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We need to see the profit of the Body to the local churches and the profit of the local churches to the Body. We can use a family as an illustration of this. On the one hand, the father is for the members of his family, and on the other hand, the members of the family are for the father. If we do not have a father, we are orphans. An orphan does not receive the profit, the benefit, from a father, so he suffers a lot. But a man who does not have any children also suffers. This is a good illustration of how the Body of Christ is the source of the local churches. Such a universal Body is like the father to all the churches, and all the churches are like the children to the father.
Now let us consider the profit from the Body of Christ to a local church. Many of the members in a local church may not actually be saved directly by that church. Instead, they are saved elsewhere and come from other localities. This is the benefit from the Body to that local church. This is the profit from the “father” to his “child.” Some among us enjoyed the inheritance from the Body, but then they gave up the Body and would not care for the Body. They have caused divisions, and divisions are a part of degraded Christianity.
According to the book of Revelation, the Catholic Church, which is a great part of Christianity, has become a great harlot. In Revelation 17 the harlot is a mother who has daughters, and these daughters are also harlots (vv. 1, 5). A harlot is a woman who has many men and no definite husband. The denominations have taken many names (such as Lutheran, Wesleyan, Anglican, Presbyterian, Baptist, etc.) other than the name of our Husband, the Lord Jesus Christ. This means that they do not have a definite husband. To denominate the church by taking any name other than the Lord’s is spiritual fornication. The church, as the pure virgin espoused to Christ (2 Cor. 11:2), should have no name other than her Husband’s. Any division among the believers is a harlot.
Rahab was a harlot, but she turned from her harlotry to God’s people, and she married the proper husband. She was alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and had nothing to do with all the promises of God as mentioned in Ephesians 2:12, but she turned to the people of Israel. Then she became no longer a harlot but a wife of a definite Israelite whose name was Salmon. As a result, Rahab became one of the important ancestors to bring forth Christ (Matt. 1:5).
When I was a young man, the Lord used me to raise up a church in my hometown of Chefoo. One evening the leaders of the denominations there invited me to have dinner with them. They complimented me for being zealous for the Lord’s gospel and for bringing many people to the Lord. But they said that they could not agree with me setting up a church. Instead, they proposed that I go to their various denominations in the town to preach and to teach each Lord’s Day.
I asked them if they believed that the divisions in Corinth were justified by Paul. Paul says, “Now I mean this, that each of you says, I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ. Is Christ divided?...For when someone says, I am of Paul, and another, I of Apollos, are you not men of flesh?” (1 Cor. 1:12-13a; 3:4). All these divisive ones were condemned by Paul. I then asked them, “What if Paul were here with us today? Would he justify your condition?” They said that he would not. Then I said that I could not maintain anything that God condemned. I asked them where I should put the new believers whom I gained as a result of my preaching of the gospel. I surely could not send them to their denominations, since they are condemned by God. This forced me to set up a meeting hall to take care of the new believers. Then I told them that if they took away all the signs that designated them as denominations, I would close the door to our meeting hall that night. They said that it was impossible for them to do this. I responded by saying, “Then you bear the responsibility for division, not I.”
As we said in the previous chapter, all the problems are due to one thing—not knowing the Body. Some in the churches are self-appointed elders. They may say that the Holy Spirit appointed them, but the Bible does not say that the elders are appointed merely by the Holy Spirit. The Bible says that the apostles appointed the elders and that eventually the Spirit recognized that appointment (Acts 14:23; 20:28).
I want to say again that whenever we do something, we must have a proper consideration for the Body. We need to consider how the Body would feel about what we are doing. The biggest problem, the unique problem, is not knowing the Body and not caring for the Body. If we take care of the Body and are concerned for the Body, there will be no problems.
We are here for the Body. Without the backing of the Body, without the backing of the recovery, we have no way to practice the local churches. If we practice the local church life and neglect the view of the Body, our local church becomes a local sect.
The recovery is for the Body, not for any individual or merely for any individual local church. If we are going to do something, we have to consider how the Body, the recovery, will react. The problems are all due to the lack of seeing the Body and of caring for the Body. We all need to come back to the truth, and to practice the truth is to take care of the Body. Sometimes the Body is strong, and sometimes the Body is weak, but it is still the Body. If we come back to the truth and take care of the proper order in the Body, the Body will immediately become stronger. All the problems are due to one thing: not seeing, not knowing, and not caring for the Body. We have to honor the Body.
Those who took the lead in the recent turmoil did not care for the Body. They also misunderstood us. Such misunderstanding comes mostly from ambition. If a person did not have any ambition in a certain matter, he would not have any misunderstanding. If a person desires to gain something for himself and does not get it, he may feel that he has been mistreated. Actually, he was not mistreated by others but was misled by his own ambition. The problem here is the desire to achieve something for themselves.
We must resolve to deny ourselves and be the overcomers for the Lord, for the recovery, and for the Body. We need such a resolution. We should pray, “Lord, I know You need the overcomers. Without the overcomers, You have no way to go on. Lord, I want to be one of these overcomers.” The overcomers see the Body, know the Body, and care for the Body.
We have to make a strong resolution. In Judges 5 Deborah highly appraised some of those in the tribe of Reuben among the people of Israel. She said that they made a definite resolution to fight for the Lord’s people (v. 15). Judges also tells us that God selected three hundred to be Gideon’s army based upon how they drank water. The three hundred who lapped the water into their mouth with their hand did not care for their necessities, while the others who bowed down on their knees to drink the water did (7:4-7). The overcomers are those who care for God’s interests above everything, including their necessities.
On the one hand, we have to make our standing clear that we do not agree with the divisions made by certain division-makers. This will help to calm down the situation among all the churches. On the other hand, we have to pick up a strong resolution by praying, “Lord, I’m going to mean business to live You for Your recovery, for the building up of Your Body. Lord, this is my job. This is my goal.”
We must be vital persons. We must practice visiting people for the gospel once a week for two hours. Suppose that you pick up a resolution by praying, “Lord, I am on this earth for Your recovery, for Your Body. Your Body needs the human members for Your divine constitution. If I don’t go out to get sinners saved to become Your members, then how could Your Body be built up? My going out is not for soul winning. I am not for that. I am for Your Body. I have to go out to get members for Your Body.” After making such a resolution before the Lord, you can begin to contact people for two hours every week. There are many ways to contact people and many places you can go. You may go out week after week and gain no one until the end of the year. At that time you may meet a man while you are standing in line at the bank, and as a result, you may gain him and his entire family. If you go out faithfully and consistently every week for two hours, you surely can gain one person as remaining fruit in a year.
Not all the saints are able to practice this consistent labor in the gospel because of various circumstances and weaknesses, but perhaps forty out of one hundred can. If thirty of these gain one a year, this will yield a thirty percent increase. In this way it would be easy for a local church to gain a thirty percent increase every year. The Lord said that the seed sown on the good earth bears fruit and produces either a hundredfold, sixtyfold, or thirtyfold (Matt. 13:23).
A thirty percent yearly increase would be the highest in the history of Christianity. Do you believe that you can go out two hours each week, fifty-two times a year, and not gain one person? I believe that anyone who would do this would gain one person a year. To knock on doors means to contact people by any possible way.
We must be vital in order to gain sinners for the Lord. After we gain them, we need to feed them. To feed the new believers is even harder than gaining them. Then we have to perfect them by the mutual asking and answering of questions, the mutual teaching, in the group meetings. In order to do this effectively, we have to learn the truths. The recent life-study on Joshua, Judges, and Ruth did not come to me by accident. It came from over a half century of studying the Bible and accumulating the truth in the Bible. I am sharing this to impress us that we have to pay the price to learn the truths.
We need to gather the new ones together to form a little vital group, to mutually ask questions and mutually answer one another for the mutual teaching. The new ones cannot do this, so we have to set up a pattern for them by asking the proper questions. We may ask, “What is the first thing a believer should do after his baptism?” They will not know how to answer this, so we have to answer for them to set up a pattern. After we do this a number of times, they will learn how to ask and how to answer. This means that we need to pay the price to learn the truth and to learn how to speak. Then we need to help the new ones to practice the church meeting by prophesying to build up the Body. This is very high, but it is practical and workable. Whether or not we carry this out depends upon our willingness to pay the price to do it.
The Lord is a working God. He is still working today in His own way, and He needs people. We must enter into the intrinsic significance of the Holy Scriptures to find out what the Lord says and what He wants. We have no right to invent anything. Rather, we discover things in the Bible. We should aspire to be patterns to the coming generation. Then the Lord will have a way. Otherwise, He cannot have a way to build up His Body and to defeat His enemy, to destroy Satan. Satan is still working on this earth, walking about as a roaring lion and seeking someone to devour (1 Pet. 5:8). He is also active in the heavens (Job 1:6). Revelation shows that God is waiting for the overcomers to defeat him (12:10-11). Christianity cannot fulfill this work for God. Even the church life in the recovery carried out in a routine way cannot accomplish God’s desire. The Lord needs the overcomers.
