In the New Testament we see that in His salvation the Lord pays attention to the matter of eating. The verses above show us that the gospel is a great feast. To be invited to a feast is to be asked to come and enjoy. I truly wish that you would read and pray over these verses again and again; then you will see that if this matter of eating were not so important, it would not be repeated over and over again in the New Testament. It is mentioned in Matthew, then in 1 Corinthians, and finally in Revelation. In God’s view, His gospel is not focused on asking people to repent or to believe; even more it is not focused on asking them to join a religion. Rather, it is focused on inviting people to the feast. To come to the feast means to come and enjoy the Lord Jesus.
However, our natural concepts are too far off from this fact. If it were not for the fact that this matter is recorded in the Bible, we would never have this concept in our natural thinking. We would think that to receive the gospel is to repent, to believe, and to receive the truth. Actually, these things are still not the receiving of the gospel. To receive the gospel is to receive the Lord into us that we may eat, drink, and enjoy Him.
In the New Testament the word feast is carried over from the Old Testament in 1 Corinthians 5: “Let us keep the feast” (v. 8). In the Old Testament time God wanted His people to keep the feasts. That was only a type which has now been fulfilled in the New Testament. The fulfillment is that we enjoy the Lord Jesus. Our whole Christian life is a life of keeping the feast. Every day we are keeping the feast. Whenever we come to meet, we are keeping the feast. Every time we come together, whether we sing, pray-read, fellowship, exhort one another, supply one another, speak to one another, or listen to one another, the basic principle is that we are keeping the feast.
In the Gospel of Matthew the Lord said that the kingdom of the heavens is likened to a king who prepared a wedding feast for his son and who sent his slaves to ask the invited ones to come to the feast (22:2-4). Then at the end of Revelation, it says, “The marriage of the Lamb has come....Blessed are they who are called to the marriage dinner of the Lamb” (19:7, 9). We see from this that the New Testament begins with a feast, and it also ends with a feast. What are you doing here today? If you say that you came to attend the conference, that is not so good. If you say that you came to attend a worship service, that is even worse. What did you come here for? To attend a feast! Whose feast is it? It is the marriage feast of the Lamb! We come not only to a feast but even to a wedding feast. This feast of great joy is the marriage feast of Christ. Do you know when this feast began? It began on the day of Pentecost, a short time after the Lord Jesus ascended to the heavens. This marriage feast lasts not only for two hours or two days. It began with Pentecost, and it is still going on today.
The messages we previously heard when we were in Christianity were mostly under the influence of natural concepts. Consider what the first thing in your mind was after you were saved. Immediately after we were saved, some of us had the notion that from now on we must go to more meetings, learn and understand more truths, pay more attention to the Bible, and other things of this nature. Is there one who, after he was saved, joyfully said that he was invited to a feast and that he is attending the marriage feast of the Lamb? I do not believe that we can find such a Christian. However, the Lord’s word tells us clearly that to be saved is to be invited to a feast. In the universe God has prepared a great wedding feast for His Son. God said, “Come! All things are ready.”
We have to realize that the heavens and the earth are a great wedding chamber. The whole universe is the story of a marriage feast. No matter how much trouble the devil is creating, how vile sins are on the earth, how corrupt the human race is, and how evil the human heart is, these are only the dark side. Every item has two sides-a white side and a black side, a bright side and a dark side, a happy side and a sad side. People on the earth see the dark side and the sad side of things, but God in the heavens sees the bright side and the happy side. The more we look at the situation on earth, the sadder we feel because the world is becoming worse and worse. However, God is happy as He watches in heaven. God says, “My Son has a wedding chamber, and I am preparing a marriage feast for My Son. I do not care that the people on earth are making trouble. I want to invite them to the feast. Come! All things are ready!”
We are delivered from the world not by gnashing our teeth nor by listening to sermons nor by being exhorted nor by being regulated; we are delivered from the world by being fed with Christ. When we have tasted Christ and have eaten Him to the full, we no longer want the world even if others offer it to us. Let the others be busy with the world; that is not our business. Our business is to attend the feast every day, to eat Christ and enjoy Christ day by day. Therefore, Paul said that we are keeping the feast.
How do we keep the feast? We keep the feast by eating the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. In this unleavened bread there are all kinds of elements, such as love, truth, enlightenment, holiness, power, and patience. This unleavened bread of sincerity and truth is Christ. We keep the feast not by learning the truths and listening to messages but altogether by eating Christ. The more we eat Christ, the more we have His elements.
God does not have any intention for us to labor or to struggle or to strive. It is true that the Bible says, “The kingdom of the heavens is taken by violence” (Matt. 11:12), but this word implies that we need to enjoy Christ in our spirit. The entire New Testament age is not an age of labor but a great feast. Remember that in the Old Testament type one was not allowed to labor during the feasts. In the regular days everyone had to labor. However, during the feasts, no one was allowed to labor; rather, everyone simply ate, drank, and enjoyed. Moreover, during the feasts, they did not eat poorly; rather, they ate the good things, and they feasted.
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