Leviticus 2:11-16
It’s About Us (3)
Tonight, we go one more time into the topic of the Meat Offering.
The Meat Offering was the only one of the practical sacrifices that
had no blood offering. That means that it did not speak of Christ;
but rather, spoke of the believers, both the Old Testament believers
but of us well.
We have seen that:
I. The Grains of the Meat Offering Spoke of Us.
A. There are plenty of Bible verses that make it clear that the
believers are the harvest that God wants.
B. We are the lump, the loaf, and the harvest.
II. The Preparation of the Meat Offering Spoke of Us.
A. The oneness of the offering spoke of the believer’s unity.
B. The oil of the offering spoke of the believers’ anointing of
the Holy Ghost for service.
C. The frankincense of the offering spoke of the believers’
sanctification or ownership by God.
D. The salt of the offering spoke of both ours and Gods
eternal commitment to one another.
1. Salt being added with the sacrifices spoke of several
things.
a. With every sacrifice one was giving a gift, not just
of the sacrifice, but of himself and everything he
had to God.
(1) As a result, God was giving to the believer
everything He had.
(2) The two were making a covenant that all that they
had belonged to the other.
(3) The Salt Covenant, in particular, was a way to
pledge your word which even God recognized and
honored \\#Num 18:19, 2Chron 13:5\\.
(4) Salt being added to a sacrifice was a way to
demonstrate to the offeror that he was making
a commitment to God.
b. Salt preserves and makes things last.
(1) Salt made these offerings a forever gift.
(2) The covenants that God made and the commitments
made by the worshippers were not temporal in
nature.
(3) They were eternal.
(4) God doesn’t deal in the temporal, just the
eternal.
c. But salt being added to the Meat Offering specifically
describes the believers’ nature and purpose.
Matthew 5:13 Ye are the salt of the earth: but
if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall
it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing,
but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot
of men.
Mark 9:50 Salt is good: but if the salt have
lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it?
Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with
another.
(1) Because no picture of the believers would be
accurate if the preserving salt was missing.
(2) We are to be a preservative in a wicked,
rotting world.
(3) Jesus described the believer’s worth who does not
function as salt in the verse already read: "it
is thenceforth good for nothing."
2. Because of the preserving power of salt, no Meat Offering
was ever to be offered without it.
Leviticus 2:13 And every oblation 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 thy meat offering: with
all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt.
a. From that verse, I gather that no sacrifice was ever to
be burned to the Lord without salt.
b. However, since the word "meat offering" is used, I
will leave it that no Meat Offering was to be offered
without salt.
E. But the Meat Offering must never to have two elements: leaven
or honey.
1. Each of those two things were sticky forbidden by God.
Lev 2:11 No meat offering, which ye 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.
2. The first question is why were they even mentioned?
a. God was telling the people what elements make up the
the Meat Offering.
(1) Why was there any need to mention anything that
could not be added to the offering? Once you
start mentioned what can NOT be a part of the
Meat Offering, the list could run on forever.
(2) Because the portion of the Meat Offering that
was not covered with frankincense and offered
to God in the fire was to be eaten by the
priests.
Lev 2:3 And the remnant of the meat offering
shall be Aaron’s and his sons’: it is a thing
most holy of the offerings of the LORD made by
fire.
Lev 2:10 And that which is left of the meat
offering shall be Aaron’s and his sons’: it is
a thing most holy of the offerings of the LORD
made by fire.
Lev 6:16 And the remainder thereof shall Aaron
and his sons eat: with unleavened bread shall it
be eaten in the holy place; in the court of the
tabernacle of the congregation they shall eat it.
Lev 6:18 All the males among the children of
Aaron shall eat of it. It shall be a statute for
ever in your generations concerning the offerings
of the LORD made by fire: every one that toucheth
them shall be holy.
(3) This was a "Fellowship Offering."
(a) An important part of the Meat Offering was
to demonstrate that once sin has been
dealt with, man and God can have fellowship
again!
(b) What better way to demonstrate fellowship
than God receiving part of a Meat Offering
and the priest eating the remainder of it?
b. Have you ever eaten bread that was nothing but flour,
oil, with salt poured into it?
(1) I doubt it. If you did, you probably hated it.
(2) That would be a cake gone bad wrong.
(3) In our house of four daughters, we have had a
daughter or two get salt and sugar confused
while baking before. Friend, it was not
pleasant to the taste.
c. Why would God specifically tell the people NOT to put
leaven and honey in the Meat Offering?
(1) Because these were cooking ingredients that the
priests might naturally desire to ADD to the
Meat Offering to make it more palatable to eat.
(a) God did not have to tell them to leave out
vinegar or asparagus or radishes.
(b) He was warning them not to attempt to make
the bread taste better with what would
logically come to their minds.
(2) The leaven or yeast would make the bread rise,
making it lighter, less like a rock and more
like a loaf.
(3) And the honey would make it sweeter, less like
rubber and more like a pastry.
3. Why were these two things forbidden? Did God want to make
the priest eat heavy, hard, tasteless rubber? No, it
was what these elements pictured.
a. Leaven is a picture of sin.
1Cor 5:6 Your glorying is not good. Know ye not
that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye
may be a new lump….
(1) God had an entire feast week where the Jews could
not have leaven anywhere in their houses!
(2) Leavens quick and thorough ability to spread
through a whole loaf of bread and the
impossibility of removing it once mixed with the
loaf was the perfect picture of sin.
(3) Hence, no offering to be made to God could ever
be offered with leaven.
(a) \\#Lev 23:17\\ There was a wave offering of
two loaves that had salt in it, but they
were to be waved before the Lord but not
burnt upon the altar to Him. For that
reason, they could contain leaven.
(b) \\#Lev 7:13-14\\ speaks of another "leavened
bread" to be offered as a "heave offering"
to God. It would not be burnt upon the
altar to God either.
(c) For some reason, some people refer to any
sacrifice of flour as a Meat Offering, but
I do not see that.
i. If it does not fulfill all the
commands of the Meat Offering, it
was not a Meat Offering.
ii. For example, God commanded Meat
Offerings to be offered with the two
"wave loaves" of Lev 23:17.
iii. Some figure the wave loaves ARE the
Meat Offering, but I do not see that.
iv. God was merely commanding that a Meat
Offering be offered WITH the Wave
Offering \\#Lev 23:16, 18\\.
b. The honey was and is a natural sweetener.
(1) Adding that to the heavy bread would make it
more palatable, but palatable is not what God
calls His people to be.
(2) Too many are concerned with how the world views
the church when they need to be concerned with
how God views the church.
(3) They want to dilute its message and compromise
its holiness to make the believers more
palatable.
(4) God said, "NO!"
i. Some things just have to be heavy and hard to
digest.
ii. That does not mean that the believers of any
age are supposed to be mean, but we are to
be straight forward and truthful.
iii. I have never found a nice way to tell a
person that they are a sinner going to
hell.
iv. If the world does not like the message and
the lifestyle God has called the Christians
to, they can walk away; but we cannot
change the recipe to make it to their
liking.
III. The Presentation of the Meat Offering Pictured The Old Testament
Believers.
A. This is where, I believer, this offering pictured the OLD
Testament believers, but NOT the New Testament Believers.
B. The Meat Offering was a fellowship offering to picture the
fellowship the Old Testament saints had with God.
1. I believe the next offering, the Peace Offering, pictured
the fellowship of the New Testament believers.
2. The Meat Offering was, as the English title indicated, a
meal between the sinner and God.
3. In the Old Testament, the sinner could not have direct
fellowship with God.
a. Why? Because Jesus had not died yet.
b. They had atonement, which was their sins covered and
atonement granted a temporary forgiveness which would
last only until Christ died for sins.
(1) It was for that reason that a veil stood between
the Holy Place of the temple and the Holy of
Holies, barring the Old Testament believer from
the presence of God. The moment that Christ
died, that veil was torn from the top to the
bottom, indicating that the believer’s way into
God’s presence was now open.
(2) It was for that reason that Old Testament saints
did not go directly to heaven when they died,
but rather they went to a place called in
\\#Luke 16:22\\ Abraham’s Bosom, to reside
there until Jesus actually died on the cross
and paid for their sins.
(3) It was for that reason that one of the first acts
of Jesus—I am thinking even before He rose from
the dead—was to descend unto the lower parts of
the earth and lead that captivity out of prison
and into the heavens \\#Eph 4:8-9\\.
4. So in the Old Testament, God appointed one to stand in for
the sinner.
a. That was the priest.
b. Although the priest was a sinner like everyone else,
he represented a sinless mediator, one to stand in-
between the sinner and God.
(1) When the priest stood before men, he represented
God.
(2) When the priest stood before God, he represented
men.
5. After offering part of the Meat Offering to God, the
priests were to take the remainder of the offering and
eat it.
a. The priest pictured the fellowship that the believer
had with God.
b. What pictures fellowship more than the sharing of a
meal together?
c. That portion that was offered to God as a sweet
savour was God’s portion.
d. That portion that was eaten by the priests, was the
sinner’s portion.
e. However, as I said earlier, I am not so sure that this
was the priests most favorite duty.
(1) That bread was flat, salty, hard, and bland.
(2) I suspect the priests might have made God’s
portion as large as they could and kept theirs
as small as they could.
(3) But regardless of how excited the priests were in
their role with the Meat Offering, it was a
picture of the fellowship that the Old Testament
believers had with God.
C. The Meat Offering offered when presented alone pictured man’s
desire to fellowship with His God.
Lev 2:1 And when any will offer a meat offering
unto the LORD, his offering shall be of fine
flour; and he shall pour oil upon it, and put
frankincense thereon:
1. This offering was offered with some of the other
sacrifices, but it also appears that it could be offered
by anyone who desired to do so—although many do not think
that is the case.
2. If so, this pictured God’s desire to have fellowship
with anyone who desired to have fellowship with Him.
D. The Meat Offering when offered with a Burnt Offering, Sin
Offering, or Trespass Offering pictured forgiveness and God’s
desire to fellowship with man.
1. I have not found a command where the Meat Offering was to
be offered with the Burnt Offering, the Sin Offering, and
the Trespass Offering; but there are many examples where
it was.
2. That means that although the Meat Offering was a bloodless
sacrifice which did not picture the atonement, it was
most often offered after a sacrifice that did picture
atonement.
3. Why? Because once sin has been removed, fellowship with
between God and man is restored—and it is automatic.
a. One of the main purposes of the cross was that God
wanted to restore the fellowship broken by sin.
b. Applying the blood, under either the Old or the New
Covenants, did just that!
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