Jubilee

Here’s something you might not know: the word jubilee comes from the Hebrew word yobel, which means “ram’s horn trumpet.” If you’ve ever celebrated the Jewish New Year, it’s possible you've heard a ram’s horn trumpet played to mark the jubilee. In Judaism, the Jubilee Year is a year of freedom from enslavement which is celebrated every fifty years. But that horn gets played every year. What’s a jubilee without a ram’s horn trumpet?

A jubilee is the celebration of the anniversary of a special event, or it’s the anniversary itself. Which basically means it’s a birthday party.
 

The Jubilee is the year at the end of seven cycles of shmita (Sabbatical years), and according to Biblical regulations had a special impact on the ownership and management of land in the Land of Israel; there is some debate whether it was the 49th year (the last year of seven sabbatical cycles, referred to as the Sabbath's Sabbath), or whether it was the following (50th) year. Jubilee deals largely with land, property, and property rights. According to Leviticus, slaves and prisoners would be freed, debts would be forgiven, and the mercies of God would be particularly manifest. Leviticus 25:8-13

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[1 John 2:15-17 NIV]
15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. 16 For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.

"What Are You Willing To Let Keep You Out Of Heaven?"
by David Padfield

The Lust of the Flesh
Most of the time the word "lust" is used in a negative sense in New Testament passages like these: "But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts" (Rom. 13:14). "I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh" (Gal. 5:16). "For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error" (2 Pet. 2:18).

The "lust of the flesh" then is an evil desire for the things of the flesh. The first thing that usually comes to mind is adultery and fornication. "Adultery" is usually used in the Bible to describe all illicit sexual relations between one or more married individuals. "Fornication" is a rather broad term used to describe any illicit sexual conduct, including pre-marital sex or even homosexuality. Adultery and fornication are both "works of the flesh" (Gal. 5:19), and as such will keep those guilty out of heaven.

God designed marriage to keep people from sexual sins (1 Cor. 7:1-5). The marital bed is holy. The Hebrew writer tells us that "Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge" (Heb. 13:4). This marital union is so sacred that God has only allowed one reason for a person to divorce their spouse and marry another, i.e., sexual immorality. Jesus plainly said, "whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery" (Matt. 19:9).

The Lust of the Eyes
The "lust of the eyes" speaks of eyes that are delighted with riches and rich possessions; this is the lust of covetousness.

Those men whom Moses appointed as "rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens" were to be "able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness" (Exo. 18:21).

The Ten Commandments included a warning against covetousness. "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's" (Exo. 20:17).

The writer of Proverbs tells us "he who hates covetousness will prolong his days" (Prov. 28:16).

Jesus admonishes us to "take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses" (Luke 12:15). Paul instructs us to "put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry" (Col. 3:5). The parable of the rich fool shows how dangerous a covetous attitude can be (Luke 12:16-20).

The Pride of Life
The "pride of life" is a vain craving for honor and applause, or the stubborn mind-set that will not allow one to repent of and confess their sins. King Saul is just one of many Bible characters who allowed pride to destroy them (1 Sam. 15:1-23).

Think of the story our Lord told about the Pharisee and the publican (Luke 18:9-14). The Pharisee despised others and should have thought of the words of Solomon in Proverbs 8:13, "The fear of the Lord is to hate evil; pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverse mouth I hate." The Pharisee prayed as one who needed no forgiveness, and got none. The tax collector prayed as one who needed God's forgiveness, and he received it.

Pride oftentimes keeps Christians from truly repenting of their sins, especially when their sin is public in nature. Sometimes Christians refuse to repent of their sins because they are not aware of them--they do not think they are guilty. But let's be honest about the matter, most of the time an impenitent heart does not come from ignorance, but from foolish pride--they know they are guilty but they won't fess up. They will not acknowledge their sin and then repent of it, and irrational pride is so often at the heart of the matter--they cannot stand before the ones whom they sinned against and say, "I have sinned."

The book of Proverbs speaks at great length about selfish pride and destruction it brings. It reminds us that "when pride comes, then comes shame" (Prov. 11:2), and "by pride comes nothing but strife" (Prov. 13:10), and warns us that "pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall" (Prov. 16:18).

Conclusion
Those who fill their lives with "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life" need to be advised and warned, for "the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever" (1 John 2:16-17).

Many years ago Matthew Henry wrote: "The things of the world quickly fade and die away; desire itself will ere long fail and cease, but holy affection is not like the lust that passes away. The love of God shall never fail. Many vain efforts have been made to evade the force of this passage by limitations, distinctions, or exceptions. Many have tried to show how far we may be carnally-minded, and love the world; but the plain meaning of these verses cannot easily be mistaken. Unless this victory over the world is begun in the heart, a man has no root in himself, but will fall away, or at most remain an unfruitful professor. Yet these vanities are so alluring to the corruption in our hearts, that without constant watching and prayer, we cannot escape the world, or obtain victory over the god and prince of it."

There is only one sin that God will not forgive--that's the sin you will not repent of!