Lev. 25-In the fourteenth to the sixteenth verse of this chapter, we learn that in all the dealings and trafficking of an Israelite he was to have respect to the year of jubilee, When the hand of God would restore in righteousness what the hand of man had disordered in His people's portion. The only way to conduct his traffic righteously was to have respect to the year of jubilee, measuring the bargain and the value of things according to that. In principle this holds now. For all our commerce in the affairs of this world should be ordered with our eyes resting on the return of the Lord Jesus; and our hearts acquainting themselves with this, that man's world is soon to end, and all present interests to cease.
In Israel, God watched over the worldly dealings of His people in such a way as to provide for the restoration of everything every fifty years:-He then resettled the family estates, and put all in order again. In the church, also, He watches the worldly dealings of His saints; but it is not in order to restore earthly arrangements again but with respect to the maintaining of spiritual communion with Himself. In all their callings He tells His saints, now, "therein to abide with God." This is the rule, this is the only limitation now. The soul, amidst all around that is discordant and disordered, is to be preserved for heavenly citizenship, and exercised in relation to a heavenly life, where the flesh and man's world will be gone, and gone forever.