Hello everyone, I welcome you in the name of Jesus Christ the Head of the Church to another edition of this series. Yesterday, we started considering the book of JOEL. I stopped at the four levels of catastrophies that have invaded the land that Joel prophesied about.
Let us continue from where I stopped.
In verse 5, Joel told the drunkards to awake and weep and howl because the new wine has been cut off from their mouths.
NOTE:
WEEPING, MOURNING, HOWLING AND GROANING describe deeper dimensions of INTERCESSION. Scripturally, THE NEW WINE refers to the Holy Spirit. At Eph. 5:18 compared 'wine' with the 'Spirit of God'. It is also used to describe CHRIST.
The invasion upon the land caused 'the meat and drink offerings' to be cut off from the house of the Lord.
The DRINK OFFERING
In Leveticus, God ordained that His people offer Him daily five main offerings: the burnt offering, the meal offering, the peace offering, the sin offering, and the trespass offering. However, in the first six chapters of Leviticus there is no mention of the drink offering because at that time, the children of God did not have the adequate experience of Christ. In other words, at that time Christ was not in them as wine. When you pour yourself out as a drink offering, you need to have a great deal of wine within you. This means that much of Christ has been received into you. The drink offering is not only the objective Christ, like the Christ offered to God in the burnt offering or meal offering, but the subjective Christ who has been taken into us. To pour out the Christ we have experienced is to pour out the wine of the drink offering. Therefore, Christ must be the wine we drink in so that we may pour Him out as the drink offering. The Drink Offering describes the life while on Earth. Paul also used it in Phi. 1:17
THE MEAT OFFERING
I don't have time to go into the nitty gritty of this offering but, note that it has nothing to do with animals; it comprises fine flour, oil, frankincense and they are now burned as a memorial. The New Testament connotation of this is 'LIVING SACRIFICE' John 6:27, Rom. 12:1.
The implications of the absence of the Drink and Meat Offerings from the house of the Lord are
The Priests were called to mourn because THEY HAVE NO DRINK OFFERING TO OFFER TO THE PEOPLE. No depth or abundance of Christ to give out to the people.
Not only this, the lifestyle of the priest bears no resemblance to that of Christ. In this day and time where undue emphasis is placed on Who we are in Christ (positionally) at the expense of the experiential realities of those things. Even the priests have no quality lifestyle to back up the titles they bear.
Verses 11-20 describe the various calamities that have befallen the land;
The field is wasted, the land mourneth; for the corn is wasted: the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth.
1:12 The vine is dried up, and the fig tree languisheth; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all the trees of the field, are withered: because joy is withered away from the sons of men.
1:16 Is not the meat cut off before our eyes, yea, joy and gladness from the house of our God?
1:17 The seed is rotten under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the corn is withered.
1:20 The beasts of the field cry also unto thee: for the rivers of waters are dried up, and the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness.
Let me stop here today and continue tomorrow.
I am Olufemi Solomon.
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Twitter: @cya_nigeria
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