Prayer: Lord, again tonight we are all sitting around You. Lord, we believe that You are open to us. Lord, do keep us open to You. Lord, we would like to hear a word from the depths of Your heart. Lord, we do not like to hear doctrine; we do not like to hear knowledge. We like to hear Your voice; we like to hear Your speaking. Lord, tonight do speak a word to all of us. Our needs may be different, yet, Lord, we all need the same word. Lord, speak a word to us that can enlighten us—a word that can heal us—a word that can even kill our problems. Lord, how much we need Your instant, living, and operative word. Lord, we believe we are under Your cleansing, so we have no frustration. Lord, we do not have any sensation that anything is between us and You. We believe there is nothing between. So, Lord, do speak to us. We are here ready to hear Your word. Amen.
In this meeting we would like to have open fellowship with the Lord and open fellowship one with another. My burden is not to pass on some knowledge to you but to open up my whole being to you, hoping that you would open up your being to me and that we would all open ourselves to the Lord. I believe that the Lord is open to us. Let us have some very genuine talk with nothing artificial. Let us talk not only from heart to heart but also from spirit to spirit. Many brothers and sisters have been among us for a number of years and have gained much knowledge through all the Life-studies, but tonight we are not touching knowledge; we are touching the heart and the spirit. We need to have a heart-to-heart touch, a spirit-with-spirit touch.
Although we want to open ourselves heart-to-heart, you must realize that it is very dangerous and risky to know a person’s inner condition. In the matter of spiritual seeking, it is better not to know others’ condition. Not to know others’ condition is a safeguard for our spiritual seeking. If you have learned some spiritual lessons, you will realize that to know others’ situation is a snare of the enemy. If you have never learned not to know others’ situation, you have never learned what it is to be spiritual. To be genuinely spiritual is to know only the Lord, not to know anyone’s situation. Your eyes are one thousand percent open to the Lord but one thousand percent blind to any kind of situation. We need to be blind concerning others’ situations. If you consider your experience, you will realize that when you are down spiritually, you like to know others’ situation. When you are fallen and backslidden, you like to know about others’ situation. You will be exercising and watching to get information concerning others. But when you are up spiritually, you are not happy to know others’ situation; you do not like to know. When you are up, you do not like to know; you do not have the heart, you do not have the intention, and you do not have the desire to know. When you are up and someone comes to you speaking about Christ and ministering Christ, you are happy. When someone comes to you talking about others, it seems tedious to you. It makes you unhappy. This is a strong indication that the Spirit we have within, even the indwelling Spirit, does not like to know others’ situations. It is always dangerous to know others’ hidden secrets. It is against the spiritual law to dig out others’ inner hidden secrets. If you have learned some spiritual lessons, whenever one comes to you trying to open up his inner secrets, you would avoid it. You know that that is risky and that is dangerous.
When I say we need the heart-to-heart fellowship and the spirit-with-spirit fellowship, I do not mean that you open up your inner secrets concerning your wife, your husband, your money matters, your college degrees, your future, and so forth. I mean concerning Christ. To come to me and open yourself in a heart-to-heart way to have some fellowship concerning Christ is safe and is needed. This is altogether profitable and for the building up. We need to open ourselves to one another concerning Christ.
In the Lord’s recovery God’s desire has been made more than clear to us. We have seen God’s eternal purpose, His ultimate intention. We know that God wants us to live Christ so that the Body may be built up. Although these are simple words, we all have to realize that nothing is more crucial in the Bible than these two points. When I was young and seeking after the Lord, I was charged, taught, and helped to be overcoming. I was helped to overcome sin, the world, and the flesh. I was told how to be holy, and I was taught how to be spiritual. According to our experiences, these are good, but these are not the crucial and central points in the Bible. The central points in the Bible are that we need to live Christ and that the Body needs to be built. If you check your spiritual situation according to overcoming, according to holiness, or according to spirituality, you may be satisfied to some extent. But if you check your spiritual situation with the living of Christ and the building of the Body, you surely would not be satisfied. Experientially speaking you may be somewhat overcoming and yet still not live Christ. You may be somewhat holy and yet not live Christ. Even you may be very “spiritual” and yet not live Christ very much.
Moreover, you may be all these things and yet care nothing for the Body. You may not have one bit of the building up of the Body. Within the past fifty years I have seen many spiritual people. I have contacted nearly all the spiritual giants during the past half century, either directly or by reading their writings. In 1958 I was invited to a very spiritual place. After I had been there a while, three of the five leading ones came to me to complain about the non-building situation. You may be overcoming, holy, and “spiritual” and yet not have much experience in living Christ and in the building up of the Body. You may overcome sin to a certain extent, yet you live Christ very little. And for the building up of the Body, your experience is nil. Because we have seen the light in the recovery that God wants us to live Christ and to have the Body built up, I do not believe many among us would consider that they are spiritual. If we test our spiritual situation according to this measurement, we are through. There is not much measure of the living of Christ and not much measure of the building up of the Body. Now I would ask the two brothers on the platform to tell us why we do not live Christ. We have been here for many years; we have the Life-studies of so many books of the Bible, yet we do not live Christ, and we are not that much builded up. Why? We need to ask two brothers to open themselves to us and to consider what is the thing that hinders them, restricts them, and frustrates them from further experience of Christ. What frustrates them from the further building up of the Body?
Just in a few words I would say it is because I am so occupied with Satan, not in a sinful way, yet my whole being is constituted with an element other than Christ. And this causes me not to hunger and not to seek the light. There is a part of me like this, and I stand with it. Too often I agree with it and allow it to have its way. I do not disagree and do not resist it. I passively allow it to have its way because I am “spiritual.” I am waiting for God to do something about it. Many times I recognize that there is no Christ and no building, but I do not resist it. This is all I can say.
Okay, now it is your turn.
Brother Lee, quite frankly I am glad you asked this question of me. This last week I have been thinking a lot about this, and even this morning I prayed about it. I have been pray-reading through Matthew in my morning watch, and this morning I read verses in Matthew 6 concerning the giving of alms and praying in public. I began to open to the Lord about this matter of peculiarity. I saw that I was occupied daily, even moment by moment, with something that is not Christ. It is not sin and it is not the world, but it is peculiarity. I saw that the kingdom people should not do something simply to get recognition from other people.
Let me say this: both of your speakings are quite mixed up. The thing that frustrates both of you from living Christ and from being built up in the Body is not Satan. It is not a matter of desiring the recognition as mentioned in Matthew. You need to have your understanding rescued from all these matters. To say that Satan occupies you is a kind of deceiving excuse. I must tell you strongly that none of these things is the frustrating factor. The frustrating factor within you that keeps you from living Christ and from being built up in the Body is simply your peculiarity. Do not blame Satan that much. Satan did not do that much. Your peculiarity did everything.
In the Life-studies we have pointed out three books in the New Testament that reveal things either replacing Christ or opposing Christ. These books are 1 Corinthians, Galatians, and Colossians. In 1 Corinthians knowledge and gifts are there. It is not secular or sinful knowledge but spiritual knowledge, scriptural knowledge, fundamental knowledge, and gifts. These two categories of things in 1 Corinthians frustrate many Christians from living Christ. The Corinthians had knowledge and gifts. They were not behind in knowledge or in gifts, yet they were short of Christ. They did not live Christ, and they were not built up; rather, they were divided. In Galatians religion, law, and ordinances were replacing Christ. In Colossians we saw that culture and many “isms,” such as Judaism, Gnosticism, and asceticism, were replacing Christ. If you dig into these four books, which we call the heart of the Bible—Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians—you can see a hidden thing. By my experiences I have a term for this hidden thing—peculiarity. Although Paul did not mention peculiarity in a clear way, it is implied.
Many of you have had a lot of dealings. You have dealt with sin, with the world, with your self, with this, and with that. But still something is hidden within you; it has no name, yet it is hidden within you. Such a thing is within you all day, not only replacing but resisting Christ; something within you is secretly and in a hidden way resisting and restricting Christ. Knowledge and gifts may replace Christ, but they do not resist Christ that much. But your peculiarity is resisting Christ all the time. It is a hidden stronghold. It is not a high tower, so visible and exposed. A high tower is easy to cast down. But here is something small in size yet intense in its solidness. It is small, yet it is so strong within you. It is hidden and even invisible within you; something powerful within you is resisting Christ all the time. Christ has nearly no way to go on within you. The longer you stay in the church life, the more knowledge you pick up; the more attributes, qualities, and qualifications you have; and the harder this peculiarity within you becomes in resisting Christ. I am afraid many of you can testify that today you do not live Christ as much as you did six years ago. According to your qualifications, qualities, and attributes, you are much higher than six years ago, but concerning the living of Christ, you are lower. Why? Because six years ago your peculiarity was not as strong as it is today. It was not as hidden and concealed as it is today. Today it is hidden within your qualifications and spiritual qualities. All these things have become layers of the covering of this hidden thing—peculiarity. I hope that you would not take this merely as a doctrine. I hope that this is a word that can penetrate into the very center of your peculiarity, penetrating through all the strong layers of qualifications and qualities. I must say a warning word because I know the peril. In a previous chapter I pointed out to you that some spiritual people have had a miserable ending to their life. By the time they died physically, they were also dead spiritually. They died with their peculiarity fully developed. This is my deep concern. As the church life is going on year after year, our peculiarity is becoming stronger and stronger and stronger. Eventually, this very thing will confiscate all of us. This hidden factor within you that resists Christ makes you useless.
Why is there no building among Christians today? Apparently, it is because people have different doctrinal opinions. Apparently, it is because people interpret the Bible differently. Actually, the real dividing factor is the peculiarity. I contacted many spiritual giants in the past, and I never saw any two of them who would work together. Every spiritual giant stood by himself. Apparently, it was because they simply held different opinions and saw different things in the Bible. But if you check into the matter, you could see that this was not the real dividing factor. The real dividing factor was their peculiarity.
By the Lord’s mercy we have been preserved and held together by His grace, by the ground of oneness, and by the truth. We thank Him for this, yet we all have to admit that within us this hidden factor is still undermining and restricting us from living Christ. We do not live Christ today as much as we should. Also we have to recognize that we do not have much building. We have very much togetherness but not that much building. We may have even an overcoming situation and an appearance of being holy and spiritual, but we do not have much of the real building up of the Body. What is the undermining factor? Peculiarity. This is the thing that eats us up from within and frustrates the living of Christ and the building of the Body. It is biting, eating, and undermining secretly. Without your awareness it is there working all the time. I hope that this kind of heart-to-heart word could really open your eyes, not to see others but to see yourself. You need to see that the reason you do not live Christ so much and you are not built up so much is your peculiarity.
Christ is unique and Christ is common. Christ could never be peculiar. And the Body is one. For nearly half a century both in speaking and in writing I have fought against all kinds of divisions. But now I realize that the real dividing factor within us is our peculiarity. This is the root of all the outward division. We are here keeping the ground of genuine oneness, yet within us there is a factor keeping us from being built up. What is the reason that you are not built up? It is nothing but your peculiarity. Your peculiarity is the hidden factor that is within you all the day eating you up and all the day resisting Christ and all the day restricting you from living Christ. It is all the time keeping you from being built up. Do not blame anything else or anyone else; the problem is the peculiarity. With the young ones this is the problem, and with the older ones it is even more of a problem. The older you are, the more peculiarity you have. It is really risky to be in the church for a long time and not live Christ and not be built up. The light you have seen has been keeping you here and will not allow you to take another way. You have to stay here. But if you do not live Christ, the longer you stay here, the more peculiarity grows. Eventually, this hidden thing will confiscate you. In the early days of your church life you were useful, but in the latter days of your church life you just become useless.
This is the problem, but what is the treatment? I am sorry, but I do not have the treatment. Only the Lord Himself has the treatment. You must go to Him and put all your blame upon your peculiarity. Learn to condemn your peculiarity. Only the Lord knows when the treatment will come. But you have to pray, “Lord, have mercy upon me. I do not like to stay in the church life until I become forfeited.” There is the danger that this could happen. Go to the Lord and let the Lord say something and let the Lord do something. Only the Lord can deal with the peculiarity.
