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Life Lessons volumes 1 and 2 contain a total of eighteen topics, ten in volume 1 and eight in volume 2. These two volumes have their own lines of thought. The first speaks from “Knowing That You Are Saved” to “Knowing the Church,” and the second speaks from “Knowing the Sects” to “The Offering of Material Riches.” Volume 1 begins with “Knowing that You are Saved” and “The Need of Your Whole Family to Be Saved,” and continues with “Clearance of the Old Living,” “Prayer,” “Reading the Bible,” and five kinds of knowing: “Knowing the True God,” “Knowing Christ,” “Knowing the Holy Spirit,” “Knowing the Cross of Christ,” and “Knowing the Church.” The first three “knowings” are concerning the Father, the Son, and the Spirit; the other two are regarding the cross and the church. The line of thought here is that by knowing the Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — and adding the cross, we have the church. Without the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, there is no church. Moreover, we may have the Triune God, yet without the cross there is still no church. If we have the Father, the Son, the Spirit, and the cross, the church will come forth.
Do not recite these topics in order to memorize them. It is only by grasping the line of thought that we can remember them. Life Lessons helps a new believer first to know that he himself is saved and second to see the need for his whole family to be saved. Then it helps him to clear his old living and leads him to pray and read the Bible. Then it helps him to begin to know the true God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, and also the cross of Christ, and even to know the church. We need to be familiar with all these topics. Do not wait until you go to take care of a home meeting to start reading the lessons and decide which topic is suitable. To do this is to sell ourselves cheaply. If a professor is still flipping through his books when he stands in front of the blackboard, he should be dismissed. When we go to take care of the home meetings, all these riches should already have been constituted in us in order to meet the instant and realistic needs.
Volume 2 begins with “Knowing the Sects,” “Meetings,” and “The Bread-breaking Meeting.” Then it continues with “Consecrating Ourselves,” “Being Filled Inwardly and Outwardly with the Holy Spirit,” “Preaching the Gospel,” and “Serving the Lord,” and it concludes with “The Offering of Material Riches.” What volume 1 talks about are all positive things, but because of the fall and the desolation of the church, some negative things were brought in, and sects and denominations were produced. Therefore, we must lead the new ones to know the sects. Then we should help them to know that among the church meetings, the most important is the bread-breaking meeting. After having home meetings for a period of time, we must lead them to break the bread, so it is a necessity for them to know about the bread-breaking meeting. At the same time, the new ones have probably touched the Lord’s love in the meetings and are willing to consecrate themselves to the Lord. Therefore, we need to go on to speak about consecrating ourselves. After consecrating themselves to the Lord, they will wish to do something for the Lord, so they must exercise their spirit. The Spirit has two aspects; they must be filled with the Spirit both inwardly and outwardly. Then they have to preach the gospel for the Lord, serve the Lord, and offer their material riches.
Among the eight topics of volume 2, there are two items concerning offering. One is consecrating ourselves, and the other is offering material riches. Consecrating ourselves comes first, and offering our material riches follows. We must let the Lord gain our being first and then our material riches. The scriptural basis for this is 2 Corinthians 8:5, where Paul says that the Macedonian believers “gave themselves first to the Lord, and to us through the will of God.” The Macedonians had received much grace in the matter of material riches. The apostle Paul testified for them that before offering their material riches, they had already let the Lord gain them. They first subjected themselves to the Lord, and not only to the Lord but also to the apostles, who took the lead to serve the Lord. They first let the Lord and the apostles, who took the lead to serve the Lord, gain them.
Here we see that the Lord wants to first gain our being. He does not want to gain our material riches first. Robbers throughout the world are all covetous for other people’s money. They do not want your being, but to be sure, they want your money. The Lord is much wiser. He comes not for our money; He comes to gain our being. Once a person is gained by the Lord, his money will also follow. As long as we first let the Lord gain us, we will spontaneously take the step of offering material riches. Therefore, we should first consecrate ourselves and then offer our material riches.
Consecrating ourselves and offering our material riches are out of the same source. The source and motivation for consecration is the Lord’s love. One passage in the Old Testament says, “I love my master...; I will not go out free” (Exo. 21:5). We can be free. No one is binding us and forcing us to serve the Lord. However, because we love Him, we do not want to be free. Therefore, love is the motive of our consecration.
What exactly is the motive for our offering of material riches? If we study the eight topics in volume 2 in great detail, we will be able to see that the motivation is the inward filling and the outward filling with the Holy Spirit. Once a person is filled with the Holy Spirit, three things will result: preaching the gospel, serving the Lord, and offering material riches. Consecrating ourselves comes out of the Lord’s love to us, and offering material riches comes out of the filling of the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit fills us, not only will sins and the world leave, but our money will also go out. If someone says that he is filled with the Holy Spirit, but his money still stays in his pocket, then he has only half a filling, a filling only on the surface. If he is filled completely, his material riches will surely go out. Therefore, consecrating ourselves comes out of the Lord’s love to us, whereas offering material riches comes out of the filling of the Spirit in us. Once we are filled, our material riches are “flushed” away. One is filling, and the other is flushing. The filling of the Holy Spirit will flush out our material riches.
As we lead the home meetings, we should never recite these topics in a rigid way. We should be very familiar with these topics inwardly, and our line of thought should be very clear. Then when we speak to others, we will be able to speak spontaneously. For this reason, before we go to labor on the home meetings, we must prepare ourselves well by first preparing the topic and then, if we have time, by reading through the content thoroughly.
We have to encourage all the brothers and sisters serving in the literary work to further their studies, especially in the study of vernacular Chinese. In Chinese vernacular literature, as recommended by scholars in general, there are four excellent classics. The first is All Men Are Brothers; the second, A Dream of the Red Chamber; the third, The Travels of Lao Ts’an: A Social Novel; and the fourth, the Chinese Union Version Bible. A contemporary Chinese scholar, Hu Shih, said that the Chinese Union Version is a great advancement in Chinese vernacular literature. Therefore, it would be profitable for us to read the Chinese Union Version thoroughly. The greatest advantage of the Chinese Union Version is its beauty in rhythm. Romans 12:1 is an example of this beauty. The literary style of Ephesians is also very good, although from the viewpoint of the original meaning it was translated relatively poorly.
The full-time serving brothers and sisters need to pay special attention to budgeting their time, because they often express that they do not have enough time. We have already fellowshipped that full-timers, especially the younger generation, should do only two things full time. One is to visit people by knocking on their doors to lead them to believe in the Lord and be baptized, and the other is to have home meetings to nourish and take care of the new ones. The home meetings can be compared to economics, an all-inclusive subject. The greatest subject of learning in the world is economics, which includes not only military science, political science, and finance but in its broader, cultural sense, all things related to literature, astronomy, geography, history, and so forth. Similarly, our home meetings are all-inclusive and require us to spend much time to learn.
Many of the full-time serving ones among us are about thirty years old. Out of twenty-four hours, each day they sleep for at most seven hours. Then they use an hour for each meal time, including some rest, for a total of three hours a day. Since meals and sleeping use at most ten hours, they still have fourteen hours left in the day. If they use two hours for exercise and eight hours for work, according to the customary working hours, they will still have four hours of spare time. This is why the entertainment business in America is so prosperous. It takes advantage of people’s spare time to make great profits in nightclubs, concerts, stage performances of all kinds, television, movies, traveling, and endless other types of entertainment.
However, people who play and exercise like this do not live a long life. We all know that it is good to exercise, but if we exercise excessively, we will die early. Experience tells us that good athletes often do not live beyond sixty years old. The reason many die early, such as those in Olympic sports, is that they exercise too rigorously. It is good to exercise for a short time, but to use too much time is not appropriate. In order to live long, we need to exercise for our health but not for entertainment.
There is a Chinese saying: “Long illness makes the patient a good doctor.” Although we have not studied hygiene or medicine, from our illnesses and from the doctors and nurses who cared for us, we have learned how to stay healthy. We have learned that even though we need to spend time exercising, we should do it absolutely not for entertainment but for health. If we spend these four hours for entertainment, we will gradually be defiled by immoral and improper things. In America many sins come from these four hours of entertainment. This is truly a terrible thing.
Here we see the importance of budgeting our time. Every day we spend seven hours sleeping and three hours taking meals. This is an easy schedule. Then we spend two hours in exercise and various activities, which is more than enough; actually, it is sufficient to spend only one hour exercising each day. In addition to the normal eight hours for working, the four to five hours remaining should be time for studying. We can study many books if we leave four to five hours a day. We should not only read books but also study them. We can study any good book. I have studied many books ever since I was a child, and I am still studying now. I study not only Chinese and English dictionaries but also Greek. I am still studying continually.
The best way of studying is still the old Chinese method, which is the method of reciting. Children may not understand the meaning of what they study, but they are still able to recite the text: “Confucius said, ‘Isn’t it a pleasure to study and practice what you have learned?’” To them it seems that it is not very important whether or not they understand the content. It is still beneficial to them as long as they can recite it well. The study methods of the modern age are all fast; people learn quickly and forget quickly. If we look back from our graduation until now, we may realize that we have forgotten almost all the books we studied in elementary, junior high, high school, and college. According to the old Chinese learning method, however, children recite books from the first day they go to school. They recite from The Three-character Classics, The Book of Family Names, and The Analects of Confucius every day. The teacher teaches the students to recite word by word, and eventually the students are not able to forget them for their entire life because everything that they recite remains in them. Moreover, as time goes by and they grow older, they become more able to apply this knowledge in practice.
Today when we study the Bible, we should not aim at speed-reading. Rather, we should recite the verses with a serious attitude. However, we do not need to recite too quickly. If we memorize quickly, we will tend to forget quickly, and what we gain will not last long. I hope that we can all recite the four volumes of Life Lessons. We all need to make such an effort. We should memorize not only the main topics but also the contents under them. This is not a difficult task for young people. We have calculated that there are about three hundred sixty pages in the four volumes. If we recite one page a day for three hundred sixty-five days, we will have recited all of them in a year. When we were in secondary school, we recited The Collection of Ancient Chinese Classic Literature. The passages in this book are much longer than those in Life Lessons. There are not many lines on each page of Life Lessons, so we can recite at least two pages a day.
The young people who go to labor on a home meeting should make a determination regarding their practice. Starting from today, they should spend four months to study Life Lessons. There should be an examination every half month, and they should be able to recite six lessons. This will take care of twelve lessons in one month and forty-eight lessons in four months. We must work so thoroughly on the text that we are able to speak it fluently, and the content of the lessons becomes our inward constitution. This must become our main emphasis. If we study these four volumes well before we go to labor on the home meetings, our viewpoint will be completely different.
Even if we have recited the whole of Life Lessons, we must speak, not recite, when we go out to visit people. There is no contradiction here. Because we speak after memorizing, all the riches are within us. Therefore, when we speak, we can speak fluently and smoothly. Moreover, every time before going to lead a home meeting, we need to pray, allow the Holy Spirit to fill us inwardly and outwardly, and be dealt with thoroughly. If this is the case, we can surely saturate Taipei so that in every home there is a meeting that is new and living.
Again we can use playing basketball as an example. If the players rigidly follow only what their coach has taught them about passing and catching the ball, they will certainly lose the game. In a real game the players cannot simply have memorized what the coach taught them. Instead, they should be familiar with what the coach has taught through regular practice. They should have practiced to the extent that all the skills have been wrought into their muscles. Then during a game the players will not play by memory or recitation. Rather, their muscles will have developed a spontaneous movement. Similarly, parents should teach their children when they are young so that what has been taught can be wrought into their “blood.” Then it will be impressed deeply within them and will be difficult to forget. Therefore, we must memorize these four volumes of Life Lessons. They are essential, especially the scriptural quotations. There are about three hundred verses quoted in the four volumes. Most of these three hundred verses are from the New Testament. They may be considered the essence of the New Testament. If we can recite all these three hundred verses, the essence of the New Testament will be in us. This will benefit us for our whole life.
From now on, the way the church should take is to knock on doors, lead people to be baptized, and set up home meetings. The regular church life is the home meetings. If in Taipei there are one hundred twenty thousand brothers and sisters who meet regularly and are reliable, their coming together to meet week after week will have a great impact here. This many brothers and sisters will comprise at least thirty to forty thousand families. Although we have not worked to this extent, we can already see that there are familiar faces everywhere. Therefore, we must work out the estimated number by the Lord’s grace until there are nine hundred sixty thousand brothers and sisters living the Christian life in Taipei. This outlook seems unlimited, but it will be achieved one day.
I hope that every one of our brothers and sisters will have a normal living, proper attire, and an appropriately furnished home. If we are all proper, and we spread throughout the different classes of society, the impact will be immeasurable. I believe that what the Lord said in Matthew 5 will be fulfilled. There the Lord said that the disciples are the salt of the earth (v. 13). The earth has been corrupted, but salt comes to kill the germs of corruption. The disciples are also the light of the world effacing the world’s darkness (v. 14). We believe that within ten years this condition will appear. I hope that the young people can all focus on this target. This is more valuable than anything else.
The key to success depends very much on our use of Life Lessons. We cannot go through these four volumes in one year. We estimate that although there are only forty-eight lessons, it takes one and a half years to complete this course. What we expect is that after one and a half years, after we have gone through all the forty-eight lessons of the four volumes of Life Lessons, the new ones we lead will become what we are, and the number of saints will double. If we multiply in this way, the people we gain will not be indifferent or like the “church members” in Christianity. The ones we gain will be solid.
We all today have studied in school. We have studied science, English, and many subjects. However, our parents, who were born many years earlier, did not have the environment or opportunity to study. Therefore, it is difficult and too harsh for us to demand that they learn what we know. It is the same in the church today. We cannot make harsh demands on the elderly brothers and sisters. However, we hope that the young full-timers will learn well, specifically to gain people wherever they go.
To others our door-knocking and visiting are like drinking sweet and sour soup. When people first receive it, it is hot and sour, but after they receive it, they find it very sweet. When people see us neatly dressed and knocking on their door, they feel embarrassed if they do not open to us. However, once they open, they cannot get rid of us, and eventually we even baptize them in water, which is difficult for them to understand. Nevertheless, when they listen to us, they find that what we speak is real. What we are bringing to their home is a “diamond,” and they feel it would be a pity if they did not receive it. That is why our visiting is like sweet and sour soup. Furthermore, people may think that if they receive what we speak, that will be enough. But then we begin a home meeting, which brings them not only the Lord Jesus but also the Bible. That is why they may show us a long face when we first come, but after talking with us for five minutes, their face relaxes. Then after talking for another five minutes, they begin to smile, and after ten more minutes they will pray, sing hymns, and thank and praise the Lord together with us. Finally, they will even make an appointment with us for the next visit. This is all our experience.
After they see us off, however, they may reconsider what has just happened, and they may start to doubt. On the one hand, they believe, but on the other hand, they may doubt. After doubting, they believe again, and after believing, they have doubts again. As long as you are a Christian, you will have this kind of experience. It is like someone who grinds in a mill; first he pushes the grindstone in one direction, and then he pushes it in the other. When you have gained more experiences, the Lord Jesus will make even more trouble for you. In the past we were free to watch movies, play sports, and travel around wherever we desired. However, it is different now. The Lord in us often objects to this and disagrees with that, which makes us feel uneasy within.
We all have had these experiences after believing in Jesus. We are progressing or backsliding, going up or down all the time. Moreover, on this path there are many temptations, especially after we have started to serve the Lord full time. When we look at ourselves, we find ourselves meeting today, meeting tomorrow, and serving the day after, but no matter what we do, we will never get rich. Some of our classmates have become great in the exporting business or as contractors, but we are still poor preachers loving the Lord and thanking and praising Him every day. Others can hardly understand this. In 1944 I needed to recuperate from an illness for two and a half years, and I was alone in Tsingdao for the last one and a half years. Because of my tuberculosis I could not walk for a very long distance. One day as I took my cane and went for a walk in the scenic area of Tsingdao, I was complaining and feeling sorry for myself. I considered that I was empty-handed, possessing nothing, and without my family. I felt that I had nothing at all. It was at that very moment that the Lord operated in me again and made me joyful. Then I began to thank and praise Him because I knew that what I had gained was the most precious thing in the universe. People in the world pursue after houses, land, and other things, which are dung. The only truly valuable thing is to gain the Lord.
Do not be afraid that the newly saved ones will have fluctuating feelings. Man’s feelings are like the weather; if the weather is not good, after a couple of days it will be sunny again. Do not look only at people’s outward condition. It does not matter if they are not joyful today, because they will be joyful again tomorrow. Moreover, we who serve the Lord should have a long-term view, because there will be a time when people come to the end of their life. At that time everyone who believes in the Lord will see that what he has done has been very valuable. When someone approaches death, he will understand that houses, companies, and money do not count. All that is valuable is the Lord deep within him. There is nothing more valuable than what we do. We need to be encouraged by this good prospect that there will be Christians everywhere meeting in different homes.
At this stage when we go to labor on the home meetings, we must pay attention to the situation of the family and understand how many meetings they are able to have. Generally speaking, there should be a meeting once a week in a home, but this is not enough for the long run. However, we should not add more meetings immediately. If we add too many meetings, it will be too much for them. We need to adjust the meetings according to the actual situation, and we should consider which meeting should be added — the Lord’s table meeting, prayer meeting, fellowship meeting, or truth meeting. This requires our observation.
Furthermore, we should not treat all the new ones in the same way. After they are saved, some people grow faster and have a greater capacity, so we should feed them more. We should never be like the schools that offer the same curriculum to all the classes. This does not work. Today the good schools throughout the world take note of the talented students and put them in separate classes. We must observe people’s inward condition of pursuing, fulfill their desire for pursuing, and add suitable meetings for them. This is the first point.
The second point is concerning the need of the new ones to know the church. Some newly baptized ones disappear one or two months after being baptized. We think that they have backslidden, but actually they have not. According to the normal thought and social custom, they suppose that after being baptized they should go to a “church” for a Sunday service. One brother testified recently that when he went to visit a family of new ones on the Lord’s Day, they were about to go out to find a church for this purpose. This is an example of how some newly baptized ones may not have a strong will to pursue, but they still have the thought that as new Christians they should look for a church to settle down in. We must not overlook this situation. We should immediately bring this type of new ones to the meeting hall to join the meetings. Otherwise, once they go to the denominations and join their meetings, they will feel that they have what they were looking for.
It is too extreme to be concerned that the new ones will be contaminated by the old meetings. We need to be balanced. Once we realize that someone wants to participate in the church, we should grasp the opportunity, bring them to the meeting hall, and speak the truth to them concerning the church. In the New Testament Paul tells us that we admonish every man and teach every man in all wisdom that we may present every man full-grown in Christ (Col. 1:28). We do not have only one method to lead people. Rather, we should give people the way to move forward based on their condition.
For the general regular meetings, we should meet in the homes as home meetings. Then we should bring the new ones to the meeting hall once every two or three weeks. Before coming to the meeting hall, we need to prepare them and let them know that in the home meeting we all function and speak freely according to the Spirit, and we should do the same when we attend the meeting in the meeting hall. They should not regard the meeting hall as a place for them to be a guest and go merely to visit. This is wrong. When we go to the meeting hall, we also need to follow the Spirit’s leading to release our spirit to praise and pray. We need to gradually let those we lead in the home meetings be connected with the church.
We should not be too rigid when leading the home meetings. On the one hand, when we go to the home meetings, we do not need to say anything new. For the preaching of the gospel we use The Mystery of Human Life, and for establishing the home meetings we use Life Lessons. On the other hand, though, we need to be flexible. We can spend some time before the home meeting, or eight to ten minutes afterward, for answering questions. Some new ones may want us to stay a little longer, and some may want to ask us about various matters. Moreover, they may be persistent about finding the answers. Such times are the best opportunities for us to infuse something into them.
For example, someone may ask what the church really is and where it comes from. Then we should explain in detail. Everyone wants to be clear about his origin, where he comes from; this is normal. Likewise, today when people are saved, they have the thought that they have received a religion, so they will wish to know how this religion originated. If someone asks us this question, he is offering us the opportunity to help him. Whether or not we are able to answer makes a big difference. If we do not explain well, we will misrepresent ourselves, giving the new one a wrong concept. Although he listens to what we speak, he may not understand due to our unclear explanation, and he may not come anymore. Even if he was baptized by us and is actively pursuing the Lord, due to our unclear explanation he may think that he should not join such a group. Therefore, our daily equipping is very important.
I believe that at least half of the families are willing to spend time to talk to us. If they are too busy today, there will still be a chance the next time. If they ask about certain practical matters, we should sit down and spend ten or twenty minutes to clearly explain the matters to them. Many times people may not have specific questions, but we should still learn to lead them to the spiritual points. For example, a new one may ask, “Is it sufficient just to believe in the Lord?” This kind of question is a very good opportunity to lead people to know their spirit within. We can explain that after believing in the Lord, we need to follow the Lord and serve Him. Moreover, our following the Lord and serving Him focuses not on the outward things but on following the spirit within us. From this point, we can go on to talk about the spirit. All these things require our observation.
We need to see that learning to lead the home meetings is like learning economics. Economics is ever-changing and all-inclusive. Industry and all things in a society can be affected by the weather, the harvest, and the food supply; the study of economics deals with all these matters. The outbreak of wars, the situation in the world, and the budget for national defense are also included in economics. This illustrates that to labor on the home meetings can be complicated and ever-changing. Therefore, the more we know and the more properly we use the home meetings, the more effective we will be.
We also need to realize that a person’s word exposes him. When we visit a person, what we are most concerned about is if he will not speak. Once he speaks, even if he speaks only one word, we can know his inward condition so as to meet his inward needs. We should learn to discern the different types and natures of people. Some people are outgoing, some are quiet, some are strict, and some are easygoing. We have to know all these things. After knowing people, we should know what to speak to them. Even though we may be teaching the same curriculum, we may use one method to teach one type of person and another method for another person. What we speak to different types of people is different, because everyone’s nature, stature, disposition, conduct, facial expressions, and manner of speaking are different. We cannot treat everyone in the same way.
The results of knocking on doors and laboring on the home meetings are endless. So far, it seems that the home meetings are not as fruitful as door-knocking, but this is a wrong concept. In the near future we will see that the effectiveness of the home meetings far exceeds that of door-knocking. When we labor on a home, we gain a home; this will continue like a link in a chain and be powerful. However, it all depends on how we labor. There is a saying, “A burning fire does not fear being fierce.” When we go out to labor on home meetings, we are fanning the fire into flame, and we do not fear that it will be too fierce. We have to stir up all the new ones. We should know that when we labor on a home, a home will be enlivened and raised up. We only need to fan the flame until all the old and young ones rise up, and at that time we will succeed. May the Lord bless all that we do and the going on of the new way.
