As we continue to study the scriptures found in Numbers Chapter 15; the nation of Israel is still thriving out in the wilderness.
They haven’t yet learned how to live life fully under God’s best ways; so they have not yet been allowed entry into the Promised Land.
However, these same people would be responsible for raising and teaching those of the next generation who WOULD be allowed to enter the Promised Land.
Sometimes when I’m teaching or writing lessons I feel exactly like those poor folks that are stuck there in the sand. I know what is right, I can say it or write it all day long, but I don’t always DO what is right. We humans can be so fickle. That is exactly what got the people stuck in the wilderness for 40 years in the first place. They KNEW but they didn’t DO.
There is always the hope that the next generation will be different.
Today we come to the part of the scriptures that speak of the details of the offerings and sacrifices that need to be taking place among the people.
THE NECESSITY OF OFFERINGS AND SACRIFICES
Maybe things had begun to get off track even all the way back to when they were living in Egypt as slaves.
Now, during the time they are wondering through the wilderness, the people of Israel are not using any agricultural practices for growing crops; so maybe they just assumed the first-fruits offerings were no longer necessary, as these offerings were so often associated with the harvesting seasons.
Whatever the reasons; the first-fruits offerings seemed to have been set aside. This particular type of offering was no longer functioning in the worship of the people on a regular basis.
God wanted this corrected.
To begin to practice the righteous ways again, the new nation would need to present a portion (the first portion) of all that they owned as an offering to the LORD.
Each time their wealth increased they needed to bring more offerings. Though they were not growing crops; they still had livestock.
This practice of first-fruits offerings was to continue whenever they entered the Promised Land and whenever they ate from the food of the land.
THE PRIESTHOOD WAS THE ONLY FUNCTIONING FORM OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT
In those ancient days, offerings and sacrifices were very necessary to obtain not only God’s attention and care; but to retain law and order among the tribes.
There was no official civil government operating among them; only the direction of Moses and the priesthood officiated by Aaron. Those people received instruction directly from God.
God was patiently showing this stubborn and rebellious people called Israel, how a just and righteous nation thrives under the correct types of law and order.
During the course of these lessons in nation-building, God speaks of what should happen when the next generation enters the promised land. He proclaims this new nation will be a righteous land living under and abiding by God’s holy laws.
GOD STILL REQUIRES THE FIRST FRUITS OFFERINGS
As we continue to read these requirements, we realize that God is simply re-establishing and renewing the use of the offering of first-fruits that has always been a part of the ways of the people who followed God in righteousness.
This practice had long ago been established, way back in the very beginning with Adam and Eve, right after they were cast out of the garden for their sin; and it is a practice that continues with God’s true people even right up to and through the present generations of today.
God always requires a first fruits offering from his people.
All throughout this study we have talked about the importance and the requirements of God’s sacrifices. Understanding the sacrificial system of the tabernacle in the wilderness helps us to understand the foundation for the offering of first-fruits.
Here God is stating that he will continue to require the established first-fruits offering; even after the people enter the promised land. The requirement for offerings will not change.
THE WILDERNESS TABERNACLE WAS THE PATTERN FOR ALL GENERATIONS TO FOLLOW
They could begin these practices again with the use of them within the wilderness tabernacle. By the time the next generation reached the Promised Land; the laws of offerings and sacrifices would be well established again.
The people were to come before God and present a portion/loaf from the very first grain of their ground meal. Even if the meal was purchased or not grown by them. This is an offering to God from the fruit of the threshing floor.
The first and best portion of all the fruit from the threshing floor always belongs to God. It must be set aside and offered up in a timely manner.
GOD STILL PROVIDES FOR HIS PEOPLE
Recently, we all sat around our tables at Thanksgiving, and even before that day, as we celebrated our blessings at The Feast of Tabernacles; we offered up our thanks to God for His provision toward our well being.
That is exactly what a first-fruits offering is all about.
It is about thanking God for what He has done for us; but it is also more. It is also pledging to use the provision He has graciously provided in ways that furnish and provide for the betterment of this world that He has created for us to live in.
We work to be able to bring this offering to God. It should be our pleasure to return to Him a small portion of what He has given generously to us.
The talents and abilities God has bestowed upon each of us are used to obtain and do our work for obtaining this offering. To be able to have and provide for our own and at the same time use what we have for offerings; we must learn to follow the plans that God has laid out for our own success and our own provision for daily life on this earth.
REMEMBER CAIN AND ABEL
Sometimes; like these people in the wilderness, we get off track. We forget to do this right. Things can get out of order and things can be forgotten.
Like Cain; we forget to bring our first and our best.
Unfortunately, sometimes we give God our leftovers and our worst.
They are NOT acceptable offerings.
This usually stems from the fear that we will not have enough. It is a selfish fear and it is a sinful fear. The wrong attitude from us often fails to give God the faithfulness that He deserves from us as our provider.
We get off track, just like these poor Israelites, and sometimes we even actually think it is what WE do that matters.
That isn’t the case.
FIRST-FRUITS OFFERINGS ACKNOWLEDGE GOD’S PROVISION FOR US
It is all about what GOD does with this offering that is important. He is always the source. We are NEVER the source. We must acknowledge this and believe it. God is the force behind any prosperous person. He either allows our wealth or denies it.
Understanding this concept requires great faith. An unbeliever cannot usually muster up this type of faith.
Even believers go wrong and have to be reminded.
In the passage we study today, God was reminding Israel.
THE CONCEPT OF BEING ON THE THRESHING FLOOR
Whether the people of Israel realized it or not; they were being placed upon God’s threshing floor as they lived their time out in the desert.
God would eventually reap the harvest of their first and their best. Their children would go on forward and claim and inhabit the promised land. What this new generation learned while living in the wilderness mattered.
God will always bring a harvest but first there is a threshing process involved.
They were being beaten down.
The whole nation was being sifted and all of the good of the grain of their nation was being crushed into a first-fruits offering for God.
At the threshing floor the good wheat is separated from the chaff.
SOMETIMES SACRIFICES AND OFFERINGS SEPARATE THE WHEAT FROM THE CHAFF
God’s people have to understand and grasp the importance of this concept.
When we offer our best; God always returns the favor. His vision is always 20/20 when ours is not. Sometimes we do not even understand how He is blessing us because our human expectations get in the way of God’s perfect vision that we cannot begin to understand from our perspective.
This is where trust and faith come into the picture.
God expects nothing less.
We are to give nothing less.
Remember Cain and Abel.
This is something that God established from the beginning of the world for all generations to come.
Have you ever had a high authority in the church to tell you that tithes and offerings were done away with in the New Testament?
Don’t believe them.
With the sacrifice of Christ on the cross the tithes and offerings of the people of God were only put to a higher and better use.
A SACRED GIFT
Your first fruits offerings are still a most sacred gift that you have to bring to God with a cheerful and grateful heart.
I just saw an amazing rendition of the musical arrangement of “The Little Drummer Boy.” In this song the child wants to bring the very best he has to offer to Christ; but he doesn’t think he can because he doesn’t realize that he has anything. Suddenly he remembers he can play the drums. He plays his best and the baby Jesus smiles at him.
In that moment all is well with the world. Giving our best to God is all that ever matters. No matter what we have to give, if it is from our best and offered with a loving and grateful heart; everything else falls in place.
FROM LOVE AND NOT A LEGAL REQUIREMENT
This first-fruits offering is no longer a legal requirement or a duty; but it is now an act of love that proves the intentions of our hearts toward God.
The old phrase seems to hold true here; if you want to know what matters in a man’s heart; look at how he spends his money. Those who love God honor him with their finances and their possessions. They think first of God and last of themselves. They trust God to provide for them and they realize when He does that it was nothing they did.
All people are to bring an offering from the threshing floor to God. It is to be the first portion of the best of the best of the fruit of their labors. The work you do for money is your threshing floor today. The way you use whatever abilities God provided in your DNA to survive in this world; is what you offer first to God. When you have made the first-fruits offering; the rest is okay for you to use.
A PERMANENT REQUIREMENT
The scriptures in Numbers Chapter 15 state that this offering should never be overlooked – not for any generation, even until the end of time.
Have you been bringing your first-fruits offerings before God?
Was it the best of your best?
Did you give your best to God before you partook of your best for yourself and your family?
Some people do not have any money.
They still have an offering.
Their deeds in this world are what they will have to offer. It cost nothing to help a neighbor, or to make a sad person smile. It is absolutely free to stand up in your congregation and lift your voice in praise. It cost not a penny to pray for someone to be healed. Their healing would be priceless. God expects us to use the gifts He has given to us. Love is the most sought after gift on this earth; but it is free of charge when given properly.
We, the present day church of God, must get this concept of the first-fruits because that is where our salvation has its very foundation.
It isn’t about money; it IS about obedience and having a giving and a trusting heart toward God in all of your worship and all of the things you do in life.
We must offer the fruit of our labor to God; but we have also given back to God the greatest thing that He ever gave to us. We, as poor, depraved sinners had no idea what God was allowing us to do. There is a first-fruit offering that stands above all other offerings.
NAME ABOVE ALL NAMES
Jesus Christ was the first and the best that mankind had to offer to God.
He was truly God (as God’s Son) but He was truly man also. We took him and offered him up to God on a cross; not even knowing what we were doing because He allowed this offering and He laid down his life willingly for us.
Jesus is our first-fruits offering.
He was the best of the best of mankind.
Jesus was also the first-fruits offering of Israel.
The human part of the sacrifice of Jesus came from the bloodline of Israel. Yes, it was mixed with the blood of adopted sons and grandsons; but the adopted earthly father of Christ had Israelite blood in his veins and his lines of descent. This is also true of His earthly mother.
Christ was the first-fruits of Israel.
AN OFFERING FOR ALL THE EARTH
By being the first-fruits offering for Israel He also became the first-fruits offering for all of the earth.
From this one nation would come a savior.
A Savior brings salvation.
The perfect sacrifice has been made.
What we bring now is only in response to how thankful we are for all that God has already given us. It is a type of remembrance and memorial of how important the first fruits are.
Because of the first-fruit offering of Christ; Atonement is now possible.
Have you asked for it?
Have you asked for it for our nation?
Again and even further; have you asked for this for the world?
All of these gifts are now free and readily available.
Out there in the dark, dirty wilderness where God was showing these things to a very stubborn nation; a new and better nation would raise their next generation to go into a new life in the promised land.
They would have a sure understanding of first-fruits offerings because as we can now see; total freedom and abundance would never be possible without the faithful offerings of first-fruits from God’s people at His altar.
Israel was learning and growing. It would take years for them to be the nation of the first-fruits; but the threshing process had now begun.