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Scripture Reading: Col. 2:2b; Eph. 3:4; John 1:1, 4; 14:9-11, 16-17; 4:24; 6:63; 15:1-5, 16; 21:15-17; Rom. 12:1
A gospel booklet entitled The Mystery of Human Life tells us that the human life is truly a mystery. The mystery of human life, however, is only a part of the mystery of the universe. There is a mystery in the universe. People who are knowledgeable and reasonable, regardless of their national backgrounds, all share the same feeling and all acknowledge that the universe is difficult and even impossible to explain. Even to this day no one has been able to clearly explain what exactly the universe is, where it came from, and what stories it holds. Why is it that only on the earth there are human beings, animals, plants, the birds of heaven, the beasts and cattle of the earth, and the fish of the sea? What are the stories behind all these things that exist in the universe? Some say that these things are merely the phenomena of nature, that such changes have been going on for countless ages in the natural world. This kind of explanation at best can give us a little “anesthetic”; it cannot really answer our questions.
In my reading from my youth until now, I have read not only textbooks, the Holy Bible, and Bible-related books; I have also read certain secular books. According to my understanding, while there are many books in the world, there is only one book — the Bible — that is the most complete, clear, and useful in explaining the very truth behind the universe. It may be said that the Bible is neither too much nor too little in its contents, because it has a total of sixty-six books, which were written by more than forty writers over a period of at least one thousand six hundred years. With such a book that was written over such a long period of time by a group of completely different individuals, its contents would naturally be multifaceted. However, the more I consider and meditate on the contents of this book, the more I sense the transparency and clarity of the universe.
Even though in the world there are many scholars, experienced statesmen, and entrepreneurs, they may not have as much understanding concerning the universe as we do. The sphere of their knowledge is limited to what they see with their eyes and what they read from books. Under this situation they are likely to have a narrow view and become nearsighted. Therefore, even though they are great statesmen and entrepreneurs, some of them give the impression that they are quite confused. This is because they have an incomplete understanding of the mystery of the whole universe.
This message is mainly for those who are under twenty years of age. The earlier a person gets to know the mystery of the universe, the earlier he takes hold of the direction for his life. However, if you are over this age, please do not lose heart, because you can be rejuvenated. I truly thank the Lord that He laid hold of me when I was nineteen years old so that I also could lay hold of Him. I regret that I believed so late; if I had been saved a few years earlier, it would have been even better.
Some people wish to marry early but actually, the earlier a person gets married, the more troubles he brings upon himself. All those who marry early are very regretful because the loss they suffer is incalculable. If you want to get married, it is preferable to do it when you are thirty; do not do it when you are twenty-eight, although twenty-eight is still better than twenty-five. Early marriage puts you at a disadvantage. However, you should also not marry too late. To delay until you pass the appropriate age is also not suitable. This is concerning our human experience.
Concerning the knowledge of the universe, since man is the beginning of the mystery of the universe, for a man to wait until he is forty before he knows the mystery of human life is too late. I was saved at nineteen, and since then I have grasped every opportunity to love the Lord and know the Lord. Therefore, I hope that all the young people can absorb this message in a good way, because the earlier you get to know the mystery of the universe and the earlier you receive the Lord, the more blessed you are.
Young people are always seeking for pleasure. They love all kinds of sports and entertainment. Of course, man needs pleasure, and this need is God-created, but such a need has to be kept under control. To illustrate this, we human beings need to eat, and this need was created by God. God created us with a stomach as the organ to digest food, and He also created us with a body to absorb all the nutrition. These are facts. However, God also set various limitations on the amount of food we can take in. We should not overeat, because overeating leads to obesity, and obesity results in illness. There is an old Chinese saying: “Eat one less mouthful at suppertime, and you will live to be ninety-nine.” If a person desires to live to an advanced age, he must eat less at dinnertime. If he stuffs his stomach before going to bed, he will kill himself. This is a law for our physical health.
On the one hand, we have to take care of the needs created by God. On the other hand, we should not be excessive, because excessiveness is harmful to our health. Although eating is necessary, overeating is harmful to our physical health. Although entertainment is necessary, too much entertainment is harmful to our mental health. In our human life we need relaxation and proper balance. The more balanced and relaxed we are, the healthier we are naturally. As Christians, we also need entertainment, but our entertainment should not be excessive, and it should be proper. Today in the United States every kind of entertainment has gone beyond its proper limits; because of this, they have all become corrupted and evil. There are many dark, chaotic, and dishonorable things, and there are numerous cases of people falling into immorality, neglecting their families, ignoring their parents, and disregarding their marriages. All these are due to excessive entertainments. In the United States you do not even dare to open your eyes in many of the places of entertainment, because all the things going on inside are sinful.
Our meeting life in the church is the most noble and balanced entertainment. We not only have a meeting on the Lord’s Day, but we also have meetings during the week. We come together to worship the Lord and to rejoice. This is the healthiest balance to our human life. Therefore, the Christian life is the most balanced and relaxed life. Young people, I advise you that while you are still young, you ought to pursue to progress in life, but even more importantly you ought to pursue to know the Lord. By knowing the Lord you will be able to understand the mystery of the universe and the origin of the universe, and consequently, you will know how you should live your human life. Therefore, do not consider that going to this meeting or going to that meeting is a waste of time and energy. Our human life needs balance and relaxation, and the church life as a balance can best help us to enjoy a proper human life. The church life really has a proper balancing effect on our human life. If you keep this principle from your youth, you will surely receive the greatest blessing and the maximum benefit throughout your entire life.
May the Lord give grace to each one of you that, starting at a young age, your eyes would be opened to understand the mystery of the universe. At the very center of the mystery of the universe is God. In other words, the mystery of the universe is God. If God were to be taken away from the universe, there would be no mystery of the universe. That is, if God is taken away, there would be no universe; the universe would not exist. God Himself is the hub, the center, of the universe as a great wheel. If God as the center, as the hub, were taken away, the universe as the wheel would not exist. Therefore, God is the mystery of the universe.
Colossians 2:2 tells us that the mystery of God is Christ. This indicates that without Christ, there is no God. The story of God, the mystery of God, is Christ. Christ is God. Without Christ, God is just a term; with Christ, God becomes a fact, a reality. Where is God? God is in Christ. Who is God? God is Christ. This is why we say that God is not in a mere religion, because without Christ there is no God.
Religion does not have God because it does not have Christ. Likewise, Chinese Confucianism does not have God because it does not have Christ. Religion talks about moral conduct and cultivation of behavior, and Confucianism talks about human relationships and ethics. Both do not have Christ, so both do not have God. Luke 15 narrates a story of a prodigal son. When the prodigal returned home, he told his father, “I have sinned against heaven and before you” (v. 21). This may also be translated, “I have sinned against you in the presence of heaven.” Heaven in this story refers to God in heaven. Unlike the Bible, Confucianism refers to God only as heaven. One of its proverbs says, “There is no one to pray to when heaven is offended.” The Confucian philosophy is pure; it talks about ethics and the relationships among people, and by inference it teaches that in the universe there is a sovereign Being called “heaven.” Even though this is quite meaningful, it is without Christ and without God.
The most proper and orthodox religion should be Christianity, which was derived from Judaism. Besides Judaism and Christianity, there is a side branch, which is Mohammed’s Islam. The Islam religion was produced by copying the stories from the Old Testament and adding some of the stories of “Isa” in the New Testament. In Mohammedanism Jesus is called Isa because the two names sound similar in the original language. Islam claims that Isa did not die on the cross; instead, when evil men tried to crucify Isa on the cross, God rescued him and took him up to heaven. It can be said that the entire Koran is a counterfeit of the Holy Bible. In the Koran there are stories about Abraham, Isaac, and Ishmael, but it does not have Christ and God in reality.
The orthodox Christian religion is the only religion that speaks properly about Christ. Perhaps some would feel that we are self-boasting in that we consider that every other religion does not count, while considering that only the Christian religion counts. Nevertheless, we have to say that whatever counts always counts, and it can never be replaced by any counterfeit. Take gold as an example. Since gold is gold, it cannot be replaced by anything else; neither copper nor any kind of gilding can replace gold, because gold is gold. Likewise, Christ and Christ only is God; this is the mystery of God.
There is not one religious teacher who would dare to say that he is God. Confucius said, “There is no one to pray to when heaven is offended.” Confucius was very humble. He dared not to call himself God, and he never did. Even Islam’s Mohammed never claimed to be God. Buddhism teaches that “a butcher becomes a Buddha the moment he drops his cleaver”; that is, a person can achieve spiritual progress by practicing asceticism. In Buddhism nothing is said about God, and there is no element of God at all.
In all of the religious scriptures, there is only one person who claimed that He is God. Who is this One? He is Jesus Christ (Matt. 26:63-64). Some of the Jews were convinced that He should be condemned and put to death because He told them that He is the Jehovah whom they worshipped and that He alone is God. The Bible shows us that this person, under the risk of losing His life, told people that He is God. This is quite an amazing thing. Furthermore, no one who adheres to a mere religion says that he is a believer of the Lord. Only those who believe in Jesus are called the believers of the Lord because Jesus is Lord.
The mystery of God is Christ (Col. 2:2), and the mystery of Christ is the church. Reading from Ephesians 3:3-4 and onward, we can see that the mystery of Christ is the church. Today whoever wants to find Christ must find the church. God dwells in Christ, and Christ dwells in the church; this is the outline of the mystery in the universe. The mystery of the universe lies in God, the mystery of God lies in Christ, and the mystery of Christ lies in the church. However, the so-called church we see today is different from the church mentioned in the Bible. It has deviated and become empty, without reality. In the Bible the Lord Jesus also spoke in parables concerning this matter (Matt. 13:24-33; 23:25-28). May all the young people clearly see that even though this universe is a mystery, the unraveling of this mystery is with God; this God is in Christ, this God is Christ, and this Christ is in the proper church.
Speaking on another aspect, this God who is at the center of the mystery of the universe is life. The founders of the great religions in the world did not dare to tell people that they were God; only Jesus Christ said that He is God. Likewise, not one religious founder told others that he was life; only Jesus Christ said, “I am...the life; he who believes into Me, even if he should die, shall live” (John 11:25).
Of all the philosophies concerning the normal and accepted way of human relationships, the philosophy taught by Confucius of China may be considered the best and the highest. Moreover, the Chinese philosophy can also be considered the most pure and proper philosophy, without any myths and strange or absurd ideas. We all know that Greek philosophy contains many myths, Egyptian philosophy contains even more, and Babylonian philosophy also has quite a few. Only the Confucian philosophy of China solely and purely speaks about ethics and relationships between people. Confucius never told people that he is life.
In the history of humankind and in the writings of the Bible, there is only one person who told people again and again that He is life (v. 25). This person is none other than Jesus Christ. The Gospel of John says that Jesus is the Son of God and that He came that we may have life and may have it abundantly (3:16; 10:10). The writings of John are full of descriptions of life, especially concerning eternal life. This life does not refer to man’s mortal life, a created and temporary life; it refers to the eternal life of God. He who believes into the Son has eternal life (3:36).
From the Bible we see the record of God’s creation of the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1 and 2 say, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. But the earth became waste and emptiness, and darkness was on the surface of the deep.” This shows us that God thoroughly cleared up the universe step by step. Then He caused the dry land to emerge from the waters (v. 9) for vegetation to grow. That was the manifestation of the vegetable life (v. 11). Even though plants have life, their life is shallow, and it is a life of the lowest form, a life without consciousness. God then created fish in the waters, birds in the air, and all kinds of animals on the earth and caused them to multiply (vv. 21-25); so the animal life was brought forth. Though with the animal life there are distinctions of lower and higher forms, it is still not the highest form of life. Therefore, God made man in His image and according to His likeness (v. 26). Thus, the human life came into being.
A group of scholars place the human life and the animal life in the same category. Among them there was one, Charles Darwin, who placed human beings, apes, and monkeys in the same class, saying that human beings evolved from a kind of ape. In actuality, this is not true, and it is a great insult to us. The Bible ranks the human life as the highest created life, because in God’s creation of all other things He did not create those things in His image and according to His likeness. Only in the creation of man did God make him in His image and according to His likeness (v. 26). Therefore, when we look in a mirror and see our face, we are reminded that we all look like God. Regardless of what people say, there is an unchanging fact — we look like God. We all were made in God’s image and according to His likeness.
The Bible is truly a book of mysteries. It was not until the New Testament time that God became flesh, becoming in the likeness of men (John 1:14; Phil. 2:7). However, one day in the Old Testament age, God brought with Him two angels to visit Abraham (Gen. 18). I believe that those who have read the Bible will remember the story. When Abraham saw three men approaching from far away, he went forth and received these strangers. One of the three was Jehovah. At that time Jehovah bore the human image and had a human body, because He had His feet washed and ate the meal that Abraham prepared for Him (vv. 4-8). This is God appearing as a man before His incarnation. This is difficult to explain with human language.
In God’s creation the human life is the highest form of life. Suppose we gather some cows, sheep, pigs, dogs, and chickens, and then we ask a man to stand in their midst. Who do you think looks the most beautiful? Certainly the man is the most beautiful. Not only is man the best looking, but he is intelligent and wise. Moreover, man’s inward abilities for understanding and judgment are far above all other creatures. For instance, man’s landing on the moon is truly a remarkable accomplishment. Among all the creatures, which can accomplish such a task? Can a tiger or a lion, or can an eagle or a dove? No, no other animal can accomplish this task except man. The reason that man is the wisest and the most remarkable among all the creatures is that man was made in God’s image and according to God’s likeness.
Even though man was made in God’s image and according to God’s likeness, he still did not have God’s life within. This can be likened to molding a human statue; while it has the image of a man, it does not have the life of man. Therefore, Genesis 2 shows us that after God created plants, animals, and man, He placed man in front of the tree of life with the intention that man would partake of it (vv. 8-9). Although the human life is the highest form of life, it is not the transcendent life. The transcendent life is the life of God, the eternal life.
Some who study science define eternity as time plus space. Time plus space is eternity, which is unlimited and boundless. In the universe there is a life that is transcendent and eternal, and that is the life of God. The life of man is high, but it is not transcendent, because it is merely a brief, created life. Only the life of God is transcendent, because it is eternal and uncreated. This life is simply God Himself.
God’s creation in the universe is altogether a matter of life. Take the earth as an example. If there were no plants, animals, or human beings on the earth, the earth would be dead and meaningless. Nobody would want to live on such an earth. Therefore, the creation shows that the universe is a story of life.
Moreover, we know that plants are for the human life, and animals also are for the human life. Every plant in the natural world is for man. Some are for man to eat, such as wheat, rice, and various grains; some are for man’s admiration, such as the beautiful flowers and pastures; and some are for man to utilize, such as tree bark, branches, and leaves. The same can be said of animals. Some are for man to take in as food, such as chicken, duck, and fish, and some are for man’s employment, such as the horse, donkey, and camel. These are all intended for us. In other words, the heavens are for the earth, the earth is for man, and man is for God.
Since man was made in God’s image and according to God’s likeness, the life of man is very similar to the life of God. Those with some knowledge of gardening know that grafting requires the two trees to be of a similar kind. Because our life is similar to God’s life, the two can be grafted into one (Rom. 11:17, 23-24); the life of God is able to come into our human life.
When religions talk about God, their emphasis is on signs and works of power. They do not talk about life. Yet in many instances where the Bible talks about God, it speaks about life. To us, God is life; He comes to be our life. Even in Christianity there is a group, the Pentecostals, who mostly focus on how God performs miracles, but they never talk about life. That is a great deviation. In the Bible God comes to us primarily as life, not as power or signs. The emphasis is on His coming into us to be our life.
In addition, this God is a person. In the so-called religious world there is a teaching that claims that God is not a person. They believe that God is merely a concept in the human mind, which serves as an object for worship. This kind of speaking concerning God is a great heresy.
The Bible shows us that the God in whom we believe is a person, and as a person, He is quite marvelous. Our God is a God who is three yet one. Although God is one, He is in three persons — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The Father refers to Himself as “I,” and the Son also refers to Himself as “I”; I denotes a person. In John 14:10 the Lord said, “I am in the Father and the Father is in Me.” In verses 16 and 17 He said, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter, that He may be with you forever, even the Spirit of reality.” These two passages show us that the Son referred to Himself as “I”; the Son will ask the Father, and the Father will give us the Spirit. The Father, I, and the Spirit denote His person. As a person, He has personality. Therefore, our God is not a conceptual object; rather, He is a living person.
Since this God is a person with personality, He has love, mercy, kindness, and even anger; He has the entire range of emotions. Therefore, He is God as a person, not an abstract object. May you all remember this truth well while you are young. Our God is not something abstract; neither is He a conceptual object of worship. Rather, our God is a person with a personality. Because of this, we human beings are persons, and our person is a reproduction of God. We are persons because God is a person, and we were created according to Him. Therefore, since He is a person, we also are persons. Our God is a God who is a person with a personality.
Furthermore, this God is Spirit (John 4:24). This is truly wonderful. God is Spirit, and He also created a spirit within us. Today we human beings all have a spirit in us. How marvelous that God is life, God is a person with a personality, and God is also a Spirit. This Spirit is unrestricted; He transcends all physical matters.
Our God is not only Spirit; He is also the Word (1:1). As the Word, He is embodied in the words of the Bible. Young people may not know that in this universe there is such a book as the Bible, which is the speaking of God. Among human beings, if there were no Bible, then the entire mankind would fall into darkness, not knowing that it is God who created the heavens and the earth, not knowing the stories of the universe, and not knowing the meaning of human life, that is, what a man should be or how a man should behave. But praise God, there is such a book in this world called the Bible, which is the Word of God. When the Lord Jesus was tempted by the devil, the devil asked Him to turn stones into loaves of bread, but the Lord Jesus answered him, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out through the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4). In the Bible are the words that proceed out through the mouth of God.
The Bible is truly precious. I began my Christian life not long after the first European war had ended. At that time Christians in the Western world, especially in Europe, loved to interpret biblical prophecies. Many of the prophecies in the Bible are outlined in the book of Daniel. I was newly saved and began to study the Bible, so all the reference books I bought were of the prophetic nature. As a result, from my youth through more than sixty years, I have read extensively on prophecies in the Old Testament. For example, in Daniel there is a prophecy concerning a ram and a goat fighting against each other (8:3-7). If we read through the entire book of Daniel, we realize that the two animals are symbolic. The ram refers to the Persian Empire, which is today’s Iran (v. 20), and the goat refers to the Grecian Empire, particularly during the time of Alexander the Great (v. 21).
Later, I studied little by little and gained more understanding. In particular, I read The Great Prophecies series written by G. H. Pember, which includes the great prophecies concerning the Jews, the Gentiles, the church, and the entire world. Pember tells us that the prophecies in the Bible are very marvelous. One of the ten great prophecies shows us that Persia is a ram while Greece is a goat, and the two animals fought each other fiercely. History tells us that the bricks in the capital of Persia bore an image of a ram, so the mark of a ram was everywhere in the city.
After Alexander the Great was crowned, he became the general of the army at only twenty-one years of age. While he was leading the army, he wore goat horns on his head. Those who have studied Western history might have seen his portrait in history books. Also, the sea between today’s Greece and Turkey is called the Aegean Sea. Aegean comes from the Greek word for goat; even the sea is a “goat sea.” This shows us that the Bible is truly the speaking of God.
In addition, we also see from history that Alexander the Great charged through Europe and came to Asia Minor, and not long after he landed, he arrived at Palestine, which is the land of Judea. Though many did not welcome him, in the end he won the victory. When he came close to Jerusalem, the Jewish priests showed him the book of Daniel. He understood it, and knowing that the book referred to him as the goat, he was very pleased. For this reason he treated the Jews favorably. However, he drank excessively and eventually met a sudden death. This is what history shows us. In chapter 2 of Daniel the prophecy of the great image, revealing the situation from Babylon at the beginning to the “ten toes” at the end, perfectly matches the world situation.
Immediately after I was saved, I started to study the prophecies in the Bible. One of these tells us clearly that the nation of Israel will be restored. At that time I was still quite young and had a strong curiosity. When I read that particular prophecy, on the one hand, I was willing to accept it as true, but on the other hand, I felt it was something impossible. The nation of Israel had been destroyed for over two thousand years, the land was taken over, and the people were scattered among various nations in the world and assimilated into different cultures. Because of this, the restoration of Israel would not be an easy task. In the eyes of men there was absolutely no chance for it to happen.
In 1948, while working for the Lord in Shanghai, I paid attention to the news every day. One day the newspaper reported that the Jews had restored their nation. In one incident the Egyptians came forward to stop them, but a swarm of bees came to aid the Israelis, wounding the Egyptians. I started reading the Bible when I first was saved, and I knew there is a prophecy in the Bible that says God would care for Israel, even sending the hornets to help them (Deut. 7:20; Josh. 24:12). Accordingly, in 1948 the nation of Israel was restored. When I saw the pictures, I realized that the word of God was truly fulfilled.
Although Israel was restored, the old city of Jerusalem was still occupied by the Jordanians, who are Arabs. In 1967, nineteen years later, the Israelis recovered Jerusalem. I was ill at the time, but my joy was beyond description. I started reading biblical prophecies during the 1920s, and after more than forty years the Israelis had recovered Jerusalem. Thus, the prophecy I read was fulfilled (Matt. 24:32; cf. Jer. 24:2, 5, 8; Hosea 9:10). How could I not rejoice? In the photographs of the recovery of the holy city, I saw the Arabs being chased about by the Israeli army. This is just as the Old Testament had said, that when God comes to save Israel, He will put dread and fear in their enemies (Deut. 11:25). This is quite wonderful. The little nation of Israel is barely noticeable on the world map, yet the many Arab nations that surround her found themselves powerless in dealing with such a tiny piece of land. God’s hand was surely in this.
We fellowship about these things simply to illustrate the facts, proving that the words in the Bible are the words of God. These words are prophetic, and even more, they are spiritual. Prophetic words are factual, and they are being fulfilled; spiritual words are revelations with the supply of life, and they are also being fulfilled. We know that God is life to us; He is a person, He is the Spirit, and He is the word. When we contact Him, we touch the Spirit and the word, and we receive life. This life is God Himself.
This God needs an organism. Let us use the human body as an example. Our body is an organism; it is not organized but organic. When we eat, the body digests what we eat. After digestion the body absorbs and also discharges. Everything that is nutritious to the body is transported to all parts of our body, causing each part to manifest its function. For instance, our ears can hear, and our eyes can see. Even while we are speaking, the ears help to facilitate the organic operations of the body. If our ears were artificial and not able to facilitate the organic operations of the body, we would not be able to hear. If our eyes were artificial and did not have the organic operation, we would not be able to see. In this way our entire being is an organism.
Since God is eternal life, He needs an organism to express Him as the eternal life. In John 15 the Lord said, “I am the vine; you are the branches” (v. 5). The Lord is the vine, and we who believe into Him are the branches. This great vine is an organism for the expression of the life of the vine. Christ with the church is God’s organism that operates and works on the earth for the expression of God as the eternal life.
Today we all are in this organism of Christ. Those who do not understand this organism cannot figure out what we are doing when we come to a meeting. Some of us are seventy-or eighty-year-old seniors, and some are young people in their teens and twenties, but when we come together, we sing and shout, acting as if we are beside ourselves (2 Cor. 5:13). We do not come together to watch movies or sing popular songs. Rather, when we meet, we simply call on the Lord’s name, and we sing and pray. To the unbelievers this is beyond comprehension. However, we are in an organism. When this organism moves, we cannot be still; when this organism goes forward, we cannot hold back. Today when this organism moves and operates, it is for us to go forth and bear fruit. In addition, we do not use the old way but the new way, which is to knock on doors house by house to find the sons of peace.
Formerly, we preached the gospel mostly by putting out advertisements, telling people about our gospel meeting and inviting them to come and listen. The result was not very good. We did our best to invite people, making phone calls and even going to the train stations and people’s doors, and we prepared love feasts to welcome them. However, not many came. In the past two years the Lord has given us a new way, which is to have us go from house to house, bringing the gospel with us. As a result, when we go, God goes, and when God goes, the gospel goes.
When we go door-knocking, we may encounter “packs of wolves,” but among them some are sons of peace whom God chose before the foundation of the world (Luke 10:5-6). By door-knocking, we seek out the sons of peace. After we have sought them out, it is necessary to fellowship with them. We impart God into them by speaking. John 1:1 says that the Word is God. The words we speak to the sons of peace dispense God into them. The Lord Jesus also said, “The words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life” (6:63). When we go to speak to the sons of peace, every sentence we speak conveys God, the Spirit, and life. In this way this organism operates on the earth, and this operation brings forth fruit. Eventually, this great vine bears fruit, filling the whole earth.
I hope that all the young brothers and sisters, after they graduate from college, will go to knock on doors for fruit-bearing. Where should you go? Go to Africa, South America, North America, and Europe; go to all parts of the world and to all the nations to knock on doors. How I wish there would be ten thousand young brothers and sisters among us who are trained, each one being able to go out to knock on doors, seeking out the sons of peace. How glorious this would be! After they have completed their education, these trained ones will do one thing, which is to go door-knocking, knocking on all the doors in all corners of the world. After you have finished knocking in South America, go and knock in Central America. After you have finished knocking in Central America, go and knock in North America. After you have finished knocking in North America, go and knock in Europe. Knock in each and every continent. Knock to a point that all across the globe there are young “heroes” from Taiwan knocking on doors.
We have the dream that one day there will be five hundred thousand Taiwanese young people knocking on doors all over the earth, and by their door-knocking the Lord Jesus will return. I believe we all have a willing heart, willing to go out and learn door-knocking, seeking out all the sons of peace so that they can become the Lord’s lambs, even in flocks. In the last part of the Gospel of John, the Lord asked Peter, “Do you love Me?” Peter responded, “Yes, Lord, You know that I love You” (21:16). The Lord said to him, “Shepherd My sheep...Feed My sheep” (vv. 16-17).
When we go door-knocking, we find sons of peace, and they are saved to become the Lord’s sheep who need to be fed by us. How do we feed these new believers? We feed them by having home meetings, establishing many shepherding stations. The result will be not only that Taiwan is gospelized and there is feeding in every home but that this will spread to the whole world so that the entire earth is doing the same thing. Therefore, our going out for the Lord has a goal with a view. We are not just passing time; that would be meaningless. We need to go out door-knocking every day, seeking out the sons of peace so that they may be fruit, be regenerated, and become the Lord’s flock. Then we can set up home meetings to shepherd them and feed them.
For the accomplishment of this task, we need preparation, preparing to serve the Lord full time. How do we prepare? Every day we need to contact the Lord, be filled with the Spirit, and be filled with the Lord’s word. We not only know the Bible and the Spirit, but we are soaked with the Lord’s words and filled with the riches of the Holy Spirit. In this way, each time we go out to knock on doors, we will truly be able to speak forth the Lord.
In the past, some high-school students asked what they should study after graduation. According to the current situation, those who are preparing to knock on doors for the Lord or to shepherd the flock in the future should study medicine. If studying medicine is too time consuming, you can study languages. There are some languages that you should know. As Chinese persons, you should study Greek, English, Spanish, German, and French. If you have the capacity, you can choose a few more, such as Hebrew. Learning Greek and Hebrew is for studying the Bible, the Word of God. As for Spanish and English, these are two of the most widespread languages in the world. Additionally, to meet the need in the region of Asia, some of us need to learn Japanese or Korean.
I hope that one day the young people who go out from here will preach the gospel either in the Spanish-, English-, German-, French-, Japanese-, or Korean-speaking world. May there be young people who are in the organism of the Lord everywhere, each one door-knocking house by house, seeking out the sons of peace that they may be saved to be God’s flock. Then the young people can speak the native language and read the Bible in the native language to feed and shepherd the native people. This is the new way.
This is a comprehensive fellowship, from the mystery of the universe to door-knocking, fruit-bearing, setting up home meetings, and feeding the Lord’s flock. This is for us to apprehend and know the mystery of God so that we can go on to labor in the new way to accomplish the work of the New Testament ministry, which is the building up of the Body of Christ.
(A message given at a young people’s conference in Taipei, Taiwan, on July 13, 1987)
