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God Will Richly Bless You
God Will Richly Bless You Deuteronomy 15:1-23 Key Verse: 15:4 “However, there need be no poor people among you, for in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you, if only you fully obey the Lord your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today.” In last week’s passage, Moses reminded the people that they needed to live like a people set aside as holy to the Lord. They were not free just to live anyway they chose because their life as a community of believers in the one true God was supposed to reveal God to all the people living around them. Therefore, God instructed them not to eat certain foods and at least once a year they were to appear before Him, together with their families, and present a tithe of all their grain, new wine, olive oil and the first born of their herds and flocks. Presenting this tithe was to be a time of rejoicing before the Lord for everything He had bless them with throughout the year. By doing these two things, the would clearly show that they were not like the other people and God’s glory would be revealed through them. Likewise, as Christians we should also live lives that are set apart as holy for God. We should not live like the ordinary people of the world, rather we should live as forgiven sinners who no longer live for ourselves, but as children of God who are set apart to do the work of God in this generation. In short, our holy lives should be seen by those around us and God’s glory and goodness should be revealed through us. Today’s passage can be broken down into three major parts: 1) a year for cancelling debts, 2) freeing servants and 3) presenting the firstborn of the livestock before the Lord. On first reading this passage, we might think that these three things have absolutely nothing to do with us in today’s society. However, if we carefully reflect on this passage we can see that in many ways, they all point us to Jesus, our savior and the author and perfecter of our faith. May God help us to study this passage knowing that all scripture must lead us to Jesus, the word who became flesh. First set aside the seventh year as a year for canceling debts. (1-11) Let’s look at verses 1 & 2. “At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. This is how it is to be done: Every creditor shall cancel any loan they have made to a fellow Israelite. They shall not require payment from anyone among their own people, because the Lord’s time for canceling debts has been proclaimed.” In today’s society, it is almost impossible to imagine that such a decree was ever issued, and yet it was. In fact, after seven of these periods a year of jubilee was to be declared where even more was required of the Israelites. They had to return all the land of the inheritance to the family who originally owned it. Technically this would mean that no family in Israel would ever be without land that they could call their own. This was another way that God found to help keep all Israelites out of absolute poverty. However, in this passage we are not thinking about the year of the jubilee, we are just thinking about every seventh year. As we studied last time the Israelites were to live holy lives that were set apart to reveal the glory of God to the nations living around them. In order to do this, they had to love and take care of each other. They shouldn’t be taking advantage of each other just to get rich and acquire great wealth. God wanted the Israelites to treat each other fairly. In order to do this, God gave the Israelites several laws that were different for an Israelite dealing with a fellow Israelite and an Israelite dealing with a person from one of the nations living around them. A few examples of this are, Israelites were not to charge each other interest for any type of loan. Deuteronomy 23:19-20 says, “Do not charge a fellow Israelite interest, whether on money or food or anything else that may earn interest. You may charge a foreigner interest, but not a fellow Israelite, so that the Lord your God may bless you in everything you put your hand to in the land you are entering to possess.” Israelites were permitted to eat anything found dead, but they were free to give such animals to foreigners to eat Deuteronomy 14:21 says, “Do not eat anything you find already dead. You may give it to the foreigner residing in any of your towns, and they may eat it, or you may sell it to any other foreigner. But you are a people holy to the Lord your God. Finally, two points from today’s passage are 1) they must cancel the debts of all of their fellow Israelites in the seventh year of that debt, and 2) they were to free all of their Israelite servants after seven years of service. Neither of these laws applied to foreigners. It is important to keep in mind that God gave the Israelites these laws so that their lives as a community would reflect God’s glory. Remember God chose them out of all people on the face of the earth to be his treasured possession and a kingdom of priest and holy nation. This means that God chose them to reveal Himself to the world. This meant that they had to make sure that the whole community was doing well. If there was great poverty mixed with great wealth throughout the Israelite community, they would be no different from any other community on the face of the Earth. Therefore, God gave them special commands for dealing with each other that would prevent this from happening in their community. Verse 3, says that they could require payments forever for foreigners who they had loaned money to and they could continue collecting interest from those loans. However, any loan made to an Israelite could only last for seven years and they were not to charge any interest on these loans. God provided the Israelites a way to make wealth off foreigners, while at the same time helping them to practice compassion for their fellow people. Let’s turn now to our key verses. “However, there need be no poor people among you, for in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you, if only you fully obey the Lord your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today.” As I mentioned before, the reason God gave them this command was so that their would be no extremely poor and suffering people among His chosen people. If there were such people living among the Israelites what would be shown to the nations of the world. It would show the world that God couldn’t take care of all His people. This had to be avoided at all costs. Therefore, God gave them laws like this to help keep the division of wealth somewhat stable. But God wasn’t just relying on the goodness of the Israelites hearts in this, He also provided them with an incentive for doing this. The incentive is found in verse 5. “…he will richly bless you, if only you fully obey the Lord your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today.” Because of the fall, sinful man’s heart is corrupt. Sinful man thinks only about how satisfy their own sinful desires – we don’t think about pleasing God, or our fellow human beings. God knew this so encourage them to obey this command by promising His rich blessing if they did so. His blessing would be so great upon them that they would lend to many nations, but they would borrow from none. This would enable the Israelites to greatly increase their material wealth, because those loans to other nations could charge interest and they would never have to be cancelled. In order for this to happen though, they had to keep God’s command about the treatment of their fellow Israelites. Verses 7 – 11 remind the Israelites that they are to be generous and open handed toward their fellow Israelites, especially those in need. Look at verses 7 & 8. “If anyone is poor among your fellow Israelites in any of the towns of the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them. Rather, be openhanded and freely lend them whatever they need.” Lend them whatever they need – and remember don’t charge them any interest. Verse 9 says that they shouldn’t keep any wicked thoughts about the coming of the seventh year and force those Israelites to pay back what they owed. They were to let the person pay back only what they could and when the end of the seventh year came they were to generously cancel that debt with no bad feelings in their hearts. In verse 10 God reminds the Israelites that being generous to the poor among them would bring about God’s abundant blessing on the whole nation. Now many Christians today think that this entire passage (not just this section) has nothing to do with how we should live today. But is that true? Is that what Jesus taught? I don’t think so. Jesus came specifically to help the poor, and those who were burdened by all sorts of things. Jesus didn’t neglect the rich – He ate with Pharisees often and spoke to them whenever they came to talk with Him (think of Nicodemus and the rich young ruler). Yet, Jesus spent most of his time among the common people who were struggling just to survive in that harsh Roman world. More than that, Jesus paid a lot of attention to the sick, the lame, the demon possessed, the blind and the deaf. These were people who would have been desperately poor at that time. He generously and with a heart full of love took care of all their needs and healed them. He never ignored them. He also taught His disciples to do the same. If you turn to acts chapter 4:32-36, you can see a wonderful picture of the early Christian church and how they all took care of one another so that “there was no needy persons among them.” (Acts 4:34) Likewise I believe that God has called us to live the same generous and giving life among each other today. If we do this, the people around us will see this and they will want to be a part of God’s special community that takes of each other. I think Jesus goes even farther in His teaching on being generous. In Luke 10, He gives the Pharisees and us the parable of the good Samaritan. I’m sure you are all aware of this parable, but the point is the Samaritan had pity on the man who was in desperate need. He not only bandaged his wounds, but he generously to him to a hotel and paid for him to recover there. The Samaritan also promised to pay the inn keeper back for any other expenses that may come up while the Samaritan continued his journey. The good Samaritan understood what Jesus heart was toward the poor and the needy and we must learn this heart among all people today. Second, free your servants at the end of every seven years. (12-18) This portion of the passage really doesn’t seem to have any relevance to our society today, because the word for servant here really means a slave. These servants were not paid by their masters. Their masters took care of them and fed them, but the servants had no rights – they were the slaves of their masters. None of us today own slaves, why do we need to know this law about setting them free after seven years. I think there are two very important reasons. The first I have already discussed. This law only applied to Israelite servants. The Israelites could keep a foreign servant as long as they liked, but their fellow Israelites were to be set free after seven years. Again, this would show the nations living around them that they were different from other people and they treated their own people as special. The second reason can be found in verse 15. Look at this verse. “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you. That is why I give you this command today.” The Israelites had been slaves and God, in His one-sided grace and mercy, set them free from that bondage. He called all the free Israelites to be His people. They were no longer slaves, but free because He made them free. Down through the generations God wanted the Israelites never to forget this. This same idea applies to us today in Jesus. We were all slaves of sin in our own little Egypts and there was nothing that we could do about it. Yet God, in His one-sided grace freed us from that bondage to sin by giving us His one and only Son Jesus. Like the Israelites we must never forget this. We also must remember, that not only freed each of us, but He freed the entire Christian community and we must treat each of them with the same respect and dignity that these Israelites were to treat their fellow Israelites. Third, offer the firstborn males among your animals. (19-23) Once again we have a part of God’s law that no longer seems to be relevant for us today. I don’t think any of us in this room have any cows or sheep giving birth, and we certainly couldn’t take them to Jerusalem to present them before the Lord if we did. However, the principles that we can learn from this regulation are still important for us today. Last week we thought about the about the principle of the tithe being brought before the Lord at His designated place. We also thought about how we view this tithe and giving it has changed over the years. For the Israelites the offer of the tithe was supposed to be a time of feasting and rejoicing before the Lord. In today’s church, sadly, people don’t often associate presenting a tithe to the Lord as a time of rejoicing before the Lord. It should be, because it should be a time to remind ourselves of all the wonderful blessings God has poured out on us. Today’s passage, goes even farther than the tithe. It requires the Israelites to bring all the first born male animals before the Lord and offer them to Him. This could easily be more than 10 percent, especially for a young household just getting started. This time I think there were three main reasons God wanted them to do this. The first reason, is again to set them apart as a people holy to the Lord because none of the other nations living around them would do this. The second reason, was to be a constant reminder to them what happened on the night of the Passover in Egypt. That night, the angel that God sent, did not only kill the human first born males, but He killed the first-born males of the livestock as well. And the third reason for them and their families to come before the Lord, eat and rejoice before Him for all the blessing He had bestowed upon His people. The three topics covered in today’s passage don’t seem to apply to Christians today, but they have deep spiritual meaning that should help us to understand who God is, remember what He has done for us, how He wants us to treat other people, and rejoice always before Him because He has pour out such tremendous blessings on us all. As we struggle through this life day in and day out, it is very easy to forget these things, this is why daily Bible reading, study and prayer are so important in our Christian life. God’s principles never change. He is waiting and wants to richly bless His people, but we must remember what He has already done for us and obey His commands and decrees so that He can do this for us. |
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