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In the previous chapters we saw that the young people in the Lord’s recovery must flee youthful lusts and pursue Christ with their companions. We also saw that the Lord’s recovery is the recovery of “the Christ” and “the church.” In this chapter we shall fellowship concerning four strategic points regarding the young people: the need to know the life experiences, the practical way to carry out the Lord’s recovery, the need to read the Word and the messages, and the matter of giving in God’s economy.
In the previous chapter we saw that the young people should join together in groups of five for the purpose of researching the things concerning Christ and the church. When a group comes together, one brother may ask the others if they can speak something concerning the assurance of salvation. The young people in the church may know how to call on the name of the Lord, and they have been saved. However, some may not know assuredly that they are saved. Eventually, their assurance of salvation will be tested. The young people should thoroughly fellowship matters such as the assurance of salvation and regeneration in their groups.
There has not been enough time for the church as a whole to cover these matters. As a result, the knowledge and experience of the young people is too general. The young people should take care of their own need in their groups of five. If they do not, we may eventually have a good number of saints among us, but they will not be thoroughly rooted in spiritual matters. If five young people cannot speak clearly to each other about the assurance of salvation, how can they help others? They may only be able to help them to call on the name of the Lord in a general way. In their groups the young ones should help each other to be clear about the life experiences.
Those who take the lead among the young people should recommend one or two points for them to cover each week in their small groups. We have been coming together in a general way for a long time. Now we need to lay a solid foundation in the life experiences. Every church needs such a solid foundation so that when new ones come to the church they can be helped to know the life experiences. Without such a foundation, we may have a large number of young people, yet not many of them will be clear about the truth.
We need to lay a foundation for the young people’s work. The young ones should be helped to know what the assurance of salvation is, what regeneration is, and what eternal life is. If each group covers one or two points a week, after half a year they will have covered thirty or forty basic points. This will lay a good foundation. It is not enough to come together and pray in a general way. The young people must do something specific, just as we eat something specific and definite at every meal.
To practice meeting in small groups is not a difficult thing to do. Every week after a church meeting, five young people could go to a brother’s home for fellowship. To spend even fifteen minutes will be a help to them. They should not fellowship there in a general way. This is the time to cover two or three specific points.
In the previous chapter we saw that the Lord’s recovery is the recovery of the Christ and the church. If we consider that this is the work of one man, we do not know what the recovery is. The young people must be the ones to carry out the recovery. Therefore, we need to know the practical way for the young people to do this. If we do not take the practical way, we will repeat the history of Christianity. We will merely be a congregation coming together to listen to a good speaker.
The practical way to carry out the Lord’s recovery is in and by the mingled spirit. We began by the Spirit (Gal. 3:3), and we should continue by the Spirit. In the New Testament the spirit is of two aspects — the Holy Spirit and our human spirit. These two spirits are mingled as one (Rom. 8:16; 1 Cor. 6:17). God is Spirit (John 4:24), Christ our Redeemer has become a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b), and the third of the Godhead for God to reach us is the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19). God does not reach us as the Father or as the Son but as the Spirit. Moreover, there is no other way for us to contact God, to contact Christ, to contact the Spirit, but by our human spirit (John 4:24). Therefore, the young people must concentrate their whole being on the divine Spirit and our human spirit mingled together as one spirit.
In the last chapter we saw that the church must have the oneness. The real ground of oneness is our spirit. In the Old Testament, Jerusalem was the unique place where all the people of God had to go to worship. There was only one temple, and that temple was in Jerusalem. All God’s people had to go there because that was where God’s habitation was. In typology the place of oneness was Jerusalem, but today in actuality it is our spirit. The unique place in which we meet is our human spirit because God’s habitation today is in our spirit (Eph. 2:22). We do not merely meet at a certain address; we meet in our spirit. If I were not in my spirit, I would be separated from all the brothers and sisters. Christianity is divided because many Christians have been scattered away from their human spirit. Many do not meet in the real Jerusalem.
The way to carry out the Lord’s recovery is by the divine Spirit and the human spirit. The young people should come together in their groups to research the matter of the two spirits. They should know 1 Corinthians 15:45 and be able to explain how Christ became a life-giving Spirit and why Christ needed to become the Spirit. Our understanding concerning the divine Spirit and the human spirit is too general. We lack the basic building of a proper foundation.
The reason that many young people do not function in the meetings is that they have not been in their spirit. The way to get into the spirit is to pray. At first it may be difficult to pray by yourself. This is why the groups of five are needed. The five need to pray together. A group may even make the decision to fast and pray. They may meet for a long time to pray themselves into the spirit and to stir up their spirit. Our spirit is crucial. We must get into the spirit and learn to exercise and touch our spirit in every situation. When we have prayed ourselves into the spirit, it will be easy to function in the meetings. We do not need to seek a special experience. We just need to pray. When we pray to stir up our spirit and pray ourselves into our spirit, we will experience the baptism in the Holy Spirit. To pray in this way is the best way to experience the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
Life is the Spirit, and life is in our spirit (Rom. 8:10). Holiness is the Spirit, victory is the Spirit, power is the Spirit, and the anointing is the Spirit. Even the church life and our function are a matter of the Spirit. Everything spiritual, divine, and heavenly is a matter of the Spirit. God, life, and light are the Spirit. Without the Spirit we have no reality; we have only terminology. The reality is the Spirit, so the Spirit is called the Spirit of reality (John 16:13). This Spirit can only be realized in our spirit, by our spirit, and with our spirit. This Spirit is even one with our spirit. First Corinthians 6:17 says, “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” We may know some of the verses on the spirit, but we may have never thoroughly researched this matter. The young people must lay a good and basic foundation in the life experiences. I am burdened that you would have a proper realization of the way to carry on the church life.
Among the young people today there is a great lack regarding the Word. The Spirit and the Word are like two feet to stand on. However, many of the young people may not be standing firmly on either foot. We must be deeply rooted in the Spirit and in the Word.
The holy Word is very profound, and many Christians in the past may have known it only according to the letter. In their small groups, the young people should learn the secret of getting into the Word and knowing it not merely according to the letter but deeply, according to the spirit. This requires that they receive help from others, but the proper help is not easy to find. This is why we are burdened to publish many messages. These messages will help them to know the spiritual things of life from the Bible and will impart to them the secret of how to get into the depths of the holy Word. This secret cannot be imparted merely by teaching. It is imparted through our practice of reading the messages. Listening to the messages causes our spirit to be stirred up, but simply to listen is not adequate. To get our spirit rooted in the Word, we need to read the messages.
One effective and practical way to read the messages is to keep them in every room of your house. Every time you sit in your living room, dining room, or bedroom, you may read a few pages. In this way, you can finish one message every three days. The young people should purpose not to read anything other than the messages whenever they have the opportunity. After two weeks of practicing in this way, they will see a difference in their experience.
Do not read too slowly or too quickly. Simply read four or five pages each day. Sometimes when you come to a certain point, you may need to consider it for a while, and sometimes you may need to pray about it. You may need to fellowship about some points. To read a few pages in the morning in addition to your morning watch will help you for the whole day.
If we practice in this way, we will read over one hundred messages a year. We will learn the secret of how to know the Bible. Many books have been written on how to study the Bible, but very few are prevailing. No way is so prevailing as the practice of reading a few pages of the messages every day. The messages will help us to digest the verses and chapters of the Bible. Spontaneously, the truth of the Word will be impressed and wrought into our being. After one year many portions of the holy Word will be as transparent as crystal to us. To read a few pages in addition to our morning watch is not burdensome. We simply need to build up a good habit.
Before giving a message, I have much preparation for it. After I give the message and it is polished, I read through it carefully and even add more to it. Even though I work so much on all the messages, I still enjoy reading them again. When I read the messages again, they are so fresh, new, and nourishing to me, and I receive new enlightenment.
We must deal with the Word in a very living way. We should read through the Bible in small portions whenever we have a little time. It is best to read it in sequence, starting from the first page. It is not necessary to determine how many times we will read it. Perhaps we may read the New Testament once or twice every year and the Old Testament once every one or two years. When we finish reading it once, we should start over and read it again. It is best to read a few verses every day. Before or after a meal we may read some. On work days we may have less time, but on weekends we will have time to read more. Even to read for five or ten minutes is helpful. The important thing is to build up a proper habit. However, we will still need the messages to help us to understand the whole Bible. The young people should practice reading in this way by themselves and with one another in their small groups.
God’s economy is a matter of giving. We must learn to give all the time. No one who loves the Lord should say that he has nothing to give. In Matthew 14 when a great crowd followed the Lord in the wilderness, the disciples said, “Send the crowds away that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves” (v. 15). To send the crowds away was not to give anything to them. However, the Lord told them, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat” (v. 16). Verses 17 through 19 say, “They said to Him, We do not have anything here except five loaves and two fish. And He said, Bring them here to Me. And after commanding the crowds to recline on the grass, He took the five loaves and two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples to the crowds.” This portion illustrates the way of giving. The disciples had very little compared to the number of people, but after the Lord’s blessing, what they had fed five thousand men, and what was left over filled twelve baskets.
Regardless of how much you have, simply give it. Before giving it, you should say, “Lord, this is all that I have. I give it over into Your hands. Bless it, and I will give it to others.” If we do this, we will see the abundance. This principle applies to all kinds of giving, including material giving.
To function in the meetings is to give. Do not say that you have nothing. You have something. It may be little, but you still need to give it. Just give what you have. If you will give the little you have, you will get more.
We all must give to others. First, we must give the gospel. Preaching the gospel is the giving of something to others. Then we must give people nourishment. Third, we must give material things. In the gospel, in visiting the saints, in shepherding, in functioning, in material matters, and in everything, we must learn to give.
In principle, when I was not generous in giving, I became poor. But when I was generous in every matter, I became rich. The more one gives, the more one receives. When five young ones come together, one may feel that he knows so little, but he should present what he knows or has experienced to the others. This little bit will be multiplied. By our giving, we will get the multiplication. The way to multiply our life experience is to give. This is crucial to our Christian life, the church life, and our functioning in the meetings.
Learn to give everything. If you have two Bibles or two hymnals, give one to someone else. In principle, if you give one, you will receive two. When water flows out of one end of a water hose, more water flows in through the other end. But when the flowing out stops, the flowing in is cut off. In the giving of material things, we should not count the dollars we have to give. We should simply give something. Even one dollar is meaningful if it is given by us. If we stop giving, we cut off the Lord’s blessing.
The more we preach the gospel and pass on the Lord’s salvation to others, the more we experience salvation. The principle is always the same — the more we give, the more we receive, but when we stop giving, we cut ourselves off from the Lord’s blessing, even from His presence. A good church life is a life full of giving.
I hope that the young people will practice all the things we have seen in these chapters. You need to flee youthful lusts and pursue Christ together. You also need to see the vision of the Lord’s recovery. You should know the life experiences and concentrate your whole being on the divine Spirit and the human spirit mingled together as one spirit. Moreover, you should read the Word and the messages and learn to give in God’s economy. The place to practice all these things is not in the big meetings but in the small groups.
