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Date:Evening, February 4, 1950Place:Jordan Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong
All servants of God as well as all Bible students pay much attention to the state of glory which the church must reach before the second coming of the Lord. If the church does not reach this state of glory, the Lord's coming will be delayed indefinitely. In Revelation 5 John saw a scroll in the hand of God; it was a sealed scroll. John knew that it was God's plan. God's plan could not be fulfilled unless the scroll was opened. At that juncture an angel proclaimed that no one was worthy to open the scroll or to break the seal, and John wept (vv. 1-4). We read the Bible often, and we know God's plan, but do you weep? Are we anxious for the fulfillment of God's plan?
Of all the prophecies in the Bible, only two raise apprehensions within me. I do not know if you have ever been apprehensive about them. They are Ephesians 4 and 5. It seems as if these two chapters will never be fulfilled. Ephesians 4 speaks of the church being built up and growing into the full measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (v. 13). It seems very hard for the church to reach this state. But there is more. There is Ephesians 5. It seems that this chapter is not as hard to attain to as the previous one, but the requirement is certainly more stringent. In this chapter we are told that when the Lord comes back, the church will be without spot as far as its very nature is concerned and that it will also be without blemish. This means it will not have any mark from previous wounds and sicknesses. The church will also be blameless. Even if it is presented before all men and is subject to open scrutiny and criticism, no one will be able to find any fault (v. 27). The church will be so prepared that it will become absolutely blameless. I must ask the Lord to forgive me for saying this word: Today we can only look at the church with our eyes closed. Once we open our eyes, we will see many areas in which the church is not blameless. We can only give it a score of fifty out of a hundred. Some people are not willing to give it even a score of five. Moreover, the church will be without wrinkle. A wrinkle is a mark of oldness. There was a time when there was no wrinkle on our face, but now wrinkles have appeared. This means that we have grown old. After two thousand years the church must still be young; it must still not have any wrinkle. This is truly the hardest thing to achieve in the whole Bible.
During the past five hundred years, there have been gradual recoveries in the church. The church was once steeped in idol worship; even images of God Himself were made. There were images of Christ, images of Mary, and images of God. Worshipping images means that the church tolerates sin; this is degradation. I have spent four to five years studying Ephesians 4 and 5. Every time I came across these passages, I shook my head and prayed, "Lord, this is impossible." I admitted that I could not climb that high; my heart could not believe what I read. The church was wonderful at the beginning; it was indeed powerful, but what about now? It seems as if it has become desolate. However, during the past two thousand years, the church has been advancing as well. From Catholicism to Protestantism, there was clearly a recovery in the revelation of God's Word. Truths were recovered, such as justification by faith, sanctification by faith, Christ as our life, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and others. Even teachings on faith and prayer were recovered. There was also the recovery of gifts, not to mention the recovery of the power of the Holy Spirit to cast out demons. But before 1923 no one knew the church. Preachers did not pay attention to the church; they only paid attention to revival meetings. One revival meeting saw two thousand five hundred persons saved, but only sixty-six people were willing to be baptized. Many people thought that it was enough to be saved and to go to heaven; they did not think that it was necessary to be baptized. Everyone wanted to take the easy way. They did not pay attention to the matter of the kingdom. But thank the Lord that there were still some who were concerned about the matter of the church. This shows us that God has been taking the way of recovery. Why do we have to hand ourselves over? Why do we have to consecrate in an absolute way? It is because God's children must stand on His side before the church can move on to perfection. The church must pay the price to gain God's riches before Ephesians 4 and 5 can be realized and before the Lord can find a way to come back.
In order to be a servant of God and in order to serve Him, we have to uphold His will. We cannot change God's will, and we cannot lower His standard for the church. A person from a denomination once said, "The Bible does not say explicitly that we should not smoke. Therefore, believers can smoke, and even pastors can smoke." But if Gentiles consider smoking bad for them, how will they feel when they see Christians smoke? No matter how we view the matter, when a Christian smokes, it places him in a lower position than the Gentiles; it is a step backward. Suppose Brother Chan and Brother Chow are both smoking in the meeting today. It will be hard for some brothers and sisters to fellowship with them. The smokers may feel that they are actually better than others in many areas, but as long as some brothers and sisters think that it is wrong to smoke, the smokers will have to stop if they want to keep their fellowship with them. Everyone wants to take the easy way. This is the reason some people opt for sprinkling instead of immersion. The sprinkled ones should realize that there are those who consider sprinkling to be contrary to the Lord's commandment and that continuing in their way stops everyone from being perfected. Smoking and baptism are examples only. If we tolerate many sins or teachings, we will open a back door for sinful and fleshly ones to come in, while placing a stumbling block before seeking ones. Many people do not believe in miracles and are even afraid of them. Many other people, however, have experienced God's answer to their prayers. If we say that miracles ceased with the apostles, we can satisfy some who are weak in faith, but there are still many in the world who have faith. Our word will become a stumbling block to their perfection in God. In other words, we cannot change any commandment that God has ordained in the Bible. Selling one's all to follow the Lord is an ordained way that God has revealed in His Word. But in China during the past one hundred years, no one dared to say such a thing except for the "Jesus Family" (Je-Su-Chia-Ting). No one dared to talk about forsaking all to follow the Lord. When we preach the gospel to others today, do we tell them that they can be rich and at the same time live a Christian life? We have pursued perfection in the past, and we have obeyed the Lord in many things. Why should we come short in this one thing? Can we be victorious in many things yet fail in this one thing?
A few years ago when I was in Shanghai, a member of a denominational church came to me. He wanted to argue about baptism. He gave me many reasons for not practicing immersion. In the end the only reason he gave was that it was inconvenient to immerse people and that there was no need to insist on it. I said, "This is the Lord's ordination. We cannot respond to Him by saying that it is optional." Later we changed the subject to foot-washing. He asked me, "Do you practice foot-washing? Do you break bread to remember the Lord every Lord's Day?" I said that we practice foot-washing and break bread every Lord's Day. In the end he asked, "Do you sell all to follow the Lord?" I said reluctantly, "We do." We cannot leave one thing undone; we cannot say that there is one thing that we do not have to do. If there is one thing not done, we cannot be a proper testimony for the Lord. Today God is taking the way of recovery in China. His eyes are on Ephesians 4 and 5. Paul did not shrink back from speaking all the counsels of God. If we do not shrink back from doing all of God's will, He will have a way among us. I will repeat Brother Witness's word: The deeper the channel is, the more the water flows. Wherever the channel runs deepest, there the water gathers. Water never flows to the shallow places.
Today we can only speak for those who are most desirous of obeying the Lord. We cannot speak for those who do not want to obey or who are thinking of taking the easy way. We have to speak for those who want to pay the price, who want to take God's way today. If we make allowance for those who do not have a heart for the Lord in everything, we might as well be the YMCA. Why call ourselves the church? If we want to call ourselves the church, we cannot skip any commandment of the Lord. If God finds another church that is absolute for His will, He can easily set us aside. Our failure is a small thing, but our failure can delay God. It is easy for God to raise up other people, but that would take a dozen or so years or even a few decades. In order to give God a way to accomplish His will, we have no alternative but to give our all. We do not have the right to change His commands. Among all the commandments of God, one commandment says that we should be delivered from mammon. We should not be bound by mammon. If God says that we should forsake everything, we have to follow. We are His slaves; we dare not change His will. We are not qualified to change His will. As slaves we have to carry out whatever God says. Where our treasure is, there our heart is also. We cannot serve Him and mammon at the same time. Therefore we have to send our money to heaven. It is impossible for our treasure to be in heaven and for our heart to remain on earth. God's will is the most crucial thing to us who are His slaves. We have to try to understand His will fully, and we have to strive to meet His demand with no reservation.
There is a strong link between the readiness of the church and the Lord's second coming. We fully believe that this is the time for the church to prepare itself. In order for God's children to be reaped, they must first mature (Mark 4:29). D. M. Panton illustrates this by the picture of the harvest. The day of harvest is not determined by the farmer but by the crop. The farmer does not set a date for harvesting with no regard whatsoever for the ripeness of the crop. The crop must mature before the harvest can come. Similarly, the day of rapture is determined by the church, not by the Lord. It is a very definite day. If the church is not mature, the harvest will not come.
We bear a heavy responsibility today for the maturity of the church. For many years we strove for perfection. If you and I neglect our responsibility today, I do not know how long we will delay the Lord. Let me say a strong word: If we want to follow the Lord, we must tell Him that we will forsake everything to follow Him. If we have any reservation at all, we will lose our joy and power. The power of the early church was in the poverty of the apostles. The degradation of the church today is in its abundance of rich people. If we drop everything to meet the Lord's demand today, our eyes will be opened to a glory that has never before been seen. Concerning God's will, we should not shrink from anything, and we should not question or withhold anything. What God wants today is not ours, that is, what we have; He wants us. He wants us to offer ourselves to Him, to give ourselves to His gospel, to His will, and to the gaining of sinners' souls. Brother Witness often says that as soon as money leaves the church, souls are added from the world.
One consecration is not good enough; we need to continue the practice of forsaking. We may say that we have given up everything without reservation, but according to God we still may have many reservations. We do not know of them because His light has not touched us yet. If we are willing to be continually under His light, He will shine on us again and again, and we will have to drop something further. Whenever there is new light, we have to obey. This is the way to meet the requirement of maturity.
During the past two years, I have been very happy. I feel that Ephesians 4 and 5 are very close to us; they are no longer so far away. They are not a hard yoke to us; they have become an easy burden. In a very short while, the Lord will gain the glorious church, but the glory will be experienced only by some. Others will miss it because they have cared too much for themselves. If we all come up to this standard, it will be easy for God to do His work. I wish that all of us here tonight would become desperate. I wish all of us would give our all. May we all pray to the Lord, "Do not pass me by. Do not leave me here. Just as You have made others partakers, make me a partaker. You are not a respector of persons; do not leave me behind. Just as You have granted others the grace to catch up, grant me the same grace."
Handing ourselves over does not necessarily mean that we will become poor. Handing over everything is different from merely living in poverty. When we hand ourselves over to God, we are not only giving Him our money but our time and future as well. The cheapest and most shallow consecration is the consecration of the heart. Heart consecration alone does not cause any pain. If we have not offered up our time, body, and future, we may say that we have consecrated everything, but in reality everything is still in our own hands. The young people may say that they have consecrated themselves, but their consecration has not touched their education or their future occupation at all. Today when you hand yourselves over, the church may send you with five or ten other saints to a school where there are no believers at all. You will not only study in the school but also bring people to the church. If some do this, perhaps fifteen or even a hundred people will be saved by the end of a term. In the church in Shanghai, some have handed themselves over, and they have been sent to study at Nanking Central University. In the coming days every consecrated one will need a change in his future and occupation. He will go to school for God; his education will be merely a sideline.
When you hand yourselves over to serve the Lord, you have to learn to work in coordination, not alone. In particular, you have to learn to accept the arrangement made for your occupation. A brother may be working alone in a company or business, and you may be assigned to join him. You should not ask how much money you will make. You should ask how you can take care of the gospel there. You have to take all the colleagues at work as your gospel prospects, and you have to preach in coordination with the other brother. When you take up a job as a consecrated one, it is not for the sake of making a living. If it is, you are no different than the people in the world. Your real occupation is to serve God. Everyone from ten to eighty years old should make his service the center of everything. If the whole church is mobilized this way, I believe the gospel will surely saturate Hong Kong and even all of China. Therefore, handing yourselves over does not result in doing your own thing. It does not mean coming on the Lord's Day and dropping some money into the offering box. Handing yourselves over has everything to do with your future, your occupation, and your coordination.
The Acts of the Apostles shows us that the church suffered great persecutions after chapter seven. The nascent church was formed as a result of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. When persecution comes, the normal thing would be for all the believers to scatter, but the apostles were not scattered. Only the disciples were scattered. While they scattered, they preached the gospel as they moved (8:1-4). This indicates that the church made a decision; both the apostles' staying and the disciples' leaving were for the gospel. Before Acts 7 there was the practice of handing over everything. By chapter eight there was a well-organized preaching of the gospel. This is the reason the number of believers in Jerusalem eventually reached tens of thousands in Acts 21. This is the church. The church exists on earth for the gospel. Hence, no brother or sister can live loosely or be a Christian carelessly. Everyone has to hand himself over and preach the gospel in coordination. For example, Brother Ku was once the manager of Shin-Yi Dye Factory. One day the brothers went to him and told him that everyone felt he should no longer remain in his job. He prayed about it and felt that he should leave. He was making a good living as a manager. Now his salary is only one-fifth of what it used to be, but he has become very useful in the gospel. He has a good testimony before the brothers and sisters. He is no longer giving himself to his factory but to serving God.
Handing ourselves over should result in a fundamental change in our being. We are no longer individual Christians. Instead, we serve the Lord in coordination with all the brothers and sisters. Not only has our past been consecrated and dealt with, even our future has been consecrated and dealt with. This is all for the sake of breaking open a way for the gospel to spread through us. In the past we preached the gospel when we felt like it, but we turned away from the brothers when we grew cold and disinterested. Whether we were working or not, we were doing everything as individuals. But now that we have handed ourselves over, we can no longer act individualistically; we must serve in coordination.
Some brothers and sisters are studying at Catholic schools. I advise you to depart from them according to the Lord's command (Rev. 18:4). Do not be defiled by the unclean things (2 Cor. 6:17). However, if many of you brothers and sisters are together at the same school, and if you all have a strong spirit to preach the gospel and to bring others to salvation, I have no objection for your staying. However, you have to be clear. You should not be there only for your education, and you should not say that there is no need to change schools as long as you study the Bible, pray, and come to the meetings. Once you have handed yourselves over, you have to know God's will and arrangement every step of the way. You have to serve in coordination with the brothers and sisters. You cannot go to a school merely for the sake of your education.
If we hand over our all and waste ourselves on the gospel, succeeding generations will have a way to go on. Our gospel is not an isolated call of individual voices but a concerted work in which we all consecrate ourselves to coordinate and pray together in one accord. If we do this, all the problems will go away. Otherwise, the first question that comes to mind will be, "What will be my remuneration?" In the future, I hope that we will ask instead, "How will this job give me an opportunity for the gospel?" I hope that we will all consecrate ourselves for the gospel. In this matter we cannot be sloppy. The whole church has to come solemnly and seriously to God and ask for His mercy. We confess that in the past we have not paid enough attention to the lost souls. If we are so exercised in planning and managing worldly affairs, how can we be so sloppy in preaching the gospel? This is wrong. In the past too many people have cared only for enjoying the benefit of the gospel. In the coming days I hope that many will want to share this benefit with others.
In the last century only missionaries were involved in the gospel preaching in China. During the last fifty years, we saw the need and effectiveness of the church preaching the gospel. No matter how much we tried, however, only a minority of the saints were involved; the rest did not do anything. Today we need everyone to give up everything. We all need to separate ourselves for the gospel. If we do this, we will see the whole church rising up to preach the gospel. There will not be just three or five individual preachers; the whole church will be preaching. The gospel will spread throughout China. No sacrifice is in vain as long as we can gain men's souls. The entire world cannot match the value of one human soul (Matt. 16:26).
In the future the selection of all our occupations has to revolve around the gospel and the church. As long as something is good for the gospel, it is worth paying any price for. Miss Hann was a nurse supervisor, but she decided to move to Yi-Yang. Brother Liu is an internist, but he also moved to Yi-Yang. Humanly speaking, Yi-Yang is a wasteland for good nurses and doctors. But it is not a waste at all. Our going is different. A good nurse and a good doctor care for the gospel and for souls. What good does it do if you heal a person's body but allow his soul to go the way of destruction?
We are not asking you to hand over your possessions as the first thing. We are asking you to first hand over your future, your job, and your work. When you hand yourselves over, you are not handing yourselves over to me; I cannot bear that responsibility. You are handing yourselves over for the gospel. Perhaps ten or twenty years from now, the responsible brothers will tell you to leave Hong Kong to go to another place for the gospel. You have to say, "Amen. Since the whole church has this feeling, I am willing to go. If other children of God call me to go to another place, I am willing to go there as well." The church must live before God and know His will. It has to pray about many things and wait on God. The church cannot be sloppy; it has to trust in God. You should give yourself to Hong Kong first, and then you can give yourself to other places. One day you will be able to send men to the mainland. The entire Southeast Asia lies before you. God has a free way in Shanghai already. He will also have a free way in Hong Kong. Hangchow handed itself over, and Yi-Yang was brought forth. If Hong Kong hands itself over, I do not know what will be brought forth in Southeast Asia.
Presently, the immediate need is for a big meeting hall. We should not think that as long as we can meet in two sessions on the Lord's Day, we have solved all the problems. God's blessing is related to our capacity. If we have a meeting hall that will hold a thousand people, we have to believe that God will send us the people; they will fill up the hall. Perhaps after you gain this first meeting hall, five other or nine other halls will follow. Once we hand ourselves over, we will see God's great blessings. Perhaps we still do not realize how great a hindrance we are to the Lord!
When God's grace and mercy break out, blessings will flow everywhere in the church, and all the problems will go away. In order for the whole church to rise up to serve, we have to cut off the wasted hours in our occupation. If we hold back anything, the church's prayer will not be effective, and souls will not be added to us. If we are desperate, God will have a way. Do not be afraid of problems. Whatever the price may be, we have to charge forward.
Please forgive me for saying what I am saying. I hope this word will not hurt anyone's feelings. You have to come together to pray much. May the Lord give all of us no peace. May He not let us go easily. May the Lord be merciful to us. May none of us go on carelessly. May all of us be very clear about what we are doing; that is, may we know the reason we are doing what we are doing and to what extent we should do it. May God encourage us to give all that we are and all that we have to the gospel.
I believe one day the church will reach the standard of the first apostles. Then the day of the Lord will be near.
