My subject tonight is the Feast
of Firstfruits. Our text is Leviticus chapter
23, verses 9 through 14. The Feast of Firstfruits. Let's read the text together.
Leviticus chapter 23, verse 9. The Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When you become
into the land which I give you and shall reap the harvest thereof,
then you shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest
unto the priest. And he shall wave the sheaf before
the Lord to be accepted for you. On the morrow, after the Sabbath,
the priest shall wave it. And you shall offer that day
when you wave the sheaf and he lamb without blemish of the first
year for a burnt offering unto the Lord. And the meat offering
thereof shall be two-tenth deals of fine flour mingled with oil,
an offering made by fire unto the Lord for a sweet savor. And
the drink offering thereof shall be of wine, the fourth part of
an hen, And you shall eat neither bread nor parched corn nor green
ears until the selfsame day that you have brought an offering
unto your God. It shall be a statute forever
throughout your generations in all your dwellings. As you read
the scriptures, you can hardly avoid noticing that our God wisely
and graciously revealed himself in this book in a progressive
manner. He did not show himself all at
once in the Word of God. He didn't show the work and purpose
of his grace all at once, but rather progressively, a little
here and a little there. The same is true in our experience
of grace. God doesn't reveal everything
to us at once. In fact, as you grow in knowledge
and understanding, you recognize that you have yet had very little
revealed and made to experience very little. But God graciously
reveals himself progressively, both in his word and in the experience
of grace. Let me give you a few illustrations. The Lord first spoke to Adam
and Eve after the fall about the bruising of the serpent's
head by one who would come being born the seed of a woman, not
of a man, promising that there would come a man, a man by supernatural
birth, a man by divine power, who would be the savior of his
people, who would crush the serpent's head. And then he killed an innocent
victim. portraying the sacrifice of that
man, the Lord Jesus, our substitute. And then he took the skins of
that innocent victim, sacrificed in the room instead of Adam and
Eve, and clothed our first parents with the skins of that victim,
portraying for us his righteousness made ours, made the righteousness
of God in Jesus Christ we are, and that's what was portrayed
in those skins that God put upon Adam and Eve. Throughout the
book of God, from Genesis right through the end of Revelation,
we have set before us the unfolding drama of redemption, act by act,
scene by scene, until at last the Son delivers up the kingdom
to the Father, saying, Lo, I and the children which thou hast
given me, and presents all the myriads of his elect, holy, unblameable,
and unreprovable before God. That's what God is doing in time,
and that's how things shall be finished at last. In this progressive
revelation of his purpose of grace, the Lord graciously established
these seven annual feasts that are described here in Leviticus
chapter 23. These feasts, which the children of Israel were required
of God to observe every year throughout their generations.
And as he gives the feast, each one builds upon the other. Each
one shows something distinct, one feast being built upon the
other in the worship of God. The first feast established by
God was the feast of Passover. because Christ, our Passover,
is sacrificed for us. And everything about our relationship
with God, everything we experience of the grace of God, everything
we know of God is built upon and arises from Christ, the Lamb
of God, slain from the foundation of the world, our Passover sacrifice,
who in his body bore our sins on the tree and thereby satisfied
the wrath and justice of God on our behalf. The second feast
is the feast of unleavened bread. It was established by God to
portray, in a marvelous picture, the believer's life of faith
in Christ Jesus. As the children of Israel kept
the Feast of Unleavened Bread, portraying for us, feasting upon
Christ, the bread of life, eating his flesh and drinking his blood.
That's how God's people live in this world. The sure and certain
result of Christ being sacrificed on our behalf is that those people
for whom the Passover lamb was sacrificed will live by the grace
of God. Every redeemed sinner shall be
born again at God's appointed time, just as when Israel left
Egypt, not a hoof was left behind. So all the redeemed of the Lord
shall be saved by God's marvelous grace. Now here in our text,
verses 9 through 14, we come to the Feast of Firstfruits.
This speaks of Christ, our resurrection, and of our resurrection in, with,
and by our Lord Jesus Christ. Both that resurrection, which
is described in Revelation 20, verse 6, as the first resurrection,
that's the new birth, and the final resurrection, the resurrection
of our bodies at our Savior's second coming. All who are redeemed
Feast upon Christ by faith, and all who believe on the Son of
God shall be raised at last in immortality, body, soul, and
spirit joined together in the blessed union of everlasting
glory with Jesus Christ, our Redeemer. Now, we know that this
is exactly what these verses of Scripture refer to. If you
want to turn there and look at it, look in 1 Corinthians 15.
If you don't, just jot it down. Verses 19 and following, the
Spirit of God tells us plainly that this first fruit feast refers
to the resurrection. 1 Corinthians 15, verse 19. If in this life only we have
hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. When I was
just a young believer, I recall hearing an older man make the
statement, and I was shocked by it. He said, if there's no
heaven, no resurrection, no eternity in heaven, then it would be a
miserable thing to be a Christian. And I was shocked. That is not
what Paul is saying. What Paul is saying is this.
If we live here, in hope of everlasting glory with Christ, and there's
no resurrection. Oh, what a disappointment that
would be. What a disappointment, what misery,
to live and die without hope. But that is not the case. But
now is Christ risen from the dead, now watch this, and become
the first fruits of them that sleep, those whose bodies sleep
in the grave. For as in Adam all die, even
so in Christ shall all be made alive. All who were represented
by Adam, the covenant head of the human race, died in Adam. And all who are represented by
Christ, the covenant head of God's chosen race, his elect,
live by Christ. Read on, for as in Adam all die,
even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in
his own order, Christ the firstfruits, afterward they that are Christ
at his coming. Then in verse 25, or verse 26,
the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. Christ Jesus, the firstfruits. Portrayed here in this feast
of firstfruits, him being raised from the dead, and our experience
of life in him by the grace of God, is the foretaste, the firstfruits,
of this blessed, confident hope. Soon, our Redeemer will triumph
over death. And we shall triumph over death
in him. These very bodies shall be raised
incorruptible in everlasting glory. The Feast of Firstfruits
was a celebration of God's provision in the land of Canaan. It was
established back here while the children of Israel were in the
wilderness. But the Feast of Firstfruits was not observed
until the children of Israel came into possession of the land
of Canaan, the land of promise. For 40 years, while they wandered
in the wilderness, the children of Israel ate manna. Then when
they arrived in Canaan, it was time to celebrate the promise
of God and his abundant harvest in the land of provision. So
they observed this feast of firstfruits as quickly as they came in and
took possession of the land of Canaan. They had the feast of
Passover and unleavened bread, and they kept the feast of firstfruits,
worshiping God. And God ceased to provide the
manna, for they had now come to the land of milk and honey
of God's abundant provision. So it is, you and I, feast upon
Christ Jesus, the bread of life, and we rejoice in him, the firstfruits,
the promise of life yet to come. For the believing Israelite,
the harvest represented all of God's elect. They'd go out and
gather their barley, gather their corn, gather their wheat. And
the harvest, whatever it was, represented not just their food
for the year, but the whole body of God's elect. And God's elect
being those who must be saved in time. They brought the first
fruits to God with this confidence. He who gave the firstfruits will
give the full harvest. And he who has saved us will
save all his own exactly according to his purpose. Now let me show
you three things, and I pray that God the Holy Spirit will
make these three things profitable to your soul. First we'll look
briefly at the ceremony of firstfruits itself. And then, in a little
more detail, at God's claim as God upon the first fruits. And then let me give you the
message of this feast. Let's look at the ceremony itself.
Read the text with me again. Verse 9, Leviticus 23. The Lord
spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel and
say unto them, when ye become into the land which I give unto
you and shall reap the harvest thereof, then shall ye bring
a sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest unto the priest.
And he, the priest, shall wave the sheaf before the Lord to
be accepted for you. On the morrow after the Sabbath,
the priest shall wave it, and you shall offer that day when
you wave the sheath and he lamb without blemish of the first
year for a burnt offering unto the Lord. And the meat offering
thereof shall be two-tenth deals of fine flour mingled with oil,
an offering made by fire unto the Lord for a sweet savor. And the drink offering thereof
shall be wine, wine that makes the heart glad, and the fourth
part of an hen, and you shall eat neither bread nor parched
corn nor green ears until the selfsame day that you have bought
an offering unto your God. It shall be a statute forever
throughout your generations in all your dwellings. When the
children of Israel planted their fields, planted their crops in
the field, they marked off a specific section of the field. When the
harvest was ripe, the men went in with their sickles and they
gathered one sheaf of barley each out of the field that had
been marked off, the first fruits of the field. They carried that
sheaf of barley to the house of God, to the tabernacle, gave
it to God's priest, And the priest waved the sheaf along with the
burnt offering of the meat offered to God. The priest, of course, represents
our Lord Jesus Christ, our only mediator, the one mediator between
God and man, our intercessor, that one who does the work in
the holy place, offering sacrifice of himself, making us acceptable
and accepted, making us the very righteousness of God in him.
The sheaf of firstfruits, as I've already said, speaks of
Christ our Redeemer. This firstfruit sheaf was waved
before the Lord, waved by the priest. Why? For the acceptance of the
one who brought it. He brings the firstfruits, the
sheaf of firstfruits, puts it in the hand of the priest, and
the priest waves it before the Lord for the acceptance of the
one the priest represents, the one who brought it. And then
there's the burnt offering, offering of the Lamb, which typified Christ,
the Lamb of God, by whom we have atonement. So he's represented
in the first fruits. He's represented in the sacrifice. He's represented in the priest.
And then there's the meal offering mingled with oil, which was double
the usual amount, representing the very life of the people. They brought that upon which
they depended for sustenance to God. They brought the first
fruits. This is the wheat we've raised
for this year. This is the barley we've raised for this year. This
is how we're going to live for the next 12 months. And they
brought the very first, the best of the crop, and brought a sheaf
to God and said, this is yours. This is yours. We trust you,
our God, for the full harvest. What an expression of faith in
Christ the Redeemer. We trust you, our God, for the
full harvest. This was to be offered with a
drink offering of wine, which I said a moment ago demonstrated
that the offering was a matter of joy. God loveth a cheerful
giver. It was an offering made willingly,
joyously, with no reluctance at all. Isn't that amazing? with no reluctance at all. They
went out and cut down the very first of the crops, the best
of the crops, brought them to God, and did so joyfully. Wine maketh glad the heart. Mingle with oil to make the face
shine. That's how they came to worship
God. All this was done before they
were ever allowed to gather anything for themselves out of their fields. this firstfruits offering represented
the harvest yet to be gathered, the harvest still in the field. And they gave thanks to God for
the harvest while it still stood in the field, anticipating God's
provision. Oh, God, give me grace to live
every morning with the full confidence of your provision for all my
soul needs through this day. To live the days of my life in
full confidence of your provision for all I need as a man in this
world. Most importantly, give me grace
to walk before you with the confidence of faith, trusting you, my God,
for all the provision my soul needs for eternity. It's called
faith. This is what's represented in
the Feast of Firstfruits. How forcibly this taught and
demonstrated the children of Israel's dependence upon God
for everything. Yet it also displayed ceremonially
the willing consecration of these men and women who believed God,
of those who were believers among the Israelites. It represented
their willing, joyful consecration of themselves, of their families,
of their property, of their possessions. Lord, we're yours. Lot, stock, and barrel, we belong
to you. We've been bought with a price.
And the Lord God accepted both the people and their sacrifice
as a sweet savor with which he is well pleased. Turn to Ecclesiastes. One more time, I want you to
see this passage of scripture. Ecclesiastes chapter 9. Brother
Todd Nobber and I talked two or three times today about this
matter of the believer and his acceptance with God, this new
nature that God's given us. Tom was asking me particularly
about 2 Corinthians 5, verse 10, talking about the judgment
seat of Christ. And everyone being judged for that which is
done in his body. Judged for that which is done
in his body. That's what it says. How can that be? The Lord God
speaks to us plainly in 1 John chapter 3 of that which is of
the devil and that which is born of God. That which is in you
which is born of God is Christ in you. That which is in you
that is born of the Spirit can not sin. It only does righteousness. That which does not righteousness
what Mark Henson was when he came into this world. What you
are by nature is of the devil. That's all the result of the
fall. But that which is in you by grace can not sin. Not only has God made us righteous
by the obedience of Christ our substitute, but he's put in us
a new nature, and that new nature constantly serves God. So that
as we walk in this world, living before God, now listen to me. Please hear this. Oh, it'll help
you. I promise you it'll help you.
we live in this world, God accepts us in his Son, as one with his
Son, in the totality of our lives, as he accepts his Son. I can hardly imagine what I just
said. While I live in this world, Christ
lives in me. While I walk in this world, Christ
walks in me and through me. The same is true of you. And
as you live your life trusting the Lord Jesus Christ, whether
you're working in the field, sitting in the house, working
in the kitchen, diapering your babies, helping your parents,
rolling the crippled child down the sidewalk. Whatever it is
you're doing, as you live for God, God accepts you and your
life in the totality of your being. Let's see if that's not
what the book says. Ecclesiastes 9, verse 7. Go thy way, eat thy bread with
joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart. For God now accepteth
thy works. Now remember what Solomon has
been talking about, the wise man. He's been talking about
vanity. Vanity of vanities. All is vanity. What's he talking about? He's
talking about riches and knowledge and property and power and works. Sons and daughters. Grandchildren
and families? Vanity! A vanity! Everything you can grab here
is vanity. Now watch what it says. Let thy garments be always white,
the white linen garments of Christ's perfect righteousness. And let
thy head like no ointment, God the Spirit, the anointing one,
the unction you have from the Holy One. Live joyfully with
the wife whom thou lovest all the days of thy, the life of
thy vanity. All the days of the life of thy
vanity. Everything in this world. Everything. that has no connection
with the world to come is vanity. Doesn't matter how much you have
of it or how little. Everything you leave here is
vanity. The life of your vanity. He says
live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of the
life of your vanity. which he hath given thee under
the sun, all the days of thy vanity, for that is thy portion
in this life, and in thy labor, which thou takest under the sun.
Now, go back to what he said. Verse seven, God now accepteth
thy works. So live joyfully with the wife
of your vanity, whom you love. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to
do, do it with all thy might. For there's no work, no device,
no knowledge, no wisdom in the grave whither thou goest. Now
this is what I said to Brother Todd this afternoon. It helped
me both. When you get done at the end
of the day, and you sit down in your easy chair, and all the
work is over, and wife's finished all her work, and you decide
you want to have a glass of wine, and just sit and talk a little
bit, and your wife sits down on your lap, and you pat her
thigh, and you kiss her, and she kisses you, God accepts your
works. And when you get up in the morning
and go to work, God accepts your works, just as he accepts the
work of his son. and rewards accordingly in the
perfection of holiness which he gives. All right, here's the
second thing. Let's acknowledge God's rightful
claim upon the firstfruits. He has a rightful claim. He has a rightful claim. He's
God. He's God. He has a claim because
he's God, and he has a claim because he's God, my Savior,
my Redeemer. God claims the firstfruits of
everything. The firstfruits belong to him
before they're harvested. He has the first claim on our
lives. The first claim on everything,
both man and beast. Just a couple of verses back
in Exodus chapter 12, Exodus 12. The firstborn of man and beast
are sanctified, made holy, and presented to God. I'm sorry,
I said chapter 12, chapter 13, verse two. Sanctify unto me all the firstborn,
Whatsoever openeth the womb among the children of Israel, both
the man and the beast, it is mine. That which is true of the firstborn
is true of all that come afterward. We only had one child, as you
know. The very first thing I did when
I found out my wife was pregnant, as I lifted my heart to God and
said, God, this child is yours. As soon as I found out Faith
was pregnant with Audra Grace, the first thing, God, this child's
yours. I give her to you freely. The
very first thing, when I found out she was pregnant with Will,
God, this child is yours. I give the child to you freely.
Please, my God, Take them as yours. He has the rightful claim
to everything and everybody. Look at Exodus 22. Exodus 22,
verse 29. Thou shalt not delay to offer
the first of thy ripe fruits and of thy liquors, the firstborn
of thy sons shalt thou give unto me. One more text in this regard,
Deuteronomy chapter 26. The first fruits of all the earth
by God's own law were presented to the Lord at his altar and
done so with praise and thanksgiving. Deuteronomy 26. It shall be when
thou art come in unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth
thee for an inheritance and possesses it. dwell us therein. When you take possession of Canaan,
when you built your houses there and your sons and daughters now
live in the land of Canaan, thou shalt take of the first of all
the fruit of the earth, which thou shalt bring of thy land,
that the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt put it in a basket. and shall go unto the place which
the Lord thy God shall choose to place his name there. And
thou shalt go unto the priest that shall be in those days,
and say unto him, I profess this day unto the Lord thy God, that
I am come unto the country which the Lord God swear unto our fathers
to give us. and the priest shall take the
basket out of thine hand and set it down before the altar
of the Lord thy God, and thou shalt speak and say before the
Lord thy God, a Syrian ready to perish was my father. And he went down into Egypt and
sojourned there with a few. and became there a nation, great,
mighty, and populous. And the Egyptians evil entreated
us and afflicted us and laid upon us hard bondage. And when
we cried unto the Lord our God, the God of our fathers, the Lord
heard our voice and looked on our affliction and our labor
and our oppression. And the Lord brought us forth
out of Egypt with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm.
and with great terribleness, and with signs, and with wonders.
And he hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this
land, even a land that floweth with milk and honey. And now,
behold, I have brought the firstfruits of the land, which thou, O Lord,
hast given me. And thou shalt set it before
the Lord thy God, and worship before the Lord thy God, and
thou shalt rejoice in every good thing which the Lord thy God
hath given thee in unto thine house, thou and the Levite and
the stranger that is among you. Now, what's the message of all
this? It is a message of certain salvation
and resurrection by Jesus Christ our Lord. Without question, all
who know and worship God, all who have been washed in the blood
of Christ, all who are born again by God the Holy Ghost, all who
are saved by God's free grace, ought to bring the firstfruits
of all things to God. The giving of the firstfruits
is a picture of faith in Christ. trusting God our Savior for all
things. Trust in the Lord with all thine
heart. In all thy ways acknowledge him
and he will direct your paths. Solomon teaches us that in Proverbs
chapter 3 just before he says, honor the Lord with your substance. You honor God with your life,
with your gifts, as you trust him for everything. And you cannot
and will not so honor him except as you trust him in all your
ways. Trust him. Trust him. As you all know, I hope you do,
I presume you do, I admire this lady here. I admired her since
before we were married and admire her more after 50 years being
married to her. But sometimes she does things
that just make her grow gigantic in my eyes. Several years ago
we were out in California and some folks were asking her, at
that time I could hear a little bit, sometimes listen to two
or three conversations at one time, and I was eavesdropping.
And these ladies were talking to her, asking her, found out
we lived in Parsonage and didn't own anything, said, what are
you gonna do if something happened to Brother Don? And Shelby said
to the ladies asking, God has provided for me all these years. And when he takes my husband,
if he takes him before me, I presume he will still provide for me.
trust in the Lord with all your heart. In all your ways acknowledge
him and he'll direct your paths. There are many very important
and significant things that happened that are recorded in the book
of God specifically on this day. Things that are very instructive. You're familiar with them. Let
me just name them. You can look at them later. We're told in
Genesis chapter 8 that Noah's Ark rested on Mount Ararat on
the very day God set for the observance of the Feast of Firstfruits.
Noah's Ark rested. The picture of redemption accomplished. Israel came out of Egypt and
crossed the Red Sea by the hand of God stretched out on their
behalf Just as our brother read to us in Exodus 14, Exodus 13
tells us it was on this day, the very day set for the firstfruits. In Joshua 5, we're told that
Israel ate the firstfruits of the promised land on this day. They were brought out of Egypt
across the sea by blood and by power, by the hand of God alone. They took possession of the land
of Canaan and they obtained glory by the hand of God alone and
ate the feast of first fruits. We're told in the book of Esther
about a fellow named Haman. Haman had 10 sons. And Haman
thought to eradicate the Jews, God's people. He made plans to
get rid of them. And one of the leaders of the
Jews was a man named Mordecai. And Haman had gotten power from
Ahasuerus, and he built a gallows on which he planned to hang Mordecai. And on the day of the Feast of
Firstfruits, the king's wife Esther went in to King Ahasuerus
And the king asked her, what do you want? And she said, if
it seemed good unto the king, let the king and Haman come this
day unto the banquet that I have prepared for him. The 16th day
of Nisan. Nisan, the same as the month
of Biblical. The day ordained of God that they should celebrate
the feast of firstfruits. The word Nisan means liberty. Liberty, a new beginning, a new
beginning. At the banquet, the king asked
Esther again what she wanted, and she asked the king to come
to another banquet. On the 17th of Nisan, on this
day, Haman, who seems to me to be a picture of Antichrist and
of Satan, was hanged on the gallows he had built for Mordecai. Even
so, our God shall take the very devices of Satan and destroy
him. He who sought to destroy the
Christ by nailing him to a tree will have his own head crushed
forever in hell by the Christ who was nailed to the tree. And
then our Lord's resurrection, his resurrection from the dead,
took place on this very day. By the Jews' own calendar, by
their own calculations, our Lord Jesus, the Paschal Lamb, was
offered at the time of the evening sacrifice on the day of the Passover. And by their calculation, our
Lord Jesus Christ came forth from the grave on the day God
ordained for the firstfruits. He arose. And he took himself,
standing upon the earth that third day, a sheaf offering and
waved it for his people. A sweet smelling sacrifice to
God because he was delivered for our offenses and raised again
for our justification accomplished. And God accepts us. as he accepts his son who was
sacrificed for us. And as he raised him from the
dead, the firstfruits, so too he shall raise us from
the dead in his likeness. I started to ask, do you have
any idea What that shall be. But I'll answer the question
for you. You just don't have any idea. You just don't have
any idea. We have some hints. And we have
the sure foretaste of it. We have in us the spirit of God. who is the earnest of our inheritance,
the pledge of resurrection glory at the last day. How do I know
that I have this? Are you listening? How do I know? How can I be sure that I have
this pledge of everlasting glory, resurrection glory in the likeness
of Christ? I believe on the Son of God. That's all. And that's enough. Oh, may God
give you grace so to believe on his Son. Amen.