Preach the Acceptable Year of the Lord.
Luke 4:18-19 - “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, [19] To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”
It is only fitting to place this mandate the last, for this completes the fulfillment of God’s promises to us, His children. The “acceptable year of the Lord” Jesus spoke about in this passage was the “Year of Jubilee” described in the Book of Leviticus, in which debts would be forgiven, lands restored to their original owners, and the slaves would be freed.
Leviticus 25:8-13 - “And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years.
[9] Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land.
[10] And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you, and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.
[11] A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed.
[12] For it is the jubilee; it shall be holy unto you: ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field. [13] In the year of this jubilee, ye shall return every man unto his possession.
The Old Testament feasts and ordinances were types of the New Testament and were all fulfilled in the person of Jesus through His death, burial, and resurrection. The “acceptable year of the Lord” refers to God’s work of grace, resulting in the redemption and deliverance of the unsaved.
In the book of Isaiah, this refers to God’s restoration of His people from Babylonian captivity. It is their year of Jubilee when liberty was proclaimed throughout all the land.
In the New Testament, the coming of Jesus Christ into the world ushered in the “acceptable year of the Lord.” It is a time of God’s offer of grace unto redemption and total deliverance. All are invited to Christ in repentance and faith to receive the gift of eternal life.
The “Year of Jubilee” represents God’s total forgiveness and restoration to all saved people. God has paid all our sins from the past and has covered the future with the power of His shed blood. No sin cannot be forgiven to a child of God. No sin can bring back condemnation to those who have been justified. (Romans 8:1)
Conclusion:
The “acceptable year of the Lord” is a wonderful and powerful truth God’s people must claim and embrace. There is no reason to feel guilty and again be haunted by the past. When God forgives, He completely forgives, and He chooses to forget. (1 John 1:9) If God forgives, who are we not to accept His grace?
We will suffer needlessly the guilt of the past simply because we do not completely trust God’s promise of forgiveness. We must claim God’s forgiveness and forgive ourselves as well. If we live according to the promise of the Year of Jubilee, we will experience fully the joy of our salvation.
Are you still bothered by your past? Do you feel undeserving of God’s grace? With what God has accomplished on the cross, all our sins are paid, and guilt is removed. We only need to claim His gift of freedom from sin by being dead to sin and alive unto Christ. It is a life of glorious jubilation celebrating the grace of God.