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Date: Morning, July 6, 1948Scripture Reading: 2 Cor. 10:4-5
Today we want to continue our discussion with 2 Corinthians 10:4-5. Every high thing is translated "edifices" by Henry Alford. It means tall buildings. It is used to describe structures, edifices, erected in one's heart. The word thought is noema in the original language. It is used six times in the New Testament: once in Philippians and five times in 2 Corinthians. In 2 Corinthians 2:11 it is translated as schemes, and in 3:14, 4:4, 10:5, and 11:3 it is rendered thoughts. It carries more of an idea of volition than of mental activity, and it can alternatively be translated as "purpose in the heart."
Second Corinthians 10:4-5 tells us that the high things in man are strongholds; they are the things that hinder a man from knowing God. For example, an unbeliever has many excuses; these are his strongholds. Every time he is asked to believe in the Lord, he turns to these excuses to protect himself. He says that he is busy or that he has prior engagements. These are reasons which a man uses to fence himself in, reasons by which he rejects God. They are actually the work of Satan. We should note, however, that these verses refer to believers who have been taken captive in their thoughts. All the high things that hinder a man from knowing God must be overthrown before his thoughts can be taken captive. To take captive means to capture. God overthrows our strongholds for the purpose of capturing our thoughts. This is the only way that we can come to the obedience of Christ. By nature, man's thoughts are free; they operate according to their own will. If they are left to themselves, they will never come to the obedience of Christ. Our thoughts must be made a slave before they can serve the Lord. Our thoughts represent our existence as an independent person. Our mind first judges certain things to be good, thinks about them, and finally makes decisions based upon them. Our proposals and decisions represent our very being. In order to maintain our personal freedom, we have to make decisions. In order to preserve ourselves and justify our decisions and ideas as being superior, we surround ourselves with many reasons. We have to maintain that our way is right, and we provide reasons to justify why we forbid anyone to touch our decisions. We fortify ourselves with all kinds of reasons, like village folks who protect their hamlets with barracks and fortifications. This is what happens when a man's thoughts are surrounded by strongholds.
Yesterday I said that a servant of God must not reason. Everyone who wants to serve the Lord must have his eyes opened to Romans 9; he must experience this chapter. It is not enough to stop one's speaking or reasonings; his thoughts must be taken captive. The mouth has to be stopped, and reasons have to go away. More than this, the thoughts have to be taken captive and stripped of all ideas and proposals. The stopping of one's mouth is merely a superficial dealing. Inwardly one has to deal with reasons and thoughts. A man must have reasons overthrown and thoughts captured before he can be brought to the obedience of Christ. It is easy to spot those who can submit to authority. It is not hard to identify those who have touched authority. Those who have touched authority and who practice genuine submission are bridled in their tongues; they do not have many reasons. Neither do they propose many things. Those who have not touched authority always try to fortify their own thoughts with reasons and proposals. A day will come when a man's thoughts are taken captive; they will be "kidnapped." That will be the day when he is brought to the obedience of Christ.
Many people like to be God's counselors. They want God to listen to them and take their advice. They think they can draft God's blueprints. Wherever the ones whose thoughts are not captured go, they want to make improvements instead of live out submission. Their favorite expression is, "To me, this is wrong, and that is wrong. You have to do this and that." Their thoughts and reasonings are never held in check, and they can never be submissive. We have to be dealt with to the point that our thoughts are captured. Our proposals must be dealt with before we can see authority. If we are full of self-ideas and self-proposals, we do not know authority. There are two omniscient beings in this universe — God and the self. We want to be men's counselor, and we also want to be God's counselor. We want to change everything around wherever we go. It seems as if we know everything. This clearly shows that our thoughts are not captured; we still do not know authority. Obeying Christ means to be under authority, to stop all proposals, and to lose all interest in making proposals. We should become persons without any conception; our only desire should be to obey. Those who have touched God's authority have no desire to make proposals. They only care to obey.
Paul, who was Saul, was an intelligent, clever, and rational person. He was very resourceful, and he served God with his own zeal. On his way to Damascus to arrest Christians, he met a great light and fell to the ground. From that day forward, he was stripped of his own proposals and ideas. He asked, "What shall I do, Lord?" He no longer wanted to do anything by himself. Once he met the great light, he became foolish. He no longer had any plans or proposals. May the Lord give us such "foolishness," a "foolishness" that results from enlightenment. Light not only humbles us but silences us. Once a man touches God's authority and sees His light, he does not have to suppress his words or muzzle his proposals. Spontaneously his cleverness, concepts, and suggestions are gone. He is conscious of his captivity. He is brought to the obedience and rule of Christ.
Let us consider some Old Testament examples of thoughts that were not taken captive. First we have Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron. Their sin was different from the sins of others. Others sinned by indulging in the flesh. Nadab and Abihu sinned in the matter of serving the Lord. They proposed something by themselves and offered strange fire. They did not subject themselves to their father's authority. Instead, they made proposals on their own and offered sacrifices with their censers. Their sin was an offense against God and against His minister. They thought that they were doing a good thing, but they actually were offering incense according to their own conviction. They thought they were rendering service to God. They thought that even if they were wrong, their mistake would fall within the realm of divine service. They thought that it was serious and fatal to commit worldly sins but that it was minor and inconsequential to commit mistakes in God's service. Little did they realize that God immediately rejected them and sentenced them to death. Their actions were the result of their runaway thoughts. They had their own ideas about divine service, and the result was terrible.
Consider the case of King Saul. He was rejected because he kept the best of the sheep and oxen for himself. He considered it a waste to destroy these choice goods. He was not rejected because he stole, robbed, or extorted from the people of Israel. He had many reasons and ideas. He wanted to offer these as sacrifices to God. He wanted to please God in his own way. If a man has not touched authority, his thoughts will always be a problem to him. It is not a matter of whether or not one has the desire to serve the Lord, but a matter of the means he uses to serve the Lord. He should not think that he can act according to his own will as long as he has a desire to serve God. This is where many people stumble. In God's service no one can propose anything. God is the One who proposes. Even if He appoints us to be a king, He does not want us to make any proposal of our own. He only wants us to be an executor of His order and His will. It is wrong for us to think that we can tell others what to do just because we have been appointed by God to be an authority. We should have only one aspiration, which is to find out what God wants us to do. God says that obedience is better than sacrifice and taking heed better than the fat of rams. Saul did not realize that he had no right to propose anything to God; he had no right to make suggestions to God. Man can only say, "Lord, what do You want me to do? Your servant is listening." Our place is in the dust and among the footstools. Saul saw the excellent and fat livestock and thought it a waste to destroy them. He wanted to save them and offer them to God. Would it not be much better to save them? Saul had a heart to serve God; he had a heart to make sacrifices, but he did not have a heart to obey. Rather than offering everything to the Lord, it is better for him to say, "Lord, I dare not make any proposals or suggestions of my own; I want to obey You in everything." No oblation of fat or offering of fragrance can take the place of obedience. In the end Samuel told Saul, "Because you have rejected the word of Jehovah,/He has also rejected you from being king" (1 Sam. 15:23b). The Lord ordered Saul to destroy the Amalekites and all their livestock, but Saul did not want to do it. Ultimately, a young Amalekite killed Saul (2 Sam. 1:8-10). God wanted Saul to destroy all the Amalekites, but he would not do it. In the end he was killed by an Amalekite, and his reign ended. This is a serious thing.
During the past two weeks, I have been speaking on the subject of submission. Nothing in this world can be more beautiful than seeing a group of people who know authority. Among those who know authority, no one makes proposals or suggestions lightly. No one harbors any spirit of rebellion or utters any word of rebellion. When others contact them, they remark, "What a group of truly submissive people!" Within these ones there is not a trace of rebellion. Everyone serves by keeping his own place. When this happens, we will have a glorious day; it will be the kingdom of the Lord among us. The Lord will be able to point to us and say, "At least I have one group of people on earth who will submit to authority." It is true that God has Christ, His Firstborn, who is submissive to Him. He is the firstfruit, but God is waiting for His many sons to render the same testimony of obedience. As long as there is one church that is absolute, that obeys absolutely, and that renders a testimony of submission to God, Satan will be defeated, even if this church is small in number. However, if we operate according to Satan's principle, we will be a laughingstock to him even if we are zealous in our own way. Even if we preach the gospel, suffer for the Lord, accomplish great works, and increase in number, Satan will say, "You are on my side, and together we are against God." This is a sure way to mockery. We should never denigrate ourselves to such a low state as to serve God according to Satan's principles.
From now on, our feeling concerning the matter of obedience and submission should be different. It should be different from what it was before we came to Foochow. If our feelings remain the same, I have nothing more to say. Our submission must be different. The way is clear. From today forward, we have to learn to bridle our speaking, cut our reasons, and stop making proposals in our mind. This is very crucial. If we set our mind on learning this lesson, God will bless us. When the queen of Sheba beheld Solomon's glory, she had no more spirit in her (1 Kings 10:4-5). When God reveals His glory to us, we will fall down, and spontaneously we will submit.
According to the law of Moses, only the Levites were qualified to carry the ark of God. When the Israelites entered Canaan, it was the Levites who carried the ark across the river Jordan. The riverbed was rough, but the ark did not fall (Josh. 3:15-17). When David became king, he wanted to receive the ark into his city, yet he did not inquire of God concerning how it should be carried. He made his own proposal and followed the example of the Philistines by ordering the ark to be carried by an oxcart (1 Sam. 6:7-12). The oxen stumbled, and the ark fell. Uzzah reached out for the ark without a second thought to what he was doing, and God struck him dead (2 Sam. 6:1-7). But even if the ark had not fallen, even if it had remained safely on the cart, it was still not on the shoulders of the Levites. This shows us that God does not want man to make any proposals of his own. In our service we have to obey God. Brothers and sisters, please remember: Either we do not serve God at all, or we should serve without any idea or suggestion of our own. In order to serve our God, we have to submit to authority. We can never come to God with our own opinions. If we hold on to our own opinions, we will never serve God well. We may still claim that we are working for the church or for Christianity, but we cannot say that we are serving God. In order to serve God, we have to take a different way — the way of full submission. God has to be in control of everything. We cannot propose anything. Our human opinions have to be thoroughly destroyed.
In talking to many brothers and sisters about their service, I have discovered that many have never been dealt with in their natural disposition, personality, opinion, and thought. Many people are too free in their thoughts. Their thoughts have not been taken captive; they have never touched God's authority. How can a man be brought to the obedience of Christ? Second Corinthians 10 tells us that our thoughts must first be taken captive by the Lord. Instead of acting freely as in the past, we must now allow the Lord to capture our thoughts. We must now be imprisoned by Christ, instead of by the strongholds of our own reasonings. This passage is related to Eve's temptation in Genesis 3. Eve saw that the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was pleasing to the eyes and good for food, and that it would give her wisdom. She began to reason in her heart, and her thoughts went after Satan's will. Her thoughts were taken captive by Satan. This was the beginning of man's fall. Our thoughts are the problem to our service of the Lord. May God grant us the strength to destroy all reasons and to shatter all the things that we consider reasonable. Once the power of God comes, all self-exalted edifices and strongholds will be destroyed, and we will have a captured mind to submit to Him. Unless our thoughts are captured, we can never submit to Him.
Second Corinthians 10:6 says, "And we are ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled." How is one's obedience fulfilled? It is fulfilled in the condition prescribed in verse 5, that is, in being taken captive in one's thoughts. When this happens, obedience is fulfilled. It is only as a man's thoughts are taken captive that his obedience is fulfilled. When a man holds on to his opinions and proposals, his obedience is not fulfilled. Paul had worked in Corinth and had witnessed three groups of men there: those who were generally disobedient, those who were obedient, including Paul, and those who were rebellious. God's Word says that when the thoughts of the disobedient ones were taken captive and their obedience was fulfilled, they would join Paul and the obedient ones, whose obedience was already fulfilled. When the two groups of obedient ones would join together, God would execute judgment upon the rebellious ones. I do not know how many obedient ones God will gain. But I believe that when the obedience of some is fulfilled, they will not only render a good testimony but will also afford God a highway through which He can deal with all rebels and rebellions in this world.
When each of us leaves this place, we have to learn to be captured. We should not seek freedom. Our thoughts have to be captured by Christ. If we allow this to happen, the way before us will be glorious. If throughout this land we find disciplined tongues that are bridled in speech, tempered minds that are free from reasonings, and captured thoughts that are free from self-opinions, God will manifest His authority on earth.
