Leviticus 27 - Irredeemable Sheep and Land Donations

Well, we've come to the end of the Book of Leviticus.

We're in Leviticus 27 today, and we've gone through God's processes for the priests, for the ordination of them, the things that they were supposed to do and not do, what set them apart, what made them different or rather what they would do to be

different in their service to the Lord. We looked at the ceremonial law, things that God said, the effects of death and sin and the curse are all around. And how do you recognize what sin has defiled? And how do we, if you will, erase that?

How do we cover over that? And obviously, it's through what God has set up.

And then we saw the moral law as well, when God says these are sins, and these are the things that not just are the byproducts of a fallen world, these are really at the root of it, some of the causes of a fallen world.

We looked at the Day of Atonement, the holiest day on the Israelite calendar, when God says, I'm going to cover over your sins of all the people, and I'm sending the sins far away, and the sins are paid for, justice is done.

And obviously, they are pointing to Jesus. And then yesterday, we saw all of the blessings that God says, here's what will happen if you walk in this way of life. He says, but if you reject life, here are all of the natural consequences.

But he says, if you turn back, if you confess your sins and you go, hey, God, we were wrong. He says, then I'm going to bring you back into the land and you can experience all of the blessings.

So now at the very end of the book, it's kind of an interesting way to end it. You know, there's all these sections that we've been going through in the book. And it ends with vows that are made to the Lord.

So many times people would make a vow. They would say, you know, perhaps, God, I'm going to give you this because I'm so grateful. Or sometimes, God, man, if you have this happen in my life, then I'm going to give you this.

And so we're going to walk through what that looked like in Israel.

Sometimes things that people said, hey, I want to dedicate this thing or this land, this harvest, these crops, sometimes even this child to the Lord, to his service and to help out in all the Tabernacle and temple type things.

You can even look at the people, the Gibeonites from the Book of Joshua, that they tricked Joshua and the people into making a covenant with him, that they would not harm them in any way because the Israelites thought that they were from a way far

off country because that's what the Gibeonites had said. But it turns out they were one of the people groups that had been under the judgment, the ban, that God had said, okay, you're going to go into the land and you will exact justice on all of

these nations that are in here, these little nation state things that are in the land of Canaan because of their wickedness. And the Gibeonites, they feared God.

They feared the Israelites and they knew what God had done and they said, we don't want to fight against them. We want to be on their side. And so God's justice once they had made this pact with Israel was not to kill them.

God said, okay, you fear me, you're going to help out the Levites. You're going to cut wood and stuff for the temple. You're going to bring water for the temple.

He says, you get to be honorary Levites. And what a cool thing. And that's one of the types of things you could set aside your son or your daughter to help out with this.

And we'll see some of the limitations that are placed on that. But this is even what Hannah does in the Book of 1 Samuel with her son Samuel, that she says, hey, God, if you give me a son, I'll dedicate him to your service.

And he will serve you all the days of his life. And what a wonderful heritage to kind of have. Nowadays in our individualistic society, we go, but they didn't choose it.

Well, most things in the ancient world you didn't choose. You were just born into it.

And you can either be born into all of your life, work in a field and hoping for the best with crops or work with animals, or you could work in the service of Almighty God and be able to worship him all the days of your life that the worship of God

is how you experienced food. And you were always kind of right around where his presence was most tangibly felt in Israel. And you can, trust me, as a pastor, you can do a lot worse than serving the Lord in that way.

So let's dive in, Leviticus 27, to end the book. Yahweh spoke to Moses.

Speak to the Israelites and tell them, when someone makes a special vow to Yahweh that involves the assessment of people, if the assessment concerns a male from 20 to 60 years old, your assessment is 50 silver shekels measured by the standard

sanctuary shekel. If a person is a female, your assessment is to be 30 shekels. If the person is from 5 to 20 years old, your assessment for a male is 20 shekels, and for a female, 10 shekels.

If the person is from one month to 5 years old, your assessment for a male is 5 silver shekels, and for a female, your assessment is 3 shekels of silver.

If the person is 60 years or more, your assessment is 15 shekels for a male and 10 shekels for a female. But if one is too poor to pay the assessment, he is to present the person before the priest, and the priest will set a value for him.

The priest will set a value for him according to what the one making the vow can afford.

So here is kind of an interesting thing that I don't have like a great one-to-one on how you would perhaps describe this particular action, but in essence, it's God like, thank you so much for this person.

I'm going to, in a sense, give a donation to the sanctuary, to the tabernacle and then later the temple. I'm going to give a donation in this person's name. And so God says, okay, wonderful if you want to do that.

And here's kind of the things that are set up. And it's based off of what people were able to physically do at the time. It's not that God views perhaps a 20 to 50-year-old male as, oh man, like they are the best.

They are the best and I just love them the most. But if you have like a five-year-old boy, I don't really love him nearly as much. It's based on the amount of work that they could do.

Again, interesting custom that is here, but it's someone going, hey, God, like, thank you. And I give this in honor of this person to you, perhaps in thankfulness or in a number of things.

Verse number nine, if the vow involves one of the animals that may be brought as an offering to Yahweh, any of these he gives to Yahweh will be holy. So if he says, I'm going to give this cow, and it's going to be a sacrifice to the Lord.

Verse 10, he may not replace it or make a substitution for it, either good for bad or bad for good. So here, this was something that could be perhaps blemished in some way. And he says, but you cannot substitute something else.

You can't go, oh man, like I really need that cow. Okay, will you take this goat instead of the cow?

It says, but if he does substitute one animal for another, both that animal and its substitute will be holy, that both of them, you can't un-give this gift to God.

Verse 11, if the vow involves any of the unclean animals that may not be brought as an offering to Yahweh, the animal must be presented before the priest.

The priest will set its value, whether high or low, the price will be set as the priest makes the assessment for you. If the one who brought it decides to redeem it, he must add a fifth to the assessed value.

So here you go, all right, here's this animal, and it can't be sacrificed, but it could be helpful. It could, you know, perhaps carry some wood or carry some water or do this thing for the priests or the Levites.

But then you kind of have giver's remorse and you go, oh, actually, no, never mind, I want that animal back.

If you're going to take something back from God, especially here, the unclean animal, it says, okay, you can do it, but you have to add that, what is it, a fifth.

So you have to add 20% of its value to it, and you have to pay that amount to the sanctuary since they had something that you had given to God, and then now you're trying to take it back.

Verse 14, when a man consecrates his house as holy to Yahweh, the priest will assess its value, whether high or low, the price will stand just as the priest assesses it.

But if the one who consecrated his house redeems it, he must add a fifth to the possessed value, and it will be his.

So here, much like people might do today where they donate or maybe perhaps they leave in their will an estate to a church, to a charity, to a nonprofit, someone could do that here in Israel even while they were living.

They go, hey, you know, I've got a couple of houses and this house, I'm going to donate it to the priest, basically the sale of it to the priest so that then they can have money to fund the sanctuary.

He goes, if you want to buy your house back, you can after you've donated it, he says, but you do have to add 20% value.

The thought is, if you've promised something to the Lord, even if you do end up like needing it back, realize that that's not a good thing to be able to do.

And in one sense, it'll be costlier for you to take something back from God than if you either just didn't give it to God in the first place. None of these things are compulsory.

You don't have to consecrate any of these things or give any of these things to the sanctuary. But if you do, you add 20% of its value.

Verse 16, if a man consecrates to Yahweh any part of a field that he possesses, your assessment of value will be proportional to the seed needed to sow it at the rate of 50 silver shekels for every five bushels of barley seed.

If he consecrates his field during the year of Jubilee, the price will stand according to your assessment.

But if he consecrates his field after the Jubilee, the priest will calculate the price for him in proportion to the years left until the next year of Jubilee, so that your assessment will be reduced.

If the one who consecrated the field decides to redeem it, he must add a fifth to the assessed value, and the field will transfer back to him. But if he does not redeem the field, or if he has sold it to another man, it is no longer redeemable.

When the field is released in the Jubilee, it will be holy to Yahweh. Like a field permanently set apart, it becomes the priest's property. So here, there's land or particularly some harvests that are donated to the Lord.

And you go, hey, all of these crops, they're going to the work and the priests and the sanctuary, the tabernacle. So he goes, alright, there's one cost, maximum cost if you give it to God during the year of Jubilee.

And then after that point, the cost is reduced for each year. It's getting closer to the year of Jubilee. And again, if you decide to buy back the field, you add 20% to the cost for it.

But then there, if he does not redeem the field or if he sold it to another man, it's no longer redeemable. So if the priests are going, hey, like we don't really need this field for funding things right now.

We don't have enough people to be able to work it or something. And they sell it to someone else, the man cannot then go to the priest and go, hey, I'd like to redeem my land back because it no longer belongs to them.

It cannot be redeemed any longer. Instead, during the year of Jubilee then, so then that 50 year reset, it actually goes back to the Tabernacle, the sanctuary, the temple. It no longer belongs to the person that perhaps the priests sold it to.

It permanently becomes God's property.

Verse 22, if a person consecrates to Yahweh a field he has purchased that is not part of his inherited landholding, so someone from the tribe of Manasseh buys a piece of land that belongs to the tribal allotment thing of Simeon, then the priest will

calculate for him the amount of the assessment up to the year of Jubilee and the person will pay the assessed value on that day as a holy offering to Yahweh. In the year of Jubilee, the field will return to the one he bought it from, the original

owner. All your assessed values will be measured by the standard sanctuary shekel, 20 gerahs to the shekel. And it's an ancient method of measurement.

So here you give to God something that's not permanently yours because God has all of the land permanently assigned to the particular tribes and to particular families.

And so if you consecrate a field that belongs to the tribal allotment of Simeon and you're from Manasseh, in the year of Jubilee, it goes back to Simeon because Simeon didn't donate it to Manasseh. Manasseh donated it.

And since it's not permanently his, then it returns back. So again, just a very interesting way in how God worked all of these things out. But that was his designation.

Verse 26, But no one can consecrate a firstborn of the livestock, whether an animal from the herd or flock, to Yahweh, because a firstborn already belongs to Yahweh.

So your firstborn calf, your firstborn goat, firstborn sheep, they are already designated as those are to be sacrificed to Yahweh. So he says, you can't say, oh God, like I'm giving you this gift. No, no, no, no.

He already owns that. You already owe him that under the Levitical law. He says, if it's one of the unclean livestock, it can be ransomed according to your assessment by adding a fifth of its value to it.

If it's not redeemed, it can be sold according to your assessment. So kind of same thing from earlier.

Verse 28, nothing that a man permanently sets apart to Yahweh from all he owns, whether a person, an animal, or his inherited landholding can be sold or redeemed. Everything set apart is especially holy to Yahweh.

So here you couldn't have, as I mentioned earlier, you couldn't have Hannah redeeming back Samuel and saying, oh no, like we really need him on the farm now.

Once they've been set apart to Yahweh, and it wasn't just, hey, I'm giving this monetary gift in honor of this person.

But when you're saying like, actually, oh yeah, I'm setting Samuel aside for, to help out with the worship of the Lord and all that stuff with the Levites, you cannot buy them back. Anything you permanently set apart for Yahweh.

He says 29, in verse 29, no person who has been set apart for destruction is to be ransomed, he must be put to death. So here with blasphemers, adulterers, murderers, you could not buy them back.

And I think here in this verse, I'm going to say it one more time, no person who has been set apart for destruction is to be ransomed, he must be put to death. And I think of all of us that we were set apart for destruction.

Romans 6, 23, the wages of sin is death. Romans 3, 23, for all of sin and come short of the glory of God, that we were worthy of destruction. And under Levitical law, our souls could not be ultimately ransomed, and we deserved death.

But Jesus came and He did pay the ransom for us. He did redeem us back, even though we were against Him, even though we were His enemies, that He loved us and He purchased us, and He redeemed the irredeemable. And what a great thought that is.

Verse 30, every tenth of the land's produce, grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to Yahweh. It is holy to Yahweh. If a man decides to redeem any part of this tenth, he must add a fifth to its value.

So you go, okay, I don't need this money as much as I need this grain, or I don't need this money as much as I need this fruit for food. He says, okay, you do have to add 20% of its value to that.

So you would get, if my memory serves me right, so if you have a tenth of your thing, it would basically be worth 12% of your crops from either grain or fruit.

Verse 32, every tenth animal from the herd or flock which passes under the shepherd's rod will be holy to Yahweh. He's not to inspect it, whether it's good or bad, and he is not to make a substitution for it.

But if he does make a substitution, both the animal and its substitute will be holy. They cannot be redeemed. So perhaps if you have someone and they're going through, this is also something that's interesting.

I know we mentioned the First Fruits, the Feast of First Fruits a few days ago. So that's a different thing than here, the tithe that you have with the 10th. By the way, the word tithe means a 10th.

I've sometimes heard people reference giving a tithe of like 12%. You're saying a 10th. So, oh yeah, we give a tithe of 12% that's saying I'm giving a 10th of 12%, which is weird.

It's not how the Bible talks about it. It's kind of an antiquated term. And so sometimes that can color the meaning in people's mind that they don't understand.

A tithe is a 10th. And so here every 10th animal that passes through, here's where I was going with that. For the first fruits, you bring the very first grain, you know, sheaf thing to the temple, to God.

And we were marked on that of giving to the Lord. Here, it's every 10th animal that passes through. It's not every first animal and then you wait for 10.

It's you give every 10th animal that passes under your cook. So you count them up, and then that 10th animal goes to God.

So even in giving, there can be perhaps a legalistic way of looking at it where you'd say, okay, I have to give before I do any of my other things.

But if you do have that money set aside, you would be following the exact same method of tithing that the Lord has set up here where it's every 10 sheep that you are counting or every 10, I'm trying to look here if it has, yeah, shepherd's rods, so

sheep or goats. So don't think, okay, oh no, I forgot to give right at the beginning and now I'm giving later in the month. It's the same amount that I would have given at the beginning, God's okay.

And He does not have any condemnation for you in that. But if someone goes, oh man, this 10th sheep, like it's just not great. I want to substitute in this other sheep because it actually like looks good and I think God's worthy of it.

God says, I'll take the bad sheep, but if you're substituting something in because of your love for me and you want to honor me, wonderful. Like I will accept both of these offerings, but you can't redeem that 10th one back.

It still belongs to God, even if it's a bad sheep. Verse 34, these are the commands Yahweh gave Moses for the Israelites on Mount Sinai. So here, what do we take from it?

Because we don't often experience this same type of giving and donations and vows today. So what do we make of this?

I would say this, whatever you tell God that you're going to do, whatever commitments you make to Him, whatever promises you make, follow through on it. If you say, God, like I'm going to witness, follow through.

If you tell God, God, like if you bless me with this, I will give this to you. If you bless me with a bonus, you know, perhaps, I know many people. If you bless me with a bonus, I'm going to give you 10% of my bonus.

That's a wonderful thing to do. Obviously, we're not in the Old Testament where the tithe was commanded, where all of these offerings were commanded. God doesn't reiterate those commands in the New Testament to the church.

But if you want to give to God and you tell God, like, hey, I'm going to do this, that's a wonderful thing. A heart of generosity, a heart of belief, and faith in God is an incredible thing. But follow through.

Don't tell God you're going to do something and then not follow through. It's a serious thing. And that's why God has all of these, if you will, 20% penalties imposed on, if you donate something to God, and they go, oh, never mind, I want that back.

God goes, come on, this is supposed to be used for my work. I would say even for perhaps in our churches, don't have strings attached to your giving or your service to God.

Don't say, if the church does this, then I'll give, or if the church does this, then I'll help out. Don't do that.

If you're genuinely serving God, do so regardless of what other people are doing or regardless of whether or not everyone's following your suggestions. Serve God without strings attached. It's the only way to serve our God.

And thank you for walking through Leviticus with me. And I'm thinking through, even in my heart, how can I apply that?

Well, one of the things is I know the promises that I've made to God through the years, the commitments that I've made to him, even my marriage vows, that I ought to 100% follow through on that in front of God, because I've said, God, this marriage

is dedicated to you. So I can't just speak to Samantha however I want or treat her however I want. I've got to be faithful, and I've got to honor God in that.

I think of serving here at Tabernacle, that I made commitments to our congregation of praying for them, of teaching them faithfully the Word of God, and I have to be faithful to do that.

Regardless of whether or not it's popular, and there are some things even on this podcast or in sermons that sometimes have gone against, some things that people have believed and held on to, but I am captive to say what I believe that God's Word

says, and I can't go back on that. That's a vow I made to God and to people, and I need to follow through on it. Will you be faithful to follow through with what God has given you? The point of Leviticus is to do more, be better, be holier.

No. The point of Leviticus is we are sinful people in a sin-cursed world. How in the world do we live with God?

Well, the answer is God has made a way so that we can be in His presence without experiencing judgment and condemnation and death, and that is most ultimately fulfilled in Jesus, who has given us the Holy Spirit, who lives in us, and now we can

worship Him. Thanks for tuning in, and look forward to beginning the new study with you tomorrow. Thank you.