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Prayer: Lord Jesus, we worship You. Thank You that by Your sovereignty You have gathered us together once again. We do treasure this time. Lord, we offer up our worship, thanksgiving, and praise for Your recovery, for Your move among us, and for Your leading. Lord, bless this meeting, and fill this meeting with Yourself and Your presence. Lord, multiply Your blessing to us moment by moment. Let others see that You are in our midst, that You have a recovery on earth, and that this recovery is Your testimony, Your move, and Your spread on earth.
Lord, open our hearts in the same way that You have opened up Yourself to us. Grant us an open sky. May there be no veil, no shadow, and no hindrance within us, and may we be altogether shining within and without. Lord, remove all barriers and veils between You and us. Speak to us, Lord. We consecrate our hearts to You. We consecrate our entire being to You. We consecrate this entire move to You as a living sacrifice to satisfy Your heart. May You spread outward from us, and may You gain a free way through us. Lord, may none of us become a hindrance to You, and may there be no limitations or frustrations in us.
Manifest Your victory through us once again. May the victory at Calvary be realized, applied, and manifested once more through us today. May the enemy be shamed once more. Lord, this is Your move. You want to gain not only this land but also the whole earth. We thank You that there are hundreds of golden lampstands on the earth today. Bless Your work. We would like to see a brand new beginning. Lord, gain us, beginning from Taiwan. Gain every church and every saint. May every one of us be like David, who was according to Your heart. May Your light shine brighter and brighter, and may it be like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until the full day.
Lord, glorify Your name. Bind the power of darkness in Your name. Bind the evil one, Satan, Your enemy. Bind everything that opposes, destroys, and counters Your move. Lord, we exercise Your prevailing name to release Your children and loose the sinners. Lord, this is Your promise. You have promised us that whatever we bind will be already bound in heaven, and whatever we loose will be already loosed in heaven. Lord, release Your life, Your truth, and Your Spirit. In Your victorious name and according to Your word, we command You to act according to Your own glory. Lord, release Your riches, Your all-inclusive and unlimited Being, through Your victorious name.
Lord, we ask You to look at the situation on this earth. Destroy the power of darkness so that You can carry out the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity in all the places. May all those who call on Your name be not only saved but also fully saturated and fully gained through the divine dispensing of the Triune God, and may this hasten Your coming back. Lord, we worship You and give all the glory and honor to You. We acknowledge You as the Head, both of the church and of all things. We call upon heaven and earth to testify to the fact that You have a recovery on this earth and that there are some who have placed themselves on the altar to satisfy Your heart. Lord, move freely without any hindrance. Amen.
We have been under the Lord’s new leading since October 1984. During this past year and a half, we have seen the Lord’s manifold blessings both in an obvious and visible way and in a hidden and invisible way. In this meeting I would like to present a summary and some concluding observations.
I believe all of us are clear that the Lord gave us this fresh leading to bring in an increase in number in all the localities and to spread the work over the whole earth. Increase is a matter of number, and spreading is a matter of land. During the past year and a half, we have been following the Lord’s leading step by step and have not paid much attention to the spreading; that must wait for a future date. Although we have not been as strong as we would like, we have done our best to take care of the increase in the localities. In Taipei we began the practice of turning from the small group meetings to the home meetings at the beginning of this year. Within three months the number in attendance increased from three thousand to more than five thousand. This is a sixty to seventy percent increase. Although the rate of increase has not come up to our expectation, it is nevertheless a great encouragement to us. Now under the Lord’s new leading, we must pay attention to the building up of the church in all the localities by increasing our number. Then we should spread out upon this basis of building and increase.
I do not know how clear the brothers from different places have been concerning the new leading of the Lord in the vision of building and increase in the localities. Over the past eighteen months I believe we have seen something concerning this new leading from the Lord. What concerns me is that there may be a great difference in the degree to which we have seen the vision. This may be compared to taking an examination; some may obtain a score of sixty, and others a score of one hundred. I would, therefore, like to present once more in a concise way the vision of the Lord’s new leading that He has shown us.
The aim of this new leading of the Lord is to totally deliver His recovery from the element, essence, background, environment, and tradition of Christianity. It is a deliverance from the inside out. Although this was the vision we saw sixty years ago, we have not yet fully and completely purged ourselves from Christianity; we are still dragging our feet, even after sixty years of struggling and striving. In 1984 I realized that we had actually moved backward rather than forward. Some things, which we had previously dropped, were picked up again. This disturbed me to the uttermost. So I considered the situation very soberly before the Lord.
At that time I was observing the situation not only in the Far East and Taiwan but also in the United States and other areas in the West. I noticed that the main reason the Lord could not move much among us was that to a great extent we were still very much affected by the poison brought in by the element, essence, background, environment, and tradition of Christianity. Outwardly, we had rejected all the things of Christianity, but as far as the inward essence was concerned, to a large extent we were still entangled in these things. I received the commission from the Lord to “change the system,” beginning from Taiwan. When I returned to Taiwan from the United States in October of 1984, I told the American brothers that this return to Taiwan would be different from all my past visits. I wanted to have a brand new beginning with the view that the Lord would have a definite model for His entire recovery, a model that would satisfy His heart’s desire. I initiated a thorough change as soon as I arrived in Taiwan.
Building up the home meetings in every believer’s home is the first and foremost thing in our new beginning. This is not a matter of choice. As long as a person is a believer, he is our brother in the Lord, even if he is the weakest, coldest, and most indifferent, backslidden person. Therefore, we must make every effort to build up a meeting in his home. I said from the beginning that the small group is the foundation for the building up of the church and that such a small group must be built upon the foundation of the home meetings.
The scriptural basis for the small groups and the home meetings is the expression from house to house in Acts 2:46 and 5:42. One and a half years ago I pointed out emphatically that on the day of Pentecost, as soon as the church was raised up on the earth, it began to meet from house to house. That was an unprecedented move; it was something that Judaism had never done before. It was not an idea that Peter inherited from the Jewish religion. Rather, it was a brand new thing, a creative act of God, and something that He ordained. Based on this, we were bold to say that we must have the small meetings, the group meetings, not only the big meetings. Eventually, the group meetings brought in the home meetings.
At the end of last year and the beginning of this year, we were clear that we could not be satisfied with the so-called small group meetings alone. According to my observation, however, the brothers in Taiwan and the United States have misunderstood the meaning of the small group meetings. They do not understand the small group to mean the home meetings, but merely a few brothers and sisters from the same area meeting together. Although these small group meetings were conducted in the homes, they were conducted in selected homes. That was not my original intention. I realized that our change was merely outward; there was no change in the inward substance. Our practice was still contrary to the revelation of the Bible. I felt that there was the need for more fundamental changes.
I was clear that the Lord wanted me to first build up a model in Taiwan. Because of this, I told the brothers from the United States that I did not want them to hear anything or to spread anything. It would be useless for them to copy Taiwan. They need to wait patiently until we arrive at some kind of result, and the success in Taiwan is realized. Our practice in Taiwan is a model, and all the practices will come out of this model.
When I returned to Taiwan, I emphatically told the brothers to divide up the small group meetings into home meetings. Actually, the term small group meeting is a temporary designation. In the Bible the only reference to the small groups is when the Lord divided the crowd into groups, in the story of the multiplication of loaves and fish. When we divided up the church in Taiwan into groups and homes thirty years ago, we based our practice on the grouping that the Lord practiced in the multiplication of the loaves and fish. The pattern we saw in Acts, however, was that as soon as the church was raised up, the believers met not by “groups” but by “houses”; the meetings were conducted in every believer’s home. Based on this, we decided that we could no longer focus our attention on the big meetings. Instead, we must focus our attention on the home meetings. We need to do our best to build up the home meeting in every believer’s home.
During this time we also learned some lessons on preaching the gospel. First, during the past year and a half the brothers from America saw the practice of preaching to people one-on-one. We should not use the big meetings, nor the small meetings, nor meetings with two or three to preach the gospel. Instead, we should preach to people one-on-one. This is a very effective way. We also began this practice in Taiwan. During the past two and a half years we have brought in many people. Such a practice was compatible with our emphasis of meeting “from house to house.”
Based on such practices, the Lord showed us clearly that we need to bring the gospel to people’s homes. We should no longer pay that much attention to bringing people to the gospel meetings for them to listen to someone preach the gospel. In spite of our strenuous efforts, we have experienced the futility of such work. New ones come to such meetings thinking that they are doing us a great favor. At the end of the meeting they usually fly away like birds in the air; with a “goodbye” they are gone, and there is no way to keep them. Now the situation is different. We no longer invite people to come and listen to a message. Instead, we deliver the gospel to their homes. When we deliver the gospel to their homes, we are spontaneously preaching one-on-one. If other family members are present in such a meeting, we have a home meeting.
Hence, not only do believers need such a meeting; a seeker of the gospel can also have such a meeting. There is no need to invite him to come to the meeting hall or to a small group meeting. There is no need to even invite him to a saint’s home. We can visit him, deliver the gospel to him, and meet with him in his own home. Such a practice of delivering the Bible, the truth, the Lord Jesus, and salvation to a person’s home is absolutely different from our practice of the past. Those who receive our message in such a way will truly have a different kind of feeling. Formerly, they had to come to us; they were granting us a favor. Now we are going to them; we are granting them a favor. They will surely be grateful to us for this.
We did not have such a practice when we were in mainland China. At that time Shanghai was the largest city in China. It was an indifferent city. People could live in the same small street for more than ten years without speaking to one another. No one was interested in anyone else. If we visited them, they would peep through their door hole and ignore us as they would a stranger. The same was true in Hong Kong, where there was a lack of law and order; no one dared to open his door. But this was not the case in Taiwan thirty years ago; people were cordial and warm. Regrettably, at that time we did not see this way.
Today there are many new urban communities in Taipei consisting of blocks and blocks of high-rise apartment buildings. Every building houses at least eighty to a hundred units. When we visit these units, most of the occupants are very cordial and polite. Of course, some turn away from us, but it is difficult to find one family that strongly opposes the gospel, the Bible, or the Lord Jesus. As long as we can enter a person’s home, we can meet in that home, and we can speak to people one-on-one. Sometimes we can find some dormant saints, and when we begin talking to them about the Lord, their cold hearts are rekindled. Visiting people from house to house is truly the best way and the God-ordained practice.
Recently, the full-timers have been coordinating with the local saints to visit the communities twice a week. Every time they come back, they report to us cases of baptisms. This truly surprised the overseas brothers. They spend much time and effort to bring a person to the Lord. But when we knock on people’s doors, the doors are opened, and when we enter to talk to them and read with them a portion of The Mystery of Human Life, they pray, believe, receive the Lord, and are baptized in their own bathtubs. Anyone who preaches the gospel to a person is qualified to baptize that person. This is something new. All the overseas brothers find this place too attractive and do not want to leave. They want to stay here to have a better taste of such a practice.
In the four Gospels we find an excellent example of preaching the gospel to sinners — the salvation of Zaccheus (Luke 19:1-10). Zaccheus was not saved through a “gospel campaign” conducted by the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus did not send Peter or John to invite him to come to a meeting. Rather, the Lord Jesus entered Jericho Himself and brought the gospel to Zaccheus’s home. Eventually, He said, “Salvation has come to this house” (v. 9). Salvation did not come to Zaccheus alone; it came to his house. This is the proper and standard way to preach the gospel.
This year we have earnestly tried to practice this way. We no longer rely on the big gospel meetings. Last October we had a big gospel meeting in the stadium. Fourteen thousand people attended. It was a great scene, but there was not much result; only a few people were saved. The effect did not come close to what we have accomplished during the past six months by bringing people to the Lord one by one through visiting their homes. One point worth noting is that with our present practice we can immediately arrange for the next visit with the new ones. This means that we can arrange a time to have the next home meeting. In this way the home meeting is established. The advantage is that we bring salvation not only to an individual but to a home, even to relatives and friends of that home.
In the new leading of the Lord, we first build up everything related to the church in the homes and not in the meeting halls. We should depend on knocking on people’s doors and visiting them one by one and not on the big meetings. Second, we feel that God’s desire is to raise up a group of people who are full of life and truth. They should be rich in life and clear in the truth. Paul said that God desires all men to be saved and to come to the full knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4). For this reason we published Truth Lessons. We anticipate that these lessons will comprise four levels, with four volumes in each level. These are systematic lessons drawn from the light that the Lord has given us. They are put together in a proper way and according to the proper light. We are paying much attention to this work.
Besides the home meetings, we must pay close attention to the meeting for teaching the truth. Every class should not have too many people, preferably fewer than fifty. All the classes within the same hall should conduct the same lessons at the same time. We believe that as the new ones are saved in the home meetings, and as they receive edification from the new believers’ lessons, they should subsequently be taught in small classes in the truth meetings. In this way they are equipped with the truth and are perfected by it. Hence, in our changing the system, the home meetings and the truth-teaching meetings are the two most basic and crucial meetings in the church life.
Besides these things, the most important thing is to read the Lord’s Word every day. Through this we enjoy Him and keep His word. We also need to break bread to remember Him on the day of His resurrection. This renders Him the true remembrance and affords us the solid feeding. In addition, every week we should gather together to pray. Through such prayer we cooperate with God’s move. These two kinds of meetings can be carried out in the districts, in the small groups, or when the whole church comes together. The first Lord’s Day of every month, all the saints in a particular hall should gather together for the Lord’s table meeting. For the other Lord’s Days they can meet in districts. The same principle applies to the prayer meetings.
In all our meetings we should emphasize the Lord’s Word. During the bread-breaking meeting we can choose some practical, concise, and meaty portions for everyone to pray-read and enjoy. We can then share and testify concerning these portions. This will satisfy the Lord and minister to our needs. For the prayer meeting we can choose some messages on service that open up the basic spiritual principles of service. In the home meetings there should be some short messages for edification besides the fellowship, prayer, hymns, and greetings. This will help to raise up the new believers. We do not like to see people come to our meetings without learning something of God’s Word or without God’s Word being ministered to them. We hope that in every meeting some word from the Lord is released and ministered to the brothers and sisters. If we nourish the saints with these three kinds of messages in the bread-breaking meetings, the prayer meetings, and the home meetings, and if we teach Truth Lessons in a systematic, solid, and educational way, the saints will be helped and perfected.
Such arrangements will adequately meet the various needs of the saints and the church. Moreover, they will bring in an increase that is built on the basis of the homes. Such increase will be unlimited. If a believer opens up his home to have a meeting once a week, all his relatives and friends will identify his household as a believer’s household. They will know that such a home preaches the gospel, reads the Bible, and teaches the truth. Most people today concur that Christianity is the highest and noblest religion in this world. The Bible is a well-recognized and well-honored book. We believe that even the weakest home can gain one person per month. If there are four thousand such open homes in Taipei, every month they will bring in four thousand people. The prospect of such a work is more than we can ask or think.
For this reason we cannot remain the same. We cannot drag people to come to listen to the gospel. Instead, we need to go to them. We need to send the truth of the gospel to their homes. However, do not think that the gospel is merely a matter of saying, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that everyone who believes into Him would not perish, but would have eternal life.” This is the basic element of the gospel, but this is not the entire gospel. We must learn to adjust ourselves to accommodate others and speak according to man’s needs. For example, if we see an upright person who loves famous quotes, we can read a few verses from Proverbs to give him a good impression of the Bible and to stir up his appetite. After this we can give him the basic truth of the gospel. At times we can use some prophecies to show people the value and power of the Bible. This will stir up people’s interest as well as command their respect. In particular, the Chinese people love Psalm 1; nothing in Confucius’s teaching has the sweetness that this psalm has. We can also quote this psalm in a wise way in our preaching.
Since we are delivering the gospel to people’s homes, our person must match the goods that we deliver. When we go to people, we must dress properly. First Timothy 2 teaches us that we should dress soberly, not adorning ourselves with braided hair, gold, pearls, or costly clothing (vv. 9-10). When others see us dressed in this way, they will open the door and welcome us, and it will be easy for them to receive what we have to say. All our books are nutritious food. Whether they are on life, truth, or the gospel, they all are what every man needs.
We must believe in the sovereign arrangement of the Lord. What He has done in Taiwan is to prepare the way for the gospel. Most of the people in the communities are very friendly. Even if they do not accept the gospel, seldom do they rail against us. Once some saints visited a community and met a woman who had just come back from the market. When she met the saints and observed how proper they were, she invited them in. After she heard the gospel, she received it with joy and was baptized in her home. Afterward she told the saints that her husband worked in Tainan and asked how the gospel could be preached to him as well. The saints told her that Tainan has a church with many believers and that they could take his name and deliver the gospel to him. This shows that when the gospel reaches one person, it can bring salvation to the entire family.
The Lord has indeed rendered unprecedented provisions for the new way. He has prepared man’s heart. The minute we send the gospel to the homes, many doors are opened, and people invite us to come back. I hope that we will deliver the truth as well as the gospel to people’s homes. In this way the new believers will be educated in the truth. We can use short twenty-minute videotapes to help the new ones, or we can take advantage of the telephone and teach them over the phone. In this way we deliver the gospel, the truth, and the meeting to people’s homes. This is the best way to build the church locally in the Lord’s recovery and to bring in the spread and increase universally.
We have clearly and adequately covered the above points in the past training meetings. I hope that we will change our concept from the big meetings in the halls to building up the home meetings in every believer’s home. This is the foundation of the building up of the church, and this is the life pulse for the spread of the church.
When we initially received this new leading from the Lord, we emphatically pointed out that we have enjoyed much blessing from the Lord in Taiwan. Our number is not small. However, for forty years we have not saturated the entire island with the gospel. This is our shame as well as our shortage. Where in Christianity can we find another group of people who have received as much truth from the Lord as we have? Yet we have locked up all these riches. We have not spread them. We have come short. Paul said that he was a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians (Rom. 1:14). Today there are almost twenty million people in Taiwan, but the number of Christians is fewer than half a million, perhaps even fewer than three hundred thousand. We cannot blame the brothers and sisters in the denominations for not doing their job. They have not received as much light and truth as we have received. The truth that we release in our conferences and trainings is clear, transparent, and rich. Yet we have not brought many people to the Lord. This is the reason I say again and again that we have come short. We are indebted to the Lord as well as to our countrymen.
Hence, we have accepted a heavy burden before the Lord to pay back our debt and gospelize Taiwan within five years. We should even “truthize” and “churchize” Taiwan. The gospel, the truth, and the church need to spread all over this land. To achieve this goal, I have proposed that over the next five years we bring in five hundred full-time serving ones each year. They should be college graduates. We will form these two thousand five hundred people into an army and will evangelize all the towns and villages of Taiwan. Now we have two hundred sixty-six full-timers. In the coming term, perhaps two hundred fifty more will join them. We will then have more than five hundred. We hope that by 1988 we will have at least a thousand full-timers who are well equipped and trained to go out to spread the work.
After much consideration before the Lord, we propose to initially send these one thousand full-timers out in one hundred teams. Each team will have ten members. They will go to one hundred towns and will work for a month in the new way, visiting people, preaching the gospel, and building up the church. After this, two members will stay behind to take care of that locality. The rest will regroup into eighty teams and go to eighty more towns. In this way, in five months we will cover all three hundred twenty towns throughout Taiwan. Every town will have two workers remaining in the town to take care of the situation. This is six hundred forty people. The remaining three hundred sixty will return to the big cities to work with others in the community visitation. They will take every high-rise apartment as a “town.” In addition they will also move aggressively onto the campuses to gain the students.
This is the way we are taking. In five years we will spread a big net over the entire island of Taiwan, a net of the gospel, a net of truth, and a net of the church. After this we will have another five years to evangelize all the small villages and communities. By that time every year we will have college graduates who will join our full-time training. After their training they will either go to the towns to strengthen the testimony, spreading the gospel to the surrounding villages, or they will cooperate with the work in the cities to gospelize all the communities and campuses. By 1994 all the cities, towns, and villages will be saturated with the gospel, the truth, and the church. This is not a dream. It is something that can be realized.
Forty years ago the Lord brought us to Taiwan. He has blessed this government, and after forty years of hard work, Taiwan has reached a state of prosperity. Communication is well developed, the standard of living is high, the educational level is excellent, and people’s hearts are open to the gospel. Many brothers and sisters occupy top positions in various areas of society. This is the Lord’s doing. He has done this for the gospel’s sake. We must cooperate with the Lord’s work and reach the three goals in our evangelizing work — to gain the communities in the big cities, to gain the towns and villages, and to gain the campuses.
According to statistics, there are more than forty thousand saints in the Lord’s recovery in Taiwan. Of those, more than eighteen thousand meet regularly. If all these eighteen thousand saints rise up and consecrate themselves to function in an organic way, the dormant ones will follow. Everyone will be driven to pray, and everyone will offer himself to take advantage of the golden opportunity that the Lord has provided us. To gospelize Taiwan in five years will be light and easy. With such a situation before us, I hope that we will be wise and do everything to cooperate with the Lord.
At present, although the amount we give to the full-timers is small, the total sum is sizeable. Every month the church in Taipei needs seven hundred fifty thousand dollars. For the whole island the total is $1.82 million. In addition to this, there is the need of building the big meeting hall. Our present total offering per month for the entire island is about twelve million. In order to cooperate with the five-year plan of gospelizing Taiwan, and in order to produce more full-timers to meet His need and to have enough support to sustain them, there is the need for more brothers and sisters to give materially to the Lord in a more faithful way.
Prayer: Lord, what a glory that at this crucial time and place we have a part in such an economical move of this age — the move of evangelizing Taiwan in five years! Lord, thank You that You have chosen us to be the crucial persons. We all say Amen to this move. This is the King’s business. This is a move from the throne. We will all rise up to join Calvary’s host. Lord, we know for certain that this is not a dream or empty talk. It is our glorious future. You will help us to reach this goal. We say Hallelujah to this glorious and victorious move!
