Date: December 13, 1940Place: UnrecordedScripture Reading: Luke 1:75
A Christian should have many memorable dates written in his Bible. If he does not have many dates written in it, he will be like a calendar without dates. The history of God's creation is recorded in the Bible. In the same way the history of your new creation should be recorded there. Every Christian at least should have a date of salvation, a date of baptism, a date when he received the laying on of hands, and a date when he consecrated himself to the Lord. A Christian at least should have two beginnings — salvation and consecration. Every Christian should have a date when he was saved and when he consecrated himself to the Lord. If a man does not have a date of consecration, he is like someone without a date of salvation in the eyes of God. A train needs two tracks before it can run. In the same way a Christian must not only be saved but must be consecrated. Those who are saved but not consecrated are not running a proper race. Everyone in the world should be saved, and every saved person should be consecrated. After one goes through these two experiences, he has a proper beginning. A Christian who has never consecrated himself is not advancing at all; he has not taken the first step on his spiritual journey. Only after a person has passed through these two experiences can he begin his spiritual journey.
A saved and consecrated person serves the Lord. Concerning our service to God, Luke 1:74-75 says, "Serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness." Holiness has to do with ourselves, whereas righteousness has to do with others. Holiness is for God, and it is a gift, whereas righteousness is acquired, and it is an expression. Holiness is a nature, and righteousness is a habit. Holiness is a life, and righteousness is a way. The Lord Jesus said, "I am the way...and the life" (John 14:6). Our life is holy, whereas our way is righteous. Life is in us, whereas the way is to be extended to others. After we have the life of holiness within, we still need a righteous living without. An outward, righteous living must be matched by an inward, holy life. A Christian can be very righteous, but unless he is also holy, his righteousness will not last. Holiness and righteousness refer to two aspects — inward and outward — which are indispensable. We have to serve God in holiness and righteousness. Tonight we will cover the matter of righteousness first. Righteousness refers to the way we deal with people and things.
An unsaved person lives an unrighteous life. He does not feel it. In fact, he may feel that he is quite good. But once a person believes in the Lord, he receives God's holy life into him, and he begins to deal with unrighteousness and to live a righteous life. He will allow righteousness to become a habitual, organic, and spontaneous thing in him. Are we righteous in the way we deal with people and things in our daily life? Have we collected something that we should not have collected? Have we paid what we should have paid? Have we taken something that we should not have taken? We must be right and righteous in all things. All righteous behavior is the result of the operation of the holy life and nature within.
Let me relate an old story to you. Three years after I was saved, I began to practice being righteous. However, I still did not know much about righteousness itself. One day I read an article in a magazine about a convention. At the convention one preacher was sitting away from the stage. When it was his turn to speak, he walked past someone and stepped on that person's raincoat. He did not apologize. When I read this, it occurred to me that this was wrong and unrighteous. The preacher did not have the right to step on the raincoat; it was unrighteous. After I received this light, I was enlightened as to how I should deal with unrighteousness.
There are many unrighteous things around us. Unrighteousness can be found in the way we deal with our money, attitude, time, responsibility, material possessions, and many other things. The pursuit of righteousness is an excellent exercise. The light of the Holy Spirit is like the ray of the sun, and we are like the glass in a window. If the glass is covered with dust, it will not be transparent. The problem is not with the shining of the sun but with the transparency of the glass. In the same way the problem is not with the light of the Spirit but with the shining within us. Our pursuit of righteousness is like cleaning the window; it makes us transparent and keeps us in the shining of the Spirit. In this way spiritually we become sensitive enough to live a righteous living.
There was an old lady in Shanghai who had been a Christian for thirty years. However, her living was a mess; she was still living unrighteously. One day I felt compelled to ask, "Have you ever apologized to anyone in your whole life?" She answered in Shanghainese: "Thank heaven! No." She did not receive any shining; she was as insensitive as she had always been. If you blow smoke into a man's eyes or pour water into his nose, he will react because he is a living person and because he is sensitive to these things. But if he is dead, he will not feel anything. When we act unrighteously, the greatest rebuke comes from within us.
The first unrighteous thing we have to deal with is money. Money easily brings us into unrighteousness. We cannot take someone else's money as our own. Not a cent of others' money can be ours, and we cannot borrow (that is, personal borrowing, not borrowing in business). With some people, borrowing is a habit. It is like drugs to them; they are addicted to it. Time and again they borrow. If you want to be a brother to them, you should not lend anything to them. If you lend to them, you should be ready to sacrifice your relationship with them. Borrowing and lending is a great temptation; they lead to unrighteousness. When others transgress against us, we can be compensated by God. But if we transgress against others, we will not receive blessing from God. We cannot be careless in the matter of money.
There was a maid who stole over twenty dollars from her master before she was saved. After she was saved, she felt sorry and said to a sister, "I feel uneasy about keeping this money. I would like to offer it to God." When the sister heard this, she asked, "How do you know that God will take your booty?" She told the maid to return the money to her master. The maid agreed, and when she did this, she became peaceful. Another sister was asked by her sister in the flesh to let her use her admittance ticket to the park. She did not want to do it, but eventually she gave in. After she gave in, she lost her peace. A brother was taking a tram to Wen-teh Lane. The fare was seven cents, but he got off before he paid the fare. Later, he was condemned about this. It is not easy to be righteous. I told that brother that the next time he took the tram he should buy two tickets to make up for the previous trip.
If you have any unrighteous money remaining in your home, it will eat up the rest of your money and even eat up your spiritual life. It is all right to bargain when you shop, but do not try to cheat on the scale and do not hope that the arm on the scale will tip over more. Righteousness has nothing to do with whether or not others are willing to give us a bargain; it has to do with whether or not we are willing to accept a bargain. A missionary, Miss Liu, once took a summer vacation in the Lu Mountains. While she was there, someone tried to sell her bamboo baskets. She began to bargain with the man. At a certain point she could bargain no further, because she felt that it was no longer a matter of the man's willingness to sell, but a matter of the fairness of the price. Many people are only reluctantly willing; theirs is not a heartfelt willingness.
We should not take advantage of others in time. We should render to others whatever time we owe them. It is unrighteous for us to steal others' time for our own use. Many people know that they should not steal money to offer to God, but they steal time to offer to God. This is also unrighteousness. We should deal with any unrighteousness in the use of our time.
We should also be righteous in bearing our responsibility. Some fathers are busy doing their own work. They have no time to be fathers. Their sons are deprived of the fatherly love they need. Likewise, many mothers have often been unrighteous in neglecting their responsibilities. Some mothers say that they want to be spiritual, and they do not need to care so much about their children. They say that they are committing everything to the Lord and leaving it up to the Lord to discipline the children. This is unrighteousness. A husband has his responsibility as a husband. If a husband does not take up the financial responsibility of the family, he is being unrighteous. A wife has to bear the responsibility of the housework or else she is unrighteous. Every person has his or her area of responsibility. You have your sphere; I cannot decide what it is. But you know when you infringe on others' sphere or when you become unfaithful in your own. We have to learn to be a righteous person in our responsibilities.
We should render to others whatever is due to them. If we do not render it to them, we are being unrighteous. We should discover new items of unrighteousness every day in our daily life and deal with them accordingly. We may commit some accidental unrighteous acts, but we have to learn to discover them and deal with them also. For example, we know that we should not trespass on lawns. But many people trespass inadvertently. We have to deal with such unrighteousness. Righteousness is a habit which we have to cultivate; it is a way that we have to take. We have to learn to deny all looseness and unrighteousnesses. If we do this we will spontaneously live out righteousness.
We should learn to be a righteous person, but we should not try to intentionally act this out. Sometimes others can be turned off by our righteousness. Tonight we have to settle our account before the Lord. We have to discover all of our unrighteousnesses and learn to deal with them one by one. We should receive God's shining and refuse Satan's condemnation. Sometimes unrighteous things flash before our eyes from all angles. Some are real and some are counterfeits. Satan tries to show us these things in an instant to crush us. This is his snare; it is not God's work, and we have to reject it. God's work is gradual; it works step by step. God enlightens us gradually; He guides us to deal with things one by one with the goal of developing a habit of righteousness, of learning to take the way of righteousness according to the holy life, and of serving Him in holiness and righteousness.
