THE HEAVENLY PORTION OF THE CHRISTIAN HOUSEHOLD
Exodus 16:14-16; Leviticus 23:9-13
I speak, beloved brethren, as having a distinct sense from the Lord as to this meeting. In a meeting such as this, we rightly think of the great thought of Christ and the assembly. The type is there before us in Genesis 2; Jehovah brought the woman to the man, and man named her. In a certain sense, God could not have given Christ as Man a greater gift than the assembly and that bears on the matter before us. Marriage in the Lord and all its implicit moral beauty is before us. That is amplified again in Exodus: “A man of the house of Levi went and took a daughter of Levi” (chap.2:1). That elevates the thought of marriage in the Lord because it means that the persons involved are to become serviceable to God both in a levitical and priestly way.
You will notice that the thought of gift runs through these two passages, because manna means gift. What greater gift could God give a man for his household than the freshness and vitality of the beautiful life of Christ? The manna refers to that; not to any other person, not to anything else. You will notice in this passage that it speaks about the man’s tent. Even though newly married, our brother and sister are in a provisional setting. This marriage, happy as it is and as being in the Lord, is a provisional thing, and yet God says, 'I am thinking about the man and the tent, and I am going to give them food that will carry them through the wilderness'. So Exodus 16 refers to food from God to sustain assembly households, levitical households, and enable them to go through this provisional scene of testing and trial, and yet maintain what is due to God in the wilderness. As we sang in our hymn (402), we are wholly separate from the world, its joys and pleasures. The tent is a provisional position but it is one where God provides the food. That should touch our hearts, and what food it is! It is the grace and freshness and beauty of the life of Christ down here. When the dew had gone up, there was nothing else there but the manna. The man was to gather it according to the eating of the number of persons in his tent. Woe betide any professing Christian household that does not avail itself of that kind of food, where the head of the house is not gathering it!
But then we come in Leviticus to a changed position. It is not the wilderness, it is not the tent. “Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel and say unto them, When ye come into the land that I give unto you”. That is another divine gift: God has given us the heavenly land. It is not an earthly land; that is what Israel will have in a coming day. The Christian household has a heavenly portion. Then Jehovah says, “and ye reap the harvest thereof” – it is a fruitful position, it shows the result of spiritual, heavenly exercise. It is not just, 'What do we need to get through day by day?', it is rather 'What will there be for God in this land that He has given us?' And so “ye shall bring a sheaf of the first-fruits of your harvest unto the priest”. Marriage in the Lord underlies the formation of an assembly-minded household, and such a household not only traverses the wilderness, it is to be a place from which food comes for God. Think of the dignity of it, that you get into this blessed position in “the land that I give unto you”, and if you are heavenly-minded it becomes fruitful and you “reap the harvest thereof”. Who has given that harvest? God: but our exercise as assembly-minded householders enters into it. So “he shall wave the sheaf before Jehovah, to be accepted for you”. Think of bringing Christ as out of death to God for His pleasure. And “ye shall offer that day when ye wave the sheaf, a he-lamb without blemish”. It is Christ in all His perfection, learned first no doubt in some little measure in the house in Egypt, but this is far in advance of that. And “the oblation thereof”; now we come to what is especially for God, and it is stipulated what it shall be, “two tenths of fine flour mingled with oil.” It is the excellencies of Christ whose humanity was of the Spirit and whose every thought and feeling for God was of the Spirit. That is what you bring “mingled with oil”. There never was humanity like that before, and how wonderful to have to do with it, as moving in the power of what the land is that God has given us. It is “an offering by fire to Jehovah for a sweet odour; and then “the drink-offering thereof, of wine, a fourth part of a hin”. You are not only thinking of your own joy as belonging to the land, but you are thinking of what gladdens the heart of God. So this great offering is brought by the householder and “it is an everlasting statute throughout your generations in all your dwellings”. Dear brethren, we must not let that go, what God has given us and what we must give Him. It is an “everlasting statute throughout your generations”.
May the Lord bless the word.
Word in meeting for ministry at a marriage,
Bunnell / Ormond Beach, Florida
28 May 2014
W. McKillop