Welcome to our next session in our study on McLean's book entitled The Greatness of the Kingdom. And today we are continuing in Chapter 7. The title of Chapter 7 is The Constitution and Laws of the Mediatorial Kingdom. We're in section four today which deals with the economic aspect of the mediatorial kingdom. We might not often think of the economy taking place but remember the kingdom is a real kingdom on earth that will be established when Jesus Christ returns in power and great glory. It's going to be a continuation of the same kind of kingdom that the Lord established in the days of Moses. And Moses wrote the law, and he was the lawgiver, if you will. And he recorded for us the laws and the constitution of the future kingdom that God would establish on the earth. and so this future kingdom is going to have an economy just like any other nation on the earth. And when Israel was made a nation back in Moses' day, shortly after the Exodus, they had obtained wealth from three different sources. First, they entered into Egypt, into the land of Goshen, that Goshen section of Egypt. They entered there already with flocks and herds. And in Egypt, they greatly multiplied. And that was God's doing. and secondly they received much gold and silver from the Egyptians as they were leaving after 400 years of slavery. It says in the King James they borrowed this gold and silver from the Egyptians but the term doesn't really mean to borrow in the sense of you have to pay it back rather this was not a loan they were asking for it and the term could even mean they demanded it but the Egyptians gave it to them gladly they were happy to give it just to get rid of the Jews after their God had demolished the Egyptian Empire and thirdly the greatest part of Israel's wealth was the fact that God granted them the promised land and so that is always a major portion of one's wealth. Now the Mosaic Law was established as the the basis, the form of government for God's kingdom on earth. It was to be established in Moses' day, it continued for a while through David and Solomon and down the line, but it was interrupted, but it's going to be continued again. The tabernacle of David will be re-established in the future. And so what we see in the law is basically the same kind of governmental regulations that will be in effect during the kingdom, although there will be some modifications in the priesthood and in other areas that will specifically fit that future kingdom period. But you might wonder, why would you need all these laws about how to govern an economy in the kingdom? The government that Moses established was a real government. It was a real nation. And just as in Moses' day, there were sinners in the world, and because of sinners, there need to be regulations. And in the millennial reign of Christ, there will also be sinners on the earth. When it begins, everybody will be saved. Those who lived through the tribulation period, they survived that, and then survived the judgment, whether the sheep or the goats for the Gentiles or the virgins for the Jews, the believers from those two groups will all enter into the kingdom, the millennial kingdom, in their mortal bodies. And they will have children with mortal bodies, with sin natures. so there will be children born in the into the kingdom almost immediately and they will all have sin natures and therefore there need to be regulations as to how to deal with money in the economy remember that the kingdom is not heaven this is God's kingdom on earth and Jesus said well he was here He said, the poor you shall have with you always. And he was really kind of loosely quoting from the book of Deuteronomy, which says, the poor shall never cease out of the land. And that will evidently be the case to a very small degree, but there will be some, there will be death in the kingdom. There will be judgments of sin in the kingdom. And evidently there will be some poverty in the kingdom as well. not much but there will be some and so in the kingdom not everybody's going to be equal when it comes to the economy there will be differences and that's because uh there's there are different capacities that people have and in a free society as it will be in that day men have the freedom to work and they also have the freedom to loaf and to be lazy But regardless of how they use that freedom, there are consequences. And the consequence of working hard will be productivity, and the consequence of being lazy or making foolish decisions will be poverty. Yes, even in the kingdom. And this inequality of finances and material goods in this life, this is something even nations today are still struggling with. You know, there's always going to be some inequality in a free society. There will be the struggle of the classes, the rich and the poor. There will be conflicts between the haves and the have-nots, so to speak. And historically, there has never been a perfect way, an absolutely perfect way to deal with this conflict between, on the one hand, personal freedom and accountability, And on the other hand, outcomes. And so as long as men are making choices for themselves, the outcomes will not be equal, and that's going to be the case in the kingdom as well. And then McLean demonstrates how the Mosaic Law dealt with the economic issues in the kingdom of God on earth. And God's ways are above our ways, and his ways are very wise. And we see in the Old Testament law, the law required for the kingdom of God as it was established, and with some modifications, it will be enforced in the kingdom as well. And God gave to every family in Israel an original allotment of land. And that's the most basic form of wealth. And that land that God gave them is described many times as a land that flows with milk and honey, picturing its prosperity. And now God said, the land is mine. So ultimately, all the land belongs to the Lord. But he gave it to various tribes and families in Israel. And each parcel of land was assigned, or to the owner of the parcel of land was assigned, the right of inheritance. And that enabled, that right of inheritance enabled that tribe or family to keep that particular allotment of land in the tribe and in the family. And it prevented wealthy men from gobbling up all the real estate and having others as just being peasants and serfs working for them. Each landowner also, under the Mosaic system, had the freedom to do what he wanted with his land. When God assigned land to the various families and tribes in Israel, they could farm it if they wanted, they could rent it out, they could mortgage the properties, they could sell it even, but not permanently. And so, because they could do with the land whatever they wanted, Some would do well with it, and some would do poorly because of poor choices. So this provision was made so that regardless of what happens to a particular family's land, it would never permanently be taken away from them. They might have to rent it out to someone else in the interim, but not permanently. So the owner could never permanently surrender his title. It was God's way of guaranteeing that the land would remain in the family and tribe to whom it was given originally. Now another thing to note is that since the landowner, and this is all the Mosaic system in Leviticus and Exodus and Deuteronomy, and since the landowner had the right to do with this land as he pleased, He had perfect liberty and freedom to do as he pleased. Sometimes he made very foolish decisions, and as a result of that, poverty ensued. And so the law made many regulations concerning the possibility of poverty. Now, sometimes poverty came around because of an individual's folly, foolish mistakes. Sometimes it was because of laziness, but very often it was through no fault of his own. Could have been wartime. He fell into hard times. It might have been illness that took over his body and he wasn't able to work the land. Famine, all kinds of things beyond the individual's control could result in poverty. It's true today as well. And yet in the Law of Moses, regardless of the cause of the poverty, the Mosaic Law made provision for assistance. We quoted that passage that Jesus quoted, that Moses wrote in Deuteronomy, where Moses writes, the poor shall never cease out of the land. Well, that was just the first part of the verse. The verse goes on to say, therefore, in other words, because there will always be poverty, therefore shalt thou open thy hand wide. And so God required the children of Israel to help their poor brothers, to help those that are needy. And this principle of economic freedom that we see here did not prevent people from making foolish mistakes and decisions. Just like Christian liberty today, it's wonderful to have freedom, but sometimes people abuse freedom and abuse their liberties and make very foolish decisions, but what you can't do is choose your own consequences. And that was the case in the Old Testament. And so the law made provision for poverty in that original establishment on earth of the kingdom of God. And here are some of the provisions that the law of Moses made. In Leviticus 19, verses 9 and 10, he says, to the farmers and landowners, and when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest, and thou shalt not glean the vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape out of thy vineyard, but thou shalt leave them for the poor and the stranger or the foreigner. I am the Lord your God. That's the reason for leaving it, because God is God. That ends the argument. That's the purpose of saying that. And notice that in God's provision, the assistance that was given to the poor, it didn't come from a government agency that provided the assistance. Rather, it came from the generosity of individual Jews. So it wasn't some distant agency that sort of provided off in the background, it made it very personal. And so individuals had a responsibility to take care of the poor around them. And the law protected the poor in that way. And the law of Moses protected the poor in many other ways as well. In Leviticus chapter 25 in verse 35, the law protected Jews from loan sharks. loan sharks were not able to loan money to the poor with usury or with interest and so God protected them in that way and nor could the loaner hold personal property of the poor man as collateral or for security on a loan because that poor man may need that some we see even in the new testament a description of a man taking a cloak as as a sort of security for a loan. God did not permit that in his law and so God was protecting the poor in their poverty regardless of how they arrived there. God also provided every seven years a time for the poor to kind of catch up a little and so God required that the farmers cause their land to rest every seven years and the owner was not to harvest the land. But in that year, when the land was just resting and he didn't cultivate it, whatever grew up naturally of its own, the poor could take as much as they wanted. The poor could harvest it, but the owner could not. So this was kind of God's built-in catch-up system to help the poor get a little bit ahead. Another form of poverty in the Old Testament came through debt. and the poor might borrow money just to survive and to be able to feed their family. but you know debt can accumulate and you borrow one year and then you borrow the next year and you can get to a tipping point where you just can't pay back at all and you become a slave to the man that loans you that money. And so the Old Testament made provision for that as well. And in Deuteronomy chapter 15, God provided a time of release when the debt every seven years would be kind of a grace period. Doesn't mean that the debt was canceled and they didn't have to pay it back at all, but after seven years, they had a year where they didn't have to pay anything on their loan. It was kind of a grace period that God provided them. Just another way to help the poor survive. And also, for the man who lost his original land, whether it was through misfortune or folly, there was provision made in the law of redemption. And this was a man who perhaps fell into poverty for whatever reason, and he had to sell his land. And therefore, that man If he ever wanted to get out of that poverty, or if he did get out of poverty, say he had some business venture that worked out well for him, he had the right to purchase that land back because it belonged to his family or his tribe. And that was a provision of the law. And if he wasn't able to make that purchase, then God provided that a near kinsman could make that purchase for him. And another way of bringing the poor out of poverty and bringing the land back to the original owner, the tribe or family to whom it was originally allotted. And we read about this in the book of Ruth, where Boaz was a near kinsman. so there we have an example of that kind of provision God made but the greatest of all the safeguards in the Old Testament and this was one that prevented permanent poverty and that was every seven times seven years there was a year of jubilee and so After 49 years, the Jews were commanded to hallow that 50th year and proclaim liberty throughout the land. And we see this passage quoted on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. It says, and thou shalt number seven Sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years in the space of seven Sabbaths of years, shall be unto thee 49 years. He's just doing the math for you. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of jubilee to sound in the 10th day of the month. In the day of atonement, you shall make the trumpet sound throughout all your land, and ye shall hallow the 50th year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof. It shall be a jubilee unto you, and ye shall return, and here's the important part, ye shall return every man unto his possession and ye shall return every man unto his family." So land that was sold had to be returned to the family. A man who was sold into slavery to pay his bills had to be returned to his family. And so this was once every 50 years, and it was kind of a generational thing, and it prevented generations from falling into a pit of poverty that would just continue on generation after generation. God made provision for that. And these provisions that were described for us in the Mosaic Law and will be in part of the future millennial kingdom. They shouldn't be considered some kind of a communistic approach to government. This was not the confiscation of land for the purpose of redistributing the wealth. That's not at all what this was about. This was a restoration of the land to its original owner. And that's very different. And the year of Jubilee prevented poverty from becoming a perpetual trap. and slavery for those that find themselves in. It gave them a time to reboot and start over. And so these were all economic provisions that were incorporated into the Mosaic law and will be exercised presumably in the kingdom as well. It's doubtful whether this would work in a modern secular society. Nobody considers all the land owned by God anymore. But when you study these provisions for poverty in the kingdom of God You might scratch your head and say why should there be any poverty in the kingdom of God? Well, they shouldn't had Israel obeyed God there never would have been poverty in Israel and The fact that there is poverty in the world. It indicates that that man has disobeyed especially Israel for that was part of their Constitution And we shouldn't also make the assumption that because there are so many regulations for poverty in the Mosaic Law, and that's part of how the kingdom will function, we shouldn't assume that there's going to be lots of poverty in the kingdom. That's very off base. That is not what the kingdom will be like at all. Yes, there will be some sinners in the kingdom that will have to be judged for their sin. There will be some sinners in the kingdom that will make foolish mistakes and might end up in relative poverty. But that's a minuscule portion of what's really taking place in the kingdom. Worldwide, the millennial kingdom is going to be a time of unprecedented prosperity and abundance. And that's what's going to characterize all 1,000 years of the kingdom. For example, here's just a few examples, and we'll have to close with this. In Isaiah 35, the desert shall rejoice and blossom as a rose. I was just reading of how much desert there is in the area around Saudi Arabia, the size of the United States. And imagine if all that started suddenly and supernaturally to blossom as a rose and became fruitful. That's what's going to happen in the kingdom. Isaiah chapter 29 says it's yet a very little while in Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field and the fruitful field shall be esteemed as a forest. In other words, the fruitful fields in Israel or Lebanon here are going to become so big it's going to be like a forest, not just a field, but there'll be a forest of products and fruits and vegetables, everything man would need. And we read in Isaiah chapter 32, keep having some pop-ups over here. Let's see if I can get rid of those. Isaiah chapter 32 says, until the spirit be poured upon us from on high, the wilderness becomes a fruitful field. So the wilderness, the desert area, the wilderness areas will be fruitful. Isaiah 51, the Lord shall comfort Zion. He will make her wilderness like Eden and her desert like the garden of the Lord. So desert areas will be like the garden of Eden. And Amos has a well-known passage, Amos 9.13, where it says, behold, the days come, saith the Lord in the kingdom, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper. and the treader of grapes, him that soweth seed. And the picture is that they'll be cultivating the field and the crop will be up and they'll be harvesting it like one right after another. They won't be able to keep up with the productivity of the land. It will be so rejuvenated and regenerated. The earth will be regenerated in that time. And so God begins to lift the curse And he turns the curse into a blessing. And the blessing, one of the blessings is, has to do with the economy. And that is, blessed thou shalt be in the city, blessed thou shalt be in the field, blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of the ground, and the fruit of the cattle, and the increase of the kind, and you get the idea. It's going to be an incredibly fruitful and prosperous time. And That's going to make the whole world prosperous. That's what's going to characterize the economy of the kingdom. And just think of another couple of, not minor reasons, but very important things that also add to the economy. Jesus Christ will be reigning in righteousness. And that means there will be no need of police, There will be no need of military. There will be no need of prisons. So all that tax money, the taxpayers can keep. They will be prosperous. And most importantly, in that day, they will learn war no more. There'll be no more wars. Think of all the lives and blood shed and lives wasted in wars over the generations. And not just that, but also the economic impact that it has on countries that are blown to smithereens and other countries that pay for the bombs that blow them into smithereens. And that day, Christ will rule in righteousness, and he'll rule with a rod of iron. And that's going to maintain stability worldwide, and that will lead to unprecedented prosperity and abundance and bounty in the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. So yes, it's a real kingdom, and yes, they have a real economy in that day. And it will be nothing like what we're dealing with in our day and age.