I want to explain a principle to you, using both the Old and the New Testaments. Let us go to the Word for the scriptural foundation of this principle.
You shall not delay the offering from your harvest and your vintage (this means the firstfruits). The first-born of your sons you shall give to Me. You shall do the same with your oxen and with your sheep. It shall be with its mother seven days; on the eighth day you shall give it to Me. And you shall be holy men to Me, therefore you shall not eat any flesh tom to pieces in the field; you shall throw it to the dogs. Exodus 22:29–31. That is a strange word. What does it mean?
Three times a year you shall celebrate a feast to Me. You shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread; for seven days you are to eat unleavened bread as I commanded you, at the appointed time in the month Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt. And none shall appear before Me empty-handed. (That is true. We have learned to be real givers at the feasts.) Also you shall observe the Feast of the Harvest of the first fruits of your labors—this is the Feast of Pentecost—the Feast of the Harvest of the first fruits of your labors from what you sow in the field; also the Feast of the Ingathering at the end of the year—that’s the Feast of Tabernacles—when you gather in the fruit of your labors from the field. Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord God. Exodus 23:14–17.
In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we might be as it were the first fruits among His creatures. James 1:18.
Have you noticed that this is the Feast of Firstfruits? The people took of the first of the grain and ground it into fine flour, and they made two loaves of bread and waved it before the Lord (Leviticus 23:20). It was a feast of firstfruits, the firstfruits of the wheat harvest. Likewise, on the day of Pentecost the firstfruits to come forth to the Lord were the thousands who accepted the preaching of those freshly-filled believers and apostles.
The firstfruits belong to the Lord. I want you to understand this principle. “You are to be a holy people to Me, therefore you are not to eat anything that has been torn in the field.” Why? God was saying, “I shall give you the firstfruits, the best. You are to be to Me the firstfruits, the best.
You are not scavengers who must find something in the field torn by animals and try to salvage it.” You are not scavengers; you are children of God’s table. You are a specially fed people with a special commission, and He is bringing you forth unto Himself to be a firstfruits unto the Lord. That is the meaning of the Communion. We are feasting upon the Lord. James says, “We come forth by the living word of truth He brings us, that we should be unto Him a firstfruits in the earth.”
This is being fulfilled especially in this hour. God is putting us through a great deal. He is putting us through the furnace of affliction, through those things that are burning out the dross of our lives and refining us as pure gold before the Lord. This negative side of purification is very real to all of us; we live with it day and night.
But the positive side is something else. He is feeding us with the choicest of words; He is bringing a living word. God has opened up truth to us, and He hasn’t presented it in some routine old way. It is shattering us!
This isn’t the old style of preaching anymore or the old style of teaching—it is a new and a living diet. Somehow it is so enriched in God Himself that we are just feasting upon this word which is to bring us forth before the Lord as a firstfruits of all that is to come.
God will be bringing many things during the great Kingdom. Then the knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea (Isaiah 11:9). There will be an unprecedented flow of revelation in the days of the Kingdom.
And you and I, as the firstfruits unto God, are first partakers of the powers of the age to come. We are partakers of it right now. How grateful we should be, and with what reverence and faith, with what appropriation we should enter into it, knowing that we are almost, as it were, a people of God born out of season.
Have you ever thought, as you read history or pondered some circumstance, “I was born just thirty years too late?” Ah, you weren’t; in God you have been born unto the Kingdom!
Many are striving to walk in just a little of the Holy Spirit, and you have so much—but you could be walking in more than you are. Our diet is rich.
We will have much to give an account for, we have such a rich word. Do you realize how much God has spoken to us, how much He has laid upon us? Do you realize how much we must move in?
While there is great rejoicing over it, there is also a fear and trembling of the consequences of receiving so much and not walking with it.
We are so blessed, yet I find it continually a heavy burden upon my heart that we have received so much from the Lord.
Oh, we open our hearts to be those firstfruits of His creatures! We open our hearts to the precious word He is bringing. He has fed us with the choicest of things. Out of the bounty of His revelation, out of the purposes of His heart, out of the secrets of His ways, He hath dealt with us deeply. He has not allowed us for a single moment to be without challenging, inspiring, awesome revelations of His hand and His purposes in the earth. Blessed be the Lord.
Let us partake of the Communion humbly, almost with the fear of the Lord upon us, with a fresh recognition of the richness of what He has brought to us. And none of it was because of our worthiness, but all because of His love wherewith He loved us, His great love that He shed abroad upon us. Truly it is an hour of destiny, and the word that He hath given us has been appropriate to that.