We come now to the fifth item, the pomegranates. What do they represent? Have you ever seen one? When you see a ripe pomegranate, you immediately realize the abundance and the beauty of life.
Consider the young sister we have mentioned. What beauty there was in her life! Her life was the transfiguration of the life of Christ. And what abundance of life there was! One of our co-workers went to that place and became acquainted with her situation. He brought us word that all the churches in that area were nourished by her experience. Praise the Lord for such abundance of life!
When you enjoy and experience Christ as the wheat, as the barley, as the vine, and as the fig tree, the beauty of Christ is about you, the abundance of the life of Christ is with you. This is the experience of Christ as the pomegranate. If you enjoy Christ as the resurrected One and by the power of His resurrection you live the life of Jesus on this earth to suffer all kinds of pressure, persecutions, troubles, and conflicts, you will realize the sweetness and satisfaction of Christ within you, and you will manifest the beauty and the abundance of life to others. When others touch you, they will sense the loveliness and attractiveness of Christ, and an abundance of life will be imparted to them.
The sixth item is the olive tree. The olive tree, we know, is the tree which produces olive oil. This is the last item of the foods which we may classify as vegetables. Why has the Spirit put this one last? We have read Zechariah 4:12-14. In that passage there are two olive trees before the Lord, which, the Lord explains, are the two sons of oil. We must realize that Christ is the Son of oil; Christ is the man anointed with the Holy Spirit of God. God poured upon Him the oil of gladness. He is a man who is full of the Holy Spirit; He is the olive tree, the Son of oil. Oh, if we enjoy Him as the wheat, as the barley, as the vine, as the fig tree, and as the pomegranate, we will certainly enjoy Him as the olive tree, which means that we will be filled with the Spirit. We will be full of oil, and we will become an olive tree.
For what purpose is the oil of the olive tree used? We are told in Judges 9:9 that it is used to honor God and honor man. If we would honor God or man, we must do it by the olive oil. This simply means that if we would serve the Lord, if we would help others, we must do it by the Holy Spirit. We must be a man filled with the Spirit, an olive tree, a son of oil. We can never serve the Lord or help others without the Holy Spirit. But praise Him, if we enjoy Him as the wheat, the barley, the vine, the fig tree, and the pomegranate, we will surely have the oil. We will be filled with the Holy Spirit. We will be truly able to honor God and others.
I like the word honor. We must not only honor God, but also honor others. Do not think it is a light or superficial matter. Do you realize that whenever you go to contact a brother or a sister, you are going to honor him? By what will you honor him? By yourself? By your natural life? By your old man? By your worldly knowledge? You can only honor him by the Holy Spirit. But you have to be filled with the Holy Spirit. You have to be a son of oil. You have to experience Christ as the olive tree.
Now you can realize why the Holy Spirit has made the olive tree the last item. When you have experienced Christ as all the other items and have reached this point, then you are full of the Holy Spirit. Then you can honor God and you can honor others.
One day a brother came to visit me, but he did not come to honor me. Do you know what he said? He said, “Brother, today I went to see a movie; it was the best movie I have ever seen! I was so happy that I came to see you.” I simply felt that he dishonored me. He put me to shame. He came to dishonor me by a movie instead of honoring me with the Holy Spirit.
Brothers and sisters, if anyone comes to fellowship with you in the Holy Spirit, you are truly honored by that one. That person through the Holy Spirit bestows true honor upon you. Only when we are filled with the Holy Spirit can we honor others. Otherwise, whatever we say, whatever we do, will simply dishonor them. If we can only talk with them about the world situation and about this and that, we are heaping dishonor upon them. In all your contacts with others, can you say that by the Lord’s mercy and grace and by the Holy Spirit you honor them? Or do you dishonor them with so many things? To honor others, we must be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Whether or not we are filled with the Spirit to honor God and others depends very much upon how we enjoy and experience Christ day by day as the wheat, the barley, the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and then the olive tree. If we pass the first five items, we will surely come to the sixth, the olive tree. We will be a son of oil, a saint full of the Holy Spirit.