Steve Webb  0:00  
If we accept the Bible as true, then we need to accept these verses as true.

Steve Webb  0:13  
This is the Lifespring! One Year Bible, coming to you from Riverside, California, and podcasting since 2004, I'm your OG Godcaster, Steve Webb. Today is The Law Monday, and we'll read Leviticus 25 through 27 which will complete the book. Let's pray before we get started. Our heavenly Father, we thank you for your Word. And we thank you, Lord, for revealing yourself to us through the Bible. I pray, Lord, today that you would teach us. Open our hearts and open our minds. I pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, let's get going. 

Steve Webb  0:48  
Leviticus, chapter 25. When Moses was on Mount Sinai, the Lord told him to say to the community of Israel: After you enter the land that I am giving you, it must be allowed to rest one year out of every seven. You may raise grain and grapes for six years, but the seventh year you must let your fields and vineyards rest in honor of me, your Lord. This is to be a time of complete rest for your fields and vineyards, so don't harvest anything they produce. However, you and your slaves and your hired workers, as well as any domestic or wild animals, may eat whatever grows on its own. Once every 49 years on the tenth day of the seventh month, which is also the Great Day of Forgiveness, trumpets are to be blown everywhere in the land. This fiftieth year is sacred—it is a time of freedom and of celebration when everyone will receive back their original property, and slaves will return home to their families. This is a year of complete celebration, so don't plant any seed or harvest what your fields or vineyards produce. In this time of sacred celebration you may eat only what grows on its own. During this year, all property must go back to its original owner. So when you buy or sell farmland, the price is to be determined by the number of crops it can produce before the next Year of Celebration. Don't try to cheat. If it is a long time before the next Year of Celebration, the price will be higher, because what is really being sold are the crops that the land can produce. I am the Lord your God, so obey me and don't cheat anyone. If you obey my laws and teachings, you will live safely in the land and enjoy its abundant crops. Don't ever worry about what you will eat during the seventh year when you are forbidden to plant or harvest. I will see to it that you harvest enough in the sixth year to last for three years. In the eighth year you will live on what you harvested in the sixth year, but in the ninth year you will eat what you plant and harvest in the eighth year. No land may be permanently bought or sold. It all belongs to me—it isn't your land, and you only live there for a little while. When property is being sold, the original owner must be given the first chance to buy it. If any of you Israelites become so poor that you are forced to sell your property, your closest relative must buy it back, if that relative has the money. Later, if you can afford to buy it, you must pay enough to make up for what the present owner will lose on it before the next Year of Celebration, when the property would become yours again. But if you don't have the money to pay the present owner a fair price, you will have to wait until the Year of Celebration, when the property will once again become yours. If you sell a house in a walled city, you have only one year in which to buy it back. If you don't buy it back before that year is up, it becomes the permanent property of the one who bought it, and it will not be returned to you in the Year of Celebration. But a house out in a village may be bought back at any time just like a field. And it must be returned to its original owner in the Year of Celebration. If any Levites own houses inside a walled city, they will always have the right to buy them back. And any houses that they do not buy back will be returned to them in the Year of Celebration, because these homes are their permanent property among the people of Israel. No pastureland owned by the Levi tribe can ever be sold; it is their permanent possession. If any of your people become poor and unable to support themselves, you must help them, just as you are supposed to help foreigners who live among you. Don't take advantage of them by charging any kind of interest or selling them food for profit. Instead, honor me by letting them stay where they now live. Remember—I am the Lord your God! I rescued you from Egypt and gave you the land of Canaan, so that I would be your God. Suppose some of your people become so poor that they have to sell themselves and become your slaves. Then you must treat them as servants, rather than as slaves. And in the Year of Celebration they are to be set free, so they and their children may return home to their families and property. I brought them out of Egypt to be my servants, not to be sold as slaves. So obey me, and don't be cruel to the poor. If you want slaves, buy them from other nations or from the foreigners who live in your own country, and make them your property. You can own them, and even leave them to your children when you die, but do not make slaves of your own people or be cruel to them. Even if some of you Israelites become so much in debt that you must sell yourselves to foreigners in your country, you still have the right to be set free by a relative, such as a brother or uncle or cousin, or some other family member. In fact, if you ever get enough money, you may buy your own freedom by paying your owner for the number of years you would still be a slave before the next Year of Celebration. The longer the time until then, the more you will have to pay. And even while you are the slaves of foreigners in your own country, your people must make sure that you are not mistreated. If you cannot gain your freedom in any of these ways, both you and your children will still be set free in the Year of Celebration. People of Israel, I am the Lord your God, and I brought you out of Egypt to be my own servants.

Steve Webb  6:19  
Leviticus 26. “‘Do not make idols or set up an image or a sacred stone for yourselves, and do not place a carved stone in your land to bow down before it. I am the Lord your God. “‘Observe my Sabbaths and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am the Lord. “‘If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit. Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting, and you will eat all the food you want and live in safety in your land. “‘I will grant peace in the land, and you will lie down and no one will make you afraid. I will remove wild beasts from the land, and the sword will not pass through your country. You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you. Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you. “‘I will look on you with favor and make you fruitful and increase your numbers, and I will keep my covenant with you. You will still be eating last year’s harvest when you will have to move it out to make room for the new. I will put my dwelling place among you, and I will not abhor you. I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high. “‘But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands, and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant, then I will do this to you: I will bring on you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and sap your strength. You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it. I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you. “‘If after all this you will not listen to me, I will punish you for your sins seven times over. I will break down your stubborn pride and make the sky above you like iron and the ground beneath you like stone. Your strength will be spent in vain, because your soil will not yield its crops, nor will the trees of your land yield their fruit. “‘If you remain hostile toward me and refuse to listen to me, I will multiply your afflictions seven times over, as your sins deserve. I will send wild animals against you, and they will rob you of your children, destroy your cattle and make you so few in number that your roads will be deserted. “‘If in spite of these things you do not accept my correction but continue to be hostile toward me, I myself will be hostile toward you and will afflict you for your sins seven times over. And I will bring the sword on you to avenge the breaking of the covenant. When you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you will be given into enemy hands. When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will be able to bake your bread in one oven, and they will dole out the bread by weight. You will eat, but you will not be satisfied. “‘If in spite of this you still do not listen to me but continue to be hostile toward me, then in my anger I will be hostile toward you, and I myself will punish you for your sins seven times over. You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars and pile your dead bodies on the lifeless forms of your idols, and I will abhor you. I will turn your cities into ruins and lay waste your sanctuaries, and I will take no delight in the pleasing aroma of your offerings. I myself will lay waste the land, so that your enemies who live there will be appalled. I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins. Then the land will enjoy its sabbath years all the time that it lies desolate and you are in the country of your enemies; then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. All the time that it lies desolate, the land will have the rest it did not have during the sabbaths you lived in it. “‘As for those of you who are left, I will make their hearts so fearful in the lands of their enemies that the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to flight. They will run as though fleeing from the sword, and they will fall, even though no one is pursuing them. They will stumble over one another as though fleeing from the sword, even though no one is pursuing them. So you will not be able to stand before your enemies. You will perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will devour you. Those of you who are left will waste away in the lands of their enemies because of their sins; also because of their ancestors’ sins they will waste away. “‘But if they will confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors—their unfaithfulness and their hostility toward me, which made me hostile toward them so that I sent them into the land of their enemies—then when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they pay for their sin, I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. For the land will be deserted by them and will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them. They will pay for their sins because they rejected my laws and abhorred my decrees. Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or abhor them so as to destroy them completely, breaking my covenant with them. I am the Lord their God. But for their sake I will remember the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God. I am the Lord.’” These are the decrees, the laws and the regulations that the Lord established at Mount Sinai between himself and the Israelites through Moses.

Steve Webb  12:52  
Leviticus, chapter 27. The LORD said to Moses, Speak to the Israelites and say to them: When a person makes a solemn promise to the LORD involving the value of a person, if it is the value for a male between 20 and 60 years old, his value is fifty silver shekels according to the sanctuary’s shekel. If the person is a female, her value is thirty shekels. If the age of the person is between 5 and 20 years, the value for a male is twenty shekels, for a female ten shekels. If the age of the person is between one month and 5 years, the value for a male is five silver shekels, for a female three silver shekels. If the age of the person is 60 years or more, the value is fifteen shekels if the person is male, ten shekels for a female. But if financial difficulty prevents the promise maker from giving the full value, they must set the person before the priest. The priest will assign the person a value according to what the promise maker can afford. If a solemn promise involves livestock that can be offered to the LORD, any such animal given to the LORD will be considered holy. The promise maker cannot replace or substitute for it, either good for bad or bad for good. But if one should substitute one animal for another, both it and the substitute will be holy. If the solemn promise involves any kind of unclean animal that cannot be offered to the LORD, the promise maker must set the animal before the priest. The priest will assign it a value, whether high to low. Its value will be what the priest says. If the promise maker wishes to buy it back, they must add one-fifth to its value. When someone dedicates their house to the LORD as holy, the priest will assign a value to it, whether high or low. The value is fixed, whatever value the priest assigns to it. If the one who dedicates the house wishes to buy it back, they must add one-fifth to its valued price, and it will be theirs again. If a person dedicates part of the land from their family property to the LORD, the value will be set according to the seed needed to plant it: fifty silver shekels per homer of barley seed. If the person dedicates the piece of land during the Jubilee year, its value will stay fixed. But if the person dedicates the piece after the Jubilee year, the priest will calculate the price according to the years that are left until the next Jubilee year, and the value will be reduced. If the one who dedicates the land wishes to buy it back, they must add one-fifth to its valued price, and it will be theirs again. But if they do not buy it back or if it was sold to someone else, it is no longer able to be bought back. When the piece of land is released in the Jubilee year, it will be holy to the LORD like a piece of devoted land; it will be the priest’s property. If the person dedicates land they purchased to the LORD—land that is not part of their family property— the priest will calculate the amount of its value until the Jubilee year. The person must pay the value on that day as a holy donation to the LORD. In the Jubilee year the piece of land will return to the seller, to the one who is the original owner of the family property. Every value will be according to the sanctuary’s shekel. The shekel will be twenty gerahs. But note that a person cannot dedicate any oldest offspring from livestock, which already belongs to the LORD because it is the oldest. Whether ox or sheep, it belongs to the LORD. If it is an unclean animal, it may be bought back at its value plus twenty percent. If it is not bought back, it will be sold at its set value. Also note that everything someone devotes to the LORD from their possessions—whether humans, animals, or pieces of land from their family property—cannot be sold or bought back. Every devoted thing is most holy to the LORD. No human beings that have been devoted can be bought back; they must be executed. All tenth-part gifts from the land, whether of seed from the ground or fruit from the trees, belong to the LORD; they are holy to the LORD. If someone wishes to buy back part of their tenth-part gift, they must add one-fifth to it. All tenth-part gifts from a herd or flock—every tenth animal that passes under the shepherd’s staff—will be holy to the LORD. The one bringing the tenth-part gift must not pick out the good from the bad, and cannot substitute any animal. But if one should substitute an animal, both it and the substitute will be holy and cannot be bought back. These are the commands that the LORD gave Moses on Mount Sinai for the Israelites.

Steve Webb  17:31  
Today we're going to talk about Leviticus 27. If you've been listening very long to the show, you've probably noticed that I'm willing to talk about subjects that might make some people uncomfortable, subjects that others might prefer to avoid. Well, my attitude is that those are the subjects that need to be talked about. God put them in his Word because he considers them important. So let's talk about money. Verses 30 through 33 of chapter 27 is about tithes. The translation we used for chapter 27 today used the term "tenth-part gifts". And verse 34, the closing verse of Leviticus says, "These are the commands that the LORD gave Moses on Mount Sinai for the Israelites." So giving tithes was a command. It wasn't optional. The question is, are we as believers in Jesus obligated to tithe? So let's do a little digging. First, what is a tithe? A tithe is an offering of 10%. And it did not originate with the Mosaic law. There are references to tithes being given all the way back in Genesis 14 and Genesis 28 before Moses was ever born. The New Testament does not give a requirement to tithe but it does mention the tithe with favor. One example is Hebrews 7:4-10 when Abraham gave a tithe to Melchizedek. Giving, however, is commanded in 1 Corinthians 16:1-2. Paul even said that not only should giving be done but that it should be planned for and done regularly. He said, "Now regarding your question about the money being collected for God's people in Jerusalem, you should follow the same procedure I gave to the churches in Galatia. On the first day of each week, you should each put aside a portion of the money you've earned. Don't wait until I get there and then try to collect it all at once." And if that wasn't enough, in 2 Corinthians 8:8 Paul says that giving is a test of our love for God and those who do his work. And in 2 Corinthians 9:6, Paul compares giving to a farmer. The farmer who plants sparingly will reap sparingly. The one who plants generously will reap generously. And then he goes on in the very next verse and says that each person must decide in his or her own heart, how much to give, and don't give reluctantly or because of pressure. Why? Paul said, For God loves a person who gives cheerfully and he says God will generously provide all you need, then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others. And in 1 Corinthians 9:7-14, Paul says that we should give to those who feed us spiritually. Verses 11 through 14 say, "If we sowed spiritual things in you, is it so much to ask to harvest some material things from you? If others have these rights over you, don't we deserve them all the more? However, we haven't made use of this right, but we put up with everything, so we don't put any obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ. Don't you know that those who serve in the temple get to eat food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share part of what is sacrificed on the altar? In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who preach the gospel should get their living from the gospel." And remember, this is Paul speaking under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Beloved. If we accept the Bible as true, then we need to accept these verses as true. Now, let me tell you my experience in giving. First, I was not brought up in a believing home. My parents didn't go to church, though my mom did, at least in her teen years. And I wasn't even aware of that fact, until after she passed away when I was going through some of her papers, and found that she was a leader in her youth group. But since my dad was very much anti-church and anti-God, going to church was a non-starter when I was a boy. I tell you that to say that I did not have any training from home on giving to God's work. Now when I got saved as a teenager, I've got to admit that I was a stingy giver. I didn't mind putting $1, or maybe a five into my offering envelope, but I never gave anything approaching a tithe. I never even considered giving a tithe. It never entered my mind. And once I became an adult and was aware of tithing, I rationalized that Christians are under the new covenant and were therefore not obligated to tithe, so I didn't need to give 10%. By then, I'd graduated to regularly dropping a $20 bill into the offering plate. I figured that God loves a cheerful giver, and I didn't feel too badly about putting a 20 in, but much more than that it would be more difficult to be cheerful. And then sometime in my 40s, I think it was, after I'd been faithfully serving God in my church for many years, my wife, the Lovely Lady LeeAnn, suggested that we start tithing. I told her that we were under the new covenant and yada, yada, yada. Well, unlike me, LeeAnn had literally grown up in church. Her parents were faithful believers who were at church whenever the doors were opened, and that is not an exaggeration. They were a military family and wherever they were stationed, the first thing they'd do when they got into a new town was to find the local Assemblies of God church and immediately get plugged in. So LeeAnn had an excellent example of faithful giving, and specifically tithing, at a minimum. So when I gave LeeAnn my reasoning for not tithing, she did what every good Christian wife should do. She threw a fit. She argued with me. She said we have to. No, she didn't. She accepted my answer. But then she began to pray for me. She didn't tell me that she was praying specifically for this, but I know now that that's what she was doing. And then over time, I began to question myself. I don't remember if this process took several months, or even a year or more, but one day in a time of prayer, I remembered the verse in Malachi, "'Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,' says the Lord Almighty, 'and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.'" So I said, "Okay, God, I'll try it. I'll give tithes and I'll see if I can still pay the bills," or words to that effect. Well, of course, LeeAnn was thrilled. I can't say that I was thrilled. But God had shown me in other ways that he's faithful. So I was willing to take the step of faith. And it was a step of faith. We had a mortgage, we had three sons, we only had my business to pay the bills. LeeAnn was a stay-at-home mom. So all we had was my income. Well, how did the test turn out? Let me answer it this way. I have never, *we* have never, gone back to stingy giving. That doesn't mean that God has made us financially rich. Over the years, we've had some lean years and some fat years. There have been times where we literally had zero in the bank account, and we had nothing to give. But as soon as there was something from which to give, we tithed. And sometimes we've given above and beyond the tithe when we saw someone in need or for a special project. And it was after we began to tithe that God called me to begin the world's first Christian podcast. I won't tell the whole story here because most of you have heard it, but for new people, I'll just say in a nutshell, I was praying one day thanking God for all the blessings he brought into our lives. And I asked him if there was anything more that I could do for him. And that's when he spoke to me and said, "Proclaim My name." There's a lot more to the story, and you can read it at steve.lifespringmedia.com if you're interested. I'll just say this. Financially. I am not a wealthy man. Far from it. But God has blessed my life and my family so very much. Sure we have struggles like everybody else, but LeeAnn and I have a wonderful marriage, and we have a faith in God that is deep and abiding. God has shown me that trusting him in all things, even in giving is something that he does bless. Are we required to tithe? No, but it's my firm conviction that at least a tithe is an appropriate amount to return to the God who gave his one and only Son so that I might live in eternity with him. I recommend it. As the Scripture says in Malachi 3:10, "'Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,' says the Lord God Almighty, 'and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.'" So yeah, take him up on his offer. Test him. What's your practice in giving? Do you agree or disagree with me? Have I given you reason to think about giving in a new way? Call the Lifespring Family Hotline and let me know, +1-951-732-8511, or comment via boostagram, or go to comment.lifespringmedia.com. Tomorrow will be History Tuesday, and we'll begin the book of 1 Chronicles with chapters 1 through 4. 

Steve Webb  26:55  
Wednesday is just a couple of days away. And that's one of the days we share prayer requests and praises here on the show. So let's pray for one another. If you have a need that you'd like the Lifespring family to be praying about. Or if you're praising God for something that would be an encouragement to the family, call the Lifespring Family Hotline at +1-951-732-8511, or go to prayer.lifespringmedia.com. And if you'd like to remain anonymous, just let me know.

Steve Webb  27:30  
Our show art today is from Scott Snider. Thank you, Scott. And also thanks to Sister Denise, Michael Haner, Jason Paschall, and Sister Brittaney. Did you get your newsletter from Sister Brittaney? If you didn't, be sure you go sign up at news.lifespringmedia.com. I promise to never spam you or sell your information. It stays in-house. Thank you, Beloved, for including me in your day. Until tomorrow, may God bless you richly. My name is Steve Webb. Bye.

Steve Webb  28:01  
Lifespring! Media, bringing the message of hope, love, and good news since 2004.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai