Restoration

Do you need restoration from God? We live in an age that cries out day and night for the restoration work of God. As the priesthood of Christ, we are to know that there is a pathway to restoration, which we will read about in this week's Sabbath reading portion. Again we see a double title for this week. The two titles are B'har, meaning "on the mount" and B'chukkotai, meaning "In My statutes". Both of these titles have the addition of the Hebrew letter Beth placed before the words of the titles. The letter Beth, means house or family. The picture that this creates for me is of God building a house. That house is being built on the highest mountain of God, and it is a house built out of His Word (which is Jesus), which includes His statutes (see also Isa. 2:1-3). Jesus said: "In My Father's house are many mansions (mone/meno - dwellings, Holy Spirit indwelling believers/abide, endure, to continue, not to perish) ...I go to prepare a place (topos - space marked off from surrounding space, inhabited place, a passage in a book) for you." (Jn. 14:1-4). Jesus said that this truth that He was revealing also served as a guarantee that He would "come again, and receive you to Myself; that where I am , there you may be also." This house is a dwelling place for the Father, the Son, and His people filled with His Holy Spirit of Truth. This house that the Father is building is further described by Paul: "...you are...members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit." (Eph. 2:19-22). So, as we study this Sabbath's reading portion, we can keep in mind that a dwelling in the Spirit is being constructed. Both of these titles include readings from Leviticus, the Book of the priesthood, in chapters 25 and 26. These chapters deal with a very powerful form of restoration called the Jubilee. During the Jubilee year, all losses are cancelled, and all is restored back to the original owner. It is the year of liberty. The foundation for the year of liberty, or the Jubilee, is the Sabbath: "And you shall count seven sabbaths of years for yourself, seven tmes seven years...forty-nine years. Then you shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement you shall make the trumpet to sound throughout all your land. And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you; and each of you shall return to your possession, and each of you shall return to his family. That fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee to you." (Lev. 25:8-11). Jesus, as the Messiah of Israel, identified Himself in the Sabbath and the Jubilee. First of all, He told us that He is the Lord of the Sabbath, the building block of Jubilee, as He added: "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." (Mk. 2:27). The Sabbath is not a legalistic or religious obligation, but a powerful blessing provided by God for His miraculous ways, as Jesus explained to a people who only knew the religious burden of the Sabbath (Jn. 5:17-18). The Word of the LORD to Isaiah was to reveal the truth of the Sabbath: "...call the Sabbath a delight (oneg/anag - pleasant, exquisite delight/delicate, dainty, soft, to be pampered, luxurious, be glad), the holy day of the LORD honorable...Then you shall delight yourself in the LORD; And I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father The mouth of the LORD has spoken." (Isa. 58:13-14). The Sabbath is to be an exquisite delight - what a concept! That delight multiplies times itself (7 x 7) into liberty and total restoration (Jubilee). Jesus announced Himself as the fulfillment of the Jubilee while reading scripture aloud in the synagogue on a Sabbath (Lk. 4:15-19, Isa. 61:1-2a). The year of Jubilee is announced on the Day of Atonement, as mentioned in the above verses. Again we have the connection to Jesus, who is the fulfillment of our atonement (1 Jn. 2:2, 4:10). The Jubilee is a year of return - return to our possession, and return to our family, according to the above verses. To what possession do we return in Jubilee? God says that we are His possession, His treasured possession (Deut, 7:6-7, Ex. 19:1-8, 1 Pet. 2:9). To what family are we to return? God has told us that we belong to His family, and are named by His name (Jn. 1:12, Eph. 3:14-15, Rom. 8:14-17, Rev. 22:4). In the promise of Jubilee, we are guaranteed to return to our possession and family, which is God, not only after our death, but while we are alive, and also when we are changed and caught up to Him at the sound of the trumpet (1 Thess. 4:15-18, 1 Cor. 15:50-57). This last is the ultimate fulfillment of Jubilee. If God can open up heaven for our sake, caught up to Him in this amazing way, there is nothing that is impossible for Him to restore to us. The law of redemption is also given in Lev. 25, by which a loss of land to debt may be redeemed by a kinsman on behalf of the debtor, again bringing restoration. The LORD will use this concept of restoration provided by the law in the Book of the priests in order to restore a devastating loss to His people. First, here is the law as the LORD gave it to Moses: "The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine...and in all the land of your possession you shall grant redemption of the land. If one of your brethren becomes poor (muk - poor, low, depressed, sink down, pine away as in poverty), and has sold some of his possession, and if his redeeming relative comes to redeem it, then he may redeem what his brother sold." (Lev. 25:23-25). This is the law of the Kinsman Redeemer. The LORD used this law to establish the line of David as was told in the Book of Ruth, and ultimately the line of the Messiah, the Son of David, Jesus, who would be born centuries later. Jesus is our Redeemer as well, paying the price to buy back what we sold away, which was our souls, to darkness, sin and resulting death (1 Cor. 7:23, Gal. 4:4-5, Eph. 1:7, Titus 2:11-14, Heb. 9:12). In this week's Sabbath portion, the LORD used the law of the kinsman redeemer to make a prophetic promise of mercy to His people. Jeremiah, whose name means "whom Jehovah has appointed", was not only a prophet, but he was also a priest, born into the priestly line of his father, Hilkiah (meaning "my portion is Jehovah"). They came from one of the cities designated as belonging to the priests, which was Anathoth, meaning "answer to prayer" (see Jer. 1:1). Because the sins of God's people had polluted the land, God sent a mighty enemy, King Nebuchadnezzar of Assyria/Babylon, to lay siege to Jerusalem. This foreign king would eventually conquer Jerusalem and take its inhabitants a thousand miles away back to Babylon. He would also loot and destroy the temple of God. Jeremiah had been warning and prophesying that God would not give Judah the victory over this enemy. The people and their king would go into exile in a foreign land, according to the prophetic Word brought by Jeremiah (Jer. 32:1-5, Jer. 17:4). While Jeremiah was imprisoned by his king because of the prophetic Word that he spoke, his cousin, Hanamel (meaning "God is gracious"/mercy, favor), the son of Jeremiah's uncle, Shallum (meaning recompense, restore, repay, peace, covenant of peace), asked him to redeem his aleph-tav field (see Mt. 13:44) in Anathoth: "...for the rght of inheritance is yours, and the redemption yours; buy it for yourself." (v. 6-12). Jeremiah did exercise his right of redemption under the law, and bought the field. He redeemed the field even knowing, by the prophetic Word which the LORD had given him, that Judah and Jerusalem were about to fall to the Babylonian king. After Jeremiah redeemed the field, the LORD told him the prophetic significance of what he had just done: "Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: 'Take these deeds...and put them in an earthen vessel (see 2 Cor. 4:6-7), that they may last many days.' For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: 'Houses and fields and vineyards shall be possessed again in this land." (Jer. 32:13-15). The redemption of the priest's field became the prophetic promise of the redemption of the land of Israel. Although the people would be exiled, and the land forced into a Sabbath rest of seventy years, the LORD did not leave His people without a promise of restoration. In another of our Sabbath readings, the prophet Amos spoke of the widespread destruction and death that would come upon Israel. Amos was not a priest like Jeremiah, but, instead, was of humble status. He was a herdsman of sheep (noqed - marked with identifying punctures) from Tekoa (root meaning - drive a nail, strike, smite, thrust a weapon), which was near Bethlehem (see Amos 1:1). Although he was from the southern kingdom of Judah, Amos was called by the LORD to prophesy to the northern kingdom of Israel. A priest went before the king of Israel and accused Amos of being a conspirator because he prophesied that the king would be killed, and the people would be led away into captivity (Amos 7:10-11). One of the reasons that the LORD was bringing this catastrophe upon the land and people was because they resented His Sabbaths, His exquisite delights of restoration. They resented the Sabbaths because the Sabbaths interfered with their buying and selling (Amos 8:5-6). Leviticus 26 from this week's Sabbath reading recorded the blessings that would be received for forsaking idols, and observing and honoring the Sabbath, concluding: "I have broken the bands of your yoke and made you walk upright (qommiyut/qum - uprightness, elevation, as a freeman/raise up, arise, establish)." (v. 1-13). The LORD is building a house, and it is a house that inhabits the highest mountain in the Spirit, and is established in His Word (statutes), Jesus. If you would like to know more about what the LORD is building, you can pray with me: "Father in heaven, You are full of grace and mercy to those who love You, and seek You. You call me into Your house, where Jesus, my Kinsman Redeemer, has prepared a place for me. I praise and thank You for Your Sabbaths, made for man, and full of Your restoration glory. Teach me Your Word, and fill me with Your Holy Spirit, so that I can learn and understand Your paths (Ps. 25:4-5). They are paths that will lead me to green pastures of Your righteousness in order to restore my soul (Ps. 23:1-3). I ask this in Jesus' name. AMEN."