Programme: Believers Convention Prayer Meeting 2021 (Week One Day Five))
Date: 18th June, 2021
Powered by: Eternal Glorious Fountain Ministry (EGFM)
Minister: Rev. Kayode Oyegoke
Though our Lord Jesus has sacrificed to God, it does not mean that we should discontinue from offering sacrifices to God. In fact, Jesus’ offering of sacrifice was to show a pattern to believers who should do the same. Jesus came to teach us how to sacrifice to God. Whosoever is not offering sacrifices to God is knowingly or unknowingly offering to the devil. Our commitment to whichever spirit we chose to yield to will involve the making of sacrifices. Sacrifices bind us to whosoever we worship.
Jesus died and was raised from the dead to raise priests unto God. The essence of priests is to offer spiritual sacrifices which are acceptable to God by Jesus Christ (1 Pet. 2:5). The temple of sacrifice is God and the Lamb. The company of the priests make up the holy priesthood who can offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God.
The company of Levites constitutes the holy nation (1 Pet. 2:5,9). Levites seem as though they are not doing anything, but they are actually doing something. They are unable to offer sacrifices like priests do but they have given themselves to the high priest. God gave the Levites to Aaron (Num. 3:9). The Levites look as though they are insignificant but the rest of the Israelites pay tithes to them. This holy nation (Levites) then pays tithes to the priests. This is what is called offering. It is also known as tithe of tithes.
A man can become a tithe to God. Levites are tithes, priests are offerings, while high priests are high offerings to God. This was why Jesus had to go up to God and offer Himself (Heb. 7:27). Therefore, God has inherited Him. When Jesus told Mary Magdalene that He was ascending back to God, He meant that He was going up to fit God’s pleasure eternally. God will continue to derive eternal pleasure as He beholds Jesus’ face.
The Father is a shrine; He is an extremely high eternal altar that one can offer to. However, God has His own special offerings that He receives. God is only pleased when a man is able to sacrifice and do things beyond what humans can think or presume. Whatsoever human beings can naturally think as an offering is not what God receives as a sacrifice. Long fasting, isolating oneself in uninhabited places like mountains, etc are not things that God receive as sacrifices. What God would receive or measure out as sacrifices to a man are things he would naturally not think about. This is why it can only take a man who trembles at the word of God to offer sacrifices to God.
There are things that men expect God to request as sacrifice. However, God often demand things beyond our presumptions or speculations as sacrifices. The sacrifice to God is that the things we want are not what we do but that we do what He wants us to do and take pleasure in doing them. An example is in the place of making the choice of a spouse.
Coming to God is knowing God. Therefore, God desires knowledge more than burnt offerings and mercy more than sacrifice (Hosea 6:6). Knowledge is stronger than killing animals to offer. Some believers are not making the right sacrifices to God because they are not broken or contrite yet, while some undertook another means or order of sacrificing outside what God desires.
“He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man; he was that sacrificeth a lamb, as if he cut off a dog's neck; he that offereth an oblation, as if he offered swine's blood; he that burneth incense, as if he blessed an idol. Yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations.” (Isa. 66:3). This may seem to conflict with the order of sacrifice in the book of Leviticus or Numbers but that is not the case. God started with that generation requiring such things as ox, lamb, incense etc as sacrifice. However, God (through Prophet Isaiah) declared the things He really desired to receive as sacrifices because He is a Spirit and He does not receive carnal sacrifices. The sacrifices of God are hearts that are poor, broken and contrite (Isa. 66:2). God was showing that He abhors the order of sacrifice that has to do with killing animals physically.
Out of mercy, God had to clothe His own heart with love to receive animals as sacrifices in the Old Testament. God had to condescend to take those carnal sacrifices from man. In the Old Testament, men lacked the capacity to offer true sacrifices to God in the spirit because they were dead in their spirits. True sacrifice is not that which a man does with his hands like killing an animal or anything in the physical but crucifying or becoming dead to sinful natures in the soul.
We were unworthy to offer ourselves and this was why our Lord Jesus had to come to the earth in order to create a space that will enable us to offer to God. Jesus did not come with bulls to offer to God; He broke into a new order of sacrificing to God. It is to show men that the days of sacrificing animals or physical things are gone, and that we are in the days of offering oneself to God. Jesus offered Himself to God. A priest does not need the blood of others to offer to God; he should come with his own blood (life). This is the new order and Jesus was the first of that kind of priest. He showed us how we are expected to offer to God. Jesus’ sacrifice is significant because His sacrifice purified us so that we can also offer ourselves to God.
In the New Testament, there is no need for offering a physical animal to God, because there are things that constitutes animals in the spirit and there are certain animals that God does not want in the spirit. To “kill an ox as if one is killing a man” is for a man to will his own strength while offering something to God. However, that is not the kind of offering that God wants. God does not want us to offer something in our own way or with our human posture. Rather, God wants the turning of our hearts; He wants a pliable or malleable heart. He wants us to adjust or set our hearts aright so that it can be an offering to God.
Millions of bulls and goats cannot be compared to the leap of a soul in response to God. The real oxen and lambs that God desires to receive as offering are in the soul and those are the things that Satan has been feasting on for ages. Satan has been eating those sacrifices of the soul that are meant for God. Men worship or sacrifice to Satan by burning their soul resources or energy around things that he offers. The New Testament is a new era where true worshippers will worship or offer to God in spirit and in truth (John 4.24).
“I also will choose their delusions, and will bring their fears upon them; because when I called, none did answer; when I spake, they did not hear: but they did evil before mine eyes, and chose that in which I delighted not.” (Isa. 66:4). The first call of a man to sacrifice to God is through the faith of the Son. Many believers do not like or agree with this faith because it places a demand on their lives. This is why men will rather give things than offer or yield their lives to be driven by God. The sacrifice of the New Testament is obedience. “…Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice” (1 Sam. 15:22). When a man is obeying God, he is offering sacrifices to God.
A man cannot sacrifice well to God without knowledge. Knowledge is what will shed light or reveal what should be offered to God. Revelation shows us what God would receive as sacrifice from us. Abraham had to lift up his eyes to see the ram that he should sacrifice instead of Isaac behind him (Gen. 22:13). The phrase “behind him” tells us that we cannot ordinarily know where to find a sacrifice that would please God. When a man is called by revelation to offer to God, the sacrifice would not be easily found on the radar of his thought. Rather, it is usually something that the man would least expect or think of.
“Hear the word of the Lord, ye that tremble at his word; Your brethren that hated you, that cast you out for my name's sake, said, Let the Lord be glorified: but he shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed.” (Isaiah 66:5). The brethren who cast the tremblers out for the sake of the name of God are those who offered ox. This shows us that they are also brethren, they heard the call, but they did not respond. The tremblers are the ones who responded to the call and therefore became enemies to those who did not. He that offered an ox is not a trembler; such a person heard the call to offer but did not offer according to God’s pattern. There is a way of sacrifice, and it is such that involves the offering of our life. God is interested in our obedience every second, hour, minute and day of your life.
We should not be such that think we can do anything we want to do. Obedience to God is important. Tremblers are those who can offer to God. We begin with a poor heart, then contrite spirt and then become a trembler at the word of God; this is God’s order of sacrifice.