Turn with me this morning to Luke chapter 4. Luke chapter 4, read with me as I read verses 14 through 22. There's no real need to set this up in any kind of context. As we learned last Lord's Day, Jesus has just spent 40 days in the wilderness where He faced the devil's unsuccessful attempts at luring Him into sin. And now in verse 14, without any further commentary, Luke writes this, And Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit and news about him spread through all the surrounding district. And he began teaching in their synagogues and was praised by all. And he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up and as was his custom, he entered the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read. And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. And he opened the book and found the place where it was written, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. And he closed the book. gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. And all were speaking well of him and wondering at the gracious words which were falling from his lips. And they were saying, is this not Joseph's son? It's a pretty straightforward passage. Pretty complete narrative in and of itself, but there's much to be gleaned from this as we begin to break it apart and exposit it as we should. Following Jesus's wilderness ordeal with the devil, Luke tells us that he returned to Galilee in the power of the spirit. And please note again, the mention here of Jesus's utter dependence on the Spirit of God. We talked about that at great length in our last study. As 100% man, yes, 100% God too, but as 100% man, Jesus the man needed and depended on the ministry and the filling of God's Holy Spirit. He needed that empowering to fortify him in order to carry out the ministry that he had been sent by the father to perform. Now we can't be sure exactly how much time has elapsed during the timeframe that Luke mentions in verses 14 and 15, but apparently it was a significant amount of time. It was sufficient for Jesus to gain some kind of popularity. as a reputable teacher. It says here that he was well known in the synagogues throughout the district as being very praiseworthy in his teaching. Many reputable scholars believe that Jesus had actually been ministering for up to a year by the time he returned to his hometown in Nazareth. We do know, for example, that what we read here happened after he performed his first miracle at the wedding at Cana. You'll recall there is when he turned the water into wine. We also know that following the wedding, Jesus took his mother and his brothers and they went to Capernaum where they stayed for a few days. And in Capernaum, even more miracles were performed. In fact, if you look at verse 23 of what Luke writes here, Jesus mentions the fact that he had already been ministering there. What's more, if we follow the chronology recorded in John's gospel, we can see that Jesus had likely already been to Samaria. The reason I'm apprising you of all these things is we need not get the idea that what Luke writes is the same thing as what John writes, or even what Matthew and Mark have written about their own eyewitness accounts. Luke has a completely different focus. Luke is not concerned with the initial details of the very earliest stages of Jesus's ministry. He wants to dive right in to Jesus and his ministry in earnest in the synagogues and beyond as it begins to pick up steam. So again, by this time, he's probably already been to Samaria, and you know what happened in Samaria, in John chapter four, he meets with the woman at the well, and long story short, based on that encounter, there were many in Samaria who believed and became Christians. So again, we can understand how Luke says that Jesus was already by this time a reputable teacher. Now why he chose to leave out those important details, part of it is because as I just explained, he has a different focus, but we really don't know why people write the things that they write. I mean, we have to conclude that under inspiration, Luke wrote exactly what God intended for him to write, to whom he was writing, for the needs that that person and us by extension might have to understand things from Luke's perspective. So we don't really know. He does tell us though that as was his custom, Jesus entered the synagogue. Now, what does that phrase mean, as was his custom? Well, this is another indication that what Jesus did in the synagogue in Nazareth a place that would have been home to about 20,000 people, a place that would have had many synagogues, but he entered this synagogue as he had grown accustomed to doing on the Sabbath. And he entered the synagogue and he stood up to read. Now let me just give you a little bit of important background here. Synagogues in Jesus's day had no formal teachers. It was believed that the elders within the congregation of those so gathered would have been qualified in their own rights to expound on the word of God. At the very least, they would have been qualified to read the word of God. And so you can kind of envision it like this. Jesus goes into the synagogue. He sits among the men in the synagogue and the scrolls are brought out. And it's Jesus's turn to read, or he volunteered to read. We really aren't told what the case was. And the person would then stand up and read the text. And then they would sit down after reading the text, and they would present what is known to the Jews as a midrash. It's just a commentary. They would read a passage, they would sit down and give the sense of that passage. They would probably relate it to contemporary things going on in the society around them. They'd probably relate it to some practical matter that needed to be addressed, but they would sit down and give this brief commentary. Now, it wasn't at all uncommon for someone to read the text and then simply sit down and listen to others as they commented on it. Now don't get the idea that this was some haphazard process. If you know anything at all about the Jews, they were very fond of ceremony, weren't they? And if you've ever been to a Jewish ceremony, if you've ever been to a Messianic Jewish ceremony, which again, I can't tell you how much I detest that vocabulary. Next time you see somebody that says, I'm a Messianic Jew, pat them on the back and say, oh, you're a Christian brother or sister. Am I offending anybody? I hope not. That's all it is, but they brought back a lot of these trappings and it's kind of interesting from an outsider's perspective to look and see how they do things. wholly unnecessary now. They served a purpose in Judaism, but you know, make up your mind. Are you going to be a New Testament Christian? Are you going to be an Old Testament Jew? It's pretty simple. But back then they would have had a guy whose responsibility it was to maintain the scrolls. And when somebody stood up to read, he would have gone over to this elaborate, very ornate box. He would have opened the doors very ceremoniously. He would have selected the scroll that was to be read that day. He would have brought it to the person reading, rolled it open, and then the person would have read the text. They would roll it back up, put it back in their little holder, and put it back in this ornate box and close it. And then the commentary would commence. On this particular day, once the scroll was removed from the ark and placed into Jesus's hand, We learned that it was the scroll of Isaiah. Now there are some who want to see the miraculous at every turn and believe that it was on this day that God intended for the scroll of Isaiah to be read. And not only that scroll, but that portion of that scroll, and it's all part of God's providence. And there's a sense in which that's true. But we don't need to turn to the miraculous or the supernatural to understand this would have just been part of their worship. It wouldn't have matter what scroll they pulled down, right? When you hand the word of God to the word of God, he'll find something relevant to talk about. And that's why we're told here that when he was handed this scroll, and this is very telling, this tells us that it wasn't some supernatural thing going on. When he was handed the scroll of Isaiah, we're told that he found the place where the particular passage mentioned was located. So he's handed the scroll, he sees it's the scroll of Isaiah, he knows immediately where he wants to go. And where does he go? He goes to the place that is Now known to us, they didn't have chapter and verse back then, he goes to the place that in our Bibles is reflected in Isaiah 61, one and two. Now again, do not fail to be fascinated by the fact that here we have an example of the word of God being handed to the word of God and the word of God being expounded by the word of God. Folks, it doesn't get any better than that, right? So Jesus, while he could have made anything relevant, just so happened to get the scroll of Isaiah and read again. Let's read again what he read. He said, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord." He then closed the book. He gave it back to the attendant and he sat down. And Luke tells us that all the eyes of those in the synagogue were fixed on him. Now, it's also important that we don't make a great deal about that statement. Why? Because their eyes would have been fixed on anyone who had read the scriptures and sat down. because they were anticipating the midrash. It was part of the service. So again, don't make too much of that, but again, you have the word, reading the word and then sitting down. They didn't know that, did they? They had no concept of the word, the logos of God. And so here they have their eyes fixed on him because they're waiting for the midrash or the commentary. And what none of them could have anticipated was what Jesus said next. He said, today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. Can you imagine? Can you imagine? You're ready to sit down and kind of, you know, snuggle in for your afternoon sleep, right? As the guy drones on and on in a particular commentary on the passage. Don't look at me like that's strange. Some of you do it even today. But they're ready to settle in and just hear another commentary on the scrolls from Joseph's son. And he sits down and he says, today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. Now, how did they all respond? Well, they responded in the only way they knew how to respond. They started looking at each other like, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, is this not The son of Joseph? I mean, who does he think he is? Now, arguably, Jesus might not have been in Nazareth for a considerable time before this very moment. He had just come back, as we just read, from ministering elsewhere. And here he is, he comes in, he comes back into town, and he starts to say things that sound eerily like someone else. Is this not Joseph's son? What does he mean? He's fulfilled the scripture in our own hearing. Understand, it's not that they were angry at that point. They weren't angry. Luke makes it clear that all were speaking well of him and wondering at the gracious words which were falling from his lips. As I said a minute ago, they were already aware of what this Jesus, the son of Joseph, had done in Capernaum. So they were no doubt expecting to hear great things from him, and they had heard great things from him. And bear in mind as well that what Luke records here was probably not all of Jesus's commentary. It's probably just the end portion of Jesus's entire Midrash on that passage. And what a conclusion it was. Here the people of Nazareth were learning in the most meaningful way imaginable that this Jesus was not just the son of Joseph. They're learning that this Jesus, whom they presumed to be the son of Joseph was actually the son of God himself. The long awaited Messiah that had been prophesied from old who would come and deliver the people of God from their sins. Now we've talked about this, haven't we, at considerable length. There were many among the Jewish people, if not the majority within Judaism, who envisioned the Messiah much differently than Scripture portrays the Messiah. Those within Judaism, having experienced years and years and years of oppression from those occupying their land, the land that was given to their forefathers, They were looking for a Messiah who would come and set them free from their oppressors. They were looking for a revolutionary political Messiah who would come in and he would come in riding on a white charger with a sword in his hand and lay at their feet, their enemies. So in this case, they would have been looking for the Messiah that they had anticipated. not the Messiah that Jesus actually was. I mean, this explains how in a relatively short period of time, I don't know if you've ever noticed this, you should have noticed this. In a relatively short period of time, we go from Jesus riding into Jerusalem triumphantly on the back of a donkey's colt. They're all shouting, Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna, laying palm fronds in his path as he proceeds down the road into Jerusalem. They're hailing him as the victor. They're shouting, hallelujah, our Messiah has come. And then only a short time later, those same people are shouting, crucify him, crucify him. You got to wonder why that is. We know why that is. Because their expectations were not met. He had come not to be the Messiah that they thought he would be. He had come to be the Messiah of God. Next week, we'll actually see this change of heart begin to take shape, won't we? If you've read ahead, you know that we'll begin to see this sudden change of heart take shape right here in our text. Here in verse 22, everybody's speaking well of Jesus. They're wondering at his gracious words. But by the time you get to verse 28, this same group is filled with rage and wants to drive him off a cliff. The same people. This kind of activity was actually quite common in Jesus's ministry, right? And it didn't always involve violent attitudes. Many who began to follow Jesus in the very beginning stopped following him altogether because they couldn't get their felt needs met. Remember, there were a great number of them that followed him around for the food that he was able to provide. And once he stopped providing physical food, many of them fell away. Once he failed to meet their expectations as the political revolutionary Messiah that was going to set them free from Roman oppression, many of them left. And it actually infuriated many of them that they had been hoodwinked into believing that he was the Messiah, because he clearly wasn't, because he wasn't doing what they had anticipated him to do. This shouldn't be any surprise to us even today, should it? How many people leave the church? Because they can't get their way. How many people just leave because they can't get their felt needs met? Forget the close union that they're to have with their brothers and sisters. Forget the gifts that they do have that they can minister to one another in the local church. Some people, if they're not getting their needs met, they just leave. It's the same sort of thing. but let's not get ahead of ourselves. That'll be next week. This morning, I want to spend the remainder of our time taking a little closer look at Jesus's use of Isaiah 61, verses one and two. Now, as I said just a minute ago, to the Jews, this meant one thing, but to Jesus and to all who had ears to hear, it meant something else entirely. Now we can sympathize with the Jews, can we not? We can. Folks, they're ignorant. They don't know. They've not been given the ears to hear or the eyes to see the truth. And so they're banking on Jesus being the fulfillment of what they thought they knew. They were banking over Jesus being this long awaited Messiah who would come in power to free them from the oppressive rule of the Romans and usher in the kingdom of God. I mean, even those words in Isaiah 61, one and two would have supported their error. You've probably never looked at it that way, but look at it again. Jesus said, the spirit of the Lord is upon me. As a Jew, you would have said, great. The Spirit of the Lord is on it. He's not gonna do this under his own power. God is behind this. That would have been cause for great excitement, would it not? And when he read, he anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. That's good too. To them, the word gospel, as it's defined today, meant good news. He's come to preach good news to the poor. And what's the best news the poor can receive? We're going to be rich, right? We'll no longer be poor. He sent me to proclaim release to the captives. See, we'll soon be released from our captivity. Hallelujah, that's good news indeed. He's come to provide recovery of sight to the blind. Even that they would have misunderstood and applied to themselves, they would have agreed. Yes, we've been blinded by the oppressive forces around us. We've been so blinded by our situation for so long that we've lost our way. We can no longer act the way we need to act. We can no longer do the things that God commands us to do. Finally, the Messiah is going to come and he's going to take the blinders off and we're going to be restored back to our original glory as his people. To set free those who are oppressed. There it is again, right? The promise of our liberation from those who oppress us. To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. Man, I'll say, it would be a favorable year of the Lord, wouldn't it? Mark it down. What this guy's about to do will go down in history as the time when God finally liberated his people. And that's true, but not in the way they imagined it. So you can see that they were initially excited when Jesus said, today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. They would have been excited to hear that they were about to experience the very thing that had been prophesied for centuries concerning their restoration as the people of God. You know, they knew full well that the primary fulfillment of this prophecy, if you read the book of Isaiah, you know as well that the primary fulfillment of this prophecy was the release of the Israelites from their exile in Babylon. And so it did have a primary fulfillment. But Jesus is pointing here to the fact that it also has another fulfillment, that that was only a type, that was only a foreshadowing of the real liberation that would take place when the Messiah finally came. Had they realized that Jesus was not talking about the release of the Jewish people, but that he was instead talking about the liberation of both Jew and Gentile, they would have sought to run him off a cliff that day. That was heresy. For a Gentile to be saved, for a Gentile to be considered in the family of God without coming through the rite of proselytization where they would have been made a Jew first before they could ever be considered people of God? That was unthinkable. That would have been heretical. And they would have immediately dealt with that. And again, more on that next time. What was Jesus actually saying here when he announced himself to be the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy? Well, first of all, when he said, the spirit of the Lord is upon me, this is the simplest way. And you'll notice there was no argument. When someone back then would say, the spirit of the Lord is upon me, he was announcing himself to be the anointed one. And what is translated as the anointed one? It's the word Mashiach, Messiah. They would have understood that he was claiming to be the one upon whom the Spirit of God had come. And they had seen that, hadn't they? Many of them had probably, if they weren't there, they'd been apprised of Jesus's baptism. And we know at Jesus's baptism, that the dove, the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descended upon him and rested upon him. Then the voice of the father saying, this is my son in whom I'm well pleased. So they would have already been in sort of an anticipatory mode when Jesus announced the spirit of the Lord is upon me. It's just another way of saying, I am the Messiah. And what had he come to do? He had come with God's anointing to preach the gospel to the poor. Now here's where things get really interesting from a linguistic perspective. There are two words that predominate in the Greek language for poor. I'm not going to give you the words. I mean, it's unimportant. You don't speak Greek. You know, I'm not going to try to impress you. But you just need to know there's two words predominantly used for the word poor. One of them describes the condition of having very little. Some of us in this congregation are said to be poor and we don't have a lot, right? So there's that aspect of being poor. That's not the word that is used in the scriptures. And what's interesting It's not only not used in the Greek New Testament translation, it's not the word used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, which is the Septuagint. The word used in this passage, as well as in the Greek translation of the Hebrew text, means to be in a condition of having nothing. There's a big difference, isn't there? I mean, there's poor, and then there's poor. In the South, we call that dirt poor. Why? Because the imagery there is you're just sitting there in the dirt. You have nothing, right? When Jesus says that he was sent to deliver the good news to the poor, we're talking about the same impoverished state that Jesus refers to. You remember our studies in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus said, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. There the same word is used. It doesn't mean has very little. It means blessed are those who have nothing. Blessed are those who are bankrupt spiritually. Now don't forget, whereas the Jews might've heard Jesus announcing that their former riches would once again be restored to them, Jesus is not talking about economics here at all. When he says, I've come to give the good news to the poor, he's not talking about making them rich. He's not talking about money at all. He's announcing that he had come to meet their much greater need. He's announcing that he had come to save those who would not be able to save themselves. In fact, he's coming to announce that he had come to save those who had nothing with which to save themselves and nothing or no one to which they could turn to get that salvation. This brings to mind when Jesus had all of these people leaving. Remember he asked his disciples, what are you going to leave to? Remember what their response was? Remember what their collective response was? To whom shall we go? There's no other. This is why we're told in Scripture that there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Without Jesus, you have not very little. That's the common thought today, isn't it? Well, I might not be a believer in your Jesus, but I'm still worth something. No, you're not. You're destitute. Now that doesn't mean I don't value you as a person. I mean, you're still an image bearer of God, right? You're still a worthy target for my evangelism. So I'm not denigrating people. I'm just saying that salvifically speaking, without Jesus, you're nothing. You're poor. Dirt poor. Spiritually bankrupt. The word poor, it's interesting you use this word in referring to someone who has absolutely nothing and the imagery pops up and it was used this way in contemporary Greek writing to describe that beggar. Back in that day, and this happens today too, but back in that day, beggars were seen as the outcast. Beggars, you couldn't just sit on the street and beg. There were certain places that you could sit and beg for alms, but for the most part, people were very hard-hearted back then. They believed very firmly in the fact that if you won't work, you're not gonna eat. And so sitting there begging, a lot of people died begging. That's how poor they were. And that's the imagery that Jesus is trying to bring to their minds when he says, I've come to give good news to those who would otherwise die without my intervention. Just like the beggar in the street who gets passed by every day, goes without food, goes without water. Many of them were blind and lame, and their lot in life was to sit there literally till they died. And then they'd come and scoop them up, take them and give them a burial out in the potter's field. And that would be that. So you got to understand the impact of this one word, poor. I don't know about you. I've never been in a situation where I had to sit and wonder if I would be alive tomorrow because of hunger. because of a lack of sustenance. And when we bring this word into the spiritual realm, it can tell us a lot about salvation. If you're without Christ this morning, you're poor, in the same way that we've just described. And I realize that that does sound strange, given what you hear so often about man's spiritual condition. There are many, and this is why we harp on this. You know, as those of the Reformed faith, those of us who understand the sovereignty of God and salvation, we don't harp on this because we want to appear smarter than everybody else. We harp on this because we want man to understand that in his sin, he is not just in possession of very little, he's poor, dirt poor, and he has nothing with which to commend himself to God. Many insist that man isn't dead and trespasses and sins. Of course, Paul affirms that he is in Ephesians 2 and other passages, but many insist that he's just sick. I've even heard it expressed this way. Man's just sick and he just needs some of that good old gospel medicine. And if he'll only take that, he'll be fixed up for life. Most people today believe that they're the masters of their own destiny, don't they? They believe that when and if they decide to be saved, they'll just say the right words and presto change-o, God's gonna save them. This is the hallmark of Armenian theology and there are many that are entrenched in it. The problem with that is again, that it, reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of man in sin. When Jesus announces that he's come to preach the gospel to the poor, he's saying he's come to preach the good news to those who are utterly lacking in anything which might contribute to their salvation. Salvation is not a cooperative act. Why? Because you're dead. It's not that difficult, is it? Do I need to go down the whole explanation of what dead means? What's dead mean? Dead. Yeah, you're dead in your decision making skills. No, it means dead. You know, go to the graveyard, stand over the grave and yell all day long for that person to get up. and just decide to get up and come out of the grave. What's gonna happen? You're gonna die there. This is why God gets the glory for your salvation and mine. Because he's come to give what the poor cannot possess in and of themselves. I was hesitant to do this but I'm forced to mention again one of my favorite hymns. Written, strangely enough, by an Armenian guy by the name of Wesley. Which, again, is proof that a broken clock is right at least twice a day, right? But this particular line, I mean, it's not inspired, we know that. Hymns aren't inspired in the sense that Scripture is, at least. But it captures perfectly what happens at salvation. Long my imprison lay. or in prison spirit lay, fast bound. What does that mean, fast bound? Tied up? Fast bound in sin, in nature's night. Thine eye diffused a quickening ray. I woke. The dungeon flamed with light. My chains fell off. My heart was free. I rose, went forth, and followed thee. Wesley, when he wrote that, was probably considering the fate of most of the prisoners he was familiar with at the time. When Wesley wrote that, you know, when you got sent to prison with a life sentence, what happened? You ever seen the old cartoons where people are chained to the wall, and they're just sitting there chained to the wall, and their feet are chained to the floor, and they can't move? You know what happened to people who were imprisoned like that? They died there. There was no appeals court. There was no chance at getting out. If you were accused of something that was worthy of the death penalty, they would chain you to the floor and to the wall behind you. And they might give you enough gruel every day to just regret the fact that you still weren't able to go out and eat on your own. But you would eventually just die there. And the only thing that you could pray for while you're sitting there dying of hunger and thirst The only thing you would pray for would be the sweet release of death. There was no hope of you getting out of there on your own. There was literally no hope of anyone coming and releasing you. And when Wesley wrote that to describe how God saves, every one of us was poor, destitute of everything, chained to the wall, chained to the floor, waiting on the release, the sweet release of death, and God's eye diffused a quickening ray, our chains fell off, and we were liberated. That's the imagery behind what Jesus is announcing is the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy. He'd come to preach the good news that those without anything would by God's grace be given everything. At whose expense? At his expense. In fact, this very truth is bound up in the rest of the passage. We really don't need to exposit the rest of this passage in any great detail because everything hinges on what God has done for those who have nothing in giving them everything in himself. Read the rest of it. He sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who were oppressed. These are all references to the lost. If you're still in your sins this morning, you're a prisoner. You're chained to the floor and the wall behind you, although you don't know it, and you have no hope of release unless God himself releases you. You might think yourself to be free. Why might that be? Why might you think yourself to be free when you're really not? It's because your eyes have been blinded to the truth. Your eyes have been blinded to the reality of your condition to the extent that you don't feel the need to be freed from anything. That's why Isaiah used the analogy of blindness here to describe how the natural man is lost in sin. This is why we often see the contrast made in scripture between light and darkness, right? Those without the requisite eyes to see the truth have been blinded. But those of us who have been saved by God's grace have been transported, as I said this morning in the first hour, we've been transported from the domain of darkness into the light of his son. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4, 3, even if our gospel is veiled, it's veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the God of this age, the devil, has blinded. Turn to Acts 26. We're almost done. As if that matters. I would have had you turn to Acts 9, but it's not nearly as detailed as Acts 26. Acts 26 is where the Apostle Paul is giving his testimony to King Agrippa, and he's telling him in great detail what happened to him on the road to Damascus. Beginning in verse 12 of Acts 26, Paul says this, as I was journeying to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests at midday, O king, I saw on the way a light from heaven. brighter than the sun, shining all around me and those who were journeying with me. And when we had fallen to the ground, which is the only thing that can happen when you're face to face with the Shekinah glory of God. When we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew dialect, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And make a special note of this. It is hard for you to kick against the goads. Okay, that's not part of the exposition here. And I said, now get this, he's not told him who he is. He's not told him who he's dealing with, but what's Paul's only conclusion? Who are you, Lord? Who are you, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. But get up and stand on your feet. For this purpose, I have appeared to you. Why? Why did Jesus ever appear to the chief of sinners? Why did Jesus ever appear to the one who was on his way to Damascus to bring people bound back to Jerusalem where they would stand trial and end up chained to the floor and the wall behind them where they'd spend the rest of their lives if they weren't killed immediately for their heresy, where they would spend the rest of their lives as those without any recourse to get free. Why? Why would he appear to this scoundrel? For this purpose, I've appeared to you to appoint you a minister and a witness. not only to the things which you have seen, but also the things in which I will appear to you, rescuing you from the Jewish people and from the Gentiles to whom I am sending you." For what purpose? To open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in me." The setting free of those captive to sin, the giving of sight to those living in the darkness of sin, the freeing of those who are oppressed by sin can only be appropriately characterized as signifying what the prophet called the acceptable year of the Lord. That would not have been alien terminology to them. Many of you already know what the acceptable year of the Lord was. After every seven cycles of seven years, they would celebrate the following year, the 50th year, and they would recognize that as the year of Jubilee. It's the only other time you see that phrase used. The acceptable year of the Lord. During the Jubilee year. How significant was the Jubilee year? It was wildly significant. I'm gonna do it, John. It was mind boggling. During the Jubilee year, all debts were forgiven. Can you imagine? I mean, how many people got into a lot of debt the 49th year and just knowing that the next year was the year of Jubilee? That was not allowed, by the way. They had constraints that prevented that. But during the year of Jubilee, not only were your debts forgiven, but every prisoner was set free. Every prisoner was set free. In addition to every prisoner being set free and every debt forgiven, The whole year was designed to be a year of rest. You only had to do what you had to do to survive. The fields would be left fallow. People would share the abundance that they had stored up for themselves in the years and months leading up to the year of Jubilee. Of course, as is usually the case with all of the Jewish ceremonies, festivals, and other observances, The year of Jubilee foreshadowed something even greater. What did the year of Jubilee foreshadow? It foreshadowed the coming of Christ. And when you talk about the coming of Christ, you talk about being set free from all your debts. You talk about being set free from your imprisonment and your enslavement to sin. I've told you before, if you've not heard it already, go out to SoundCloud or YouTube or your iTunes, whatever. Find the song Jubilee by Michael Card. In that song is a line I'll never forget because it's expressive of what this Jubilee foreshadowed. In that line, he says, to be so completely guilty and given over to despair. to look into your judge's face and see a Savior there. That's Jubilee. The understatement of the age. The understatement of all ages is when Jesus announced Himself to be the fulfillment of the acceptable year of the Lord. Why? Because it wasn't just a year. Jesus had come to announce the acceptable eternity of the Lord. All that happened at his expense. His blood spilled out for those who could not have atoned for themselves. By His giving everything to those who had nothing, so that we might too have everything. My prayer this morning is simply this. If you've already experienced the saving grace of God through Jesus Christ, I pray that you're able to rejoice Are you living a life of Jubilee? Well, you know, pastor, I got this going on, I got that going on, and this is happening to me, and I'm going through this. It doesn't matter. If you've experienced the grace of God and salvation, you are set up to live an eternity in Jubilee. Why not start living that way now? You've been set free. Your debts have been paid. You've been given ears to hear and eyes to see the truth of His word. If that's not cause for jubilee, I don't know what it is. If, on the other hand, you're still in your sins, we're not some exclusive club which you are not allowed to enter. We are, as a matter of fact, just like you. We who know Christ are just like those who do not know Christ, except Christ has made himself known to us. And he'll do the same for you if you'll only recognize by his grace that you owe a debt that you cannot possibly pay. And he paid a debt that he did not owe for you. I pray that God makes that real to you. If you're an unbeliever here this morning, I pray that before you walk out this door, you'll pull somebody aside and say, tell me more. I want to know more about this Savior. And I pray for those of you who do know him, not to become like the great Arctic River frozen over at the mouth. Give them Jesus. Have them join. the Jubilee. Let's close in a word of prayer.