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For the sake of His economy God is very concerned about man’s eating. Immediately after God created man, He did not give him a list of things to do and not to do. Instead, He placed him in front of the tree of life and charged him concerning his eating, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may eat freely, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, of it you shall not eat” (Gen. 2:16-17). God did not command man to love his wife or to worship and serve God. Rather, He strongly charged him to be careful about his eating. God seemed to say, “If your eating is proper, everything will be all right. But if you eat improperly, you will die. Eating is a matter of life and death.” If man eats properly, he will have the life he needs.
After man had fallen, God came in to save him. In His salvation God also charged man to eat, this time to eat the lamb, the unleavened bread, and the bitter herbs (Exo. 12:1-10). If we would be saved, we must eat the Lamb with the unleavened bread and the bitter herbs. Our being saved depends upon our eating of Christ. By eating Christ as the Lamb, the unleavened bread, and the bitter herbs, we are redeemed, delivered, and purified. After we have been redeemed from God’s judgment and delivered from the bondage to the world, we must journey through the wilderness. In order for God’s purpose to be accomplished, He charged the children of Israel to eat manna as they were journeying in the wilderness. Thus, God charged man to eat the tree of life, to eat the lamb, and to eat the manna. By eating Christ as the Lamb and as the manna, we are saved, we follow Him in the wilderness for the fulfillment of His purpose, and we become God’s dwelling place on earth.
The matter of eating is also related to the temple established in the good land. If you read Deuteronomy 12 carefully, you will see that as the children of Israel were about to enter the good land, God charged them with respect to their eating. The children of Israel were told to “eat before Jehovah” in the place which Jehovah had chosen out of all their tribes to put His name (vv. 7, 5). The eating mentioned in Deuteronomy 12, 14, 15, and 16 is related to the worship of God. In order to have the proper worship of God, we must eat. According to the natural, religious concept, worshipping God depends upon doing the right thing. This concept is wrong. In religion it is a matter of doing, but in God’s economy it is a matter of eating. Only by eating properly can we worship God and fulfill His purpose. Therefore, when the children of Israel were about to enter the good land, God commanded them to take care of their eating. By eating they worshipped God, by eating they defeated the enemy, by eating they built the temple, and by eating they brought in the kingdom of God. For the children of Israel, eating was everything. Eating is the way.
Do you want to worship God? Then you must eat Jesus. Do you want to accomplish God’s purpose to build up His temple? Then you must eat Jesus. Do you want to defeat God’s enemy and bring true peace to God’s people? Then you must eat Jesus. If we want to bring in the kingdom of God, we need to eat the Lord. In the last stage of eating, the eating in the good land, all the enemies are defeated, the ground is gained, God’s temple is built, and the kingdom of God is established.
The Christ we eat in this last stage must be greater than the Lamb or the manna; He must be the rich produce of the good land. Christ is a rich, spacious land, producing many kinds of food and minerals. The Lamb and the manna cannot compare with the good land. In our experience Christ is first the Lamb, then the manna, and ultimately the good land. No doubt, you all are enjoying Christ. But what kind of Christ are you enjoying? Are you enjoying Christ as the Lamb, as the manna, or as the land? Some of us are enjoying Him only as the Lamb, some others also as the manna, and others even as the land.
Like a large family, the church should offer three diets: one for the babies, one for the strong, and one for the old ones. For the fulfillment of God’s purpose, we should neither be babies, nor should we be old. We need to be mature, but we should not be old. One day in the church in Anaheim I declared that there is no retirement in the church life. In the church life we have growth and maturity, but we do not have retirement. Although I am seventy-two, I think of myself as twenty-two because I daily eat the produce of the good land. In the early years I ate a great deal of Lamb and manna. Now I eat wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, and olives. I also enjoy Christ as the animal life. This is the reason I am strong with Christ.
Now we need to consider the way to eat Christ as the produce of the good land. The first thing we need to see is that the manna comes directly from God. It simply rains down from heaven. In order to have manna, there is no need to till the ground, sow the seed, or cultivate the soil. However, even in the eating of the manna, we cannot afford to be lazy. If we sleep late in the morning, we shall not be able to have manna, because it melts when the sun grows hot (Exo. 16:21). Furthermore, the manna must be gathered every day (vv. 19-21). We cannot gather it one day and store it up for the next day. When the children of Israel tried to do this, they found that the manna “bred worms and stank” (v. 20). Thus, we need to be diligent to rise up early every morning and collect manna for that day. Although in the wilderness God sent the manna from heaven to earth, even to the border of the camp, He did not send it into the mouths of the Israelites or even into their tents. They had to rise up early and gather it. Nevertheless, the fact remains that they did not need to sow manna and grow it. All they had to do was gather it. Eating manna was that easy.
Eating the produce of the good land is much different from eating manna. In order to eat the produce of the good land, we must labor on the land. God has given us the land, and He will send the rain, but we must work the land. The land is Christ. The seed sown into the land is also Christ. We are in Christ, and Christ is the land. The Christ who is in us is the seed, and the Christ in whom we are is the land. Without, Christ is the land; within, He is the seed. Oh, Christ is everything! Hallelujah, we are in Him, and He is in us! We cannot deny that we have both the land and the seed. We cannot deny that we are in Christ as the land; neither can we deny that Christ is in us as the seed. What we need to do now is labor on the land with the seed.
Although we may have both the land and the seed, we still need the house of God. The Lord commanded that, after the children of Israel had entered into the land, they worship Him in the place He had chosen. They were to worship Him not by bowing down before Him but by eating before Him the choice portion of the produce of the land (Deut. 12:7, 17-18; 14:23). God seemed to be saying to the Israelites, “In the good land, you must worship Me in the place I have chosen by eating with Me the top portion of your produce. I do not want empty, religious worship. When you come to My chosen place to worship Me, do not come empty-handed. Come with the choice portion of the harvest. Come with wheat or barley, wine or oil, or with the firstlings of your flocks and herds. I want you to worship Me with this top portion.” If the Israelites were to have this choice portion, they first had to have the harvest; and the only way they could have a harvest was by working the land, that is, by doing the work of farming.
Consider the situation of today’s Christianity. Because most Christians are eating only the Lamb and the manna, they have no harvest. Whenever they go to a so-called church service, they go empty-handed. At most, they bring some money to put in the offering. Although they may say, “Let’s go to church,” they have no harvest of Christ to bring with them.
Manna cannot be the harvest that constitutes our proper worship to God. Manna is something given, not something harvested. God rains down manna from heaven, and we go out and gather it. That is not a harvest. In order to have a harvest we must labor on the good land with the seed. This means that we must labor on Christ as the good land with Christ as the good seed. Only then shall we have a harvest. Do you have a harvest of Christ? I am not referring to the Christ in whom you have believed for salvation. This is Christ as the Lamb. And I am not referring to Christ as the manna. When I speak of the harvest of Christ, I mean the Christ you have sown, the Christ on whom you have labored, and the Christ you have reaped to be your harvest. Whenever Christians gather in today’s Christianity, they come empty-handed. They simply sit in the pews expecting their pastor to deliver a good sermon.
When I was young, I was a member of a certain denomination. The pastor did his best to encourage us to pray. Every Sunday morning, after his sermon, he called upon a member of the congregation to pray. Every one of the hundreds sitting in the pews listening to his sermon was afraid of being called upon. Everyone sitting in those pews was empty. None of us had anything of Christ in the spirit, in experience.
The worship God requires is not like this. God requires that we come to Him with a harvest of Christ. We need to come to the church meetings with the riches of Christ. In the meeting a brother may testify, “In the last few days my neighbors have been giving me a difficult time. But, praise the Lord by His grace I have been experiencing Christ! I came to this meeting with the very Christ I have experienced. I do have the choice portion of my harvest of Christ.” If we are like this, we shall come to the church meetings singing, praising, and saying, “Praise the Lord! Amen! Hallelujah! Christ is my life, Christ is my strength, Christ is my victory, Christ is my everything!” If we are filled with the riches of Christ, we shall not be able to wait for the scheduled time of the meeting. We shall come early, eager to testify of our experience of Christ, eager to tell the brothers and sisters how rich is the Christ we have experienced. This is the worship God desires. Whenever we give a testimony about our experience of Christ, we shall be fully satisfied. By giving such a testimony we eat the solid food of the good land. How different this is from eating manna!
However, suppose I do not contact the Lord or fellowship with Him all week long. On Wednesday I have an argument with my wife, and she remains unhappy with me until Sunday morning. On Sunday I ask her to go to the meeting with me, but, still offended, she tells me to go by myself. I arrive at the meeting dull, dumb, and in a pitiful condition. I sit next to a brother who is on fire, and he says Hallelujah! I force myself to respond, but there is no reality in what I say. Although many are fully nourished by the meeting, I receive no nourishment at all. Instead, I feel sick. When I return home, I am not able to eat. Then, because my situation is desperate, I begin to call on the Lord and say, “O Lord, I repent of my sloppiness. Lord, have mercy on me. Cleanse me with Your blood. Hallelujah, I am cleansed and forgiven!” The next morning I rise up early and pray-read the Word and say, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God. Amen! Hallelujah for the beginning! Hallelujah for the Word! Hallelujah for God! Oh, in Him, the Word, is life, and the life is the light of men. Hallelujah for life! Hallelujah for light!” Daily I contact the Lord and live in the third heaven. I have a wonderful week, full of the enjoyment of Christ and the experience of Christ. By next Sunday morning, I am ready to attend the meeting with my wife. When I say, “Dear, let us go to the meeting,” she says Amen! As we are driving to the meeting, we praise the Lord in the car. We enter the meeting hall eager to share our enjoyment of Christ. As I testify of my experience of Christ, I spontaneously eat the very Christ I have experienced. This is the experience of eating Christ as the choice portion of the harvest.
The children of Israel were forbidden to eat the top tenth of the harvest in their homes (Deut. 12:17-18). They had to keep this portion aside until they went to worship God in His chosen place at the appointed time. Then they brought to the place of God’s choosing the top portion of their harvest. Before God and with God and one another, they enjoyed this portion of Christ. This enjoyment produces the worship God is seeking. It also constitutes the church life and establishes the kingdom. This top tenth of Christ affords us the minerals that make us stones, iron, and copper. When we have these minerals, we are qualified to build the temple, to defeat the enemy, and to bring in the kingdom.
In the following chapters we shall see how to eat Christ as the wheat, as the barley, and as the other foods in the good land; we shall also see how to mine the minerals out of the earth. In this chapter we have seen the general matter of laboring on Christ and experiencing Him in our daily living. The land is ours, and the seed is in our hand. We simply need to work the land and labor with the seed to grow Christ. We should not pray, “O Father, I am hungry. Rain manna upon me.” This kind of prayer is good for babes, but it is not good for you. If you pray like this, God will say, “Don’t pray in this way. Go to work on the land with the seed. I have given you the land and the seed, but I cannot give you the harvest. You work the land, and I shall send the rain to water your work. Then you will have a harvest.” We may enjoy ninety percent of this harvest in an ordinary way and in any place, but the top ten percent can be enjoyed only in the meetings of the church. When we bring the top tenth to the meetings and share it with others, we eat the choice portion of Christ.
