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In this chapter we want to consider the purpose of the vital groups. Many of the groups have been coming together to pray earnestly and have been laboring for about seven months, but what has come out of this? The outward situation among us may not seem that encouraging because we have not yet seen some definite results. The saints in the book of Acts prayed together for ten days. The result was the outpouring of the Spirit (2:2-4), and three thousand added to the church (v. 41). We may expect a similar great result after we pray together for a short period of time. We may be discouraged since we have not yet seen much of a result.
We need to consider the Lord’s word to us in the Gospels regarding preaching the gospel and gaining the increase. At the end of Matthew the Lord charged us to go and disciple the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (28:19). At the end of Mark He charged us to go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to all the creation (16:15). Mark tells us that miracles would follow the disciples’ preaching of the gospel (vv. 17-18). At the end of Luke the Lord told the disciples to wait in Jerusalem until they would be clothed with power from on high (24:49). Then they would have the impact for people to receive the gospel of the forgiveness of sins (v. 47).
We may expect such power and instant results in our gospel labor, but we need to go on to see what the Gospel of John says. There is not a charge to proclaim the gospel at the end of John as there is in the synoptic Gospels. The last chapter of John describes a situation in which Peter became disappointed. Because of his disappointment, he went fishing, going back to his old occupation (21:3). When he took the lead to go fishing, the other disciples followed him. They fished through the entire night and caught nothing, but in the morning the Lord suddenly appeared to them and told them to cast their net on the right side of the boat. When they did this, they caught an abundance of fish (v. 6).
John tells us they caught one hundred fifty-three fish (v. 11). But without these fish, and even on land, where there were no fish, the Lord prepared fish and bread for His disciples (v. 9). In John 21 the Lord Jesus did not come to charge the disciples to go and disciple the nations. He was training them to have faith in Him for their living. The first word the Lord uttered to them was this: “Little children, you do not have any fish to eat, do you?” (v. 5). This shows that He was caring for their daily living, their daily necessity.
After they had eaten breakfast, the Lord asked Peter three times if he loved Him. Peter was not bold to say as he did before the Lord’s crucifixion that he would never deny the Lord. Peter responded by telling the Lord that he loved Him, and he eventually said, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You” (v. 17). After Peter’s responses to His questions, the Lord charged him to feed His lambs, shepherd His sheep, and feed His sheep (vv. 15-17). This is the Gospel of John’s way to tell us how to bear the remaining fruit of the gospel.
John speaks directly about bearing fruit, however, not at the end of his Gospel but in chapter 15. In verse 16 the Lord said, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and I set you that you should go forth and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain.” John does not speak of preaching the gospel as the other Gospels do. He speaks of fruit-bearing. The vine bears fruit only once a year. If you want fruit from the vine, you cannot pray and have much fruit the next morning. That would be a real miracle, but the bearing of fruit by the vine is not like this. If you look at the vine today, it seems that it is the same as it was yesterday because the season has not yet come for it to bear fruit. Besides having no fruit, it may not even have any blossoms.
The real fruit-bearing in the Christian life is just like the vine. It is yearly and according to season. The period of time before the bearing of fruit in its season will test you. You may think that you are waiting to bear fruit and that this waiting is a waste of time. But if you would ask the vine, the vine would say that the time was not wasted. That time is not a waiting period for the vine but part of a producing period. The vine is in the stage of producing even in the winter, and eventually in its season the fruit appears.
John 15 is a very valuable and deep chapter in the Bible. A number of Bible teachers teach only the abiding in the Lord from this chapter. Actually, however, John 15 stresses the bearing of fruit. Abiding is not for the sake of abiding; abiding is for the sake of fruit-bearing. If you abide in the Lord for your whole life and do not bear any fruit, your abiding means nothing. The stress in John 15 is not on abiding. The key is abiding, but the stress is fruit-bearing. We can have the fruit-bearing by abiding.
For the branch to abide in the vine is the living of a life under all kinds of conditions — the sunshine, the blowing wind, the rain, the heat, and the cold. In other words, to abide in the Lord is to live a life in Him under all kinds of suffering. Actually, the vine tree suffers day and night for and until the season when it will produce its fruit (see Hymns, #635).
It was not our decision to choose to be a branch of Christ, the true vine. The Lord said, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and I set you” (v. 16). The word set is a strong word. It is not just that the Lord has appointed us or arranged something for us but that He has set us. This is our destiny. The destiny of the lovers of Christ is to bear fruit.
According to John 15, fruit-bearing is not an easy thing (vv. 18-25). The vine suffers for many months before its season comes to bear fruit. After the fruit of the vine is harvested, the whole vine is stripped. In the winter the vine endures the cold and the snow until the spring begins. Then it begins once again to bear fruit. The fruit-bearing process is a process of suffering the sunshine, the blowing wind, and the rain. The Song of Songs even speaks of “the foxes..., / The little foxes, / That ruin the vineyards” (2:15). The foxes love the tender grapes of the vine. We need to be impressed with this picture. The vine can bear fruit only in its season through much suffering. Someone may want fruit from the vine right away, but the vine cannot produce this fruit until its season comes through suffering.
I have been speaking about our need to bear fruit for the Lord’s increase since 1984, but most of the saints expect instant results. They may think that they can pray for a short period of time, and then the Lord will sovereignly arrange for them to meet someone who will be saved and added to the church. In Taipei we contacted half a million homes and baptized thirty-eight thousand people in less than seventeen months, but we did not see much remaining fruit from this.
If George Müller were here, he would tell us that to bear fruit is not a quick thing. He made a list of people and prayed for them daily until each of them was saved. In his autobiography he says that there was still one person for whom he was praying that was still not saved. But after he died, this person was saved by the Lord. We must see that fruit-bearing is a seasonal matter. It is the same with bearing children. Once a woman has conceived a child, she must wait for nine months to deliver this child. The time of the child’s birth cannot be decided by her.
We should not think that our meeting together for about seven months in the vital groups has been a wasted time. We must remember that the bearing of fruit is according to the proper season. On the other hand, some vine trees may not bear any fruit for one reason or another. This means that the vine lived in vain for one year with no fruit. The vine did not bear fruit because it lived wrongly. Whether or not we will gain some fruit by the end of the year depends upon how we live in the coming months.
We need to remember that our groups must be vital groups. The Bible talks about vital people. What is an overcomer? An overcomer is a vital person. Then what is it to be vital so that we can be overcomers? A vital person, an overcomer, is a praying person. You must have the real burden for the real prayer. Recently, I told some co-workers that their prayer did not come out of any burden. If we come together just to shout a few sentences, is this a burden of prayer? This is formality. It is a formal performance.
We have seen in a previous chapter that Brother Nee said we should not pray anything that is not real prayer. Many prayers that we pray actually are not prayers. They are repetitions of statements according to our tradition. The real burden of prayer is not a composition. When the blind man prayed to the Lord, he did not pray a composed prayer. When the Lord Jesus asked him what he wanted, the blind man said, “Lord, that I may receive my sight!” (Luke 18:41). This is real prayer out of a real burden. He was burdened to contact Jesus so that he could see, and the Lord answered his prayer. But our prayers mostly are not like this. Our prayers, even our personal prayers, are mostly a religious form and a kind of performance.
Then we may ask, “How can we be burdened for prayer?” This is a matter of the Lord’s mercy. I cannot forget the vital groups, because that is my real burden. I cannot forget the Lord’s recovery, because His recovery is my burden. I always have to pray to the Lord for His recovery. When I pray and cry, “O Lord, the recovery,” this is out of some burden. Once we begin to pray for the recovery, we realize that we cannot finish our prayer. There are many places and persons for which we have to pray. We need to be vital, and to be vital is to have the real burden for prayer. There is the need of the real prayer among us. What the vital groups should have a burden to pray is this: “Lord, the church needs the proper increase.”
Because of some rebellious ones who were among us, our number was damaged and our morale was spoiled. If we love the church, we should be desperate to pray, even to pray with fasting. Our meetings should be full of real prayers, not formal prayers. We should pray, “Lord, we just cannot go on without the proper increase, especially among the Caucasians.” This kind of prayer is the real prayer. We should not merely meet according to our schedule to fulfill a formal duty. The prayer of some among us is too traditional. There is no burden or desperation in their prayer. We need to be desperate. The going on of the vital groups to gain the increase should be a life-or-death matter with us. Even if we are not scheduled to meet, there should still be a burden in us to come together to pray.
I recently checked with some of the groups concerning what they were doing, but no one told me that they were praying desperately for the vital groups. Instead, they told me about other activities in their groups. When I heard this, I was concerned that we were making the groups something that is not vital. The vitality is not in your doing. The vitality is in your prayer. If someone asks you what you are doing in your group, it would be wonderful to hear you say, “We just cannot live without prayer. We are desperate with the Lord. Everyone prayed. We only have the time to pray.” This is what I like to hear. You must have some vital prayer with some vital burden.
In order to have the vital groups, we ourselves need to be vital. We need to pray desperately, “Lord, we ask You, when the season comes, to give each one of us two people who are remaining fruit. Otherwise, we cannot go on.” We should pray and pray until the Lord answers our prayer. We should not be discouraged or disappointed but have the full assurance that He will fulfill His word. This is because He told us that He has chosen us and set us to go forth to bear fruit and that our fruit should remain.
If you have this kind of prayer with a burden, every time you pray, you will get the Spirit. You will get the infilling Spirit and the outpoured Spirit. Our meetings should not be an empty performance but meetings full of the Spirit. Our vital group training meeting is not a common meeting. This is a meeting for the overcomers to rescue the church from its degradation. If the vital groups fail, there is no way for the Lord to do anything.
One brother recently told me that the vital groups really work. But I wondered if this brother really knew what he meant when he said this. Whether or not the vital groups work depends upon how much prayer you offer to the Lord. Then you will have the Spirit. You will be a Spirit-filled person according to what Acts 13:52 says: “The disciples were filled...with the Holy Spirit.” If you are a person of prayer, you will be a person living, walking, and doing everything in your spirit. You will not be so loose and easily talk about others. You will be greatly limited, restricted, in your spirit.
Then you will have a real burden to produce fruit. You will contact people, and this will be very different from all your contacts in the past. If you are vital, your contacts will sense that something real is within you. Otherwise, the people whom you contact will not receive anything. If you are vital, something of life will be ministered to the ones you contact.
By this time we should have some gospel candidates in our consideration and prayers. We should have the assurance that by the end of the year, we will have one or two as remaining fruit. But this all depends upon how we spend these coming months. The season for fruit is not today but in the months to come. We have to labor. To have a human birth after conception takes nine months. To have the fruit on a vine takes about one year. These are the laws in nature according to God’s creation. Even when God became incarnated, He stayed in the human womb for nine months. He kept the law that He established in nature.
I hope that my word here will encourage us. We should be desperate for the Lord’s interests on this earth. This is our destiny. We need to aspire to be the overcomers to rescue the church from its degradation. There is no verse in the New Testament which tells us that the closer we are to the Lord’s coming, the better the church will be. There is not such a thing. On the contrary, the closer we are to the Lord’s coming, the more degraded the church will become. The victory will be with the overcomers. They will be raptured early, and they will be the ones who will consummate this age. This age will be consummated only because of the overcomers. Of course, we still need a church life. No one can be an overcomer without a church life. If you isolate yourself from the church and neglect the church, there is no way for you to be an overcomer.
The book of Judges shows us that Israel became degraded to the uttermost. But still that degraded nation of Israel kept a piece of land on which Christ could come to tread. Without the degraded nation of Israel, that piece of land would not have been there. Also, Israel produced Boaz and Ruth to bring forth Obed, who begot David’s father, Jesse (Matt. 1:5-6), and it also produced another couple, Mary and Joseph, to bring forth Christ. The church may be defeated, but God can never be defeated. He has His way. We still need the church life that can maintain us in the overcoming life, but we should not be satisfied just to be in the church. To be in the church is one thing, but to be in the church and to be an overcomer is another thing.
The vital groups need overcomers. Even the vital groups need some vital groups within them to rescue them. After a little degradation, we are no longer vital. Without prayer, without being in the Holy Spirit and your human spirit, you can never be vital. Do not think that if you attend all the vital group meetings, you are vital. Being vital depends upon whether you are vital in prayer in the Holy Spirit and in your human spirit.
Now I would like to say a word concerning the baptisms of our gospel candidates. I do not think it is wise to baptize our new ones hastily, especially the Caucasians. If we baptize them lightly, that will spoil them. We have to seek the Lord’s leading in this matter. Perhaps we could set up a baptism meeting on the Lord’s Day to make their baptism a very stately matter. Then we can bring those who are really ripe for baptism and baptize them in a stately meeting.
If you feel that some of your candidates can be brought to the church life in the Lord’s Day morning meeting, you may do this. But you have to make our meeting understandable to them. To bring in the Chinese is somewhat easy today, especially with those who have come here from mainland China. But we cannot expect this with the proper class of Caucasians. Many of them are very considerate. They may have a religious background, but they do not want to go to their denomination because it does not satisfy them. A number of denominations are full of old people, but they do not have many middle-aged members. Many middle-aged people do not meet regularly in a certain place. Instead, they are church wanderers, church travelers. But some of them still have a seeking heart. If you present something real of Christ to them, they will be attracted. But you have to be careful not to give them the impression that you are involved in some religious formality. Otherwise, they will be damaged. All the time you have to keep them in a feeling that you are ministering to them something really spiritual of Christ. That will convince them, and that will keep them.
It might be easier to bring them to Christ but more difficult to bring them into the church life. You should anticipate the need to spend much time on them in prayer and labor. This year you may bring them into Christ, but that still may not be the time to bring them to the church life. You may have to wait another time for this. There is no need to be anxious and hurried concerning their baptism or their coming into the church life. We must keep in mind that the vital groups need to gain the proper Caucasians through much prayer and labor.
In conclusion, I would encourage us to sing and to pray Hymns, #279 to the Lord:
First the blood, and then the ointment,
Cleansing, then anointing comes;
If we pass not thru Golgotha,
Ne’er to Pentecost we’ll come.
If the blood has never cleansed us,
Ne’er the Spirit’s pow’r we’ll know,
If for Christ we’d truly witness,
Self-life to the Cross must go.
Through the Cross, O Lord, I pray,
Put my soul-life all away;
Make me any price to pay,
Full anointing to receive.
Christ, the Rock, must first be smitten,
That the living water flow;
Without death the Spirit’s fulness
Ne’er could dwell in man below.
If with Christ we die completely,
Willing thus our all to lose,
He will clothe us with His power
And to win the world will use.
First the altar, then the fire,
If no loss, there’ll be no gain;
If our all has not been offered,
To the throne we’ll ne’er attain.
If to sacrifice we’re willing,
All forsaking, God t’obey,
He to us will be committed
And thru us His pow’r display.
First we must prepare the vessels
That the Oil they may contain;
Dig the valley full of ditches
That they may be filled with Rain.
First we must go thru the Jordan
Ere anointed from above;
First in death we must be baptized,
Then experience the Dove.
When we see the ripened harvest
Of the golden countryside,
We may know that many seeds have
Fallen to the earth and died.
Ere the fruit of life may blossom,
We must surely suffer death;
If with Christ we’ve not been buried,
We’ll not feel the Spirit’s breath.
Since it must be thus, I pray, Lord,
Help me go the narrow way;
Deal with pride and make me willing
Thus to suffer, Thee t’obey.
I for greater power pray not,
Deeper death is what I need;
All the meaning of the Cross, Lord,
Work in me — for this I plead.
