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I. The apostle Paul being a teacher of the truth — 1 Tim. 2:7.
II. The church being the pillar and base of the truth — 3:15.
III. God desiring all men to be saved and to come to the full knowledge of the truth — 2:4; 4:3; 2 Tim. 2:25; 3:7; Titus 1:1.
IV. The word of the truth being the gospel of our salvation — Eph. 1:13.
V. Knowing the truth that sets us free — John 8:32.
VI. God’s word being the truth that sanctifies us — 17:17.
VII. Building up ourselves upon our most holy faith — Jude 20.
VIII. Being fully equipped with the Scripture — 2 Tim. 3:16-17.
IX. Cutting straight the word of the truth — 2:15.
X. The word of God growing — Acts 6:7; 12:24.
I began speaking for the Lord in 1927 when I was invited to speak to denominations and other Christian gatherings. However, that was not regular. It was not until a church was raised up in my hometown of Chefoo in 1932 that I began to speak on a regular basis for the Lord. I spoke at least three to five times every week. That was over fifty-two years ago. During these fifty-two years I have listened to many pastors and preachers and paid attention to the content of their messages. For over half a century, while I labored, I also observed how others labored. In addition, I was born into Christianity; on my mother’s side I am a fourth-generation Christian, and I studied in Christian schools from elementary school through junior college. It can therefore be said that I have a considerable amount of knowledge concerning today’s Christianity.
According to my observation, there is an unprecedented openness toward the Lord in the hearts of people today. This is seen in their desire to hear the gospel. I have been laboring in America for over twenty-two years. During this time we have not seen such openness to the Lord in the hearts of men, nor have we seen such a desire for the gospel. The Chinese migrants are the source of this situation. When I received the burden to go to America twenty-three years ago, I was clear that I was taking the Lord’s recovery to the English-speaking world; I was not going there to do a work among the Chinese. Therefore, I spent my time and energy on the American people. For nearly twenty years I did not stress the work among the Chinese in America, because I knew that if many Chinese were saved, it would be difficult to bring in the Americans. The Lord confirmed the way we took by bringing thousands of American brothers and sisters into the recovery.
However, two years ago there was a change in the American immigration law, which increased the quota for Chinese immigrants from twenty thousand to forty thousand. This enabled many Chinese to move to the United States, and many of our brothers and sisters also moved there. Then I had the feeling that if we do not care for the Chinese brothers and sisters, we will lose them. Thus, we began the work among the Chinese, and we found out that the Chinese students throughout the various campuses in the United States were open to the gospel.
We had a welcoming meeting at the University of Southern California the day before school started. This is the largest private university in Los Angeles. Over fifty Chinese freshmen came to that gathering. We also have Chinese-speaking meetings at the University of California in Los Angeles. This fall when school started, there were over fifty students at our welcoming meeting. Some may think that fifty students is not a large number, but the American saints were amazed that so many Chinese students responded to the gospel at a college campus. The brothers who care for the students on the various campuses have found out that no matter where they go, people’s hearts are open. The American students have also changed. The 1960s were the age of the hippies, but we are now in 1984, and there are no more hippies. The American trends come fast and go fast. The college students today are industrious and aggressive, and they are open to the gospel.
Furthermore, we discovered that Christians today like to read the Bible, and they want to understand the Bible. They may read books, periodicals, and pamphlets related to the Bible, but they pay great attention to expositions of the Bible. Their desire to understand the Bible is unprecedented. I have labored for the Lord for over thirty years in China and over twenty years in the United States, but I have never seen such a situation. There is an unprecedented need for the gospel, for Bible interpretation, and for the truth, because people everywhere have an open heart.
On the negative side, the poor condition of Christianity is also unprecedented. Since the end of World War II until the present, for thirty-nine years, Christianity has been in a poor condition. I have been laboring in America and observing the condition of Christianity for more than twenty years. During this time I paid particular attention to the publications in Christianity. Even though I did not have the time to read all the Christian publications, I urged the brothers to observe them. We have paid attention to the views of other believers and how they work.
The Christian publications that can be considered weighty are in English and in Chinese. God is using even the Chinese language. In the twentieth century the release of God’s word in the Spanish language has been rare. The Christian publications with content are in English and in Chinese.
From the end of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century, spiritual publications concerning the divine life, the truth, and expositions of the Bible gushed forth like a waterfall. These publications were mainly in English. I was saved in that tide. After my salvation the Lord brought me into the flow of the truth. Therefore, even though I was born in China, I collected many spiritual publications in English. In addition, the missionaries who went to China printed many spiritual publications. Consequently, by the time I was saved, there were already several publications in China that had some spiritual weight. The most outstanding publication was The Spiritual Light. This magazine was published in Nanking and was jointly managed by some believers in China. The editor-in-chief later became a senior co-worker sister among us. The articles in that magazine were quite spiritual. Another highly regarded publication was The Bible Magazine published in Wuchow, Kwangsi. Its editor-in-chief was a missionary of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. This publication was concerning Bible interpretation. Almost every seeking Christian in China had a copy of this publication.
However, since 1945 until the present, there has not been a publication with spiritual weight in English or in Chinese. Many Christian publications are being printed, but they are like newspapers and lack content concerning the divine life, the truth, and Bible exposition.
The use of radios, telephones, and televisions made communication convenient after World War II. It is now easy for the whole world to know what transpires in a given place within a short time; nothing can be hidden. It seems as if the world has become smaller. A book published in Hong Kong can be purchased in the United States shortly after it is printed, and a book published in the United States can quickly be purchased in Taiwan. The convenience in communication makes it easy to know what is being published in Christianity. Hence, we can boldly say that in the last thirty-nine years few Christian publications with spiritual weight were published in the world. This shows the poor condition of Christianity. Therefore, the present need is indeed great. The need for the gospel and the truth has increased, and many people are very open. They do not know God, Christ, or their real need, but their hearts are open. Many believers want to read and understand the Bible, and the young people in particular want to study books on Bible exposition. It is regrettable that the supply in Christianity cannot satisfy people’s need. This is the true condition of Christianity today.
We are in the Lord’s recovery where the Lord is recovering the truth. We are founded on the truth, and we pay attention to the truth, not material riches, just as Peter said in Acts, “Silver and gold I do not possess” (3:6). The Lord has filled our hands with the truth. In China this shocked the Chinese believers and also the Western missionaries. The Western missionaries had the concept that they were going to preach the gospel and teach the Chinese people. They did not know that we knew so much of the truth.
In 1937 there was a burden in the work to take the rich truths among us to the brothers and sisters in the various sects and denominations. Therefore, according to the arrangement in the work, I was assigned to the northern and northwestern parts of China. Beginning from the summer of that year, I visited the various Christian denominations in the seven provinces of Shantung, Hopeh, Shansi, Honan, Suiyuan, Shensi, and Kansu to teach them the truth.
One day in Shensi Province I met an American missionary in his forties. He was with the Church of the Nazarene. In our conversation I found out that he attended the Nazarene Theological Seminary in America, but he had not heard of J. N. Darby, Jessie Penn-Lewis, D. M. Panton, or Robert Govett. He was surprised to hear me speak of so many names that he did not know. The Western missionaries considered that the Chinese only knew Buddhism and that the more learned Chinese knew the teachings of Confucius but not the truths of the Bible. They could not imagine that we knew the Bible.
We can say that for the last one hundred years, the four people I spoke of were authorities in Bible exposition, the experience of the divine life, and the truth. However, even though J. N. Darby can be considered the king of Bible expositors, some of the Western missionaries who went to China to teach the Bible did not know about Darby. They did not know that we read Synopsis of the Books of the Bible by Darby. They did not know the Bible as we knew it, because they did not see the light that we saw.
As an example, after I was saved, I learned the Bible from teachers of a Brethren assembly. The Brethren teachers are renowned for their knowledge of the biblical types and prophecies. I was with the Brethren for seven and a half years and learned these things. Therefore, in my conversation with the Western missionary, I asked him about the seven weeks and the sixty-two weeks in Daniel 9, but he did not know about them. However, someone who was considered to be ignorant of the Bible was able to speak about these matters.
When we came to Taiwan, we published The Crucial Truths in the Holy Scriptures. This book consists of sixty topics of the truth. Then in 1951 we began printing a magazine entitled The Ministry of the Word. We have printed this magazine for thirty-three years, and many brothers and sisters in Southeast Asia attest that it has been a spiritual supply to the overseas churches.
When I went to America twenty-three years ago, I established the publication work there, and I published The Stream magazine. After ten years, in 1974, I realized that it was inadequate to share messages merely on various types. In those days we held conferences on a specific subject, and I would give ten to twenty messages that were focused on the same crucial point. However, this was inadequate for the perfecting of the saints. Therefore, I began to seek another way.
By the Lord’s mercy, after being immersed in the Bible for almost fifty years, in 1974 I was burdened to put my knowledge of the Bible into writing by holding two trainings every year — one in the summer and the other in the winter. In every training we covered a book in the Bible, but books that are more profound and difficult, such as Ephesians, were covered in two trainings.
Beginning from 1974, we have held twenty-one trainings in ten and a half years. These trainings were published as Life-study messages. There is only one book left for us to cover, and that is the book of Acts. We will finish the entire New Testament in the winter training of 1984. The Lord has enabled me to spend eleven years to write footnotes for every chapter of the twenty-seven books in the New Testament and to provide outlines and cross references for every book. In addition, there are about one thousand two hundred Life-study messages, and every message has approximately ten pages. This is a total of about twelve thousand pages. The Life-study messages of the New Testament are rich.
The goal of the life-study trainings is to release the mystery and truth in the Bible from the perspective of life. Life-study is a term that we invented. This term had not been used throughout the two thousand years of church history. We thank the Lord that the Life-study messages are now popular. A brother read a book concerning reading the Bible that was published by a seminary in Taiwan. The book says that the best way to read the Bible is to read it in the way of a life-study. This seminary not only accepts the term life-study but also says that it is the best way to read the Bible. We agree with this statement. Whenever we prayerfully read a Life-study message, we touch life and are enlivened and satisfied.
Another purpose in holding the life-study trainings is to open the Scriptures. The footnotes in the Recovery Version of the New Testament are the key to opening the Bible. If we read some verses and carefully study the footnotes for those verses, that chapter of the Bible will be opened to us.
My intention is also to help believers by explaining difficult portions that have been encountered by Bible readers for years. When I began reading the Bible, there were certain portions that I could not understand even after I had done a considerable amount of research and study. An example of a difficult portion is 1 Peter 3:18, which says, “Christ also has suffered once for sins, the Righteous on behalf of the unrighteous,...on the one hand being put to death in the flesh, but on the other, made alive in the Spirit.” For over fifty years I did not understand this verse. It was not until the life-study training on 1 Peter that I received clear light concerning this verse. When the Lord Jesus was crucified, He was a grain of wheat that fell into the ground and died (John 12:24). When a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, the “death” it experiences operates on the shell of the grain. When water is added to the soil, the shell of the grain decays, but while the shell is decaying, the life within the grain begins to operate. This is the meaning in 1 Peter 3:18 of the Lord being put to death in the flesh but being made alive in the Spirit.
The Lord Jesus was the grain of wheat, and the shell of the grain was His flesh in which the divine life was concealed. If the Lord did not go to the cross, if His body did not die, He would not have been made alive. Hence, when He was on the cross, He was dying on one hand, and He was being made alive on the other. This is just like a grain of wheat. When the grain falls into the ground, on one hand, it is put to death, but on the other hand, it is made alive. After much study I found this truth when I wrote the footnotes for the book of 1 Peter. Before then I had not seen the light so clearly concerning the Lord Jesus dying on the cross and being made alive in the Spirit. We do not hear people in Christianity say that when the Lord Jesus was crucified, He was made alive. The Lord’s light and truth are truly among us.
We are not here to exalt ourselves, but we are simply stating a fact. Since World War II, for thirty-nine years there has not been one publication that is weighty concerning Bible exposition, the divine life, or the truth. However, in the Lord’s recovery the twenty-seven books of the New Testament have been clearly expounded and published in about one thousand two hundred Life-study messages with twelve thousand pages.
There is a spiritual famine throughout the earth, just as there was a famine in Joseph’s time. However, the Lord’s recovery is a storehouse filled with food, just as Joseph’s storehouses were. We have seen the need among God’s children; therefore, we should rise up and distribute the food in our storehouse. If we do not go out to distribute food, our food will breed worms and stink.
When I visited Taiwan in the past, I was not satisfied with our meetings, but this time I have a different feeling. I am satisfied and even surprised because many saints have become “scholarly.” Their testimonies and prayers show that they have learned many things, and their use of expressions such as essence and economy shows that their utterance has improved. However, we still need to lift up our eyes to see that many households are starving and that there is famine everywhere. We need to send food to the starving households. Since we have so much food in our household, we should have the heart to distribute this food. The general subject of this training is “Guidelines for the Propagation of the Lord’s Recovery.” The burden and goal of this training is to propagate the Lord’s recovery. We should not merely sit in Joseph’s storehouses and enjoy the food. We need to distribute and propagate these riches.
For the propagation of the Lord’s recovery we must pursue the truth in order to be equipped. Second Timothy 3:17 says, “That the man of God may be complete, fully equipped for every good work.” The Bible is our equipment, and we need to be fully equipped in God’s Word. The Bible is our armor and our weapon in our warfare against the enemy. We do not have pastors or preachers among us. Everyone here is an evangelist and a preacher of the Word. We all need to be teachers of the Word, and we also need to be apostles and prophets.
Some saints may say that Brother Lee can be an apostle but that they cannot. We should not think that we cannot be apostles. When we speak the truth to our parents, we are apostles. We can say, “The Lord Jesus sent me to share good news with you: you need Him. He is life and light, and He is our Redeemer. When you receive Him, you will receive life and be satisfied.” When we say this, we are apostles. We can be apostles to our parents even though we are their children. We also have many friends and relatives with whom we can share the good news through preaching the gospel. The Bible reveals that apostles are all-inclusive. Their functions include preaching the gospel, prophesying, and teaching. We are apostles; we preach the gospel and teach the Bible. Paul says, “I was appointed a herald and an apostle...a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth” (1 Tim. 2:7). Paul was sent to be an apostle to teach people the truth. We must also go out to meet people’s need.
We need to be equipped when we teach the Bible. Suppose we have a relative who has been a Christian for many years, but he does not know the meaning of justification, sanctification, essence, economy, and the dispensing of the Triune God. We should be able to speak clearly on sanctification. If we are unable to, we are a “false teacher.” To be a teacher we need to know how to speak the truth. We should be able to say, “In John 17:17 the Lord Jesus said, ‘Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.’” Our speaking does not need to be longer than fifteen minutes, but it should be clear. This will surprise our relative, and he will realize that even though he has attended Sunday services for years, he never heard his pastor say that John 17:17 is on sanctification. Perhaps he will open his Bible and consider what we have said. Then he will be supplied.
If the brothers and sisters in the church in Taipei practice speaking the truth to people every day, there will be a result. In the past, sixty percent of our service to the Lord was in vain, and only forty percent was effective. We often had vain conversations with people and wasted their time by speaking about outward things. We need to seize the opportunity to speak with our relatives a short word about sanctification. When we ride a bus, we should have some gospel tracts and a small Bible with us. If we are equipped, we can speak to people. We may begin a gospel conversation with someone by saying, “You are blessed. There is a verse in the Bible that speaks about being blessed, and it says, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart.’” Whether or not he receives our gospel, we have sown the seed of the gospel into him. During a bus ride of ten or twenty minutes, we can do the work of the gospel. If we will do this, the city of Taipei will be permeated with the gospel in one year, and many will be saved and brought to the church.
Some may say that they are very busy because they go to school, work, and do other things. In addition, they have a busy church life with meetings and services every day. Therefore, they do not have time for anything else. We should never be busy in a blind way and not have any result. We should consider how much time we waste in a day. We need to redeem the time and labor in the gospel in our neighborhood, at school, and at work. We may need to be like a nurse who speaks with people when she is giving them a vaccination. We do not need to hold a Bible in our hand in order to speak the truth, and we do not need to look as if we are spiritual. We simply need to be spontaneous. We need to spread the good news and be a gospel messenger. We also need to study the truth.
The outline of this chapter presents the following main points: the apostle Paul was a teacher of the truth (1 Tim. 2:7), the church is the pillar and base of the truth (3:15), God desires all men to be saved and to come to the full knowledge of the truth (2:4; 4:3; 2 Tim. 2:25; 3:7; Titus 1:1), the word of the truth is the gospel of our salvation (Eph. 1:13), knowing the truth sets us free (John 8:32), God’s word is the truth that sanctifies us (17:17), we must build up ourselves upon our most holy faith (Jude 20), we must be fully equipped with the Scripture (2 Tim. 3:16-17), we must cut straight the word of the truth (2:15), and the word of God grows (Acts 6:7; 12:24). These items require our careful study.
If we meet a pastor in Christianity, we should fellowship with him and speak the truth to him. Even if we speak with an archbishop in the Catholic Church, we can say to him, “Everyone needs to be regenerated, and you also need to be regenerated.” We can speak the truth concerning regeneration. We need to be trained and to practice so that we are not intimidated when we see a pastor or an archbishop. We all need to speak the truth, cut straight the word of the truth, and open the Bible to people in a clear way. Then they will be convinced and subdued, both inwardly and outwardly. We cannot hire people to speak in this way, because such people are a priceless treasure. The Lord Jesus needs thousands of priceless treasures who manifest their function.
This is not a tough requirement. Some may say that this is too difficult and that I want to reap where I did not sow and to gather where I did not winnow. But the Lord Jesus has already winnowed, and the harvest is ripe. There are millions of “fish” in Taipei. As long as we go out, we will catch a few. This word is fair. Our need today is to practice. We need to be determined to practice. If we do not practice, we need to fast, and if our labor has no result, we should also fast. We should say, “Lord, I am fasting because my work is not effective, but the work of the other saints is effective.” To fast is to refuse to eat before God. God loves us, and He is concerned when we do not eat. If we have this kind of desperation, our work will be effective.
