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Scripture Reading: Acts 4:31; 6:4; Jude 20
Acts 4:31 says, “When they had so besought, the place in which they were gathered was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness.” In this verse, first, there is the beseeching, the prayer; second, there is the Holy Spirit; and third, there is the word of God. Here we can see the three things that we shall consider in this chapter. These three things are prayer, the Holy Spirit, and the word of God. From the day of Pentecost the disciples were severely persecuted by Judaism. Under such persecution they prayed to the Lord and were filled with the Holy Spirit. After this they spoke the word of God with boldness. In the account of Acts 4:31, on the one hand, there is prayer, and on the other hand, there are the Holy Spirit and the word of God.
Acts 6:4 says, “We will continue steadfastly in prayer and in the ministry of the word.” Both the word and prayer are mentioned in this verse.
Jude 20 says, “But you, beloved, building up yourselves upon your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit.” This verse begins with faith and ends with the Holy Spirit and prayer. In the New Testament the word faith has two meanings plus one additional meaning. Of the first two, one is objective and the other is subjective. The objective faith is our belief. It is the truths in which we believe, the contents of the New Testament. The Christian belief includes the whole Bible. We believe everything in the whole Bible. This is our belief. This belief is objective. The subjective faith is the act of our believing. It is the action and functioning of our believing. The third meaning of the word faith is found in Galatians 3. In verse 23 Paul says that in the Old Testament the law was at work to guard the chosen people of God like a fold, keeping the sheep until faith came (cf. John 10:1, 16). In Galatians 3:24 Paul likens the law to a child-conductor to watch over God’s chosen people until Christ came. Galatians 3:25 says, “Since faith has come, we are no longer under a child-conductor.” When faith comes, the law is over. During the Old Testament time, the law came. During the New Testament time, faith came. It is difficult to define this faith that came in the New Testament time. For a detailed explanation of this faith, I would encourage you to read the messages in the Life-study of Galatians that deal with this matter.
Our belief is the contents of the New Testament. The New Testament tells us that the Lord Jesus is God incarnated to be a man. He lived on the earth for thirty-three and a half years. In His living there was also His work. He died on the cross. His all-inclusive death solved all the problems in the universe. Then He willingly walked into death and Hades. He stayed there for less than forty hours. After this He walked out of death and Hades, and He rose up with His physical body. In His resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit. He then ascended to the third heaven and was exalted by God to be Lord and Christ. He was crowned with glory and honor, He was made King of kings and Lord of lords, and He obtained the throne.
Furthermore, the Bible tells us that we, the descendants of Adam, are all sinners destined to death and perdition. Our spirit is dead, and we are wicked, fallen, and corrupted. Our behavior is offensive to God, and we are all condemned before God. Although this is our condition, God desires that we would repent and be saved. If we will repent, confess our sins, call on the Lord, believe in Him, and receive Him, our sins will be forgiven, and God will justify us. The Lord will enter into us to be our life, and we will be regenerated and saved. The Triune God will be in us as our life and everything. By faith we will enter into Him and have an organic union with Him, and in faith we will testify of our organic union with Him by baptism. He died, and we also died. He was buried, and we also were buried. He rose from the dead, and we also rose. We are one spirit with Him. In this one spirit we enjoy one life with Him and have one living with Him. In this way we become sons of God and members of the Body of Christ. When we come together, we are the Body of Christ. Here we practice the church life together and wait for His return. When He comes again, He will transfigure us and make us His co-kings in the millennial kingdom. This kingdom will bring in the new heaven and new earth with the New Jerusalem. These are the crucial points of the New Testament, and this is our belief. Therefore, our belief includes every holy thing revealed from Matthew 1 through Revelation 22. This is our most holy faith. According to Jude 20, we should build up ourselves in this most holy faith.
In these chapters we have been concerned with the matter of strengthening the small group meetings. In order for the church to be built up by the saints, we must labor on the Lord’s word. To labor on the Lord’s word is to build up ourselves upon our most holy faith.
Today in the twentieth century, especially in the United States and in Taiwan, education is popular, and the standard of education is high. Technology is advancing daily. If we are illiterate in such an age, we will be of little use to society. We will not be able to do anything except eat and sleep every day, and we may even become barbarians, knowing nothing but quarreling and fighting. If a man is not educated, he will be very uncultured. The more educated a man is, the more refined he will be. Men in the world are seeking after worldly knowledge. Although they may obtain such knowledge, they know nothing about spiritual matters. Concerning spiritual matters, they are ignorant.
We have all believed in the Lord. We love the Lord, and we love the church. This is wonderful. Yet most of us are short of spiritual education. Because of this, in God’s hand we are not very useful. On the side of our old creation, our flesh, we have received adequate education. But on the spiritual side, we have not labored for our spiritual education to prepare and build up ourselves. This is what concerns me.
During the fellowship of these few weeks, we have exposed the poor and ignorant situation of Christianity. Because of the Lord’s mercy, we have been raised up by Him. In the past sixty years the Lord has continually granted us bright and rich truths. Especially in these past twenty years after the Lord’s recovery came to the United States, we have continually seen new light, and we have published a great deal concerning biblical truths. We have expounded in detail the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, and we have printed these expositions in many books. But my point is this: We cannot say that we have attained simply because we have some truths and some books. Have we read these books? Have we digested the truths contained in them? Have we built up ourselves upon our most holy faith? This is the key.
Our meetings are not so rich, and they are lacking and sometimes even void of the living word. Because you have not received an adequate spiritual education, when someone mentions a spiritual matter, many of you become speechless. If you have not received a proper elementary, high-school, and college education, your speech will indicate that you are an uncultured person, or what is commonly known as a “country boy.” Among Christians today there are many spiritual “country boys.” Many among us are also spiritually uneducated. To me, the Chinese-speaking meeting is a heavy burden. Sometimes I sigh because during the meetings it seems that you do not know how to exercise your spirit to speak the Lord’s word. But in other places you have a lot to speak. In the previous message I mentioned that we must exercise to speak the Lord’s word, but after my speaking no one exercised. It is like a coach practicing with his players. Suppose the coach passes the ball to his players, and no one continues to play. Rather, suppose they say, “You are the coach; you are an expert. We will watch you play because playing ball is the coach’s business.” Some of the saints have come from a distance to attend this meeting. A number of them said that if I were not speaking, they would not come. You want to hear me speak. If I do not speak, you will be unhappy. However, I also want to hear you speak. If you do not speak, I will also be unhappy.
It is difficult to deal with this concept of not opening our mouth to speak. If the older ones do not speak, the younger ones will also be silent. The older ones take the lead, and the younger ones follow. In the end, no one speaks. In the natural realm it is easy to speak and difficult not to speak. In your own home would it be possible for you to be completely silent for an entire day? When you are at home, it is impossible for you not to speak, but once you are in a meeting, it is easy for you to stop speaking. We have said repeatedly that we need to exercise to speak the Lord’s word. But eventually, we still do not speak. What is the reason? I agree with the Chinese proverb that says, “What is impregnated within will take form without.” The Lord Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of his heart his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). Because you are not filled within and you are short of content within, you have nothing to speak. For this reason I am very burdened.
I feel that everything in the United States is very good. However, if you are not one who loves the Lord, I wish that you would not come to the United States, because in the United States there are also many evil things. In this country people receive high wages for their jobs. The income from one person is sufficient to support an entire family. People are required to work only eight hours a day and five days a week. For many people there is no work on the weekends. All the weeknights and the whole weekend afford people extra time for entertainment. However, in the worldly entertainments all the lusts come in; all the sinful things creep in. Therefore, it is dangerous to live in the United States if you are not one who loves the Lord and seeks after the Lord. You may be busy working every day to earn money, but it is still meaningless to have so much money. If you have a large amount of money, although you may not sin now, one day the abundance of money will encourage you to sin.
Since life in the United States is simpler and there is more time, we can have meetings every day. But how should we have meetings? How should we use our time? This is my point. I encourage you all to labor in the most holy faith to prepare yourselves. You need to spend time to research the book of Matthew. At present we have already expounded the whole New Testament book by book. This exposition is a collection of the church’s biblical knowledge over the past two thousand years. We have collected all the gems, and we have printed them in simple language. If you want to understand the book of Matthew and desire to know what is contained in this book, I encourage you to buy a copy of the Recovery Version of Matthew and read it every day. I also encourage you to read the footnotes and the Life-study messages. In a relatively short time you can finish the reading, and you can grasp the main points. By digesting these main points, you will be able to study the entire book of Matthew within three months.
I once encouraged those among us who just graduated from college not to pursue their careers immediately but to spend the first two years full time in the church life and to get into the study of the Bible. At present, there is already such a group of full-timers. There may be nearly one hundred of them in Taipei alone. For four hours every morning they study the New Testament with the footnotes and the Life-study messages. I told them that if they would continue for four years, they would finish the whole New Testament. Do not think that four years is a long time. Four years is just the twinkling of an eye. Of course, I do not expect all of you to do this, but in principle, you all need to accept this exhortation. If you cannot finish in four years, you can do it in twelve years. Do not think that you need to study the whole New Testament consecutively from the first book to the last. You may first study these seven books: Romans, John, Hebrews, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians. As long as you are persistent and do not stop, you can finish these books in one year. The Gospel of John concerns the matter of life. The book of Romans is an outline of the Christian life and the church life. The books of Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians are the heart of the New Testament truths. The book of Hebrews points us to the present Christ who is in the heavens and who is our daily salvation and moment-by-moment supply. If you study these seven books thoroughly, you will then have something in you. After this, I recommend the first book of the New Testament, Matthew, the last book, Revelation, and one in between, the book of Acts. This makes a total of ten books. If you thoroughly study these ten books, I assure you that you will have something to speak. You will definitely have something to speak. You cannot help but speak. If I ask you to speak the Lord’s word, it may be difficult for you now because within you there is a shortage of vocabulary and utterance. But after you have thoroughly studied these ten books, you will be full of words and you will speak. In this way the problem of your speechlessness will be solved.
In addition, you must get into the truths of the Bible topic by topic. For example, what is repentance, faith, remission of sins, justification, reconciliation, sanctification, transformation, and conformation? These are all truths in the Bible. Two years ago I suggested that the brothers arrange all the biblical truths topic by topic into lessons. Last year many local churches began to have junior and senior high-school truth trainings. Two weeks ago I went to Berkeley, California, for a conference. I stayed at the home of a brother who has a thirteen-year-old son. On Saturday his son went to the University of California at Berkeley and contacted eleven people who were all adults. He said that out of the eleven, seven refused but four received the Lord. He told us what he was preaching. He said, “I told them that man is created by God as a vessel to contain God.” After hearing this, I felt that he was excellent. Furthermore, another brother’s daughter who is sixteen years old also went to the college campus to speak to others, saying, “Man is created by God as a vessel, and God wants to put Himself into man.” I was amazed at the younger generation. Later I found out that they had just finished this lesson in the church’s summer school of truth this year. Since they had just graduated, they all spoke on this.
Two years ago I mentioned in Texas that it is not adequate merely to concentrate on the inspiration of the Spirit, to create an atmosphere, and to give a message during the meetings. This has no educational value. Our meetings and our messages must be educational. To be educational is to follow an educational system to teach the students. All the things that must be learned in an educational system should be compiled into lesson books. Beginning with kindergarten and then advancing to first grade, second grade, and so forth, the children should be taught grade by grade. After the sixth grade they will graduate, and then they will attend junior and senior high school. After six more years they will graduate again and will be qualified for college. In this way, what they have learned will be useful. Without a consistent educational system, it is not possible to properly educate the students merely by teaching them a little this year and a little next year.
We do not need to have more meetings, but we do need to utilize two meetings per week to give some educational teaching on the truth. The first meeting which we can use for this purpose is the Lord’s table meeting. We can use the second half of this meeting to give a lesson on the truth. There is no need to preach a moving message. We need to give a lesson to everyone and do it according to the lesson book. In order to do this, we need someone who can spend the time to write the lesson book, and someone who can spend the time to learn it. There are fifty-two Lord’s table meetings in a year. If we can give one lesson on each Lord’s Day, when a saint stays in one locality for a year, he will receive fifty-two lessons.
The second meeting we can use is the prayer meeting. In most of our prayer meetings, after praying for one hour, the burden is discharged, and the praying atmosphere is almost gone. But because it is still early and the saints do not want to leave, we may do some unnecessary things to fill in the time. This is a waste! We need to utilize this time to give everyone some lessons on the truth. We should give one lesson in the Lord’s table meeting and another lesson in the prayer meeting. In this way we can have two lessons per week. In fifty-two weeks we can have one hundred and four lessons. Consider how much we can teach in one hundred and four lessons. We should no longer have routine meetings: Lord’s Day morning preaching, evening breaking of bread, Tuesday prayer, and Thursday small gathering. If we meet in such a habitual and routine way, we may all come to the meeting but have no feeling concerning what happens in the meeting. When the time comes, we may all sing hymns; then some will pray, and others will give messages. As we meet in this way we let time slip by week after week. If we all hold the concept of merely maintaining the meetings, our children will graduate from grade school, high school, and college, but we ourselves will still remain in the spiritual kindergarten. Surely we cannot tolerate such a poor situation.
In 1949 I went to Taiwan. Brother Liu Suey went with me to visit different places. One day when we came to Taichung, we sat in a park. I said, “Our church meeting not only needs to be spiritual but also educational.” An educational meeting is to give the saints spiritual lessons on the truth. I arrived in Taiwan in April 1949. When I started to work in August, I gave sixty lessons, which are in the book Crucial Truths in the Holy Scriptures. The foundation of the work and of the churches in Taiwan is built upon these sixty lessons. Everyone who was saved at that time received a good foundation. If a person came to the meetings every week, he at least received one lesson on the truth each week. In sixty weeks he would have received sixty lessons. The brothers and sisters had a solid spiritual foundation. But today we lack this kind of educational meeting. Therefore, today we do not have many who can teach others and share something solid. Most of what is shared is inspirational. Some would praise the riches of the ministry. However, the riches of the ministry are not their riches because they have not received the spiritual education.
If a person desires to be useful, he needs to receive an education for twenty-five years and then learn by his experiences for another twenty-five years until he reaches the age of fifty. Then in the third twenty-five years he should endeavor to serve and contribute to society. If he lives beyond the age of seventy-five, within him there will be many riches. He will have been educated, and he will have the experiences and the supply. He will then be very useful. If anyone has not received an education for twenty-five years, his foundation is not adequate. He needs to go to kindergarten, grade school, junior high, high school, college, and even graduate school. Through education he will build up himself. Then he can be useful in the future.
Approximately ten years ago, many of the English-speaking young people among us had an attitude of not wanting to study. They thought that the Lord would come back in a few years and that even if a person had very little education, he could still make a living. They thought that there was no need to be highly educated, and many did not even care to finish high school. According to their concept, they did not need to waste their time on studying. They felt that it would be sufficient to use all of their time to pray-read and fellowship with one another. At that time this kind of atmosphere was very prevailing. In order to make a living, the brothers were content to do some gardening, swimming pool cleaning, or carpentry. In February 1977 I gave Message 86 of the Life-study of Genesis, entitled “The Builder of the Pillars — the Skillful Hiram.” In this message I told the young brothers and sisters that their attitude was wrong and that they needed to abandon their wrong concept and study diligently to receive an adequate education, even the highest education. This message went out and had a great impact. Today, many of those who received this word have graduated from college. Some came and said to me, “Brother Lee, thank the Lord. If you had not released that message, I would not have finished my schooling today.” One brother, having heard this message, studied Greek and received a Ph.D. in Greek. He is now an expert in Greek and has become one of the most useful assistants among us in doing the translation of the New Testament. The reason I say these things is that I hope that in the matter of meeting we will advance and make progress. We should not merely come to many meetings yet not build up ourselves in the truth. If we do not build up the spiritual education, we will have no future at all.
I myself have been taking the lead to minister to the churches for over thirty years, and I have gained many experiences. Ten years ago I realized that it was not sufficient just to have conferences. I realized that we needed to dig out the truth. Therefore, I determined to finish the digging of the New Testament. The more I dug, the more I felt that this was right. Today you cannot say that you lack educational materials. Our educational materials are very rich. But if all these materials are just on the bookshelf, without being labored on by you, without being read and researched by you, they will never become yours. If you love the Lord, you need to spend time on the Lord’s word. As Jude 20 says very well, you need to build up yourselves upon your most holy faith. You will then have knowledge and wisdom, and you will be able to supply others and speak the Lord’s word in the meetings.
The overseas work began in 1949. At that time the total number of churches overseas was not more than one hundred. Now there are more than six hundred churches. In other words, we have increased by more than five hundred churches in the six major continents in the past thirty-six years. However, my emphasis is not this kind of numerical increase. I feel that it is not enough to have a large number of churches if the quality of the saints is poor. This would be like a nation that has many people, yet these people are void of the proper education, and hence, their quality is very low. This is inadequate. We need to build up the quality of our brothers and sisters. On what should we build them? On educational truth. All of you love the Lord and seek the Lord. For the sake of the future of the Lord, for the sake of our personal spiritual benefit, and for the sake of our next generation, we desperately need this spiritual education. This spiritual education requires the leading ones to promote it and all the saints to rise up and act.
On the one hand, we need to rise up to build up a spiritual education, and on the other hand, we need the adequate prayer. It is necessary to read the Bible, the Life-study messages, and books on the truth so that we can build up ourselves in the truth. But if we do this without prayer, all this will merely be in our mind. If you want the truth in your spirit, you surely need prayer.
Acts 6:4 says, “We will continue steadfastly in prayer and in the ministry of the word.” Steadfastly means with perseverance. Although in principle it is not difficult to pray, the opposition to our prayer is very strong. Praying is like rowing a boat against the tide. It requires our strength, and it needs perseverance. Today everything in human society works to prevent us from praying. Everything is against our praying. Therefore, you need to pray earnestly and steadfastly. You need to struggle and fight in order to pray. You need to remind yourself, “I must pray. I cannot give up prayer.” I have had a great deal of experience in this matter. My work is quite demanding. For example, recently I have had to review more than one hundred messages in thirteen days. In addition to this, there is a large stack of letters waiting for my response. All these things have opposed my praying. If I do not pray, my spirit is dry and flat. Therefore, I have to pray.
If you merely memorize the Bible without prayer, the Bible will not be in your spirit but in your mind. It will not be the living word to you. Therefore, you need to pray while you read the Bible. When you pray, do not pray for many other things. The Lord Jesus told us not to worry about what we should eat, what we should drink, and with what we should clothe ourselves. Do not pray for these things. Your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. He will give you all these things (Matt. 6:31-33). You need to pray for God’s kingdom and His righteousness, that is, to pray for spiritual things. God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness are spiritual things. When you pray for these things, God will give them to you and also add to you the necessities of your living. You need to pray, “Lord, I want to know what is justification and what is sanctification. Lord, grant me the grace to know these things!” When you pray in such a way, your whole being will be in the spirit and will be filled with the Holy Spirit.
To read the Bible is to work on the Lord’s word. To pray is to work the Lord’s word into your spirit. When the Lord’s word gets into your spirit, you will be filled with the Holy Spirit. Thus, the Lord’s word, your prayer, and the Spirit of God will be mingled together and will saturate you within. In this way, you will be not only a man who receives spiritual education but a man saturated by the Holy Spirit. You will be living, fresh, and full of wisdom. If you want to preach, you will have something to preach. If you desire to speak, you will have something to express. If you desire to shepherd others, you will have riches to supply. Then you will fulfill the ministry of the word.
After considering the three things in Acts 4:31 — prayer, the Holy Spirit, and the word of God — we need to go on to consider four additional things. The previous three things are for these four things. The first of the four additional things is to preach the gospel, the second is to release the truth, the third is to minister life, and the fourth is to recover the saints. We need to preach the gospel and lead others to salvation. We need to release and teach the truth so that people can receive the proper knowledge and enlightenment. We also need to minister life so that others can grow in life. But there are some who have become weak, sick, backslidden, stumbled, and troubled and who have stopped coming to meetings. We should not leave them alone, because they are members of our family. By all means we need to seek them out and recover them.
We all need to do these four things: preach the gospel to save sinners, release the truth to teach the saints, minister life to build up the saints, and recover the weak ones. In order to do these four things, we need to be those who are fully saturated with the word and those who pray. When the word is mingled with our prayer, it becomes the Spirit (John 6:63; Eph. 6:17-18a). It is then that we are able to preach the gospel, release the truth, minister life, and have the riches to nourish and recover others.
If you lack the word, prayer, and the Spirit, when you go to preach the gospel and you meet your relatives, you will not have the word to preach to them. You will only be able to say, “The Lord Jesus is wonderful. You need to believe in Him.” But they may still not believe because you said this a number of years ago, and you are still saying the same thing today. This kind of preaching will not work. You need to tell them the truth of the gospel. You can tell them that man is a vessel created by God and that God desires to fill man with Himself. Those who formerly opposed you will be interested to hear your speaking. You can then tell them that man has three parts — a body to eat food, a soul with a mind to read books, and a spirit within the depths of man. The body has its need, the soul has its need, and the spirit has its need. The need of the spirit is God. If the need of the spirit is not met, man is empty. When you speak in such a way, they will be moved to believe what you have preached. Only the truth can touch people in the most prevailing way.
In the matter of releasing the truth, if you do not know any truth, you have nothing to speak. In the matter of ministering life, if you are not rich in life, you have nothing to minister. In the matter of recovering the saints, you may visit someone, but if you have no life supply, you can only say, “We have not seen you for a long time. Where have you been?” Initially, the person you are visiting will welcome you, but when you ask him such a question, he will think that you have come to judge him, and everything will be finished. Instead of asking him such a question, you should speak some truth from the Bible. You should share with him the benefit that you have received from the word of truth and those things that the holy Word has built up in you. Sometimes unconsciously, while you are speaking the truth, one word may touch the depths of his being; then he will be able to rise up.
Today if we want the Lord’s recovery to have a future and we desire that the church be built up, we must labor in the word of the Lord. We also need to lead the brothers and sisters to pray and to touch the spirit. When the disciples prayed earnestly, they were filled with the Holy Spirit. This is an unchangeable principle. This kind of prayer is like deep breathing. If you breathe deeply, you are bound to be filled with air. Your persevering in prayer is a kind of spiritual deep breathing. If you pray perseveringly, you will definitely be filled by the pneuma. Having the word of the Lord, being willing to pray, and being filled with the Holy Spirit, you will receive the higher spiritual education and will build yourself up fully. Then you will be able to preach the gospel, release the truth, supply life, and recover the saints. Only in this way will the church be built up and have a bright future. I hope you will consider these words before the Lord.
I fully understand that now we are making a big turn to get into the Lord’s word and to meet in the small gatherings. But we cannot expect a quick success. Everything that is successful quickly will last only a short while. We must be patient and work seriously. We need to remember that to bring up our children and make them useful persons requires more than twenty years of laboring. This requires patience.
We do not want to take the Pentecostal way, thinking that once a person speaks in tongues, everything is accomplished. The way of the small group meetings will require at least three or four years before we see any success. I hope that the co-workers, the elders, the leading ones, and all the brothers and sisters understand this. We need to have patience. Do not try to be fast. Do not try to get quick results. We need to do this work slowly, step by step. I myself am also prepared to take this way. When we have educated all our children successfully, the family will be prosperous. Our labor will not be in vain. When all the brothers and sisters have received the cultivation and education of the truth and have been strengthened in their spirit, they will be useful materials. The church will grow every day, and the day of the glorious church life will be here.
