Date: October 14, 1936, eveningPlace: AmoyScripture Reading: Luke 1:53; 11:9-10; Phil. 3:7-12
Before we were saved, we did not seek after God. The Bible says that God seeks after man. However, we began to seek after the Lord after we were saved. God gave us Christ in order that we might have eternal life; this is a work that was completed once for all. But after a man is saved, he will be of little use in God's hands if he is still the same after a month or a year. If a man comes to the meeting today and he is the same way that he was before, he will not be of much use to the Lord. Why do some Christians advance while others always seem to remain the same? All spiritual progress depends on man's hunger. Luke 1:53 says that God has filled the hungry with good things. The Lord also said, "Ask and it shall be given to you" (11:9). The heavenly Father gives the Spirit to those who ask. In order for a Christian to advance spiritually, he must be hungry inwardly and constantly seeking.
The first condition for spiritual growth in a Christian is hunger. I have already spoken about this last year in Chuenchow, but today I will say the same thing again. God's principle is to fill the hungry with good things and to send the rich away empty. Today if you come to the Lord empty and go away empty, it means that you are already too full and too rich. Tonight many co-workers have come from faraway places. I will ask the same question that I asked when we were in Chuenchow: "What are you coming here for?" A man can experience grace by chance, but spiritual progress does not come by accident. It is not something that one picks up along the way. Salvation may come by chance, but the power of the Spirit, a holy life, the power of God, and the overcoming life are not things that are obtained by chance. God will only give these things to those who seek for them; He will only give them to the hungry ones.
I have met many people who deal with spiritual matters the same way that they deal with their salvation. They think that all they need to do is to hear about it. Actually there is a big difference between salvation and spiritual progress. The ten virgins in Matthew 25 do not have to buy oil for their lamps, but they have to buy oil for their vessels, which are not the same as their lamps. Regeneration is free, but spiritual progress comes with a price. In Revelation the Lord told the church in Laodicea to buy white garments and eyesalve from Him (3:18). In order to buy white garments and eyesalve, there is the need to pay a price. A holy living is something that is bought with a price; it does not come to us free. A proven faith is also something that is bought with a price. If you see a Christian making progress, you know that he must have paid a price. Let me ask a question tonight: What do you want before God, and have you ever paid a price in order to attain more? We must pay a great price before we can live in Christ, receive answers to our prayer, trust God for our living, and possess spiritual insight to see what others cannot see!
What does it mean for God to fill the hungry with good things? It means that the riches are reserved for those who want them. Suppose I give this hymnal to you. You may take it even though you may not care for it. In that case, you are not very concerned for the gift. But if I give you a sum of money, your response may be different; you may take it immediately. What does it mean to be hungry? Being hungry is being empty in your stomach. If you do not have anything in your stomach, you will surely crave something. I am not afraid of people committing sins. I am not afraid of the co-workers being too weak to save souls or having too hot a temper or too difficult a disposition. What I am afraid of is self-contentment, selfsatisfaction, and satisfaction with the things of the past. When you feel that you cannot make it, or when you are faced with great difficulties, that is the time you experience great turns. That is the time you make spiritual progress. However, I have not met many who are truly hungry. Let me ask one question: Since January of this year, how many of your prayers have been answered? You may find it difficult to answer my question. If a man is truly seeking for God and praying to God, yet does not receive any answer to his prayers, there must be something wrong with this person. He must have a problem somewhere.
A brother may have a terrible temper. But as long as he will deal with God, God will give him grace and work on him to the point that he can live out the Lord's life. A person may know that he has some problem, but unless he asks in a hungry way, he will not be delivered from his problem. In order to have sustained progress before the Lord, we need a sustained hunger. The degree of our hunger determines the amount that we eat. Our experience of eating tells us that we eat when we are hungry; the hungrier we are, the more we eat. The same principle applies to the spiritual realm; one does not eat when he is full. Let me ask again: What do you want today? Are you hungry? If we are hungry and seeking, God will fill our hunger.
Next, you must seek after precious things. If you ask questions such as who were the sons of God in Genesis 6, who was Cain's wife, or where will man go after he dies, you are treating spiritual matters as objects of curiosity. Some people are only interested in strange things. They are not interested in how Christ becomes our life or how one can overcome sin. There is no point in asking curious questions. In the past I received many such questions. I often put these letters aside and felt sorry for those who only pay attention to these strange things. On the one hand, we have to be very hungry for the spiritual things, and on the other hand, we have to be delivered from all curiosity. We have to seek after things that are spiritually precious. If we are as indifferent toward God as we are today, we will be useless in His eyes.
A few months before Miss Barber died, I went to see her and spoke with her for a long time. I wondered why this sister had such profound spiritual experiences. I wanted to know the reason for this. I asked her why the Lord had been so gracious to her. She answered, "I do not know. I only know that I have always been hungry and I have always been eating. Since I was nine, I have always been hungry; I have never been content before the Lord for these many years. I might have received grace and revelation yesterday, but today I say to God, `You have more, and I want more. I want more all the time.' I am forever hungry and yet at the same time forever satisfied." Her spiritual attainment was so deep that few have even scratched the surface of it.
Last year I met a sister in her thirties. She was an ordinary woman, but her experience in the Lord was not ordinary at all. Her experience was something that others do not have. She told me that once she was bitter against a person; she prayed and prayed to the Lord until the bitterness went away from her. Yet after her bitterness was gone, she realized that there is a difference between not being bitter and positively loving someone. She felt that she could not love the other person yet, and she continued to pray. We often become satisfied as soon as we receive something. But this sister said, "Lord, what You have prepared for me in Your gospel is not this small. I want everything. I want all the provisions that are there in the gospel." This kind of "covetousness" for Christ or "jealousy" as described by Paul in 2 Corinthians 11 will bring satisfaction to a person. Some people are good at preaching the gospel and saving men. The Lord answers their prayers all the time. They also have good dispositions. Others may be exactly the opposite — they see all the virtues in others, but have none of them in themselves. Yet they are not desperate enough or concerned enough. Such ones will never make any progress. Spiritual stagnation is the result of indifference to one's own spiritual lack.
Many brothers and sisters know about a couple who have rendered me much help in the past. I consider this couple to be forever hungry. I have known them for a long time. They have made much progress. When I met them the year before last, they were still very unclear about many things. (I do not mean that they were evil; I mean that they were spiritually unclear.) Today they are still asking, seeking, wanting, and searching from place to place. Some brothers and sisters have criticized them for traveling so much, saying, "If you have Christ you have everything already." It is true that when we have Christ we have everything. However, there is an experiential side of having Christ as everything. For example, we can study geography and know the names of all the cities. We can know the locations of Kuling and Tsingtao, but we must personally visit Kuling and Tsingtao before we will know what these cities are like. While it is true that we have everything in Christ, we must also seek to have these things in our experience. I often pray to be as hungry as that couple. Before God we are beggars. Lazarus was a beggar all his life until he went to Abraham's bosom. In this respect we should never change our profession.
Our prayer should have the capacity of George Müller. We should be like Charles Finney in the way we save men. We should never be satisfied with what we have. The Bible says that we should open our mouth wide, and God will fill it (Psa. 81:10). We must open our mouth wide before God will fill us abundantly. Some have opened their mouths, but they are not opened wide enough. We must open our mouth wide before God will fill it. God is waiting for us to open our mouth. Whenever we seek after Him in a hungry way, He will answer us immediately. If we are hungry, the filling of the Holy Spirit will come.
Many people often say that they are not hungry. They are not hungry because there is no drawing power. The Song of Songs says, "Draw me, and we will run after thee" (1:4). How does the Lord draw men today? He draws men through other men. He works through us to draw men to Himself. If you are an experienced person and have received answers to prayers, God will use you to attract others to Himself. The way to attract others is to create a desire in them to seek after what we ourselves are seeking after.
Every time I have gained some spiritual experience, I have gained it because others have gained it already and I longed after it, not because I suddenly discovered something in my reading of the Word or in prayer. Others have experienced the overcoming life, and I desire the same. Others have received the outpouring of the Spirit, and I desire the same. I receive my experience of the overcoming life and the outpouring of the Spirit through others' experiences. When others draw me, I run after the Lord. Today very few people have the power to attract others. If we, as workers of the Lord, do not have the power to attract others and if we can only give others teachings, we will not be of much use to the Lord. Men may admire us and like us, but we have to ask if they have the desire for the life that we have before the Lord. It is possible for many people to admire us today, but the question is whether or not we can draw them to God's presence. Today God renders help to men through Christians. We may hear that So-and-so in Tientsin or So-and-so in Chefoo had a certain experience, and we may desire to have the same. This will create a hunger in us, and this hunger will induce us to seek after the same experience.
What are the outward marks of a man who is seeking? We can find some characteristics of a seeker from Philippians 3. Paul said that he had given up all things and counted them as refuse for the sake of gaining Christ. He told us that he had a mark set before him, and that he was forgetting the things which were behind and pursuing towards the goal that was set before him. I like the few words: "suffered the loss," "count them as refuse," and "pursue." If we want to pursue, we have to settle many things; we have to suffer the loss of all things and count them as refuse. Refuse is trash. Have you ever emptied out your trash? My New Testament may cost very little, yet I do not want to let go of it because I treasure it very much. However, it is easy for me to let go of the trash. One is not heartbroken when he throws out his trash. On the contrary, he is glad to get rid of it as soon as possible. When we put money into the offering box, we count it carefully before dropping it into the box. We do this because we treasure the money very much. The things of this world may be nothing but old rags to us, but to a trash collector, an old rag may mean quite a bit. It is trash to us, but it may be a valuable possession to them. God tells us that the things of this world are but an old rag. However, many people consider the things of this world as their enjoyment, right, and hope. If we see Christ, we will see that the things and objects of this world are nothing but trash.
I doubt how many of us truly know what sin is. You may consider many things in your daily life to be good and right. But if you know what sin is, you will realize that these seemingly good and right things are wrong. Many husbands never consider that they have wronged their wives. Many children never consider that they have wronged their parents, and many people have never thought that they were the ones who were wrong in their family. If you carefully consider, you will realize that many of your relationships are wrong. If you are not conscientious, you will not deal with these problems. But unless you deal with these problems, they will not go away, and it will be difficult for you to make any progress. In order to gain anything spiritually, you have to pay the price. If you are willing to pay the price, seek the Lord in everything, and be conscientious to deal with the problems, you will experience a genuine revival. But if you hold back, keep many things in your hand, and do not let go of them, you will not gain the Lord and nothing much will happen to you. For example, if you have too much money in your hands, you should dispose of it. In the Old Testament, the books of the law were lost after the temple was defiled. When the books were found again, the people read them and the priests went to the temple and cleansed it. When the temple was cleansed of all its defilements (cf. 2 Kings 22:8—23:25), God's glory filled the house once more. May we be willing to deal with all the defilements and uncleanness so that we can be filled with His life.
How great, how rich, and how full are the provisions that God has prepared for us in Christ! Many people only know the Lord as their Savior. They do not know how much more the Lord can be to them. We pray too little. What God can give is far more than what we can ask or think. Is there anyone here who is willing to open his mouth wide to receive the riches of the Lord today? His riches are unsearchable. "Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it" (Psa. 81:10).
