The King James Version translates Acts 2:40 as “With many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation.” Do you believe that this word, Save yourselves, is okay? Could you save yourself? Could anyone of you, including Peter, save himself? But according to the Bible, Peter charged the people to save themselves from this crooked and perverted generation. According to the King James Version, the theologians would surely have a problem. To save yourself means that you save yourself. If you save yourself, this must be a kind of saving by your work. And to be saved by any kind of work is heretical. Salvation is not by works; salvation is by faith through grace (Eph. 2:8). This is the basic principle. Why then does Peter say, “Save yourselves”?
Suppose a message was given in a meeting exhorting people to save themselves from today’s dark age. Could you take it? Surely I would not take it. Salvation is by grace; I cannot save myself. In Peter’s time people were in a crooked, perverted generation. How could one fallen to the depth of a crooked generation save himself out of it? If you were drowning in the ocean, could you save yourself? No one could do it. Darby’s New Translation of the Bible and the Recovery Version say, “Be saved.” According to English grammar, you have the active voice and the passive voice. Save yourself is active voice; be saved is passive. Both are imperative. One is imperative active, and the other is imperative passive. Actually, it is not only active or only passive. It includes both sides. It is an active-passive voice. The grammar in English is not adequate; you need an active-passive voice. Be is active, but saved is passive. It does not mean that you save yourself but that you are to be saved by something or someone. So it is passive.
Some might say that active-passive is not good language, but I would say that the language should be improved. Language is a kind of culture, and culture depends upon invention and improvement. Today we have a lot of new words that we did not have two hundred years ago. This is why the King James Version of the Bible is out of date. You need a new translation. Both the English language and the Chinese language have active and passive voice, but neither has an active-passive voice. Language is always according to human culture. If you do not have a culture, you will not have a language. In human culture there is not such a thing as active-passive, but in God’s economy active-passive is too great a matter. Even in human culture, some things are really active-passive. Suppose you are floating on the ocean and a boat comes by. You cannot save yourself, but the boat comes to save you. But you have to want to be saved. You have to cooperate. If you do not want to be saved, people cannot save you regardless of what they do. Or if you do too much to help yourself, you cannot be saved. If you are drowning and someone comes to save you, you had better not do anything. Just let him save you. Otherwise, you may drown the both of you. This is to “be saved.” This is the active-passive voice, and it has to be applied to our spiritual life.
In the last meeting I told you not to go backward, not to go forward, and yet not to stay here. Then you wondered: What shall we do? Do not do anything. Be saved! The problem is this: as fallen human beings, either we would not care for our salvation, or we would do everything to save ourselves. The more we do to save ourselves, the more we cannot be saved. The best way to be saved is to desire to be saved yet do not do anything to save yourself. This principle is hard for you and me to apply. Perhaps you were bothered by the two preceding messages. In the first one I told you that your prayer is a trap, your reading of the Bible is a trap, and whatever you do even spiritually is a trap. In the second one I told you not to go forward, not to go backward, and yet do not stay where you are.
Actually, what the Lord wants is that we return, we repent, and then let Him do everything. Not many believers would do this. Most would either forget about God, or they would turn to Him and do so many things. Some might testify that they got saved thoroughly because they cried for two nights and fasted for three meals. All of a sudden joy came to them. Yes, a kind of joy came to them, but it was a joy created by themselves because they had been crying for two nights and fasting for three meals. Surely they needed some happiness, and surely some joy would come to them. They got saved. Another may simply say, “O Lord, save me.” Many dear ones got thoroughly saved by this kind of quiet salvation. Some of those who cried for two nights and were on fire for two months may have gone back to the beach.
You must see the principle. We have been talking about living Christ. So you may consider that you like to live Christ, and because you cannot make it, you need to fast and you need to pray. You may want to do these things, but He does not. What is religion? Religion is that you and I would do something to please God. You and I would initiate something to please God. What is God’s economy? God’s economy is that He has prepared everything. The Father has prepared the best robe and is waiting for His son to come home. The Father has also prepared a fattened calf. According to Luke 15, everything was prepared for the prodigal son’s return. When the son came home, the father had the best robe put upon him. This is to be saved. He comes back to be saved. He cannot save himself; only the father can save him. But he needs to come back to be saved. If the son never came back, how could the father save him? But if, after coming back, the son was too busy doing things, how could the robe be put upon him? The father stopped the son’s talking and put the robe upon him. Then he said to kill the fattened calf and to be merry. This is to be saved. The picture in Luke 15 shows what it is to be saved.
The principle was the same on the day of Pentecost. While Peter was speaking there, the best robe was already prepared, and the fattened calf was already killed. Everything was there, and salvation was ready for the people to receive. So Peter said, “Be saved.” To be saved simply means to turn to God and calm yourself down. Let the Lord do everything not only for you but upon you and in you. The more we do to get salvation, the more the Lord is frustrated. He cannot do anything. This is a real picture of the situation with so many Christians. Many turn their back to the Lord. Others listen to the Lord and turn to the Lord. After turning to the Lord, they get involved in too much doing. Sometimes when the Lord would see that we are so active, He would just wait until we have done everything and have been thoroughly disappointed and have given up. When we are tired out, the Lord would say, “Very good! Now is the time for you to be saved. Let Me save you. Do not do anything. Do not pray; let Me save you. Do not read the Bible; let Me save you. Do not do your good work; let Me save you. Stop. Just turn to Me. Love Me, and tell Me that you want Me. You cannot do anything.”
Do not come to the law saying that you will do it. You cannot do it. You had better tell the Lord that you love Him, you love His Word, but that you cannot do it. Tell Him that you have no intention to do it, that you will let Him do it. This is to be active-passive; it means, “I am here, Lord, to let You do it.” Let shows the active, but You do it shows the passive. To the Lord it is active, but to me it is passive. We must be an active-passive person. Peter had that kind of experience. So based upon his experience, he charged the people to be saved. This means that the Lord is here; salvation is ready; everything is prepared for you. The Lord is saving now. Are you willing to be saved? You must be willing. Be saved! On that day over three thousand responded in a willing way (Acts 2:41). This means that they regretted their past, they repented, and now they were willing to be saved. Then they were all baptized. Even they could not baptize themselves. They were baptized by someone else. This is the basic principle of God’s economy—this is the active-passive voice.
Very few Christians really know the active-passive way for us to enjoy the Lord in His salvation. Consider your own experience. For years you may have been a good Christian—seeking, doing, praying, studying the Bible. This means that you are doing, doing, doing. All your doings have been a kind of frustration to the Lord. Then you may consider not to do anything. This also is wrong. If you do nothing, you are absolutely passive.
Two extremes can be seen in Christianity. One school is the Pentecostals who are too active. They believe that their fasting and different kinds of maneuverings can accomplish everything. Although God may have no intention of healing someone, they think that if they fast and pray, eventually their fasting and prayer would heal this person. This is why they invented a lot of false healings. After fasting for three days and praying for seven days, there must be some healing. So they just manufactured healing. I was there and I studied it thoroughly, and I can tell you that very few of the healings are genuine. It is the same with their tongue-speaking. Most of their tongue-speaking is also humanly manufactured. After fasting for tongues, they have to speak in tongues. When the tongues did not come, they told people to turn their jaw and to exercise their tongue; then a tongue came. What kind of tongue is this? This is humanly manufactured. I am not criticizing. I am strong in this matter because I was there. I studied it; I was in it; I practiced it; and I discovered all kinds of human manufacturing. The Pentecostal school may be considered at the “south pole.”
Another school may be considered at the “north pole.” They teach people not to do anything. They tell them that they do not need to do anything. This also is to the extreme. The scriptural way is neither at the south pole nor at the north pole. It is halfway. It is midway. It is neither active nor passive; it is active-passive. To say this is easy, and to demonstrate it also is easy. But to get into the practicality takes time. When you first begin to practice certain things, they may seem to be very strenuous. But when you get into the experience, your practice becomes so natural. When you practice playing ball, your skill of playing ball becomes very natural. In principle, it is the same spiritually.
Four or five years ago I would not have given you such a message. I learned these things over thirty years ago, but I would not release a message like this until I saw the right situation. Now I feel that the time is right, and many of you need this message. If you consider that my word is quite discouraging, it means that you are not qualified to hear it. This word is not discouraging. This word is just to give you a timely help to bring you into the spiritual, natural way. I do not mean that you should not pray, and I do not mean that you should not read the Word. Rather, you should pray a lot, and you should read the Word a lot, but do not be the boss. Let the Lord be the boss. You do not realize that in your spiritual seeking you give the Lord a lot of commandments. Your prayer is a kind of commanding, and your study of the Word is a kind of commanding. You fast because you are commanding the Lord to do something. Even in your prayer concerning living Christ, you may be giving a kind of command to the Lord. You are commanding Him to live Christ for you. Gradually, you will see that your command does not work. He does not and He would not honor your command. This is why you can testify that the more you pray, the worse you are. It is because the Lord would not honor this kind of prayer.
One day you will simply say, “Lord, I love You. I surely would like to live You, but I cannot do it. Lord, I will not do it and I cannot do it. Even, Lord, You do not have the intention for me to do it. But, Lord, I am here.” This is good enough. This is the kind of prayer that the Lord is wanting. Then from morning till evening you will be such a person telling the Lord that you love Him, that you want Him, that you surely would like to live Him, but that you would not do it. Last year we began to talk about living Christ. I know that many of you have prayed about this. Have you had any success? I believe that you have all gotten bothered because the more you prayed, the more you could not live Christ. Some of you may have considered that since I said no other way works, that probably this way does not work either. As long as you are giving the commandment, this way does not work. It does not work until one day you do not care for the practice of the one spirit, nor do you care for not practicing the one spirit. You only care that you love the Lord. You do not care for living Christ, nor do you care for not living Christ. You only care that you love the Lord. You would tell the Lord, “Lord, I love You. I love to be one spirit with You, and I love living You, but, dear Lord, I would not do it. Lord, I just love You.” When you reach this stage, spontaneously you will have a life that lives Christ from morning till evening.
During the years of 1932, 1933, and 1934 I was seeking to abide in Christ. By reading the Scriptures, I realized that John 15 is a most crucial chapter. “Abide in Me and I in you” (v. 4). I even gave message after message telling people that all other teachings are not necessary. They only needed to do one thing, that is, to abide in the Lord. I spent as much money as I could afford to buy books concerning abiding. For nearly three years almost every day I was commanding the Lord, “Lord, help me to abide in You.” But the more I told the Lord to help me, the more the Lord did not do anything.
I believe that all of you who have sought the Lord in this way can also testify that this kind of seeking does not work, and this kind of prayer does not work. It took me a long time to realize that this did not work. Finally, after a certain period of time, I did not give the Lord the commandment to help me to abide in Him, but I lived a life spontaneously abiding in Him. Suppose a branch on a tree knows that it has to abide in the tree and has to let the tree abide in it. The more this branch would practice abiding, the more the branch would be off. The real abiding is a natural thing; it is not a practice. But for us today to get into the natural condition is not so easy. It is hard even for me to speak such a message to you.
I hope that through these messages you could see something. Many of you have checked whether or not you love the Lord. You have realized that you love the Lord, but you may have considered that you do not love Him so absolutely. Sometimes people without experience would say, “Yes, you love the Lord but not absolutely.” Then you go back home and try to be absolute. I did these things. Eventually, I began to question how absolute is absolute. Some people and even some books would say that you are still not absolute. One even gave an illustration that if on the balance you need a hundred ounces to balance and you have only ninety-nine, you are short until you put on another ounce. But in our experience, if we put on another ounce of absoluteness, still it is ninety-nine. Regardless of how many additional ounces of absoluteness I put in, always it is still ninety-nine. So I discovered that it is a kind of nonsense to talk about absoluteness. How absolute is absolute? I am not a sloppy person, and I really tried to be absolute. The more I added another ounce of absoluteness, the shorter I was of ninety-nine ounces. That was a wrong way. By trying to be more absolute you get nowhere.
I know that you have all practiced to be absolute. I do not blame you, because I passed through this stage. You, too, have to pass through. You tell others that they need to be absolute. You tell others that three years ago we had a cause, and we were so absolute, but now we are not so absolute. According to your sensation, you were more absolute three years ago. Actually, you are more absolute today. But I have not said a word, because you have to pass this stage. I would be foolish to tell you not to pass this stage, because you would stop and not go on. Thank the Lord that you have come here to this point. Now you may look back and see that your teachings on absoluteness mean nothing. You just need to love the Lord, to seek the Lord, and to stay with Him. Tell the Lord that you love Him, that you want everything of Him, but that you would not do anything, that the Lord must do it. Tell Him that you love to be one spirit with Him but that you would not do it. However, do not imitate. Imitating does not work. It is altogether a matter of growth in life.
I do believe that now is the time when at least some of you have come to the stage where you need this help. This help will be a rest to you and a release to you. Eventually, from morning to evening, you will just enjoy the Lord living Himself out of you. Day by day you will not be saving yourself, but you will be saved. Some of you may say that you understand now what I mean and that you will do it. If you would do it, that is very good. Do not try not to do it. If you try not to do it, you are performing. Recently, my daughter and her two sons came to visit me. The first is a little over three years of age, and the second is close to two years. The first one has grown up to a stage that he spoke the best Chinese to me, with the best tone and the proper pronunciation, and the grammar was altogether right. The second one just followed the first one. The first one said, “Come to my home,” and the second one could just say, “My home.” You have to realize that regardless of how much you endeavor, if your growth is like the first one, you will speak a complete sentence: “Come to my home and play with me.” If you do not have much growth, you may simply say, “Home, play.” How you respond to these Perfecting Messages will be according to your growth in life. In the church life we do not have classes or grades. We have only one general grade, which includes everyone. When we give a message, some needs will surely be met. Some needs will not be met today, but after six months you will remember what you heard, and you will receive the help.
When you turn to the Lord and begin to seek after Him for certain things, right away you become very active. You would stay active for quite a long time. You would be doing things and would be so diligent and so active. You would consider that other people cannot pray so much but that you can. Other people cannot read the Bible so much, but you can. You can finish the schedule; you can do so many things. Yes, you can. It is not bad. Do not stop doing it. Do it. But gradually you will see that all your doings are traps. Then you may ask me why I would not encourage you to stop the doings? If you stop the doings, you are in a deeper, bigger trap. If you do the things, you may get yourself into small traps, but if you do not do the things, you will remain in a bigger trap, so comparatively speaking, it is better to do it. Compared to the big traps, these are much better, but compared to the proper and wonderful situation of living Christ, these are frustrations. All the traps are frustrations. I am not condemning prayer, and I am not condemning Bible study. These are steps to get you out. But the problem is that many Christians never get out of the steps. They are always in the steps, and eventually they give up and jump into a big trap. Many of you did have this kind of experience in the past.
What shall you do? You need to keep seeking after the Lord. Keep loving Him, keep contacting Him, but learn all the time not to give Him too many commands. When you rise up in the morning, tell the Lord: “Lord, I am here. I love You. I surely would like to live a life that is one with You. Lord, I would like to live You, but I am not giving You a command. And I would not do it. I like it, but I would not do it. Lord, I love You.” Try to pray in this way. Then you will see what will come out.
Many times the way to contact the Lord is not with a kind of prayer but just a kind of conversation. You need to converse with the Lord. You may say that any kind of conversation to the Lord is a kind of prayer. That is right, but prayer is somewhat different. Learn to converse with Him. See which way would give you more infusion. You may discover that this conversing way would give you a better infusion and more infusion. Learn to tell the Lord, “Lord, I am not ambitious in anything except loving You. I only want You, Lord; I only love You. Whatever You want, I want. But, Lord, I must tell You that regardless of how much I want it, I will not do it. I just will not do it, because I can never make it. I love You, Lord.” This will be a big field where you can go every day. You will find that a spontaneous living will come out of you, not by your determination and not by your kind of definite mind or strong will.
When you are in this kind of situation, you will already be saved very much from yourself. You have to realize that your strong seeking after the Lord hides your self. Your self is subtly hidden in that kind of seeking. I hope that many of you would read the book Life and Building as Portrayed in the Song of Songs and then reread it. In that book you can see that step after step the seeker of the Lord was gradually delivered from her own energy in seeking after the Lord. She was very strong and energetic in loving the Lord. When she first came to the Lord, He likened her to a mare among Pharaoh’s chariots (S. S. 1:9). She was not seeking after Pharaoh, nor was she riding back to Egypt. She was seeking after the Lord, and she was riding to the Lord, and she reached the Lord. But when the Lord appraised her, He appraised her as a mare. Horses at the time of the writing of that book mainly came from Egypt. So the horse in the Bible, especially in the New Testament, signifies the natural strength that belongs to the world. Yes, you are seeking. Even now you are seeking to live Christ. But in your seeking to live Christ, you are like a mare among Pharaoh’s chariots.
The second picture of the seeking one in the Song of Songs is a dove (2:14). But even the dove is not so satisfactory. After the dove, comes a lily (v. 16). A lily shows that you are living but that you do not have that much personality. A horse has an energetic and stubborn personality. A dove is much better, but still a dove has a character and a living personality. A lily, though, is living but with no personality. Eventually, the seeker became a pillar (3:6). This means that the seeker became nearly nothing. But do not imitate. If you are a horse, and you imitate a dove, that is ugly. If you are a dove, and you imitate a lily, that is not so good either. If you are a lily, but you pretend to be a pillar in the air, that does not look nice. In the Song of Songs there is a clear picture showing us that the more we grow, the more we lose our character. To lose our character means that we do not give Him commands. In the first two chapters of the Song of Songs, the seeking one always gave the Lord commands. In other words, her seeking after the Lord was under her command and her direction. At first, the Lord gave in a little bit, but after chapter 2 the Lord stopped giving in, so she could not find the Lord. The Lord trained her and disciplined her to give up her commands and her direction and to pick up the Lord’s direction.
