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Home meetings are the emphasis of the new way in the Lord’s recovery, and the most important thing for the home meetings is knowing how to use Life Lessons. Our problem is that when we use Life Lessons, we add too many of our own words. This is like towing an old car behind us when we drive; it distracts our concentration and causes trouble. For this reason, it is often a help not to bring our Bibles, hymnals, and tracts with us when we go to the home meetings. To bring all these is to bring the “old car” with us. A successful salesperson is trained not to show two products to the buyer at the same time. Once the customer finds out that there are more products, he will want to see them all, even if there are hundreds of them. This makes it very hard for the salesperson.
Why do we say that it is often a help not to bring our Bibles to the home meetings? It is because when we bring the Bible with us, we are tempted to use some verses that are not necessary for the lesson, and eventually we are distracted from the main theme. The chapter we read may be about calling upon the name of the Lord, but we will be tempted to read Genesis 1 about God’s creation. After listening to us for a long time, the ones in the home will be confused.
Before the introduction of the Lord’s new way, we needed to collect various materials for gospel preaching. For this purpose, the Taiwan Gospel Book Room published many gospel tracts, booklets, stories, and testimonies. However, not many people were baptized through our speaking of those stories and the testimonies quoted from classical writings. Based upon our experience, we studied this new way and discovered that what we had in the past was only like an oxcart or at best a bicycle or rickshaw. It could not meet the present need of man’s heart. Eventually, we compiled a gospel booklet entitled The Mystery of Human Life, which covers God’s creation, man’s fall, Christ’s redemption, and God’s dispensing. Those who have used this gospel booklet can testify that there is no need to talk about other items. All we need to do is open The Mystery of Human Life and read it with people. Then they will believe and be baptized very quickly.
Warfare throughout the world today can be regarded as a competition of weapons. The focus of every nation is to develop its own weapons and then negotiate over them, hoping that their own nation will possess the best weapons in the world. Because of this, national defense takes the biggest and highest share of most nations’ budget. There is a Chinese proverb that says, “Good tools are the prerequisite for the success of a task.” This is in the same principle as modern weapons. Therefore, today when we go to knock on doors, we should not bring extra items that are not our direct weapons. Our weapon for preaching the gospel is The Mystery of Human Life, and the one for leading the home meetings is Life Lessons. We need to be familiar and well versed in these two weapons.
We may have apprehended this principle in a superficial way, but I am afraid that when it comes to practice, our mind still contains many extra things. Life Lessons is rich in content and abounds in verses. These very verses can be our temptations when using the lessons. We can compare using the verses to scratching an itch. Sometimes before we scratch, we do not feel much itching, but once we start to scratch, we itch more. Eventually, our whole body begins to itch without remedy. When we use Life Lessons, we should not “scratch the itch.” There is no need to talk about Genesis, Revelation, all four Gospels, and finally the Song of Songs. This is to scratch all the itching places; there is not enough time for that. In order to manage our time, we need to avoid this. The key for reading is simply to follow the content of the lessons. There is no need to add any explanation. In particular, we should never extend the meaning of the text or develop an understanding based on inference. We simply should read the content of the lesson with the new ones. If we come to a point we do not understand, we simply need to repeat-read, emphasize-read, vitalize-read, and pray-read. This will take care of many “itches.”
In using the lesson books, we should first make good use of the verses. For example, Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” We need to impart these words into people: in the beginning, God, created, the heavens, and the earth. Not even one hundred long messages will be able to leave as much impression on the new ones. If we first impart the verses into people, they will receive the supply, because the word of the Lord is living and powerful.
Second, we have to impart the footnotes and explanations of the quoted verses into people. Although we cannot say that every word in the footnotes is a gold nugget, each word is at least concise, to the point, and pertinent. Therefore, no further explanation is required. On the contrary, once we try to explain, we will dilute the meaning. This will be like adding too much water to a bowl of beef soup until it loses all its taste. We may think that our explaining helps people to understand. Little do we realize that our explanation actually dilutes the precise meaning.
In addition, we should never add extra content to the lessons. If we read a certain chapter, we should simply read that chapter and not make references to other books or materials. We should avoid doing this. Do not be afraid to repeat-read, emphasize-read, vitalize-read, and pray-read. Rather, we should pay attention to and strengthen these things. We must be sure to study Life Lessons in our private time and become familiar with its content. In so doing, when we are in the home meetings, we can spontaneously utter words from our mouths as from the pen of a ready writer, and whatever we speak will be the word in the lessons. We need to practice until this is the case.
Whether or not we serve full time in the future, as long as we serve the Lord, we need to do two things. The first is to go door-knocking by using The Mystery of Human Life, and the second is to have home meetings by using Life Lessons. In a restaurant that sells dumplings, some people do nothing else the whole day except make dumplings. Even if they find this boring, they still have to do it because this is their job. Some among us have become “addicted” to going out to knock on doors and baptize people. However, this is just the “honeymoon.” Once the honeymoon is over, they may find it boring, just like the dumpling makers who, after making several thousand dumplings, have no more desire for doing it. In the future, though, the full-timers should simply go out to “make more dumplings,” that is, to knock on doors to read The Mystery of Human Life with people and to carry out the home meetings by using Life Lessons.
An elderly brother among us said that according to his observation, the co-workers in the past had almost nothing to do except give messages from the podium, fellowship, visit churches, and visit people with problems. Apart from these things, he could not see what else they had done. However, it is different now. Every full-timer must not be idle and has no way to be idle. For this reason, this elderly brother was willing to serve full time. If we want to serve the Lord full time, we also should be like this. Seven days a week from the morning until night we should either knock on doors and baptize people or have home meetings to nourish and supply them. The more babies a mother has, the busier she will be. At the present time twenty thousand people have been baptized in our midst. They all need us to go to their home to nourish and take care of them.
Farmers do almost the same work all year long, which seems very tedious. They sow in spring, plow in summer, harvest in autumn, and rest in winter. It is the same year after year. Every proper business is also like this. Every proper business in the world is tedious. Accountants find their job tedious because they deal with figures all day long. Computer technicians may have some pleasure in their work at first, but after doing it for a long period of time, they also will find nothing special in it. Computers are not smarter than the human mind created by God, so this line of work will also become tedious. Being a teacher is tedious, and being a doctor is also tedious. Every line of business is tedious.
Whatever we do is always interesting in the beginning, but after doing it for a long time, we find it boring. Husbands, wives, fathers, and children all become tired of what they do. However, all these tedious businesses are the proper business and proper occupations of human life. Therefore, we must be steadfast in door-knocking and having home meetings. This is the way ordained by the Lord, and this is our proper occupation.
In the past one church may not have brought even fifteen people to be saved and baptized each year, and even if fifteen people were baptized, perhaps not even five would remain. For this reason, we changed the system. Because of the change of the system, in one recent month we baptized one hundred sixty people. Although we are still inadequate in many areas, this result is sufficient enough to encourage us.
We have estimated that if we gain two thousand people through door-knocking, about one-fourth will remain, which is five hundred people. Every kind of production has a certain amount of loss and damage. In an orchard, for example, not all the fruit is harvested; at least one-third is sacrificed. While the trees are blossoming and bearing fruit, it may hail, or the birds may come and eat a certain amount. Only the fruit that is not damaged will be distributed to the markets for sale. It is the same with the production of cars. Not every car out of one hundred that are produced will be qualified. It may be fortunate if only eighty cars are qualified. Every kind of production has its sacrifices.
Recently when we were making our estimates, we were greatly encouraged. We never thought that the word spoken by the Lord in Matthew 13 and the principle of our estimation under His leading would be the same. In both cases, only one-fourth remain. In Matthew 13 the Lord spoke the parable of the sower. The first fourth of the seed fell beside the way and was immediately taken by Satan. This seed was altogether ineffective (v. 4). The second fourth fell on the rocky places where they did not have much earth. This kind of seed did not have deep roots and withered very quickly (vv. 5-6). The third kind grew a little deeper, but the thorns also came up. Then the anxiety of the age and the deceitfulness of riches utterly choked the word, causing it to become unfruitful (vv. 7, 22). Only the fourth kind, the last quarter, fell on the good earth and yielded fruit (v. 8). This portion of the Word shows us that even when the Lord Jesus worked on the earth, He gained only one-fourth of the people, and three quarters were lost.
We should be encouraged, rejoicing that the Lord has given us this way. According to this estimate, if we gain two thousand people through door-knocking, we will have five hundred people remaining who attend meetings regularly. Among these five hundred new ones who attend the meetings, we can produce one hundred twenty-five who will knock on doors. In this way, by the year 2000 the whole world can be covered and baptized. This is truly marvelous. Therefore, we should not lose heart but should be encouraged in the Lord.
We know that the Lord Jesus is faithful to us. He spoke in the Gospel of Luke that He sends us out in the midst of the wolves, but among the wolves there are sons of peace who are pre-chosen by God (10:3-6). However, we need to be well prepared that some sons of peace may not remain to be sons of peace for their whole life. The name Barnabas in the New Testament means “son of encouragement.” In the beginning Barnabas was truly an encouragement to Paul. It was he who brought Paul into the New Testament ministry, and it was also he who brought Paul with him to go out to work. Eventually, though, he did not last long as an encouragement. Acts 15 shows us that Barnabas, this son of encouragement, because of his natural relationship in personnel matters, no longer worked together with Paul. This put Paul in a very difficult situation. Finally, Barnabas separated from Paul (vv. 36-39), but the Lord sent Timothy to Paul, which caused him to be joyful.
We need to remember that no one can frustrate the Lord’s way, but we also should not expect that this way will proceed smoothly without difficulty. Some have testified that after praying, confessing their sins, being filled, and going out, they baptized three to five families, and everything went smoothly. Others, however, fellowshipped that despite their effort no doors were open to them, or even when doors were opened to them, no one received the gospel. This truly caused them to despair. However, do not lose heart. We must believe that as long as we go out, there will be some profit. Do not worry about how many of the newly baptized ones will remain. It is a universally true principle that those who are optimistic are happy for everything, and those who are pessimistic worry about everything. We all should have an optimistic attitude and firmly believe that this way is the best way. No other way can gain so many people. Recently, twenty thousand people have been baptized; even though eventually fifteen thousand are unstable, we still have gained five thousand people. Even among these five thousand there may be over three thousand who are weak, but there are still over one thousand who are stable. The joy in the universe is because of these one thousand.
Not all of our children are intelligent. If every child were intelligent, the world would be in disarray. If every American was capable of being the president, the world would be turned upside-down. Americans would constantly contend one against another, and there would be no peace. We thank and praise the Lord that while some are intelligent, some are foolish. While we are taking this way, we should not look only at the dark side; we should also look at the bright side. In the Bible there is first evening and then morning (Gen. 1:5). This makes up one day. Everything has a bad side, but we should never be discouraged. Although we dare not say that this way is a broad highway without any difficulty, we know that this way is absolutely right and can be successful.
We may go out to knock on doors for the whole night, and no one may be baptized. We may go out again for a second night, and still no one may be baptized, and on the third night only two are baptized. It seems that we labored for the whole week for only two to be baptized. It was as if the Lord did not listen to our prayers. In actuality, though, this is more profitable than not going out at all. Moreover, the profit will be great because it will “snowball.” Then in the future these compounded benefits will be added to our account. Therefore, do not be narrow sighted or shortsighted. Rather, your vision should be broader and farther. This way is right. If we firmly believe this way and are faithful in taking it, after not too long the whole earth will be filled with our brothers and sisters.
If we consider the new way with this view, we will not be afraid if no one is baptized through our door-knocking, because today is not the only day in the universe. There are three hundred sixty-five days in a year, and we can always labor. Satan can never overcome us. He can cause us not to be able to gain people today and tomorrow, sending away all the sons of peace and giving us only wolves. In the end, however, we still will meet the sons of peace. Eventually, the Lord will add to us the lambs.
We are truly full of joy and hope within. There is no problem for us to go on. The Lord said, “Go in peace!” The work we are doing is a work of peace, the people we are seeking are the sons of peace, and the way we are taking is a way of peace. As long as we take this way, our success is assured.
