I feel that through the past Friday night meetings we all have come to a very needy situation. This training is very particular. Of course, I realize there are some younger ones among us. They do have a heart, yet I have a deep sensation that according to the life procedure they have not come up to a state that they really understand what we have been talking about these past few weeks. Surely what we have been speaking is very strange. Life matters can be comprehended only by life itself. If I did not have a human life, I could not understand the human life. Regardless of how much I might talk about human life to dogs, they could not understand because they do not have the human life. Even among human beings there may be a lack of understanding. It is difficult for a two-year-old child to understand what a seventy-five-year-old man is talking about. You need life to understand life. But I do have a deep sensation that many of you here do have a stature to understand what we are talking about.
A testimony from my own experience may help you to understand. For more than five years after I got saved, I did not know, and I was unable to know, what is the real experience of the co-crucifixion with Christ. I learned this truth—of being crucified with Christ—in the same year that I got saved, but it bothered me for at least five years. During those first five years of my Christian life I read many books concerning the co-crucifixion with Christ. I even taught others and helped others in this matter, yet I myself did not understand the real meaning of co-crucifixion with Christ. Why? Because for the first five years of my Christian life I did not have the measure, the stature, to understand it.
All the parents know that they cannot teach their children certain things when they are only one year old. As they grow, you begin to teach them more. Even in school, the sixth-grade lessons cannot be taught to the first graders. You cannot go too fast. You must wait. Grade after grade as they are growing, they are picking up, and they are learning. Then you can pass on more and more to them. According to the human educational system, there is the need of altogether sixteen years to finish a university degree. It takes six years for elementary school, six years for high school, and four years for college. Without passing through the sixteen years, it is hard for anyone to understand the things up to the level of university graduation. You cannot expect a boy fourteen years of age to graduate from the university. There is the need of growth.
In principle, life is the same, whether it is animal life, plant life, or human life. Today we are enjoying the divine life, and the principle is the same. There is the need of the birth; there is the need of the growth; and there is the need of the maturity. Even after maturity there is the need of the top maturity. Although the students may have graduated from a four-year college, they still need another two years to finish a master’s degree, and they need another two or three years to finish a Ph.D. All are matured, yet some are at the top of maturity. This Perfecting Training is to perfect the saints in maturity. If you do not grow or if you do not have growth, this training will mean nothing to you, and you will get nothing. This is a special training, not a kind of preaching or teaching. We have come to a crucial point of our need.
Why do we talk so much about peculiarity? I have a burden. The vision we have received from the Lord is that what the Lord needs today is an actual Body life, an actual building up of His Body. It is not just to have a group of seeking Christians who meet in the name of the Lord and on the proper ground. Although this is good and this is needed, this must be considered as an initial stage. In the initial stage the Lord’s seekers must come together to meet in the name and on the ground of oneness as a proper local expression of the Body. From this stage we all have to go on to reach the point that we will be built up together.
Since we moved into Elden hall in 1965, I have been watching and observing the situation among the saints. Fifteen years have now passed, and I have seen many saints who came into the Lord’s recovery since we were in Elden hall. After about eight to ten years some of the dear ones just began to have nothing to do. They sought after the Lord, they turned this way, and they have been practicing the church life. They have been meeting with the saints in the name and on the ground of oneness, but after so many years it seems that they have nothing to do. We know that the church is one. We know that the meeting must be in the name. We know that we must be on the ground of oneness. We know this, and we have been practicing it now for perhaps ten years. What is the present need? Basically, we need two things today: we need to grow, and we need to be built up.
According to my observation, so many dear ones have come in to practice the church life, to meet in the name and on the ground of oneness, but they do not have much growth. They have picked up a lot of knowledge but not much growth. I do not believe that there is another Christian group today on the earth that puts out so many messages as we put out in the Lord’s recovery. Within the past seventeen or eighteen years about three thousand messages have been printed. These have been mainly from Paul’s Epistles, from other books of the New Testament, and from the Old Testament. We have the Life-studies of Matthew, John, Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Hebrews, Revelation, and others. Besides these we have messages that were given on the Psalms eleven years ago concerning Christ and the church. We have the Life-study of Genesis. We have a study on the Song of Songs. We have a study on Ezekiel. We have over fifty messages given on the kingdom. We have finished more than fifty messages on Exodus.
I do not believe you could study so much from the Bible even in a Bible institute. Yet today I read with the brothers a kind of paper concerning us by a certain group. That paper said that we are people just in our emotions, with no genuine teaching. They say that all we do is pray-read, that we have no genuine teaching. Actually, they do not know where we are. All the time we have been having the life-studies.
However, I am very sorry to say that, in spite of so many messages being given, with some of the dear saints there is not much growth. Because there has been a lack of growth, there is nearly nothing of building. As long as the growth is short, the building is empty. Anyone in such a situation would be jobless. He would have nothing to do. He would consider, and he would ask: What else is there for me to do or to be in the recovery? He knows the church, he comes to the meetings, but he has nothing to do. Thank the Lord that the percentage of saints in this category is very low. Actually, the percentage on the positive side, by His grace, is quite high. So I have the confidence to carry on this kind of Perfecting Training. Here is a crucial point: Why must we talk so much concerning this matter of peculiarity?
Well, I remember from last week, Brother Lee, that you ended the meeting by saying that the peculiarities are the things that keep us from the oneness with the brothers. If the peculiarity has been dealt with, our opinion has been dealt with, which is one of the main things corrupting the relationship with the brothers. And, of course, this is extremely necessary for the building so that we would not be divided. I feel that our peculiarities make us unique in ourselves. We somewhat treasure our uniqueness. This makes us exclusive in ourselves, and we may have even a desire to be unique and exclusive.
Let me say something in a brief and clear way. Why do we talk so much about peculiarity? Because this one thing frustrates us from the experience of Christ and from the building up of the Body. These two matters have been frustrated to the uttermost by our peculiarity. Thank Him that we have been and still are the Lord’s seekers in this age. Even the angels cannot deny this. You may say, “Sometimes I do not love the Lord so much.” I would say that is a lie. I believe all of you love the Lord, and we are all seeking after the Lord. This is not of ourselves; this is of Him. We love Him, we seek after Him, and we come to the meetings to practice the church life. But we all have to admit that after a certain number of years in the recovery, our advance, our progress, our growth, has become quite slow. In the first two or three years of our church-life experience, the speed was very high—but not today. We are not stopped completely; we are still driving, but the speed is too slow.
It is easy to turn to the recovery. Overnight you can turn. To get into the church life is easy. Tonight you turn, and tomorrow you come to the meetings and begin to practice the church life. You begin to meet in the name, and you begin to stand on the ground. You are happy, and you begin to function. After all this, however, the highway is climbing up and up. After all this you need to grow in life. To grow in life is just to experience more and more of Christ. In the initial stage of our church life we turned this way very fast, we stood on the ground of oneness very fast, and we practiced the church life very fast. After all these matters we have come to the point that the highway is not so flat. The highway began to go up. Why? After all these years, you now need to grow. After all the things we have done, we now need to grow. We have reached a state where we must experience Christ. Without this we become jobless in the church life. You know the church-life doctrine, and you are familiar with the church-life practice. What else do you need? You need to grow.
Before 1973 many among us thought it would be good to go to a new place. There they would be busy. Now even though they went somewhere else, still they ask: What else? Still they have nothing to do because the main thing they need is to grow in Christ. They need to experience Christ directly and purely. If we do not experience Christ directly in our present state, we all become jobless. What has caused us to become jobless? Not sin but peculiarity. I thank the Lord that in Orange County at least a thousand saints have been brought to this stage. If these dear saints do not grow in life, they all become jobless. To take the ground of oneness does not mean so much to them because they have it already. For example, when some young ones graduated from elementary school, they were proud. Suppose, however, they did not go on to study in high school. After three years their graduation from elementary school would mean nothing. After graduation from high school, or even from college, or from a master’s degree or a Ph.D., if you do not keep studying further and further, after a certain time you will feel jobless.
Why do some in the churches feel that they are now jobless, with nothing to do? They had a good start in the church life. It was so good at Elden hall. Comparatively speaking, they might say that today the church is not as good. I would say that I do not believe this is the case. The church has never changed. I would say the church today is much better than Elden. The church has not changed, but you have changed. You are like the Southern California climate—you have a lot of fluctuations. The church stands the same and even rather is going on and on. Even the angels would say that the recovery in the United States is much stronger and richer than it was seventeen years ago. You say Elden was better simply because you have not grown. You did not grow, and you have become jobless. If you do not grow in Christ, you have nothing to do. If you do not grow in life, there is no possibility of having even a little bit of building up. So of course you become jobless.
Recently, the church in Anaheim has been promoting gospel preaching. Of course, gospel preaching is quite an activity; it is very active. If you have not grown in life and if you do not have some amount of building, you would not go along with the gospel preaching. Whatever the church does, you would not go along, because you are behind. So you are jobless. Those who are growing and being built are all the time one with the church in any kind of activity.
Peculiarity eats up the experience of Christ. This is a germ. This is even a serious disease like tuberculosis. It is a strong, hard germ with hard wax covering it. So it is hard to deal with. This germ not only eats up the experience of Christ but also keeps people from being built up in the local church. You may be in the local church, but you are not being built up. What keeps you from the building? The peculiarity. The peculiarity eats up your experience of Christ, and without the experience of Christ, there is no way for you to be built up.
The local church is not an organization. No one is here exercising anything to organize. The pastoring of many pastors is not the real feeding but a kind of organizing just to get a proper link with people. We never do this. In the local church there is no organizational linking. If I go to you, I must have a burden in life for you. If I go to visit you for a kind of link, that is organization.
We all have to see that what the Lord is going to recover is a Body, not a local organization. If the saints do not grow, what is the need to have a link? The need is to grow. You need the real supply of life. You need the real ministry of the life supply. It is not a matter of pastoring to establish some links. It is a matter of growing and ministering a life supply. If you have been an elder in the local churches for at least five years, you will realize that among your brothers and sisters some have come to a certain stage that you cannot do anything to help them. You have prayed for them; you have done this for them and that for them, but now you cannot do anything else. Why can you not do anything? It is because you do not have the skill of a surgeon to operate on the peculiarity. A surgeon may know how to cut on your leg or your nose, but he may have no way to deal with a particular part of your heart. He may have no way to touch it or even to reach it. Spiritually speaking, something is in your heart, and that is your peculiarity. It is there, and yet no one can touch it, and even no one can reach it. This is why I prayed at the beginning that only the Lord can solve our problems. I do not have the skill to touch our peculiarity. I know the disease; I know the problems, but I do not have the skill to reach your peculiarity. This is the very thing that holds us back from experiencing Christ and from being built up. So under this kind of situation, the more days you go on in the church life, the more you feel that you are jobless. On the one hand, you have nothing to do; on the other hand, you are not useful. On another hand, you have no interest in the church life. And on yet another hand, you may be thinking either to drop the church life or to stay home for some time. Although you may not drop the church life and you may not stay home, you come to the meeting without any kind of meaning. Coming to the meeting becomes meaningless to you. It was not like that ten years ago. Ten years ago every meeting was meaningful to you. You might have missed your meal, but you would not have missed the meeting, because it was so meaningful to you. You are jobless; you are not useful; everything in the church life has become meaningless. Why? Because your peculiarity holds you back and eats you up from further experience of Christ. Thank the Lord that in His mercy and grace through the church you have been edified, so it is hard for you to go back to sin. It may be a little bit easier for you to go back to the world. But although you would not go back to sin, and you would not go back to the world, to stay in the church life becomes tasteless to you. Why? Because your peculiarity eats you up. The eating by this germ holds you back from the building up of the Body.
What shall we do? You and I need a desperate prayer to the Lord. Do not pray for anything else—just pray for your peculiarity. Day and night, three times, ten times, even twenty times a day, pray for this one thing. This is the germ in your heart that eats you up and holds you back. Many of the brothers are really good, but they have become useless. As leading brothers, we do not know how to help them, and we have no way to help them. We really need the Lord’s mercy. You have to pray that the Lord would have mercy upon you, that you would have a clear vision of the stronghold within you. Whether you label it peculiarity or you label it the self, there is such a stronghold within you that all the time keeps you from Christ and from the building up of the Body.
In the first stage of our Christian experience, sin and the world did hold us back from the experience of Christ but not now. Now the holding factor is not sin or the world but just this stronghold within you. Whether you call it peculiarity or some other term makes little difference, but I do believe the proper term should be peculiarity. For years we have realized that God’s salvation is not to correct us. It is not to adjust us. God’s salvation is to save us from our fallen being into Christ. We have to admit that we have been saved by God from sin, from the world, and from many other things. But we have never allowed God to save us from one thing within us—our peculiarity. You would even allow God to save you from your bad temper, but you would not allow Him to save you from your peculiarity. There is something so unique, so basic, and so hidden that subtly remains within your being all the time. You would never allow God to save you from this. You would never allow Him to save you from this stronghold. This is peculiarity. God’s salvation is to save you from your fallen being into Christ. And Christ today is not only the Savior but also the life-giving Spirit indwelling your whole being. Up to this point you have been saved from sin, from the world, and from so many other things, yet you do not live by this Christ. You live by that hidden thing—peculiarity.
You may call this hidden thing within us the self. For years I also termed this the self, but within the last years I realized that it is something deeper than self. All Christians condemn the self. Yet you have not realized that a subtle self is under a cloak that you would not condemn; that is peculiarity. This thing is too, too subtle. Although I do not understand much about medicine, when I was sick from tuberculosis, I got some knowledge about that disease. The doctor told me that there is a kind of wax covering this germ. It is difficult for any medicine to kill the tuberculosis because the wax covering is too thick. It needs a burning medicine to kill it. The germ is hidden within the wax.
Your peculiarity is hidden in a thick covering. You do not realize that such a thing is there. But it is there. What shall we do? I have told you already that I have no way to help. I know of only one thing that can help us in this matter, and that is the Lord’s mercy. You must pray to have the Lord’s mercy. Once you have the Lord’s mercy, you will see that within you there is such a hidden thing. So for a number of years you have hardly grown at all. You may have had much improvement in contacting the brothers, in dealing with your wife, in your attitude toward your relatives, and so forth. You may have a kind of improvement, yet you have not grown in life. Christ has not been added into you. There has been no expansion of Christ in you, so there is no building up of the church.
This is why in your feeling today you are jobless and you are useless. You have been in the church life; you have listened to all the messages; you have been edified; but now what can you do? You have to realize that not only can you do nothing here; you can do nothing anywhere. Eight years ago migration may have helped you. From Los Angeles you went to a new place to do something. But today even to migrate is tasteless. The problem is not outward doing. The problem is the inward lacking of the increase of Christ. You do not have the increase of Christ. You do not grow. This “tuberculosis” is biting all the time and is holding you back from the building. Believe me, once you receive the mercy of the Lord and see this, right away you will grow. Then by growing you will be built up. Right away the church life will become tasteful to you, and you will feel a burden with so many things and so many needs. If anyone feels that he or she is jobless, useless, with no interest and no taste in the church life, the reason is that your peculiarity is biting you, eating you up, and holding you back. It is eating you up from the experience of Christ and holding you back from the building up in the Body. I believe that many of you realize this is your need. From deep within you would say, “Lord, here is my need. I need Your mercy. I need Your mercy.” Under this kind of situation where you feel that you are jobless and useless with no interest and no taste, even your prayer is not tasteful. It may become just a kind of religious duty. Although you may pray, you pray without any taste. This is all due to one thing. There is such a germ called peculiarity within you eating you up and holding you back.
In this condition you are also quite touchy. This means that you are so easy to be offended. Especially the elders should be wise. If some little ones touch you, you would not be offended, but if the elders touch you, you would be offended. You are very touchy. You would not agree with the church administration, and you would not agree with the way so many things are done. You hardly agree with anything except yourself. This is because you have a strong peculiarity. You have never condemned your peculiarity. You have never starved that peculiarity to death. Rather, every day you feed your peculiarity. This is not a message but a diagnosis of the unique disease among us.
The recovery began in China since 1922, and I came in in the early days. Even then I was watching, and I found out that many older ones felt jobless and useless and that the church life was tasteless. At that time I was enjoying because that was my church-life honeymoon. I wondered why those people did not feel happy with the church life. To me every meeting was lovely. I heard them criticize the elders. I have heard and observed these things since 1932. They bothered me, but no one could tell me what the problem was. But eventually I myself became in that kind of situation. I began to realize that I was held back from the experience of Christ. I did not grow. By experience I have found that the more I grow, the more I am happy, the more I feel I am useful, and everything is peaceful in the church life. The church did not change, but my feeling changed. It changed according to whether I was growing or not growing. If I grew, everything was sweet; if I did not grow, everything was gloomy. When you grow in the church, everything is bright. If you do not grow, everything is not only gloomy but also black and dark. So the change is not on the church side; the change is on your side. If I had realized these matters in the early years, I might have been saved from many things. The problem was that I did not have any realization. No one can tell you, and even you yourself do not really understand what is within you. This is why we all need to go to the Lord. No one can help you. According to our situation, our illness is a hopeless case. But you do not need to be disappointed; He is the One who can heal you. The greatest mercy is simply to realize that there is such a problem within you. Otherwise, although you have such a great problem within, you would still be at peace. Yet the actual situation is that you are jobless, useless, and you do not feel that anything in the church life is so tasteful. These are the symptoms of your sickness, yet you are sick without realizing it. So the burden in this chapter is to help you to realize that you do have such a sickness. To realize that you have such a sickness is a great mercy.
