This podcast is designed to help you better understand the Word of God — both the Old and New Testaments. The Old Testament is the story of the Covenant which God made with His chosen people Israel. And the New Testament is the story of the Cross which signifies the fulfillment of the Old Covenant with Israel and the formation of a New Covenant with redeemed people from many nations.
Today’s passage of Scripture is Leviticus 25:8-10 which reads: “And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.”
Today’s quote about the Bible is from Millar Burrows. He said: “What we really need, after all, is not to defend the Bible but to understand it.”
Our topic for today is titled “Making a Nation Out of a Mob (Part 3)” from the book, “The Promise and the Blessing” by Dr. Michael A. Harbin.
The Law as a Socioeconomic System
As a socioeconomic system, the Law served both to put restrictions on greed and to provide a safety net for the disadvantaged. Israel would be an agricultural society, and the land God was giving them would be the source of wealth. As such, the land could not be sold. Rather, it could be leased, with the lease lasting up to forty-nine years. At that point, the Jubilee year, the land reverted to the family that had originally received it from God after the conquest. In addition to retaining the source of wealth within the family, this practice served to remind the people from whom they had received the land in the first place.
Everyone was to depend on God. To encourage such dependence, every seventh year the people were to refrain from sowing crops, a custom that obliged the people to trust God to meet their needs. This seventh or Sabbath year was also a time when the poor (usually understood as the widow, orphan, or stranger) would be able to harvest from whatever grew “voluntarily,” whether in the field or in the orchard.
Ancient Israel was not a leveraged society like ours. Usually people borrowed money only in extremely adverse circumstances. As such, it was the poor who had to do so. Consequently, money was to be loaned to poor people generously and without interest.
Later these laws would be amplified to give further specifics. For example, farmers were told to allow for gleaners to go through their fields after the harvest to gather produce that had been missed. Also there was provision for destitute people to “sell” themselves into indentured servitude for a period of six years.
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Daniel Whyte III has spoken in meetings across the United States and in over twenty-five foreign countries. He is the author of over forty books. He is also the president of Gospel Light Society International, a worldwide evangelistic ministry that reaches thousands with the Gospel each week, as well as president of Torch Ministries International, a Christian literature ministry which publishes a monthly magazine called The Torch Leader. He is heard by thousands each week on his radio broadcasts/podcasts, which include: The Prayer Motivator Devotional, The Prayer Motivator Minute, as well as Gospel Light Minute X, the Gospel Light Minute, the Sunday Evening Evangelistic Message, the Prophet Daniel’s Report, the Second Coming Watch Update and the Soul-Winning Motivator, among others. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Theology from Bethany Divinity College, a Bachelor’s degree in Religion from Texas Wesleyan University, a Master’s degree in Religion, a Master of Divinity degree, and a Master of Theology degree from Liberty University School of Divinity. He has been married to the former Meriqua Althea Dixon, of Christiana, Jamaica for over twenty-seven years. God has blessed their union with seven children. Find out more at www.danielwhyte3.com. Follow Daniel Whyte III on Twitter @prophetdaniel3 or on Facebook.
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