Preface

  I give thanks with all my heart to the Lord whom I serve, for He has given me the privilege to write this book. I had hoped that a better writer would be raised up to fulfill this responsibility, but it has pleased the Lord that I should take it up myself. According to my choice, I should and would be the last one to write such a book. My reluctance is not due to my timidness, but to my thought that writing such a book on spiritual progress and the stratagems of warfare is not an easy task for one who has believed in the Lord for less than ten years. Among the spiritually seeking believers there is always the danger of excessive subjectivity concerning one's own spiritual experience. This is not healthy, for self-examination, the analyzing of oneself, is a means of cultivating the self-life and fills a person's mind with vain thoughts. The Bible does permit believers to relate their own experience; this is something that the Holy Spirit would lead men to do. But experiences that are as wonderful and profound as the rapture "to the third heaven" should better wait "fourteen years" to be mentioned. It is most important that we pay attention to experience, but a mind that is filled with experience will make it more difficult for one to give up the self-life. I do not have "third heaven" experiences, and I have not received any great revelation; I have only received the grace from the Lord to learn in an incomplete way to follow Him in the small things in daily life. In this book I have merely tried to communicate to God's children what I have received from the Lord during these few years.

  About four years ago I felt the need to write such a book. At that time, due to my physical weakness, I was resting, studying the Word, and praying in a little house by the lake. I felt the need for God's children to have a book based on scriptural teaching and spiritual experience, which would make a clear analysis of the spiritual life and would afford the Holy Spirit a way to guide the saints and lead them out of searching in darkness. At that time, I was very clear that the Lord had commissioned me to do this. As a result, I began to write the chapter on the difference between the spirit, the soul, and the body, the chapter concerning the flesh, and the half chapter on the soul-life. After a while, I stopped for a number of reasons, one of which was the fact that I was called to do other things. However, that alone could not have stopped me, because had I wanted to, I could still have found the time to write it. The greatest reason I stopped from further writing was that many of the truths which the Lord had commissioned me to write were not fully confirmed in my experience at that time. If I had written the book under such a condition, its value and power would have been diminished. I was willing to learn more and to confirm and experience His truths more, so that what I wrote would not be spiritual theories, but spiritual facts. This stopped the work for three years.

  During these three years or more, I can say that the writing of this book was on my mind every day. Although to man, the publishing of this book is long overdue, I myself was most clear about the Lord's hand. During the past few years, the truths in this book—particularly those in Volume Three—have released many from the authority of darkness. This proves that we have seen the spiritual reality. The Lord has been particularly gracious to me to show me the goal of God's redemption and the way to differentiate between the new creation and the old creation. For this, I have to thank the Lord. The Lord has allowed me to travel more during these few years and has afforded me the opportunity to meet with some of the best of His children in various places. This, of course, increased my observation, knowledge, and experience. The Lord showed me in my contact with others the shortages among His children and the way of salvation revealed in the Bible. I can say to my readers that even though this book is a book that examines the spiritual life, all the points recorded in it can be proven in real experience.

  Recently, due to the special experience which my physical body has undergone, I have come to realize, on the one hand, the reality of eternity, and on the other hand, my indebtedness to the church of God. Therefore, I began to wish that I could finish this book within the shortest possible time. I thank God the Father, and I also thank a few of my friends in the Lord, who have prepared a quiet place for me according to the need of my body. This allowed me to finish Sections One through Four within a few months. Although I have not yet started on the remaining sections, God the Father is always waiting for me when I need the grace. Now that this book is about to be published, I would say a few honest words: it was not an easy matter to learn the truths of this book, and it was more difficult to write about the truths of this book. During those two months, I can say that I was living between Satan's jaws. What a conflict that was! How much there was to withstand! All the strength of the spirit, the soul, and the body were hurled against Hades. Such warfare has temporarily ceased now. However, the remaining sections are not finished. May those who stood with Moses on the mount not forget Joshua on the plain. I know that the enemy deeply hates this book. He will try all he can to obstruct it and to stop people from getting it. Even when they get it, he will stop them from reading it. May the enemy not prevail in this matter.

  Because of the thickness of the book, I have divided it into three volumes. Some parts of the book emphasize spiritual life, while others emphasize spiritual warfare. The parts that speak of spiritual warfare also speak of spiritual life, and the parts that speak of spiritual life also cover spiritual warfare. The only difference between them is the emphasis. Since the purpose of this book is to guide those who are lost, more attention is paid to the actual steps of the journey than to exhortations to take the journey. This book is not an exhortation to the pursuit of spiritual truths; rather, it is for those who are pursuing spiritual truths but who have not found the way. All those who have the desire will find the proper guidance. The style of this book is neither homiletic nor expositional. There are variations in the degree of depth covered. One should take note of this fact while he is reading it.

  I deeply believe that the spiritual conditions of the readers of this book will be very uneven. The degrees of spiritual life mentioned in this book are also quite varied from one section of the book to the other. Hence, if a reader comes across places that he does not understand or finds difficult to comprehend, he should not reject them and not try to research them with his mind; those truths are for those who are more mature. If he will read the book again after a while, perhaps after half a month or a month, he will find that he will understand more of them. In short, what this book talks about is absolutely a matter of spiritual life and spiritual experience, and no one can try to understand it by any method. What one considers as most common and unattractive may in the end turn out to be most precious. The point to which a person has reached is the degree to which he will understand. Does this then mean that a person can only understand something after he has reached that point? If that is the case, why is there the need for this book at all? There is a mystery in a believer's spiritual experience: for the Lord to lead a believer into a deeper spiritual life, He will first give such a one a taste of the outline of that level of spiritual life before actually leading him into it. When many believers first get the taste of a certain level of spirituality, they think that they have already attained to that level. Little do they realize that it is only the beginning of the Lord's work in leading them into such matters. Hence, when a believer has tasted a certain level but has not entered fully into it, he can take advantage of the teachings of this book.

  We should beware of one thing in reading a book of this nature: we should not take the knowledge acquired from this book as a tool for self-analysis. If we see in God's light, we will have the knowledge of ourselves, and at the same time we will not lose our broadness in the Lord. But if we analyze all day long, we will be in our own thoughts and feelings. Such unrelenting self-analysis will hinder us from losing our self in Christ. Unless a believer has been deeply taught by the Lord, he will not know anything. All self-analysis and self-consciousness are harmful to the spiritual life.

  Here, it would be well if we remember God's way of redemption. God's goal is to deliver us, through the new life which He gives to us at the time of our regeneration, from (1) sin, (2) natural things (our nature), and (3) supernatural things (the sinful aspects). All three steps of deliverance are indispensable. If a believer limits God's way of salvation and is satisfied only with victory over sin, he is short of God's will. The natural good nature must be overcome, and the supernatural enemy must also be overcome. It is good to overcome sin, but unless one overcomes the natural narrowness and the supernatural evil, he is not perfect. Such victory can only come from the cross. By God's grace I hope to pay more attention to these points, so that the readers will understand them.

  Except the section in Volume Three which deals with the body, this book can be considered biblical psychology. All the things we cover are based on the Scripture and confirmed by our spiritual experience. The result of our study is that with every spiritual experience, such as regeneration, there are specific changes within our inner man. After we have studied this subject, we have found that the Bible divides a man into three parts: the spirit, the soul, and the body. Later on, we will consider the function of these three parts, in particular, the functions of the spirit and the soul. We will also see what each part includes and how they are different from one another.

  A few special words are needed for Section One in Volume One. Knowledge of the distinction between the spirit and the soul and the different functions of the spirit and the soul is indispensable to spiritually-seeking believers. Only after one knows what the spirit is and what it is to be spiritual can he walk according to the spirit. Today this teaching is very much lacking in China, and that is why we cover the subject in detail in Section One. Those believers with a good amount of knowledge will not find it hard to understand. But those who are not familiar with this kind of distinction should just remember the conclusion for now, and should go on to read Section Two. The first section is not on the spiritual life but on the prerequisite knowledge for the spiritual life. One will understand more if he finishes the whole book first and then comes back to read that section.

  There also needs to be a word of explanation concerning the translation of the Scripture in this book. I thank God that He has given us a very good translation, the Chinese Union Version. In many passages, it is even better than some of the English versions. However, in many places, due to Chinese grammar and usage, the translation is bound to vary from the original text. This is obviously a shortage when it comes to the study of the spiritual life. Whenever such places occur, I have to furnish my own translation. We are not concerned with the bluntness of the style; our aim is only to convey the spiritual meaning of the word.

  The teaching of the difference between the soul and the spirit did not originate with me. Andrew Murray said that the one thing the church, as well as individuals, has to dread the most is the inordinate activity of the soulish will and mind. F.B. Meyer also said that unless one knows how to differentiate between the soul and the spirit, he cannot imagine what his spiritual life would have been. Others such as Otto Stockmayer, Jessie Penn-Lewis, Evan Roberts, and Madame Guyon have given similar testimonies. Because we have received the same commission as they, I have freely quoted their writings. Because there are so many places where I have referenced them, I have not made specific reference to the sources.

  This book is not only written for ordinary believers, but for those in the Lord's work who are younger than I am. Those who are responsible for leading others in their spiritual pursuits should be clear what we are leading others out of and what we are leading them into. We should know from where to where we are journeying. Does the Lord only want us to help others not to sin, on the negative side, and become zealous, on the positive side? Or is there something deeper than this? To me, the Bible is most clear concerning this point. God's goal is to lead His children fully out of the old creation and into the new creation. No matter how good the old creation looks in man's eyes, in God's eyes it is always condemned. If we the workers are clear what it is that we have to tear down and what it is that we have to build up, we will not lead others on in a foolish way.

  Regeneration—the receiving of God's own life—is the beginning of all spiritual life. It is most useless to spend much energy in exhorting, persuading, debating, explaining, and researching and end up with nothing other than some understanding in the mind, some decisions in the will, and some activity in the emotion with nothing else being done to cause a person to receive God's life in his spirit. I wish all those who bear the same responsibility as I do in preaching God's Word would realize that unless we bring about a reception of God's life in man's deepest part, nothing is useful. If we know this, what a revolution there will be in our work. This will show us that many who claim that they have believed in the Lord Jesus have actually not yet believed in Him. Many tears and repentance and much good behavior, zeal, and work are not the characteristics of a Christian. If we know our responsibility, we will be satisfied with others receiving God's preeminent life.

  Because of the limitation of space and subject material, many basic doctrines are only briefly covered here. If the Lord delays His coming, and if He allows me to remain on earth, I will be happy to put them in another book in the future. When I recall how the enemy tried to stop me from learning the truths in this book, especially those in Volume Three, I cannot help but realize that even if a believer has secured this book, Satan will stop him from reading it; and even if he reads it, Satan will cause him to forget it. Hence, I will warn the readers ahead of time that they should ask God to destroy Satan's work in frustrating them from reading this book. I hope that while they are reading it, they will pray as they read and will turn what they have read into prayer. We also ask that God put on you the helmet of salvation. Otherwise, you will either forget what you read, or your mind will be filled with endless theories.

  A few more words for those brothers who have acquired the truths in this book: if God has given you the grace and has delivered you from the flesh and the power of darkness, you should preach these truths to others. Hence, after you have become familiar with this book and have received the truths in it, you should use this book as a textbook and should gather together a few believers and teach them the truths in this book. If the whole book is too much for them, you should at least teach them one or two sections. Do not let the truths of this book lie still. It is even a profitable work to lend this book to others to read.

  Now I commit this little book into the Lord's hand. If it pleases Him, may He bless it so that my brothers and sisters will grow in spiritual life and overcome in spiritual warfare. May God's will be done, may the enemy's will be destroyed, and may the Lord Jesus come soon to reign. Amen.