Date: April 9, 1948, 3:00 p.m.Place: Hardoon Road, Shanghai
Brother Witness Lee: How should we go on in the Lord's service in the coming days? What are the crucial points? What are the things that we should pay attention to in this age?
Brother Watchman Nee: First, we have to see the condition of the church in this age. Concerning this matter, there are generally two schools of opinion. One group says that the church is always advancing. In every age there are new recoveries of the truths, such as the truth concerning justification by faith and the truth of sanctification. The other group, represented by brothers such as J. N. Darby, says that the present church is in a state of desolation. If you consider the church life of the first century, the absolute consecration seen in Acts 2 and 4, the keeping of the apostles' teaching, and the perfecting of the saints unto the fullness of the Body of Christ in Ephesians 4, and compare such conditions with the condition of the church today, there is undoubtedly a vast difference between the two pictures. Once when I was in England, I was invited by Brother T. Austin-Sparks to have afternoon tea at his house. He asked me my opinion concerning Ephesians 4 and when this chapter would be fulfilled. Humanly speaking, the condition of the church today is too far from that described in Ephesians 4.
If we read the final Epistles of Paul, we will see that the church had degraded at that time. In 2 Timothy 1:15 he said, "All who are in Asia turned away from me.'' Peter's description in 2 Peter of the situation at his time was the same. In the end the apostle John also declared that antichrist had come, and he warned the believers to be watchful (1 John 2:18; 4:3).
Both of these views are true, and they are based on facts. However, what God wants today is to gain a group of people who will stand on God's side under these two contradictory conditions, who will maintain God's testimony, and who will uphold such a testimony of overcomers together with God. In every age God has His work, and the purpose of such work is to maintain His testimony.
The book of Kings says that at the time Solomon's temple was being built, there was no noise heard. All the materials for the building of the temple, all the stones and the wood, were measured and cut according to size in the mountains, before they were ever sent to Solomon. Every stone and piece of wood was properly coordinated together. This was why at the time of the building of the temple, "there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house'' (1 Kings 6:7). God is doing the same work on earth today.
The book of Acts is an unfinished book. In the whole Bible only this book does not have an ending; all the other books have an ending. The Pentateuch, the Gospel of Matthew, and the book of Revelation all have their endings. But the Acts of the Apostles is different. Many questions are left unanswered and unsolved. What happened to Paul? How did his work end? These things are not recorded in Acts. The reason for their absence is that the Holy Spirit is still working today. In the church today, there is still the work of the Holy Spirit.
God's work today is the recovery of the testimony of the Body. This Body testimony is not a doctrine, but a reality. In this Body there is the perfecting ministry (Eph. 4:12) and there is spiritual authority. A close relationship exists between ministry and authority. Where there is ministry, there is authority. In fact, ministry is authority. In Ephesians 4 we see that the Body requires all kinds of gifts, the goal of which is the perfecting of all the saints. In order for the members to be perfected, there is the need to submit to authority. Submitting to authority is submitting to the Head. Today the sisters cover their heads with respect to the brothers. Actually, everyone should cover his head with respect to Christ. We do not have individual heads; only Christ is the Head. Those who want to retain their heads are trying to practice individualism. Those who promote individualism in the Body are troublemakers. Only Christ is the Head. Nevertheless, Christ covers His head before God. Although my hands and my feet are far away from my head, they are still under the direction of my head. Hence, for us to submit to the members is in reality for us to submit to the Head.
The mouth may be very important, but it still needs help from the other members. Without the eyes and the ears, the mouth alone is useless. This is why I do not believe in so-called personal revelation. In the Bible there are such things as individuals receiving grace from the Lord, and there are such things as individuals being sanctified. Yet at the same time, there is the aspect of our relationship with the other members. What do we have today that is not received from others? The greatest heresies in the world came from those who received so-called direct revelations from the Lord. If an individual could receive revelation alone, then a person would need only to be an individual Christian; there would be no need for us to come together to meet any longer, and all the "one another''s, the "we''s, and the "they''s in the Bible could be cut out. A man has to humble himself and receive what others have already received. When a person has received something, it is much easier for another to receive from this one. For example, twenty years ago it was difficult to find a person who was clear about his salvation. But after we met one person who was, it became easier to meet more. This is true with the understanding of the truth of salvation. It is equally true with the understanding of all the other truths.
The Bible reveals one great truth: The kind of Christian God wants is one who is after a Body testimony. In other words He wants Christians who will act as members of the one Body of Christ. What we need today are standard Christians. What does it mean to be a standard Christian? A standard Christian is one in whom others can detect certain characteristics. For example, when you sit down with a Presbyterian, he will tell you about God's predestination and will tell you that salvation, regeneration, and justification are all based on God's predestination. However, if you sit down with a Methodist, he will tell you that everyone has to work out his own salvation, that repentance is an act of one's free will, and that salvation is a result of one's willingness to be saved. Everything depends on ourselves; if we do not do anything, we cannot even be saved. Among certain kinds of Christians, you can find certain kinds of characteristics.
Christians today are not standard. They lack a few basic characteristics, such as selling their possessions, consecrating themselves, repentance and confession of sins, and experiences of deliverance from the power of sin. In addition, there is one characteristic that is lacking the most among them, which is the realization of the Body of Christ. We have to help the believers to experience these things as soon as we can. A newly saved person will do whatever you tell him to do at the initial stage of salvation. If he is allowed to go on for too long, he will become set, and it will become difficult to deal with him. Hence, we have to speak to the believers some of these truths as soon as possible. Everyone likes to be nice and to say nice words; everyone likes to be polite to one another. But a person cannot be an up-to-standard Christian this way. In the future we have to spend much time to study how to be a standard Christian so that our next generation can become a brand-new breed of Christians.
The Body is not a doctrine, but a spiritual fact. If a spiritual matter is recovered, and it is real, it will surely be felt by others. This was the case with the release of the kingdom truth by Evan Roberts. He was sick for a long time. Later, he began to realize the truth concerning the kingdom. When he stood up to speak, the message may have been only fifteen minutes long, but there was something real in what he said. Before him, there were people who spoke about the truth of the kingdom, but the reality was not there. The same is true today with regard to the truth concerning the Body. Many people are able to speak about the Body, but they do not have the Body itself. Before Darby, many people preached this truth, but they did not have the thing itself. When Darby came, it was different; not only did he speak about the truth, but he presented before men the real thing that is conveyed by the truth.
Does this mean that God is restricted by man? Of course not. If God wants to work, He will not be restricted. What a Christian receives on the day of salvation is the most that he will receive. What happens afterward is that these riches are gradually lost. Why are they lost? It is because such a one picks up many other things along the pathway of being a Christian. Both of his hands are full, and he has no capacity to receive anything more. This is the case with an individual, but the same is true with the church as a whole. The book of Ephesians describes the height of the attainment of the church. After that, things began to fall below that standard.
What a believer has received initially is something positional only. Afterward, he begins to receive something experiential. However, in order to receive something experiential, he must first drop some other things. We must drop what we have in our hands before we can gain something more in our experience. When we leave this world one day, we will be able to say that all our losses were actually gains. Today the believers must catch up with God's work and go on with Him; they should not be ones who are falling back.
