Lev 25:3+4, 'Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its crop, but during the seventh year the land shall have a sabbath rest, a sabbath to the Lord; you shall not sow your field nor prune your vineyard. 
In our reading this morning, the Sabbath rest is again very prominently and distinctly expressed by God in His instructions to His people. He reiterates the necessity of honoring the fact that He is the Lord God Almighty Who delivered them from their slavery to Egypt. In accordance with this truth, they are to set aside the 7th day and the 7th year as times of rest. As He rested on the 7th day in His creation of all, so are they to rest as a means of following His example in their creative endeavors. 
They are to allow themselves the opportunity to recuperate each week, resting from their labors. They are also instructed to allow the land to lie fallow every 7th year from being worked for the previous six years. This would replenish the nutrients necessary to produce for the next six years. This was the order of God which set into place that which science would later discover as necessary in the cycle of field rest and rotation. He blessed His people with the means and the instructions to keep the land which He gave them fertile and productive for generations to come, if they would but obey and honor Him. 
He made this very clear to them earlier in the Book of Exodus, Chapter 23, verses 10+11, as He was giving them all the righteous requirements that would allow them to live long in the land with health and prosperity and enjoyment to the fullest. They were to allow the land to lay fallow every seven years in order to not only rest the land, but to allow the poor to gather what they could from the fields that were not being worked and harvested. It was an opportunity for the less auspicious individuals to be given the dignity of gathering from the heart of the field once every seven years. This way they could be refreshed with the grain and the fruit that would otherwise have been gathered and sold. This seventh year rest then fed the soil and the poor, meeting the needs of all for that honorable service rendered unto the Lord. 
Ex 23:10+11, "And you shall sow your land for six years and gather in its yield, but on the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, so that the needy of your people may eat; and whatever they leave the beast of the field may eat. You are to do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove. This was an all encompassing means of making an allotment for the poor as well as insuring the health of the land from which the next harvests would then be maintained and strengthened. 
This was utterly unlike the manner of the surrounding nations as they would simply move when the fields refused to grow more crops. They would plant and harvest until the nutrients in the soil were depleted, and then move to greener pastures, often through the means of conquest and war. That is why there was so much need of the other nations to expand their territories so that they could incorporate those lands which were able to be farmed and worked for fruitful harvests. This was never the need for the Israelites as they dealt with their fields in full accordance with the mandates as prescribed by God.
The other reason for the stress on the Sabbath rest was detailed in our reading of Lev 16:31. Lev 16:31, It is to be a sabbath of solemn rest for you, that you may humble your souls; it is a permanent statute. When the people quit their daily activities of dealing with their livelihoods, they were to spend time in communion with the Lord, searching their hearts and their minds as to how to best please Him and to count on Him and to honor Him and to reverence Him. When we are so caught up in the daily grind of making a living, we often do not have the necessary time and energy to concentrate on our relationship with God. We become so focused on the tasks and the pressures at hand, that we cannot see through it all to the matter of our complete heart being after God and His ways and His pleasure in our lives. 
Therefore, by setting aside that one day a week, we are encouraged to readjust ourselves for the next week and to reinvigorate our hearts and minds to that which is of utmost earnest truth, our relationship with the Lord. It becomes a means of having that weekly time of communion with God that puts our entire frame of reference back onto the ground of Who He is and what He has done. 
His Sovereignty and His Grace and His Glory and His Will are reinforced as the entire reason for our even being alive and here at this time in His history. We choose to seek His will in our lives, humbling ourselves under His Mighty and Awesome Hand of Mercy and Grace and Shelter. 
The Lord knew that His people would need to be so encouraged as they were looking at that seventh year of the Sabbath rest of their fields and their vineyards, and wondering how they would survive. Resting one day a week was something that was doable, but to take every seventh year away from the harvest and the production of those crops that were the sustaining portion of each family was something that could strike utter fear into the depth of every farmer, every grower, every consumer within God’s nation. Therefore God gave the provision as recorded in this morning’s reading, Lev 25, verses 20-22. 
Lev 25:20-22, 'But if you say, "What are we going to eat on the seventh year if we do not sow or gather in our crops?" then I will so order My blessing for you in the sixth year that it will bring forth the crop for three years. 'When you are sowing the eighth year, you can still eat old things from the crop, eating the old until the ninth year when its crop comes in. 
The Lord would bless the land and the people with such an abundant crop the sixth year that it would carry them through not just the seventh year of Sabbath rest, not just through the 8th year of replanting, but even into the 9th year up to the new harvest. The people would not be caught without food or grain or anything necessary to live, if they would so honor the Lord and count on Him to make every provision for them in the course of their lives. 
To us, we would find that trusting the Lord for those three years on the seven year cycle would be something very difficult to conceptualize. Many of us have a hard time making it week to week, let alone setting aside a three year time span of complete trust in the Lord. But we must remember that this people had just experienced 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. 
The Prophet Nehemiah recounts for us, in Neh 9:21, that God sustained them fully for those 4 decades of wandering. Neh 9:21, "Indeed, forty years Thou didst provide for them in the wilderness and they were not in want; Their clothes did not wear out, nor did their feet swell. 
 God made every necessity to abound to His people as they counted on Him for provision and sustenance. For them to trust God for that 3 year period would not have been outlandish nor would it have seemed beyond the scope of God’s Sovereign Grace and Blessing. It would have been but another of the means whereby God proved that these were His Chosen People for whom He was making every provision. 
    	God also announced to His people what would happen when they chose to refuse to honor and obey Him. As we will read in the very near future, in Leviticus Chapter 26, verses 34+35, God laid before His people exactly how the land would receive the Sabbath rest from their enemies when the Israelites refused to allow it. 
Lev 26:34+35, 'Then the land will enjoy its sabbaths all the days of the desolation, while you are in your enemies' land; then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. 'All the days of its desolation it will observe the rest which it did not observe on your sabbaths, while you were living on it. 
	Despite the fact that the people would be taken away from the land and seemingly abandoned by God, He would still remember His covenant with them and He would bring back a remnant who would not be rejected but would humble themselves before Him and return to their commitment to honor and to obey and to bring glory to His name. This is promised in verses 43+44 of the 26th Chapter of Leviticus. 
Lev 26:43+44, 'For the land shall be abandoned by them, and shall make up for its sabbaths while it is made desolate without them. They, meanwhile, shall be making amends for their iniquity, because they rejected My ordinances and their soul abhorred My statutes. 'Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, nor will I so abhor them as to destroy them, breaking My covenant with them; for I am the Lord their God. 
	In 2 Kings 19:29-31, we have the Word of the Lord given by the Prophet Isaiah to King Hezekiah when he was in despair over the Assyrian King Sennacherib’s siege of Jerusalem. Within the promise of the security of God’s protection of Judah from Sennacherib’s destruction, is the same three year plan of provision as given for God’s people in the course of their honoring Him with the 7th year Sabbatical of the land. 
2 Kings 19:29-31, 'Then this shall be the sign for you: you shall eat this year what grows of itself, in the second year what springs from the same, and in the third year sow, reap, plant vineyards, and eat their fruit. 'And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward. 'For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and out of Mount Zion survivors. The zeal of the Lord shall perform this. 
	Because the people were counting on the Lord to fight their battle with the Assyrian invaders, God would not only provide for them, but He would plant them as trees of His righteousness who would bear fruit. There would be a remnant who would spring forth in the glory of the Lord for His name’s sake and would be fruitful with deep roots in the foundation of the Lord’s planting and harvest. 
	God would have His Sabbath rest with His people and all that it signified. This was the case even in the years of captivity, as that would be marked by the 7 decades of the land’s Sabbath rests, as detailed in 2 Chron 36:20+21. 
2 Chron 36:20+21, And those who had escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon; and they were servants to him and to his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its sabbaths. All the days of its desolation it kept sabbath until seventy years were complete. 
	When the exiles did return to the land of God’s Promise to them, they did so with a renewed sense of honoring God as was the original design of the Lord for them. As we read in Neh 10:31, they were committed to doing everything as was the Lord’s directive to those first inhabitants of the Promised Land. 
Neh 10:31, As for the peoples of the land who bring wares or any grain on the sabbath day to sell, we will not buy from them on the sabbath or a holy day; and we will forego the crops the seventh year and the exaction of every debt. 
They chose to deal with each other and with the Lord in terms of having both a Sabbath rest and the every seven years of letting the land rest from the planting and harvest. What had been ordained by God all those centuries earlier was the very heart of this people who had come through the trials of their exile and their return to the Promised Land. 
	The Prophet Ezekiel, in Ezek 20:10-12 reminded the people as to why it was so important for them to take the practice of the Sabbath rest and the land’s 7 year Sabbatical to heart before the Lord. Ezek 20:10-12, "So I took them out of the land of Egypt and brought them into the wilderness. "And I gave them My statutes and informed them of My ordinances, by which, if a man observes them, he will live. "And also I gave them My sabbaths to be a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them. 
	This was the means of reaffirming each week, and each 7 year cycle exactly Who it was that they served. To not rest on the seventh day or the seventh year was to continue in the folly of the idea that they served only themselves in the manner in which they lived their lives. It was an immediate indication that they cared little or nothing for the way of the Lord and Who He was. It meant that they preferred to try to make it on their own without any recognition or reliance upon God to meet their needs and to sustain them throughout each day of their lives.
	However, to so honor the Lord with the obedience to His ordained Sabbath rest meant that they were cognizant of Who God was and what He had done all those centuries ago. It also meant that they wanted to live in accordance to the way that their obedience would please Him and would indicate that they trusted Him to be their Sustainer and their Provider and their Shelter. His rest would be their rest and they would know the best of life in accordance with knowing Him as their Everything. So be it in our lives, today and forevermore!
'Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its crop, but during the seventh year the land shall have a sabbath rest, a sabbath to the Lord; you shall not sow your field nor prune your vineyard. Amen.

Guests		
		Men’s meeting at Kip and Sandy’s Tuesday Evening
Women’s Meeting on Wednesday
Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting 
Young people’s meeting on Thursday
Friday is our last couple’s session at the Fausto’s
Other announcements?  We will be meeting here next week. It is the last meeting that is currently scheduled in this room. Please be aware that the signs will not be placed to show it, but we will be here for worship next Sunday.
Birthdays:		Tuesday – 		Benita Contreras
Saturday – 		Butch Hage
			Next Tuesday – 	Luis Fausto
Anniversaries: 	Today – 		Ben and Alicia Eastvold

This morning’s benediction is Ps 115:1. Not to us, O Lord, not to us, But to Thy name give glory Because of Thy lovingkindness, because of Thy truth. Amen.