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Many of you brothers are here tonight from different parts of California. This might be a good opportunity to fellowship with you about the building up of the churches here.
I would first like to speak of the Chinese-speaking meetings we are having every Lord’s Day morning. As you know, these meetings are a continuation of the weekend conference we had here with five meetings. That conference was the result of a deep concern for the saints both in the United States and in Canada who are in the church yet cannot manage the English language sufficiently to take in the messages to get the nourishment and to express themselves in praise and prayer to the Lord. For quite a long time they have been suffering a spiritual loss as a result. Because of this the burden of many Chinese-speaking saints has gotten heavier and heavier, and it has been the same with me.
When I was commissioned by the Lord to begin a work for His recovery in this country, I was charged not to touch any Chinese work. Even so, in the last few years, because of the increase in the immigration quotas for the Far East, many more saints have come to this country with their unbelieving relatives, friends, schoolmates, and neighbors. There is a need for us to take care of them. Otherwise, the Lord will suffer. In previous years I have not paid much attention to this need. I did not have the time, and I did not want the Lord’s recovery in the English language to be reduced or frustrated.
Roughly speaking, I figure we have lost a thousand Chinese saints in this country these past few years. The actual number may be higher. Just in California we must have lost five hundred. Where have they gone? They were either misled or distracted. Human beings are living creatures in need of affection. Because of our indifference—there was no sign on our side that we were concerned about them—others came in. Do you know how they reached them? Some came here from the church in Taipei. Before their departure, some Christian workers in this country got word from their connections in Taipei as to who among us was coming. They found out their flight number, the date of their arrival, and other information. Then they met them at the airport, ready to serve these newly arriving ones. They offered to take them by car wherever they wanted to go; if they had no place to go, they took them to their guest house. Then in the evening there would be a meeting. Of course, they agreed to go. Thus they were “kidnapped” and lost to the recovery. We cannot condemn these who believe they are working for the Lord. Only the Lord knows. But the impression we have given is that we do not care for the Chinese work.
Actually, in 1967 I charged the church in Taipei, and even a specific co-worker, to pick up the burden for the Chinese coming to this country. Around that time there was a change in the immigration laws, and I foresaw that there would be a great increase in the number coming to this country.
Many have since come, but we have lost track of them. They did not have a strong foundation in the church life, so after they came, they were distracted by their schooling, job, or relatives. They have been lost because of our indifferent attitude.
I have realized how hard it is for the churches here to gain new converts. The opposition has made it difficult. Brother Nee taught us that our work is like farmers’ work. We need to go where the water is. If there is no rain, the farmers would not try to farm in such a place. They know that not much would grow. Salvation is easy to apply to the Chinese, whether on the mainland, in Taiwan, or in the United States. I believe one of the reasons for this is the earnest, faithful prayers offered to the Lord by many missionaries from abroad, especially from Britain and America. There were a good number like Hudson Taylor, who cared only that the Lord’s salvation be applied to the Chinese people. They fasted and prayed. Even though they were in the denominations—in their time they did not see the light—they were faithful, sacrificing their homeland, their families, and even their lives for what they called the Chinese souls. Now I believe the Lord is answering the faithful prayers of those dear missionaries.
The second reason, I believe, is the prayers by Brother Nee while he was in prison. What else could he have done but pray? He was not allowed to preach, even to his prison mate. When this prison mate, who was secretly brought to the Lord by Brother Nee, was about to be released, Brother Nee told him he must find a brother named Witness Lee and listen to whatever he said, and tell him that he (Brother Nee) had not changed his beliefs. This word came to me from a brother and his wife (a relative of Brother Nee’s) who live in this country and who visited Shanghai and saw this former prison mate twice. Surely Brother Nee was not idle during his imprisonment. He must have heard that I was in this country. He must have prayed for the Lord’s recovery and for China.
Third, if you consider all of us who were there in the Lord’s recovery in China, and then suddenly found that the mainland was lost, you will realize that thousands of us have been praying, crying to the Lord to remember that great country. The door was shut tight. In 1949 when I left, we had an estimate of about three million Christians in China. Now I have read a newspaper from Hong Kong that says there are over thirty million. All over China, wherever the gospel is given today, people turn to the Lord. This is the Lord’s answer to the prayers of the missionaries, of Brother Nee, and also of many of us. It is mercy.
Even here in this country the Chinese respond if they are invited. They will come, and they will believe. Most of them are professional people; they are not uneducated.
I give you this background so you will know why I have picked up this burden. In the twenty years I have been in this country, I took no interest in the Chinese side. But since last year my concept has changed a little. I still have no burden to build a Chinese work. My burden, my ministry, is to build the local churches in the United States. On the Chinese-speaking side, my burden is simply to make up the lack. Just in California alone, among us there are over five hundred Chinese saints. Perhaps half can manage the English language; these are the ones who graduated from schools in this country. The rest know only the simplest English. They cannot express themselves in the prayer meeting and at the Lord’s table. They cannot understand much of the spoken messages, so they have lacked nourishment. Due to this, some have left and gone to “Chinese meetings.” There are many of these, even here in Orange County. In Vancouver I have heard of one such meeting where there are eight hundred Chinese. The brother who raised it up was with us in Hong Kong before joining the Christian and Missionary Alliance. I felt shameful when I heard this story. We have had a church in Vancouver for years. Yet this brother, who learned so little from us, could bring in eight hundred by himself to listen to him in the Chinese language. In Rosemead, which is a continuation of Elden, there are only a hundred sixty Chinese plus eighty non-Chinese. Consider how many years we were in Elden, yet our numbers are so few compared to this other work in Vancouver.
What has been the fruit of all our work? San Jose has many good opportunities, yet nothing has been done. A brother from Taiwan was in San Francisco for a couple of years, and another was in Berkeley, yet nothing seemed to happen. It has disappointed me; it is a shame to me. Why, when our brothers came, could they not do anything, but when others came, they could accomplish so much? I am more than busy, but I have been forced to do something.
Doctrinally speaking, we are not short of spiritual groceries to feed the churches. I do not mean that we are a seminary, offering different courses. I mean that we are a great family, with groceries to feed our people. Do you know of any groceries that we lack? Please tell me if you do, and I will endeavor to make up the shortage. It seems to me we have more than is needed. But in our cooking there is a great lack.
I have been to the Far East. I have traveled throughout the United States. The meetings I have attended have usually included the giving of a message, followed by the sharing of the saints. The messages are largely repetitions of the Life-study messages, presented in different ways. Then, when it is time for the saints to share, what they have to say, because of the lack of proper cooking, generally lacks the focus of the central goal. I have given about three thousand messages in this country, all focused on the central lane of the Lord’s recovery.
The proper cooking in the churches first of all requires that the leading ones get into the messages on the central lane. I mean that they should live, experience, and practice those messages. Then you will be able to do more than just repeat them. Your speaking will be your experience. Only when you present to the saints what you have experienced have you done the proper cooking. The basic point of the proper cooking is this: the leading ones need the practical experience of the words on the central lane. Yes, the three thousand messages were on the central lane. Still, for anything to exist, it needs skin and bones. You cannot experience the skin and the bones; you must experience the meat.
There is no need for you to repeat a message that has already been given. What is needed is your experience. Then when you give a message, you present your experience of it and the way in which you have experienced it. This will bring the saints to focus on the central lane and help them to practice living the points of God’s focus. Such a message will provide the help for them to live in the experience of the central lane. These two things—to experience and to help others to experience—will take much time to practice, to learn, and to pray over.
For the present stage of the churches, our meeting should be to train, instruct, and help every saint to get into life, the living, of the central lane. This cannot be done in even one or two years. As the system of universal education illustrates, a course of study takes three or four years. Elementary school takes six years, then junior and senior high take three years each, and then a college course of study needs four years. To help a church get into the practical living of the central lane, to set up a foundation, will take about four years.
The brothers of the church in Anaheim realized last fall that I was unhappy with the church meetings here. The meetings had no goal. It was like attending class after class in a university without being able to figure out what the course was about. The classes were just a waste; not only a waste but even a damage to the appetite.
As I prayed and considered the situation of the meetings, I recalled the revival that broke out in my city, Chefoo, in 1942. It came after four years of preparation. Before that time, in 1937, the work under Brother Nee’s leadership assigned me to travel throughout the provinces in northern China. Everywhere I went, I was welcomed. Mostly I spoke and ministered in the denominations. The decision had been made by the work under Brother Nee’s leadership to send the truths we had received of the Lord to the denominations. I remember we had a study on the book of Hebrews in the central station of the China Inland Mission in the province of Shansi. I spent about two or three weeks there to hold that study with their workers. From those experiences I learned that nothing would ever come of that kind of work. I decided not to do that anymore.
Then by the Lord’s sovereignty I had to stay in my hometown due to the invasion of the Japanese army. For over fifty months I stayed in Chefoo, with only one side trip to Tsingtao for two months in 1942. In those two months two hundred newcomers were baptized, thus laying a strong foundation for the church in Tsingtao. Then, six years later Brother Nee held a training. Some brothers who went to that training afterward went to Tsingtao. They began preaching. In one day they baptized more than seven hundred. Their work was based upon the foundation of those two hundred who were baptized in 1942. When I went there, I purposely stayed two months, realizing that nothing could be accomplished in a week or ten days. It took two months for something to happen. Those two months were the only time within the fifty months that I was away from Chefoo.
I believe Brother Chang Wu-Chen would give me the freedom to say this. In 1939 he was not even a deacon. I brought him in as a learning deacon. Then after a time I asked him to come to the elders’ meetings, not as an elder but just to sit and watch and learn. That was what he did.
In those four years in Chefoo I took the lead in everything, including the cleaning of the restrooms, which in China were terribly dirty. I took care of all the meetings—the prayer meeting, the Lord’s table meeting, the elders’ meetings, and the service meetings, including the visitation and the shepherding. Quite often I went by bicycle to visit the saints in order to see their families and home life. I visited many special gospel cases. A number of families were brought in as a result.
I kept long hours. Before eight I went to the meeting hall to arrange the rooms and to give instructions as to how the serving ones should take care of the different matters. At noon I went home, had lunch, and took a little nap. About two o’clock I went back and stayed at the meeting hall until dinnertime. After dinner at home, I returned to the meeting hall for the meetings. Even if there was no official meeting, every night there was some meeting. These lasted until about ten. Then I would return home. This was my way of life every day. I had no day off, no vacation, for fifty months.
Then, when the Communists came to occupy Chefoo, all the leading ones left. This was our policy because we knew that was the best way to face the situation. As long as the leading ones were there, the church would have trouble because the Communists were after the leaders. Here is the point I want to make: Nearly all the leading ones who left Chefoo for other cities became either elders or deacons. Tens of brothers left Chefoo and went to Tsingtao or Shanghai. Chang Wu-Chen and Chu Shyu-Min are the two very evident cases; they were both produced in those four years. When I later went to Taiwan, these two were the greatest helpers to me to carry out the ministry in Taiwan.
Dear brothers, this has been our way to carry out the Lord’s recovery. It has not been by the way of going out to speak. That is the way of revival, the Christianity way. The Catholic Church has never taken the revival way. We never hear of the Catholic Church having a gospel campaign and inviting a famous evangelist to speak. But every year millions are added to them. You may say they are strongly organized. They have their way to keep their people, to teach them. It is hard to turn a Catholic away from the Catholic Church, whatever country they are in. How about our people? Like those from Taiwan, if they just change from one country to the United States, they get away. Why? It is because our work in Taiwan was not solid.
I believe the best way, especially at this juncture, to carry on local church meetings is to cook the groceries and to serve the saints with the proper cooking. It is not sufficient just to pick up the points of the messages; you must experience them. Even I myself like to go back and study the messages; whenever I do, I get the help. Do not think that by reading it over and over, you will get it. You will not get it unless you practice it and experience it. This is what the churches need.
I do not oppose reviewing the messages, but I do not think that is sufficient. You can see the result. As I told the brothers in Taiwan, we must realize what the result is of our labor year after year. Then we have to consider. As Haggai says, “Consider your ways” (1:7). You labor; you sow much. How much do you reap? Why do we need to repeat the unfruitful work? We must consider, reconsider, our way. To review the messages is easy. From among the churches to have a few make the abstracts and then have a meeting to go over them is easy. I do not think a farmer would expect to reap much with this kind of labor. To reap requires heavy labor.
Brothers, I would fellowship with you and encourage you with this one thing. You must sow yourself like a seed in the church of which you bear a burden. You must sow yourself. To be an elder is like being a housewife and mother. If a mother wants her family to be built up, she forgets everything except them. This is what I mean by sowing yourself. You can also use the expression sell yourself. When a young woman gets married, she sells herself to her husband; that is, she sells herself to the family. She forgets everything except the family.
A housewife should not say that she does not know how to cook, that she wants to invite someone to cook for her, for her family. No family or home could be built by hiring others to do the cooking. But today the churches like to invite speakers. They are eloquent, but, sorry to say, they may just tickle your ears. What is the result? Children may like to eat hamburgers bought from a fast-food place, but that kind of cooking will not build them up. They need the mother’s cooking. It may not taste as good, but it is nourishing. We must build up the taste of the saints in the churches so that they will not care for the speakings, teachings, without the experiences of the central lane of the Lord’s recovery.
It takes time to build up such a taste. When I was in Chefoo, even after one year the saints’ taste for other things was lost. They lost their taste for anything except the building of the local church. At that time I did not see much of the central lane. If I had seen it, I believe they would have lost their taste for everything other than the central lane.
I hope that all the churches on this earth today will lose their taste for any kind of speaking or doctrine other than the central lane. This does not mean my intention is to charge or request that all the churches repeat my message. If you think this way, that is your thinking. You bear the responsibility. That is not my thinking.
But whatever you practice, whatever you experience today, must be the things of the New Testament ministry. This ministry is one. Paul did not have one ministry and Peter another. Especially after the training on the Epistles of Peter, you can see how much they were both one in the unique ministry. The upcoming training will be on John’s Epistles. You will see that these three—Paul, Peter, and John—were one. They had one ministry, the ministry, the New Testament ministry. This does not mean that Peter used the same terminology and way of presentation as Paul. Their terminology and presentation differ. Especially John’s differs. Yet they were all on the central lane. Now I understand Peter’s word at the end of his two Epistles, where he said, “Even as also our beloved brother Paul...wrote to you” (2 Pet. 3:15). Fifty years ago I thought it was good of Peter to recommend that the saints read Paul’s writings. Now, however, I have begun to understand in a deeper way. Peter meant that what he ministered in his two Epistles was the same as what Paul had ministered. Maybe what Paul wrote is hard for you to understand, but do not twist it; if you do, you are twisting the Scripture (v. 16). These two apostles ministered the same thing. Now I understand Paul’s word in 1 Timothy, where he charged Timothy to remain in Ephesus to “charge certain ones not to teach different things” (1:3). They might teach according to the Scripture yet different from the New Testament ministry.
What is the New Testament ministry? Paul told us in that very chapter: the economy of God (v. 4). What is the economy of God? Chapter 3 calls it the mystery of godliness (v. 16). What is the mystery of godliness? It is God manifested in the flesh. This is the focus of God’s economy; this is the central lane of the Lord’s New Testament ministry.
I do have the full assurance that the Lord has given this ministry to us. From the first-century apostles up until now, this ministry has never been as definitely and clearly commissioned to Christians as it is to us today. We do have the assurance to boast that we have surely seen what the Lord’s New Testament ministry is. I can boast that I am one of the co-workers of the apostle. Because of this I was one with Brother Nee.
When I was with Brother Nee, I did not preach anything other than what I had heard and learned of him. It was not that I did not know other doctrines. If I had wanted to, I could have had a successful work by myself in northern China. But when Brother Nee asked me to go to Shanghai to be with the co-workers there, I went to the Lord and saw one flow. Only this one thing, brothers, has preserved me: to be always one with Brother Nee. Thank the Lord, He has preserved me even until today. After fifty years I am still here. Many have come and gone. Some of those who left are still alive. If you consider their present situation, however, you will realize that not one is under the Lord’s blessing. They have no way to go on, because there is no other way. There is only one way.
Even in this country, consider the ones who left us. How are they doing? I never spoke anything to tell the saints to oppose them or to be careful of them. My work, as I have said many times, has no wall. It has no defense. How about what happened in 1978? What is that today? Again, they have no way.
God is the unique source. There is only one God, one Savior, one Lord, one way, one testimony, one ministry, one flow, one throne, and one goal. Where are we? Praise Him! We are in the one way, the one flow, the one ministry with the one goal.
The opposers say I speak this way to threaten people not to leave. That is their devilish thinking. I have never had such a thought. My thought was loving, not threatening; I just wanted to warn you. Out of a loving heart I wanted to tell you the truth. I spoke this way with the brothers from Hong Kong. Look around you, I said. Even in Hong Kong, where is there a way? There is no other way. If you do not believe in this Lord Jesus Christ, you have no lord to believe in. If you do not worship this God (because you do not want to worship the same God as Witness Lee), try to find another god to believe in. You will not be able to find one. But human beings are stubborn. Once they leave, it is hard for them to come back. Very few have come back. Do you believe those who left have satisfaction? They may say that the way they are taking is satisfying, but I do not believe their words. With me, however much opposition I face, however heavy the burden is, I have the full satisfaction. I have no doubt that I am in the Lord’s way.
If we see this, we will practice the matters of the central lane and experience them. We will live this. Then we will use our meetings time after time, maybe four or five meetings a week, week after week, just for this one thing. It is like digging a well. You do not dig one spot and then another and another. What is the use of a thousand holes and not one bucket of water? You have to dig and keep on digging until water springs up. This is the way to work. This is the way to build a local church.
Again I say, to take this way to care for the church means that you have to sacrifice a lot. You cannot consider yourself. I have recently spent many, many hours between the millstones being ground. My wife spoke with me after some of these grinding talks. She reminded me of my age. I told her I surely realize my age, but I have offered my entire life for the recovery. If there is a problem that I know is not solved, even if I lie down on my bed, I have no rest. That is more damaging to my health than to spend hours and hours talking with those involved to help them solve it. To give this help becomes my joy. I would rather sacrifice my life to keep the Lord’s recovery. This is my destiny. Do not think I do not know how to take care of my health. If I had nothing to do for the Lord and were retired, I would surely take care of my health. But the churches around the world, especially the churches in the Far East, are my children, more precious even than my own children. How could I lie in bed resting, while they get drowned in the bottom of the ocean? I have to forget my health.
Brothers, I do not encourage you to sacrifice your health, your life, but in taking care of the church life do not consider your interest first. Set your interest aside. There is a slogan, “Safety first.” I say, “The church first,” and your local church first, of which you are one of the elders. Not your job, not your family. I do not mean that you should not take care of your family, but I mean that the church should come first. Otherwise, brothers, I must predict that no church among us can be built up. I am pretty sure this prophecy will be fulfilled, unless you brothers who are elders sell yourselves not to the church but to the church where you serve. Always consider that church first. If you do, there will be no need for me to sit here talking to you. You will know how to learn. You will be able to figure out what is needed. Otherwise, we can only be the best of Christianity. We cannot have the real testimony on the central lane of the Lord’s New Testament ministry.
Pray about this, and I beg you to pray for me. As the problems have come, by the Lord’s mercy and with the brothers’ help I have borne the burden, and the matters have been solved. I do realize, however, from another angle that this has been the enemy’s attack, to keep me so occupied by one thing after another for the past month or so. I have lost the time when I would have been working on the footnotes in the Recovery Version, and my body has been somewhat exhausted. So pray for me, and pray for yourself, and pray for the church you take care of.
Concerning the ministry station, I do want you to be clear about the relations and boundaries. Then we can all go on in a sweet, efficient way. It is His mercy that we have so many complications. Complications are a sign of the Lord’s blessing. Children are a trouble, and they make life complicated for the parents. I have many children; I also have many brothers, both Chinese and American. I also serve many churches and work with many co-workers. This means that I have a lot of trouble. The same is true of the ministry station office. It is a blessing, but it also means that I have a lot of trouble. Consider, however, without this office, how could my ministry be carried out? Yes, on the one hand, it is a blessing; on the other hand, it is a trouble. From the New Testament we know that Paul had these same complicated situations to take care of. My words to you are just for the carrying out of the Lord’s recovery.
