Let's turn in the word of God to Leviticus 2. The reading will be the text that we consider this evening, Leviticus 2. We considered already Leviticus 1 and the burnt offering, now the meat offering. And when any will offer a meat offering unto the Lord, his offering shall be a fine flour. He shall pour oil upon it and put frankincense thereon. He shall bring it to Aaron's sons, the priests, and he shall take there out his handful of the flower thereof and of the oil thereof with all the frankincense thereof. The priest shall burn the memorial of it upon the altar to be an offering made by fire of a sweet savor unto the Lord. And the remnant of the meat offering shall be Aaron's and his son's, is a thing most holy of the offerings of the Lord made by fire. And if thou bring an oblation of a meat offering, bacon in the oven, it shall be unleavened cakes of fine flour mingled with oil or unleavened wafers anointed with oil. And if thy oblation be a meat offering, bacon in a pan, it shall be of fine flour unleavened, mingled with oil. Thou shalt part it in pieces and pour oil thereon. It is a meat offering. And if thy oblation be a meat offering, bacon in the frying pan, it shall be made of fine flour with oil. Thou shalt bring the meat offering that is made of these things unto the Lord. And when it is presented unto the priest, he shall bring it unto the altar. And the priest shall take from the meat offering a memorial thereof, and he shall burn it upon the altar. It is an offering made by fire of sweet savor unto the Lord. And that which is left of the meat offering shall be Aaron's and his son's. It is a thing most holy of the offerings of the Lord, made by fire. No meat offering which he shall bring unto the Lord shall be made with leaven. For ye shall burn no leaven nor any honey in any offering of the Lord made by fire. As for the ablation of the first fruits, ye shall offer them unto the Lord, but they shall not be burnt upon the altar for a sweet savor. And every ablation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt. Neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from the meat offering. With all thine offerings, thou shalt offer salt. And if thou offer a meat offering of thy firstfruits unto the Lord, thou shalt offer for the meat offering of thy firstfruits green ears of corn dried by the fire, even corn beaten out of full ears. Thou shalt put oil upon it and lay frankincense thereon. It is a meat offering. And the priest shall burn the memorial of it Part of the beaten corn thereof, and part of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof, it is an offering made by fire unto the Lord. Thus ends the reading of the holy and divine scripture. Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, what in the world is a meat offering with all of its ingredients? What you'll notice about the meat offering, first of all, is it's bloodless. It's the only bloodless offering that was put upon God's holy altar, consecrated unto God and presented to God. You'll notice right away then that meat is in flesh, how we often take meat. The term meat offering is archaic. It's the old English word for food, most generally. The meat offering didn't involve any death of an animal. There was no bull, there was no sheep, there was no goat that was slain. The base material was that which was harvested from the fields. And not only that which was harvested from the fields, but that meat offering was fundamentally fine flour. That which had been crushed by a hand mill. that which had been sifted of all of its undesirable particles, that which had been prepared. And that meat offering, it could be presented as fine flour, it could be further prepared, it could be baked into a cake, it could be made a wafer. And there were other ingredients too, fine flour, but also there had to be oil. There had to be frankincense. It had to be seasoned with salt. And while those three additional ingredients could not be lacking, the meat offering that was presented at the altar and laid upon the altar could not have leaven or honey. I think I missed something. Did I say frankincense? Okay, it had to be scented with frankincense too. So while those three things were, while it had those ingredients, it could not have any leaven. What in the world is the meat offering? Now, the law for the meat offering doesn't explicitly mention this in Leviticus 2, but that meat offering was not an independent offering. You can read about this in Exodus, or you can read about this in Numbers. I'm not going to spend the time. But that meat offering, first of all, often, if not always, was accompanied with a drink offering. God said, let that meat offering, let it come with wine. Let it be presented with the fruit of the vine. Yea, more that which has gone fermentation. Let there be wine. and the meat offering was always followed a bloody offering, most commonly a burnt offering. That explains the position of the law for the meat offering in Leviticus, why it follows hard on the law for the burnt offering. In the mind of the Israelite, that burnt offering That bloody sacrifice in that meat offering, they were really inseparable. The law doesn't go through those four bloody offerings and then talk about a bloodless offering. No, it's the burnt offering and now this bloodless meat offering. What is this meat offering? If it doesn't have any blood, its purpose wasn't for the expiation of sins. The testimony of that meat offering was not satisfaction. Scripture makes that clear in Hebrews. Hebrews 9, when Scripture says, All things under the law were covered with blood, and without the covering of blood there was no remission of sins. Where is this meat offering in connection with the gospel of satisfaction? That's the question. Now, let me briefly answer that. What is the meat offering? With all of its different ingredients, with all of its unique preparation, with all of its specific requirements, whether you knew it or not, that meat offering is you. That meat offering, it's God's harvest for himself. That meat offering is a seed that in themselves deserve to be scattered to the four winds of heaven. but that God, in His good pleasure, sows in the ground, nurtures with His blessing, gathers in the harvest, threshes of chaff, prepares and presents unto Himself God's meat offering. You could say this, that meat offering, that is a representation of the church in the Old Testament, in the time of pictures, in the time of shadows, God's gift to himself. That meat offering is the fruit, the fruit of Christ's suffering and death. It's that which Christ raises up and Christ gathers by the power of His resurrection. It's a perfect living entity, an organism. A finely ground meal, a single lump. That which is purged of all leaven and become a new lump unto God. That which is scented, that which lives unto God. That which is delightful, seasoned, and palatable to God's taste. Not that which He spews out of His mouth, but that which He finds delightful and pleasant. The meat offering, we'll see this. It's a rather astounding picture. of the church as God's gift to himself and to his son. So let's consider this meat offering. Consider first that it's a perfect mixture. Secondly, that it's seasoned with salt. And third, that it's presented with joy. What we call meat offering in our English translations, the Hebrews called menchah. That means gift. A menchah was what Jacob presented Esau when Jacob returned from Laban. A menchah was what Jacob later sent by the hands of his sons to the Lord of Egypt, who was Joseph. Emencha was that which the Babylonians gave to Hezekiah when they heard he was sick. That meat offering, as to its name, means gift. Now remember, God named those offerings. And when God names those offerings, God speaks to the essence of what those things really are. And God said, when he gave to Moses the pattern of the meat offering, God said, call it a gift. and don't do what I would say 99.9% of commentators do and call that meat offering man's gift to God. That's not the idea of gift here. I don't deny. that God gave the meat offering as an instrument by which the Israelite could express gratitude and thanksgiving to God. Say God gave them a harvest. And the Israelite was very thankful to God for that harvest. The Israelite could have brought a meat offering and said, we give thanks to God for his provision, just like in prayer, you give thanks to God for the meat and for the drink that he sets before you on your table. But that doesn't do justice to the truth of the meat offering. Let me make that very stark. If that's all that the meat offering taught, was it was an instrument by which the Israelite could express gratitude, then I wouldn't be preaching it. If that's your explanation for the meat offering, you profane the whole purpose and wisdom of the Old Testament. Don't ever forget this, the Old Testament was God's age of promise. And in God's age of promise, he gave symbols, and he gave types, and he gave shadows of heavenly things. Really, the whole Old Testament was a pattern after the heavenly. All that Canaan was, that land, that harvest, the corn, the wine, the oil, it was all patterned after the heavenly. It spoke of the spiritual. That's why Abraham could dwell in tents, not owning a stitch of the land. because he had respect unto the heavenly by faith. And those sacrifices, those, and now specifically the meat offering, they were patterns of the heavenly that God gave to Israel, or God gave to Moses. There is a heavenly, eternal reality in the meat offering. There's a word that God speaks in the meat offering. And that word is this, I have determined to give myself a gift, not because I need to, not because I need anything, not because I lack any blessing or joy and delight, but according to my own good pleasure, Let's say, according to my decree of election, I'm going to give myself a gift, that which is delightful to me, that which brings joy to my heart. Yeah, I'm going to give a gift to my son. That's the meat offering, God's gift to himself and God's gift to his son. And you have to sometimes take note of those little details of the law. In the meat offering, there was a portion of that meat. So the Israelite brought the meat offering and gave it to the priest. And the priest took that meat offering, and a portion of it he put on the altar. You would say he put on the altar of God's holiness. He consecrated a portion of that to God, that which would go up to God. And then he received a portion of that meat offering for himself to eat, to enjoy, to taste, to fill him with gladness, to satisfy him. There in that little detail of the law, God is explaining more of that gift. God says, let my son have a gift. Let my son have a gift as a fruit and as a reward of his perfect labor, of all that he suffers, of all that he does to declare my name. After that death, let him see a seed. Let him have joy and let him have gladness. Let him have a gift. Let his resurrection be a resurrection of a new harvest Let him be the Lord of a harvest to gather unto himself that gift. Let him prepare that gift in the spirit Let him enjoy it That's the meat offering How you have to think about that meat offering is a God in his eternal decree said, let me have a gift. And that gift had a very specific form. That gift had a very specific likeness in detail. in the weighty, eternal reality of that gift that God determined for Himself and that God determined for His Son, God pressed that into the moldable substance of the Old Testament and that took shape in the meat offering with all of its intricate details. And now is the time of fulfillment. For that meat offering, let me prove that. I got way ahead of myself. That that meat offering is a people, is a church, is made clear by the prophets. The prophets were always exegeting, always explaining the law. And I don't think we would have an understanding or a very good understanding of the meat offering had not God through the prophet Isaiah given the proper interpretation of that meat offering. That's Isaiah 66. Maybe turn to that. Isaiah 66. Right at the end of Isaiah, the last few verses of his prophecy, in verse 20, Isaiah is exalted in the Spirit, and he sees something. He says, and they shall bring, they being the messengers that God sends, they shall bring all your brethren for an offering, and that word offering is mincha, Read it this way, and they shall bring all your brethren for a meat offering unto the Lord out of all nations, upon horses, and chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the Lord. As the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of the Lord, and I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, saith the Lord. For as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain and it shall come to pass that from one moon to another and from one sabbath to another shall all flesh come to worship before me saith the Lord. This is what the prophet sees He's standing in the type of promise with all of its shadows and all of its pictures. And he's lifted up and he sees a gathering going place. He's seeing, as it were, a people being gathered by the glad tidings of the gospel. He sees that gospel as that gospel traverses throughout all the ends of the earth. And he sees that gospel drawing a people and bringing them up into God's holy mount. He sees the new dispensation as that gospel goes to the Gentiles, and he sees that as a comparison to when Israel would go up on their feast days, they would go up on their mules, and they would go up on their animals, and they would bring their offerings, and they would go up to the house of God to worship God. In the Spirit, he makes a very important comparison He sees the picture, Israel on her feast days, they're going up to bring a meat offering and a queen vessel unto the Lord. And he sees a people, a people and they're not bringing a meat offering, they are the meat offering. And the Apostle Paul echoes that same language. In his epistle to the Romans, when he says, Christ called me to be a minister of the gospel to the Gentiles, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified in the Spirit. Don't you know? You who dwell in the age of fulfillment, do you see what God is doing? God is forming, God is gathering, God is harvesting and preparing His gift. That's the meat offering. And now you'll notice that in Leviticus 2, that meat offering was a voluntary offering. And when any will offer a meat offering unto the Lord, That meat offering was the worship. Of the Old Testament Saint. And. When the child of God in the Old Testament presented that meat offering. That presentation of the meat offering as his worship was a confession. It was a confession. God, as it were, spoke a truth about what that meat offering really was. God had a word to declare about the essence of that thing. And the Israelite, when he presented that meat offering, he, as it were, spoke after God the truth of what that meat offering was. He thought God's thoughts after God, and he spoke God's words after God spoke them. And that presenting of the meat offering was his confession. And what you have to say about that confession, first of all, is this. When he gave that offering, that confession was this, I don't live unto myself. That's not why I've been formed. That's not why I'm here in the nation of God. It's not why I'm here as the church of God. I don't live for myself. I'm not a gift unto myself. None of my abilities are for myself. I'm a gift unto God. That's who I am. And we can elaborate on that confession of the truth with all of those various important ingredients that God required in that meat offering. All of those ingredients were all a confession that that person who came to present that meat offering spoke. God said, let that meat offering as my gift be formed with fine flour. And there was a confession in that. That confession, again, is not how 99.9% of commentators and scholars exegete it. I would say you open up any book that has to teach the meat offering, they're immediately going to lead you astray and corrupt the whole idea of the meat offering. I can say that because I've studied this. There's terrible corruptions. Their idea of that fine flower is this. They say when that Israelite brought that meat offering, he had to present something that was the fruit of his toil and of his sweat. He had to go out into the fields. He had to till the ground. He had to pull out the weeds. He had to take care of and nurture that that crop, and then he couldn't just bring a raw product of the ground. No, he had to prepare it by his own industry. He had to grind it, and maybe he went on a little further, and he had beyond fine flour, and he made it as a cake, or he made it as a wafer, or he fried it in a frying pan of oil. That meat offering was his toil in his industry that he brought to God. But let me tell you then, what that confession would be if that was the idea of fine flour in a wafer or a cake. That confession would be this, look, Lord, at what I have done. Look how much I've sweat. Look how much I've toiled. Look how much I've worked. Aren't you pleased? That's what Israel's worship often became. You read the prophets. The prophets say, all your worship is an abomination. God says, I don't care that you follow the law to all its jot and tittle. I don't care. I don't care that you prepared that meat offering exactly as that meat offering should be prepared. It's, to me, disgusting. I hate it. I don't want any more of them. Why is that? Because when Israel brought the meat offering, their confession was this, look Lord, look at what I have done. Aren't you pleased? Certainly you must be pleased. That's what worship is today for many people. They come up, they say, oh, we are a meat offering unto God. And their confession in the church is, oh, I've worked really hard this past week. Oh, I've put in a lot of sweat, and I've put in a lot of toil. Oh, maybe it wasn't perfect, but I did a lot. I kept the law pretty good. Lord, aren't you pleased? And God says, all your worship, it's an abomination and disgusting to me. Why? Because your confession is not a confession. It's not speaking the truth. No, the proper confession about that meat offering is given by Scripture itself and by the exegesis of Scripture in the Lord's Supper form. I can tell you what that confession was when someone presented fine flour, where all those grains were mashed together under a millstone, and there was a lump formed of fine flour. It was further prepared as a cake or a wafer. That confession was this, right at the end of the doctrinal section of the Lord's Supper form before the prayer. Besides, that we, by the same Spirit, may also be united as members of one body in true brotherly love. As the holy apostle said, for we being many are one bread and one body. For we are all partakers of that one bread. That's 1 Corinthians 10 verse 17. So shall we all. A confession was this. It was a confession about oneself, first of all. What am I? a puny, insignificant grain. What worth is a grain? A grain isn't delightful, a grain doesn't fill one's belly. But you take that grain, and you join it with thousands and thousands of other grains, and you crush them and you form them together. And now you have a lump, a single lump. Now you have something that's useful, something that's desirable, something that can be enjoyed. It was a confession. I'll tell you what that confession was. It's this. I'm utterly insignificant in myself apart from the church in the body of Jesus Christ. That's what the confession was. It wasn't this. It wasn't a confession of individualism and anti-institutionalism. If someone came to the altar and said, you know what? Let me make that very stark. Someone came to the altar and said, you know what? I don't need the school. I can do away with the school. I don't really need the church. I can sit at home. I can heap to myself teachers that tickle my ears. When you presented that meat offering, your confession was one big lie. You weren't speaking God's thoughts. You weren't speaking the truth. The confession was God has so formed his gift that he takes all these insignificant grains of themselves, those that have no worth, those that have no value in themselves, what can they do of themselves? And he forms, he joins them together. Oh, he binds them together. That's what God does. God brings a millstone. God can send, often that's tribulation. God can send tribulation. God presses the church together and he forms for himself a usable and desirable lump. Someone says, what need have I of the body? What need have I of the school? Don't you know, with many grains, one meal is ground and one bread baked? You would say that you can make fine flour, you could further prepare it by baking it in an oven, or by frying it on a big flat iron, or you could put it in a skillet with some oil and you could make yourself a wafer. That only strengthens the idea of that unity. That's joined and you don't have now many, many grains, you have one lump. And so when the Israelite came, when you come to church, there's a confession. What am I? Nothing in myself. Oh, someone that says, oh, look at all my giftedness, all my thoughts, all my wisdom. You use it in service of God's covenant. If you don't, it's worthless. I say there was a confession. Someone comes to church and they really don't need the church or they don't need school. Their whole worship is one big lie. One big lie. But there's more to that confession. That meat offering wasn't a meat offering without it being mixed with oil. He would say that confession was this, we are a spiritual communion. We're not some earthly communion with earthly blessings and earthly fellowship. It's a spiritual communion everywhere in Scripture, throughout the whole Old Testament and the New Testament. Oil is a picture of the Spirit. That's how we're formed. You have all this flour. What binds it together? What forms a lump, an entity? That's the oil. How is the thing prepared in the oven or fried on a flat iron or cooked in a skillet? It's the oil. The oil, the spirit, is what forms and prepares a church. The Spirit determines the church. The Spirit determines what that church looks like. The Spirit determines every single last aspect. That confession was a confession of the Spirit. I know He hadn't been poured out yet. It's a time of promise. But even there in the oil, the Old Testament saint could see very dimly, afar off, that glorious event where the Spirit was poured out to form a church. Don't you see God's wisdom? God's wisdom on display, but there's more. You could say the presence of the Spirit explains why that lump could not have leaven, and that lump had to be scented with frankincense. That prohibition of lovin' and that scenting of frankincense, there was a confession there, too. Take into account that it couldn't be lovin'. Lovin', you know, in Scripture, is a symbol of sin and iniquity. And it shows how treacherous and corrupting sin is. Sin's not a stagnant thing. Sin is a corrupting power. And leaven is a picture of that. It's a picture of whether that iniquity be false doctrine, whether that iniquity be an ungrateful and wicked life. That's not something that's stagnant, that has a permeating, corrupting power. And God says, let there be no leaven in that lump. And the worshiper, the one who came to God's altar, he sought to speak the same things of God, to speak the truth about the matter. Let there be in that lump no leaven. Let there be no fellowship with iniquity. Let it be put out. If a worshiper came and he presented that meat offering with all of its proper preparation, and he continued in a wicked and ungrateful life, that confession was one big lie. If that worshiper presented that meat offering and was going to go home and have fellowship with those who hated the truth, with iniquity, with ungodliness, their confession and their presentation of that meat offering was one big lie. That confession was this, let that slump, as God ordained it, be free from iniquity. Let it have no fellowship with darkness. Let it be free from sin. The church that comes to worship and the church that isn't going to discipline, the church that isn't going to rebuke sin, the church that isn't going to deal with sin, all her worship, it's a giant lie. It's a lie individually. It's a lie corporately. And when the Israelite presented that meat offering, he also had to put frankincense on it. That was a confession. Really, that frankincense was a confession of what his whole life must be. When you put that meat offering upon the altar, and that was consecrated and presented to God and went up, that was a picture of his whole life. His whole life is to be toward God. You could say his whole life was to be a life of prayer. A whole life living out of the conscious reality of who God is as God, as the only good, and as the fountain of all good. And his whole life is to be a seeking to receive from God every last thing. Not to be a trust in himself, not to be putting his strength in himself, not to be looking to anything but God, but to be putting all of his trust and all of his reliance upon God. His whole life was a life unto God, a whole life of prayer. There was a confession there. That's God's gift. That's what God has formed for Himself. That's what God has prepared for Himself. That's the weighty substance of the eternal decree pressing itself down into the Old Testament, so that what you're left with is a meat offering. And now when you presented that meat offering, really what at heart was your confession? You go up to God's house. You come to church. Is the thought of your heart this? I've been pretty good this week. You know, I'm pretty advanced in the life of sanctification. There's a few minor sins I have to deal with, but the majority of those major sins, those are out of my life. I haven't done so bad. But when that offering was presented, was it this? What am I doing here? I have no right to be here. Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. He who swears to his own hurt. That's who can stand here. That's not me. I'm ugly and repulsive and I've transgressed all of God's law and kept none of his commandments. There's that meat offering. That's God's gift, but that's not me. I look at my life, my ways, my paths, my thoughts, my plans, my purposes. That's not me. That's the confession. if there was any good priest. That priest heard a man boasting, you know, I've done pretty good, that priest would send him right back. Don't come to the altar. You don't know who you are. You don't know yourself as a sinner. someone would come, bring that altar or bring that offering, come as a poor sinner and a godly person. You know what that priest would do? The priest would take that meat offering from the Israelite, and before that Israelite, he would sprinkle it with salt. Sprinkle it with salt. Oh, you need one more thing. You need this salt. The idea of salt in Scripture is not preservation. I have to say that because that's, again, in every other commentary. Okay, they could use salt as preservative, but that's not how, find a passage in scripture that uses the word salt in the sense of that which preserves. Salt, in scripture, first of all, speaks to that which is savory. If a salt loses saltiness, what good is it? But to be trodden underfoot, Salt is that which gives flavor. It makes food delightful. Sprinkle a little salt on your meat, sprinkle a little salt in your soup, sprinkle a little salt in your bread. It's that which makes it flavorful. It brings out, it gives that savoriness, that delightfulness, that pleasantness. And that sinner who brought that meat offering, That sinner who gave that priest that meat offering, the priest said, look at the salt. Don't you understand? This meat offering is delightful. This meat offering is pleasant. This meat offering is palatable to God. It's that which he delights. And why could the priest say that? Because salt in scripture has another significant connotation. And that's destruction. If a king went out and destroyed an enemy, and he wanted to cripple that enemy, and he wanted to bring that enemy very, very low, he would sow his field with salt. Salt is that which destroys. There was a destruction that had taken place. That's why there is a delight in that meat offering. I can point that out to you. That's Mark. In Mark 9, there is maybe what we call a rather obscure passage. where Christ talks to his disciples and he talks to them about hell, where the worm dieth not, where the fire is not quenched. This is the end of Mark. And Christ says after that description of hell, for everyone shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. Everyone shall be salted with fire. That's speaking about the destruction that must take place. There must be destruction. There must be that which is destroyed. And that was Jesus Christ. Why could the meat offering never be an independent offering? Why could it only come to the altar after a burnt offering had been given? Because there was blood that was needed. There was destruction that was needed. There is that which must be salted with fire and destroyed. And that's what God did. God brought His Son to the cross, and God salted His Son with fire. God brought upon His Son wrath. God, as it were, then smelled that destruction taking place as Christ bore all the sins of His people, all of their God-hating and neighbor-hating ways, all of their turning away from the antithesis that God establishes, all of their Hatred and malice and wickedness, all of their wicked and ungrateful life, God visited the destruction of that upon Jesus Christ and salted Him with fire. And God tasted that, that sacrifice upon the cross, the altar of Calvary. God says that's delightful, that's tasty to me. There's the salvation of my church. That's how I purchase for myself my gift. Let the sacrifices, all of them, but this meat offering especially, let that be salted with salt. Don't you know? Don't you know, that was a testimony from God to the church, to his people, to his gift. Don't you know the pleasure that I have with this, that I have with you? Oh, you come up to Jerusalem on these feast days and it's a festival, it's delightful, but all the pleasure is mine. You come to church, you say, I have no right to be here. And God in the gospel salts or sprinkles salt before your eyes. He sprinkles the destruction of that of that salt and says that destruction of Jesus Christ of Christ that was pleasing to me. You can't be any more pleasing to me. You are my gift and all the pleasure is mine. That's what this assembly is. the true meat offering in the fulfillment of that Old Testament picture. That Old Testament picture that could be discarded when Christ had died, when Christ had risen from the dead, and Christ had fulfilled all the law. What is the true meat offering? It is the church here in this place. In the gospel, God sprinkles that salt and says, all the pleasure is mine. Don't you know how pleased I am? You're the gift that I, with the fullness of my divine being, with all my will and all my desire, I delighted and I determined to have. Oh, you're a sinner. Yes, but I've covered you in blood. The pleasure of this gathering, it's all, all the pleasure is mine. What a testimony. In an age of pictures, what a testimony. How much more in the age of fulfillment. That's why God said, let there be wine too. Oh, bring your meat offering, but bring a drink offering too. Not water. Water is the drink of a man toiling in sorrow. It's the drink of a man who sweats and who labors in a field. No, don't bring water, bring wine. Bring that which has gone through a fundamental transformation. Not grape juice. Bring wine. That which has been fermented. Because for the sake of my Son, I transform your life. I take that weary, toilsome, mundane, miserable earthly existence. And in my son, Jesus Christ, I transformed that and I lift that life up into the heavenly joys of heaven. Is that not what you have under the preaching of the gospel? Heavenly joy. Heavenly peace. The life of heaven itself. It's that wine that God ministers, that joy and that peace, that heavenly life, by means of the gospel. Let there be wine. Let there be joy. Let there be gladness. That's the life. That's the life that my gift, God says, that's the life my gift possesses. What an offering. And that was just a picture. Beloved, the church here, that's God's gift. that He gathers for Himself, taking those individual insignificant grains, pressing them together. He harvests them. Don't you know what that was? That was the separation from the... Churches can't last forever. There always must be a harvest. God harvested for Himself a people. He forms that people. He pours out His Spirit. He mixes them together. And he presents in Jesus Christ that gift unto himself, and that's what you will see at the end. All the nations, all those people, all those grains that God has gathered by that harvest, all brought up and presented to God in the new Jerusalem, God's gift. For the glory of his name. Amen. Father in heaven, we thank Thee for the truth of Thy Word. We thank Thee for the picture, too, that Thou has given unto us of the meat offering to teach us concerning ourselves. Lord, when we come to Thy house, as those who are sanctified in the Spirit, anointed, With His anointing, let our confession be true and not a lie. Lord, keep us from our sin and from our sinful flesh. Mortify that flesh daily. And quicken us in the inward man. And then present us unto thyself as thy gift of thy love. Perfect. Fellowship, perfect in joy and perfect in peace. In Jesus' name do we pray, amen.