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Christianity has become degraded because it has given up four crucial matters — Christ, the Spirit, life, and the church — and has fallen into forms, methods, organizations, and systems, which result in religion. History tells us that before the Western missionaries came to China, there was not the term chiao-hui — church — which literally means “a religious gathering.” It was after the missionaries introduced Christianity to China that there was the need to invent the term chiao-hui to express a religious gathering. After two hundred years this term has been widely accepted and is now even borrowed by other religions, such as certain Buddhist sects, to describe their organizations. This shows that the term church has fallen into the realm of religion. It is on the level of religion. The church as we know it today has actually become a religion.
From the time of the book of Revelation, the Lord has been calling believers throughout the centuries to come out, not from the true church but from the degraded religious system. Revelation 2 and 3 show that even after the church became degraded, the Lord still wanted the believers to remain in the church and be the overcomers. However, chapters 17 and 18 of this book show that the Lord calls the believers to come out, not from the church but from the religious system, the religious gathering, which is the religious organization. Up until today, however, we still have not witnessed a clear deliverance from the influence of that religious organization. This is true even in the Lord’s recovery. We say that we have left religion behind, but we are still somewhat “dragging our feet in the mud.” We have not completely rid ourselves of it; there is still “mud” all over us.
The beginning of Genesis shows that when God created man, He created a spirit within him in order that man may contact Him, receive Him, contain Him, and express Him. For this reason there is always a need within man for God. This need is innate in man; it is created by God, and it spontaneously manifests itself within man. No matter how fallen man becomes, there is still this need within him for God. This is an undeniable fact.
Six thousand years of human history reveal that all people, whether cultured or barbaric, have a desire to worship God. The reason for this is that there is a spirit in man. This can be compared to saying that man needs to eat because he has a stomach, but whether or not he is eating the right food is a different matter. In the same way we have within us a “spiritual stomach,” which is our spirit. This spirit creates in us a need for God. Before man fell, he did not have a need for religion because at that time man could come to God, contact Him directly, and enjoy Him as his satisfaction. There was no need for regulations, forms, organizations, or institutions to help him, for the living God was leading and guiding him directly. However, man fell again and again. First, Adam fell and departed from God. Then Cain fell further and was driven from the face of God, losing God’s presence forever. Because of the fall, man needed a replacement for God, and religion came into being.
Genesis 4 shows clearly that the descendants of Cain invented human culture to satisfy man’s need as a replacement for God. Man had lost God and had fallen away from His face. He was estranged from God and could not meet the deepest need within his being. The only thing he could do was to invent human culture to satisfy his need. We have covered this matter clearly in the Life-study of Genesis (see Message 24). In order to satisfy his human needs, man invented all kinds of things in his culture. He invented husbandry, weaponry, and music. Husbandry is for food, which is for sustenance; weaponry is for protection, which is for defense; and music is for entertainment, which is for enjoyment. This is a natural consequence of man’s effort to satisfy his fallen needs.
Man’s culture was created based on his need. For example, because man was not satisfied with the mule-wagon for transportation, he sought for advancement and invented the automobile. Later, he became dissatisfied with the automobile and invented the airplane. Then the airplane did not satisfy him because he wanted to go to the moon; as a result, he invented the rocket. The reason that man invented music and the various musical instruments, such as the drum, the flute, and the stringed instruments, is that he needed entertainment and enjoyment for his soul. After man fell, the earth was cursed, and food production became limited. As a result, men fought with one another. So in order to satisfy his need for safety and protection, he invented weapons, such as the sword and the spear. Eventually, however, man discovered that his greatest need was in his deepest part, his spirit, and this need he could not satisfy. He discovered that he had a need to worship. As a result, he invented religion and began to turn to idol worship.
Today in the twentieth century we live in an age of unprecedented developments in science and culture. Taiwan is an example of this. Everything here is advancing and moving ahead; education is highly emphasized, and technology is advancing. Yet at the same time, idolatry is abounding everywhere. The radio, the television, and all the mass media indicate that religion is welcomed everywhere. This is especially true with Buddhism. As long as there are teachings concerning doing good with the reward of heaven and doing evil with the threat of hell, people will be gullible and swallow it. What we see in America is also difficult to believe. A nation as advanced and highly educated as the United States finds some of its own people pursuing the Eastern religions, dressing themselves in priestly gowns with ponytails and chanting to the sound of Buddhist instruments. If I was in Africa, I would not be so surprised, but I am in Los Angeles. This puzzles me. It seems as if modern man is so hungry that he will eat anything. Because of an unabating need to worship God, man turns to all kinds of “medicine” to cure his “ailments.”
Religion is something that human culture developed to satisfy human longing. Sixty years ago I read a book entitled The Two Babylons, which speaks of the record in Genesis 11. There man built a tower at Babel that was to reach heaven. Every brick on that tower was engraved with the name of an idol. This shows that at the time of Genesis 11, the entire earth was engaged in idol worship.
This is the reason Joshua told the children of Israel in Joshua 24:2-3, “Thus says Jehovah the God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt across the River long ago, Terah the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor; and they served other gods. And I took your father Abraham from across the River and brought him throughout all the land of Canaan.” While the world was worshipping idols, God called Abraham out from among the idolaters and caused him and his descendants to serve the one true and living God. In the New Testament the Lord Jesus, who is God manifest in the flesh, also called His disciples to follow Him and charged them to disciple all the nations, spreading the gospel of the kingdom to the entire earth to be a testimony to all people. Yet Christianity once again lowered such a salvation from the Lord’s standard to the level of a product of human culture. It became a religion, an organization in human culture.
God is certainly a wise God. Had there not been the Pentateuch at the time of Moses and had the other books of the Bible not been written, we would not have the Bible today, and the world would be in an unimaginably fallen state. We thank the Lord that no matter how much human history has been on a downward path and no matter how fallen Christianity has become, we still have the Bible. The Bible shines in the dark age as a lamp in the darkness and a light for the world. The Bible is also like a track laid before men, leading men to the right path. Although men can choose whether or not to take the track, the track is nevertheless there.
Degradation has no bottom to it. Not only are the world and humanity degrading day by day; even Christianity has become an ever-degrading religion. Its trend is forever downward. Nevertheless, the Lord has had His recovery throughout the ages. He has continued to raise up many groups of lovers of Jesus. In the Old Testament, Elijah was zealous for the Lord, and he was persecuted by Jezebel. He became afraid and was discouraged to the point that he ran far away and asked to be allowed to die under a broom shrub. However, an angel strengthened him, and he walked forty days to Mount Horeb, where God appeared to him. He began to accuse the Israelites by saying, “The children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, thrown down Your altars, and slain Your prophets with the sword; and I alone am left, and they seek to take my life” (1 Kings 19:10). God answered him as if to say, “Elijah, do not accuse the Israelites before Me. You are wrong. You are not the only one left. I have reserved for Myself seven thousand who have not bowed unto Baal and have not kissed him” (cf. v. 18).
I say this to remind you that not only at the time of Elijah but after his time and throughout church history, God has reserved for His own name “seven thousand” people, even during the darkest hour of the church’s degradation. A number of people have written books on church history. The best one is by a Brethren scholar by the name of Edmund Hamer Broadbent. His book, The Pilgrim Church, is written with keen spiritual insight. It is a church history with the highest discernment. He traces the line from the time of the apostles to the present age, identifying those “seven thousand...all the knees that have not bowed unto Baal.”
We have no intention to be proud, but we must say that since sixty years ago, when we were raised up by the Lord in China, we have had this burden and desire within us. We have told the Lord, “We would be the ‘seven thousand’ whom You have reserved for Your own name in this age.” What is the Lord’s recovery? Strictly speaking, the Lord’s recovery is the Lord’s reserving “seven thousand” for His name. Because we have adopted this attitude and taken this ground, our actions and behavior have been a cause for some misunderstanding by others. We are misunderstood by society and by our relatives and friends. We do not follow tradition, and we do not even follow religion. Religion is going downward, while the recovery is going upward. Within three to five years after the Lord’s recovery came to the United States, Christianity began to oppose us. This does not mean that the truth in the Lord’s recovery is wrong. The truth in the Lord’s recovery can be compared to pure gold. Pure gold does not fear the fire, and the more it is beaten, the more it shines. The real reason behind the opposition is that it is easy to flow downstream and difficult to go upstream.
I am a small Chinese man, not worthy of attention. Before I was fifty I had never traveled to the West and had never been in the United States. Yet for the sake of the defense of the truth we hold among us, I was forced to resort to the law of America; I was forced to appeal to “Caesar,” the United States Constitution. More than two hundred sixty publications throughout the fifty states of the United States rose up to attack this little, insignificant Chinese man. What is the reason behind this? It is because a little Chinese man has dared to blow the trumpet in the face of the colossus of American Christianity. However, the truth is the truth. The Lord covers me with His blood. This great Christianity could do nothing to me because I was walking absolutely according to the truth and according to the law. Since the 1960s there have been rumors about me in Christianity, and anonymous letters even came to me in a plot against me, accusing me of being a Communist. Some even stirred up the Federal Bureau of Investigation to make an inquiry concerning me. I was not afraid of these things because I had done nothing against my conscience. I was not worried that I would be put to shame by the law. I cooperated with the investigations, and in the end it was proven where I stand.
In general, while Christianity is on a downward trend, the Lord’s recovery is on an upward trend. Today it is altogether right for us to promote the home meetings. This is the unique way that the Lord’s church has taken since the first day it was on the earth. It was because of the degradation of Christianity that the church degraded into a formal and organized religion and annulled the home meetings. This is the situation we are in today. However, we need to admit honestly that even until today we have not rid ourselves completely of the traditional influence of Christianity. Please give me the liberty to say that over the last twenty years we have stopped advancing. Instead, we have been drifting downward and have fallen into a situation akin to that of an organization.
Now you can understand to a small degree why I stressed so much the changing of the system when I returned to Taiwan a year and a half ago. I wanted to overturn everything so that we could practice the small group meetings. I publicly acknowledged my mistake before everyone, because I also had fallen into the same trap. My blood was not fully purged of that religious influence. We have said that in the small group meetings we do not have any leader but that everyone is a leader. Yet after a while we came up with something called the “Training for the Core Members.” You were not the only ones who were thinking in this way; I was thinking in the same way. You were not the only ones who were not fully purged from the influence; I was not purged from the influence either. To designate “core members” in a small group meeting is in effect to kill the small group meetings.
Perhaps some would not agree with me. Perhaps we think that the small group meetings would not have survived until today had there not been some “core members.” However, to my feeling, it is the presence of these “core members” that is crippling the small group meetings and limiting their development. If we are fair and compare the results, we will see that those small groups without “core members” are actually thriving. They are bustling with people, and everyone participates.
In the previous chapter we pointed out that there are four hundred small groups in the church in Taipei. We have been practicing this for more than a year and a half, yet we still have not seen any subdivision of the groups. I have said from the very beginning that the best thing that can happen to a small group is for every one of its members to have regular meetings and for every home to have a group meeting. In this way there will be no need for “core members” or so-called leaders. There will not be any hierarchy. Everyone will be able to lead the meeting. Everyone will be able to pick songs, pray, expound the truth, prophesy, and testify. Everyone will be able to speak God’s word. The church in Taipei was the first place where I released such a message, but up until today, the church in Taipei has not done this. The most likely obstacle in this matter is the elders and the co-workers. To put the matter in a polite way, the elders and co-workers are too conservative and too faithful; they dare not let go. They are afraid that if they let go, disaster will follow. The truth of the matter is that they have been holding on too tightly and controlling too much. As a result, the saints are hindered from advancing and growing.
I have often prayed to the Lord concerning such a condition among us. On the one hand, I admire our faithfulness to the Lord’s recovery and our fearfulness that something might come in to damage the church. If possible, we would embrace the church like a child embraces his pillow when he sleeps. This is true in particular with the older saints. Their faithfulness is not a matter of three to five years; they have been faithful for almost their entire lives, at least over twenty or thirty years. I believe that our consecration to the Lord is valuable in His sight and will be remembered by Him. Yet I hope that we will realize that sometimes we are a little too much; we have delayed the Lord’s business in this way. We have gone a little overboard and have held things too tightly in our hand. This has become a limitation.
Let me give two examples of how control kills. During the 1940s, Honor Oak in London was a place of high spirituality. We read the books they published and received help from them for many years. In 1955 and 1957 I invited their leader to visit us, and in 1958 I accepted his invitation and visited London, where I stayed for four weeks. I saw many things during my stay there, one of which was that the leader, because of his high spiritual view, considered everyone unqualified. There were more than a hundred young people, all of whom were very capable. Not a few among them were college graduates. They were all under this leader and had been trained by him for many years. Eventually, they all wanted to go out to begin a work for the Lord, but the leader considered them unqualified and substandard. He held all of them in his hand and kept them in his own “pocket.”
One day all these young ones invited me to a picnic. A few of the leading ones among them asked me a question: “Brother Lee, we have been trained and perfected here for so many years. Our goal is based on one burden, which is that we would go out to work for the Lord. But we are forbidden again and again to do this. What should we do?” Their question put me on the cross. I tried to follow the Lord’s leading within and spoke something inoffensive that would not upset the situation.
My point is that we must be very clear that control and restriction only drag down the church and the saints. The more control there is, the more stunted the growth is, and the more our numbers dwindle. Before long, only a few will remain. That brother was at one time greatly used by the Lord, but before he passed away, the church and the saints were almost choked to death. In 1965, only seven years after my visit, all the young people who fellowshipped with me that day were dispersed. They drifted away as a result of that kind of control. This shows that as long as there is “birth control,” there is no possibility of multiplication.
A second example is the Brethren assembly in my hometown of Chefoo. Almost the next day after I was saved, the Lord brought me to a Brethren assembly. The leader in that assembly was an old British brother by the name of Mr. Burnett. From his youth he was taught at the feet of Mr. Benjamin Newton, the famous Brethren teacher. Later, he became a missionary of the China Inland Mission and went to Szechwan to preach the gospel. As time went on, he felt that the China Inland Mission was wrong because he had received light from the Brethren teaching. He quit his post and was led to Chefoo to begin a Brethren assembly there.
At that time this brother was sixty, and I was only twenty-one years old. At first, his ability to expound the Scripture attracted people to follow him, but all those gained by him were eventually killed by him in their spiritual function. The reason for this is that he exercised a tight control over them. He worked in Chefoo for a few decades without experiencing any growth or advancement, and his group remained a small assembly. I met with them for seven and a half years without seeing any growth year after year. In fact, the number dwindled year after year until eventually almost no one was left. I realized that there was a problem. The truths he expounded were high, but there was no advancement. It is a good thing that there were other denominations in Shantung Province that were preaching the gospel and contacting people. Otherwise, the gospel would have been squelched. When I saw that, I knew that there was something wrong with his way and that I could not take that way.
I mention these two examples to warn the elderly saints among us. I would like the senior co-workers among us to consider for a moment whether we have been behaving in the same way for the past twenty years. We have had a certain kind of spiritual standard. We preached spiritual messages concerning the cross and resurrection, and it is right for us to preach these things because they help us to meet God’s standard. Yet these very practices deter us from letting go. We are afraid that once we let go, we will create problems, and the saints will fall into indulgence and become unspiritual, giving up the way of the cross, drifting from the path of life, and walking contrary to the leading of the church. The result of our way is that, on the one hand, our messages sound spiritual, yet on the other hand, we do not experience any growth or spread. This shows that there is a problem with our kind of spirituality.
On the one hand, we cannot say that during all these years our spiritual stature has remained stunted. To be honest, however, our growth has been very slow. A situation has developed among us that has limited and restricted our spiritual growth. The church is a seed of life. If we provide opportunity for it to fall into the earth, if we till the earth so that the seed can go deep into the soil, and if we allow water, air, and sunlight to work on it, it will surely grow and bear fruit. During the past ten years our “tree” has been standing here, but year after year there is no growth. There is no branching out, no harvesting, and no multiplication. The only reason for this failure is that we have bound ourselves up as with a chain, and this binding factor is our religion. In other words, it is our method of working that has bound us up.
Allow me to tell you why I appointed fifty-two elders in one night when I returned in October two years ago. Since 1979, every time Brother Chang Wu-chen came to the United States, I asked him to appoint a few elders in the church in Taipei to help in the administration. In 1975 when I returned to Taipei, I made a change, because at that time the elders were too old, and there were signs of deterioration in the leadership of the church as a whole. There was the need to add a few brothers to the eldership, but it was impossible to raise up so many elders in a short time. I therefore asked the three Brother Changs to temporarily take the lead, with the hope that more brothers would shortly become qualified to become elders. However, by 1979 no elders had been raised up. I fellowshipped with Brother Chang Wu-chen to see if some suitable brothers could be appointed, but there was still no nomination. I had no choice but to wait longer. The next year, in 1980, we considered the matter again, and the result was the same; no one was considered qualified. We waited in this way for six years, but there were still only a few who were considered qualified to be elders.
Please give me the liberty to speak an honest word here. By October of the year before last, when I returned to Taipei, there were only three to five elders besides the few senior co-workers here. Even with these, a healthy eldership was not established. Even though there were a few elders, the work and administration of the church were still in the hands of a few co-workers, and there was no true administration by the eldership. In 1949 when I first began the work in Taipei, I spoke sternly that all the matters related to the church, whether great or small, must be brought to the elders’ meeting. The elders’ meeting at that time was on Saturday afternoons. Many times we would meet until eight or nine o’clock, eating a sack dinner along the way and continuing to meet after we ate. But gradually, these meetings became co-workers’ meetings, and a few co-workers made all the decisions. Even when some elders were present, they were only “tag-alongs.”
When I returned two years ago, I looked at the list of names of all the responsible ones in all the meeting halls and discussed them one by one with all the elders and with Brother Chang Wu-chen. Generally speaking, all the responsible brothers of all the twenty-one halls were quite good. They all loved the Lord, they were all for the Lord, and they were all consecrated to the Lord. I told the brothers, “Since they all love the Lord and are given to the Lord, and since all the meeting halls are in their hands already, they can all be elders.” The brothers did not disagree. In fact, they felt quite good about this. As a result, we did away with our past cautious conservatism. On that night we appointed fifty-two elders. We thank the Lord for this big change. We overturned the control. We no longer tried to manipulate with human hands. Instead, we allowed the Lord to lead and control these saints from within.
After half a year we appointed another twenty-eight elders. Altogether we appointed eighty elders, and later we added a few more. I did this to show that the church should not be under any individual’s hand. Only the Holy Spirit has the absolute right over the church, and only the Head is qualified to exercise control over the Body.
Please give me the liberty to speak. Since we have changed the system, everything that we do, all the arrangements that we make, and all the methods that we use are an experiment. We are doing everything in an exploratory way. Even until today we are still in the experimental stage. I have a concern for the eighty elders, which is the same concern that I had for the co-workers before them. I am concerned that subconsciously we are exercising control again. The thought of control is in our very blood.
Consider the situation in a family. If three children are playing together, no one needs to teach them about control. The oldest one will spontaneously boss the two smaller ones. He will spontaneously try to be the king. The thought of control is in our blood. In the past we were only “responsible brothers” in the various halls, but now we are the elders, and we may feel that we have been “promoted.” We feel great, and our family feels flattered. I am fully aware of such sentiments. It is unavoidable. But if we adopt this kind of attitude, and if we say in our heart, “My, I am an elder now!” we can be sure that the brothers and sisters will be killed by our control.
My sixty years of experience as a Christian and living in the church have confirmed to me the reality of such a concern. For this reason I charge again and again not to exercise any control. We should take our hands off, allowing the brothers and sisters to do things by themselves. With some of us, our practice in the past was to allow the saints to meet in the homes only after we granted them permission. Until the elders had an interview with a candidate, he could not be baptized, and even when he was baptized, he was baptized by the ones who were approved by the elders. Some may say, “Brother Lee, this is what you taught us to do thirty-five years ago.” Since I was the one who “tied the knot,” of course, I need to be the one to “untie it.” That might have been the right thing to do thirty-five years ago. At that time the light we received was not strong enough, and we saw only so much. Today, however, I have awakened from my “dream.” I see that something is wrong, and I am sounding the call to change the system. Whoever does not agree with me and still wants to exercise control must be responsible for the tangled “knot.”
Although we cannot claim full success for the new way, we can already perceive some results. Today we can meet in the homes at any time and anywhere. There is no need to be under any control. There is no more need for a formal interview to be baptized. As long as a new one is willing, those who preach the gospel to him can baptize him. There is no need to visit the baptistery in the meeting hall very often; all the saints have bathtubs and water in their homes. They can baptize the new ones in their homes immediately. During a recent gospel meeting, about fifty to sixty saints were baptized in the bathroom of the apartments above the meeting hall. Both the arrangements of the baptism and the interviews were carried out in an organic way. The saints took care of them organically. When I saw this, I was very happy, and I was happier when I attended the small group meetings. People were ready for baptism right there on the spot, and the saints quickly filled up the bathtub. Two “small soldiers” of no special rank baptized them in the bathtub. This kind of organic practice is the best and most accurate way revealed by the Scriptures.
In the summer of 1933 one seeker of the Lord came to me in the evening at about seven or eight o’clock. Because it was hot and my home was close to the sea, we went for a walk by the beach. After we arrived at the beach, we sat down, and he began to ask me about the truth concerning baptism. At that time I was already enlightened by the Lord concerning this truth. I gave a long discourse about the qualifications for baptism, the place for baptism, the person to administer baptism, and other matters, all of which were very scriptural. I remember how confident I was in my speaking and how I quoted all the verses. By the time I finished, it was past ten o’clock. The person said to me, “Mr. Lee, if what you said is true, you need to baptize me today.” I said, “I dare not do this, because I am not an elder. I am not even a junior deacon. I cannot baptize you.” He answered, “You just told me that whoever does the preaching can do the baptizing. Why are you saying that you cannot do it now? Did you not also say that as long as there is water, one can be baptized? Before us is the sea, and the water in Chefoo is calm and clean. Let me be baptized now.” I was forced to go along, and on that day I baptized him.
Later, in taking care of the churches, I decided that baptism should be approved by the elders and that interviews should be conducted by them. The baptizers should either be the elders or brothers serving in the capacity of the elders. I was the one who made all these arrangements. I thank and praise the Lord that during the past one and a half years, even these bonds have been broken. We can now baptize people everywhere. Whoever preaches can baptize as well. This is a wonderful thing. It proves that we have been released from the bondage of religion and are on the way toward true scriptural practices.
Yet I am concerned that the old ones among us will feel that their children and grandchildren are now turning things upside down. The Chinese are especially concerned about “family rule” and “family tradition.” This is true not only with you but also with me. Some of my daughters are already grandmothers, and some of my sons are grandfathers, yet I still consider them children and do not have full confidence in them. Sometimes I rebuke myself, saying, “Foolish man, the Lord should take you away. Otherwise, you will damage your children.” We know that capable parents many times do not produce useful children. A mother who is a good cook often ends up with a daughter who cannot cook. The reason for this is that the mother cannot tolerate the daughter’s ineptness and tries to do everything herself. If the mother can hold herself back, even when the food is burnt or spoiled, and if she can encourage the child and not replace her, the child will eventually become a good cook.
Today we are not for the Eastern way or the Western way. We are for the scriptural way. The young people are easy to be trained and easy to be molded. We need to lead them and encourage them in wisdom. Brother Nee once said that after thirty years of age a man’s character becomes set, and it becomes difficult for him to change. Hence, we must do our best to be trained in our character before the age of thirty. My point is that the elderly saints should be at ease. They should not think that once things are in the hands of the young ones, they will be ruined. Do not think that once things pass into their hands, the church will be finished. My dear, faithful, elderly brothers, be at peace. Simply encourage and do not replace. Once we do this, the young saints will receive the perfecting.
Some have asked, “If the members of a small group include saints from other halls, how should we reckon their attendance? Whom should they belong to?” Actually, numbers are not that important. The important thing is to have the real increase. As long as the small group meetings are bringing people to salvation and as long as there is the increase and the spread, why worry about the method of reckoning the attendance? If a person has many babies, he will not have enough time even to take care of their feeding. Where, then, will he find the time to do the statistics? At the present time I have twenty-two children and grandchildren. I can still count them, but I wish I could lose count of them. To lose count of them means that I am fruitful and multiplying. If a church or a meeting hall can report its number clearly, it proves that the number is small. If a church or a meeting hall has so many saints that no one can count them, this means it is growing; we worship the Lord for this.
Dear saints, we must be clear that the grace of the Lord is with His recovery. Christianity is going downward; it does not please the Lord. For the past one and a half years it seems as if I have been constantly rebuking. It may appear that I have never said anything good and have never praised anything. I have been continually pointing out our shortcomings and mistakes. It seems as if I have been constantly shaking my head, criticizing, and picking on everyone. Actually, I would like us to know that the Lord’s grace is rich. He truly loves His recovery. As long as we are willing to work for Him, He is ready to pour out His best for us. The number of regular attendants in the church in Taipei may be under ten thousand, but if we include those who do not meet regularly, we have over ten thousand saints. As long as we are willing to practice the God-ordained way, I believe that God will add to our number daily. One day the number in the church in Taipei will be more than we can count. May we all have faith to realize how abundant the Lord’s blessing can be.
From now on, if anyone prophesies in the meeting improperly or poorly, we should not stop him. We should only pray to the Lord and look to Him to somehow make up the lack. We are not a worldly society, and we are not an army. We should not think that once we give up our controlling hand, everything will be out of order. In the church we have no right to control anything. There are, however, a few precious things that control us. First, we have the Lord’s life. All the brothers and sisters have the Lord’s life within them, and this life controls them. Second, we have the Lord’s word. His word gives light, and it enlightens. Third, we have the Lord’s Spirit. We believe that the Lord’s Spirit is in every brother and sister. Fourth, we have the Lord Himself. We believe even more that the Lord whom we have believed into is in every brother and sister. Fifth, we have the Lord’s love. We believe that the Lord’s love is in every brother and sister. Even if a believer has not been meeting with us for a long time and is deeply fallen, within him he still has a love for the Lord and the church. These five things are all within the brothers and sisters. This is the reason that we should never control. We should only allow these five matters to function within the brothers and sisters. If we exercise control, these five matters will not have an opportunity to operate. We must look to the Lord. We need to pray for everyone and allow these five matters to operate and become effectual in the brothers and sisters.
We should have a testimony that we are neither a worldly society nor an army. We do not need any human control. We are the church. We have the Lord’s life, the Lord’s word, the Lord’s Spirit, the Lord Himself, and the Lord’s love. All the brothers and sisters have these five things within them. Even the weakest believer, and in particular those who are newly baptized, have these five things within them. If we exercise control, we will frustrate the Lord, but if we do not control, we will actually help the Lord. We will provide the Lord an opportunity to work within people. In any meeting we should not control, even if the saints are exercising their flesh. On the contrary, we should pray, “Lord, this is Your business. I will not control.” Perhaps we may think that this is too extreme, but I am not afraid of being too extreme. I am afraid only of depriving the Lord the opportunity to work within the saints. It is possible that at first we will have some confusion, but eventually the Lord will step in to do His work because this is His recovery.
For this reason I am bold to say that even if the brothers and sisters turn the meetings upside down, we should still thank and praise the Lord. His Spirit is among us, and His life is also among us. All we need to do is to pray. We can pray, “Lord, thank You. Your life is in us, and Your word is among us. You are the Lord! Even if the heaven falls, the earth shakes, and the waves billow, You are still on the throne on high. You alone have the authority to control everything!” Only pray this way; do not try to restrict or control. Today we should all take our hands off. Do try not to control. The co-workers in particular should not try to control the churches. Do not be concerned that the church will become deformed or distorted. Do not try to preserve anything. We must all be impressed with one thing: Do not control!
This being the case, what should the co-workers, the elders, and the full-time serving ones do? On the negative side, we should not control, but on the positive side, we should focus on stirring others up. We should stir up the saints house by house. In the last chapter we said something about delivering the meetings to people’s homes. Now I say again that we must do the work of stirring up the saints house by house. Some saints have not been meeting for a long time. The co-workers and the elders must take the lead to stir them up in their homes. This is what we ought to do. I hope that we can understand what I am saying. Only by “burning all our bridges” can we go forward single-mindedly. Only by being “backed up against the wall” will we be forced to risk everything.
We should pay attention to one thing in this new practice; that is, we should be for vitality rather than uniformity. My grandchildren are very active and growing. Whenever they come together, they create a mess, and there is no order. When they come to visit me, I tell them ahead of time that they can stay for only ten minutes. They are like a demolition crew, specialists in destruction. They feel that they must look at whatever I have on the shelves, touch them, and sometimes kick them and even throw them. They cannot resist jumping on my sofas, and they love to hop off the back of my couches. Before they come, I insist that I be warned by telephone ahead of time. My wife then hurriedly says, “The demolition crew is coming. Hurry and hide the glassware, the pots and pans, and the ornaments, or they will all be wrecked and torn apart.” Although this is a bothersome affair, I am always happy at their coming, because every one of them is full of energy and vitality.
Let me ask the brothers and sisters here: Do we want our house to be orderly and clean yet empty and silent, or do we want the “demolition crew” to come? No one likes an empty house with only two elderly people living in it; this is boring. Everyone likes to have the “demolition crew.” They are full of energy and noise. In the same principle, we should be afraid of the church lapsing into deadness, but we should not be afraid of the church becoming messy and noisy. I admit that I may be too much, but I fear that even my correction may not be strong enough. I would rather see the matter overly corrected than not corrected at all. I hope that none of us will exercise control. Instead, may we only encourage.
The church belongs to the Lord. It is God’s house. The church is not a law court, and it is not a police station. In God’s house we are not rulers lording over God’s children. We are slaves serving the saints. In doing everything we must be proper and right. If a brother has committed a serious sin and has not come to a meeting for many years, we should not refer to his sin when we visit him. Some may ask, “If we do not deal with the sin, what kind of church are we?” We need to understand that our hands are not qualified to exercise control over others. Even if we try, we cannot do it. Our hands are dirty. We should never think that our hands are clean. Even if our hands are clean, we must realize that only the Lord is qualified to deal with the sinning one. If we try to deal with him, we may end up in fleshly wrath after two minutes and may fall into sin ourselves. It is difficult to find a clean person. We can only ask the Lord to do the work and allow Him to do the work. This is the best way.
From my youth I learned to serve the Lord. When I saw some situations that I thought were wrong, I hoped that one day I could do something about them. However, after a few years, I realized that I myself was not clean. I was not pure within. For this reason I dared not touch those matters. If a surgeon does not first sterilize himself and all his instruments, his surgery will create problems. Without surgery, a patient may at least be protected from certain kinds of germs. To have an operation in a room full of germs, with unsterilized instruments and doctors with germs on their hands, will merely aggravate the patient’s condition.
Dear co-workers and elders, do not presume that it is always right to deal with the matters that stumble. It may be right to know about them, but if we are not clean persons and our “instruments” have not been sterilized, we have no way to deal with these matters. In trying to deal with defeated and backsliding saints, some co-workers and elders have stepped into a situation without adequate knowledge of the weaknesses of the saints, and the result has been a problem. It is better to stay away from such situations than to end up with a problem. As long as a person is a child of God, he has the Lord’s life in him, and this life will take care of the situation. It will fight the germs, and the germs will be eliminated. However, if we try to operate in the dark, we will bring in harmful infections. Many times nothing happens when we do not touch a situation, but the minute we touch it, we spoil everything. I believe we have experienced this.
In short, we should not control but should stir up people in a positive way. Our most practical goal should be to stir up the saints house by house and to incite them to open up their homes. Let me give a few words of advice. First, no matter how disorganized a home meeting is and no matter how low the condition of the meeting is, we should not be discouraged. We should pray in secret and encourage in public so that the meeting can continue week after week. It does not matter how many people show up; as long as they can meet, we should encourage it. Second, the co-workers and the elders should set the direction of the meetings. Every home meeting should have the Lord’s word. According to our experience, if we do not prepare some material, and if we do not have the Lord’s word, everyone will be free to speak what he wants to, and the freedom will degenerate into confusion. In the church in Taipei, for example, the best way is for the business office of the church to select some nourishing, enlightening, and anointed messages and make them available for use in the home meetings. The co-workers and the elders then must encourage the saints to dig into these messages and progress through them.
The home meetings do not need to be formal. Rather, they need to be living and organic. These meetings are prone to be somewhat disorganized. They may begin at seven o’clock, but it may be half past eight before all the members arrive. After an initial period of mutual cherishing, the group can begin reading the message after half past eight. At least there should be twenty minutes when everyone is together to pursue the message together in a living way. This can be compared to eating a meal. The meal may not be a large one, but at least everyone is well fed. Do not think that this is a small matter. If every week or every other week the saints can gather together in such a home meeting, and everyone has the word planted into him, in time this will produce a certain kind of result.
The human body can incur some long-term illnesses that need long-term care. The cures for these illnesses do not come quickly. The same can be said of the weaknesses of the saints; because they cannot be cured immediately, we should go slowly. Every time we see the saints, we should dispense a little of God’s word. Every opportunity we have, we should nourish and cherish a little. Then in time the saints will grow in a healthy way. We cannot be impatient. Release a word or two once a week, every week. In the beginning we may not see much result, but over a long period of time the result will become quite obvious.
After a few weeks of practice in the home meetings, I have observed that the home meetings in the church in Taipei are gradually getting on the right track. They are no longer dependent on the “core members” or on spiritual giants. Every member is functioning in an organic way. When the saints come together, they are like a heap of coal, and the minute fire is applied, the whole meeting lights up. Now I am concerned that although the fire is lit, there is not much of the Lord’s word in them. The gatherings generate a congenial atmosphere, but after such a meeting, not much of the Lord’s word has been imparted into the attendants. There is no pursuit of any message, and the meeting merely goes on and on with light talk. This is a serious shortage of the home meetings. We should use whatever means we have to impart the Lord’s word into the saints. His word is the only vital ingredient for the home meetings.
In short, in leading the saints to care for the home meetings, the elders must pay attention to stirring up the spirit of every person in every home. Do not expect to stir up every home the first time. Rather, work on the homes one by one. We are not afraid of being slow; we are afraid only of not moving at all. If every elder can stir up one home per week, three elders can stir up twelve homes in a month. After the saints’ spirits are stirred up, we need to teach them so that they are fed by the Lord’s word. Each home meeting must always render a portion of supply to the saints. This is a crucial matter. We can try to accomplish this in whatever way we please, but the spirit has to be living and fresh. If a message is too long, we can split it up into sections. Some who come early can receive the supply from the first section, and some who come late can receive the supply from the second section. Even if someone comes late and leaves early, we should still give him a portion of supply. We should accompany him to the door, read a portion to him, fellowship a little with him, and ask him to read the material when he gets home. He may not read it when he gets home, but if he does, he will receive the supply. This is a very important step.
Another point we must pay attention to is that we should not coerce anyone or drag anyone to go along with us. One unfortunate effect of our changing the system is that the brothers pay too much attention to numbers. Every church and every meeting hall tries to compare its results with others. As a result, everyone is concerned about the numbers in the group meetings and how these numbers should be reckoned. I hope that we can all be delivered from the concern for numbers. The numbers merely show us whether we are advancing or falling back, and even this is not a very accurate measurement. It is wrong for us to attract people from other halls or churches for the purpose of boosting our number. We should never do this kind of thing.
A saint should go to a meeting that is close by his or her home. Do not say, “This person was baptized and revived in our area. Therefore, he or she must join the meeting in our area.” When we labor for increase and revival, we may accidentally trample on others. It is better that we be trampled on and others be revived. Is it not wonderful that we die and others live? We must be clear that we are here to spread the gospel and save the sinners. After the sinners are saved, we should nourish, care for, teach, and perfect them. This is our goal. If we are focused on this goal, we will not carefully bargain about everything but will generously give our new ones away.
Concerning the new ones, we need to prepare some material at the suitable time to lead them to know the church. We need to show them what the church is, and we need to help them to realize the importance of the church. Our old concept tells us that if a person does not come to the big meetings and does not attend the Lord’s table meeting, he is not a part of the church. We must drop this concept. Those who are a part of the church are those who have the Lord’s life. As long as a person possesses the Lord’s life, he is a part of the church, and we must receive him.
We need to change our concept entirely. We should not seek a regimented, grand, or spectacular façade. In fact, we should not pay attention to the façade at all. Rather, we should pay attention to something practical. We need to pay attention to every home meeting. We should put our hope in every saint having meetings in his home. If we do this, everyone among us, whether he is burning or cold, strong or weak, young or old, will have the opportunity to be stirred up and to develop and fulfill his organic function in the Body. The Lord’s recovery will then be a nation of a fighting army, and there will be continual growth and increase. However, if we hold on to our old concepts, many saints will be quenched from functioning in an organic way through our demand for uniformity. I hope that we can thoroughly change our concept and that we can practice everything properly and absolutely according to the pattern of the new way.
