The Grain Offering Explained: How Christ’s Life Becomes Our Strength | Leviticus 2

Leviticus, the second chapter. There is no leaven, and there is no honey ever in an offering given to the Lord as fire. Brothers and sisters, the Lord doesn’t want it to be contaminated, and He doesn’t want it to have any…there’s a sweet aroma in it for Him, but He doesn’t want any artificial sweetness put into it.

As an offering of first fruits, you shall bring them to the Lord, but they shall not ascend for a soothing aroma on the altar. Everyone, please notice that the first fruits don’t ascend. Every grain offering of yours, moreover, you shall season with salt, so that the salt of the covenant of your God shall not be lacking from your grain offering. For all your offerings, you shall offer salt. Also, if you bring a grain offering of early ripened things to the Lord, you shall bring fresh heads of grain roasted in the fire, grains of new growth, for the grain offering of your early ripened things. You shall put oil on it and lay incense on it as a grain offering. The priest shall offer up in smoke its memorial portion, part of the grain, and its oil with all its incense as an offering by fire to the Lord.

Then the third time we met, we talked about the burnt offering. Do you remember the burnt offering? It had been a long time since we got together, and there are two things I want to add about the burnt offering that I didn’t get to tell you the first time, because there was so much about the burnt offering that I think I may have mentioned one. There’s one other thing about the burnt offering: the Lord is so particular; He even explains how He wants the wood laid on the altar. He wants it laid in order. I think that we see that again in First Corinthians twelve when the Lord says, “Do everything orderly,” you know, that the priests were so exact in whatever they did. I think tonight we will see a little bit more of this, the orderliness of the Lord in giving forth the offering. Not neatness, not formality, but the strength of having prepared everything just properly and having done it just properly.

Okay, I think I did mention one thing about all these offerings: there was only one place you could offer it. Is that correct? Did we touch on that at all? Do you remember? Does anybody know? We did, just barely. Okay, I think I’ll pass that for right now and come back to it later.

Now we come to the second offering, and I’m rather grateful tonight for the New American Standard. The second offering is…It’s been called everything in the world. The King James called it the meat offering…where they got that, I don’t know. Then some other versions came along and called it the meal offering. Then I think somebody has one here that called it the cereal offering. Is that right? What version is that? Provide Standard? Provide Standard? I didn’t know that. The New American has got it. It’s the grain offering. It’s an offering of grain. Brothers and sisters, I think the best way to introduce the grain offering is to compare it with the burnt offering.

The burnt offering is made of what substance? It is…animal. Alright, now then, it is primarily animal. Its distinguishing characteristic is that the whole offering goes to God, and it is not only the whole offering to the Lord, but it is also an animal, it is blood, and it is a whole offering. The grain offering isn’t like this at all.

Now, brothers, the Lord would like us to come to meet Him with a whole offering. I don’t know if you’ve even distinguished in the testimonies the brothers and sisters have given. Have you seen any whole offering? Boy, have there been some whole offerings. Our whole being, our whole life ahead of us, our whole substance, our whole thought, our whole ownership. Praise the Lord. Everything being offered utterly to the Lord, and it isn’t for us; it is wholly for Him. That is something that only the Lord Jesus Christ can do, and the Lord Jesus Christ accomplishes it in us, and then we offer the Lord to Him.

Now then, we come to the grain offering, and it’s a little different. The grain offering is an offering made up of, not an animal, but what? Thank you. It’s a vegetable. Alright, brothers and sisters, a grain offering is a vegetable offering. This means that it is somewhat different.

Brothers and sisters, I would say this: the grain offering is really something that deals with life, with the life of the Lord. The grain, never the animal, but the grain is something that deals with life. I tell you, brothers, the whole burnt offering has more to do with death. You know, we put the whole thing there for the Lord to consume. The vegetable offerings have to do with what the Lord wants of us, utterly apart from the animal, and that is the aspect of divine life. That is, it is also food for God. But it is also food for us.

In this offering, there is a difference. God eats the vegetable, the grain. But who else eats it? The man eats it too. In the first offering, no – it was all for God. But here is something that God enjoys and that man enjoys.

Well, it is very difficult to explain what the grain offering is, but I’m gonna try. The prominent factors of the burnt offering are something whole given, something of fire, something complete, something of ashes. The grain offering has something of oil in it and something of frankincense. Well, I think this will be a little clearer in a moment. I’m just going to speak on this very, very briefly tonight. I want to try to explain this by comparing grain and manna. Now, I have a purpose in doing this. The grain offering and the manna can be compared because they’re somewhat similar. But I’d like you to answer some questions for me real quickly. Where was manna given? And where is the grain given? In the land. Who gives the manna? God. And who does He give it to? The people.