Date: May 6, 1948, Thursday, 7:00 p.m.Place: Hardoon Road, ShanghaiSpeakers: Watchman Nee and Witness Lee
Watchman Nee: This hymn was written by Brother J. N. Darby. Originally, it had thirteen stanzas. Here it has seven stanzas. The whole hymn is a praise and also a poem. The first stanza and the last stanza seem to stand apart from the rest of the hymn.
The first stanza opens with "Hark!'' It is beckoning us to hear a voice. This hymn starts with a voice.
The second stanza tells us what one hears. It is the song of the heavenly chorus. The third line of this stanza says, "Loud and far each tongue partaking.'' This makes reference to every tongue in Philippians 2:11. The voice here is not just the voice of the redeemed, but the voice of the whole heaven plus the heavenly hosts.
Stanza three speaks of "every knee.'' "Each tongue'' in stanza two matches the "Lamb,'' while "every knee'' in stanza three matches "the Father's throne.'' All the praises are directed first to the Son and then to the Father. This is why stanza four speaks of the Father. In stanza five, the Spirit also comes in. With the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, the creation can rest in repose. Darby's hymns have one feature: all of them express a yearning for rest.
Stanza six turns to us. The first few stanzas give a high praise, and the whole creation is sustained in this praise. If others were to write this hymn, they would have stopped at stanza five. But Darby went on to speak about us.
Stanza seven goes back to the praise in stanza one. In stanza one, the first "Hark!'' holds us up in heaven. In stanza seven, there is another "Hark!'' "Again'' in the first line of stanza seven is an echo of the first stanza. In lines three and four, there are two "amens.'' These two "amens'' are placed in an excellent place. The second "amen'' echoes the first "amen,'' just as the last stanza echoes the first stanza. In this way, the hymn reads like a poem.
Every hymn has to ascend in its sentiments. There should be a line through which one can trace the thoughts. If it is not ascending, or if the line stops abruptly, it will not be a good hymn. In the Psalms, there are songs of degrees, which means songs of ascent. If a hymn is not well written, it will become a song of descent. We can only meet God by ascending all the time.
This hymn is based on the story in 1 Kings 17. In our concept we do not care for the prophets. We think that taking care of the prophet is God's problem, God's business. But here the prophet is put into the hymn, which means that the prophet is also the business of God's people.
Those who have not handed themselves over will worry what to do next. But once you have handed yourselves over, you will see that God is responsible for the rest. We give the first half to the prophet, and God gives the second half to us. This hymn is God's answer for the second half. Actually, though the widow supplied the prophet first, she herself did not suffer hunger. All she did was to pour out the oil and empty the meal a few more times. God said that the first handful should be set aside for His use and that the second handful should be set aside for her own use. The third handful is again for God's use, and the fourth handful for her own use. The first, third, fifth, seventh, and so forth, are for God, and the second, fourth, sixth, eighth, and so forth, take care of us. If the widow did not have faith, she might say, "Here is a person who has been starving for three and a half years. What if he helps himself to it and eats all my portion?'' However, if we would give the first portion to God, God will give the second portion to us. The same principle applies to our daily living today. God will not allow our cruse to be lacking in oil or our barrel to be lacking in meal. But neither will He allow us to have an excess. Hence, we see that there is no need to save up anything.
The second stanza is quite high. It starts out with "O believe.'' We should believe. What should we believe in? We should believe that at no time will we be empty, and that at no time will we be filled. There will always be a handful left. If we have much, we may still worry that we do not have enough. But God gives to us in abundance. Yet He does not give everything to us all at once. Instead, He gives to us handful by handful.
The third stanza tells us that we should look to God concerning what He wants to do tomorrow. For all those who give, the result will actually be saving. When we spend, we think that what is spent is gone. Actually, nothing will be exhausted. No one will find himself giving to God to such an extent that he has nothing left. If the widow had not committed herself to God, she would not have lived through that three and a half years.
Today man's eyes are always set on the money in his hands. In 1 Timothy 6, the warning Paul gave was a despairing warning. He exhorted the believers not to set their hope on the uncertainty of riches. The best exhortation tells people to set their hope in God. But when the best exhortation no longer works, we have the next best exhortation, which tells people not to set their hope on the uncertainty of riches. But no matter how much a man sets his hope on the uncertainty of riches, he still has to turn around to set his hope on God in the end. Since this is the case, why not set one's hope in God in the first place?
Tonight we have something to say to the brothers who are engaged in business and who have handed themselves over. We have gathered together you brothers who have handed yourselves over in order to have some fellowship with you. Before you handed yourselves over, there may have been some people whom you had business dealings with. Presently, you may also have some unbelieving business partners. At a certain time, these relationships will have to be terminated, because your goal and their goals are not the same. Sooner or later there will be conflicts of interests. We hope that you will do your best to separate yourselves from them within a short time.
The second thing is that you have to learn to coordinate with one another. The money you earn is for God, and the money I earn is also for God. We have to learn to be delivered from our individual circles. What I have personally is not a concern of my own, but a concern of the Body. These concerns should be considered within the coordination. Formerly, your goal was for yourselves. Now your goal is changed, and this puts all of us together in the same place.
Witness Lee: Concerning going into business, we had some experiences in the past. First, in the beginning everyone shared everything in common. After a while, each one began to have some possessions and works of his own, and some degradation set in with respect to money. Still later, the brothers and sisters began to form partnerships in investments and business enterprises, and the situation became even worse. According to my knowledge, not once did we see a good result when brothers went into business together. Cases of arbitration and settlement were especially frequent among the brothers. This is why I advised everyone not to go into business ventures together. Instead, it is better that they should engage in business alone.
Despite what I said, we frequently saw that some have capital but are unable to operate a business, whereas others can operate a business but do not have the capital. In some cases a person has both but does not have the strength to do anything. In the past we did not have enough light. As a result, when the brothers came together, it was difficult for them to be without opinion. Once opinion came in, the testimony was lost, and what was done was not done to the glory of God. We could not handle the matter properly because we were not delivered from riches yet. Because of this, there was no coordination among us, and we became poor. As far as the work is concerned, we are the poorest among all Christian groups. Today I sent out fifteen to sixteen hundred letters to the brothers and sisters to fellowship with them about the purchase of the meeting hall. I was not happy in my heart about this matter. Our present meeting hall is already packed to the brim. Our present meeting hall will not meet even a fraction of the present need. All the while, however, we are telling the saints to bring others to our gospel meetings. Where are they going to sit if they all come?
Today we are poor. But what is the reason that we are so poor? The reason is that money has been kept back in our own hands. We have become so fallen that all our hands have become empty again. The work has no money, and you have no money. The reason for our poverty is that we have not been delivered from riches yet. When the money goes into your pocket, your heart falls in love with money. The minute we start arguing, all blessings are gone. You said that you have handed yourselves over, and you have listed all your possessions. But when I read the lists over and over again, I find nothing that can be taken up by us.
The amount of spiritual need should be matched by the amount of material supply. It is still right for us to go into business. But in order to do that, we must first hand over our individualism. Perhaps some brothers disagree with going into business together. But how much can one person's capital do? The move of the gospel must catch up with the need of the age. In order to catch up with the age, there is the need for coordination. In the world men conduct business by taking an airplane and by doing it on a large scale. But we have not given our time to anything. When we preach the gospel, we do not have any advertisements, and we do not do anything in the newspaper. The reason for this is that we do not have the money. If the brothers who are in business realize the great need in the gospel, they should rise up to do something in an aggressive way. All that the brothers need to do is to keep enough for their own use; the rest should be offered up to the work. If we do not offer up ourselves in this way, there is not much hope that we can go on.
Watchman Nee: According to statistics compiled by evangelists around the world, the more money a person puts into the gospel work, the more people there are who will be baptized. They calculated that on an average a person has to spend one thousand U.S. dollars on a person before he can be saved. But it takes a very small amount of money to have people saved among us. Although I cannot say that of one thousand people saved among us, every one of them counts, I can say that at least nine hundred ninety-nine of them count. If we have one thousand U.S. dollars, we can save one hundred people. It does not mean that there is no money in Christianity today. It means that people do not get saved as quickly as they do among us.
The money in Christianity today comes from foreign countries. Let me ask you: Where does that money come from? Does it not come from God's children also? It is better for us to give some money to them than for them to send some money to us. But where does our money come from? It comes from all the poor brothers and sisters. Those who should give do not give, and those who should not give continue to give. Up to a point, when I received the money, I felt unable to take it. That money was like the water of Bethlehem; it is water that we cannot drink (2 Sam. 23:13-17). One student offered four million dollars. Although a person cannot even buy a sack of rice for four million dollars now, this student had to save his bus fare and go on foot to come up with this amount for his offering. Do not think that God's worker will take any kind of money that is offered up. We are like David. Although we may be thirsty, we cannot drink that kind of water. That kind of water has to be poured out before God.
The difficulty of our work today lies in the fact that we lack both people and money. Presently, we have seven brothers who have left their jobs. We also have over twenty widows of former co-workers among us. I can see two brothers who really should have left their jobs. Yet I cannot help them to leave their jobs, because in the past I have asked some co-workers to leave their jobs, and not long after that, they died. It was as if I had sent them to their graves. Among our co-workers who have died, other than one who died of cholera, the one who was killed by the Communists, and the two others who died of other diseases, the rest died of tuberculosis. You who are sitting here are saved because we have spent money on you. Even if you were saved in another place and then came to us for perfection, we have spent money on you. Even if it means sacrificing your life, you have to give your money away to allow others to hear the gospel and to share the good that you have received. If this generation will give up everything, it will pave the way for the next generation to go on. This is how the way of the gospel is paved. In the north and in the south, a few dozen brothers are ready to give themselves full-time for the gospel. On the one hand, we may say that it is not that easy for the work to go on. On the other hand, we find that it is very simple for men to be saved among us, and the price we have to pay is very little. As soon as a person touches the gospel, he is saved. For this reason, we need to have more thorough consecrations.
