Exodus 23:10–13

Hey, good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This is where every day you and I, we get together, we have a little bit of coffee, we get into God's Word and we grow in our love for the Lord together. This year, 2023, Lord willing, we'll make it from Genesis through Leviticus. I'm so glad to be with you this morning. Why don't we have some coffee? We'll pray and we'll get into God's Word. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day.
What a blessing it is to follow after you, to walk in your ways. We pray, Lord, that you please help us to understand your word. Help us to live faithfully in the light of what you have said. Let us love you, Lord. Please apply your word to our hearts today in Jesus's name. Amen.
All right, let's go ahead and jump in to the Bible. We're at Exodus chapter 23, just the first nine verses. Exodus 23, the first nine verses. Here we go. You shall not circumcise, or sorry. Try that again. We're not at the first nine verses. We're at verses 10 through 13. Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its produce. But the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow. at the poor that the poor of your land may eat and what they leave the beasts of the field may eat in like manner you shall do with your vineyard as your olive grove six days you shall do your work and on the seventh day you shall rest that your ox and your donkey may rest and the son of your female servant and the stranger may be refreshed And in all that I have said to you, be circumspect and make no mention of the name of other gods, nor let it be heard from your mouth. Well, we need to ask ourselves, A, what's this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do in response to these words, right? So what's this about?
Well, we've already looked at the Ten Commandments, and when we got to the fourth commandment, we had this Sabbath day, right? Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh is the Sabbath unto the Lord your God, in it you shall not do any work. Neither you nor your son or your daughter or your manservant or your maidservant anything that resides within your gates right and then Your ox everything gets it gets it's a break the Lord reiterates that here again for the covenant people But he goes beyond this and the Israelite Calendar and he says it's not just every week It's also once every six years your works six years and then on the seventh year.
I to take a whole year and let the field go fallow. Looking outside my door here or outside my window and looking at a field, I can't imagine it going fallow for a whole year. But what was the point for this? Well, the point was that there would still be stuff that would grow, whatever volunteer plants came up, but that the poor people would be able to come. and they would be able to reap the field. This is a way in which the poor people, one in every seven years, they were able to kind of get a little bit of a leg up, get a blessing, get a gift from their neighbors.
In the book of Leviticus, we're going to get even more instruction, more full picture of what this is. I'm not going to spend a ton of time here because we're going to look at it again later. But the Lord is here saying, right, there's there's this period of rest that you're to give the land. There's this period of rest that's going to be a blessing to the animals and to the to the poor people. That's the whole point of this, right?
Actually, when the Israelites are exiled, they're taken out of of Israel, out of the promised land. Taken to Babylon. The Lord sets the number of years that they are exiled by the number of years that they did not let the land rest. It's one of those interesting things. So the Lord does this, but it's it's really verse 13 that I think is an interesting verse. And in all that I have said to you, be circumspect and make no mention of the name of other gods, nor let it be heard from your mouth.
All of this was meant to show them that it was the Lord who would provide the harvest. It was the Lord who gave them the land. It's the Lord who would bring the water. It's the Lord who would bring them the fertility of the land. It was the Lord who would bring them the harvest. It was the Lord who would provide for them. It was the Lord who would protect them. It was the Lord who was graciously giving them the land flowing with milk and honey. It was his land. He's giving to them. They're not to take the words, the names of other gods on their lips.
There's all sorts of ancient Canaanite myths, right, where people would talk about stories where, you know, Asherah, the goddess of fertility, and she would bring up all the fertility of the land, and Embal, the god of thunder, who would come and bring down the water and they had all these myths about how Baal was almost like a male god and Asherah is like the female fertility god and the two needed to mate to be able to have they had all this stuff all these myths that they was that um maybe this is how how the gods make our fields grow and god seriously knock that off all right when you go into this polytheistic land that's what those canaanites are going to believe You're gonna have all these other gods, all this other junk, and it's not...
That's not how it's gonna go with you. You need to be wise. You know it. Walk circumspectly. I'm the one who's gonna provide for you. I'm the one who's going to care for you. I'm the one giving you the land. So don't take their names upon your lips, right? Don't, don't believe in those stories. Don't pray to them. Don't worship them. Don't, don't, don't, don't get sucked into all that stuff.
It's just me. It's just me guys. So what's the best verse to summarize it? Well, I have verse 13 underlined in my Bible. I have it double underlined in my Bible. I think that's the heart of this passage. How does this apply to us today though, right? What are we called to do? Well, I think this is one of those areas that we need to be careful how it applies to us, but because we're not in the promised land. I'm a Gentile living in Iowa. Now it seems like the promised land of, I mean, the corn's above my head. It's amazing, but It's not the exact same. It's not a one for one. So what's the general equity? What's the principle underlying it?
Do we still remember the poor? Do we still have this idea that there is a place for us to be generous and to be gracious to those? that we can trust that it's okay. When we give to the poor, the Lord's going to provide for us still. If I carve out a part of my budget where I say, no, I'm going to give this to go to people who are less fortunate, the Lord's still going to feed me and that's okay. I can be faithful to him and loving the orphan and the widow and the oppressed. And he'll provide for our family's material needs. And I could take rest in Him.
See, once in every seven years was an act of faith for them. It wasn't a matter of legalistic, like, okay, once in every seven years, but it was a matter of, Lord, I trust you. I trust you with my field. I trust you with my bank account. I trust you with everything I got, Lord. You're the one who gives it to me. And you tell me this is a way that the society gets rest, things get reset. So I'm going to go with your way. I'm going to trust you, Lord.
Seems a little bit odd, difficult for me to understand and do, but I'm going to do it. And that was what was meant to be the heart of the Israelite. And I think that's supposed to be our heart still today. I don't think it was easy. We like to look at Acts chapter 2 and think, oh, they sold all their stuff and they held all things in common. And we think, oh man, that was so cool. That was an act of faith.
I was going back to these principles of, they started to trust in the Lord and looking around and saying, man, there are people hurting and we need to love them. We need to care for these old ladies around us. These people have been neglected and used and abused. We can care for these ladies. We can care for these poor people amongst us. I don't need that field. I'll go. I'll go ahead and sell that field. I'll give it to the poor. And that's what Anna and I, since the fire was supposed to do.
They were supposed to do that of faith, and they decided to do it out of their own greed and wanting of pride and approval. You can go look at the Acts passage to go study that. But the point being with all of this is that do we have that same faith? Do we trust him? Do we desire mercy? I don't think that this Sabbath, these six years, still apply to us in the same way today.
I think these are part of the ceremonial laws that Jesus Christ fulfilled. Go read the Book of Galatians and you can see that for yourself. We covered that last year in Coffee and Devotions. Part of these are ceremonial laws that we don't live in the kingdom. But the principles behind it, oh yeah, they still apply.
They're still the law of love and rest. and trust faith in God that he's our Lord and will provide for us. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day. We pray, Lord, that we would trust in you, that we would rest in you, that we would know our eternal Sabbath is in Jesus Christ. Lord, we pray that you would please care for us and let us walk in your ways. In Jesus's name, amen. Well, may the grace of Jesus Christ, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you today. And may you take delight in bringing glory to your Father in heaven.
I'll see you tomorrow. Bye. Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.