Scripture Reading: Josh. 5:12; 13:1—22:34; Col. 1:12; Acts 26:18

DAY 1 Outline　MorningRevival

DAY 2 Outline　MorningRevival

DAY 3 Outline　MorningRevival

DAY 4 Outline　MorningRevival

DAY 5 Outline　MorningRevival

DAY 6 Outline　MorningRevival

«　WEEK 5　DAY 1　»

　　Josh. 5:12 And the manna ceased on that day, when they ate of the produce of the land…

　　John 6:51 I am the living bread which came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread which I will give is My flesh, given for the life of the world.

　　57…He who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me.

　　The ceasing of the manna when the people began to eat the produce of the land indicates that the produce of the land was the continuation of the manna. The manna eaten by Israel in their wandering in the wilderness…typifies Christ as the heavenly food given directly by God to His chosen people, which requires no labor on the part of the eaters. The rich produce of the promised land given by God to Israel in their fighting in Canaan (Deut. 8:7-10) typifies Christ as the consummated life supply (the life-giving Spirit—Gal. 3:14) given to the believers, which requires them to labor on Him. (Josh. 5:12, footnote 1)

　　When we enjoy Christ, He makes us His possession. This is something organic. If we take Christ, possess Christ, and enjoy Christ as our all-inclusive good land, the land will become our supply….The main thing that the land affords us is food….Then we eat the food that is produced by our labor on the land, and as a result we become organic.

　　Anything that we take into us as food transforms us organically. When the Israelites were in Egypt, they ate Egyptian food, and this food caused them to have an Egyptian constitution. Eventually, God brought them out of Egypt and into the wilderness, where they remained for forty years. Every day while they were in the wilderness they ate something heavenly—manna. The manna constituted them into a heavenly people. Eventually, the manna ceased…(Joshua 5:12)…. From that time onward,…they began to be constituted with the produce of the good land. Thus, the children of Israel were constituted in three ways: first, in Egypt with Egyptian food; second, in the wilderness with manna; and third, in Canaan with the produce of the land. In each case they were constituted not by teachings or regulations but by what they ate.

　　As believers in Christ today, we also are constituted according to what we eat. If we want to be a heavenly people, we need to eat Christ as our heavenly manna. If we want to be overcomers, we need to labor on Christ as our good land. To labor on Christ means to gain Christ as our enjoyment…. Through our labor something will be produced, and that produce will become our food, our supply. As we eat Christ as this food and enjoy Him, we will be constituted with Him, being made the same as Christ in life and nature. This is what Paul meant when he said, “For to me, to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21).

　　This enjoyment of Christ will transform us metabolically and cause us to become Christ’s treasure, His possession. Paul speaks of this in Ephesians 1. In this chapter we first have God’s choosing and predestinating, and then we have Christ’s redeeming. Through the redemption of Christ, we enter into Christ as a particular kind of element, and this element becomes our enjoyment that constitutes us into God’s inheritance.

　　First, God comes into us to be our inheritance. When we enjoy Christ, He constitutes us to be God’s inheritance. On the one hand, we have Christ as our good land, as our possession. On the other hand, the enjoyment of this possession constitutes us with Christ, and we thereby become God’s inheritance. We need to take the all-inclusive Christ as our good land and labor on Him to gain some produce, which will be our organic, transforming food. As we eat this food, we will grow and gradually mature in the divine life. We will be constituted with Christ organically, transformed by Christ as a new element. Then in an organic way we will become God’s inheritance, His treasure and possession. (Life-study of Joshua, pp. 35-37)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Joshua, msgs. 5-6, 12-13

«　WEEK 5　DAY 2　»

　　Exo. 12:3 …Each man shall take a lamb according to his fathers’ house, a lamb for a household.

　　9 Do not eat any of it raw or boiled at all with water, but roasted with fire—its head with its legs and with its inward parts.

　　1 Cor. 5:7 …Our Passover, Christ, also has been sacrificed.

　　In their experience of God’s salvation Israel passed through three stages in their eating. In the first stage they ate the passover lamb in Egypt (Exo. 12), which strengthened them to walk out of Egypt and to be separated from the Egyptian world. (Josh. 5:12, footnote 1)

　　The head [of the passover lamb] signifies wisdom, the legs signify activity and move, and the inward parts signify the inward parts of Christ’s being, including His mind, emotion, will, and heart with all their functions. Eating the passover lamb with the head, legs, and inward parts signifies taking Christ in His entirety, in His wisdom, activities, move, and inward parts (John 6:57; 1 Cor. 1:24; Rev. 14:4b; Phil. 1:8). (Exo. 12:9, footnote 2)

　　In the second stage they ate the manna in the wilderness (Exo. 16), which reconstituted them with a heavenly element to be a heavenly people. In the third stage they ate the rich produce in the good land, which constituted them further to be an overcoming people…. By their eating in the first two stages the believers are energized to leave the world and are constituted with Christ as the heavenly element. To reach the goal of God’s economy, all Christ’s believers need to progress until they enter into the highest stage of eating Christ as the rich produce of the good land, the all-inclusive Spirit, that they may overcome the spiritual enemies, be built up to be God’s dwelling place, and establish God’s kingdom on earth. (Josh. 5:12, footnote 1)

　　[The] manna (Exo. 16:15, 31), [is] a type of Christ as the unique, heavenly food for God’s people (John 6:31-35). By giving them manna to eat, God indicated that His intention was to change the nature of His people, to change their very constitution, for the accomplishing of His purpose. Because the children of Israel were still constituted with the Egyptian element and were thus the same as the Egyptians, they were not qualified to build up the tabernacle as God’s habitation on earth. For forty years God gave the children of Israel nothing to eat but manna (Exo. 16:35; Num. 11:6). This shows that God’s intention in His salvation is to work Himself into the believers in Christ and to change their constitution by feeding them with Christ as their unique heavenly food, thereby reconstituting them with Christ in order to qualify them to build up the church as God’s dwelling place. In fact, after being reconstituted with Christ, the believers themselves become the dwelling place of God. (Exo. 16:4, footnote 1)

　　The Lord Jesus is the real manna. In John 6 He indicates that we should seek Him and eat Him. However, not many Christians realize the need for a change of diet. All those who have been regenerated need to change their diet. This is the reason that Exodus 16 is even more crucial than Exodus 12. In chapter 12 we see a people who have been redeemed, but we do not see a people who have been reconstituted. At the time of chapter 14, God’s people had come out of Egypt, but Egypt had not come out of them. According to their constitution, they were still Egyptians. Thus, God’s intention was to change their constitution by changing their diet. By the time the children of Israel had built the tabernacle, their diet had been changed. Their constitution had probably begun to change also. When they were building the tabernacle, they did not eat Egyptian food. Instead, their diet consisted of manna. (Life-study of Exodus, pp. 410-411)

　　Further Reading: The Conclusion of the New Testament, msg. 42; Life-study of Colossians, msg. 6; CWWL, 1978, vol. 2, “Life Messages, Volume 1,” chs. 12, 27-28

«　WEEK 5　DAY 3　»

　　Deut. 8:7-10 For Jehovah your God is bringing you to a good land…; a land of wheat and barley and vines and fig trees and pomegranates; a land of olive trees with oil and of honey; a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity; you will not lack anything in it….And you shall eat and be satisfied, and you shall bless Jehovah your God for the good land which He has given you.

　　Consider what you are eating today. Are you eating the Lamb, the manna, or the rich produce of the good land?…In your Christian life, the eating of Christ must progress from the Lamb and the manna to the solid food of the good land. You need to eat the wheat, the barley, and all the other foodstuffs that have the minerals to make you strong stones, iron, and copper for God’s building and for the fighting of the battle. (CWWL, 1977, vol. 1, “The Kernel of the Bible,” p. 206)

　　We must build the temple and fight the battle so that God may have the kingdom. This is what God needs today. The tabernacle is not adequate. God needs a temple with a city in a kingdom with the kingship and the fighting capability. The Lamb energizes us to leave Egypt, and the manna nourishes us and constitutes us with the heavenly element. Although both of these items are good, they are not good for fighting. No one would fight a battle with a lamb or with manna. We need solid food with minerals in it. We need to be rocks, not wafers. We need weapons made out of iron and copper. Oh, we need stones, iron, and copper to build up the temple, to establish the kingdom, to fight the battle, and to defeat the enemy!…As His people eat the solid food and take in the minerals that make them stones, iron, and copper, God has His kingdom.

　　These minerals make us rocks for God’s building so that the kingdom may be established, and they make us iron and copper to fight the battle to subdue the enemy. It is not easy to eat the solid food that contains minerals. One chapter [cf. Exo. 12] covers the eating of the Lamb, and two chapters [cf. Exo. 16; John 6:22-71], the eating of the manna. But whole books in the Bible are devoted to the eating of the solid food with the minerals. If you want to know how to eat the solid food, you need to read…Leviticus,…Numbers, and all the books from Deuteronomy to 1 Kings. Once we are in the good land, we shall no longer eat manna, for our supply is the rich produce of the land. In order to eat this rich produce, we must first live in the good land…. In the wilderness there is no wheat, no barley, no grapes, and no figs; there is just manna.

　　Second, we need to labor on the good land. We need to till the ground, sow the seed, water the seed, cultivate the soil, and then reap the harvest. The good land in which we are living is Christ. DAY by day we need to work on Christ. Morning watch, prayer, and dealing with the Lord are all aspects of working on Christ. Sometimes in morning watch we may till the ground and sow the seed; at other times we may water the seed or cultivate the soil. Do not be lazy and say, “It does not matter whether or not I have morning watch, pray, or spend time to deal with the Lord.” It makes a great deal of difference whether or not you do these things. We need to labor on Christ. We all must be diligent to work like farmers. We must till the ground, remove the weeds, cultivate the soil, water the seeds, and even kill the damaging bugs and snails.

　　If we labor on Christ as the good land, our harvest will be rich in both crops and flocks. After we reap the harvest, we shall have wheat, barley, vines, figs, olives, and pomegranates. In addition to all the plant life, in the good land there is the animal life—the oxen, the cattle, and the sheep. This is the harvest of our rich experience of Christ. (CWWL, 1977, vol. 1, “The Kernel of the Bible,” pp. 206-208)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1977, vol. 1, “The Kernel of the Bible,” chs. 4-5; Life-study of 1 Corinthians, msg. 50; CWWL, 1961-1962, vol. 4, “The All-inclusive Christ,” ch. 14

«　WEEK 5　DAY 4　»

　　Num. 26:55 But the land shall be apportioned by lot; they shall inherit it according to the names of the tribes of their fathers.

　　Rom. 12:3 For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think, but to think so as to be sober-minded, as God has apportioned to each a measure of faith.

　　Within God’s economy there is such a thing as the allotment of the land. After Joshua took possession of the land, God commanded him to allot the land that had been possessed and even the land that had not yet been possessed, because in God’s eyes all the land was for Israel….We will [now] begin to consider the allotment of the land. In particular, we will endeavor to see the intrinsic significance of the allotment of the good land.

　　In His wisdom, God did not allot the good land as a whole to all the children of Israel. Rather, He allotted the land, that is, Christ, to the different tribes. All the tribes were not the same; they were different. (Life-study of Joshua, p. 65)

　　In Genesis 49 Jacob, the father of the twelve tribes, blessed each of his sons in the form of a prophecy….Jacob’s blessing of Judah reveals that God considered Judah a threefold lion: a young lion, a mature lion, and a lioness (v. 9). As a young lion he could grow and become strong, as a lion he could fight, and as a lioness he could produce. Benjamin was a ravenous wolf (v. 27), and Dan was a serpent in the way, biting the horse’s heels to frustrate God’s people from going on (v. 17). Zebulun was a shore for ships (v. 13), and Naphtali was a hind let loose (v. 21).

　　Because the tribes were different, God could not give the same land in the same way to every tribe. All the tribes were possessors of the land, but the tribes possessed particular portions of the land according to what they were. The top portion of the land was allotted to Judah. Dan was allotted a portion, but they did not dispossess the occupying Canaanites.

　　The fulfillment of this type of the allotment of the land is among us today. We all have the same Christ, but we experience Christ in different ways. The land (Christ) we possess is according to what we are.

　　In Leviticus 1 Christ is unveiled as burnt offerings in five types: a young bull, a sheep from the flock, a goat, a turtledove, and a young pigeon. These items typify just one Christ, but they were offered according to the offerer’s ability, indicating that our experiences of Christ differ in both size and kind. The size and kind do not depend on Christ but on our experience and enjoyment of Christ. Whereas the Christ experienced by Paul was typified by a young bull, the Christ experienced by many believers today is typified by a pigeon.

　　Christ is also unveiled by the three kinds of meal offerings in Leviticus 2: fine flour, a wafer, and grain that remains in the ears. If we are weak and cannot eat the wafer, we can eat the fine flour. As we grow we can experience Christ as the wafer. The apostle Paul was fully mature and full of energy. He was one who ate the grain. Once again we see that there is only one Christ—one Christ in many types and sizes—but we may experience Him in different ways and in different degrees as fine flour, a wafer, and grain.

　　The intrinsic significance of the allotment of the land is that the possessors of the land are different. This indicates that the experience of Christ among God’s people is not the same. In God’s ordination the good land is allotted to His people in different degrees. The New Testament clearly tells us that “God has apportioned to each a measure of faith” (Rom. 12:3). We are also told that “all the members do not have the same function” (v. 4). Therefore, God gives grace to each member according to its function in the Body (Eph. 4:7). This is God’s ordination and the divine allotment. (Life-study of Joshua, pp. 65-66)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Joshua, msg. 11

«　WEEK 5　DAY 5　»

　　Col. 1:12 …The Father,…has qualified you for a share of the allotted portion of the saints in the light. 2:6-7 As therefore you have received the Christ, Jesus the Lord, walk in Him, having been rooted and being built up in Him…

　　Eph. 3:8 To me, less than the least of all saints, was this grace given to announce to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ as the gospel.

　　In Colossians Paul employs the concept of the all-inclusive land….This “allotted portion” (1:12) is the all-inclusive Christ for our enjoyment….When Paul was writing the Epistle to the Colossians, he no doubt had in mind the picture of the allotting of the good land to the children of Israel (Josh. 14:1). He used the word portion with the Old Testament record of the land as the background. God gave His chosen people, the children of Israel, the good land for their inheritance for their enjoyment…. Just as the land of Canaan was everything to the children of Israel, so Christ, the reality of the type of the good land, is everything to us.

　　The New Testament believers’ inheritance, their allotted portion, is not a physical land; it is the all-inclusive Christ as the life-giving Spirit (Col. 2:6-7; Gal. 3:14). He is the allotted portion of the saints as their divine inheritance for their enjoyment. The riches of the good land typify the unsearchable riches of Christ in the different aspects of His bountiful supply to His believers in His Spirit (Deut. 8:7-10; Eph. 3:8; Phil. 1:19). By enjoying the riches of the land, the believers in Christ are built up to be His Body as the house of God and the kingdom of God (Eph. 1:22-23; 2:21-22; 1 Tim. 3:15; Matt. 16:18-19; Rom. 14:17). (The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 467, 3534)

　　In order to have genuine growth [of God in us], we must first be rooted in Christ, our good land. This implies that Christ is our soil, our earth. Otherwise, how could we be rooted in Him? We are plants rooted in Christ as the soil. Therefore, Christ, the processed, all-inclusive Triune God, is our land. Praise the Lord that we have been planted! Having been planted into Christ, we are now rooted in the living Christ who is our good land.

　　Christ is the fertile soil in which we, the plants, are growing. This soil is living and moving. Because we have been rooted into Christ as such a living soil, we move when He moves, for we walk in Him. Thus, our walking is not actually ours; it is His. Such a walking in Christ as the good land is also our growing. To grow is to walk in this way. Therefore, when we walk in Christ, we grow in Him.

　　We are living plants rooted in Christ as our soil. Christ is moving, and because we are in Him, we walk as He moves. However, those Christians who have no heart to seek the Lord do not walk when Christ moves. They do not cooperate with Him in His moving. But as those who love the Lord and pursue Him, we should always cooperate with Him and say “Amen” whenever He moves. We should be very active and aggressive in Him. Through this experience of walking in Christ, we absorb the riches of Christ.

　　Our walking in Christ is the cooperation we render to Him in His activity. By cooperating with Him in this way, we spontaneously absorb His riches into our being. What we absorb of Christ into us—the element of the riches of Himself as the soil—becomes the increase of God within us….This increase of God within us is what we mean by the growth of God.

　　When we realize that we have been rooted in Him, we shall automatically walk in Him. According to Colossians 2:6 and 7, the rooting must precede the walking. Having been rooted in Christ, we now walk in Him. We simply remain in Christ, and He does the walking. Thus, His walking becomes our walking. (Life-study of Colossians, pp. 380-382)

　　Further Reading: The Conclusion of the New Testament, msgs. 24, 44, 352; Life-study of Colossians, msgs. 7, 20-21, 44, 46-48, 51-53, 55

«　WEEK 5　DAY 6　»

　　Acts 26:18 To open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light and from the authority of Satan to God, that they may receive…an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.

　　Eph. 1:13-14 …You also, having heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, in Him also believing, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of the promise, who is the pledge of our inheritance…

　　In Acts 26:18 Paul refers to the all-inclusive Christ as our inheritance. As the result of having our eyes opened and of being transferred from the authority of Satan to God, we not only have the forgiveness of sins, but we also receive a divine inheritance. This inheritance is the Triune God Himself with all that He has, all He has done, and all He will do for His redeemed people. This Triune God is embodied in the all-inclusive Christ (Col. 2:9) who is the portion allotted to the saints as their inheritance. The Holy Spirit, who has been given to the saints, is the foretaste, the seal, the pledge, and the guarantee of this divine inheritance (Rom. 8:23; Eph. 1:13-14), which we are sharing and enjoying today as a foretaste and will share and enjoy in full in the coming age and for eternity (1 Pet. 1:4). The good land truly is a type of the all-inclusive Christ. Christ, the embodiment of the processed Triune God, has been given to us as our inheritance. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, p. 468)

　　To be sealed with the Holy Spirit is to be marked with the Holy Spirit as a living seal. We have been designated as God’s inheritance (Eph. 1:11). At the time we were saved, God put His Holy Spirit into us as a seal to mark us out, indicating that we belong to God. The Holy Spirit, who is God Himself entering into us, causes us to bear God’s image, signified by the seal, thus making us like God. (Eph. 1:13, footnote 1)

　　Since we are God’s inheritance, the Holy Spirit is a seal upon us. Since God is our inheritance, the Holy Spirit is a pledge to us of this inheritance. God gives His Holy Spirit to us not only as a guarantee of our inheritance, securing our heritage, but also as a foretaste of what we will inherit of God, affording us a taste beforehand of the full inheritance. In ancient times the Greek word for pledge was used in the purchasing of land. The seller gave the purchaser some soil as a sample from the land. Hence, a pledge, according to ancient Greek usage, is also a sample. The Holy Spirit is the sample of what we will inherit of God in full. (Eph. 1:14, footnote 1)

　　The inheritance in 1 Peter 1:4 comprises the coming salvation of our souls (vv. 5, 9), the grace to be revealed at the unveiling of the Lord (v. 13), the glory to be revealed (5:1), the unfading crown of glory (v. 4), and the eternal glory (v. 10). All these items of our eternal inheritance are related to the divine life which we received through regeneration and which we are experiencing and enjoying throughout our entire Christian life. “This inheritance is the full possession of that which was promised to Abraham and all believers (Gen. 12:3; see Gal. 3:6ff.), an inheritance, as much higher than that which fell to the children of Israel in the possession of Canaan, as the sonship of the regenerate, who have already received the promise of the Spirit through faith as a pledge of their inheritance, is higher than the sonship of Israel: compare Gal. 3:18, 29; 1 Cor. 6:9; Eph. 5:5; Heb. 9:15”—Wiesinger, quoted by Alford.

　　Through our second birth, regeneration, we have been born into a new inheritance. According to 1 Peter 1:4, this inheritance is not on earth; rather, it is kept in the heavens. Although this inheritance is kept for us in the heavens, we can enjoy it now on earth. Our heavenly, divine, spiritual inheritance is kept in the heavens; yet it is continually being transmitted into our spirit for our enjoyment. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, p. 1090)

　　Further Reading: The Conclusion of the New Testament, msg. 101