Search
Date: Wednesday evening, February 15, 1950Place: Jordan Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong
1. My King will soon come back again,
The sky be filled with Him;
The universe to be redeemed
Will see His light therein.
The Lord will soon fulfill His plan,
His footsteps now I hear;
His glorious frame I faintly see
Beginning to appear.
2. I'm longing for His presence blest
And dare not slothful be
While waiting for my Lord's return,
His own dear self to see.
My only hope — that He may come
And change my faith to sight;
There is no other joy on earth
Which gives my heart delight.
3. My heart is always with Himself,
My eyes are heavenward,
My lips would utter nothing else
Than meeting with my Lord.
The coming of the Lord draws nigh,
His coming is for me;
His promise ever standeth firm
And soon fulfilled I'll see.
4. My Savior, all Thy holy words
Can never doubted be;
With them encouraged day by day,
I'm faithful unto Thee.
Oh, may Thy glory soon appear,
The foe be overthrown;
Thy promises be realized,
And we brought to Thy throne.
5. Thy saving arm a refuge is,
My Savior God, to me;
Thou as the Father keepeth them
Who put their trust in Thee.
The sheep and shepherd are of one,
The head and body same;
None e'er can pluck from out Thy hand
The child who trusts Thy Name.
6. A thousand hands won't hinder me,
Nor will ten thousand eyes;
The thorns upon the road but help
Me onward to the prize.
Arise, my spirit and my heart,
And let the world go by;
The Lord of life will take me soon
To be with Him on high.
7. Thou healing sun! Thou hope of man!
I really love Thy ray.
Oh, righteous Lord! oh, glorious King!
I bow to Thee and pray:
Oh, may Thou soon ascend Thy throne
And quickly show Thy face;
Thy heav'nly kingdom may Thou found
And grant all men Thy grace.
8. The truth should triumph and be king,
And freedom should be queen;
But falsehood, which has rampant run,
Head of the world is seen.
We ask Thee, Truth, to quickly come
And bring Thy light from heav'n;
The foe be crushed and all Thy sons
Into Thy bosom giv'n.
(Hymns, #960)
The Welsh revival was brought in through Evan Roberts. He was not educated at all; in fact, he was only a coal miner. Yet he brought in the greatest revival in the world — the Welsh revival. Wales was a big place, but Roberts worked mainly in one small chapel. He did not have complete sermons ready for delivery. His speaking was only a few sentences. Sometimes he would pray a little, but the congregation would always leave weeping or leave dancing. Their meetings did not have a set time for opening and closing and were not held in fixed places. They met at any place and at any time. People could come in the middle of the night or in the early morning. Almost every family was revived, and prayer meetings were conducted in every household. No one knew who the preachers were. Sometimes one person would stand up and call a hymn. At other times someone would stand up and read a verse.
Mrs. Penn-Lewis came from a Quaker background. She was a very strict person. Out of curiosity she joined these meetings. The scene she saw was a mess: Some mothers were nursing their babies; others were taking their meals. Some were praying, while others were singing. Outwardly, there was mayhem; the whole place looked like a market. However, she testified that there was something inexplicable and mysterious in the atmosphere. It was very unusual. Outwardly the scene was very noisy, but inwardly these people were all one. This happened in 1903 and 1904. By 1909 some brothers visited them from England and were told by one of the local pastors, "We have fewer and fewer converts every year. During the last one or two years we have hardly converted anyone." The visitors asked if this meant that the revival had taken a step back. The pastor answered, "No, all the people here are converted already." Roberts was able to bring in such a great revival because he was a fully consecrated person. He was willing to give up everything and spare nothing.
Today while we were singing this hymn, we touched the spirit of the author. It is a spirit unmatched in power in all the ages. The word presence is parousia in Greek. It refers to the Lord's descending, His manifestation. Although the Lord has not physically come again, we can bring His presence to our midst. This presence will bind us and restrict us; we will not dare be slothful. May all our walk and work be constrained and bound by His presence, and may we not deviate from this pathway in any way.
Presently, we have appointed eleven deacons and twenty-two responsible ones. We hope that these brothers and sisters will take up more responsibility in the five districts.
From now on, our work has to pay special attention to the care and perfecting of the young brothers and sisters. In addition to these five districts, we have asked a few saints to open up their homes and make them a kind of fellowship station. We have also asked a few sisters to care for these homes like governesses or nursing mothers. They should spend time to talk to the young brothers and sisters, read the Bible together with them, or cook for them.
Presently, there is an immediate need for saints to migrate to all parts of China, but the condition of the saints here is far from ready. If they move now, they will just create problems for the churches in other localities. Therefore, we need to actively conduct more trainings. Do not underestimate the matter of migration. This is more serious than fighting a war, and the training that is required for such a move is more severe.
The first crucial thing to learn in this training is coordination. The next most important thing to learn is to be bold. The trainees have to learn to preach in the open air. They also have to learn to speak to unbelievers, to care for new believers, and to study the Bible.
We want to implement the following in the training for the study of the Bible: We will ask ten brothers to help the saints study the Bible. This does not mean that these ten are experts on the Bible. They are merely guides to lead the others into the right path. If anyone wants to dig deeper, they have to spend more time to study by themselves. We will first study Romans. We can use such commentaries as those by Moule, Darby, F. G. Grant, and F. L. Godet. We can also use Conybeare's paraphrase translation and writings by Kelly. We should also spend time to study the Interlinear Greek New Testament. These ten brothers should first study carefully at home. They can read through Romans in half an hour. The first time I studied Romans, I spent fifty-seven hours on it. Some may think that it is a waste of time to read through the whole book of Romans in one sitting, but I can only say that there are more words in a day's newspaper than in the entire book of Romans, yet many people can read through a newspaper in one sitting. Therefore, we should not complain about finishing Romans in one sitting.
When we come together, the first thing we should do is study the meaning of the words in the text. One of the ten should be designated to study the English translations. The best version to use is the Revised Version. Do not use the King James Version. Next consult the Interlinear Greek New Testament and study the text word by word. We can also study the writings of Philip Schaff, the Greek concordance of Alfred Schmoller, and the Englishman's Greek Concordance of the New Testament. This will help us to rightly divide the truth. Never base a message on a word or expression which Paul did not use in the original language. If we do, we will twist the word as Peter said and bring destruction upon ourselves (2 Pet. 3:16).
The best English reference is Dean Alford's Greek New Testament. There is a branch of research called "low criticism," which is somewhat similar to the textual research on Chinese classics that was prevalent during the Ming and Ching Dynasties. This method takes every word of the Bible and analyzes it carefully according to the text. The best work in this field was done by Alford. His writing can be considered the representative in the field.
If we have all these tools with us, we are quite complete as far as reference material is concerned. In the course of our study, we should spend much time discussing and fellowshipping among ourselves before making the appropriate judgments. We should not think that we can make proper judgments as long as we understand the original language and the meanings of the words. Proper judgment depends on the amount of light and revelation we receive from God. In this respect we must all humble ourselves and learn. Like Paul, we should say that we have not yet come to know as we ought to know (1 Cor. 8:2).
In my early days in Foochow, I studied the Bible every morning with over forty young brothers. We spent three and a half hours each day but sometimes covered only two verses. Three or four were seminary students. After this kind of study, they began to know what the Bible is all about, and they readily admitted that they still had a long way to go.
Here we are asking ten brothers to lead others to study the Bible. These ten will have to spend more time to study and fellowship. They can neither be ignorant nor proud. They should not think that they only need direct fellowship with the Lord. Our head and feet do not have direct communication with each other; they communicate through the other members. If we are a foot, we should not try to link up with the head directly. Instead we should learn to be restricted and learn to accept others' judgment. The church is the Body of Christ. Some of us may not need to read one reference book at all, while another may concentrate on just one reference book. We have to fellowship no matter what we do, and we have to coordinate together. Paul said that we should not despise prophecies (1 Thes. 5:20). This means that we have to respect the revelations that others have received. We have to honor the light that others have obtained.
From the beginning I have said that the ones who migrate have to be very strong. This is more serious than fighting a warfare. It would be terrible if we gave them a reed instead of arms for battle. We can only meet the need by going through strict training and by being equipped with the proper provisions. The leading brothers must exercise vigilance over the whole flock. We must equip them with the best supplies. We must study the Bible seriously according to the above method. We have to dig into a few reference books before we can understand what studying the Bible really means and before we can train the other brothers and sisters to study in the same way.
There are still too few young brothers and sisters among us. Some of the children, relatives, and friends of our brothers and sisters are still not saved and in the church.
The brothers and sisters who serve as the nursing mothers should consider and think carefully before the Lord. They have to pray to find out the way to help the young brothers and sisters around them and to provide them a place where they can speak and fellowship freely. At least once a week they should lead these young ones to have a Bible study during the day or pray with them. If the young ones have some problems or some physical illnesses, these ones should help them solve their problems and pray for them. In other words, all the nursing mothers should exercise much care over the young ones. Every house that is opened should provide the best care, and all the houses should help each other. The thirteen sisters should get together more often to discuss and pray. They have to provide a place for the young people to go to and a place for them to speak up.
The bread-breaking meeting will be conducted in five districts; they will meet in five homes. Every district will be supervised by some responsible brothers. We have not assigned any other tasks to these brothers. If they are encumbered by other tasks, they will be too busy to exercise supervision over others; they will not have the time to visit or to get into the situations. The first work of the responsible ones is visitation. The main work of the church is visitation. If we cannot take care of the visitation in a proper way, we will be like a man whose nervous system has broken down; there will be no communication. There are several kinds of visitations, including gospel visitation, new believers' visitation, and special visitation.
In gospel visitation we wrestle with Satan over men's souls; we try to snatch people out of Satan's hand. Of course, whoever pulls harder wins. If we have five hundred people who have signed up after a gospel meeting, we are not doing them any good by merely "sending their names to heaven" without visiting them one by one. This is like going to someone's house and presenting a business card at the door without entering into the house at all. What good does this do? Satan is evil in many ways, but he has one virtue — he is not slothful in zeal. If we preach the gospel on the Lord's Day and a hundred people sign up and express their willingness to receive the Lord, we have to follow up with a second step. We have to arrange for saints to visit them immediately. Within a week, we have to arrange for a hundred to two hundred brothers and sisters to visit them. We must not just invite people to come to the gospel meetings; we must send brothers to make personal calls to these ones. We have to surround them and gain them at any cost. The more gospel meetings we have, the more visitation work we need. If visitation falls behind, our gospel will fail miserably. The failure of the gospel mainly lies in the lack of visitation.
For the sake of efficiency, we will not centralize the arrangement of the visitation work. Instead, every district will take care of its own visitation. The responsible brothers of each district will make proper arrangements for this work. The period of time when a man is about to escape Satan's grip is the most dangerous time for him. If we visit him in that time and surround him, we will strengthen his faith. I believe that with the proper arrangement and the diligent visitation of the brothers and sisters, the number in the church will double in one to two months time. In one year our number can increase seven or eightfold. Someone once said that the sea is full of fish and the earth is full of people. This is absolutely right. Today two babies are born in China every five seconds. May our gospel match the increase in our population.
The new believers' edification has to be done with proper arrangements as well. Once our gospel visitation is strengthened and the number of new believers increases, there is the need of proper edification and perfection. Otherwise, the church will be overburdened. If we do not have a good new believers' edification program in the first year, it will be harder to make it up in the second year. If a baby does not open his mouth the first year after his birth, it will be hard to open his mouth eight or ten years later. This same principle applies in the church. If a man does not open his mouth in the first year, he will remain dumb after ten or twenty years. Dumbness is a matter of habit.
If we do not edify the new ones properly, we will add more burden to the church; many brothers and sisters will be brought into the church life in a muddled way. This easily will bring in worldly elements and human opinions. If this is the case, case the more people we save, the less spiritual the church will become, and the more problems we will have. Every worker must be clear that he has a double responsibility. On the one hand, he has to push people through the gate. On the other hand, he has to lead them on the way.
The goal of the new believers' meeting is to develop the proper habit and character in the new believers. Let me use myself as an example. When I was saved in 1919, I sometimes prayed twenty times a day and sometimes did not pray at all. I was very loose. The same could be said about my reading of the Bible. It was unstructured. When I was stirred up, I would read fifty or sixty chapters a day. When I was cold, I did not want to touch the Bible at all. It was only for conscience's sake that I would read one or two verses. I lived this way because I had not received good training and edification during the first year of my Christian life. The second year after being saved I went to Shanghai and met Miss Groves. She was a co-worker of Miss Barber. She asked me, "Do you read the Bible?" I was very clever, and I answered, "Yes." But she pressed further by asking, "How much?" I felt ashamed and dropped my head, saying, "Sometimes more, and sometimes less when I do not feel like reading." She testified, "From the time I was seven years old until now, I have memorized one verse a day. I am fifty-seven years old now. (She lived until well over seventy years old.) From the day that I became a Christian, I have never woken up after six o'clock." Her word pinned me down. During those few months, I was trained by her. This was a tremendous help to me in my later walk with the Lord.
We have to do the same with the new believers. Sometimes we have to walk with them for a while or stand on the street corner and recite a verse with them before letting them go. We have to learn to pick up the proper habit. We can prepare a prayer list and pray for the new ones every day. We have to study the Bible and remind each other to do the same thing every day. Then we have to help the new ones to do the same. This kind of training helps all of us develop a habit of godliness.
Reading the Bible and praying are not the only things that we should do; we have to help the new ones develop the habit of leading others to Christ. During the above mentioned period of time, I went to see Miss Groves every Saturday. She would ask me how many people I had saved that week. If I said that no one had been saved, she would say, "See, you have not saved anyone for a whole week. How many will you save this month? How many will you save this year?" The leading brothers have to learn to pin down the young ones step by step. We have to tell them that if they do not run a straight course, the ones coming after them will follow their example and will not have a proper walk. Once we relax in the new believers' edification, the church will be full of worldly Christians. Hong Kong has over two million people. We can easily gain some people if we work. We must not allow the brothers and sisters to have a concept that they can sit back comfortably in the church life.
The first year after I was saved, I brought a person to the Lord who was working as a cook for a Western missionary in Kuling. That was the result of preaching to him continuously for a few days on the mountain. I forgot his name and thought that no one would listen to me because I was just a boy. The first time I met Miss Groves, she asked, "You have been a Christian for a year. How many people have you saved?" I had been afraid that she would ask, and I lowered my head and said, "One." She said, "Do you have the audacity to tell me that you have saved only one?" She asked for the name of the person. I only knew that this one was a cook. She said again, "You only brought one to the Lord, and you don't know his name!" Later, she taught me how to deal with my sins. She taught me to make a prayer list and to persevere in prayer. Thank the Lord, in the second year I brought over sixty to the Lord.
If we do not study the Bible conscientiously, we cannot be a proper Christian. Throughout church history, it has been commonly recognized that no one can know the Lord properly if he does not study the Word properly. Not only do the young ones have to study; even the older ones have to do the same. The older ones have to check with the younger ones about their reading, and the younger ones have to check with the older ones about their reading. I give the younger ones the authority to check with the older ones so that the older ones will not be lazy. This is the only way for the church to become strong.
If a person develops the proper Christian habits at the beginning of his Christian life, it will be easy for him to go on as a Christian. Prayer, reading the Word, and leading men to salvation — these are things that we have to build up in a proper way. If we do, there will not be so many easygoing Christians. Once the number of easygoing Christians increases, the proper church service will disappear. Before we can go on in a proper way, we must build up these habits from the beginning. The fifty-two lessons for edifying new believers are the foundation. If you did not pick them up last year, you have to do so this year. We spoke about them in 1950. We still will speak about them in 1960. The subjects do not need to change. There is no need for improvement, because there is no need for advancement with foundational work.
There are always special occasions which arise in the families of the brothers and sisters, such as marriages and funerals. All these occasions call for visitation and consolation. Special visitation includes receiving and sending off out-of-town visitors. Many brothers and sisters come to Hong Kong from other places for a week only. If they do not meet any brothers during their stay here, they will feel that this is a lonely and inhospitable place. They will feel that the church does not look like a church at all. If five brothers come to Hong Kong today, we have to visit them immediately. We have to find out if they have any difficulty in lodging or in finding direction. We have to find out which church they are from. By warming their heart we may set their whole church on fire. We should pay a visit to any brother or sister who is passing by. We should render them practical help, fellowship with them, and get to know their church. Some churches are over ten years behind others in terms of life and spiritual condition. If we establish good fellowship with the visiting brothers, and they receive our help, they will pass on the help to their church. In this way our visitation will be the same in effect as sending these ones out in a migration.
The local brothers sometimes travel abroad. They may go to Canton, Swatow, or southeast Asia. When a brother leaves us, we often lose contact with him. When our brothers go away, we have to send them away like sending away missionaries. When a brother moves to another place, we must not only send him off with a letter of recommendation; we must assign a special person to correspond with him all the time. The letter of recommendation should only be the first letter regarding him; it should not be the last letter. The elders should write to the locality and inquire about his condition. After two weeks, they should write a third letter to follow up on the matter. Many times good brothers are lost as a result of moving to a new place. If the responsible brothers in the other localities are reminded again and again, they will know that the brothers in Hong Kong are persistent and that they should not ignore them. We should never allow a person to leave and become lost. Of course, this works the same way for brothers moving in from other localities; we cannot drop them.
Some of the responsible brothers in the districts are too busy. They can assign other brothers and sisters to write and maintain correspondence with the travelers. We can write to these travelers and tell them about the message covered during the last Lord's Day morning meeting. We should not let go until we know that our brothers and sisters are well established and settled. In this way we will be able to answer to the Lord. The elders have to make sure that the district's responsible brothers are faithful in the assignment of this work. The Closed Brethren in England do a marvelous work in this kind of visitation. Some of their brothers work as sailors. We know that sailors are just about the most unsettled kind of people on earth. But these brothers look for places to meet wherever they go. In Shanghai sailors looked us up often. Once a sailor knocked on my door late at night. I was surprised that he had my address. When asked about it, he told me that the responsible brothers from his locality had given it to him. These sailors came and went frequently. One time one of them was sick and stayed four months. He would come and visit me a few times a week. In the meetings he would sit in the last row. Sometimes he would read letters that he had received from brothers of his local assembly. The letters would keep him informed of what one brother had said and what another sister had prayed, etc. It seemed as if the whole church was following him wherever he went.
The church is advancing step by step. Today the Lord is taking the way of the church. This way requires the whole church to rise up to serve together. In fact, it is not enough for all the saints to rise up; they have to coordinate together. The church must never relax on these three kinds of visitations. They must be covered properly in the districts. When the whole congregation serves this way, the Body will be built up, and day by day the church will move closer to the glorious church spoken of in the Bible, and more and more it will be known as a spiritual church.
