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Scripture Reading: 2 Cor. 4:13; 1 Cor. 12:3, 8, 10; 14:1, 4, 26
The title of this chapter is “A Life of Meeting by Speaking by the Spirit of Faith.” Have you ever heard of such a title before? The spirit of faith is a term in 2 Corinthians 4:13 that is very difficult to understand. Because it is so difficult to understand, the Chinese Union Version Bible did not translate it properly. This version rendered the first part of the verse as, “But we all have faith.” The word spirit is omitted. The proper translation should be, “And having the same spirit of faith.”
In the Recovery Version there is a footnote for the phrase the spirit of faith. In this footnote I quoted commentaries from two authorities in the Greek language, Alford and Vincent. Alford says, “Not distinctly the Holy Spirit, — but still not merely a human disposition: the indwelling Holy Spirit penetrates and characterizes the whole renewed man.” Vincent’s interpretation of Greek words mainly follows that of Alford. His words are, “Spirit of faith: not distinctly the Holy Spirit, nor, on the other hand, a human faculty or disposition, but blending both.” In the two passages above, due to the lack of light, they both used the term disposition. This term describes the inward conditions of man, including the human spirit. The Bible scholars at that time did not have a thorough understanding of the human spirit. It was not until the beginning of this century that the matter of the human spirit was properly understood. People like Mrs. Jessie Penn-Lewis spoke much about the human spirit. We received much help sixty years ago from them. After further study during the past few decades, we became even clearer about the matter of the human spirit.
The spirit of faith mentioned in 2 Corinthians 4:13 is a mingling of the Holy Spirit with our human spirit. We must be like the psalmist who exercised his spirit to believe and to speak the things that he experienced concerning the Lord, especially those things concerning His death and resurrection. From the context of this verse, we know that here Paul was talking about his experience concerning the Lord’s death and resurrection. He said that we who are alive are always being delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the resurrection life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. He also said that the death of the Lord operates in us, in order that His resurrection life may be dispensed to others through us (vv. 11-12). Paul spoke all these things in the spirit of faith.
Faith is not in our mind; it is in our spirit, which is mingled with the Holy Spirit. Doubts are in our mind. The “spirit” here indicates that it is by the mingled spirit that the apostles live a crucified life in resurrection for carrying out their ministry.
Some have asked me what it is to release our spirit. Often I would use an illustration. The best way to describe the release of the spirit is to look at a man when he is angry. When a man becomes angry, he cannot help but open his mouth. Once the mouth is opened, the temper is released; the spirit of temper is released through the mouth. In lighting a fire in a stove, if you close the lid on top and lock up the vent underneath, the fire will not burn, but if you open up all the openings the fire will be kindled right away.
Satan knows about this principle much more than we do. In the matter of speaking in the meeting, we have all been made dumb by Satan. We can talk without ceasing at other places, but when we come to the meeting, we become silent. We may still be talking when we walk up the stairs to the meeting hall, but once we sit in our seats, we become quiet. Who has sealed your mouth? This is all due to the tactics of Satan. Some say that we have to be proper and quiet when we come to worship God, but actually this is the way of degraded Christianity. Without noticing it, we have been deceived by Satan. The Bible tells us, “Do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissoluteness, but be filled in spirit” (Eph. 5:18). To be drunk with wine is to have the body filled with wine, but to be filled in our regenerated spirit is to be filled with Christ and with the Triune God. The filling of the body results in dissoluteness, but the filling with Christ and with the Triune God results in “speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and psalming with your heart to the Lord” (v. 19).
When we come to the meetings, we should neither be the pastor who does all the speaking, nor should we be the pew members who do not speak at all. Our meeting is a life of meeting by speaking, not with the spirit of temper but with the spirit of faith. Faith is not in our mind; it is in our spirit. Second Corinthians 5:7 says, “We walk by faith, not by appearance.” Our walk today is not by the outward circumstances, but by faith. Faith does not depend on the circumstances around us. Hence, to speak by faith is to speak independent of the outward circumstances. Paul was not downtrodden or disappointed when he met with difficulties, but he could still say, “Rejoice in the Lord!” (Phil. 4:4). Stanza 1 of Hymns, #717 says,
O let us rejoice in the Lord evermore,
Though all things around us be trying,
Though floods of affliction like sea billows roar,
It’s better to sing than be sighing.
These are words of faith. They are not spoken according to circumstances. That is why faith is not in our mind. It is not in our discernment. Faith is in our spirit. In the meetings every one of us, whether a brother or a sister, whether young or old, can all speak by this spirit of faith. We can all speak by the spirit which is inwardly filled by the Triune God.
First Corinthians 14:31 says, “You can all prophesy one by one.” But when I look at the way you stand up to speak, I am convinced that you all need to practice speaking in the meetings. For a child to learn to speak Chinese, he has to start at the age of one or two. Gradually he will become more proficient, and by the age of eight or nine he will become very fluent in the language. When the older Chinese sisters come to America, they have to learn the English language. It is hard for them to pronounce the words because they have never practiced speaking in English.
To speak in the meetings is absolutely a matter of practice. The reason you cannot speak is that you do not practice speaking. As long as you do not speak, you will never be able to speak. Actually, when you converse with others at home, you do have a lot to say. This is especially true with the sisters. When they pick up the phone, they can go on indefinitely. They can fellowship, and they can even pray on the telephone, but when they come to the meetings, they can neither fellowship nor pray. You say that you come to the meetings to worship God, but if your mouths are shut, it is difficult for you to be released to serve God. God wants man to speak. First Corinthians 12:3 says, “No one speaking in the Spirit of God says, Jesus is accursed; and no one can say, Jesus is Lord! except in the Holy Spirit.” Therefore, in the meetings you can all say, “Lord Jesus.”
Moreover, we have a hymnal in our hand. Every hymn in this book is a message. You can use it to speak a little. Do not be so legal, waiting silently for the piano to play it through once before singing it. You can speak to one another with the songs. This will make a very good meeting. Some have complained that it is difficult to conduct a small group meeting. At least you can all pick a few hymns to sing together and to speak to each other.
In the meetings, whether we are reading the Scriptures, speaking about the Lord Jesus, or proclaiming the hymns to one another, we all have to exercise our spirit. When you exercise your spirit, you are exercising your faith to make declarations in faith. If you would exercise your spirit to declare, “Dear brothers and sisters! The Lord Jesus is the Savior of mankind!” your spirit will be full of faith. If you just murmur in a limp way, “The Lord Jesus is the Savior; I am crucified with Him,” there is no spirit and there is no faith. The listeners may ask in their hearts, “What are you talking about? How can I be crucified with Christ? He was crucified two thousand years ago. How can I possibly be crucified together with Him?” It is only when your spirit comes out that your faith comes out also. Only then will power, light, life, and the gospel come out as well. Only then will your words supply and help others.
Some may say, “Brother Lee, this is your profession. You have been in this line for over fifty years. Of course you can speak.” They are right, but you have to know that this should be every Christian’s profession. We are all witnesses of the Lord. Jesus said in Acts 1:8, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” I do not agree with people calling me a preacher; we are all witnesses of the Lord. We can all speak for the Lord, and we should all open our mouths to testify for the Lord.
As witnesses of the Lord, we have to release our spirit when we open our mouth. I am afraid that many people release their spirit only when they lose their temper, but when they speak about the Lord Jesus, their spirit is not as strong. Why do we have to pray before we preach the gospel or give a message? Although I am very busy, I have to lay aside everything else to pray before the Lord every time before I come to speak. Our prayer is like inflating the tires of a car; before we take a long journey, we have to inflate the tires at the gas station so that we will not have a flat tire along the way. We Christians are all witnesses of the Lord. We all have to go to the Lord every day to fill ourselves up with air. We all have to learn to speak; this is the burden of this message.
In the meetings we should pay attention to mutual speaking. First Corinthians 14:26 says, “Whenever you come together, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation.” here we see that it is not one or two persons speaking while others listen; rather, it is everyone having a psalm or a teaching or a revelation. Everyone can speak.
A brother told me that at the place where he works, he has a colleague who meets in a church with three hundred people. They also discovered that it is not so effective to have one man speaking while the rest listen. As a result, they divide the big meetings into many small groups with every small group having a leader. This practice is not according to the example set forth in the Bible. This is just to transfer the method employed in the big meetings to the small meetings. It is still one man speaking. Originally, you have three hundred people listening to one person. Now you have ten small groups. What you have is thirty people listening to one man. The principle is still the same. But the Bible says that when we come together, each one has a psalm, a teaching, a revelation, and so forth. In other words, everyone can speak.
A strong country and a healthy society depend not so much on the masses or the communities as on strong individual families. If in a family only the mother does everything, while everyone else does nothing, when the mother gets sick, then the whole family will be in trouble. They can only go out to eat hamburgers or hot dogs. The meetings that the Bible talks about are house-to-house meetings. In these meetings everyone speaks, and everyone can cook.
For this reason we must build up meetings in the homes of the Christians. Every home must live a normal life. Every home has to prepare home cooking, and everyone can cook for others. If every home is healthy, then the community will be healthy. If the community is healthy, the country will be strong.
Today’s Protestantism depends on organization. In addition, they also depend on preachers produced through theological training. Actually, in organization and in the study of theology, the Protestants are much inferior to the Catholics. The organization in the Catholic Church is much tighter than that in Protestantism. To some extent, the study of theology is much deeper in Catholicism than in Protestantism. However, although Catholicism has more fine flour, it also has more heresies, which are not found in Protestantism. Although Protestantism does not have as much leaven, neither does it have as much fine flour. Both are lacking. Protestantism survives and propagates by organization and by producing preachers. However, in the Lord’s recovery the local churches cannot depend on organization or seminary students.
Because of the influence of our environment and the background of Christianity, we have never rid ourselves completely of the ways of Christianity. We do not call it organization; we change the term and call it arrangement. We do not use seminary students; we have a few “mouthpieces,” a few gifted and eloquent ones. We cannot take this way any longer. We have been doing this for many decades. We cannot go on like this; we have to change. We should no longer pay all our attention to the big meetings where one preaches and everyone else listens. We have to put two-thirds of our effort on the small groups. The big meetings should take up only one-third of our effort.
I do not expect that your home meetings will be a success right away. If you fail, try again. I expect that I will need to spend two to three years to turn around the situation among the churches. Once the small groups are built up, we will experience the blessing. This is a slow work; it cannot be accomplished by our merely having a so-called experience of the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
The Pentecostal movement with its tongue-speaking and miracles is like a tide; it comes and goes away. It can never build up the church. Paul’s work was not a tide. It continued on because his work was built upon life and truth. Today we will not depend on Pentecostalism nor tongue-speaking nor any big meetings. We can use the big meetings, but we cannot depend on them. We can use the big meetings to gather in the people, but those who are gathered in have to be brought into the small groups. In the small group meetings we are determined not to have any leaders; everyone is a leader, and everyone will speak. Although this is difficult, we have to strive for it. Otherwise, we will be degraded and become merely another part of Christianity. If we want to preserve the Lord’s recovery, we have to build up the small groups.
I hope that the young people would realize today’s situation. And I hope that the older ones would see the need of today. As to the middle-aged ones, you have to rise up to be the core members. You have to put the burden on your shoulders, and you have to take the lead to pursue a life of living in the spirit. In order for our home meetings to be strong, living, and fresh, we all have to strive to grow in life, to be filled in the spirit constantly, and to seek after the truth so that we can be an expression of the Spirit.
In order for a man to grow in life, to be able to exercise his spirit, and to be equipped with truth for his expression and utterance, he needs to open his mouth to speak. Everyone has to learn to speak in the meetings. Even if you cannot speak, you have to learn to speak. We must practice speaking. You may feel that you do not know how to speak, but if you open your mouth, you will know how to speak. Many can testify that if you do not speak in a particular meeting, you will go home with little supply. But in the meeting if you open your mouth a little bit, you will get some supply. The more you open your mouth, the more you will enjoy the meetings and get the benefit. The more you speak, the more you can speak; the more you speak, the more you have things to speak about. In the meetings we have to speak by the spirit of faith. We have to speak in the Spirit. The minute you open your mouth, your spirit will come out. This is to speak in the Spirit. In this speaking, faith comes out, and there will be much content and power in your speaking.
First Corinthians 12:8 shows us that the first manifestation of the Holy Spirit in a believer is a word of wisdom. The second manifestation is a word of knowledge. Then there are those who can prophesy (v. 10). It does not mean that they prophesy in the sense of foretelling but in the sense of speaking for and speaking forth God. For this reason Paul says, “Desire earnestly...that you may prophesy” (14:1). Again he says, “For you can all prophesy one by one” (v. 31). Why? Because “he who prophesies builds up the church” (v. 4). After this, Paul goes on to show us that whenever we come together, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, or has an interpretation and that all these should be done for the building up (v. 26). The revelation mentioned here is similar to the word of wisdom mentioned in 12:8, and the teaching mentioned here is similar to the word of knowledge.
After you read through all these verses, you will see that our meeting is nothing but speaking. If you take away speaking from the meeting, there would not be much left; the meeting would be void of content. It is a pity that we have been so deeply influenced by traditional Christianity. Whenever we come together, everyone is silent. We all wait for one or two to speak. This is wrong; we must change this concept.
Today the Spirit is like the air; He is blowing everywhere. But if you close up the window, the wind can never come in, and you can never get any air. You have to believe that today the Spirit of the Lord in us is like the air; He is also upon us like the wind. The problem is that we would not open our mouth. After I was saved, from my youth I knew that as a Christian I had to open my mouth to testify and speak for the Lord, but I was not used to speaking. Whenever I spoke, I would blush. Because of this, I decided to exercise myself. I went often to the seaside and spoke to the waves. I hope that you would all practice to speak in the same way. When you speak, do it by the spirit of faith, and learn to exercise your spirit to push the words out.
Our speaking in the meetings should avoid the tone of preaching. We have to learn to speak forth our experience of Christ by our spirit in a simple way. This is most helpful in the small group meetings. A lot of times when you stand up to speak, there is no spirit, and there is no faith. As a result, there is no content, and there is no power. The reason is that you have not practiced enough. First, we have to learn to open our mouth. Whether we speak well or not is another thing. This is like learning English; if you do not speak, you will never learn. Even if you are wrong, you should still speak. If you speak often enough, you will not be wrong any longer. You will be familiar with the language, and you will find out the secret of speaking the language. Then you have to learn to push your words out by the spirit. This kind of speaking is surely with faith; it will surely be full of power and content.
For many of us, our difficulty is first that we do not speak. Second, when we do speak, our spirit does not come out. Third, the content of our speaking is mostly in the tone of preaching. We have to speak, and our spirit has to come out, and there should not be the tone of preaching. Especially in the small meetings, doctrines do not help others that much. The best thing to do is to speak the factual experiences of Christ.
For example, in the context of 2 Corinthians 4:13, we do not see any preaching in Paul’s words. He is giving his own testimony. Verse 10 says, “Always bearing about in the body the putting to death of Jesus that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.” Then he continues, “For we who are alive are always being delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then death operates in us, but life in you” (vv. 11-12). All these words are Paul’s testimony of his experience of the death of Christ and the life of Christ. Then in verse 13 he says, “And having the same spirit of faith...therefore we also speak.”
We have to learn to open our mouth, and we have to push out our spirit. Furthermore, we should avoid the tone of preaching. We should speak only of our experience. I do not believe that we who trust in the Lord and love Him can have no experience of Him. What makes me experience the Lord the most in my daily life is when others speak things that differ from my speaking. At such times I am unhappy. Likewise, when others do not act according to my way, I also get bothered. These things happen frequently. They are all good experiences. If we would learn to live Christ in our daily lives, we will not be bothered when others speak things contrary to our will and act contrary to our desire. It is not a matter of cultivating a certain kind of behavior; it is a matter of who is living in you. If you are living in yourself, you will talk about cultivating a certain attitude or behavior. You will not give others a bad face, and you will not rebuke others. Most Christians are like this, but this is not living Christ. A person who lives Christ has Christ living in him. He is not influenced if others speak things suitable to his taste, and he is not bothered if others speak things contrary to his will. I hope that you will give this kind of testimony. Do not preach doctrines. What happened to your spirit today while you were putting on your shoes? What happened to your spirit when you went to the barber? What happened to your spirit when you were negotiating with others? There should be many testimonies of this kind. If you do not have this kind of testimony, you are a Christian who merely comes to meetings; you are not one who lives Christ and experiences Him in your daily life.
I would like to tell you that although I have a lot of burdens for prayer, I set aside all these burdens when I wake up every morning. I pray only one quiet prayer to the Lord, “Lord, thank You for giving me another day to live You. Lord, grant me the grace to live in the spirit and to live You today.” This prayer helps me every day to realize that I am not living according to the spirit and am not living Christ in many things. Before the Lord I would confess my sins and ask for forgiveness. Actually, in my daily life most of the time there is only Sister Lee with me alone. Sometimes others would come and visit a little. However, many times I feel that I am not living Christ in this or that way, and I am not walking according to the spirit in many things. We all need this kind of practice. We should experience what the Bible says, that “it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20), so that we can all walk according to the spirit.
I hope that you would all take these words to heart and bring them to the Lord in prayer. Make them your daily exercise. You have to pray sincerely, asking and telling the Lord that you really desire to walk according to the spirit in everything, that you truly desire to live a life that is no longer you but Christ living in you. When you pray this way, you will see that during the day maybe only five percent of your living is Christ, but even if you would bring that five percent to the meeting, the meeting would be filled with a lot of testimonies. Everyone should bring a little, and everyone can speak a little. This is like the children of Israel in the Old Testament during the feasts; everyone brought his produce and ate, drank, and enjoyed it before God.
This is what is lacking in Christianity. Christians are accustomed to worship services and preaching meetings. This has become their custom and habit. There is not the situation where, when everyone gathers together, each one testifies of his personal experience of the Lord in his daily life. In the small group meetings we do not need preaching; everyone can testify of his daily experience of the Lord. We can also use the hymns to read and speak to each other. In this way the small group meetings will become rich and living. I hope that all of you can take in this word.
A concluding prayer: Lord, we really need Your mercy. We know that You are doing something here to change the age. Lord, may You break forth from among us. We all want to be those who love You. We do not want to hinder You here. Lord, kindle our love for You from deep within. Deepen our desire for You. Grant us a deeper thirst so that we would not be satisfied with the present situation and that we would not be content with the condition of our church meetings or the home meetings. Lord, be merciful to us all so that we would all seek after the abundance of life, that we would all be filled in spirit, clear in truth, and exercised in speaking. When we speak, may we be speaking from the spirit of faith, with the spirit going out, and the faith matching. Lord, be merciful to us all. May all of us, family by family, one by one, whether young or old, newly saved or not, exercise in this matter. May You grant us all the blessing. In Your name we pray, Amen.
