THE YEAR OF RELEASE
[p. 165] THE YEAR OF RELEASE
Deuteronomy 14: 22 - 29; Deuteronomy 15: 1,2; Philemon 8 - 20
These scriptures may appear to be far apart and unrelated, but I hope to show that though they are such from a historical point of view, yet they are intimately related, and deal with precisely the same thing, namely, the establishment and maintenance of right relations among the people of God. God would have amongst His people family relationships, not only in name but in immediate and permanent activity.
In mentioning the fact of the family, one is led to think of it as presented in an extensive way through Scripture, it being a primary thought with God, and what is primary with God He cherishes so that from John’s point of view, the immediate and permanent result of the Lord’s becoming flesh was, that a family came into evidence. It says, “He came to his own, and his own received him not”. John 1:11. John sums up the ministry of Christ in the midst of Israel briefly saying, “As many as received him” — there were some who received Him — “to them gave he the right to be children of God”, John 1:11, 12. That is what we are here and now.
In his first epistle, John also says, “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God ... Beloved, now are we the children of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be”, 1 John 3:1, 2. Not only are we accorded the right to take the place of children, but we are called such, we have a known designation — “the children of God”.
Now I wish to speak on these lines, and would seek to show how the family is endowed, so that there should be the means whereby our status and dignity are maintained in this world. The book of Genesis [p. 166] yields more family instruction than any other book in the Old Testament. Deuteronomy corresponds in result. Genesis affords the instruction that bears fruit in Deuteronomy. That is, the people were to go into the land as a family. This chapter (Deuteronomy 14) says, the people were the sons of Jehovah, and then the Spirit of God prescribes their food. We all know the effect of food in the bringing up of children, in the forming of their constitutions, so that the relationships being formally recognised, the food is prescribed.
But prior to all this, there was the original patriarchal influence and example (I trust you will follow my remarks). God had said to Moses, “I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”, Exodus 3:6. These are the patriarchs, and Jacob, the last of them, shines in his true patriarchal instincts, intelligence and energy as he was about to pass off the scene. One refers to him with a peculiar kind of feeling. Our minds last evening were directed to a glorious sunset. Such a sunset is absorbing in its splendour, and I would liken the end of Genesis to a sunset such as was described to us. Jacob hears that Joseph, the object of his tenderest affection, is coming to him; the one upon whom the preservation of the family depended, and it says, “Israel strengthened himself”. Genesis 48:2. There is no evidence that he took a stimulant. The power was in him, he strengthened himself although of advanced age. He rises to the occasion in the energy and power of Israel, and received Joseph, saying, “I had not thought to see thy face”. Genesis 48:11. He also says, “Thy two sons ... shall be mine”. Genesis 48:5. He knew he was going to die, but was in the energy and strength of Israel, and consciously a patriarch. Joseph’s sons were now his sons. And further, he says, I am going to indicate what they are to be. Joseph, on his part, with true parental affection, brings the lads “out from his knees”, Genesis 48:12, and the patriarch blesses them. It says, “Guiding his hands wittingly”, Genesis 48:14, indicating who was to have the first place. (See Genesis 48.)
Now, beloved, this parental designation is not far away from us. It refers to “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom every family in the heavens and on the earth is named”, Ephesians 3:14, 15. The Father names the families, and has given us the first place. Let us accept it. Of all the families named of the Father, the Church has the first place; even so in Israel, we have Joseph instead of Reuben, and Ephraim instead of Manasseh, and Levi taking precedence of all! Who devises such changes? God in His wisdom; and in that wisdom He has selected us to be first — to have a unique place, the one nearest to Christ. We are named of the Father. As Israel, in remarkable intelligence, representing God Himself, designated Ephraim’s greatness and multitudes, in whom the people were to be blessed, so God has designated us in wisdom, and more than wisdom, being “rich in mercy”, and “for his great love”. Ephesians 2:4.
Think of this for a moment: “For his great love, wherewith he loved us, ... hath quickened us together with Christ ... and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus”, Ephesians 2: 4 - 7. And so the apostle goes on, in his own energetic, loving way, to say, “Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God” Ephesians 2:19. That is what we are today. Our heavenly position is designated on account of His great love wherewith He loved us. Who could explain that love? No one. We bow to it, owning it is sovereign. We should rejoice in God’s sovereignty, because of what it means to us. If there is anything that will give impetus to our affections [p. 168] in a coming day, it is the knowledge of the great love of God underlying the position of the church.
Well, Jacob is about to die, and expresses these parental instincts, in view of leaving a family behind him. He says, “Gather yourselves together, and I will tell you what will befall you at the end of days”, Genesis 49: 1. He would have them to know what should happen. They were to represent him, and in doing so to have a great place here; so he says, “I will tell you”. Then he says moreover, “Assemble yourselves, and hear” Genesis 49: 2. That is to say, there is not only the evidence of the mind of God in the great patriarch, but the sons are to hearken to Israel — it is the spiritual side — their father. And then, at the end, it says, “All these are the twelve tribes of Israel, ... and he blessed them: everyone according to his blessing”. Genesis 49:28. In other words, the tribes are set up fully endowed. And as Isaac, in an earlier day, had blessed Jacob, saying, “See, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field” — the field representing rich soil whence income would be derived — so Jacob, according to Isaac’s blessing, was sustained by corn and wine; Genesis 27: 27, 28. The tribes, in like manner, are richly endowed, and Deuteronomy takes that into account.
Moses, the writer of the Pentateuch, was aware of all these things, and in reading those books we should always remember that it is a retrospective view, written by a man who had been forty years in the desert with God and the people; he looks back and records everything from that standpoint. It is only thus we can understand the Pentateuch aright, and so in referring to the family, he says, “Ye are sons of Jehovah” (Deuteronomy 14: 1), not now the sons of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We read in chapter 26, that an Israelite is to come with his basket of firstfruits to Jehovah and say, “A perishing Aramaean was my father”. Deuteronomy 26:5. There is nothing about that in [p. 169] Genesis 48, it does not depict a perishing Aramaean. Jacob is Israel strengthening himself, blessing the tribes, and representing God in so doing, though outwardly in weakness, having gone down to Egypt with a few. Spiritually he was Israel, progenitor of millions (not “a few”) and these are now “sons of Jehovah”.
Well now, the endowment is what will sustain us in our dignity, so the first thing is, what will your property bring in the first year, the third year, and the seventh year. In the seventh year you are so wealthy, spiritually, that you are able to “make a release”. I can only briefly speak upon these three points, and would seek to enlist the interest of everyone here as setting out in his spiritual career.
That career is composed of hours, days, weeks, months, years. You have to wait a year before you can make any definite reckoning as to your acquirements. You may think you have acquirements, but your brethren know differently. You may think you can speak well and attempt to preach, but you have to wait a year in order to make a definite reckoning. It is the tithe of the first year, not of the first quarter, or the first half year that you bring to Jehovah. The inheritance was divided amongst themselves, each man was to have an allotment according to his needs; and now what will you do with it? You must spend a year on it, and a year is a considerable time for a young person. Time passes swiftly with the old, but with the young it is not so swift and so you sow your seed in the Springtime, and you have to wait. “The earth bears fruit of itself”, Mark 4:28 and you are cast on God for it. During all these months between the sowing and the reaping you are cast on Him. Many things may intervene: You have to watch the sky, to look out for weather and be continually on the alert, if you are to have a crop. You say you love God, that is like a crop growing.
[p. 170] Then you look after it all the more because God looks for a tithe. You have to appear before Him and you must not come empty; if you have no crop, how can you bring a tithe?
I speak especially to yearlings. You are to go where God has placed His name with your tithe. You may think you have a fairly good crop, but when you come up to Jerusalem with your tithe and lay it down alongside of others’, you may be very humbled about it. There are comparisons, you see. Here is a man from Beer-sheba. Look at his tithe, see his bag of money; think how many fatlings he can buy and the number of people he can entertain! Consider this brother, he has had a good year, for he has looked after his farm. And even in his youth he takes account of the Levite. Young people are not prone to have respect for the Levites. A Levite is one who will not minister to your natural feelings. He will not recognise your family claims, nor will he appeal to you naturally. But God says, even in your first year, do not forget him. He disregards his father and mother, and has no respect for family feelings when it is a question of his service. You must take him into account, and the more you do so the more you evidence your spirituality.
We now come to the third year: three in Scripture, denotes a complete period. It is completeness as to testimony. Every third year the Israelite who brings his tithe stores it within his gates. His doing so shows that he can be trusted. God does not say to him, You must come up to Jerusalem, for He can trust him to store up in his own gates his tithe. He is not like the man in Luke’s gospel who had no room where to bestow his fruits, and purposed to pull down his barns and build larger, and there to store all his fruits and his goods. That man was not thinking of others at all. He certainly could not be trusted. God says to him, “Fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee”, Luke 12:20. What is going to become of his goods? Whose shall they be? These were given to him to enjoy, not to store up. He did not know whose they should be. Solomon says, the man that comes after may be wise or a fool. (See Ecclesiastes 2:18, 19.) What will the fool do with your goods? Squander them, it may be. So the word here is, “At the end of three years thou shalt bring forth all the tithe of thine increase the same year [all of it], and shalt lay it up within thy gates: and the Levite (because he hath no part nor inheritance with thee), and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, which are within thy gates, shall come, and shall eat and be satisfied; that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the work of thine hand which thou doest”. Deuteronomy 14:28,29. It refers to a “local brother” — to use a familiar expression — whose farm has done well, who has progressed spiritually and has added to his wealth; he has laid it up within his gates, and all the local brethren share it with him. That man can be trusted.
John, in his gospel, contemplates believers that can be trusted. The Lord, indeed, elsewhere, speaks of being faithful in that which is another’s, otherwise who shall give you that which is your own? This is that which is our own. Our spiritual wealth is our proper endowment, and the man who is allowed to store it up within his gates can be trusted. He has already been up to Jerusalem and has measured up with his brethren, and now in the third year he is, in a sense, perfected. The Lord uses the word in regard to Himself, referring to His resurrection; Luke 13: 32. The apostle says in Philippians, “As many as be perfect”, that is, their senses are developed; they are not one-sided but are balanced, and such are to “walk by the same rule”, Philippians 3:15, 16. In the presence of a perfect man “the meeting” does not lack anything. He is wealthy and shares it [p. 172] abundantly with the stranger, fatherless and widow, and especially with the Levite. The Levite is ever in the mind of God, and must ever be in the mind of the saints. He has no inheritance on earth, and so has to be the special care of the spiritual.
Now the seventh year is the year of excess. In that year time Israelite was to make a release. Not only do you show hospitality to your brethren and those who are near to you, but you remove everything that would tend to limitations. I hardly know of anything more pleasurable, in a way, than to be released from what involves bondage. It may be trespass; there is much trespass amongst us. A man who trespasses is obligated to the one against whom he trespasses, but the word here is that you make a release in the seventh year. You are not only “perfect”, but spiritual. You are formed in Ephesian character, and as such are marked by excess. It says, “At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release. And this is the manner of the release: Every creditor that lendeth ought unto his neighbour shall release it; he shall not exact it of his neighbour, or of his brother because it is called the Lord’s release”. Deuteronomy 15:1,2. You are now like God Himself. In the seventh year one is, so to say, entirely on the divine side. You see what God is doing: that He has remitted His claim against every man and woman on earth. “When they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both”, Luke 7: 42. That is God’s attitude; it is His wonderful year of release.
Now the Christian is brought wholly to the divine side, to the release, not of every man, but of the neighbour and the brother (the stranger is not admitted here). So that instead of being in bondage on account of any claim we, as creditors, may have on them, we release them, and they are free to resume their occupations on their lands, and so develop them. A man bound to a creditor can make but little [p. 173] headway, and many of us have suffered on that account. There is no wealth when you are bound to a creditor. Moses said, there shall not be a time when there will be no poor amongst you; the spiritual man therefore opens his hand bountifully to such, for it is “the Lord’s release”.
Now I have read the verses in Philemon because there is a striking correspondence between them and those in Deuteronomy already considered. The apostle Paul is the creditor and Philemon is the debtor. One need have no fear in having a creditor like Paul, because he is a wealthy man; he can write a substantial cheque, sign it with his own hand, and send it by the hand of one who was once a slave. He sends this cheque to his debtor, and says, Philemon, here is an opportunity for you: this young man left you, and is indebted to you, for he was your slave. In the meantime he has been converted; he is now my son, and is a great comfort to me. I would like to keep him, but I would do nothing without your mind, I therefore send him with this cheque, signed by my own hand. If he owes you anything, include that in it — put it to my account but remember, you owe to me yourself also. What I wish to do is to establish brotherly relations between Onesimus and yourself.
Now that is the substance of the letter. It is the spirit of Deuteronomy, perfectly expressed in the beloved apostle. He says, I do not claim this for Onesimus as one having authority. I might so do, but for love’s sake I rather beseech thee “being such an one as Paul the aged”. Philemon 9. That is, he appeals to him on moral grounds, and says, I send this young man, a brother beloved to me, and I wish that he may be so to you. He is so to you, much more than to me, both in the flesh and in the Lord. Philemon, like many of us, required the gracious touch of a spiritual man, so that he might remit his claim; and [p. 174] does it not appeal to you, dear brethren, to remit your claim?
It is “the Lord’s release”, let us then relax our hand from the loan, and in virtue of it, we shall have family circles where there is liberty, where we shall enjoy the affections of brethren beloved, instead of slaves. There is a great deal of misunderstanding and slavish fear amongst us, whereas the year of the Lord’s release would enable us to remove all this by remitting all our claims, so that our brethren should be free and no longer slaves. We are truly free, as born of the free woman, and the Lord would have us to be in the liberty of wealth. Poverty tends to slavery, but spiritual wealth maintains us in practical liberty with one another. May the Lord bless the word!