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I have now been in Taiwan for almost three months, and I have tried my best to go to different meeting halls each Lord’s Day to see how we are teaching Truth Lessons. On one occasion when I met with the elders, I spoke a few words to them, but I did not pour out all my inward feelings because I never want to tell people what to do without first doing it myself. Empty knowledge is of no value; genuine knowledge is gained through experience. However, I am also clear that my commission in Taiwan is mainly for the translation of the Recovery Version into Chinese. I spend ninety percent of my time, and even one hundred and twenty percent of my energy, on this matter. For this reason I do not have the time to talk in a detailed way about the change in the system.
When we began to change the system, I said that we are doing something new. We must, therefore, learn to do things one step at a time. I never expected that the new way would be successful within one or two years. This is not possible. We need to work this out gradually in one accord. Concerning the teaching of Truth Lessons, after much observation I can only shake my head in resignation. Our way of teaching is not correct. We do not even know how to take care of a meeting. Please excuse me for saying this, and please do not be discouraged. I am speaking honestly because I want us to grow. Let me demonstrate how we should take care of a meeting. I want us to learn something.
In taking care of a meeting, the co-workers and elders must first be beside themselves. We must be “crazy” before God. The Lord Jesus was the first one to be beside Himself. Mark 3:20-21 says that He met so often that He did not even care for His food. His relatives came and pulled Him away, thinking that He had gone crazy. If the relatives of the Lord Jesus had not testified of this, we would never imagine that the Lord could be beside Himself for a meeting. We would have thought that the Lord met in an ordinary way and that the tone of His teaching was gentle and mild. However, if He had done this, His relatives would not have said that He was beside Himself.
The Lord Jesus was not the only one who was beside Himself; the apostle Paul was the same. In Acts 26:24, when Paul was defending himself before King Agrippa, Festus shouted, “You are insane, Paul. Much learning is driving you insane.” This means that Paul was so intense in his defense that others thought that he was insane. The spirit within him burst forth, and his entire being was “exploding.” In order to have an explosion, there must first be pressure. A deflated person can never be beside himself; he can never be “crazy.”
The expression beside Himself, as in Mark 3:21, means that one is away from himself; he is delivered from himself. Humanly speaking, when a man is delivered from himself, he no longer acts according to himself. He has lost the form and expression that characterize him. For example, ordinarily we may sing in a very polite way, but suddenly we jump and shout as we sing. It seems as if we have lost our senses and are insane. This is what it means to be beside oneself. I believe the Lord Jesus was this way when He met on that day. This is the reason His relatives said that He was beside Himself. If the co-workers and elders are beside themselves in the same way, and they are so “crazy” that they sing, prophesy, and read the Word ecstatically in the meeting, irrespective of how many people are present, our meetings will surely be successful and full of the supply.
The same principle applies to the teaching of Truth Lessons. We need to be crazy, and our spirit needs to explode. We cannot be like a deflated tire. Who will receive the gospel if we preach lamely and tamely like a deflated tire? Similarly, if we are not beside ourselves when teaching Truth Lessons, if there is neither life nor vitality, the brothers and sisters will be killed. After I visited some truth lesson meetings in various places, I became quite concerned. We cannot build up the church by taking care of the meetings in that way.
Whether it is the big meetings, the home meetings, or the meetings for teaching the truth, we first need to learn to lead the meeting in a proper way. Before we can speak to people, we must know how to begin the meeting properly and how to make people “come alive.” If the brothers and sisters sit before us like blocks of wood, and we ourselves behave like pieces of wood, there is no way for us to lead the meeting. In 2 Corinthians 5:13 Paul says, “Whether we were beside ourselves, it was to God; or whether we are sober-minded, it is for you.” This means that in our daily life we should be sober, but in the meetings, in order to glorify God, we must be beside ourselves and ecstatic for God. If we are lukewarm in the meeting, we are not being sober but are in fact bound and dead.
History shows that Christianity has been under the influence of deadness, darkness, dryness, and desolation for a long time. Such degradation has continued until it has reached the lowest level. The Reformation did not reverse this situation of deadness. It was only one hundred sixty years ago when the British Brethren were raised up to release the light of the truth that men were delivered from darkness. However, although these truths were received in the spirit, they eventually led to an exercise of the mind. In the name of defending the truth, numerous divisions were produced. Within fifty years the entire situation dried up, and the Lord was forced to raise up the Pentecostal movement as a reaction to the dead teachings of the Brethren. Those in the Pentecostal movement would shout, jump, and cry. They were no longer dead, but they had no regard for the truth. This went on until sixty years ago, when the Lord raised up His recovery through Brother Watchman Nee in China.
According to Brother Nee’s realization, the Lord raised us up in China because deadness, oldness, tradition, and Pentecostalism had pervaded the West. The Lord did not have a way to go on and was thus forced to turn to the East. Since the day that the Lord raised us up in China, the light among us has been clear; we know that it is the Lord who has raised us up. He wants us to overturn the formalism of Christianity, the deadness of the Brethren, and the wildness of the Pentecostal movement. We take the truth of the Brethren, but we reject its deadness. We take the release of the spirit among Pentecostals, but we reject their wildness. Regrettably, the co-workers have not been sufficiently infused and impressed with these characteristics in the Lord’s recovery. Today’s Christianity is a killing religion. Subconsciously, we have fallen prey to its influence.
I am not selling my “seniority,” but I have been conducting and holding meetings for more than fifty years. I have visited many places, and I am very familiar with the ways in which Christians meet. I have also read many books. I am clear about the deceiving, damaging, and ensnaring situation that exists today. We are still trapped in this snare. It is true that we are in the Lord’s recovery, but we are not completely free from the snare of Christianity. We may have been saved in the Lord’s recovery, but we still bear within our being the things that have ensnared Christianity.
This is the reason I put aside all considerations and openly rebuked the co-workers a year and a half ago. I did not “save their faces” or leave them with any place to turn. I did this because, more than anything, I hate being trapped in the snare of Christianity. I dearly love every co-worker, but I hate the things that issue from the influence of Christianity. Such things have been killing us from the day we were saved. Even today we are still passing these things on to others. This is what grieves and cuts my heart the most.
The co-workers have been under my training for the past thirty years, but even today not too many are beside themselves. This is sad. It is a loss to the Lord. I hope that from today we can all learn to be beside ourselves in our homes before we come to the meeting. We should be “crazy,” dancing before the Lord. This is not for men to see but for the demons, for the angels, and even for us. If we are “crazy” in our spirit, the brothers and sisters will be attracted and captured. In fulfilling my ministry in the United States, I did not speak beautiful English, and I certainly did not have any eloquence. Yet how did I attract so many brothers and sisters? I was able to be beside myself. We may have thousands of messages to deliver, and we may be full of God’s economy, but if we are silent and reserved and do not exercise and release our spirit, we will kill everyone. Only those who are beside themselves and who are released in their spirit can lead the meetings properly.
In my natural constitution I am a reserved person. By nature I do not like to contact people. My mother told me that when I was five or six years old, I did not like playing with other children. I was always by myself. Later, I received the Lord’s grace and was forced by the Lord to learn to overturn my natural constitution for the sake of serving Him. Today I am an old person, yet it is still easy for me to be beside myself. I am ashamed to see co-workers who have been under my training for more than twenty years who are unable to be beside themselves. This is a shame to me, and it is a shame to them. Brother Nee once said that if a Christian has never been beside himself once before God, he is not qualified to be called a proper Christian. For this reason all the co-workers must be beside themselves. We must learn to be “crazy.”
When I pray to the Lord, many times I hit the desk or the bed. Sometimes I jump, skip, dance, and wave my arms. We must realize that the truth, the Spirit of truth, life, and the Spirit of life make us “crazy.” In 1953 I conducted a formal training. I spoke to the trainees emphatically that they all needed to be “crazy” before God. When they set out to work for God, they needed to be beside themselves. Of course, this does not mean that we need to be crazy in front of others. We need to be sober before men but crazy in our spirit. Today when the full-timers visit people in the communities, they cannot act crazy when they come to people’s doors. This will scare people away. We should be polite and sober but not bound. When we sit down, we must pay attention to our posture. When we speak, our voice has to be gentle and kind. However, our spirit must be burning. If we can do this, the listeners will touch something in our inner being. They will think, “This man is attractive even while he is talking about Jesus. This is entirely different from what I have heard before.” This shows that one recipe may make a dry and unpalatable dish in the hand of one cook but a delectable, juicy, and savory dish in the hand of another.
Hence, if we are crazy before God, our words will be full of power. At a crucial juncture, others will be convicted. Once they are convicted, we can have the freedom to be crazy before them. Then they will fully respect what we have to say. I believe this was what Paul did before King Agrippa. At a certain point in his defense, Festus shouted, “You are insane, Paul. Much learning is driving you insane.” In visiting the communities, we should have similar experiences. I believe that if we follow these instructions, many people will be convinced, and in the end they will be saved and baptized.
We must be persons who are burning in spirit and crazy before God. Whether we are visiting the communities or going to a meeting, we must prepare ourselves by first being crazy at home. I once said that John Sung was called a mad preacher. He was a person who was absolutely beside himself before God. Once, as a meeting was waiting for him, he suddenly appeared at the back door, singing as he entered, “Down with Satan, down with Satan; out with sin, out with sin!” As he sang, the entire congregation came alive. He was dressed in a traditional Chinese long gown. As he stepped onto the podium, he would pull out some gambling cards from his sleeves and sing, “Down with card games, down with card games; out with gambling, out with gambling!” or “Down with mah-jongg, down with mah-jongg; out with the devil, out with the devil!” At times he would hold out an opium pipe and sing, “Down with the pipe, down with the pipe; out with opium, out with opium!” At the end he would hold up a little coffin in his hand and say, “Do you want to go on with your gambling? Your gambling will lead you to the coffin. Do you want to hold on to your opium? Your opium will lead you down to the coffin.” After this he would sing again, “Down with the coffin, down with the coffin; out with death, out with death!” Finally, he would make the call, saying, “All those who want to be finished with these things, please come to the front.” A great crowd always would come to the front, weeping and crying as they walked forward, saying, “I want to be finished, finished, finished with these things!” This is the way John Sung preached the gospel.
In conducting any meeting and in working for the Lord, our first need is to be beside ourselves before God. Such “craziness” cannot be imitated. We must first pray thoroughly, confess our sins, and be cleansed before we can be filled with the Lord and His riches. Once His riches fill us, we will spontaneously be beside ourselves. Hence, in order to be crazy, we must first confess our sins, repent, pray, enjoy the Lord, contact Him, and be filled and clothed with His riches. Then when we come to the meeting, whether we sing or teach the truth, we will be full of impact. All those listening to us will be affected. After doing this once or twice, the saints will not need to wait for us to take the lead to be crazy; they themselves will become crazy.
Our meetings should not be old and stale, routinely starting with a hymn followed by some prayers. We should be beside ourselves in our homes before the meeting. We should stir up our spirit at home and then come to the meeting hall with singing or prayer. As we arrive, we should sing, praise, and pray with one another. This kind of meeting will surely bring in God’s grace and His timely speaking.
During the past three months every time we met together, I sensed no living prayers. Most of the time it was the full-timers who prayed in a fervent way. The co-workers and elders were quiet and observing. If the co-workers and elders do not know how to be crazy and beside themselves, how can they lead the churches? In order for the churches to go on, there must be proper leadership, and in order to have proper leadership, the elders must be crazy. My wife often says to me, “The minute you speak, you forget about yourself. You forget about everything.” This is what we all should do. As soon as we come to the meeting, we should be beside ourselves. As soon as we speak for the Lord, we should be crazy. Only a person with a crazy spirit can conduct a meeting and make it come alive.
Being crazy has nothing to do with the outer man; it has to do with the inner man. We are crazy when our spirit is filled with the Lord’s Spirit. If we are persons who live and walk in the spirit, as soon as we walk into the meeting, the atmosphere will be changed. We have a spirit. If we use our spirit and live in our spirit as we choose a hymn, our choosing will be full of the spirit, and our singing will be full of the spirit. Our praying, reading, and speaking will all be full of the spirit. This is the basic qualification for conducting a meeting. If we do not use our spirit, our teaching of Truth Lessons will be nothing but dead reading, dead teaching, dead speaking, and dead listening. This is worse than the teaching in secular schools.
Not only do we need to live in the spirit; we must also stir up the spirit of all those in the meeting. The best way to stir up the spirit is to sing. I encourage us all to learn to sing our hymns. In particular, we should present this matter to the saints. We should tell them, “When we come to the meeting, we should not be bound and reserved. We are not here to attend a so-called ‘worship service’ of a denomination. We meet to release our spirit and to fellowship with one another in the spirit, receiving spiritual supply and spiritual infilling. In order to do this, we need to open up our spirit and stir up our spirit.” As the saints come to the meeting, we must encourage them and instruct them in this way. They should pray and sing in threes and fives to stir up their spirit and to enliven the atmosphere of the meeting. If we do this, our meetings will be different.
Concerning the teaching of Truth Lessons, the first thing we must remember is that we are not teaching a class in the public schools; we are teaching Truth Lessons in the church. This is altogether a matter of life and spirit. With a secular class, it is sufficient for the teacher to make the points clear. But with regard to teaching Truth Lessons, the focus is on the transmission of the Spirit and the dispensing of life. The Spirit is mysterious and intangible. How can we transmit the Spirit? Life is abstract and incomprehensible. How can we dispense life? Both the Spirit and life are in the truth. The reality of the truth is spirit and life (John 6:63). The real teaching of the truth is the transmitting and dispensing of the Spirit and life that is in the truth into people. For this reason we must be those who live in the Spirit and in life.
Second, I have pointed out again and again that each lesson of Truth Lessons is a message in itself that does not need expounding or additional comments by the teachers. The materials in Truth Lessons are rich and clear. The teachers should take the lead to learn. The teachers should have this attitude: “I am not a teacher. I am a student who is learning with everyone else.” If the teachers take the lead to learn and to lead the saints to read and absorb the lines, main points, outlines, big headings, and small items in Truth Lessons, what is read will become a supply to the saints. This is the reason I say, “Do not expound; simply read.” However, the reading should not be done in a dead way but in spirit. Moreover, we should not ask only one person or even several persons to read the whole lesson. Rather, all the saints should read as one person with one voice. This will provide all the saints the opportunity to open their mouths to read, and this will also help them to practice speaking in the meetings. The reading must be done livingly. The saints can ask questions and answer them in a mutual way. This can be compared to playing basketball; when the players pass the ball smoothly to one another, they play a beautiful game.
Third, the teachers must release their spirit. They should not be shy or cowardly. Their spirit must come out to stir up the spirit of the saints so that everyone will not be loose but will enter into the lesson seriously and receive a transfusion.
Fourth, the teachers must be prepared before coming to the class. Their preparation is mainly in studying the outline, not in searching for material. They must learn how to work the outline into the saints so that the saints may be deeply impressed.
Fifth, the teachers need to look for the important words in each paragraph and point them out to the saints.
Sixth, the summary at the end of each lesson is the key to entering into the lesson. Every point in the summary is the truth, every word is precious, and every sentence is excellent and full of life and light. The teachers should lead the saints to enter into the summary to enjoy it.
The Truth Lessons are rich in content, complete, and concise. Whether we can teach these lessons successfully altogether hinges on how we teach them. If we teach well, many will come to the meeting. There will be an atmosphere of desiring to attend these truth classes among the saints. The content of our ordinary meetings is a kind of communal cooking and is not too specific. The teaching of Truth Lessons is very practical and has a certain progression. This will help the saints to be solidly equipped with the truth and give them a taste of the riches of the Spirit and life.
For many years we have received a burden from the Lord to rid ourselves of the traditional way of meeting and have a proper practice. Therefore, at the end of a meeting, we should have a time for sharing. Without sharing, the meeting will be inadequate. The meeting for teaching Truth Lessons is no exception. There should be a period for sharing at the end of each lesson. Although we should ask one another questions and mutually answer and study in groups, we must still emphasize the sharing at the end. The purpose of learning the truth is to minister life and transmit the Spirit; it is not to find fault or simply study the wording. In particular, the prophecies and types require much time and effort to study; they cannot be thoroughly understood in three to five minutes by the saints in their groups. Consider the prophecy of the seventy weeks for example. The new believers do not need to understand everything about it. All they need to know is that there is the prophecy of seventy weeks in Daniel 9, and they should not try to be concerned with finding out its deep significance in the group study time. We all are “high-school students.” It is sufficient for us to understand the “high-school curriculum”; we do not need to know the things that will be taught in “graduate school.” The most crucial thing is not to give knowledge but to minister life and transmit the Spirit. Therefore, the saints must have a time for sharing at the end of the meeting.
As teachers of Truth Lessons, we need to pay attention to this one thing: we should not dress sloppily; rather, we should dress neatly and properly. We need to dress as if we are delivering gifts to people’s homes. Today even a salesperson dresses in a presentable way when he contacts his clients. If we do not tuck in our shirt and do not wear a tie when we bring a meeting to people’s homes, they will think that the meeting we bring is not valuable.
Mormonism is a big heresy. For example, the Mormons believe that the Lord Jesus was born of Adam and Mary, and they also advocate polygamy. Yet their way of preaching is very clever. It seems that everything the Lord has led us to do in Taiwan has been “stolen” by them. They go out two by two, visiting people from house to house, bringing the meeting to people’s homes, and teaching people how to begin a meeting at home. The most impressive thing is that all their young people are in suits and are neat and tidy, giving people a very positive impression. They do not smoke or drink. Neither do they drink coffee or tea. They can gain people because they have this kind of outward appearance and a clever way of preaching.
Recently, in my visits to different places, I noticed that some of the brothers wore neither a tie nor a proper shirt when teaching Truth Lessons. This is to sell our “diamond” cheaply. I do not believe that anyone who sells diamonds would not wear a proper shirt and tie. Although we do not have any dress regulation or requirement, I hope that all the ones responsible for the truth classes will dress properly. In the full-time training, I once told the trainees that the colors of their shoes and their socks did not match, and the color of their ties also did not match. They needed to learn how to dress properly. In the same way we also need to dress appropriately. If we are not properly attired, people will not be interested in us and will not believe what we say. Hence, we need to give people a feeling that we are proper and serious; moreover, we need to speak appropriately. Then people will think that we are weighty.
The same is true when we attend meetings. We should all dress in a serious manner. Today there is a heretical group in the Philippines that teaches people that Jesus Christ is not God, though they say He is a supreme human being. However, this group is very successful in the Philippines. The reason is that their meetings are orderly. Every attendant dresses properly, as if he were attending a banquet. The ushers wear nice uniforms, not extravagant ones but very proper ones. The area outside their compound is very messy, like all the streets in general. However, once one enters their compound, everything is orderly and regulated, and there are even attendants in the parking lot directing cars. In their meetings they exhort people to behave well, to be polite, moral, and loyal. They do not have much content in their preaching. They mainly teach people to be diligent and not slothful, to be honest and not tell lies, and to do everything by being punctual and by abiding by the rules. Many highly educated people agree with them, and many rich people like to hire members who belong to their group. Thirty years ago they had a membership of one million, and now they have four million. They surely are heretical, but because of their proper outward practice, they are very successful.
When I look at the situation of other groups and then consider the situation among us in the Lord’s recovery, my heart truly aches. Please allow me to speak a frank word, for I do have the ground. In a training I held here thirty years ago, I spoke on thirty character points. I also built a simple, plain workers’ home, but everything in it was orderly — even the plants were well trimmed and tidy. After I left for America and handed the home over to your care, it deteriorated year after year. Several times when I came back to Taiwan, I felt that the construction of hall one was good but that it had not been used properly. The entrance is not presentable. The books on the shelves are not tidy; some are worn out, and some have missing pages. Please consider this: If some educated ones who have a heart to seek the Lord, and who occupy high positions in society, came here, would they want to join us? We have erred in the Lord’s work and misrepresented the Lord’s recovery.
I am not asking that we build magnificent meeting halls. Our meeting halls should be simple, clean, tidy, and practical. I hope that the co-workers, elders, and full-timers would have a change in concept. Today the Taiwanese society has advanced. The shop fronts and restaurants have changed their appearances. Hence, we also cannot stay the same. We should not be as crude and simple as in the past, nor should we be fashionably extravagant. We must realize that we are representing the Lord to bring “diamonds” and “gems” to people. We are bringing truth, life, and the Spirit to God’s children and God’s chosen ones. Therefore, we should have a certain appearance, especially in our meetings.
Moreover, as teachers and leading ones in the meetings, we should pay attention to our speaking in public. Our natural man does not pay attention to speaking, so we need some adjustment and practice in this aspect. We should practice speaking to ourselves in front of a mirror at home and improve our speaking. Since we have received a commission to teach Truth Lessons, we should learn how to speak them. In particular, we should pay attention to our tone and speed. Sometimes we need to speak loudly; at other times we need to speak softly. Sometimes we need to speak fast, and at other times we need to speak slowly. Otherwise, even though we may have spoken much, people still may not understand what we have said. This is a waste. I hope that for the sake of the Lord’s testimony, we all will learn this.
If the Lord wills, I will gradually hold more trainings. In the past I have held trainings in the big meetings and for the co-workers. However, I feel sorry that these trainings were failures because the co-workers did not practice accordingly. We have a vast amount of spiritual assets in the Lord’s recovery, yet our work has not been effective. This is because we have not paid attention to our appearance, and we do not have a practice that represents us well. Hence, we cannot break through in our work. The heretical group in the Philippines tripled its number in three years; however, our number has not increased; on the contrary, it has decreased. We have the truth and life, but because our method is inappropriate, we lack a proper practice to represent us. Since we have brought in the loose character of the Chinese, we are now in our current situation.
Please bear with me in my speaking. Today in Taiwan, people in the industrial, commercial, political, military, and academic fields are aggressively making changes. They discard old things and adopt new things. They are not the same as they were in the past. I hope that all the churches can have a big change, including the change of system that I introduced. Because of our weak foundation, our work will be quite complicated. I myself am not able to personally lead us in every detail. I hope that we all will seriously pay attention to what I have fellowshipped.
What I have shared is not merely related to changing our method of teaching Truth Lessons. I want us to see that meetings for the teaching of the truth are crucial. If the truth classes are carried out in a good way, all the other aspects of our work will be successful. The foundation of the entire church is the home meetings, and the key to successful home meetings is the teaching of the truth. If we are successful in establishing these two meetings, we will be able to spread to the communities, towns, and villages.
We cannot rely on big meetings in which one person speaks and everyone else listens. In the big gospel meetings that we have held in stadiums, we gained quite a number of people, but in the end only a few remained. Now we must concentrate on the home meetings. When the saints coordinate together to go door-knocking, the result is better than that of the big gospel meetings. Presently the full-time trainees go door-knocking twice a week in the communities; later they will propagate in the towns and villages. If we continue to labor in this way, we will give the Lord a way to advance.
We must clearly see that the change of system is intended to be a thorough change, a complete change. The change of system will enable the saints to have good habits and good character. For example, they will not dress casually for the meetings, but they will dress neatly and properly. When they go door-knocking, they will not be careless. Because we have neglected our outward appearance in the past and did not pay attention to a wise practice that could represent us, we encountered difficulty in every step of our propagation. The truths are here like a pile of diamonds, but we have treated them as if they were dung. This is the reason people do not recognize them as diamonds and do not want them. Now we need a big change to turn everything around so that people will see the diamonds and come for them.
I beseech that we pray much concerning the burden of this chapter and ask the Lord for His mercy. We need to call on the Lord and tell Him that we truly need His mercy. In the past He gave us so many rich truths, but if we do not give Him the way today, He will not have a way to advance. May the Lord turn us absolutely and have mercy on us so that we will not receive His riches and grace in vain.
