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 (Exo. 16:19-21). 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” (Exo. 16:20). 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 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 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 brass. 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 messages we shall see how to eat Christ as the wheat, 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 message 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.