message title: God Training His People to Worship and Partake of Him and to Live a Holy, Clean, and Rejoicing Life
John 4:23 "But an hour is coming, and it is now, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truthfulness, for the Father also seeks such to worship Him."
the Father has been seeking and is still seeking true worshppers. we do not want to make the Father wait longer. the book of Leviticus is book in which God trains His people how to worship Him through His speaking in Leviticus. may the Father gain us as His true worshippers.
in the prevous book Exodus, God commanded His people to make Him a tabernacle, where He could dwell in the midst of His people. because now God is dwelling in their midst, the children of Israel needed to be trained, to be delivered from their natural ways, to be equipped and qualifed to do things in a proper way. it is just like that, if certain VIP come to my house to have dinner with me, I surely will be nervous and want to learn the table manners, so that I will know how to behave myself. the entire book of Leviticus is God'speaking, through Moses, to train His people the proper way.
according to John 4:23-24, the worship the Father is seeking, is not the objective worship, like bowing down and fearing God; but a subjective worship in the divine dispensing, which is the expression of our eating and drinking of Christ, having Christ wrought into our being. especially on Lord's Day, we have this kind of worship to the Father in spirit and truthfulness. God has his law of worship in spiritual realm. according to Deuteronomy 16: 16b-17 "And they shall not appear before Jehovah empty-handed;Each man shall give as he is able to give, according to the b lessing of Jehovah your God, which He has given you." this is the commandment Jehovah gives to His people, none of His people should come to worship God with empty hands, which means that everyone should bring something, some offerings, some portion of the Christ they have experienced to offer to God for His satisfactiion. in the universe, there is someone else, other than God, who is also seeking worship, even robbing the worship that belongs to God. Satan, God's emeny. He is always trying his best to steal worship from God, because he also wants to be worshipped. we need to be careful, that we only worship God, and God alone.
what is the meaning of partaking? Leviticus shows us that the priests can partake of one portion in the meal offering, which typifies the perfect human living of the Lord Jesus. this indicates that the Lord's desire is that we will partake of Him. 1 Corinthians 10:21 says, "You cannot drink the Lord's cup and the demons' cup; you cannot partake of the Lord's table and of the demons' table." the speaking brother here asks the question that what are we doing on Saturday nights? are we going to movie? to shopping mall? we dare not partake of the demons's table on Saturday nights, and come to partake of the Lord's table on Lord's Day. if we are partaking of the Lord, we are one with the Lord. this equally means that if we partake of the demon's table, we are one with the demon. Oh Lord Jesus!
since now Christ is the reality of all the offerings, our need is to experience the wonderful One, Christ, as all the offerings, so that we will be able to stand before God, and say, "all my problems have been saved now. there is no gap between God and me." today God wants to train us to expereince all these offerings, so that all problems will be solved and the gap between God and us will disappear.
Leviticus chapters 12-15 talks about cleansing. today, for us, the whole world is filled with uncleanness, especially those from the internet. we touch all these defilement, which makes us become unclean. how much do we need to realise our uncleanness, to be able to receive God's provision to be jcleansed from all these uncleanness.
the stages of the Lord's cleansing us
1. Hebrews 1:3 "Who, being the effulgence of His glory and the impress of His substance and upholding and bearing all things by the word of His power, having made purification of sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;" the Lord has accomplished redemption as a purifying work in the universe.
2. Zechariah 13:1 "In that day there will be an opened fountain for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for impurity." when we believe into the Lord and receive His salvation, the Lord will be to us the opened fountain for sin and for impurity. this means that, as soon as we believe into the Lord, He will cleanse us from all our sins and will purify us, through the blood He has shed for us on the cross.
3. Titus 3:5 " Not out of works in righteousness which we did but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit," this is to be cleansed by the Spirit, and by the divine life.
4. Ephesians 5:26-27 "That He might sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing of the water in the word, That He might present the church to Himself glorious, not having spot or wrinkle or any such things, but that she would be holy and without blemish." this is what Christ is doing now in His heavenly ministry, sanctifying and cleansing us by the washing of the water in the word, to wash away all the blemish, all the defects, so that we will become the glorious church!
5. what shall we do on our side? 2 Corinthians 7:1 "Therefore since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and of spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." first, in our daily living, we need to realise we will be defiled and become unclean, then we confess our sins, our failures, our wrongdoing, our uncleanness, then the blood of Jesus will cleanse us from all our sins, and the Spirit will apply the washing to purify our being.
God wants us to live a rejoicing life. He wants us to be happy with Him in His presence. but practically speaking, there will be times, we just cannot rejoice. how do we answer the charge of God "always rejoice. rejoice in the Lord"? actually, there is a law of rejoicing. "To rejoice is not an act; it is a law. If we try to rejoice, that is just an act. It will never work. But if we keep the principle of the spiritual law, spontaneously we will be rejoicing. Rejoicing is a law that belongs to the Spirit of life, and the Spirit of life is nothing less than Christ as the life-giving Spirit. Christ Himself is the Spirit of life, and within Him there is such a law." - The Indwelling Christ in the Canon of the New Testament chapter 7
Study Questions: (not complete yet)
1. what is the significance of God's speaking to His people in the Tent of Meeting?
God wants to dwell in the midst of His people. but the problem is that God's people do not know how to dwell with God. so God spoke to His people in the Tent of Meeting, in order to train His people to do things in a proper way. the Tent of Meeting is the church today. the preciousness of the church is the speaking God and God's speaking.
2. why is it necessary for God's people to be trained by Him?
a. Leviticus 26:11-12 "And I will set My tabernacle among you; and My soul will not abhor you. And I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be My people." this tells us that we need to be trained to correspond to God.
b. Leviticus 19:30 "You shall keep My Sabbaths and revere My sanctuary; I am Jehovah." His sactuary is the church today. we need to be trained to have a proper regard for the sanctuary, i.e. the meetings of God and His people. many times, we are habitually late for the church meetings, and we don't feel anything about that. we are so much lacking in having a regard for the church.
c. Leviticus 17:8-9 "And you shall say to them, Anyone of the house of Israel or of the sojourners who sojourn among them, who offers a burnt offering or sacrifice. And does not bring it to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting to sacrifice it to Jehovah, that man shall be cut off from his people." this verse tells us that if they don't bring the offerings to the Tent of Meeting, they will be cut off. this verses trains us to know what we can enjoy at home, and what we can enjoy only in the church meeting.
d. Leviticus 18:2-4 "Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, I am Jehovah your God. You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, in which you dwelt; and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you, nor shall you walk in their statutes. You shall observe My ordinances, and you shall keep My statutes to walk in them; I am Jehovah your God." we need to be trained to realise who God is.
3. what is the real meaning of worship, and what kind of worshippers has the Father been seeking?
the real worship is a subjective worship of God in His divine dispensing, as the expression of our eating and drinking of God. according to John 4:23-24, the Father is seeking true worshippers, who worship God in spirit and in truthfulness. "in spirit" means that we contact God, who is Spirit, in our human spirit. "in truthfulness" means that we experience Christ as the reality of all divine and spiritual things, and have Christ wrought into our being, and the issue is that we can offer the Christ we have experienced to God, who has become our genuineness and sincerity.
4.according to Leviticus and various verses in New Testament, what does it mean to partake of God?
Leviticus shows us that to partake of God is to eat the meal offering as the portion God has assigned to us, to take God in as our food. 1 Corinthians 10:21 tells us that to partake of God is to be one with God. Hebrews 12:10-14 shows us that God has sanctified us to be partakers of His divine nature.
5. what does it mean to say that Christ as the tabernacle and the offerings is the reality of the universe?
the universe is the shell to contain the tabernacle and the offerings, which means that Christ as the tabernacle is the true meaning and content of the universe. without the tabernacle, the universe is empy and meaningless. in the four gospels, the Lord established His table, the cup of blessing, the new covenant. thus, when we enter Christ as the reality of the tabernacle and through Christ as the reality of the offerings, we touch the meaning of the universe. for more understanding, please see "The Fulfillment of the Tabernacle and the Offerings in the Writing of John"
6. using crucial verses in Leviticus, Ephesians, Hebrews, 1 Peter, and Revelation, explain what it means for us to be holy even as God is holy.
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