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1. Exercising our spirit — 1 Cor. 14:32.
2. Prophesying — speaking for God and speaking forth God — vv. 1, 3, 31.
3. Exhorting one another, including shepherding — Heb. 10:25.
4. Taking care of the new ones and the unbelievers — 1 Cor. 14:23-25.
In the church meetings we first need our spirit exercised. Although the word exercise is not used in 1 Corinthians 14, verse 32 of this chapter indicates very much that we need to exercise our spirit: “The spirits of prophets are subject to prophets.” This indicates that when the believers in Corinth came together to meet, their spirits were exercised too much, like wild horses without bridles. That forced the apostle to tell them that they had to bridle their spirit. To ride a horse without a bridle means that the horse is not under your control. Today, however, in most Christian meetings there is no “horse.” I do not think that the apostle Paul would need to come to tell us that the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets. Many Christians do not even know that they have a spirit. They do not know what Paul meant when he used the word spirits in 1 Corinthians 14:32. They have only heard of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God.
When I was with some Pentecostal groups, I must admit that I saw “the wild horses” there. I saw people who were jumpers, laughers, rollers, and shouters. To some extent they were all wild horses with no control, no bridle. In a positive sense the Pentecostal movement has a good point — the exercise of their spirit. They have such a good point, but they do not realize that what they are doing is the exercise of their own spirit. In order to encourage all of us to exercise our spirit, to some extent we had better adopt the Pentecostal way. The Pentecostal way has a good point in that it forces people to forget about their mind, to forget about their thinking, to forget their consideration, and to really exercise their spirit. On the island of Taiwan there is a group of Christians who are “chair shakers.” This is their way to get themselves out of their considerations and into their spirit. Both the Pentecostals and the chair shakers have the same principle — to “shake away” their considerations and their thinking and to “shake up” their spirit.
To speak an intelligible language, you have to exercise your mind, but to speak in tongues, you do not need to exercise your mind (v. 14). There is a part of our being created by God — the human spirit (Zech. 12:1). God, who is Spirit, is not directly related to our body or to our mind, our soul. But those who worship God must worship Him in spirit (John 4:24). Therefore, in a positive sense we have to “shake the chairs.” The playing of sports is an enjoyment in the physical body. To sing may be an enjoyment in the soul. But to shake the chairs and to speak in tongues may be an enjoyment in your spirit.
These chair shakers and tongue-speakers become addicted to what they are doing. Many of them realize that what they are doing is false, but the effect is that they stir up the main part of their being. Although there is a certain kind of enjoyment, they deceive themselves and deceive others. They do not have the term the spirit, nor do they talk about the exercise of the spirit, but they have some enjoyment. We have the term the spirit, and we talk about the exercise of the spirit, but mostly we do not have the enjoyment. All the tongue-speakers in Corinth did not have a bridle on their spirit. This is why Paul had to tell them that the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets. When they came together, they did not care for each other. Each one cared for his own enjoyment and for his own building up.
The first time I attended a Pentecostal meeting was in July of 1932 with Brother Nee. Brother Nee nearly had no chance to speak. The people in the congregation were shouting, laughing, rolling, and jumping. The pastor had to ring a bell a number of times in order to get them to stop to give Brother Nee a chance to speak. Brother Nee stepped up to the platform, and he spoke concerning the prodigal son coming back to the father in Luke 15. He preached the gospel, talking about how the father loved the prodigal son. That was a good message from which I learned much. I had never heard many of the wonderful points that Brother Nee shared concerning the father and concerning the prodigal son. I do not think that Brother Nee’s audience had any heart for hearing the truths that he presented to them. They had become addicted to their enjoyment. Some of the ladies there were addicted to jumping and to rolling. The more they rolled, the happier they felt. Sometimes they shouted and yelled while they rolled on the floor. This was their way to release their spirit.
The way of much of today’s Christianity suffocates the spirit. They quench the spirit. When you go to many of their meeting places, there is an atmosphere of keeping everything quiet. The congregation sits quietly and listens to music. Some big cathedrals are dark inside. The windows may all be stained glass, and the music is played on a great pipe organ. No one can be wild in a place like that. When you walk in, your spirit is killed. Who exercises their spirit in such a worship service? What is needed for the church meetings is for us to exercise our spirit.
First Corinthians 14:32 indicates that we need to exercise our spirit to prophesy. To prophesy is not mainly to predict or to foretell the future. This is something miraculous. The word prophesy mainly means to speak for God and to speak forth God. When God called Moses to go to Pharaoh, Moses told Him that he was not eloquent (Exo. 4:10). The Lord gave Moses his brother Aaron to be his prophet, his spokesman (v. 16; 7:1). As Moses’ prophet, Aaron spoke for Moses and even spoke forth Moses. To prophesy is to speak for another and to speak forth another.
When most Christians hear the word prophesy, they always think of it in the sense of predicting or foretelling the future. The main meaning, however, of the word prophesy is to speak for God and to speak forth God. We need the spirit to speak for God and to speak forth God. Otherwise, whatever we say will just be an ordinary speaking, not prophesying. I may be a bona fide Christian and an ethical, nice gentleman. If I speak in a church meeting in a meek, mild, and normal way, this is not prophesying. Apparently, I am speaking for God and speaking forth God, telling something of God to others. But actually, I am a gentleman, a mild man, a meek man, speaking with no spirit. We have to exercise our spirit when we speak. The Spirit dwells in our regenerated spirit (Rom. 8:16), so whenever we exercise our spirit, the indwelling Spirit moves. If we do not use our spirit and merely speak or converse in an ordinary way, that is not to prophesy. To prophesy is to speak for God, to speak forth God, from our spirit in which, through which, and with which the Holy Spirit speaks in us. This is the difference between prophesying and the human, ordinary speaking.
Many times in our church meetings, too many of the sharings are just ordinary, human speech. Regardless of how nice this kind of speaking is, it does not edify; it does not build up. Sometimes even the one who gives the message speaks in the way that a typical gentleman converses, with no exercise of the spirit. This kind of speaking kills the audience; it does not give life. Regardless of whether you have a big meeting or a small group meeting, the principle is the same — to speak without the exercise of the spirit kills the ones to whom you are speaking (2 Cor. 3:6). Many of today’s Christian meetings will slaughter or kill your spirit. To some extent we are the same. The elders need to have meetings in their localities continuously for two weeks to train the saints in these things before starting any practice. Otherwise, you will be trying to practice the Lord’s present and new move with “dead bodies.”
I can illustrate what the elders are doing by relating something that happened in my hometown of Chefoo in 1943. There was a strong sister in the church there who spoke in tongues, and the entire church was captured by her. One sister whom we all loved died. Then the sister who spoke in tongues prophesied and told the husband of the dead sister not to prepare any funeral. She said that the next day at twelve noon our sister would be resurrected. That stirred up the whole church. The next day before noon, the house was crowded with the saints to see this resurrection. A short time before noon, the tongue-speaking sister came in with two helpers. They all kneeled down and spoke in tongues. After approximately one hour, nothing happened. Eventually, after much time, one of the leading ones charged the husband to prepare a funeral for our sister.
Most of the saints like to have a big gathering with a good speaker speaking to them. They feel inspired and edified in this kind of meeting. But mostly they do not appreciate coming together in the way of mutuality with everyone speaking, whether it be in a home gathering or with the whole church coming together. This is the situation because all the attendants are like dead bodies, somewhat like the scattered bones in Ezekiel 37. Ezekiel 37 is a picture of today’s Christianity, a picture of scattered bones. In the church meetings what we can see is mostly dead bodies, which is a little bit better than scattered bones.
The elders need to call a conference for two weeks and declare a fast. The whole church needs to fast and pray for our poor present situation. Let all the saints know and realize the poor situation among us. We have no ground to criticize other Christian bodies. What about ourselves? We are dead, cold, and lukewarm. We need to fast and pray. Then some proper messages need to be given to the saints to edify them, to enliven them, and to tell them that they need to “shake the chairs.” I am not promoting tongue-speaking, but we need to fellowship with the saints to stir up their spirit in the right way. Chair shaking or tongue-speaking is not the right way. That would get the saints addicted. We need to stir up the saints in seeking such a spirit that is exercised to the uttermost.
Quite often in our meetings the one who is speaking will have to be told by some other saints to speak louder. The reason this person is speaking in such a way is because his spirit is not exercised. When we exercise our spirit, there is a big difference in the way that we speak. The person giving a testimony must be told to speak louder because he is “a carcass.” A carcass is something dead with no spirit.
For the meeting of the entire church and for the home gatherings, we all have to exercise our spirit, so we need to exercise our spirit in our daily life. Especially half an hour before meeting time we should exercise our spirit to get ourselves prepared for the meeting. The members of an athletic team get themselves prepared for the game by warming up. It would be a joke to think that they would come to play a game with a tie and a suit on. But most of the saints come to the church meeting in this way. One brother might ask another who is going to speak in the meeting. When he hears that there will be no speaker but that everybody will speak, he feels that this is too bad. When he hears that Brother Lee is coming to speak, he gets excited and stirred up. This shows how terrible the situation is among us. We say that we are in the recovery, but meeting-wise we still remain in Christianity, we still practice Christianity, and we still repeat Christianity.
The first thing needed is for the leading ones to call a conference and declare a fast. Tell the saints for what purpose we have to fast — for the deadness, the coldness, the lukewarmness, the indifference, and the spiritless situation. We need to fast, and we need to stir ourselves up. We hate to repeat the history of Christianity. We do not promote chair shaking or tongue-speaking, but we like to see what is taught and revealed in 1 Corinthians 14. We like to have the proper prophesying.
Again I want to say that prophesying is speaking for God with our spirit and speaking forth God with our spirit. First Corinthians 14:1 tells us that we need to have an earnest desire to prophesy. Then verse 3 says that prophesying builds up, encourages, and consoles people. Since to prophesy, to speak forth the Lord, ministers Christ to people, it builds up people and gives them encouragement and consolation. Only prophesying can fulfill this three-fold duty to build up, to encourage, and to console the saints. This is what we need, so we have to prophesy.
First Corinthians 14:31 says, “You can all prophesy.” God desires that each of the believers prophesy, that is, speak for and speak forth Him. In Numbers 11:29 Moses exclaimed to his helper Joshua, “Oh that all Jehovah’s people were prophets!” Even in Old Testament times God wanted every one of His people to speak for Him and to speak Him forth. How much more should this matter of prophesying be with all the believers in the New Testament age! I am concerned that even though I have given a message concerning this (see The Divine Speaking, ch. 1), and you may have heard this, you have not promoted it. Everywhere the elders have to promote the prophesying by all the saints, including the sisters.
According to 1 Corinthians 11:5, women can prophesy, and the book of Acts gives us illustrations of sisters being prophets (2:17-18; 21:9). The Bible, however, does not allow sisters to teach with authority. Sisters should be silent in the meetings in the sense of teaching with authority (1 Cor. 14:34; 1 Tim. 2:12). Both the sisters and the brothers are all privileged to speak for God and to speak forth God (see footnote 342 in 1 Cor. 14, Recovery Version). For years I could not understand why in 1 Corinthians 11 a woman is allowed to pray and prophesy with her head covered, but in 1 Corinthians 14 Paul says that in the church meeting the women should be silent. Eventually, I realized from the Scriptures that sisters are privileged to prophesy even in big public meetings, but in any meeting sisters are not permitted to speak as a teacher to define certain doctrines with authority as the brothers. The Lord never gave this portion to the sisters. All the sisters, however, are privileged to speak for God and to speak forth God. When they speak, they need some covering. This covering is not merely a piece of cloth, but it means that the sisters have to speak under the covering of the brothers. We all must see that whenever we come together either in a big gathering or in a small group, the principle is the same — we have to exercise our spirit so that we may speak for God and speak forth God.
You must spend a long time to train the saints in every locality. You need to speak on these matters continuously as a kind of training for at least seven days; it is better to take two weeks. Then hopefully we may have a new start. Otherwise, whatever you do according to what you heard was going on in Taiwan and according to what you heard from my messages will just be a mere copying. That will be just like the tongue-speaking sister upholding the dead body to get it to walk. This will not work. Please keep in your good memory the contents of Book 7 regarding the principle of the genuine oneness. Based upon that fellowship, train the saints in your locality for two weeks with much prayer plus fasting. Train them with the fellowship in this book, Book 8. Take more time to demonstrate and to illustrate until all the saints in your locality get a full knowledge of the real way revealed in the New Testament concerning our meetings.
To teach the saints to meet according to the way revealed in the New Testament needs some time. Do not just change the way of your meetings. That does not work. You must stir up all the members in your locality to rise up to be profitable persons for the Lord’s recovery, telling them that we are not here in any way or in any aspect to repeat the poor history of Christianity. We hate to see that repetition. We like to see a real restoration, a real revolutionizing, in everything in the recovery. In studying the Bible we do not follow the old way. In prayer we do not follow the old way. In our service we do not like to follow the old way. In our meeting life, even the more, we do not like to follow the old way of Christianity. We refuse to repeat the pitiful, degraded history of Christianity.
I am not speaking anything to criticize anybody, but I cannot avoid telling you the truth that we must be renewed. I say again — we must be renewed. Romans 6 shows us that to be baptized means to be renewed, to have a new life and a new living (v. 4). We need to live, to behave, to act, to work, and to do everything in newness of life. Our meeting has to be in newness of life. We have probably applied Romans 6 to our daily life, but we probably have never applied it to our meeting life. We need to meet in the newness of life, not in the oldness of the old history of Christianity.
You need to explain to the saints what it is to be in the oldness of the old history of Christianity. Sometimes we refer to the Lord’s Day as Sunday. Sunday is an idolatrous term. We should not use the word Sunday, since it is related to idolatry. We have to say “the Lord’s Day” (Rev. 1:10). The meeting on the Lord’s Day may be at 10 A.M. We may look at our watch at 9:20 A.M. on the Lord’s Day and still consider that it is quite early. One brother may say to another brother, “How is your nephew, John? Where is he? Does he have a job? I’m very concerned for him.” Then these two brothers would proceed to talk about the nephew. After their talk about the nephew, they might begin to talk about the political situation abroad and in the United States. Eventually, one of the brothers realizes that it is five minutes to ten, and he tells the other brother, “We have to go. The meeting will start in five minutes. Let’s go to the meeting.” Then when they come to the meeting, they look around to see what might be the best place for them to sit down. Then they go to that place to sit and listen. This is an example of the oldness to repeat the pitiful history of Christianity.
A brother may sit there, showing his “godliness,” his “piety.” He may pray a little bit, waiting for someone to open the meeting. He may be expecting one of the elders to open the meeting. We need to tell the saints that this is the natural act to keep the oldness of the pitiful situation of Christianity. This is to bring the degraded Christianity into the Lord’s recovery. It is a shame. We have to cast out this dead oldness. We should not tolerate the pitiful situation that has invaded the Lord’s recovery. In the past ten years the Lord’s recovery has been somewhat invaded and polluted. This is to destroy, to mar, to ruin, to corrupt, the temple of God (1 Cor. 3:17).
Early in the morning on the Lord’s Day you should rise up and say, “Lord, thank You for a new day, even a day of the Lord. Lord, fill the day with Yourself. Fill me for this day; even fill me with Yourself for the church meeting. Saturate me and soak me. I like to be fully one with You to go to the meeting with You. I believe You are with me and You are in me, and I am going to the meeting a half hour early.” If every member of the local church would be like this, what kind of wonderful meeting in the heavens we would have! This is what we mean when we say that we need to have a fresh meeting, full of newness of life. This will put the enemy to shame, and this gives much glory to the resurrected and ascended Christ. This will be very convincing to newcomers and very attractive to the backsliders. I hope that in your locality you will begin to practice what I have been speaking to you.
It is not worthwhile for us to pay attention to tongue-speaking. Let us talk about Christ. Our prophecy must be full of Christ. When many Christians talk about 1 Corinthians 14, they forget what Paul spoke of in the foregoing chapters, especially chapters 1 through 3. They isolate chapter 14 to fit into their concept. At the beginning of 1 Corinthians Paul stressed that Christ is God’s center and that Christ should be our portion, our enjoyment (1:9). We all have been called into the enjoyment of this dear Son of God, and this One has been given as wisdom to us from God to be our righteousness, our sanctification, and our redemption (v. 30). We have to enjoy this One who is the very mystery of God. We have to understand the wisdom concerning this mystery (2:6-7). Then when Paul comes to chapter 11 and to chapter 14, he charges the saints to practice the meeting life with the very Christ whom he revealed in the foregoing chapters. I hope that all the elders will be deeply impressed with these things, not to copy anything in your locality but to practice the best thing on the proper standing of the genuine oneness of the Body of Christ.
In the book of Hebrews Paul speaks concerning many high things regarding the superiority of Christ. In 10:25 he says, “Not abandoning our own assembling together, as the custom with some is, but exhorting one another; and so much the more as you see the day drawing near.” Paul told the saints that they needed to come together to exhort one another. In 1 Corinthians 14:3 there are three points: building up, encouragement, and consolation. Exhortation is the fourth point. Paul’s word to exhort one another shows the mutuality in a meeting and also implies the proper shepherding.
Do not think that only others need your shepherding. You have to realize that you need others to shepherd you. The Lord knows that although I am an old, experienced brother, I still need your shepherding. A shepherd is one who takes care of others’ needs. You need me to take care of your need, and I need you to take care of my need. God never created people to live in isolation. A human being was not meant to live alone. A man was not meant to live without his neighborhood or without society. Man needs community and fellowship. We need the shepherding of one another. The elders should not think that they are so experienced that they do not need the young ones to shepherd them. The elders need the shepherding of the young ones.
The grandfather needs the children’s shepherding. Recently, a light bulb went out in one of our rooms. I am over eighty, and my wife is close to seventy years of age. When I was trying to climb up to change the light bulb, my wife begged me not to do it, because I might fall and hurt myself. We had to suffer the darkness until the next morning when my grandson came to shepherd us. His putting in of a new light bulb shepherded us. Also, our door had a crack in it, and we did not know what to do with it; nor did we know where to get a carpenter. We suffered for a week until one day a brother came in and saw the situation. He said, “Brother Lee, why didn’t you tell me earlier about this? Let me fix the door for you.” His care for me made me happy. I gave him something to drink. Therefore, he shepherded me, and I shepherded him. He took care of the crack in my door, and I took care of his drink. That made us both happy. This is what we call shepherding.
The church in Taipei has eleven thousand members. How many shepherds would one have to hire to do the shepherding there? It is impossible. But when you have small gatherings of ten or twelve, all coming together at least once a week, they shepherd one another. And their shepherding is more practical in details, in small things. Quite often a saint who has just come to the city and has only been here a short time gets sick. They do not even know where to get a proper doctor. In this matter they need your help, your shepherding. If we would do all these things in the home gatherings, all the attendants would feel very much benefited in different ways. The home gatherings are not just for hearing a message, a good speech. In the home gatherings the saints should get the building up, the consolation, the exhortation, and the encouragement resulting in the shepherding in all aspects. This is the real building up. Without the home gatherings, there is no way to build the saints up. The real building up has to be accomplished in the home meetings.
Another aspect of our meetings should be the taking care of the new ones and the unbelievers (vv. 23-25). First Corinthians 14:23 refers to “some unlearned” entering into a church meeting. This is a newcomer, a new one. This one could be a professor in a seminary with a doctor’s degree, yet he does not know anything concerning what we are doing. When he comes to our meeting, he surely is a new one. He may know the Bible, but he does not know what we are doing in the meeting. To us he is a new one. According to our experience, this happens quite often.
First Corinthians 14:23 also refers to unbelievers coming to the meeting. In the home meetings we should take care of these kinds of persons. This is why the saints need some training concerning how to be flexible. Do not get the meeting fixed in cement. The meeting should not be fixed, settled, with no possibility of any change. We should not have the attitude that a certain meeting is not for the unbelievers, so we do not preach the gospel in this meeting. We should not have the attitude that in a certain meeting we would not say anything for the outsiders and that this meeting is for ourselves. This is altogether wrong. Our meeting hall should be like the New Jerusalem with three gates on four sides. Let everybody come in.
We all have to take care of the four points listed at the beginning of this chapter. The saints in each locality should be trained to exercise their spirit, to prophesy, to assemble to exhort one another, and to take care of the new ones and the unbelievers in our meetings, whether they are big meetings or small ones. If there are some unbelievers, we must say at least a short word concerning salvation, concerning the gospel. Spend five minutes to take care of the unbelievers in this way. Let them hear the gospel.
All the saints need to learn these things, so the burden of the elders is great and heavy. I hope that for the Lord’s sake all the elders would pick up the burden to labor properly. We should not function in the eldership in the way we did in the past. We need to have a new start.
Since I realized the poor situation among us both in the West and the East, in October of 1984 I began to realize that we needed a new start. The center for this new start must be the home gatherings. The Lord’s leading us to take the way of home gatherings is the right way. This is a recovery back to the God-ordained way to have the church meetings.
The brothers who are the elders, the leading ones, in all the churches are the keys. I do not have the time to go to every locality, and I do not need to go. But I do have the burden to fellowship all these matters to the leading ones. I want to infuse you, to put the fire into you. If you all would be on fire, that would be wonderful. If all the elders are burning, all the churches will be burning. Do not expect the rest of the saints to necessarily be on fire unless the elders, the leading ones, and the leading sisters are on fire.
