Angelic Conflict part 158: Human history (Sabbath) – Heb 4:9; Eze 20:18-39; 16:15-22; Amo 8:4-8; Lev 25:1-7; Deu 15:1-18; 31:10-13.

Title: Angelic Conflict part 158: Human history (Sabbath) - HEB 4:9; EZE 20:18-39; 16:15-22; AMO 8:4-8; LEV 25:1-7; DEU 15:1-18; 31:10-13.  

 

EZE 20:28 "When I had brought them into the land which I swore to give to them, then they saw every high hill and every leafy tree, and they offered there their sacrifices, and there they presented the provocation of their offering. There also they made their soothing aroma, and there they poured out their libations.

 

Verse 28 is the indictment to the generation that did enter the Promised Land. They continued to worship idols and acted treacherously towards the Lord.

 

EZE 16:15 "But you trusted in your beauty and played the harlot because of your fame, and you poured out your harlotries on every passer-by who might be willing.

 

EZE 16:16 "And you took some of your clothes, made for yourself high places of various colors, and played the harlot on them, which should never come about nor happen.

 

EZE 16:17 "You also took your beautiful jewels made of My gold and of My silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself male images that you might play the harlot with them.

 

It is insanity to take an object that God has made and worship it as God in the place of Him.

 

EZE 16:18 "Then you took your embroidered cloth and covered them, and offered My oil and My incense before them.

 

EZE 16:19 "Also My bread which I gave you, fine flour, oil, and honey with which I fed you, you would offer before them for a soothing aroma; so it happened," declares the Lord God.

 

EZE 16:20 "Moreover, you took your sons and daughters whom you had borne to Me, and you sacrificed them to idols to be devoured. Were your harlotries so small a matter?

 

EZE 16:21 "You slaughtered My children, and offered them up to idols by causing them to pass through the fire.

 

EZE 16:22 "And besides all your abominations and harlotries you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare and squirming in your blood.

Never forget what God has delivered you from.

 

[back to]

EZE 20:29 "Then I said to them, 'What is the high place to which you go?' So its name is called Bamah [Height] to this day."'

 

In this time, almost 1000 years after the Exodus, the practices of idol worship were still amongst God’s people. As their neighbors did, they worshipped their idols with animal sacrifices, child sacrifices, offerings of bread and incense up on a hill. They did not try to hide it but did so right under God’s nose.

 

EZE 20:30 "Therefore, say to the house of Israel, 'Thus says the Lord God," Will you defile yourselves after the manner of your fathers and play the harlot after their detestable things?

 

EZE 20:31 "And when you offer your gifts, when you cause your sons to pass through the fire, you are defiling yourselves with all your idols to this day. And shall I be inquired of by you, O house of Israel? As I live," declares the Lord God, "I will not be inquired of by you.

 

Back to the original inquiry or questioning of God. Even if they were good men they could not inquire of God, but seeing that they are like the Exodus in their idolatry and lack of faith, it follows with greater reason that they are way out of line inquiring about God.

 

EZE 20:32 "And what comes into your mind will not come about, when you say: 'We will be like the nations, like the tribes of the lands, serving wood and stone.'

 

They refused sanctification (being set apart as God’s people), which the Sabbath was a sign of, and wanted to be like others.

 

EZE 20:33 "As I live," declares the Lord God, "surely with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with wrath poured out, I shall be king over you.

 

Whether in pleasant circumstances of blessing or in the intensity of discipline God will accomplish His good pleasure.

 

This again shows the faithfulness of God. He is king, will be king, and He will not abandon His people. That doesn’t mean He won’t be disciplining them even to the sin unto death. Therefore the misery of the negative believer is such a waste of time. He only hurts himself and doesn’t change the program of God by so much as a fraction of a millimeter.

 

EZE 20:34 "And I shall bring you out from the peoples and gather you from the lands where you are scattered, with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with wrath poured out;

 

EZE 20:35 and I shall bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I shall enter into judgment with you face to face.

 

EZE 20:36 "As I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will enter into judgment with you," declares the Lord God.

 

EZE 20:37 "And I shall make you pass under the rod, and I shall bring you into the bond of the covenant;

 

EZE 20:38 and I shall purge from you the rebels and those who transgress against Me; I shall bring them out of the land where they sojourn, but they will not enter the land of Israel. Thus you will know that I am the Lord.

 

EZE 20:39 "As for you, O house of Israel," thus says the Lord God, "Go, serve everyone his idols; but later, you will surely listen to Me, and My holy name you will profane no longer with your gifts and with your idols.

 

However, like any observance given to man by God, man turned the Sabbath into a ritual without meaning or reality.

 

AMO 8:4 Hear this, you who trample the needy, to do away with the humble of the land,

 

AMO 8:5 saying,

"When will the new moon be over,

So that we may sell grain,

And the sabbath, that we may open the wheat market,

To make the bushel smaller and the shekel bigger,

And to cheat with dishonest scales,

 

AMO 8:6 So as to buy the helpless for money

And the needy for a pair of sandals,

And that we may sell the refuse of the wheat?"

 

AMO 8:7 The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob,

"Indeed, I will never forget any of their deeds.

 

AMO 8:8 "Because of this will not the land quake

And everyone who dwells in it mourn?

Indeed, all of it will rise up like the Nile,

And it will be tossed about,

And subside like the Nile of Egypt.

 

The Day of Atonement was a Sabbath day, as was the feasts of trumpets and booths.

 

LEV 16:30 for it is on this day that atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you; you shall be clean from all your sins before the Lord.

 

LEV 16:31 It is to be a sabbath of solemn rest for you, that you may humble your souls; it is a permanent statute.

 

There was also to be a Sabbath year for the land: Every seventh year the land was to rest.

 

There was not to be any pruning, plowing, sowing, gathering, or harvesting. And although they failed to do this out of greed the land would get its rest. God will accomplish all His good pleasure and the Judah will end up in 70 years of captivity for failing to observe this statute.

 

LEV 25:1 The Lord then spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai, saying,

 

LEV 25:2 "Speak to the sons of Israel, and say to them, 'When you come into the land which I shall give you, then the land shall have a sabbath to the Lord.

 

LEV 25:3 'Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its crop,

 

LEV 25:4 but during the seventh year the land shall have a sabbath rest, a sabbath to the Lord; you shall not sow your field nor prune your vineyard.

 

LEV 25:5 'Your harvest's aftergrowth you shall not reap, and your grapes of untrimmed vines you shall not gather; the land shall have a sabbatical year.

 

LEV 25:6 'And all of you shall have the sabbath products of the land for food [natural growth without tilling or sowing]; yourself, and your male and female slaves, and your hired man and your foreign resident, those who live as aliens with you.

 

LEV 25:7 'Even your cattle and the animals that are in your land shall have all its crops to eat.

 

On the Sabbath year one was to remit all debt and free all slaves.

 

DEU 15:1 "At the end of every seven years you shall grant a remission of debts.

 

DEU 15:2 And this is the manner of remission: every creditor shall release what he has loaned to his neighbor; he shall not exact it of his neighbor and his brother, because the Lord's remission has been proclaimed [forgiveness of all sin].

 

DEU 15:3 From a foreigner you may exact it, but your hand shall release whatever of yours is with your brother.

 

DEU 15:4 However, there shall be no poor among you, since the Lord will surely bless you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess,

 

DEU 15:5 if only you listen obediently to the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all this commandment which I am commanding you today.

 

DEU 15:6 For the Lord your God shall bless you as He has promised you, and you will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow; and you will rule over many nations, but they will not rule over you [captivity or loss of sovereignty].

 

DEU 15:7 "If there is a poor man with you, one of your brothers, in any of your towns in your land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand from your poor brother;

 

DEU 15:8 but you shall freely open your hand to him, and shall generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks.

 

DEU 15:9 Beware, lest there is a base thought in your heart, saying, 'The seventh year, the year of remission, is near,' and your eye is hostile toward your poor brother, and you give him nothing; then he may cry to the Lord against you, and it will be a sin in you.

 

DEU 15:10 You shall generously give to him, and your heart shall not be grieved when you give to him, because for this thing the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all your undertakings.

 

Enjoying God's rest makes a gracious heart since such a one does not fear loss, knows God will provide graciously, and rejoices to act as God does in grace.

 

DEU 15:11 For the poor will never cease to be in the land; therefore I command you, saying, 'You shall freely open your hand to your brother, to your needy and poor in your land.'

 

DEU 15:12 "If your kinsman, a Hebrew man or woman, is sold to you, then he shall serve you six years, but in the seventh year you shall set him free.

 

DEU 15:13 And when you set him free, you shall not send him away empty-handed.

 

DEU 15:14 You shall furnish him liberally from your flock and from your threshing floor and from your wine vat; you shall give to him as the Lord your God has blessed you [i.e. God gave it to you in the first place].

 

DEU 15:15 And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this today.

 

DEU 15:16 And it shall come about if he says to you, 'I will not go out from you,' because he loves you and your household, since he fares well with you;

 

DEU 15:17 then you shall take an awl and pierce it through his ear into the door, and he shall be your servant forever. And also you shall do likewise to your maidservant.

 

DEU 15:18 It shall not seem hard to you when you set him free, for he has given you six years with double the service of a hired man; so the Lord your God will bless you in whatever you do.

 

All remission and freeing of slaves was finalized at the end of the seventh year at the feast of booths and the Law was read aloud.

 

DEU 31:10 Then Moses commanded them, saying, "At the end of every seven years, at the time of the year of remission of debts, at the Feast of Booths,

 

Feast of BoothsTabernacles: last feast; 8 days; end of the harvest and so it signified a time of rest looking back to release from Egypt and forward to the Millennial rest of Israel.

 

All Israel were to live in booths or shelters of interlaced branches as they did when they journeyed through the wilderness during the Exodus, and the Law was read, which included the recorded failures of the Exodus. Though they lived in shelters the harvest was all brought in and finished, making some to term this time the feast of ingathering. Every Feast of Booths that was on a Sabbatical year was to have a special joy since all debt was remitted and all slaves set free. Greed robbed many of them of this joy.

 

The first day of the eight was a Sabbath day so therefore no secular work was to be done. However, every male of age in Israel was to bring offerings to the house of the Lord.

 

LEV 23:40

'Now on the first day you shall take for yourselves the foliage of beautiful trees, palm branches and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days.

 

I add this because according to the crazy rabbis, Sadducees, and Pharisees this would have been condemned as work. This was to symbolize God's deliverance from the tabernacles of the wilderness to the land flowing with milk and honey. Therefore, they were to rest and rejoice in God's deliverance.

 

DEU 31:11 when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God at the place which He will choose, you shall read this law in front of all Israel in their hearing.

 

DEU 31:12 Assemble the people, the men and the women and children and the alien who is in your town, in order that they may hear and learn and fear the Lord your God, and be careful to observe all the words of this law.

 

DEU 31:13 And their children, who have not known, will hear and learn to fear the Lord your God, as long as you live on the land which you are about to cross the Jordan to possess."

 

The Sabbatical year avoided consistent tilling of the land which is healthy for crops but more importantly it stressed the spiritual need of graciousness and trust in God.

 

One actually wouldn't need slaves on the Sabbath year since there was no work to do. They were to eat what grew on the land naturally, which the Lord would obviously bless and so there was no need for collecting debts. It was a sign to them of the finished work of God and that their own debt to God was forgiven in the Messiah. Remit, rest, restore and rejoice!

 

To have not sown, pruned, or reaped and to still be provided for, both man, slave, and beast, was to show that God was the One that really provided.

 

As we might expect, the majority did not observe the Sabbath year out of greed and so God had to force a Sabbath rest for the land.

 

JER 34:8 The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people who were in Jerusalem to proclaim release to them:

 

JER 34:9 that each man should set free his male servant and each man his female servant, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman; so that no one should keep them, a Jew his brother, in bondage.

 

JER 34:10 And all the officials and all the people obeyed, who had entered into the covenant that each man should set free his male servant and each man his female servant, so that no one should keep them any longer in bondage; they obeyed, and set them free.

 

JER 34:11 But afterward they turned around and took back the male servants and the female servants, whom they had set free, and brought them into subjection for male servants and for female servants.

 

JER 34:12 Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,

 

JER 34:13 "Thus says the Lord God of Israel, 'I made a covenant with your forefathers in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, saying,

 

JER 34:14 "At the end of seven years each of you shall set free his Hebrew brother, who has been sold to you and has served you six years, you shall send him out free from you; but your forefathers did not obey Me, or incline their ear to Me.

 

JER 34:15 "Although recently you had turned and done what is right in My sight, each man proclaiming release to his neighbor, and you had made a covenant before Me in the house which is called by My name.

 

JER 34:16 "Yet you turned and profaned My name, and each man took back his male servant and each man his female servant, whom you had set free according to their desire, and you brought them into subjection to be your male servants and female servants."'

 

JER 34:17 "Therefore thus says the Lord, 'You have not obeyed Me in proclaiming release each man to his brother, and each man to his neighbor. Behold, I am proclaiming a release to you,' declares the Lord, 'to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine; and I will make you a terror to all the kingdoms of the earth.