The surplus of the produce of the good land typifies Christ, and the way to have the surplus is to labor on Christ. Regrettably, some brothers and sisters are lazy. D. L. Moody, who throughout his life brought myriads of people on two continents to Christ, said that he never saw a lazy person get saved. Perhaps he was too extreme to say this, but I can say that I have never seen a lazy person who could be spiritual. A lazy person may be saved, but I am sure that he cannot be spiritual. You can be brought into the good land, but if you are lazy, you will have no surplus. Rather, you will be a beggar. If we are diligent and industrious to labor on the land God allotted to us, we will have much produce from this rich land. This produce will be enough not only for us to live on but also for us to have a surplus.
The surplus is the first tenth, not the last tenth. The Israelites had to separate every first lamb and every first tenth of the produce for the Lord. This typifies that after being brought into Christ, we need to labor on Christ, to cooperate with the Holy Spirit to live by Christ. Some may say that we should not use the word labor because today is the dispensation of grace; they say everything is of grace, not of works. There is no doubt that the good land given to us is a grace. The sunshine, the air, the early rain, and the latter rain are also a grace. However, we still have to till the ground. We cannot say that grace will till the ground for us; grace will never do that. From the very beginning of the Scriptures, after Adam was created, man had to till the ground. We need to till the ground, sow the seed, and reap the harvest. Grace will not do these things for us. We cannot bring rain down from heaven. That is not our ability; that is something beyond our ability. That is truly something of grace. Sunshine, air, rain, and the rich soil are all of grace. However, we must realize that we all have our responsibility.
Every morning we have to rise up early. Not one farmer can be lazy; every one has to rise up early in the morning. If we do not rise early in the morning to spend a little time with Christ, I am certain that when we come to the meeting, we will have nothing in our hand. We will come to the meeting with empty hands. We need to rise up a little earlier, contact the Lord, read the Word, and pray a little to till the ground, sow the seed, and reap the harvest. Some may say that we should not be legalistic in this way. However, we need to be legalistic three times a day in order to eat. We can fast only for a while; if we fast all the time, we will not be able to live.
Day by day we must rise up early to spend some time with the Lord; this is our labor. We have to pray; this is our labor. We also have to exercise our spirit to contact the Lord throughout the whole day; this also is our labor. Moreover, we must deal with many enemies, including the flesh, the self, and the environment. Even our family, friends, relatives, neighbors, colleagues, classmates, and roommates are problems we have to deal with. We also have to preach the gospel and learn to help others. All these are items of the labor we should have. If we labor in all these ways, we will have the rich produce of Christ our good land. Then when we come to the meeting, we will come with our hands full of the riches of Christ. Because day and night we labor on Christ, we will have a rich produce that is not only good enough for us to live in Christ and by Christ, but also good enough for us to come to worship God. In this way, when we come to God, we come with Christ.
As we have seen, there were two main items related to the worship in the Old Testament: the central place and all the types. If you spend time to read the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit will lead you to understand the background of the worship in the Old Testament. Based on this, the Lord told the Samaritan woman, “An hour is coming.” This means that at the time the Lord spoke this word, the age, the dispensation, had changed. Before that time was the old age, the old dispensation, in which there was the worship of the Old Testament. Now, however, the age has changed. Now the proper worship, the true worship, is not a matter of a place or of the types. It is a matter in the spirit, not of Jerusalem, and it is a matter in truthfulness, not of the types. The worship of the New Testament time is a worship in the spirit and a worship in truthfulness.