Search
“Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint” (Prov. 29:18). For us to run a straight course, we need a vision. If the vision is clear, we shall not be misled. After answering some questions, I would like us to consider together what the Lord’s recovery is.
Question: Romans 16:17 says, “Mark those who make divisions.” How can we keep the oneness yet not open ourselves to a negative element?
Answer: This is a clear principle given us in Romans 16. We surely need to be on the alert regarding divisive ones. Yet I would encourage you to love the saints more than watch for divisiveness. The love should occupy perhaps eighty percent of us, but the watchfulness only twenty percent. Otherwise, our attitude toward one another will be one of suspicion rather than care. If we emphasize loving rather than being watchful, we may be able to help a brother who shows signs of being divisive.
Question: What can we do when language causes a separation?
Answer: This kind of separation is best helped by providing interpretation.
Question: What should we do if we see that someone is divisive?
Answer: A surgeon’s decision to operate is not easily made. He hesitates to sacrifice some part of the body unless this is essential to maintain the life. It is not simple for us to handle the sickness of divisiveness in the Body either. As members of the church, we should be keen to sense if there are some brothers who are subtly and secretly divisive. Though we should not be blind or ignorant, we should nonetheless be loving toward such brothers. Because we want to cover and preserve them, we may in a loving tone hint to them that some are aware of their divisive intent. A thief will not steal if he knows that everyone has been alerted and is watching for him. By such a loving way we may quench the divisive fire.
The elders especially must be wise and loving not to cut off one who is secretly working to cause division. When a member of our body is sick, we must tenderly care for that part, seeking the best medication or even an operation to heal it. We have followed this practice in the past and have seen many divisive ones healed and recovered. Never again did they practice their subtle undermining; they realized they had been healed of a sickness.
It is not a simple matter to practice the church life and to keep the oneness. Others may not see through the divisive one’s subtle ways. If you have the insight and the wisdom, you will keep tabs on him, watching his movements and his contacts with different ones. Then, as the Lord leads, you may have a hidden opportunity to say some “inoculating” words to help heal him of his “illness.” You will also need to be wise to know when to talk with the elders about his situation. You may need to wait a month before the time will be ripe for exposing the matter to the elders. How much we have to learn about keeping the oneness!
Question: Should there be different levels in the church? When you come to visit, for example, shouldn’t everyone be invited to meet with you instead of just the important ones?
Answer: I am sorry to say that this type of question indicates an unhealthy condition. Whatever the state of the church — whether there are two levels or twenty-two levels — you should have no criticism and nothing to say. As long as you talk about levels, you are opinionated and a factor of damage.
The truth of the matter — not my opinion — is that every family has levels. There is a grandparents’ level, a parents’, an older children’s, and a younger children’s. When we invite saints to our house, I do not ask my two-year-old granddaughter to come and join our conversation. It would be silly of her to protest that I am keeping levels. The church is a family. Surely the elders are not on the same level as those who were saved just last week. There is also the level of those who serve as deacons and deaconesses. There are some who bear the burden to minister from the Word. Your level depends on your growth in the Lord.
In 1 John 2 the apostle John distinguishes between fathers (vv. 13-14), young men (v. 14), and young children (vv. 13, 18). The fathers have the experience of knowing the Father, so they have become fathers. The young men are strong and have overcome the evil one because of having the word of God abiding in them. The young children — even the young children — have the anointing within.
Be careful not to allow democracy to creep into the church. We may all be brothers, but we are not the same age. Four-year-old boys cannot be trusted to cook a meal; they may make a mess even if you ask them only to empty the trash. Our level in the church is according to our spiritual growth.
Question: What shall we do about children’s meeting?
Answer: First, go to the elders and pray with them. This is your family; it is not for me to say what to do with your little ones. Have fellowship and prayer with the elders and see what you should do.
For us to appreciate the Lord’s recovery, it is helpful to know what the background is. Such a contrast will help us to be clear. The background of the Lord’s recovery is Christianity, whose characteristics are confusion and division. These characteristics first appeared at Babel (Gen. 11:1-9) or Babylon (Gk. for Babel), whose very name means “confusion.” This is why in the book of Revelation the Lord called today’s Christendom Babylon the Great (17:5; 18:21).
First Corinthians 12:12 tells us what the Lord would have instead of the confusion and division: “As the body is one and has many members, yet all the members of the body, being many, are one body, so also is the Christ.” One stands out here in contrast to division, and Christ in contrast to confusion. This is what the Lord’s recovery is: an answer to confusion and division.
By reading the New Testament you can see that even in the time of the apostle Paul (around A.D. 60–70) confusion had begun to creep in. On the day of Pentecost there was nothing but Christ in the church. But before long, the subtle serpent, Satan, introduced Judaism. Religion stands at the top of human culture, and among the religions none can exceed Judaism. It teaches the worship of God, morality, ethics, proper social relations, and good human living. Only something attractive like this could have gained an entrance into the church, which is on the highest level. If I had some dollar bills and someone wanted to add a counterfeit, he would not add just any piece of paper. The counterfeit would not be taken unless it resembled the dollar bills in every respect; it would need an expert to discern that it was false. It was because Judaism seemed so close to Christianity that it was able to creep in. Even today historians say that Christianity is the offspring of Judaism.
Paul also had to contend with Greek philosophy. Philosophy ranks next to religion, and Greek philosophy was the highest. At the end of the first century, then, the so-called church had within it Christ, Judaism, and Greek philosophy. Galatians was written to deal with Judaism; Colossians, to deal with philosophy.
The third source of confusion made its appearance in the second century. This was the satanic snare of Christology, the study of Christ’s Person, undertaken by the so-called church fathers. From the studies of these great, fundamental Christian teachers arose various schools regarding Christ. One said that Christ was not God till after His resurrection. Another said that Christ was God but not a man in the flesh. The result of these Christological studies, on such a seemingly good scriptural topic, was actual division, no longer just confusion.
There seemed no way to solve the problem till Constantine the Great summoned the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325. As emperor, he utilized Christianity to appease the warring factions within the kingdom. This worldly Constantine presided over that council, which resolved the theological differences and produced the Nicene Creed, accepted by both Catholics and Protestants.
Darkness followed. Several centuries were even called the Dark Ages. Then the Reformation under Martin Luther brought in the truth of justification by faith. Regrettably, it also brought in the state churches. From this time on, there was the Church of England (Anglican or Episcopalian), the Church of Germany (Lutheran), and a national church in most of the northern European countries. Not too long after these were formed, private churches, like the Baptist, Presbyterian, and Methodist, came into existence.
Now here we are in the twentieth century, surrounded, even in this city, by all these divisions. By the Lord’s mercy we are in His recovery. If we do not clearly see what this means, we may become a continuation or extension of Christianity. If that is all we are, it is meaningless for us to continue to meet; we may as well go back and join them.
We cannot go back, because the Lord has a desire. At the end of the first century He said, “Behold, I come quickly” (Rev. 22:12). Why has He still not come? He does not yet have what He wants. He is after a Body to express Him and a dear bride to satisfy His heart. Do you think the Body and the bride can be found among today’s divisions and confusions? How could the bride be prepared there? The Lord must have something other than Christianity, apart from its denominations, if He is to have His Body built and His bride prepared.
Do you see that the Lord is out to recover His church from confusion and division, back to Himself and back to oneness? In the early years of the Lord’s recovery in this country, from 1962 to, say, 1973, those of us who were part of it can testify that among us there was no confusion and no division. Originally, there was only Christ. What life, peace, and enjoyment there were in those years!
Have you sensed something amiss in the Lord’s recovery these last few years? I fear that the old history is being repeated. Some other factors besides Christ have come in. It is damaging to accept others’ concepts and opinions. Anything other than Christ, even something as good as Judaism, Greek philosophy, or the study of Christ, is a factor of confusion. If we would preserve the Lord’s recovery from contamination, we must turn away from our concepts and come back simply to Christ.
What is a concept? It is hard not to offend when we deal with this matter, because our concepts are highly regarded by us. Here are two concepts being spread among the saints: attending the meetings regularly is religious; going early to the meetings is legal. Whether such concepts are right or wrong is not the issue, but as long as you hold and preach them, you cause division. You bring in confusion. If the saints want to come to the meetings early, they have the freedom. If some want to come later, let them. Why bother the saints with your concepts? You create barriers and destroy the peace.
Consider what has happened to you since you began paying attention to concepts. Is your enjoyment of Christ greater now? If you are quiet before the Lord, I believe you will sense that since being diverted from Him to concern about which meetings to attend and what time to come, your enjoyment of Christ has been less.
It is not too late to come back and say, “Lord, for Your sake I drop my concepts, whether they are good or bad, useful or useless. I want only to go along with You, Your church, Your recovery, and all the saints. You are the First and the Last; You are everything. Whatever concept I have, I would put it aside.” Let us all look to Him for grace that we may be brought back. The content of the Lord’s recovery is only Christ, nothing else.
He as our life is the material of which the church is built.
Besides the material for a building, you also need ground on which to build.
There was a gentleman in China who was having a house constructed. Unbeknownst to him, a portion of it was being erected on his neighbor’s property. That neighbor bided his time till the house was finished; then he went to the gentleman and told him about the house’s improper location. Here was a house designed and built exactly according to its owner’s plan, yet he lost it because it was on the wrong ground.
The ground or standing of the Lord’s recovery is the genuine oneness.
I have heard of some forming a little group in their locality and meeting by themselves. They decide together, on the basis of some kind of feeling, which church meetings they will attend. The other church meetings they do not attend. Is this keeping the oneness? Is Christ divided? Do you come only to meetings that suit your taste? Can the church be built according to your individual or group preference?
The church is built upon oneness. Anything other than Christ, however much we treasure it, we leave outside, because bringing in something besides Him will cause division. There will be no confusion and no division if we have regard for only these two things: Christ as life and the oneness. The church is not built upon a style of meeting or upon aggressive people.
Dear ones, as you love the Lord and His recovery, be willing to drop any concept about how to meet. Some may shout, some may sleep, but you just enjoy the Lord and praise Him no matter how foreign the meeting is to your taste.
This is the recovery of Christ upon the oneness. Such a vision will keep us on a straight course.
