The Christ by whom we live and with whom we live becomes our enjoyment. We eat Him and we enjoy Him. We do not eat our sufferings. I eat my Christ and bring the top portion of the Christ I have experienced to the church meetings. When I bring this Christ to the meetings, share Him with others, and offer Him to God, I enjoy Him with God and with the saints. Firstly, I came to recognize my need of the top portion of Christ. Then I began to help the saints to realize this. Eventually, this revolutionized our living. From then on we learned how to have the harvest. Secondly, I learned how to bring the top portion of the harvest to the church meetings. At the beginning, however, I did not realize the need to release my spirit. Therefore, I shared Christ in a rather dead way. I related my experience of Christ to the saints in a deadening way without the release of the spirit. When I realized what I was doing, I condemned myself and repented. After that, I came into the meeting and said, “Praise the Lord! I don’t need patience, endurance, or brokenness! I need Christ! And the best way to gain Him is to call on His name. O Lord Jesus! O Lord Jesus!” How refreshing this is!
Remember the three things necessary for eating the choice portion of Christ. First, we must have the harvest. This harvest is not a harvest of patience, endurance, lessons, suffering, or bearing the cross. We need a harvest of Christ. Day by day, we are not growing patience; we are growing Christ. We need to live by Christ and with Christ, giving Him the opportunity to grow within us. Then we shall have a harvest of Christ. Second, we must discern what is the unique place of unity. We must not go to a place of division, a place where there is neither the Lord’s presence nor His speaking. Third, when we come to the place of unity with our harvest of Christ, we must function by releasing our spirit to share Christ with others. When we do all this, the meetings of the church will be filled with the riches of Christ. It is in this way that we enjoy the top portion of Christ. This enjoyment of Christ makes us strong and solid for the building. It will cause us to become a mountain out of which come the iron and brass needed to defeat the enemies. Hallelujah, this is God’s economy!
In Old Testament times the kingdom was established, and the glory of God came down and filled the temple (1 Kings 8:10-11). However, this glorious situation did not last very long. The children of Israel became degraded, and idols were placed in the temple. Ezekiel 8:9-16 reveals that the temple was filled with idols and that the elders even took the lead to worship idols. According to the New Testament, the church established at Pentecost was full of glory. However, not too long afterward, the so-called church became full of idols. Today idolatry abounds in the Roman Catholic Church. If you enter a Catholic cathedral, you will see idols all along the walls.
According to the book The Two Babylons, many heathen things were brought into Catholicism. Take the example of Christmas. December twenty-fifth, the day Christmas is celebrated, was originally the birthday of the pagan sun god. After Constantine the Great embraced Christianity, he encouraged others to be baptized. As a result, thousands of unsaved persons were baptized into Christianity. Formerly they worshipped the sun and celebrated the birth of the sun on December twenty-fifth. After they were baptized into Christianity, they maintained their heathen practice of worshipping the sun, and eventually this practice was absorbed by Christianity. They changed the name of the sun god to Jesus and claimed that December twenty-fifth was the birthday of the Lord Jesus. What an insult to the Lord! What blasphemy! Easter also has a pagan origin. Furthermore, the Catholic Church worships Mary, calling her the mother of God. Actually, the Mary in Catholicism is a heathen goddess. This heathen goddess was brought into Catholicism, and her name was changed to Mary. Now she is called the mother of God, and Catholics worship her. This is idolatry. And it is abominable in the eyes of the Lord. A number of aspects of paganism have been brought into Protestantism through Catholicism. Christmas is celebrated not only by Catholics, but by those in all the major denominations. This indicates that these denominations are involved in paganism.
Ezekiel 10:18 says, “Then the glory of the Lord departed from off the threshold of the house, and stood over the cherubim.” Due to the idolatry in the temple, the glory of the Lord departed. When the temple was built, the glory of God filled it. But in Ezekiel chapter ten, because of the idols the glory of God departed and returned to heaven. This whole picture signifies first that on the day of Pentecost the glory of God came down and filled the church built up by the Apostles. Later, due to idolatry and paganism, the glory of God left the so-called church. Today the glory of God is not in the Catholic Church nor in any group involved with paganism. This involvement is blasphemy to God and an insult to Him. How can God dwell in such a place? It is impossible! The reason today’s Christianity is so pitiful is that God is not there. Catholicism, Protestantism, and all other groups involved with paganism are Babylonian in the eyes of God. The Catholic Church, the mother of the prostitutes, is the great prostitute, and all the other Babylonian groups are her daughters. This is not my teaching; it is God’s word in the Bible. Christianity may have the name of God, but the glory of God is not there. It is impossible for Him to dwell in a place filled with idolatry and paganism.