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Scripture Reading: Rom. 12:1, 4-5, 11; 1:9a; Phil. 3:3; Acts 5:20; 11:18; John 21:15; Rom. 5:10; Eph. 4:11-12; 1 Cor. 14:1, 5, 12
Prayer: Lord, we praise You and thank You that You are so merciful and gracious and full of blessing. Lord, we praise You that You are the Victor. You have been put to death, yet You live and are living forever. Because You live, we have hope in Your living life. Lord, thank You for tonight. We are here to listen to Your word. Once again, Lord, open up Yourself to us. We want to open ourselves to You. Cover us that there would be a communication, a fellowship, between You and us in our spirit. We want to speak in You. Lord, speak in our speaking. When we touch Your throne, we cannot forget Your enemy, the evil one, the power of darkness. Lord, we accuse him and ask You to put him to shame. Chase him away, and put him in the corner. Lord, help us. We hide ourselves in You and under Your precious, prevailing blood. Amen.
This series of messages is a part of the full-time training. In this training I will take care of only two matters — life and the new way or, rather, the God-ordained way. I will give two messages a week on the matter of life and two on the new way. Concerning life, I will first cover the experience of life and then the growth in life.
Concerning the new way, the God-ordained way, this matter has been missed and much neglected by the Lord’s children. Even today, a small number have opposed and rejected the new way. Therefore, I have a burden to put out the things which I have received of the Lord and with which the Lord has burdened me concerning His ordained way for us to serve Him in the church life.
Concerning the God-ordained way, the New Testament is full of revelation. God wants us to serve Him, but in the New Testament no one is allowed to serve God according to his own concept. We have to serve God according to God’s concept. God’s ordained way has been fully and clearly revealed in the New Testament, yet Christians through all the centuries, from the last part of the first century down to today, have neglected it.
What we call the new way is simply this God-ordained way. We must see that this new way is very ancient. It is not old but quite ancient. It was even there with John the Baptist and the early apostles in the first century. Then why do we call this the new way? It is because everything that belongs to God, regardless of how ancient it may be, is still new. With God, there is no oldness; everything is new. God is new, but we are always old. With us, things become stale. We may do some service, we may preach the gospel, yet in a stale way. We may help the young believers, but the way we do it may not be that fresh, like the fresh dew early in the morning. We may even perfect some of the saints somewhat, yet our way may be too old, too stale. This is why there is no prophesying to build up the Body of Christ as unveiled in 1 Corinthians 14. Very few Christians through all the generations have known how to prophesy, that is, to speak for the Lord, to speak forth the Lord, and to minister the Lord to others, that the Body of Christ might be organically built up. Therefore, this matter has actually been put aside. Based on this, we have to say that this is a new way to us today. So we must endeavor to put aside the old and pick up the new. This is not easy, but we must come back to the Bible to see and to practice the God-ordained way.
In the past few years I have collected all the points related to the God-ordained way and condensed them into four main steps.
First, we are the priests of the New Testament gospel. Therefore, we must act, behave, live, and move as priests of the gospel. All of us have to visit people where they are to get them saved, to bring them to Christ. Although many have been preaching the gospel, most of the preaching of the gospel today is not scriptural. Although some preach things that are according to the Scriptures, the way they preach is not scriptural. They do not preach the gospel of the New Testament according to God’s ordained way. We have to realize first that we are the New Testament priests of the gospel. We all know that the main work a priest does is to offer sacrifices to God. We must do the work of the gospel as a priest to produce some sacrifices for God. From my youth as a Christian, I learned that we Christians are priests of God, but I did not know what sacrifices we should offer. I was taught that we should offer our praises and thanks to God as sacrifices. I also learned that we should give material things to God, His children, His church, His servants, and so forth as sacrifices. But these are too minor. The major sacrifices we should offer to God are the sinners saved by the gospel through our preaching. In Romans 15 Paul says that he was “a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, a laboring priest of the gospel of God, in order that the offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable” (v. 16). Paul offered the Gentile believers saved through his preaching as a sacrifice to God. We all must have this kind of concept. How many people have you brought to Christ since you have been saved? As one of God’s priests, could you not bring one person to the Lord in one year, three hundred sixty-five days? This is logical and fair. If not, suppose you were the Lord; what would you say? I believe that you would fire such a priest.
Some have criticized door-knocking, saying, “I went out for two months and did not gain anyone.” Then I would answer, “What about the other ten months? Does a mother bring forth a child every day?” God’s natural law regulates. A child should be in its mother’s womb for nine months. If a mother wants a second child, it is not so easy, because nine months of one year are gone. She has only three months left, so she has to borrow from the next year. This is God’s regulation. Once a mother has conceived, she learns the lesson of patience day after day for two hundred seventy days. If we preach the gospel like such a patient mother, in at least nine months we could bring one to the Lord.
You may think this would be small, but actually it is not small. Suppose each one of us will get one yearly. Surely the church will be doubled within one year. God’s way seems too slow, yet it goes very fast. God created only one man, Adam. But today there are billions of Adams on this earth. It is very slow yet the most prevailing. I recently studied some statistics. In the past one hundred fifty years, two heretical groups have been the most successful in increasing their numbers. They did this by the way of door-knocking. One group is the Mormons, and the other is the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I studied statistics put out by the Jehovah’s Witnesses for the twelve nations in which their work was the most prevailing last year. In Japan they figured out that they need to spend more than six thousand hours to get one person. This means that even if they work ten hours a day for two years, they may get only one. Even if you could get only one person in one year, although it seems slow, it is much better than doing nothing. You may have gone out for two months and gained no one. So why not try another two months? Why not try the third two months, the fourth two months, and the fifth two months? If you could not gain one this year, try the next year. Our problem is, first, we do not realize that we are priests of the gospel, and second, we do not persevere in our practice. Some may say, “Peter spoke once on the day of Pentecost, and three thousand were saved; then a few days later five thousand were added.” There is such a history in the Bible, but today who can say, “I speak, and I gain three thousand”? That is not God’s ordained way. God did not say that if a woman would be faithful and believe in Him, one day He would suddenly give her three thousand children. I believe that Adam brought forth many children, but I do not believe that he brought forth one dozen a year. Some have said that we should bear fruit every month like the tree of life in the New Jerusalem. To talk this way is one thing, but to practice it is another. I would not count on that way. It would be good if each of us would gain one person within three years. If every member in the church could bring one person to the Lord and into the church life within three years, the church would increase by one-third each year.
But how many among us even do this? Our way to preach the gospel is too old and stale. I still remember D. L. Moody’s story. He once vowed that he would not go to sleep without speaking the gospel to at least one person each day. Then one night near midnight, he realized that he had neglected to speak the gospel to anyone that day. He went out, but no one was on the street. He could find only a policeman, so he went to him and tried to get him to believe in Jesus. But the policeman became very offended and angry. Later though, he became interested and found out who the man was that had preached to him. Eventually, that policeman got saved.
If you would have this kind of patience, this kind of spirit, surely within three years you would gain one. If you would have D. L. Moody’s spirit, even within three months you would gain one. It would be easy for you to gain four per year. Today most of us are not living in small villages but in big cities. These big cities are big fishing ponds. Sometimes I feel that the fish are just longing to be caught, but we do not act, we do not move. So we must pick up this new way. We are priests of the gospel. We must touch people. We must gain people. We must bring people to Christ. Every year we should bring forth one or two spiritual children that we may present them to the Lord as a present, an offering, a sacrifice.
Since I saw and began to speak concerning the new way, there has been much opposition. But, thank the Lord, most of the churches and most of the saints in the recovery have accepted the new way. However, to accept the new way is one thing; to practice it is another. Because of this, I am burdened to urge all of you who are in this meeting and all the other saints who are in the recovery throughout the world to practice the new way. We all have to learn to practice the new way that the Lord may have a way to go on among us today for the carrying out of His New Testament economy in building up the Body of Christ.
In Luke 14 the Lord said, “Go out into the roads and hedges and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled” (v. 23). Have you ever compelled, forced, someone to believe in the Lord Jesus? Some people are too spiritual, saying, “We cannot save people. Let the Lord do it. Do not force people. Do not compel people.” Yet the Lord Jesus tells us to “compel them to come in.” It seems more spiritual to say, “Just wait. Let the Lord do it.” But according to the Bible, this is wrong.
There are too many things we can see in the New Testament that we do not practice. According to the New Testament, we first have to see that we are priests of the gospel and that we need to offer some sacrifices to God. Please do not say that you are only a sister, that you are old, that you are weak, that you are sick, or that you are not a professional preacher. The Lord Jesus would never let you take any of these excuses. Second, as a priest of the gospel, you must take action with patience. It is not so easy to get one person saved, and it is not easy to raise up one person. I have heard that some have brought many to the Lord, yet they were not able to bring one into the church life. If this is your case, it is because you did it without patience and faith. If you have the patience and faith, surely at least one of them will be brought to the Lord and will be brought into the church life. If you do not have the patience and faith when you go to visit people, surely they will not believe. You may think, “This one is too shallow. There is no need to bring him into the church life. And that one is very rude.” When you want to save a person, you must love that person. Without love, without care, you cannot bring people to the Lord. Whether this one is lame, crippled, blind, or deaf, you must love him. Some of the saints among us in the past did not like these kinds of persons. They liked “perfect persons,” so they did not have the patience and faith that they could eventually bring people to the Lord. We must learn to exercise our patience and faith. God has assigned us to be priests, but we do not have patience and faith to keep practicing the priesthood. Now we have to pick up the priesthood and practice it with patience and faith so that we may eventually offer some saved sinners as sacrifices to God. We must practice this by endeavoring with endurance, with long-suffering, with patience, with love, with care, and with faith.
A blind American sister, Fanny Crosby, wrote the hymn, “Rescue the perishing, / Care for the dying” (Hymns, #921). That hymn really inspires me. But for you to sing this hymn is only thunder without rain. You only sing; you do not go out to rescue anyone. The Jehovah’s Witnesses have the patience to spend over six thousand hours to get one person. We have the pure gospel, the highest gospel, yet we do not have the increase because we do not go out to get it with patience and faith. You must go out. In one week you may gain nothing. In one month you may gain nothing. But by the end of one year you will gain one, at least one drop of rain. Yet this is not too little. You have to treasure this one. It is good that the Lord has given us a new start. As priests of the gospel, we all have to go out and practice our New Testament priesthood.
The second step is the feeding, the nourishing, of the new ones. This is much harder than gaining the sinners. To bring forth a child is hard but not as hard as raising a child. Day and night the mother and father would sacrifice everything for that child. However, among the Christians, very few would do this work. Sometimes we brought someone to the Lord, but after two months they died prematurely because they received no care. The New Testament is full of this matter of feeding. In the following messages we will see how Paul did the nourishing, the feeding. Paul says that he cared for the believers as a nursing mother would cherish her own children and that he exhorted and consoled them as a father his own children (1 Thes. 2:7, 11).
We must learn to feed, to nourish, the new ones whom we have brought to the Lord. They are just like newborn babes who need the feeding, the nourishing. In the Gospel of John the Lord Jesus talked to Peter about the feeding of the small lambs (21:15). Most students and teachers of this Gospel concentrate their teaching and fellowship directly on the matter of life. However, after John seemed to conclude his Gospel in chapter 20, he added one more chapter. In this additional chapter the Lord checked with Peter: “Peter, do you love Me? If you say that you love Me, you have to do one thing — feed My lambs.” All the mothers know that to feed or to nourish a little child is not a simple thing. When we look at the situation today, among the believers who are not pastors and preachers, who is doing this kind of feeding work? You cannot feed the lambs occasionally. You have to do it regularly, just like nourishing a little baby. You have to do it, not only daily but many times a day and at certain times. Then the babe will be nourished; otherwise, it may die.
Even among ourselves today, we cannot see much feeding. Therefore, we are not serving the Lord according to the Scriptures. Do you believe that the word of the Lord, “Feed My lambs,” is spoken only to Peter but not to you? I do not believe so. Peter stood there before the Lord representing all of us. Whatever the Lord spoke to him is the same to us. Therefore, we must learn and endeavor to get into the practice of feeding the lambs. Regardless of who we are, as long as we are a believer, we are charged by the Lord to feed His lambs. One day, we will all stand before the Lord at His judgment seat to give account of ourselves in this matter (Rom. 14:10, 12).
The third step, after the matter of feeding, is the perfecting of the saints. There is nearly no perfecting work being done on the believers today according to the truth of Ephesians 4:12. The last main step is to prophesy for the church, the Body of Christ, to be built up. Generally speaking, this practice does not exist today.
By all that we have talked about above, we can see that both Christianity and we ourselves are not practicing these four steps. The way we are taking to preach the gospel is not so scriptural. The feeding of the lambs is nearly absent. The perfecting of the saints has been neglected — nearly no one has been perfected. Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as the prophesying for the building up of the church, the Body of Christ, as an organism. Most of the Christians are building up a congregation for a façade, a show. Where is the organic building of the organism of the Triune God, the Body of Christ? This organic building could be done only by all the saints endeavoring to prophesy, to speak for the Lord, in the church meetings. But today there is not such a thing.
Now we will fellowship some of the principles of the spiritual service that we should render to God. There are four principles that we all have to see.
First, we must see that our service, our serving of God, must be as a member in the Body. This is why Paul, after so much teaching in the first eleven chapters of Romans, brings the saints to the matter of the Body in Romans 12. He says, “I exhort you therefore, brothers, through the compassions of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice” (v. 1). Based on this, he goes on to talk about the Body service (vv. 4-5). He says that we all are members of one Body. Look at the members of your body; not one is independent. Every one, big or small, is moving, acting, functioning, in the body. Look at today’s situation. Needless to say we cannot see the Body; we cannot even see a proper group of Christians serving together. There are so many opinions, concepts, and different views. Who is wrong, and who is right? Eventually, everyone is not only wrong but also detached from the Body. You may be very right, but you are right and detached. Your hand may be clean, but it is detached. It would be better to be dirty and remain in the body than to be clean and detached.
The second principle of our spiritual service is that we must serve in our spirit and by the Holy Spirit. Without these two spirits our service is nothing. Paul says, “God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit in the gospel” (1:9). He also says that we are those “who serve by the Spirit of God” (Phil. 3:3). We know this, but we do not practice it. Being filled with the Spirit and having the outpouring of the Spirit do not depend upon our feeling. They depend on how much we are willing to take Christ’s cross. The cross must come; then Pentecost follows. We must take Christ’s death; then the Spirit will follow the crucified Christ. This is where our power is.
We must also learn not to serve by our natural ability or skill. We must learn how to look unto the Lord, how to trust in Him, and how to receive His death and put His death into our daily experience. We must also have the proper, adequate prayer. Then we will be people full of the Spirit. The Spirit will fill us within and clothe us without. We will be people having the Spirit acting in our spirit and working through our spirit, and we will use the power of the Spirit by exercising our spirit. This is needed in all of these four steps: in preaching the gospel, in nourishing the new ones, in perfecting the saints, and in prophesying. So many saints cannot prophesy because they are short of the Spirit. They are short of the Holy Spirit, and they do not know how to use their spirit, how to exercise their spirit. If they would practice to exercise their spirit to touch the Holy Spirit, eventually it would be easy for them to prophesy.
Another principle is that our service must be by life, not by ability or gifts. We must learn how to minister life to others. Whenever we meet someone, we must learn how to exercise our spirit to dispense the living Christ with His living word into this person as life. Both feeding and nourishing imply the impartation of the life supply. The feeding of a child by its mother is a kind of life dispensing. Likewise, the matters of perfecting and prophesying could be carried out only by the Spirit with life.
Last, our service must be for the building up of the Body of Christ and not for our own work. Regardless of how long we have been serving in the Lord’s recovery, we may not have rendered much building up to the Body of Christ.
We all need to see these four principles of our spiritual service to God. Our service must be in the Body, in our spirit and by the Holy Spirit, by life, and for the building up of the Body of Christ.
Now we will fellowship some of the principles of the spiritual service which we should render to God. There are four principles we all have to see.
First, we must see that our service, our serving of God, must be as a member in the Body. This is why Paul, after so much teaching in the first eleven chapters of Romans, brought the saints to the matter of the Body in Romans 12. He said, “I beg you therefore, brothers, through the compassions of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice” (v. 1). Based upon this, he went on to talk about the Body service (vv. 4-5). He said we all are members of one Body. Look at the members of your body; not one is independent. Every one, big or small, is moving, acting, functioning, in the body. Look at today’s situation. Needless to say we cannot see the Body, we cannot even see a proper group of Christians serving together. There are so many opinions, concepts, and different views. Who is wrong, and who is right? Eventually, everybody is not only wrong but also detached from the Body. You may be very right, but you are right and detached. Your hand may be clean, but it is detached. It would be better to be dirty and remain in the body, than to be clean and detached.
The second principle of our spiritual service is that we must serve in our spirit and by the Holy Spirit. Without these two spirits, our service is nothing. Paul says, “God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit in the gospel” (Rom. 1:9). He also says that we are those “who serve by the Spirit of God” (Phil. 3:3). We know this, but we do not practice it. Being filled with the Spirit and having the outpouring of the Spirit does not depend upon our feeling. It depends upon how much we are willing to take Christ’s cross. The cross must come; then Pentecost follows. We must take Christ’s death; then the Spirit will follow the crucified Christ. This is where our power is.
We must also learn not to serve by our natural ability or skill. We must learn how to look unto the Lord, how to trust in Him, and how to receive His death and put His death into our daily experience. We must also have the proper, adequate prayer. Then we will be people full of the Spirit. The Spirit will fill us within and clothe us without. We will be people having the Spirit acting in our spirit and working through our spirit, and we will use the power of the Spirit by exercising our spirit. This is needed in all of these four steps: in preaching the gospel, in nourishing the new ones, in perfecting the saints, and in prophesying. So many saints cannot prophesy because they are short of the Spirit. They are short of the Holy Spirit, and they do not know how to use their spirit, how to exercise their spirit. If they would practice to exercise their spirit to touch the Holy Spirit, eventually it would be easy for them to prophesy.
Another principle is that our service must be by life, not by ability or gifts. We must learn how to minister life to others. Whenever we meet someone, we must learn how to exercise our spirit to dispense the living Christ with His living word into this person as life. Both feeding and nourishing imply the impartation of the life supply. The feeding of a child by its mother is a kind of life dispensing. Likewise, the matters of perfecting and prophesying could only be carried out by the Spirit with life.
Lastly, our service must be for the building up of the Body of Christ and not for our own work. Regardless of how long we have been serving in the Lord’s recovery, we may not have rendered much building up to the Body of Christ.
We all need to see these four principles of our spiritual service to God. Our service must be: in the Body, in our spirit and by the Holy Spirit, by life, and for the building up of the Body of Christ.
