This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to hope alive, applying God's word to your daily life. Hi, this is Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up his word to you and allow you to see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today, in Jesus name.
Well, good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's morning Bible study. We are in Leviticus, chapter 25, and we're dealing with. Actually, there was a. It all placed by God in Leviticus to govern what? Well, when you read it, it's called slavery, but it's not slavery in the sense of egyptian slavery, which they would have understood, or the african slave trade, which we would have understood, or maybe the muslim slave trade of the thousands to 15 hundreds. Or the slave trades in Asia that took place in many of the chinese dynasties and the japanese dynasties. It's not the slavery that is perpetual servitude, meaning that a person served another person for their whole life. They were owned by them. It is really what we call today bond slavery or bond servitude. And we have that still in America today. We have. We still have bond servitude today in America. And so I need to explain some things. Economically, I have. I have some economic background, and I went to. I want you to understand that this. So that then when we go to the passage, you'll get it. Two of the freedoms that we have in America today that are. That are very important in regards to keeping us from being enslaved or that allow us to continue to be free. And they are essential freedoms. They're not freedoms that you just kind of know you have and you enjoy, but they're of no real consequence. These are essential, and they're essential because they give you the right to control your life. And those two freedoms are the freedom to own property and the freedom to alienate your labor. Now, the first one, I think, is pretty easy to understand. It is the freedom to take the financial brains that I have made, and buy either land, which is called real property, or products like cars, or. Or resources like gold or silver, or any other thing that you might buy that you can possess, that's called personal property. The right to own real and personal property means I have the right to take what I have been, I've gained, or I've been given, or maybe God has blessed me with and put them into things that I can hang on to, that I can continually possess. The right to own real property is very important because that's the right to own the land that you live on. And in the millennia's past that we've lived in, the right to owner of property has not been a right that many people have had. In fact, in fact, historically speaking, the right to own personal property by common people is a new innovation in world economics. It is something that's not been true in the world for thousands and thousands of years. It's just not something that we have ever really done until, you know, the last couple of centuries, last few centuries. And so that's an important and important freedom that we have. The second freedom we have is the freedom to alienate our labor. And what do you mean by that? Well, we get to, we get to choose to give somebody our work, and they pay us for that work, and we come enter into a contract where we go and say, if you'll pay me this much, I'll work this many hours doing this for you. And that's called the alienation of labor, meaning, I have all my labor, all my efforts that I have in my body right now. I have all these efforts right here. And and however I might be skilled at anything or how much knowledge I have or how much ability I have to create something, that's all summed up in me. And I tell someone, if you'll pay me this much money, I'll. I'll do this. And that's called the alienation of labor. And that is the, that's the ability to take my desires and my will and my resources of myself and make. Make something of them. And by the way, both of those are summed up in energy. Your labor is your physical energy, and then also the resources that you have as far as your land or your property. That is a physical representation of something that I invested in my life in. And it is energy, in fact, the molecules and atoms that are in that, or most of the energy of the universe. So the energy of the universe is literally in the physical creation. And so if I own part of it, then I own that energy that summed up in that little resource. And so understanding, that's implicit. So if I go to a bank and I say, if you give me this much money for me to buy a house, I will pay you this much of my resources each month for the next 30 years so that I can have that house I've entered into a bond slavery, or I become a bond slave to the bank in that I owe them this much of my energy, this much of my resources that I produce each year or each month, in other words, so that I can have this over here or so that I can possess this over here. So it's a trade. It's a trade of my. Might be a trade of the money I have, or it might be the trade of the labor I do to get money. But no matter what it is, it's either. It's either. It's either a trade of my. My actual. My actual physical activity, or it might be a trade of my actual physical possessions, my freedom to own those things, whatever it is, I trade that to the bank for this or that or the other. And oftentimes, we trade it to a credit card company so that we can buy other resources. And how well you do that or how smart you do that or how adept you are at understanding that may decide how long you're going to be in that slavery, to that bank, in that you owe them this money. And if you don't, they're going to come and take what you have the freedom to possess, okay? They're gonna repossess what you have the freedom to possess, but you sold it to them into slavery. Now, that is not perpetual servitude, but it can feel like it if you have put yourself in that position. Now, slavery in the Old Testament was like that, except for in one case, and I'll explain that as we go through it. Verse 25, verse 39. Chapter 25 says this. And if one of your brethren who dwells by you becomes poor and sells himself to you, well, what he's doing is he's notice he's getting money in order to be a servant to that person. Very similar to our job. It's very similar to our banks, except for they don't provide us food and a place to stay. In this situation, there would be a food and a place to stay provided, along with money given to them for what they've done. They've become a slave. You shall not compel him to serve as a slave. And what he's saying is we're not compelling them to perpetual servitude, meaning they're not going to be a slave forever. They're just going to be. They're going to be a bond servant, he says, as. As a hired servant and as a sojourner. He shall be with you and shall serve you until the year of Jubilee, meaning there's going to be a time when he is going to be released from that servitude. He's going to say he's not going to be a servant forever, he's not a perpetual slave, he is going to be a servant of yours. You're going to pay him, you're going to feed him, you're going to, huh, you're going to clothe him, you're going to house him and then at the year of Jubilee he's going to be released from it. Now he can choose to go back into servitude, but that's his, that's his, that's his choice. He says as a hired servant and as a sojourner, he shall be with you and shall serve you until your jubilee and then he shall depart from you, he and his children with him and he shall return to his own family, he shall return to the possessions of. His father's nervous. He's going to get all the stuff that his family head back and so he's going to have need of serving you. He's going to have, he's going to have his possessions back from his father's for they are my servants whom I bought out of the land of Egypt. They shall not be so, the slaves, when he's saying these are my people, you don't own them, but mine, which we are. In fact, Paul says I'm a bond slave of Christ, meaning Christ paid for, paid for something for me and I serve him because of that. What did he pay for? Well, he paid for my eternal life, he paid for my sins and he gave me eternal life and so therefore I am a bond slave to him until, until the year of Jubilee when I become part of his, permanently part of his family as the bride of Christ. Okay? And we're co heirs of Christ anyway now because that is assured that we shall be his bride. He says, for they are my servants. Who says, you shall not rule over him with rigor but you shall fear our God. Meaning? Meaning we're not going to be cruel to them, not going to do things, we're not going to be severe and cruel. You're going to be, you're going to be a good boss, you're going to be a good master, you're going to be a good leader, you're not willing to treat them anybody, he says, and ask for the male and female slaves whom you may have. Will servants. Put the word servant there from the nations that are around you, from them you may by mail and female slaves. Now what God was saying there is you can buy, they're going to be people that are coming through Israel. In fact it was the crossroads from Europe to Africa to Asia. So it was a critical junction of where the nations came together. They're going to be slave traders coming through. If they come through with people from other nations, you can buy them. You can buy and you can purchase them from them because, because they're going to terrible places where perpetual servitude is going to take place. You can buy them, he says, he says, and you may take them as an inheritance for your children after you to inherit them as a possession, they shall be your permanent slaves. So what he was saying was you can take them and keep them as a continual possession. You make them a part. And really what they were doing was they were making them the path of the people of Israel. They were picking them up and especially the children, it says to, he says, but revealing your brethren, the children of Israel, you shall not rule over one another with rigor. You're not going to make them perpetual servants. He says now if a sojourner or stranger close to you becomes rich and one of your brethren who dwells by him becomes poor and he says himself to a stranger or sojourner close to you, these are not people from Israel but these are people who are living in Israel but they're not Hebrews, he says, or to a member of a stranger's family, after he's sold he may be redeemed again. That's that kinsman Redeemer coming to buy you out of that servitude. He says one of his brothers may redeem him or his uncle or his uncle's sons may redeem him or anyone who is near kin to him in his family may redeem him or if he is able to he may be redeemed himself. And then he says thus he shall reckon with him who bought him. The price of his release shall be according to the number of years from the year that he was so to him until the year of Jubilee. Now he's just going to, we're going to pay a price that includes the servants that he's going to provide until the year of Jubilee, which would be every 50th year. So if I sold myself in a slave man year of Jubilee was ten years from now, then I would get a price that would be ten years worth of work. He says, and by the way, we did this all the time. We go into contracts with people to work for them for so many years and they're going to pay us this much money. We've got to share up when they say show up, and we've got to do the work that they say do, and they will provide us the resources that the contract provides. These are the same contracts. He shall be with him as a yearly hired servant and he shall not rule with rigor over him in your sight. And if he is not redeemed in these years, then he shall be released in the year of Jubilee. He and his children with him. For the children of Israel may or are servants to me. They are my servants who by bought out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. Now the only thing that's different between this and then is that today we, we enter into these contracts with financial institutions, basically, and they entered into these contracts with actual human beings. And you say, well, I enter contract with my employer, sure, but we have freedom of work and freedom of labor. And so you don't have to work for an employee unless you've signed a contract and he's giving you a lot of money, and then you may have to pay that money back in order to get out of that contract. You may have to redeem that contract just like they redeemed it. But you enter into a contract. You work for so many years now, if you're in the United States army, air Force, Marines, Navy, you may sign a three, four or five year contract and you're going to be in that contract for that long. If you're, if you're not, they may discharge you for an injury or they may discharge you for acting poorly, but that's not going to annoy to your benefit. And so if you're, if you're in these type of contracts you, you've contracted to make to sell your labor in order that you might gain resources. And the resources is money. And money is just a method of trading, a easier method of trading your labor for resources, food, personal property, real property. And that's what it's all about. Now, the only people that could actually be in slavery on any permanent level in Israel would be the people that were being back from other countries through Israel to be traded in Europe, Asia and Africa. They could be bought. They could be bought and kept. Now that's, there's a reason for that. There's an important reason for that. And that reason was that if you had somebody passing through and you wanted them to be a part of your family, because these people would literally eat and live with you. They were. They were going to be a part of who you were. There weren't giant plantations anywhere. They were. These were people that you would actually take in, and they would be a part of your family. Many of them would become Jews. And as they became Jews, they would literally become part of that family. God gave them the ability to purchase people that were passing through as slaves. He gave them. Gave his people the ability to buy them and make them a part of the jewish people. That you may not totally understand slavery or how these things actually work, but when you're studying and understanding economics, understanding what slavery has been historically, that was a great deal. That was a great deal for those who were. Who were captured as slaves by armies that were fighting battles and taking slaves and selling them all over the world. To be able to pass through Israel and to be able to be bought by an Israelite, a jewish person, and become a part of their family and become a part of the jewish people, well, that was a great blessing, because the jewish people had freedoms. They had laws and rules, and they had a way of life that was, well, very powerful. And when they did it the right way, God blessed them immensely. And when they did it the wrong way, God sold them into slavery because they'd sold themselves. God gave them over to the slavery they had already bought for themselves. And so this is a hard subject to understand, but when you understand economics and when you understand the value of the freedoms that we have, the freedom to on property and the freedom to use our labors as we see fit and sell them as we see fit, you understand the great freedom that we have. And by the way, freedom of speech is important. Freedom of religion is important. Freedom to defend yourself is important. But the freedom to own property and the freedom to alienate my labor are just as important of freedoms as any freedom I have. Because when I have those freedoms, no one controls me. I control myself, and I control my. My future, and I can make decisions based off of that future for myself. That's what makes us free. And so I know this has been somewhat of a. Of a economics and historical Bible study, as it has a biblical Bible study. But I do, as I talk to people in the United States and maybe some people around the world who would watch this Bible study over the years to come, you do need to understand that the greatness of what we have produced in the United States as an economic system is predicated off of personal, individual freedom. Among those, the powerful economic freedoms that we have to own private property, to own real property, meaning to own the land and the places we live, and the ability to choose how we will use our labor is. Is. Is essential to the freedoms and the lifestyle and the economic system that we have created. And so anything that moves to restrict those things are moved or moves by someone else to control you and in some ways, make you their slave as.
You go today, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you, and that he will give you hope and peace. Today, in Jesus name.
