Date:September 13, 1948
I was born into a poor family, and at one time I was a street hawker. While I was on the street one day someone invited me into a little chapel to hear the gospel. When I heard that Jesus loves sinners, I became very happy. Although the world does not love me, Jesus loves me. At that time I dared not accept the Lord. One or two years later, when I was fifteen years old, I heard the gospel again and I raised my hand to receive the Lord. After I became a Christian, my life was greatly changed. I was delivered from the sins of foul language, gambling, and stealing. I went with others to preach the gospel and served as a janitor of a church. Later through the recommendation of an elderly Baptist pastor, I joined the Far East Christian and Missionary Alliance Seminary. A year later I graduated and became a leader and a trumpet player in an evangelistic band. I became proud. Once, while preaching near an army school, I was taken into prison. I had been to prison before, but this was the first time I went into prison for the sake of the gospel. I was not afraid at all. The prison in the countryside, however, was a scandal; it was a taste of hell. I went into prison with my Bible. Others thought that I was a spy, but I continued to preach the gospel in prison. Soon over ten people were saved. When I was released from prison, the inmates were sad to see me go and shed tears for me. Soon after, I became a lieutenant officer. I was even promoted three times within a year. This stirred up my pride again, and I lapsed into sin. I knew that the Lord was disciplining me, and eventually I repented in tears and prayed for the Lord's mercy. Later I read books published by the Shanghai Gospel Book Room and began to understand the truth of salvation and the truth concerning the church. When the war broke out, I moved inland and took up a menial job. During those few years I learned many lessons. Later I became greedy and went into business. I fell into sin once again. This was the Lord's disciplining hand. I confessed to the Lord with tears for a few hours and asked Him for mercy.
The first problem with our brother is that much of his outward life has been spent in falsehood. This is the fruit of his inward condition. No outward change or cover-up in conduct will do him any good. Your prayers have all been said before men, not before God. Our life before men can never replace our life before God. The only kind of spiritual life that counts is what is conducted in the presence of God. All spiritual things spring from within. Figs cannot be attached to a vine tree. Your problem is not over yet. Your speaking at the beginning of your testimony was very much under the control of your will. By the time you finished a third of your speaking, your real testimony finally came out. When a man first opens his mouth, he can somewhat control himself. But the more he speaks, the more his self is exposed. You are making a spiritual performance in the presence of men. I am not condemning you alone; many people are like you. They live their Christian life before men. We should never try to be better before men than before God. I would rather be misunderstood by men than have any pretense before God. I should be spiritual before God. But many people pray and live their lives before men. This is something that we should deal with at the present moment. We have to be a broken man before God. We should never worry about how we look before men. Our condition before God should always be stronger than our condition before men.
The meal offering in Leviticus 2 is a type of the fineness of Christ's humanity on earth. Every grain of wheat has to be finely ground before it can become flour. When Christ was on earth, His inward and outward being, His character and feelings, were like fine flour. The first problem with our brother is that he has, in a manner of speaking, been "plucked from the street." His second problem relates to his character. His emotion is not fine and tender; it is not like fine flour. His disposition is like that of Peter in the Gospels. All the apostles, including Peter, however, grew out of their coarse feelings. When we come to the book of Acts, we find that their feelings had all become tender. When we read Peter's Epistles, we find that his feelings were very tender. The rawness and coarseness went away after the kneading and the grinding. Whatever has not been ground remains coarse and uneven and cannot be part of the fine flour. Our brother will only become useful after he passes through God's fine grinding through the environment. If our brother truly sees himself, he will fall down. He said that he had wept and cried much in the past. But I have to say a seemingly cruel word to him according to the standing that I have been given here: Your tears are not enough. You have to shed many more tears than you have done. You have to pass through two pieces of grinding stones. I believe the Lord will be gracious and merciful to those who give themselves to the grindstones. We have to realize that only those who have fine feelings before God can serve Him.
With regards to the spirit, our brother has to realize that his outer man must be broken before his spirit can gradually be released. We have witnessed something of a start in our brother, and this is a good sign. However, he needs more breaking with regard to the things he built up in the past — his pretensions and his coarse feelings. Only then will he be able to run on the spiritual pathway. I hope that our brother will not seek man's approval in any spiritual things but only seek the Lord's approval. When difficulties come, he should not circumvent them. He should learn to yield to the difficulties and to be ground into powder. Our brother needs many make-up lessons. Our work must be far from sin. We should never allow ourselves to be dragged into sin. It seems that the Lord has done some work in you in the most recent part of his journey. You should not hinder the Lord in any way, but should humble yourself under His hand and allow Him to give you a fundamental breaking. If you do, you will have a way to go on in the Lord's service. You will become useful as you learn to allow the Lord to tear you down completely through all the trials.
