 Wow, it's fantastic to be with you. This is one of my favorite conferences to speak at. It's a home game for me, so it's always nice to be able to speak and sleep in your own bed at night and be familiar with the venue and know where to find computer adapters when you don't have them. Things like that. So as an issue when you're using technology. But anyway, good to be with you. Let's begin in prayer in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Heavenly Father, we give you thanks for this day and for this ability that we have now to devote ourselves to the study of your Word. We pray that as we open ourselves up to the movement of your Spirit that you would pour out your Spirit through your Word into our hearts, that it may fertilize our hearts and there produce fruit 30, 60, 100 fold. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. You're the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. Well, I would never do something so foolish as talk about rest at 8.30 in the morning. I want to talk about a trumpet blast, okay? We need to wake up and we're going to be talking about the Jubilee today and the Jubilee year began with the blasting of a trumpet throughout the land. As you see here, this is a shofar on the screens. Do we have that up there? We do, okay? And that trumpet blast announced the year of Jubilee. And in fact, there's a popular song, as you know, a praise and worship song about the coming of the year of Jubilee and describes that. And so we're going to talk about that today. We're going to talk about the relationship of these laws, these laws that Moses left for the people of Israel and the ministry of Jesus. Think, well, why are we talking about law? You know, isn't this a conference about prophecy? Well, it certainly is. But the question is, what qualifies as a prophecy? After all, in Matthew 5.17, Jesus says, think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets. I've come not to abolish them, okay? But to fulfill them. And okay, that's great. We can understand the fulfillment of the prophets. They say certain things about the suffering servant or the one is anointed of the Lord and we see that in our Lord. But what does it mean to fulfill the law? You know, does the law have a prophetic character? It's similar to the same issue that comes up in the road to Emmaus. He said to them, oh, foolish men and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things? He says to the two men walking along on Easter evening. And then as we well know, our Lord begins with Moses and all the prophets and interpreted to them in all the scriptures, the things concerning himself. So notice here first that Moses is considered a prophet, Moses and all the prophets, right? But then when we think about the books of Moses, we usually don't think of prophecy because there's only a couple of chapters such as say Deuteronomy 33 and maybe chapter 20, 27 and 28 and Leviticus 26. There's only a few chapters in the entire Pentateuch, which is very large, that might be considered foretelling or looking forward to the future. So if Moses only writes three or four chapters that look forward to the future of God's people, how does he really qualify as a prophet? Nonetheless, the Jewish tradition did regard him not only as a prophet but as the greatest of prophets. He says there's not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses. This is the conclusion of the Pentateuch, whom the Lord knew face to face. None like him for all the signs and wonders which the Lord sent him to do and for all the mighty power and all the great and terrible deeds which Moses wrought in the sight of all Israel. So even though Moses mostly left us law in very little future forecasting, so to speak, nonetheless he was regarded in the Israelite tradition as the greatest of the prophets. And it's so fascinating that in the Gospels, these laws that Moses left us are sometimes taken as having a prophetic character. Most famously in John 1934, we could talk all day about this passage, it's so rich, but it notes that one of the soldiers pierced our Lord's side with a spear and at once there came out blood and water. It's one of the densest images in all of Scripture. It's about six different layers of meaning there for that blood and water coming forth from the side of Christ. And it goes on to say, for these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled, not a bone of him shall be broken. So the Scripture to be fulfilled says not a bone will be broken. So we search through all the Psalms. Where in the Psalms does it say that the anointed one will not have his bones broken? Can't find anything there. Search through Isaiah. Where does the suffering servant not have any of his bones broken? I can't find it there either. We only find it actually in Exodus 1246, which is not formally a prophecy. It's actually a regulation. It's like canon law. It's ancient canon law that you shall not break a bone of the Passover lamb. So Old Testament canon law had a prophetic value? Apparently. This seems to be what the Apostle John is telling us. So we're now going to move to talking about the Jubilee legislation in Leviticus 25. Of course, Leviticus is everyone's favorite book of the Bible. Evangelical quarterbacks get verses from Leviticus in their eye black. Guys at the Super Bowl hold up placards saying, Leviticus 19.5. Everybody loves it. People start trying to read the Bible through in the year in January as a New Year's resolution. And it's slow going through all those stories about Abraham and Genesis. But once they hit those regulations about the whole burnt offering in Leviticus, boy, they start cooking. Yeah. It's like, wow, I love these sacrificial regulations. It's a page-turner. Couldn't put it down, right? So everybody loves Leviticus. Someone here did their dissertation on it. And I've only spoken about it about six times since completing my dissertation. I wrote a 300-page dissertation on Leviticus 25. Somehow, Grant Petrie's 500-page dissertation on the historical Jesus is more popular in cells better. I don't know why. I've been trying to figure out why everybody likes his stuff better. But yeah, mine was on the year of Jubilee in Leviticus 25. And seriously, I write this big book on it. I've spoken on the Jubilee less than a half dozen times in the past 20 years since I completed my dissertation. But we're going to talk about today. So this is kind of fun. But we're going to go in a direction and you're going to see how it relates to our Lord's ministry. So as you may know, Leviticus 25 is the chapter of Leviticus that describes the year of Jubilee. And it gives all the laws for how to observe this year. And part of it says this, you shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so 49 years. And when those 49 years are over, then you shall send abroad the trumpet, the loud trumpet, on the 10th day of the seventh month. The little image here is a silver trumpet from the time of Moses. This was found in the tomb of King Tut who may have lived around the time of Moses. So this is what those ancient trumpets may have looked like if they weren't made from a ram's horn. They may have looked like this. And you shall hallow the 50th year. It's on the day of atonement that you blast this trumpet, 10th day of the seventh month. That's the day of atonement, Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish liturgical calendar. And you shall hallow that 50th year and proclaim liberty throughout the land. It shall be a Jubilee for you when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his family. Now this passage of scripture, perhaps you know, actually functions significantly in American history because the famous Liberty Bell was inscribed with part of the verse from Leviticus 25. You shall proclaim liberty throughout the land. That's written on the side of the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. So the early American revolutionaries, rightly or wrongly, took inspiration from this year of liberation that we call the Jubilee. But we want to notice what's going on here. The Jubilee year, we can't go into all of its details, but to be very rough and a tad inaccurate, but nonetheless to sum it up, this 50th year, released slaves, anybody who had been, you know, given themselves into a form of slavery for debt, okay, was released because their debts were erased. So that gives us the restoration of debt. And once they were freed from debt slavery, these Israelite servants were free to go back to their family property. And if their family property had been sold for debt, the property was returned and that debt was erased. And so all the families were restored onto their ancestral land. So basically everybody goes back to grandpa and grandma's farm has a cookout. That happens every 50 years. You go back and family is restored, family reunion on the land, and we reset the economy to zero and we start over again. That was the intention of this. So it was a beautiful vision, but unfortunately it largely remained just a vision because as far as we can tell, the Israelites did not observe it on a consistent basis. And in fact, it was part of the way in which they violated God's law by failing to observe God's Sabbath. And so when we read through the history of God's people from Moses all the way to the exile in Babylon, one of the last things that said about the people of Israel when they're being taken off into Babylon in exile is that we read this in Second Chronicles here, 3620. He, referring to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, took into exile in Babylon those who escaped from the sword until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. See, the Jubilee year was built on this cycle of seven Sabbath years, right? Every seventh year, you let the land lie fallow, you gave the land rest, and then the seventh Sabbath was followed by the year of Jubilee. And in fact, the year of Jubilee was also an additional Sabbath year. So the land enjoying its Sabbaths, this refers to Leviticus 25, these Sabbath years of the land. All the days that it lay desolate, it kept Sabbath. It kept the day of rest. The land itself rested from its labor of producing crops in order to fulfill 70 years. So the exile of the people of Judah to Babylon lasted roughly 70 years. Well, those were the 70 Sabbath years that had not been observed in a Sabbath year comes around only every seven years. So basically, that means for about 500 years, you know, for 490 years, okay, they had failed to observe the Sabbath year of the land. And so now they had to be taken into exile and the land was able to rest and make up those times that it had not experienced. So that 500 years is roughly the time from Joshua who led them into land until the exile. Okay, so it seems like the word of God through Moses in Leviticus 25 was just a dead law. God commanded them to observe these Sabbaths, to observe this this Jubilee year of liberation, and yet they didn't fulfill it. And so it just lay there and it didn't have any effect. And that seems counterintuitive to us. We think, well, how can God's word not have an effect? After all, Isaiah says, you know, like the rain coming down from heaven, it does not come down in vain, but it produces crops and it brings nourishment to the earth. And my word says the Lord is like that rain, it comes down and it will not return to me empty. So how can God's word come down in Leviticus and then return to him empty having had no effect? Well, the ancient prophets of Israel were convinced that God's word could never be without effect. And so they meditated even on these laws, these laws that weren't followed. And they found new meaning in them. And they believed that God was going to act on the basis of his word, even if the people of Israel did it. And so Isaiah famously says, speaking in the name and in the person of the anointed one of the Lord, Isaiah says, the spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me. I am the Messiah. Messiah is of course the Hebrew word for anointed one. So the Lord has anointed me. And in Greek, of course, that's Christ, right? So the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted to proclaim liberty to the captives. And here Isaiah uses Hebrew words that are lifted from Leviticus 25. He's reflecting on these ancient laws of Moses and the opening of prison to those who are bound to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor here again. Isaiah uses Hebrew phrases taken from that famous chapter. And the year of the Lord's favor, this is a way of describing the Jubilee year and the day of vengeance of our God to come for all who mourn, etc. And then Isaiah goes on to describe this wonderful eschatological Jubilee that the Messiah is going to introduce. So here we see. Isaiah is convinced God's word cannot be without effect. And so when the anointed one comes who has the Holy Spirit, the anointed one will implement the laws, the divine laws that the people of Israel refuse to follow because God's word is always living and active, amen? It's never without effect. Likewise, Daniel in Daniel chapter 9 receives a message from the angel Gabriel. You know, the context is this in the beginning of Daniel 9. It's the first year of Cyrus, King of Persia. Daniel observes that the Babylonian empire has been destroyed, and yet he also observes that the people of Israel have not been sent home yet. Okay. Cyrus, King of Persia has not yet made that decree. And so Daniel doesn't know what is going to happen. It's been 70 years. It's been 70 years of exile, like it was mentioned in 2 Chronicles 36. And yet the people have not been sent back to the land. So Daniel figures there must be a problem. We must not have repented. Okay. And so Daniel repents on behalf of the people of Israel and prays to the Lord in Daniel 9 that God will relent and forgive and send them back to their land even though they have resisted God's will even though even during the time of exile. And at the end of Daniel's long prayer where he, like Moses before him, repents on behalf of the hardheartedness of the people of Israel, Gabriel comes to him, the angel Gabriel comes to him to explain what's going to happen. And Gabriel appears, the same Gabriel who will later appear to the blessed mother and Zachariah in the opening chapters of Luke. And Gabriel says, said to me, Daniel records, oh Daniel, 70 weeks of years, that is to say 490 years are decreed for your people and the holy city to finish the transgression. Okay. That is to say to put an end to sin. That's what that means. And to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and profit and to anoint a most holy. Okay. Now if you read, and I've translated this myself, but in many of your English Bibles you will read, to anoint a most holy place. Okay. But there's no place in the Hebrew. Okay. It just says to anoint a most holy. And it's ambiguous. A most holy what? A most holy person? That would be the Messiah. Or a most holy place? That would be the new temple. Which is it? Yes. Okay. John 221. Okay. He spoke of the temple of his body. Right. It's going to turn out that the most holy is going to be both a place and a person, both the Messiah and a temple. Both are going to converge on the same. And it's, it's, as it were, mystically foreshadowed here where the term is just left ambiguous. Okay. To anoint a most holy. Now observe this, this whole line of things that's going to happen at the end of 490 years. Finishing transgression, putting an end to sin, atoning for iniquity, these are things that happened on Yom Kippur. Okay. The day of atonement. When the Jubilee was proclaimed. Okay. Further, 70 weeks of years, the only passage of the Bible that talks about weeks of years is Leviticus 25. Okay. So this is a Jubilee concept. And 70 weeks of years are 10 Jubilees. That's like a complete set of Jubilees after which you have, you know, as it were, the great Jubilee. Okay. So we're dealing with Jubilee concepts here from Leviticus 25. So this is the angel Gabriel. See, God's word is not without effect. And here is the angel telling Daniel that God is going to fulfill his word in an unforeseen way. He's going to take these principles from the Jubilee year, from Leviticus 25. And based on those principles, God is going to bring salvation. He's going to bring an ultimate day of atonement. Okay. That's going to put an end to transgression, sin, and iniquity, and bring in everlasting righteousness through the Holy Spirit and seal both vision and profit. That is to say, complete the canon. And the most Holy one and the most Holy place are going to be anointed at the end of these years. Okay. Now, Daniel is seeing this about 500 years before the birth of Christ. So that is interesting. And we read on in this passage of Daniel 9, and the angel continues to say to Daniel, from the going forth of the word to restore Jerusalem to the coming of a Messiah, a prince, there shall be seven weeks and 62 weeks. Okay. Again, if you read in your English translation, you're going to not see it this way. You're going to read from the time of the restoration of Jerusalem to the coming of a Messiah, there shall be seven weeks. And then for 62 weeks, the city will be rebuilt. Okay. That's because your modern English translations follow the punctuation of the traditional Jewish text of the Hebrew Bible. That punctuation was put in in AD 700. It's usually pretty reliable, but there are also places where that punctuation represents later developments in Jewish thought. But when we look at all the ancient translations of the Old Testament, for example, the Septuagint and then what we call the Peshida, which is the Syrian or Syriac translation. And all the other ancient translations of this passage, they all have the Messiah coming after seven weeks and 62 weeks. It's odd that it's phrased that way, although we have similar odd phrasings like that in other prophecies, both in the Bible and outside. But after seven and 62 would give us 69 weeks or near the end of this period of roughly 500 years, there's going to be the Messiah coming. So this is a very famous prophecy of the prophet Daniel revealed to him by the angel Gabriel. Again, Daniel sees this roughly 500 years before Christ, and he sees a period of time of roughly 500 years until the coming of the Messiah. And that is why, brothers and sisters, during the period of our Lord's ministry, there was a kind of hyper-mesianic awareness. And there were a lot of false messiahs arising, as you know, before and after Jesus for a space of about 200 years, because in that time period, people were doing calculations and they didn't have exact chronology and calendars weren't as accurate back then. But they knew that it had to be roughly about 500 years since Daniel had prophesied this. And so somewhere around this time, the Messiah was supposed to arise. And so there was this great messianic fervor around the time of our Lord. People were actively looking for the Messiah. One of the groups that was actively looking for the Messiah were the Essenes in Qumran. Perhaps you've heard of Qumran before. It's the site of an ancient communal dwelling place on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea. It's famous because it was essentially an ancient Jewish monastery from the time of our Lord, where persons that we would think of as Jewish monks prayed and read the scriptures and devoted themselves to awaiting the coming of the Messiah. And we know of these, so to speak, Jewish monks because they left us the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, which periodically tour the U.S., maybe you've been to see them when they've come to an area near you. But one of the fascinating things about the Dead Sea Scrolls is that they contain various, shall we call them, non-canonical prophecies that even though they're not part of the Bible, nonetheless, were taken seriously by the Jews in the time of our Lord and circulated within Jewish communities. And so in the 11th cave that was discovered in the Qumran area, a document was found in that cave that is a prophecy about the return of Melchizedek. And so we call this document 11Q Melchizedek, that's a typo there, I have a stray one in there that doesn't belong, but it's 11Q Melchizedek. That means the Melchizedek document found in the 11th Qumran cave. And it's fascinating, this document comes probably from at least 100 years before the birth of our Lord. And this prophecy draws together these different Jubilee passages of the Bible, Leviticus 25, Isaiah 61, Daniel 9. It says, for example, concerning what the Scripture says, in this year of Jubilee, by the way, you'll notice I've got brackets in this translation, that the brackets indicate places where the text is missing or garbled and scholars have had to reconstruct the words. But anyway, concerning what the Scripture says, in this year of Jubilee, you shall return every one of you to your property, that's a quote from Leviticus 25, 13. And what is also written, and this is the manner of the remission, every creditor shall remit the claim that is held against the neighbor because God's remission has been proclaimed. That's actually a quote from Deuteronomy 15. There were two years of debt release in the Pentateuch that were often just kind of conflated or like brought together or confused in the minds of the people of Israel. One year of debt release was Leviticus 25, which happened on a 50-year cycle, and it had certain rules. And then there was another one in Deuteronomy 15, which happened on a seven-year cycle, where if you had any small personal debt that you had lent out to your neighbor, you know, you lent your neighbor your mower or, you know, you borrowed his video game set, I don't know what. And in the seventh year, all those debts were forgiven, so your neighbor kept your mower and you kept his Atari and whatever, Xbox, you know. All those debts were erased, and whatever you had lent out, it just, you know, you had to, you know, put it on your taxes as a loss so that internal revenue Jerusalem didn't tax you on it. So that was every seven years. And interestingly, neither of these years was really observed, at least not observed very consistently in the history of Israel. And so here in 11-Q Melchizedek, these saintly men at Qumran are bringing together these two dead laws, these two blue laws, shall we call them, you know, these laws about debt release that were never observed. And they're joining them together and pointing out, look, God gave us two ways for debts to be released, and we didn't observe either of them. So what's going to happen is God's word is going to fall to the ground and not have an effect. Well, that can't be. And so they go on to say, the interpretation of these laws is that it applies to the last days. This is an eschatological prophecy. This is a prophecy about the final days. And it concerns the captives. Just as Isaiah said, to proclaim the jubilee to the captives, it's a beautiful piece of biblical scholarship. They accurately realize, even though they didn't have verbom or accordance or, you know, other Bible software to search on the same Hebrew route, okay, they knew the scriptures well enough to recognize that Isaiah 61 is using language from Leviticus 25. And so they connect that to this idea of the year of jubilee. So these laws, which we never followed, which we never obeyed, they're actually eschatological prophecies about the end times. And Isaiah mentions them to proclaim jubilee to the captives, even from the inheritance of Melchizedek. What? Melchizedek? Why are we bringing up that dude, okay? Talk about a guy who gets a lot of air time for a cameo appearance in scripture, okay? You know, he's like Bob Hope, you know, making a cameo in a comedy film, you know, for playing through for one scene, you know. So like that probably gets 10 grand for making that appearance in the film. You know, Melchizedek shows up for two verses, okay, in Genesis 14, okay, and he gets basically a whole New Testament book, you know, the book of Hebrews out of that. Plus, he gets to star in the eschatological visions of the kumranites here, you know. Melchizedek, and he gets a Psalm, you know, Psalm 110, you know. So Melchizedek gets a lot of play time for just making a two-verse appearance. But anyway, so here they say, okay, proclaim jubilee to the captives, even of the inheritance of Melchizedek, for they are the inheritance of Melchizedek who will return them to what is rightfully theirs. Now, the question is, why bring this ancient king Melchizedek, who is king of Jerusalem and shows up and blesses Abraham in Genesis 14? Why bring him into this picture about jubilee year release? Well, this is the connection. If you read the context of Genesis 14, that incident with Melchizedek happens just after Abraham has defeated the Mesopotamian kings, who have taken the people of the Jordan Valley captive. And so Abraham releases these captives and is bringing them back to the Jordan Valley to be returned to their property. And as Abraham is doing that, this holy priest king of Jerusalem comes out and blesses the whole process, okay? So that is how Melchizedek is associated with the release of captives. Melchizedek is remembered as this great king. Actually, in the Jewish tradition, he was identified with Shem, son of Noah, who, if you look at the genealogies, lived into the time of Abraham. And the ancient Jews considered Melchizedek to be the throne name, the name that Shem took when he took the throne of Jerusalem. And then he blesses Abraham when Abraham releases the captives and returns the property of these captives. So that is why Melchizedek is associated with these ideas. And he's going to return what's rightfully theirs, the property of the elect. He will proclaim to them the Jubilee, okay? Wow, what a mix of biblical passages here, okay? So now we got Melchizedek proclaiming the final Jubilee here, releasing them from their money debt. No! Transcendental supernatural Jubilee, releasing them from the debt of all their sins. Woo! Wow, okay? That is quite something. Who can forgive sins but God alone? So that the prophecy of 11. Melchizedek continues, this word will thus come in the first week of the Jubilee period. That's a period of 49 years, excuse me. That follows the nine Jubilee periods. That would be 441 years. So basically in the 10th Jubilee cycle, okay, we're going to start seeing the fulfillment of this. This is based, of course, on Daniel 9 with the 10 Jubilee cycles, the 70 weeks of years. And then you're going to have a great, you know, final Jubilee, an eschatological Jubilee. Then the day of atonement shall follow at the end of the 10th Jubilee period. So at the end of the 490 years. Again, this is based off Daniel 9. When he, referring back to Melchizedek, shall atone for all the sons of light. This is a phrase that's only found in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the writings of the Apostle John, who I think had contact with the Essenes. And the people who are predestined to Melchizedek, okay? So this Melchizedek is going to return, proclaim this great Jubilee that's going to be a supernatural Jubilee that's not going to just forgive your credit card, you know, pay off your visa, okay, and your American Express, but it's going to pay off your debt before God, right, based on these ancient prophecies. But it goes on. We're not done yet. It continues and says, for this is the time decreed for the year of Melchizedek's favor, okay? They're modifying Isaiah 61 verse 2, the year of the Lord's favor, but they're inserting Melchizedek's name in place of the Lord. Whoa, that's interesting. A priest king who has the status of the Lord and for his host together with the holy ones of God, for a kingdom of judgment, just as it is written concerning him that is concerning Melchizedek in the songs of David, God has taken his place in the counsel of God in the midst of the angels he holds judgment. Look at this. They interpret Psalm 82.1 in the references to Elohim there to actually be a reference to Melchizedek who's going to return, okay? Wow, a divine Melchizedek who is a human priest king, but he's also God or at least they take the references to God in the prophecies as references to Melchizedek. Therefore, it continues. I'm sorry. No, I'm a little behind. I've been going forward on my, are we jammed? There we go. This is the problem. There we go. Okay, that was what I just last read and carried away and not keeping you up to date with me. Okay, so here we are. Therefore, Melchizedek will thoroughly prosecute the vengeance required by God's statutes. In that day, he will deliver them from the power of Belial and from the power of all the spirits predestined to him. Okay, so here this divine Melchizedek is going to deliver the people of Israel, not from human slavery, but from slavery to Satan. And that's still not it yet. Okay, we've got more. It is written concerning him who says to Zion, your God reigns, that's Isaiah 52 verse 7, Zion the Kermonites take as a reference to the sons of righteousness who uphold the covenant and turn from walking in the way of the people. Your God is Melchizedek. Okay, there we go again, the divine Melchizedek who will deliver them from the power of Belial and deliver you from Satan. Concerning what scripture says, then you shall have the trumpet sounded throughout the land of Israel. This is Leviticus 25, 9. So your God, once again, is identified as Melchizedek. He's going to announce this release from Satan. And release from Satan is the true meaning, according to the Kermonites, of blasting the jubilee trumpet on the day of atonement and liberating all the people of Israel. So these laws of Moses are actually foreshadowings of a supernatural liberation that's going to happen at the end of time under the leadership of a divine Melchizedek. Well, isn't that interesting? And then we go to the Gospel of Luke. And we pick up in Luke chapter four our Lord's first sermon in his hometown. Okay, so preacher boy goes back to the West Virginia of Israel, namely Galilee. Galilee was the West Virginia. Judea and Jerusalem was kind of like New York and Connecticut of Israel. And Galilee was like West Virginia. So Galilee was hillbilly country. You could get off the grid, get back in a holler and nobody would find it for years. Periodically, new stories come out of people that have been up in a holler in West Virginia and nobody's heard from them for a decade, and then they come out. So you can hide up in Nazareth. It's hillbilly country. So preacher, wonder preacher boy Jesus comes back to his hometown in the back hills where he had been brought up and he went to the synagogue as his custom was on the Sabbath day. And he stood up to read and there was given to him the book of the prophet Isaiah and he opened the book. It was really a scroll and found the place where it was written. The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release. That's the Jubilee year to the captives and the recovery of sight to the blind. Wow. This is the passage he chooses for his first homily in his hometown. This is a passage that was very significant to a lot of Jews because this prophecy of a love came in Melchizedek. That was in the air. Even people that weren't Essians probably knew about the expectation. If they didn't expect it themselves, they're like, hey, those Charismatics down by the Dead Sea. They expect that Melchizedek is going to come back and fulfill Isaiah 61. And our Lord continues, to set at liberty those who are oppressed to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. This is the final Jubilee year. And he closed the book, which really means rolled the scroll back up. And he gave it back to the attendant and sat down and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Now, we've got to understand what's going on here. And I never understood this for most of my life. Like Jesus sits down and for our religious practice, when the preacher sits down, that means he's either done with his homily or we're not going to have a homily at Daily Mass today. So like, okay, we're just going to go on, made of the prayers of the faithful or whatever. So I always say, why does Jesus sit down without preaching on this passage after reading it? But we got the culture all misunderstood. You see, the rabbis preached from a chair, from the presider's chair, as it were. So when Jesus sits down, that means he's going to preach. And he's about to preach. So when he sits down, they're like, oh, we're going to have a homily on this. Oh, perk up the ears. You know, we're going to get a homily today. So everybody's looking at him. What's he going to say about this passage? This is an electrically charged passage because for over 100 years, one of the major groups of Jews had been using it to talk about, you know, eschatological liberation from Satan and stuff like this. So what's he going to say about its meaning? You know, we know what the Essenes think it means. What does this preacher think it means? A preacher from our hometown. And Jesus begins the homily. Today, the scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. I am the fulfillment. Give me some love. Okay. I'm God's gift to you. Okay. I want to be if Father Joe began his homilies like that. You hear these readings, these readings today for the feast day. They refer to me. I've been sent by God to you, the parish of St. Mary's. So yeah, it doesn't work. You know, we can't do that. Preachers and professors and priests, we can't get away with preaching this way. But hey, when you're the son of God, second person, eternity, you can have short homilies. The readings are about me. Mic drop. Moving right along. Do the rest of the liturgy here. Simple message. All right. So today, the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. So whoa, this is fulfilled. I'm the fulfillment. Do you realize what the expectations of the Jews were considering about this passage? You know, there are probably some Essenes or Essenes sympathizers in the synagogue in here. The native son of Nazareth has gone out and made it big time on the preaching circuit, comes back, you know, is a TV preacher, comes back to his hometown. I'm the fulfillment. Whoa, that is quite the claim. That is amazing. That better be true, because if it's not, it's the biggest example of bragging that one can think of. So talk is cheap, Jesus. You claim to be the fulfillment of Isaiah 61. Back it up. Let's see what kind of game you got. So what happens? Next unit, after he preaches in his hometown, the very next thing that Luke records is this. He goes to Capernaum and preaches in the synagogue there. And in the synagogue there was a man who had a spirit of an unclean demon and cried out, ah, what have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God. Actually, it's more like this. Hey, what have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? It comes to distress. I know who you are, the Holy One of God. Thank you. I won't tell you how I know how to do that. But yeah, so that's how that really was. And then Jesus rebuked him, be silent and come out of him, and he came out of him, having done him no harm. Bam. Okay? This demon that's scaring everybody, speaking in voices, ah, spinning the head around, tongue coming out three feet, you know? Everybody's freaked out. This scary demon, boom, comes out as soon as Jesus says so. And they were all amazed and said, what is this word for with authority and power? He commands the unclean spirits and they come out. And reports of him went out in every place in the surrounding region. Whoa, he just backed up his big talk with his game. Okay? He just, he just liberated somebody from the power of Satan. So maybe he is the Melchizedek to come, kind of actualizing in his person the eschatological liberation of the Jubilee. And then the next chapter, behold, men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed. Bring you guys up with me. But finding no way to bring him in, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed into the midst before Jesus. And when he saw their faith, he said, man, your sins are forgiven you. What? You can forgive sins? Who do you think you are, man? The scribes and the Pharisees began to question saying, who can give sins but God? Or someone who is identified with God by the prophecies. Okay? So liberating people from Satan, liberating people from sin. Within two chapters, Luke shows us that Jesus not only claims to be the fulfillment of the Jubilee passage of Isaiah 61, that the Kumranites associated with the divine Melchizedek who would return at the end of time, but he backs it up with his actions. And in order to prove that he did forgive the man sins, he also heals the man as the finishing touch here in Luke 5. As you know, the story goes on. So Jesus, for the Jews of his day, was demonstrating himself to be fulfilling their expectations of the prophetic reinterpretation of these Mosaic laws. But how is this going to continue? Jesus we know eventually goes up into heaven. But if he's come to proclaim this Jubilee that's going to free us from Satan and free us from sin, what about the continuance of the human race? Isn't this going to be the eschatological Jubilee? Isn't this going to be the everlasting Jubilee that Melchizedek brings in? Well, our Lord thought about that issue and actually made preparations to make sure that this liberation that he introduced would continue for all time until he returned. So in Mark we read he went up on the mountain, called to him those whom he desired. They came to him and he appointed 12 to be with him, to be sent out to preach, and to have authority to cast out demons. Okay? So his power to liberate from Satan, which is a Jubilee power, he bestows on the 12 so that they can do it in his absence. And then they would pass it on, pass this power on through the laying out of hands to generation and generation. This is what we call apostolic succession. So to this very day and all the diocese around the world, every diocese according to canon law is required to have an exorcist who exercises the power of liberating people from Satan on behalf of the bishop. And most of the diocese in the US do in fact comply with this. And so if you've got issues, just call Bishop Monforton and he'll send somebody over. No. Actually seriously, not to take this lightly, but there is an exorcist assigned for the diocese of Steubenville, for the diocese of Pittsburgh, etc., most of the dioceses of the United States. And not to make light of this, but exorcisms continue. The designated exorcists of the dioceses of the US are busy and as our exorcist priests around the world. Obviously we don't publicize that a lot. You know, you don't want to put this in the papers, it would be a compromise of people's confidentiality and so it's kept very quiet, but it's taking place around us all the time. And in Matthew 18 to read at that time, the disciples came to Jesus and Jesus teaches them in Matthew 18 and later on in the chapter Jesus says to the disciples, truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. This refers to the authority of interpreting religious law. That's one of its senses, but also binding here can be taken the sense of binding demons and loosing here can be taken in the sense of loosing souls. So it also includes this divine authority to liberate people from spiritual bondage. So again Jesus is assuring that this power of his will be perpetuated forever. We likewise see this in John 20 verse 22. After having risen from the dead, our Lord appears to the twelve in the upper room and he breathed on them and said to them, receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained. So the power to cast out demons has been given. The power to loose people from spiritual bondage has been given to the disciples. And now at the end of John, also the power to forgive sin has been given to the apostles as well. And this power to forgive sin was passed on by the apostles as we see in the book of Acts to their successors who were called Presbuteroi, elders, or Episcopoi, overseers. And so James, okay, the apostle is speaking in James 5 and he writes to people who are too, you know, who are far away in the diaspora, you know, all around the Mediterranean world, who maybe don't have an apostle near them to liberate them from Satan or to forgive their sins. But they do have Presbuteroi around. They do have elders around who have been appointed by the apostles and these Presbuteroi or elders can exercise this authority of the apostles in the absence of the apostles. And of course, we get the word priest as a contraction from this Greek word presbyter, which means elder. So is anyone among you sick, James says, sick of body or sick in soul? Let him call for the presbyter to the church and let them pray over him and the prayer of faith will save the sick man. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to one another that you may be healed. This is a key passage about the early practice of the sacrament of reconciliation, a passage that helped me come into the Catholic church. But that is another story. But there is a key relationship between the forgiveness of sins and liberation in spiritual warfare. Father Gabriel Amorth, the former chief exorcist of the diocese of Rome, who wrote a couple of books published by Ignatius Press, writes about the relationship between the sacrament of reconciliation and liberation in spiritual warfare. And he says, many times I have written that Satan is much more enraged when we take souls away from him through confession than when we take away bodies through exorcism. Likewise, he says, in response to a reader's question, he says, my pastor claims the best exorcism is confession. Father Amorth, the expert, the world's expert on this subject says he is right. It is the most direct means to fight Satan. And he continues, in my experience, a good general confession is sufficient to end the afflictions of demonic activity. So according to Father Gabriel Amorth, kind of the world's expert on exorcism, if a person was able to make a good general confession, a general confession is a practice that's fallen out of Catholic spirituality for the most part in the contemporary age, but we need to recover it. But general confession is the practice of making a very long, thorough inventory, thorough examination of conscience and spending a good bit of time working through a bunch of issues with a priest in the context of a retreat or some other time when you're both relaxed and have the time to do this. So St. Francis de Sales, St. Ignatius of Loyola, they both recommended making a general confession annually on your annual retreat because they both also recommended making a retreat once a year for all Catholics who are serious about the spiritual life. And on that retreat, you spend some time, you make a very thorough examination of conscience, and then you sit with a priest and go through very carefully and get a very full cleansing. So Father Amorth said that if you could make a good general confession, you didn't need an exorcism. Exorcisms were for people who were so afflicted that they could not make that good confession. So the sacrament of reconciliation, as I've said before and many times, is not a judgment chamber. It is a liberation chamber. The confessional is where you go to get your chains broken. Amen? It's a sacrament of freedom. It may be the sleepiest of sacraments. Saturday afternoon, standing in line. The sanctuary is quiet. Nobody's saying anything. You're staring up in the ceiling. You're watching those shafts of light come through the clarestry windows and the dust and St. Peter's is coming down like, wow, I didn't know there was so much dust in St. Peter's church. And every two minutes, you move. Looks pretty dull, doesn't it? Not a subject for reality TV. I don't go in there, put a camera on everybody. Oh, look at confession. Another guy goes in and then he comes out. Another guy goes into the closet. Doesn't make for dramatic television. But if we could see with the eyes of faith, what you would hear for that two hours when confessions are going on in the Saturday afternoon in St. Peter's is, that's what you would hear if you just had the ears of faith. Because out of that little closet, demons are streaming as people are being liberated in this everlasting jubilee. So Jesus took a blue law that the Israelites never enacted and no word of God can fall to the ground. So Jesus takes what they did not follow, it makes it into a permanent reality. And thus God's laws are even prophetic of a salvation. And the new covenant is perpetual jubilee. We don't have to wait for the Pope to proclaim a new one. We can make an appointment with our pastor and go be liberated at any time because we are living in the jubilee here. Amen. Let's pray in the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you let none of your words fall to the ground. And there is prophetic value even in parts of Scripture that would otherwise put people to sleep. Lord, we thank you that there's such power in your word. There's depths and meaning to it. We thank you for initiating, for inaugurating the new covenant, for bringing us into this period when we are truly released from bondage to Satan, when we can be freed from our addictions, when we can be freed from our besetting sins, when we can live in the glorious freedom of the children of God. We give you thanks and praise this day. In the name of Jesus and in the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit, we pray. Amen. Thank you very much.