The good land is a land of vines, typifying the sacrificing Christ, the Christ who sacrificed everything of Himself, and out of His sacrifice He produced new wine to cheer God and man; we need to experience His sacrificing life!
Hallelujah for our Christ who lived a self-sacrificing life for God to be satisfied and for us to enjoy Him, be cheered up, and be made happy!
As seen in Deut. 8:8, the good land is first a land of wheat, then a land of barley, and then a land of vines.
Each of these has much spiritual significance, for wheat, barley, and the vine tree are seen not only in this portion of the word but in many other portions, and they are used to signify Christ Himself to be our experience.
The all-inclusive Christ is the reality of all positive things to be the good land for our enjoyment and experience; in item after item, He can be enjoyed by us, experienced by us, and even can become us, for by eating and being constituted with Him as the items in the good land, we become the building of God, the corporate expression of God.
Christ is a land of wheat; wheat signifies the limited Christ, the restricted Christ, the Christ who was incarnated and was limited under the cross, and who through death and resurrection was multiplied (see John 12:24).
When we are in limiting situations, when we’re in circumstances that restrict us and limit us, we can turn to the Lord in spirit and experience Him as a grain of wheat.
Everything that He is can be experienced by us in spirit; we need to exercise our spirit in order to touch Him, experience Him, enjoy Him, and live Him.
When we turn to Him, He is applied to our being, we experience Him, and we become His duplication and reproduction; even as He is, so we are, and even as He lived, so we live.
Christ is a land of barley, signifying the resurrected and unlimited Christ, even the Christ who in resurrection is firstfruits to God.
When we exercise our spirit and enjoy Christ in His word, He will not only enable us to bear the limitations and restrictions, but He is the unlimited One causing us to more than overcome in resurrection, He feeds us with Himself as the barley loaf, and He overflows from us to others for them to be satisfied.
We may think we only have “five barley loaves and two fish”, but as long as we turn to the Lord, exercise our spirit, and open our mouth to speak something of the Christ we experienced, we will feed others with our experience of Christ.
Hallelujah, our Christ is both our food for our satisfaction and He is the food we can offer others for them to be satisfied. Today we want to see that Christ is a land of vines, that is, He is the sacrificing Christ who produces new wine to cheer God and man.
Christ is a Land of Vines, Sacrificing Himself to Produce Wine to Cheer God and Others
Hallelujah for our Christ, the all-inclusive and extensive One, who is a good land, a land of vines (Deut. 8:8)!
The vine typifies the sacrificing Christ, the Christ who sacrificed everything of Himself; out of this sacrifice of Himself, He produced new wine to cheer God and man (see Judges 9:13; Psa. 104; 15).
What produces the wine is the pressing and the crushing of the grapes; the wine cheers up not only men but also God. When God saw Christ sacrificing Himself on earth to live a life for God’s purpose, God was satisfied and became very happy.
The experience of Christ as the vine follows the experience of the wheat and the barley. We may think that we have already experienced the limited Christ as the wheat and now we are in resurrection enjoying Him as the unlimited One, but we still have to experience Christ as the sacrificing One.
Christ sacrificed Himself and He produced something to cheer God and man – the new wine. Because He sacrificed Himself again and again, until He went through the ultimate sacrifice on the cross, now God is happy and man is happy.
When we look at Christ we see a Man who didn’t live the way He wanted to, He didn’t do the things He wanted to, and He didn’t speak the words He wanted to or do the work He wanted to.
He sacrificed Himself, He took the Father as His source, and He lived by the Father, He spoke the words of the Father, He did the works of the Father, and He sought the glory of the Father.
In Him the Father was satisfied, and He made God very happy.
As we read the Gospels we also are made very happy to see such a One, for this One who sacrificed Himself produced new wine, a new buoyant divine life that flows now throughout the ages to not only enliven us but also make us happy and satisfy us.
When we under the Lord’s sovereignty are put into a certain situation that presses us and even crushes us, we can turn to the Lord, contact Him, and experience Him as the sacrificing One; then, we can be inwardly enabled to sacrifice ourselves to make others happy and the Lord happy.
We can experience Christ as the wine-producing vine; we can experience Him as the One who gives cheer to God and cheer to others.
On one hand we ourselves can drink of Him as we pray over His word, and He makes us so happy; He makes God happy and He makes us happy.
On the other hand, we can experience Him as the wine-producing vine in our trying, limiting, and pressing situations, and those around us will be happy and God will be happy.
In ourselves we are not willing to sacrifice ourselves; rather, we preserve ourselves and do not want to be touched or pressed in limiting situations. But Christ is a sacrificing person, and He sacrifices Himself to cheer God and man.
Lord Jesus, thank You for being the One who sacrificed everything of Yourself to produce new wine to cheer God and man. We love You Lord Jesus, and we are satisfied and made happy whenever we contact You and pray over Your word. We come to You to be one with You, Lord, and to experience You as the land of vines, so that we may be energized to live a life of sacrifice, producing wine to make God and others happy. Amen, Lord Jesus, may we experience You as the reality of the sacrificing One for God and man to be made happy!
Contact the Lord and Experience His Sacrificing Life to be Energized to Live a Sacrificing Life to make God and man Happy
Christ is the wine-producer, sacrificing Himself to produce wine to cheer God and others. If we contact Him and experience His sacrificing life, He will energize us to live a life of sacrifice, producing wine to make God and others happy (see Rom. 12:1; Eph. 5:2; 2 Cor. 1:24).
Many of us can testify that, as we enjoy Christ as the vine, we end up doing things that never thought it would be possible; He energizes us to live a sacrificing life.
In ourselves we are not able to live a life of sacrifice, for our life is a natural life, a selfish life; both Satan and we know that we do not want to sacrifice ourselves (John 2:5; Matt. 16:25).
But when we contact Christ and experience His sacrificing life in limiting and pressing situations, we will be inwardly energized to live a life of sacrifice, for He in us will live the same kind of life that He lived while on earth.
If we contact the Lord and experience His sacrificing life, He will energize us and strengthen us to sacrifice for God and for others (Phil. 4:13; Eph. 5:2).
If we complain about all things, this shows that we do not live a sacrificing life; if the water is too cold or too hot, the weather is too wet or too dry, the people are not nice, etc – and we complain about it again and again, this shows that we don’t experience Christ as the vine.
Many times in our daily life we are short of wine; we have no experience of Christ as the wine producer, as the One who sacrifices Himself to produce wine for others and for God.
We should come to the Lord again and again to drink of Him and be filled with Him; we should be persons who are drunk and even crazy with Christ, filled with Him to the brim to be made happy in Him!
But for us to be such ones, we need to contact Him again and again!
The most miserable person is the selfish person, and the most happy person is the most unselfish one. A sacrificing person is a happy person; a selfish person is a miserable person.
But how can we sacrifice ourselves, since our life is a natural life and a selfish life? Only the life of Christ is a life of sacrifice; if we contact Christ and experience His sacrificing life, He will energize us and strengthen us to sacrifice for God and for others.
Then we will be the most happy person – we will even be drunk with happiness! In this way we become a vine that produces new wine to cheer God and man.
However, this will require pressing; the grapes must be pressed in order to become wine. For us to make God and man happy, we must be pressed.
We may enjoy the Lord as the barley, the resurrected and unlimited One, and we may say Hallelujah for this One who is more than enough for us to enjoy.
But after experiencing Him as such a One, we must experience Him as the vine; we must drink of Him as the new wine, and we will be energized to go through pressing, crushing, and breaking, so that something may come out of us for God and man to be made happy.
For example, we may love to have a good job and have a great career; however, our job and career may keep us away from the church life.
In the eyes of the world it is good to have a good job and a promising career, but when we experience the Lord’s sacrificing life, we will be energized and strengthened to sacrifice for God and for others.
A good job is not a job that keeps us away from enjoying the Lord with the saints in the church life; actually such a job would be a bad job.
May we experience Christ as the vine with His sacrificing life so that we may be energized to sacrifice ourselves to make God and others happy.
The more we experience Christ as the wheat and the barley, the more we will be pressed; we may think that we just got to experience resurrection and now we’re pressed again…but this is how it works.
The vine comes after the the barley; even though we may have experienced Christ as the limited and also as the resurrected One, we will go through pressure, so that we may experience His sacrificing life and produce new wine for God and man to be made happy.
Lord Jesus, we admit that in ourselves we are so selfish and self-preserving; we come to You, Lord, and we want to experience You as the One who sacrificed Himself for God and man to be made happy. Lord, in ourselves we are not able to live a life of sacrifice, but when we experience Your sacrificing life, You energize us and strengthen us to sacrifice for God and for others. May we contact You day by day and experience You as the new wine who makes us happy, and may we be inwardly energized to sacrifice ourselves to bring happiness to those who contact us and bring cheer to God.
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. Mark Raabe for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1961-1962, vol. 4, “The All-inclusive Christ,” ch. 5, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Deuteronomy, week 3, The Goodness of the Land – Its Food.
- Hymns on this topic:
– See the vine trees, the sacrificing Christ. / He produced wine thus cheering God and man. / When we drink this new wine, we are so energized, / For the Lord to be a living sacrifice. (Song on, What a Christ We Have)
– Olives that have known no pressure / No oil can bestow; / If the grapes escape the winepress, / Cheering wine can never flow; / Spikenard only through the crushing, / Fragrance can diffuse. / Shall I then, Lord, shrink from suff’ring / Which Thy love for me would choose? (Hymns #626)
– Hands will pick and feet will trample / All the riches of the vine, / Till from out the reddened wine-press / Flows a river full of wine. / All the day its flow continues, / Bloody-red, without alloy, / Gushing freely, richly, sweetly, / Filling all the earth with joy. (Hymns #635)
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