists all of the sevens in scripture. And the main reason for this is that there are so many that a lifetime of study cannot discover all of them! The scriptures reveal God's perfect plan to man and the number that represents "perfect completeness" is found throughout all of scripture!

The concept of a "Sabbath" was established at the Passover in Egypt and commanded under the laws of Moses. The basic concept was that every seventh day was to be a special day of rest and a time of refreshing from the weeks work and physical labor so that the Israelite could be spiritually renewed. There were special sacrifices and ceremonies at the temple for the Sabbath. Under Moses' law, a person could only travel so far on the Sabbath. He could do no physical work of any kind, including cooking or gathering twigs for a fire. If a person went against the Sabbath rules under Moses' law, then like most other trespasses, they were immediately stoned to death!

The regularly scheduled weekly Sabbath was celebrated what to us would be Friday night at sundown to Saturday night at sundown by the Jews. No one has a clue to what day of the week it really was that God rested during creation. There were also "special" Sabbaths that were called during various festivals such as the Passover. These Sabbaths would often fall on other days of the week than the ordinary Sabbath but the same rules applied.

Most Christians have at least heard of the weekly Sabbath. But most are not aware that the weekly and special Sabbath "days" was only a small part of the "Sabbath principle." In Old Testament scripture there were the following "Sabbaths:"

1. A Sabbath of days - the weekly Sabbath

2. A Sabbath of weeks - the seventh week after the Passover was called a "Sabbath week" and was considered holy.

3. A Sabbath of months - the seventh month of the year contained the most spiritual festivals and thus was holy. It was in this month that the Day of Atonement which brought salvation under the law to Israel was celebrated.

4. A Sabbath of years - every seventh year was a holy year and no crops were planted nor farming work performed for an entire year. The people lived off the previous year's blessings and whatever grew up naturally in the fields. The land was given a break for this year and the people were given a break from the hard work of the land. It was a "year of rest."

In the time of the prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah when God allowed the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, to come and destroy Jerusalem and drag the Jews off as captives, there were two main reasons for why God was mad. The first reason was, of course, idolatry. But the second reason was that for 490 years, Israel had been ignoring the "Sabbath of years" and for 490 years they had been planting and reaping as normal on the seventh year. That means that they "owed" God 70 Sabbath years. That's why God allowed Nebuchadnezzar to come and drag them off into Babylon away from the Promised Land and didn't allow them to return until 70 years had gone by -- He was letting the land have it's Sabbath!

5. A Sabbath of Sabbaths - After there had been 7 seven year periods (or 7x7=49 years) then the next year was proclaimed a "year of Jubilee" or a "year of liberty." And the 50th year (the year after the 49th) was holy unto God. Because it followed a Sabbath year, the year of Jubilee was another year of rest for the land (making two in a row). And there were also special laws for this year which is the point of this lesson.

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Before we get to the Year of Jubilee's stipulations, let me pause here and mention that some people today (particularly the denomination known as the "Seventh Day Adventists") get hung up on the Sabbath and teach that we must celebrate the Sabbath day just as they did in the Old Testament on Saturday. Usually their reasoning is "it's in the ten commandments." We celebrate the Sabbath "spiritually" but we are not bound to the ceremonial and sacrificial regulations of the Sabbath day. We do not celebrate the Sabbath day exactly like Moses' law because of the following reasons:

1. While we are commanded in other scriptures of the New Testament to keep the other nine laws of the ten commandments no where after the Day of Pentecost are we commanded to keep the ceremonial aspect of the Sabbath day.

2. If we are commanded to celebrate the actual Sabbath ceremonies, then we must keep all of the Sabbaths listed above, not just the weekly Sabbath.

3. The Apostolic Church did not make keeping the ceremonial law as necessary for membership in the kingdom of God in Acts (see Acts 15).

4. The Seventh Day Adventists are not consistent in their theology because many of them have services on Saturday morning and evening and if they were keeping the true Sabbath, they would have a Friday night service and a Saturday morning service. They also do not keep the sacrifices and ceremonies of the temple Sabbath worship.

5. The scriptures teach that the "Holy Ghost" is the "rest wherein the weary are called to rest" (Isaiah 28:11-12). The Sabbath was to teach us about the Holy Ghost and when you receive the Holy Spirit of God, you have entered into the true "Sabbath of God."

6. The Apostles chose the first day of the week (the day after the Sabbath, Sunday to us) to meet for regular worship partly because it was the day that they discovered the Lord's resurrection and the day that Jesus chose to appear in their midst (see John 20). In obeying the principle that God set forth at Creation, we set aside one day a week to rest physically and to spend in close fellowship with God. We have chosen in America for the most part to follow the leading of the Early Apostolic Church and worship on Sunday. We therefore obey the commandment to "keep the Sabbath and make it holy" by "spending a special day with God each week" and receiving the Holy Ghost and allowing it to operate within our lives!

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For the remainder of this sermon, let's focus on the "Sabbath of Sabbaths" or the Year of Jubilee and learn what principles of the Spirit it teaches us.

The year began with a blast of a trumpet made out of a ram's horn (Leviticus 25:9). We learn from our text that there were three unique stipulations of the "Year of Jubilee."

Since the 49th year was a Sabbath year, that meant that the 50th year, the Year of Jubilee, was the second year of rest in a row. God promised Israel that in the 48th year He would give them enough crops and harvest to survive all three years without work! Therefore the Year of Jubilee was a "year of faith" because Israel had to trust that God would provide for them. To work in this year meant that you were not trusting in the God of Israel's promises but were "trying to make things happen on your own!"

When Joshua and Israel conquered the Promised Land, it was also divided according to the tribes of Israel. These lots were then divided according to families within the tribes. If you ran into debt problems and had to sell your land or your farm, then in the Year of Jubilee, you got it back for free! If you sold it and then died before the year of Jubilee, then the property and it's buildings went back to your children. If you sold the land and then you and all of your family died before the year of Jubilee, then the land became the property of the priests of God. Because of this rule, property was sold according to how close you were to the year of Jubilee. If you bought a piece of property in the 46th year, then that meant that you had less than four years to live on it and work it before it was returned to it's original owners. Therefore land sold for much less in the 46th year than it did in the 3rd year of the Jubilee cycle. Because of this unique rule, everyone always had an inheritance in the land of Promise no matter what happened in life. If daddy made a bad financial decision or some tragedy struck the family, the promise land of God still remained within the family as it was returned in the year of Jubilee. Therefore the Year of Jubilee was a "year of restoration" because all property was returned to it's original owners.

Curiously, the only exception to this rule was if you had sold a house within a walled city. Houses that were within walled cities remained to whomever owned them and was not restored.

Let's say that things got extremely tough financially. You could sell your land and your home. But what if it was really bad? Sometimes in those days people would have to sell their children or wives or even themselves into slavery to other people to pay off their debts. For this reason, the law of Moses had very strict rules for the proper treatment of slaves. But they were still slaves. No matter what the reason, during the year of Jubilee, all Hebrew slaves were set free and their debt was forgiven. There is a huge debate among Bible scholars as whether or not those slaves that chose to be "love slaves" and join themselves to their master forever were released or not during this year. The Bible is not clear in this matter, so we will avoid spending a lot of time on that issue tonight (I personally do not think that they were released and I'll show you why in a moment). The main thing to realize is that because every Hebrew slave, no matter the circumstance and no matter the size of the debt, was released and freed, the year of Jubilee was a "year of forgiveness" and a "year of liberty!"

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Now obviously this applies to us today in Grace somehow, or I wouldn't bother teaching it.

Peter referred to the year of Jubilee in our other text in Acts 3 while preaching to the Jewish leaders. He revealed to us two applications of the year of Jubilee to our lives under Grace. Let's read His words again:

Peter had just been arrested for healing the lame man in the name of Jesus. He is preaching to the very ones that crucified their Messiah, just as he was in Acts chapter 2. I want you to notice verse 19 of the third chapter. Understand that Peter has not changed his message since Acts chapter 2. He is still preaching the same message of salvation that he first preached. What that means is that Acts 3:19 and Acts 2:38 mean the same thing and just use different language to say it. Do you remember what three things that Peter told the crowd that they must do to be saved in Acts 2:38?

The three things that Peter commanded there were "Repentance," "Water Baptism in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins," "and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost." Here in Acts 3:19 a few days later Peter tells his audience that they must do three things: "Repent," "be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, and then "the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord." Peter didn't change his message; he just changed his terminology a little bit! He basically said the same thing:

Repent Repent

be baptized in Jesus' name be converted, that your "sins

for the "remission of your sins." may be blotted out."

ye shall receive the gift of the "the times of refreshing shall come

Holy Ghost from the presence of the Lord."

Some of you are wondering why I am taking all of this time to make this point. The point is that when Peter said "the times of refreshing," he was referring back to the Sabbath of Sabbaths, the Year of Jubilee! The Year of Jubilee was to teach us spiritually what happens when we receive the Holy Ghost and allow it to control our lives! He was quoting an Old Testament prophecy about the Holy Spirit:

In talking about the coming outpouring of the Holy Ghost, God said "this is the rest" and "this is the refreshing!" Understand that there is a double fulfillment of prophecy in this verse. Isaiah was prophesying about the coming Assyrians and Babylonians who spoke "with a strange language" and what to Israel seemed "stammering lips" and who God had sent to cause the land of Israel to HAVE to celebrate the Year of Jubilee by giving the land it's rest.

But unknowingly to Isaiah, he was providing prophecy for Peter to teach on the Holy Ghost because again God was going to use "stammering lips" and "speaking in other tongues" as the initial sign of the infilling of the Holy Ghost and the Holy Ghost was going to be the "spiritual rest!" It was going to be the spiritual "year of Jubilee!" Get the comparison here: when a person receives the Holy Ghost and yields to it, they go from living their lives as they desired ignoring the rest of God and ignoring the freedom of God available to celebrating the year of Jubilee for the rest of their life! When you receive the Holy Ghost, you enter into a rest and a freedom of God! The Old Testament Year of Jubilee was to teach us about the power and freedom of the Holy Ghost!

That is why Jesus stood up in Nazareth on that Sabbath day and read Isaiah 61 which was about the year of Jubilee and then said that He fulfilled the scripture through the Spirit of the Lord that was upon Him:

Jesus had come to "preach the acceptable year of the Lord." And notice that everything that He said the Spirit had sent Him to do coincided perfectly with the Year of Jubilee! But understand something: as far as the calendar was concerned, it was not Moses' year of Jubilee, but Jesus Christ wasn't coming to proclaim the ceremonial law celebration but rather the spiritual meaning and that was for 3 and a half years, it was going to be the "year of Jubilee" through the power of the Spirit upon Him! Poor people were going to be delivered from debt. Spiritual debts and sins were going to be forgiven! Things that people had lost from possessions to hope to love to joy were going to be returned to them! Healing and rest for the weary and the diseased was going to come through the ministry of Jesus Christ! That day, He was proclaiming that a time of forgiveness, a time of restoration and a time of faith was being declared in Israel! The Spirit of God working through the man Christ Jesus was going to fulfill the laws of Jubilee!

And so that's why Peter referred to the same "Year of Jubilee" when he referred to the Holy Ghost! The Holy Ghost was first given on the "Day of Pentecost." "Pentecost" literally means "fifty days" because it was a celebration that took place exactly 50 days after the Passover lamb was killed. In other words, it was the day after 49 (7x7) days had passed since the lamb was slain! It was not accident that the Holy Ghost was given out on a "Day of Jubilee" because when the Spirit of God comes into your life, it proclaims a lifelong "year of Jubilee!" If you will allow the Holy Ghost to continue to minister and change your life, then it brings about the "Jubilee" effects!

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Let me finish this message by preaching to you the Jubilee power of the Holy Ghost! The Holy Ghost proclaims a time of Jubilee in your life because:

1. It brings spiritual rest!

Before you allowed the Holy Ghost to take control, you were trying to make things happen in your life yourself. You were trying to have a good marriage by planting the seeds yourself. You were trying to be happy by doing things yourself. You were ignoring the commands of God to let Him provide you a rest by stopping your efforts and eating what He brought up for you.

You relied on your own ability in life and because you were trusting in "earthly" things, you were never truly satisfied. The reason people need alcohol and drugs is because they know something's missing in their life because either they have never received the Holy Ghost or they are not allowing the Holy Ghost to rule and reign in their life and they are not allowing themselves to stay "filled with the Holy Ghost!" People who do not allow the Holy Ghost to fill them everyday and every way are not happy people. They worry about things and they are always stressed out and they are weary spiritually because they are relying on themselves.

But I'm here to proclaim the "year of Jubilee!" Why doesn't somebody learn to allow the Holy Ghost to be the "refreshing" and the "rest" that God wants to be! If you are tired of reaping bad things, then why don't you surrender complete control to the Holy Ghost!? Let it remove the burden of sin and the yoke of worldliness from your life. Jesus said "come unto me all ye that are heavy laden and I will give you rest." If you are always stressed out and negative and worried and burdened and just can't figure out how you are going to make it, then I'm here to tell you that you are trying to bear life by yourself. You need to allow the Holy Ghost to take some things out and to become your rest! God wants this to be the beginning of the "Year of Jubilee" for someone tonight! But it comes through "faith!" You must be willing to live your life in faith that if you obey God's Word, He will take care of you no matter what the situation looks like! To try to work it out on your own is to plant in the year of Jubilee: it shows that you are not trusting Almighty God!

2. It brings a restoration of things that you have lost.

The Holy Ghost is not just to help you overcome the burden of sin, but it comes to restore to you the things that sin stole from you. Maybe some of you received Godly joy and happiness and power when you received the Holy Ghost but have since lost it! Maybe you feel as if you've lost the sensitivity that you once had toward the things of God or the lost. If that is so, then I'm here to proclaim to you that the Year of Jubilee is the year of restoration! Tonight, you can receive your joy and your happiness back! You can be back as close to God as you were! You can receive your promise back and your sensitivity to the things of God again!

But remember that under the rules of the Year of Jubilee, the houses that were in walled cities were not restored. If you keep the "walls up" between you and God tonight, then you will not have your property restored tonight! Joshua taught us at Jericho that to get the walls down, we must obey the Word of God and we must praise Him! If you want your joy back, then you must praise Him with everything within you! You must decide to obey God's Word completely! You've got to "get real" with God and take the walls down and the masks off and then the Holy Ghost can restore what was lost! It's the Year of Jubilee!

3. It brings freedom and liberty to all those who are bound.

Maybe you've gone back to willful sin. Maybe it's a generational curse that you can't seem to break. Maybe it's the chains of something in the past that are binding you up and causing you to be unable to live for God as you desire inside. I'm here to proclaim that the year of Jubilee is the year of freedom! Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty! It's time to allow the Holy Ghost to move within your life and get the freedom from those things that are keeping you a slave to a lifestyle that leads to destruction! You aren't going to get your freedom simply through a well-versed repentance. You need to surrender to the power of the Holy Ghost and allow it to knock off the chains from your worship, from your mind, from you ability to love in a Godly way!

Remember that I said that I believed that every slave was set free EXCEPT for those who were "love slaves?" Let me tell you why. Because your freedom is dependent upon who you love. If you are in slavery to a particular sin and you love it more than you love the ways of God and Jesus Christ, then the Holy Ghost cannot set you free because you are allowing yourself to love the wrong things. And true love is a choice! You don't fall into "agape" love, but you choose to love that way! It's the Year of Jubilee and you can be set free from any type of slavery and any type of addiction and anything in the past, but you've got to love God and the way of holiness more than you love those things! If you choose to be a "love slave" to your sin, then the Year of Jubilee of the Holy Ghost will not set you free!

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Let me close this message by pointing out the other significance of the Year of Jubilee, the prophetic. Peter mentioned that:

The phrase "until the times of restitution of all things" is another reference to the Year of Jubilee! The Year of Jubilee also has a prophetic meaning in that one day the church of the living God will be restored to it's rightful place with Jesus! A trumpet's going to sound and the Rapture of the church will take place. At that time, we will cease from our laborers in the vineyard of this world and we will be at spiritual rest for eternity! If we have given anything up in sacrifice for living for God, then it will returned and restored to us a "hundred fold!" We will be given a glorified body set free from being slaves to death, hell, and the grave and set free to live for eternity upon a New Heaven and New Earth! When Jesus comes back, it will the "Jubilees of Jubilees!" Some one hold on to the promise! Allow the Holy Ghost to get you the victory and the freedom and the liberty that you need right now so that you are ready for that celebration in the sky!

An old song that we used to sing when I was a kid was called "Heaven's Jubilee." The verses are as follows:

1. Some glad morning we shall see Jesus in the air,

coming after you and me, joy is ours to share;

What rejoicing there will be when the saints shall rise,

Headed for that Jubilee, yonder in the skies!

2. Seems that now I almost see all the sainted dead,

rising for that Jubilee, that is just ahead.

In the twinkling of an eye, changed with them to be,

all the living saints to fly to that Jubilee.

3. When with all that heavenly host we begin to sing,

singing in the Holy Ghost, how the heavens will ring.

Millions there will join that song, with them we shall be

praising Christ through ages long, heaven's jubilee!

The "Jubilees of Jubilees" is right ahead of us, someone let it begin tonight by allowing the Holy Ghost to get you ready!