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Scripture Reading: Matt. 28:19; John 15:16; 1 Cor. 14:3-4, 24b-25, 31, 39; Acts 6:4; 2:42
After four years and four months of study and learning concerning the practice of the new way, we have now reached a conclusion. Broadly speaking, we have studied thoroughly the four steps of begetting, nourishing, teaching, and building. The first step is to preach the gospel by visiting people. This is spiritual begetting. The second step is to nourish the newly saved ones in the home meetings. This is nourishing. The third step is to help these ones to attend the small group meetings, where there is not only the teaching but the all-inclusive perfecting as well. This is spiritual teaching. The fourth step is for everyone to prophesy in the church meeting. This is building. Instead of saying begetting, nourishing, teaching, and building, we can also say begetting, nourishing, perfecting, and building. The teaching is actually the perfecting. The result of perfecting is that everyone comes together to prophesy for the Lord. This is the practical building up. All these four steps have their theoretical basis in the Scriptures, and they are a conclusion we have drawn through our experience of nearly seventy years in the Lord’s recovery, plus a summary of the materials that we have collected through our research.
God’s New Testament economy is an entirely new revelation. It has inherited nothing from the Old Testament. This revelation began first with John the Baptist and was continued in the Lord Jesus. The record of the four Gospels is a record of the ministries of these two persons. After the Lord Jesus, there were the twelve apostles, with the one hundred twenty who coordinated with them in their service. They are represented by Peter. There was much revelation through them in the first half of the book of Acts. Then we come to Paul, who not only occupies the second half of the book of Acts but wrote his own Epistles, fourteen of them in all, from Romans to Hebrews. After Paul, the aged John followed with his mending ministry, and the revelation of the entire New Testament economy was complete. These revelations constitute the canon of the New Testament. Hence, from Matthew to Revelation we have God’s New Testament economy, which is the entire New Testament revelation and which forms the teachings of the apostles. Although the church became degraded and deformed even before the early apostles passed away, this book of revelation is preserved intact until today.
After the church became degraded, the Roman Catholic Church appeared. From approximately the sixth century until the sixteenth century, for a period of ten centuries, the history of the West is known as the Dark Ages. Throughout this period, although the Bible was there, it was locked up by the Catholic Church. The Holy Spirit would not tolerate this, nor would the seekers of the Lord agree to this. Therefore, in every century the Lord raised up some men for the move of His recovery work. A brother by the name of E. H. Broadbent has written a book called The Pilgrim Church. In that book he points out the line of recovery throughout the ages and includes all the recovery works from the second century until the sixteenth century.
The consummation of all those recoveries is the recovery with Martin Luther. Luther recovered the truth of justification by faith and unlocked the closed Bible; he made it an open book. He did some study concerning the matter of the church. At the beginning he thought that he would only recover the truth and would not leave the Catholic Church. He still considered the Catholic Church the only church of God on earth, and he felt that he could not start something new.
But God’s sovereign hand would not allow him to stay in Catholicism. At the beginning, when he conducted the reform and sounded out the truth, the Catholic Church had no intention to remove him. For a while he was allowed to carry on the work of reformation with the truth. Later, when the truth he preached became too prevailing and the Catholic Church was too much affected, the Catholic Church plotted to remove him. At that time the rulers of Germany were unwilling to be subject to the control of the Catholic Church and had already separated from Rome politically. When the Church sought the life of Luther, Germany stepped in to protect him and through him established the German state church. This is the first state church in history. After that the nations in northern Europe followed this example one after another. All kinds of state churches, such as the Anglican Church, the Swedish Church, and the Danish Church, came into being. This was the age of the state churches. By the end of the sixteenth century the independent churches, such as the Presbyterians, the Baptists, and the Congregationalists, were also formed. This indicates that from the time of Luther’s reformation many believers have been studying the way Christians should meet, worship, serve, and work. But this was only a beginning. Not much had taken form yet.
Not long after this, the main body of Protestantism, in particular that system of state churches under the influence of Luther, became weak in the matter of life. Although in the matter of truth they were more clear than the Catholic Church, their condition was like that of the church in Sardis in Revelation, being weak and dying. For this reason the Lord raised up the mystics within the Roman Catholic Church, who emphasized the inner life. They paid particular attention to the pursuit of the inner life and the spirit. The leading ones among this group were Father Fenelon and Madame Guyon. They were quite good in the experience of life, and they said quite a lot concerning the Body of Christ. They even knew something concerning the principle of the Body of Christ. However, they did not have the practical church life. They remained in Catholicism and were not even fully delivered from idolatry.
After the mystics, a brother by the name of Zinzendorf was raised up in the eighteenth century in the southern part of Germany near Bohemia. He received many persecuted and exiled Christians. Brothers from different denominations went to him for refuge. He prevailed upon all these brothers to give up their doctrinal disputes and backgrounds, and to meet together in oneness. There they began to practice the church life. In church history this group of people was known as the Moravian Brothers. Although they brought in a great revival, it can only be considered as an elementary stage. Nothing was fully on the right track yet.
Almost another century passed by. By the nineteenth century the Lord raised up the Brethren in England. Among them there were many famous teachers, including J. N. Darby, Benjamin Newton, and William Kelly. They were raised up at about the same time and became extremely prevailing. The vision and revelation poured out of them like waterfalls. Not only did they see the light in a thorough and complete way; they have opened up the prophecies, the types, and many basic truths such as the dispensations, the distinction between the Old and the New Testaments, and the matter of law and grace. At the same time, they made quite a lot of progress in different aspects of practices such as the way to meet, worship, serve, and work. Regrettably, they paid too much attention to the truths. In a short time, within thirty years, Darby and Newton began to have different views on the truth concerning the second coming of Christ. One was for rapture before the tribulation. The other was for rapture after the tribulation. From that time on, the Brethren were divided. Up until today they have been divided into over a thousand groups. Due to this division the Brethren became desolate by the twentieth century.
Because of the failure of the Brethren, the Lord could not get through in the West. For this reason, during the 1920s the Lord went to the Far East and began His new recovery in the virgin soil of China. The first one raised up by the Lord among us was Brother Watchman Nee. He was a very brilliant person, and he was especially capable in reading books and selecting materials from them. He was saved at the age of seventeen and began to publish books at the age of twenty. By the age of twenty-two he had collected about three thousand volumes of basic books in Christianity covering subjects such as church history, biographies, sermons, and commentaries. Not only had he read through these books; he extracted the best points from each one. He was able to introduce others to all the truths beginning from the second century. Today we have collected most of these truths in the New Testament Recovery Version. Concerning matters related to the church meetings, worship, and service, there was nothing before Zinzendorf. Something worthwhile was there at the time of Zinzendorf. By the time we come to the British Brethren, there are more that deserve attention. When Brother Nee began his ministry, he picked up eighty percent of the practices of the British Brethren, such as the way to meet, worship, break bread, and work. These matters were practiced among us for over ten years.
After 1933 Brother Nee went on and began to see further light from the Lord. He began to put question marks on some of the Brethren practices of the church life. Finally, his study led him to conclude that the Sunday morning message meeting with one person speaking and all the others listening in a big congregation should be condemned. He strongly rebuked this practice in the two books The Normal Christian Church Life and Church Affairs. He mentioned this matter first in 1937 and then again in 1948. The following summer, the mainland fell into the hands of the Communists. Thereafter, Brother Nee was put into prison. He remained there for over twenty years until he passed away in 1972. He did not have a chance to see the matter put into practice.
In 1949 I came to Taiwan. At that time the conditions in Taiwan were very harsh. Brother Nee was in prison, and we had lost our support. It was difficult to have a start in the work. Notwithstanding, we had inherited what Brother Nee had given us through his thirty years of studying, and we continued to work in Taiwan. Although I was very clear at that time that Brother Nee had condemned the Sunday morning message meeting of one person speaking and all the rest listening, speaking according to the circumstances, the time was not ripe for any change. We continued with this for over thirty years. By 1984 the Lord’s recovery had fully penetrated into the English-speaking world and had spread from the United States to six continents throughout the world, with over eight hundred churches. However, the condition among us was somewhat like that of the church in Sardis in Revelation. Before God we had everything. But nothing was completed (3:2b). Some churches could be compared to animals in hibernation; they were half asleep. For this reason we spent over four years here in Taipei to make a study based on the record of the Bible and the practices of Christians throughout the ages. We believe that the result of our study is complete and scriptural.
The service that God ordains for us in His New Testament economy is first to “go therefore and disciple all the nations” (Matt. 28:19). The meaning of the word go is very extensive. When you go, surely you have to visit people. After our prolonged study we have discovered that to visit people by knocking on their doors is the most effective way to carry out the going.
In order to take care of the begetting, nourishing, teaching, and building all at the same time, we should not beget too many all at once. If we do, we will not be able to nourish them. It is better that we beget only a few and then care for them properly. Hence, we do not need to knock on doors every day. We do not even need to do that every week, or every month. For example, there may be five or six brothers and sisters who are burdened to go out. You should then come together to pray until all the sins in you have been thoroughly dealt with and all of you are full of life. You can then go out three to a team to preach the gospel by visiting others by knocking on their doors. If you devote one evening a week to do this, after four weeks you will gain about a dozen people. Dividing these new ones among the three, each will have three or four to care for. Then you should temporarily stop the door-knocking and should spend your time to care for these three or four people.
If you care for them once every two or three days and continue this way for half a year, at least one out of three or four of these new ones will remain. This one that remains, after having been cared for, nourished, and helped for half a year, will be able to function in the church. By then you can begin afresh, three to a team, to go out and knock on more doors. In another four weeks you will gain about another dozen new ones, with each one of you caring for three or four. Then you will stop the door-knocking again and will care for these new ones for another half a year. In this way, by the end of the year you will surely have two remaining fruit. The Lord said, “I chose you, and I set you that you should go forth and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain” (John 15:16). If you would follow this way conscientiously, you will definitely bear two remaining fruit each year.
Moreover, you need to work according to your ability. Do not baptize too many people and leave them there without the proper nourishing. Also, do not try to go out all at the same time in a big crowd. Simply take your time to go out, three by three, at your convenience. According to the statistics we received from the training center, we should knock more on what we call the “warm doors.” Everyone has friends and relatives. You should put the people you know on a list, and you should visit them and preach the gospel to them after careful arrangement and proper telephone appointment. You can also ask the new ones to give you their business cards, with a few words on them to their friends and relatives, explaining that you are a devout Christian desiring to visit them. After such arrangements the three of you can set out together.
After visiting people, preaching the gospel to them, and bringing them to salvation, you should care for them in the home meetings. This is like a mother who has just given birth to a baby; she has to nurse the baby. All the mothers know that it is very easy for a child to die during the first three months after he is born. The mother must care for the baby carefully and cautiously. After three months the condition is more stable. In the same way, after you baptize a person, you should preferably spend one to two hours to nourish and teach him. Within three days, you must go back to him. Thereafter, you should visit him on an average of once every three days, or two times a week. If you care for him in this way for a month, his condition will become stable. To get the best result, the same person should beget, nourish, and care for the new one.
The home meetings are easy to conduct. But it requires your diligence. After a person is baptized, immediately you have to help him to call on the Lord so that he would know that he has a spirit and that the Lord is the Spirit and that He is living in him. Thereafter, once every three days you should go back to him and teach him one lesson each time. For the content of these lessons you can refer to the ten points that we have mentioned before. After a month you should start bringing him to the small group meetings and the district meetings.
How should the small group meetings be conducted? The key is to be organic. The small group meeting should begin from your own home. Although the time of the meeting may be scheduled at 7:30, you should begin praying at home before seven o’clock. While you are on the way to the meeting, you should continue to pray and praise. When you arrive at the brother’s house, you may find that some brothers are there already. You should then begin the meeting by praising, praying, or fellowshipping. The content of the meeting should be of the following items only: the first is fellowship; the second is prayer; the third is mutual care; the fourth is the teaching of the truth; the fifth is the pursuit of life; and the sixth is the mutual encouragement and teaching, and the preaching of the gospel by going out to visit people. Every time the small group comes together, whatever it does, the content should be one of these six things. Some may arrive early. They can begin praising or praying, or interceding for the ones that are sick, or giving testimonies of healing, thus caring for one another. Perhaps some may ask about the significance of the Lord’s table. Every attendant should speak a little. In a few minutes the truth will be made clear. If others have not covered the matter thoroughly, you can spend a few more minutes to explain a little the meaning of the breaking of bread. This is what I mean by an organic small group. All of you need to learn to practice this.
If you are willing to do this for six months and the new ones see this kind of example week after week, spontaneously they will also become organic. In this way after half a year, of the dozen or so new ones, at least a few will be able to “graduate,” to leave the original small group to establish their own new small groups. They will preach the gospel by visiting people accordingly. And after people are saved, they will learn to nourish them in their homes and will set up organic small groups. In this way, after a saved one learns in a small group for half a year, he can do everything. He can preach the gospel and can bring in the new ones. He can set up new small groups, and he can prophesy. Whatever you can do, he can do also. An organic small group should have this kind of perfecting. In this way the gifts and the riches in life that are in everyone are manifested. As a result, everyone will be able to prophesy in the meetings.
To prophesy is to speak for the Lord and to speak forth the Lord. It is to supply Christ to others. This is the main work in the church meetings. The whole chapter of 1 Corinthians 14 talks about prophesying. It promotes, uplifts, recommends, and encourages prophesying. Verse 1 says, “Pursue love, and desire earnestly spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.” In the end verse 39 says, “So then, my brothers, desire earnestly the prophesying.” Once you prophesy, you excel (v. 12), and the meeting becomes rich. Verse 31 says, “You can all prophesy one by one.” Everyone can do it. No one is unable to do it. Verse 24 says, “If all prophesy.” This means that all should prophesy in the meetings. As a result, when an unbeliever comes, “he is convicted by all, he is examined by all; the secrets of his heart become manifest; and so falling on his face, he will worship God, declaring that indeed God is among you” (vv. 24b-25). Prophesying enables everyone so that all “may learn and all may be encouraged” (v. 31). Moreover, to prophesy is to speak to men for building up and encouragement and consolation, that the church may be built up (vv. 3-4). Hence, we all need to learn to prophesy.
In order that everyone can prophesy, there is a practical and simple way, which is to have every saint revived every morning. Every week divide up a chapter of the Bible into six portions, and read one portion each morning, picking out two verses in it for pray-reading. Then write down the inspiration and response every day. On Saturday evening pray-read over the inspirations that are written, and compose a paragraph from them for prophesying. Preferably, you should help the brothers and sisters to improve a little on these compositions so that the content will be concise. You should also tell them that these compositions are simply memos. During the district meetings, they should not read from them. Rather they should speak them out as in ordinary speakings. During the speaking, if they have further inspiration, they should add a few words to them. In this way the saints will pick up the boldness in the meetings and will be able to speak for the Lord. Of course, the most difficult thing to learn in prophesying is to have the spiritual inspiration. If there is no inspiration, it will become mechanical, and the result will not be a prophesying. For this reason, the prophesying has to be living and organic. Brother Nee once said that if a speaker can never have instant utterance, his message will never be strong. A strong message requires instant utterance. In other words there is the need for instant inspiration, plus the utterance to express it. Hence, when we speak for the Lord, we have to pay attention to the instant inspiration. With the inspiration there is also the need for the utterance to express it.
You need to be a living person, and your prophesying needs to be living. In short, you must be a person who seeks after the Lord and loves Him. At the same time, you must exercise yourself in three things: (1) prayer, (2) living Christ, and (3) fellowship. In Acts 6 the twelve apostles gathered the disciples together and said, “We will continue steadfastly in prayer and in the ministry of the word” (v. 4). Acts 2:42 also says that from the day the three thousand were baptized, “they continued steadfastly in the teaching and the fellowship of the apostles, in the breaking of bread and the prayers.” Therefore, in order for your prophesying to be living, you must first be a person of prayer. You must also be a person who seeks after life, living daily in the spirit, and having the proper testimony in your daily life. This testimony is not merely one of being a nice person, living properly according to ethics and morality, but the testimony of one who walks according to the spirit in everything in your daily life and who lives Christ all day long.
In addition, you must be a person who knows how to fellowship in the church. Everything that has to do with your Christian life or church service should be brought into fellowship. Today the Lord’s recovery has spread to the whole world. Due to the convenience in traffic, communication is frequent among the churches. The elders should have the discernment and the proper fellowship so that false ones will not come in. From my youth I have received the training to fellowship in everything. I have always kept this principle of fellowship.
In your fellowship you have to learn to be honest and to speak in a genuine way. When someone asks you about the condition of a certain brother, you should fellowship the truth. You should not brush the matter aside. You have to realize that our fellowship is not a matter of finding out other people’s faults. Rather, it is to perfect others and to build up the church through this kind of fellowship. In this way everyone will receive the benefit.
If you will spend six days a week to learn the Lord’s word this way and will be a praying person, living Christ, and bringing everything into fellowship, when you stand up to speak, your speaking will surely be living and organic. In the district meetings on the Lord’s Day you will surely be able to prophesy and will build up the saints and the church. All these require your learning and practice.
