Scripture Reading: Matt. 3:12; 13:38; 5:13-16; 4:16-20
Ⅰ
The believers are symbolized by the wheat of life, which will be gathered into the Lord's barn—Matt. 3:11-12; 13:24-30, 38-42:
A
The believers as the wheat have the divine life within them; life is God Himself enjoyed by man—Psa. 36:7-9; John 1:4; 10:10; 14:6; 6:63.
B
If we want Christ's life to be unhindered in us, we must experience the break-ing of the cross, the killing death of Christ in the all-inclusive Spirit, so that the following obstacles within us can be dealt with and removed:
１
Being a Christian means taking care of the living Christ in us and not tak-ing anything other than Christ as our aim; the obstacle to this is in not knowing the pathway of life and not taking Christ as our life—Matt. 7:13-14; Phil. 3:8-14; Col. 3:4; Rom. 8:28-29.
２
The second obstacle is hypocrisy; a person's spirituality is not determined by outward appearance but by how he takes care of Christ—Matt. 6:1-6; 15:7-8; John 5:44; 12:42-43; cf. Josh. 7:21.
３
The third obstacle is rebellion; we may be very active and zealous in doing things but still imprison and disobey the living Christ within us by ignor-ing Him—Lev. 14:9, 14-18; 11:1-2, 46-47; Rom. 16:17; 1 Cor. 15:33.
４
The fourth obstacle is our natural capabilities; if these natural capabilities remain unbroken in us, they will become a problem to Christ's life—2:14-15; 3:12-17; Jude 19-21.
Ⅱ
The believers are symbolized by the good seed, the sons of the kingdom who are sown by the Lord to grow in His kingdom—Matt. 13:24, 38:
A
The seed is the word of God (vv. 4, 19; Luke 8:11), Christ Himself (1 Pet. 1:23), sown into us to make us the good seed, the sons of the resurrection (Matt. 13:38; Luke 20:36-38).
B
The word of God as a grain of wheat dispenses God as life into us to nourish us; also, the word as fire burns us and many of the things in which we have confidence, and the word as a hammer breaks down our self, our natural life, our flesh, our lusts, and our concepts—Jer. 23:28-29.
C
As the good seed, we must follow the Lord into the ground to die and bear much fruit in resurrection; to die and experience the cross is to deny and reject our soul-life, our natural life, to live by the divine life—John 12:23-26, 31-32.
D
The sowing of the good seed is martyrdom, for "what you sow is not made alive unless it dies" (1 Cor. 15:36); we can be martyrs physically, psychologically, or spiritually (2 Tim. 4:6; Matt. 16:25; 1 Cor. 16:12; 2 Cor. 2:12-14).
E
Christ's love of affection constrains us to live and die to Him and makes us martyrs for Him—5:14-15; Rom. 8:35-37; 14:7-9; Rev. 2:10; 12:11.
F
The putting to death of Jesus in our environment cooperates with the indwell-ing Spirit to kill our natural man and release the divine life—Rom. 8:2, 13; 2 Cor. 4:10-13; Jer. 48:11.
G
All our service to the Lord must originate from God, not from ourselves, as we allow His death to operate in us, so that His resurrection life can be imparted through us into others—2 Cor. 4:12-13; 1:8-9; 4:5; 10:13:
１
David loved God, feared God, and cooperated with God in order to let God work; although he had the ability to build the temple of God, he stopped when God's word came to him—2 Sam. 7:18, 25, 27; cf. Luke 1:38.
２
David's stopping established a twofold testimony in the universe: first, all the work in this universe should come from God, not from man; second, all that matters is what God does for man, not what man does for God.
３
The builder of the temple and the site of the temple both came out of David's being forgiven of his sins, out of what God did for David—2 Sam. 12:24-25; 24:1-10, 18-25; 1 Chron. 21:18; 2 Chron. 3:1; Psa. 51.
４
Sister M. E. Barber said, "Whoever cannot stop working for the sake of God cannot work for the sake of God."
Ⅲ
The believers are the salt of the earth, those who kill and eliminate the earth's germs of corruption and rottenness—Matt. 5:13; cf. Lev. 2:13:
A
Lot's wife became a pillar of salt and lost her salting function because she took a lingering look backward at Sodom, indicating that she loved and treasured the evil world that God was going to destroy—Gen. 19:15, 24-26; Luke 17:32.
B
To make a career of following the Lord, we must give all we have and all we can do to it; otherwise, we will be a failure, becoming the tasteless salt and being thrown out of the glorious realm into a sphere of shame—14:31-35; cf. Rev. 3:21; John 16:33.
C
We should not be disappointed or discouraged but strengthened and enabled to live out the divine economy by the processed and consummated Triune God as the all-sufficient grace—1 Cor. 15:10; 2 Cor. 12:9; 2 Tim. 4:22; Col. 4:6.
Ⅳ
The believers are the light of the world, those who let their light shine before men to dispel the world's darkness—Matt. 5:14-16; Eph. 5:8:
A
Light is the presence of God; because we have been born of God, we are now light in the Lord and must walk as children of light—1 John 1:5; Eph. 5:8-9.
B
The way to be saved from obsession, self-deception, is to live in the light, be open to God's shining, and not generate our own light—Psa. 36:8-9; 80:17-19; 139:23-24; 1 John 1:5, 7, 9; Isa. 2:5; 50:10-11:
１
The symptom of a person who is obsessed is that what he thinks and does are totally wrong, yet he thinks and believes that he is totally right—Matt. 6:22-23; Isa. 5:20.
２
To have sinned is a matter of defilement; to sin, yet believing that one has not sinned and justifying it, is a matter of darkness—1 John 1:8, 10.
３
The reasons for obsession, self-deception, are loving the darkness rather than the light (John 3:19-20), pride (Obad. 3), not receiving the love of the truth (2 Thes. 2:10-11; Prov. 23:23), and not seeking the glory that is from the only God (John 5:44).
C
Life comes from the shining of light, light is in the word of God, and light is the inner sense of life—2 Cor. 4:6; Psa. 119:105, 130; Isa. 66:2; John 8:12; Rom. 8:6, 14.
D
"The lamp of the body is your eye. When your eye is single, your whole body also is full of light; but when it is evil, your body also is dark. Watch out there-fore that the light which is in you is not darkness. If therefore your whole body is full of light and does not have any dark part, the whole will be full of light as when the lamp with its rays illuminates you"—Luke 11:34-36.
Ⅴ
The believers are the fishers of men—Matt. 4:16-20:
A
To be a fisher of men is to bring men out of the world, signified by the sea with its death waters, into the kingdom of the heavens—Luke 5:10.
B
The way to bring others out of the world and into the kingdom of the heavens is by preaching the gospel of the kingdom, the gospel of God's complete salva-tion, to the whole inhabited earth—Matt. 24:14; Luke 4:18-19; Eph. 3:8-9.