In the past messages we have seen that the worship God desires is for us to offer Christ to Him in the meetings. This means that firstly we labor on Christ and then we bring Him and present Him to God as God’s food. The destination of our salvation is a feast with God. In this message we need to consider what are the groceries used in preparing a feast with God. We know that groceries are mostly items that grow in the field and are reaped. Some of the groceries for preparing a feast for God are listed in Deuteronomy 12:6: “And thither ye shall bring your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, and your tithes, and heave offerings of your hand, and your vows, and your freewill offerings, and the firstlings of your herds and of your flocks.”
In verse 5 the Lord indicated that He would put His name in a certain place. The name always denotes the person. A name without a person is nothing. It is vain and empty. So the name is the person. When the Lord says that He will put His name there, it means that He will put Himself there. There will be on this earth a place where Jehovah God, the Triune God, will put His name, even Himself. This is not a small thing. The principle of meeting is here.
We can also see this principle in the New Testament. Matthew 18:20 says, “For where two or three are gathered together into (Gk.) My name, there I am in their midst.” So in Matthew 18 there is the name of the Lord Jesus, and in the Old Testament there is the name of Jehovah your God. These are one. So in the New Testament when we say that we have to meet into the Lord’s name, that means into Himself. Even in the Old Testament the meeting of God’s chosen people was in the same principle. They met unto the name of Jehovah their God (Deut. 12:5). That means they met unto the Triune God, because they had to go to a place where God put Himself.
They also had to go to a place that was God’s habitation. For God to put His name in a place means that God Himself is there, so that place becomes a place where God dwells. That is the habitation. Today whenever we meet together into the Lord’s name, then our meeting becomes the dwelling place of our Lord. This dwelling place is just His habitation. Where should we meet? We should meet where the Lord is and where the Lord has put His name. And we should meet where there is the habitation of the Lord.
Verse 5 also says, “Unto His habitation shall ye seek.” We all have to seek His habitation. This is not just to go. To go is a weaker expression. To seek is stronger. We should not only go to the meeting, but also seek the meeting. We must have a desire, a hunger, for the meeting. When we are not hungry physically we don’t think about eating. But when we are hungry we seek after food. The word seek indicates some kind of hunger and desire and thirst.
Verse 6 continues, “And thither ye shall bring your burnt offerings.” This is not the groceries; this is the cooked food. The main item, and even the first item of food with which we feed God, is the burnt offering. The first and main dish of a meal may be steak or turkey. That is the first course. The burnt offering is the first course of God’s food. The divine feast has a first course, and that is the burnt offering.
Then come the sacrifices. These are dishes, or courses, following the main course. These are the courses following the burnt offering. After the burnt offering you have the meal offering, the peace offering, the sin offering, and the trespass offering. These are the sacrifices. In his writing of Deuteronomy, Moses saves some words and repetitions. He simply says burnt offerings and sacrifices. But in the first six chapters of Leviticus he gives us more details concerning the sacrifices such as the meal offering, the peace offering, the sin offering, the trespass offering, and the subordinate offerings.
These are the courses of our feast. Suppose you are going to set up a feast for feeding God and feeding your fellow believers. What are you going to serve? First of all you should serve a burnt offering and second a meal offering. Why? It is because the burnt offering is from the cattle; it is of the animal life. The second course, the meal offering, is of the vegetable life. The third course is the peace offering which includes both the animal and the vegetable life. The fourth course is a sin offering of an animal. The fifth is a trespass offering of the animal life and sometimes a little of the vegetable life. You have to serve God in your divine feast with these five main courses with some subordinate courses. The subordinate courses would be like the dessert.