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So far we have covered four main points: the oneness, the priesthood, the kingship, and the altar. The fifth point is the laying of the foundation. All four previous points are for this. The oneness, the priesthood, the kingship, and the altar are all for laying the foundation. So we need to apply all of these things in a practical way.
We do not need much teaching, but we do need some practical application. During the past years of watching and observing, I have noticed that in some places, although it seemed that the people had come back to Jerusalem, no foundation had been laid. Year after year no foundation was laid. A group of people had come back to claim the proper ground of the church life, but there was no foundation.
After we have returned to Jerusalem and have claimed the proper ground, the urgent need is to lay the foundation. We are not for the ground; we are for the foundation. Although we need to come to the unique ground of oneness, we are not for the ground but for the foundation. I believe we all know who the foundation is. The foundation is Jesus Christ. “Another foundation no one is able to lay besides that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 3:11). This is the unique foundation on the unique ground.
Some say that we emphasize the ground too much and simply forget the foundation. We do not admit this. We take the ground for the foundation. We take the ground for Christ. But I have noticed that some who come back have laid a foundation that is not Christ. In some places they claim to have taken the ground, yet they have not laid Christ as their foundation. Instead, speaking in tongues or something else other than Christ Himself is their foundation. Regardless of how good it is, as long as it is not Christ Himself, it is not the proper foundation. Such a foundation becomes a divisive factor. We may say that we have returned to take the unique ground, yet we lay a divisive foundation. Do you see how subtle this is? So we must be extremely careful.
I like the book of Ezra because there is not much teaching in it. In the beginning they did not have the prophets. All they had was the oneness, the priesthood, the kingship, and the altar.
In some places today, they do not have the oneness, they do not have the priesthood, they do not have the kingship, and they do not have the altar. They only have many prophets. It seems that they have nothing but mouths in the Body. Even the toe becomes a mouth. There is much talking and many doctrines, but no oneness, no priesthood, and no kingship. They simply do not care about bringing people into the presence of God to help them contact the Lord and be possessed by the Lord. They only care for the teachings of the Bible. They have many prophets but no priests. They do not care for God’s altar, and they do not care for the divine authority, the kingship. They simply have much talk with many opinions.
Praise the Lord that at the beginning of the recovery there was no prophet. The people simply came together as one man. Some may say that they were ignorant and foolish, but let us all be so foolish. Let us come together as one man foolishly. We do not need to be so clever and wise. We must simply come together with the Lord’s people to be one man. We must learn to be so foolish, without any opinions. Could you learn to only open your mouth for praising and never for expressing opinions? This is what we mean by being foolish.
Many do not know how to bring people into the presence of the Lord, they do not know how to submit themselves under the headship of Christ, and they do not know how to be one with others. They simply do not know how to give up their opinions and be foolishly one with others. They do not know how to put everything upon the altar. There is absolutely no consecration. If the situation is like this, it is dreadful indeed. I prefer to be in a place with foolish people, where everyone is filled with Christ, everyone is under the headship of Christ, and everyone puts everything on the altar. If others say that we are foolish, we say, “Praise the Lord, we are so spiritually foolish!”
In the beginning of Ezra, there were no teachers and no prophets. Today’s Christianity always thinks that to build up a church we need a great teacher. But be sure that a great teacher will bring great troubles, a small teacher will cause only small troubles, and no teacher produces no trouble. If there are two big teachers, be sure there will be two big divisions. There is no need to argue about this matter; it has been proven by history.
All troubles and all the divisions have come from the teachers. Wherever there is a teacher, it is certain there will be trouble and division. Mere teaching never builds—it only divides and tears down.
I really like this book of Ezra. From the beginning there is no teacher and no prophet. There is just the oneness. All the people came together to Jerusalem as one man (3:1). If we do not learn to be foolish, we can never be one with others. All the clever people can never be one. I am always afraid of the clever ones. Do not be so clever; then you can be one with others.
Sometimes someone will say that a certain person is a good brother. But I always want to know how good. If he is foolishly good, that is marvelous. But if he is cleverly good, I will run away from him. I cannot tell you how much I have suffered in the past from clever ones. In the church the Lord does not need any clever people. The first clever one was Judas, who betrayed the Lord Jesus. He was really clever. When we read the New Testament, we see that all the disciples and early believers were built up together because they were foolishly one.
How can we be one? We must give up our opinions and become foolish. All the people in the beginning of the New Testament came together as one. They had the priesthood, they had the kingship, and they put everything on the altar to be burnt. Do you not think that they were foolish? If I were there, I might have asked them, “What are you doing? We need all those things for the Lord’s work.” They were really foolish.
What I mean is this: if we look into the situation at the time of Ezra, what they were doing was foolish. When all the adversaries saw these foolish people put everything on the altar and burn it, they were happy. But later when the adversaries saw the laying of the foundation, they were not so happy. In the beginning it seemed foolish—there was no teaching, and they did not call the congregation together to give them instructions. No, they all came together as one man, and they had the priesthood, the kingship, and the altar. Brothers and sisters, we all need to be so foolish. Do not be taught and instructed to be so clever. Learn to be so simple and foolish that you put everything on the altar.
The oneness, the priesthood, the kingship, and the altar are the preparation for laying the foundation. According to typology, this foundation is nothing but Christ. Christ has been laid as the foundation (1 Cor. 3:11), and we should not care for anything but Christ. We do not care for prophesying, we do not care for healing, we do not care for speaking in tongues, and we do not care for foot-washing or head covering. We do not care for anything but Christ. Our foundation is nothing but Christ. Yes, we take the ground of the church, but we are not for the ground. The ground is for the foundation, and the foundation is Christ and Christ alone.
Pray-reading is not our foundation. Pray-reading is a means to lay the foundation. Pray-reading is a means to build. We thank the Lord that in the past years we have seen much building by pray-reading. Pray-reading truly builds, but it is not the foundation. Our foundation is Christ alone.
How do we lay the foundation? The foundation is laid by praising and shouting. “When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of Jehovah, they set the priests in their apparel with trumpets and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise Jehovah according to the directions of David the king of Israel. And they sang to one another in praising and giving thanks to Jehovah, saying, For He is good, for His lovingkindness is forever upon Israel. And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised Jehovah, because the foundation of the house of Jehovah was laid. But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ houses, the old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes; and many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not discern the sound of the shout of joy from the sound of the weeping of the people; for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the sound was heard far away” (vv. 10-13).
If we are going to another place, we do not need to teach or preach so much. We must simply go there and shout and praise concerning Christ. If we go there to praise Christ, I believe there will be a firm foundation laid.
Why do we have to follow the old way? We come to the meetings and sit waiting for someone to call a hymn. Then we all sing. Why do we follow this old way? Where is the scriptural ground for this way? Why do we have to have a message in all our meetings? Why do we not have a shouting meeting? I shout to you, and you shout to me, “Brothers, Christ is my life! Christ is Victor!” Then another will shout, “Yes, Christ is Victor!” But we should not make this another way. We must be so new and living. I have the deep conviction that the Lord is going to tear down the old way. I do not think the old way of preaching will be so prevailing. There must be something new.
They laid the foundation by shouting and praising. When Christianity is going to build a church building, they have a certain kind of celebration to lay the foundation. They sing a hymn, and the pastor will read a portion of the Word. Then another will give a message. This is the old and dead way, the way with no life. That is not Christ as the foundation. If they declare Christ as the foundation, everyone will shout, “Hallelujah!”
Look at the record in Ezra. Some shouted and some wept. There was no order. If you go to the cemetery, there is no need for you to tell those who are there to stay in order. They are already orderly because they are dead and buried. If we are living, it is rather difficult to keep a strict order. We all know that according to history, the Hebrew people were so religious, but according to this record, there was not much religion. They came together as one man. Is this religious? They put everything on the altar to be burned, and when they laid the foundation, they shouted and wept so much that they could not discern who was shouting and who was weeping. Is this religious?
When we get back to the proper ground, we must pray that such a foundation will be laid. Do not call a meeting and say, “Brothers, please open to 1 Corinthians 3:11. We must all know that the unique foundation is Christ.” This is dead teaching. You are right, but you are dead right. In the Lord’s recovery we do not need this kind of dead teaching. When we come back, we must come back shouting, praising, and full of Christ without any teaching. This will be wonderful.
Not long ago while traveling, I had a three-hour layover in a certain place where there was a local church. Two brothers met me at the airport, and we had some fellowship. They told me that a brother from their place had gone to Los Angeles and stayed for three weeks. When he came back, the first time he came to the meeting, he shouted Hallelujah! Everyone in the meeting knew that this brother had returned from Los Angeles. They had not seen him, but they heard his Hallelujah! He was so bubbling. This was really good. But if this brother had come back to teach them to shout Hallelujah the way they do it in Los Angeles, this would be wrong. He would just be asking people to shout in a dead way. It is not a matter of imitating but of being filled with Christ. When we lay Christ as the foundation, we are so happy that we shout Hallelujah! We have no other foundation but Christ. We do not care for this; we do not care for that—we only care for Christ. This is the unique foundation of the house of God. We have seen it, and we are in it. Praise the Lord!
After the foundation was laid, something happened. The laying of the foundation disturbed the adversaries. They realized that something really serious had occurred, so they came in a subtle way. “Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of the captivity were building a temple to Jehovah the God of Israel, they drew near to Zerubbabel and to the heads of fathers’ houses and said to them, Let us build with you; for we seek your God as you do, and we have been sacrificing to Him since the days of Esarhaddon the king of Assyria, who brought us up here. But Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the rest of the heads of fathers’ houses of Israel said to them, You have nothing to do with us in building a house to our God; but we ourselves together will build to Jehovah the God of Israel, as King Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us. Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah and troubled them in building. And they hired counselors against them to frustrate their purpose all the days of Cyrus the king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius the king of Persia” (Ezra 4:1-5).
In the past years we also have heard this kind of saying again and again: “Brother, let us work together with you. We are the same as you are.” Whoever says, “We are the same as you are,” is not the same. If he were the same, there would be no need for him to say so. He would simply come to be one with you. We must not be cheated.
In the Far East, some missionaries came to me and said, “Brother, let us help one another. We are the same as you are. You have given up denominations, and we are nondenominational.” But I had to say, “Brothers, you are not the same as we are.” Then I pointed out what they were and what we were. This is a subtle frustration of the enemy. In the Lord’s recovery we should never have any mixture. It must be one hundred percent pure. If we take this way, be prepared for people to say that we are narrow. We all need to be so narrow. To try to be broad is a subtlety of the enemy.
Who were the people who said that we seek God as you do? They were those who were very close to Jerusalem. The closest ones are the most troublesome ones. Do not listen to this kind of saying: “We are the same as you are.” We rejected this kind of subtle proposal, so immediately the opposition came. If we are clear about the Lord’s recovery, we must be sold for this one thing and nothing else. Since we are spoiled for the recovery, we are good for nothing else. We cannot work together with others who are very close, yet so different, because the Lord’s recovery is unique.
Let us look at the situation. There was Jerusalem, Egypt, Syria, and Babylon. No doubt there was much work for God in Babylon. They built many synagogues, and they did much work to bring people to know God and the law of Moses. I believe there were good works even in Syria and Egypt. Those who said, “We seek your God as you do,” had been brought from Syria to a place close to Jerusalem. I believe they were the ancestors of the Samaritans. In John 4 we see that the Samaritans spoke much about worshipping God.
Suppose you were an Israelite in Jerusalem. Those who were close by might say, “Why must you be so peculiar? So many here are devoted people of God, and they love you. Why would you not stay with them? You say that you must go to Jerusalem, but isn’t this too narrow? You only have twelve meeting with you, and they have twelve thousand. Why don’t you stay with the twelve thousand? Why go back to the twelve?” If you were not so clear, you would immediately be confused. You would even speak to others and ask, “What are we doing here when there are so many dear ones who are not in Jerusalem? Why don’t we go and join them? Why should we keep our small group here?” If you were not clear, you would be brought away from Jerusalem.
There is much work for God here in this place and there in that place, and it is very close to the recovery too. It is not something in Babylon, Syria, or Egypt but near to Jerusalem. They even say that they are the same as you are. Then what will you say? I am afraid that you may think that the Lord has sent you some helpers. But these are not helpers; they are frustraters. One brother might say, “Praise the Lord, these people are not in Syria, or in Egypt, or in Babylon, and they are so close to us. If we just help them a little, they will be brought in.” But they will help you a little to be brought out. Do not say that they are so close. Their subtlety is to come in to bring you out. You must build up the wall and close the door. I know the subtle one will say that this is narrow and sectarian. But we must know what it means to be sectarian. To be sectarian is absolutely a matter of the ground. If you are in Jerusalem, you can never be sectarian. But if you are not on the proper ground, regardless of how broad and all-inclusive you are, you are still sectarian. As long as you are in Babylon, no matter how broad you are, you are divisive because you are standing on divisive ground. As long as you are on the proper ground, you are standing for the unique oneness, which is for all the children of God.
It was not the subtlety that stopped the building work; it was the opposition. The opposition began because they were not absolute. They were clear, but they were not absolute. Because they were clear, they could not be stopped by the subtle proposal, but because they were not absolute and strong, they were stopped by the opposition. “When the copy of King Artaxerxes’s letter was read before Rehum and Shimshai the scribe and their companions, they went in haste to Jerusalem to the Jews and stopped them by force and power. So the work of the house of God, which is in Jerusalem, ceased; and it was stopped until the second year of the reign of Darius the king of Persia” (Ezra 4:23-24).
It was at this time that the prophets came. “Now the prophets, Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied to the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel who was over them. Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak rose up and began to build the house of God, which is in Jerusalem; and the prophets of God were with them, helping them...And the elders of the Jews built, and they prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo. And they finished building according to the command of the God of Israel and according to the decree of Cyrus and Darius and Artaxerxes the king of Persia. And this house was finished on the third day of the month Adar, which was in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king” (5:1-2; 6:14-15).
The prophets came because the people were weakened and were not in a normal condition. Whenever the Lord raises up the prophets, that is a proof that the situation is not normal. In the normal situation there is no need of the prophets, but just the priesthood and the kingship—these two are sufficient. But in Ezra 5 and 6 the situation became abnormal, so there was the need of the prophets. When the purpose of the building up of the house of God was frustrated, God raised up Haggai and Zechariah. Zechariah was a priest-prophet. This kind of prophet must be related to the priesthood.
When we are frustrated from the rebuilding of the house of God, we need the strengthening of the prophets. In all the books of God’s recovery, you will find that there are not many teachings or different kinds of opinions and concepts. This is why I love these books. These books show us that when the people returned, they did not bring back these things. They were so simple. But because they were weak and related to the world, they needed the help of the prophets to be strengthened and separated from the world.
Today we must all realize that in the recovery of the church life we do not need much teaching. What we need is the priesthood and the kingship, the altar, and the real foundation of Christ. The church life is built upon nothing but Christ. Do not think that when the prophets came, they gave many teachings. No, they strengthened the hands of the people to carry on the recovery in a proper way. We must all learn to be so simple and drop all our opinions and concepts. We must leave the teachings and simply come together under the divine authority to lay the foundation of the unique Christ.
We must be careful and strong not to be cheated by the subtle proposal of others to come and help us. There is no help from that source. We must be clear that regardless of what people say about us, we know what we are doing, and we know that we are absolute for the recovery. We are not good for anything else.
In the past years I have been criticized very much. Many times when I was in Taiwan, friends came to rebuke me: “Brother Lee, we know you do not care for anything but the local churches. You are building up a local church sect.” This is what they said. I never argued; I just nodded my head. I said, “Brother, you are one hundred percent right. I am here for nothing but the local church. I am sold, wrecked, and spoiled for Christ and the church. Don’t expect me to come to help you. If I did, I would cause you much trouble. Save your time and mine also.” I was very frank to speak the truth.
Some of the missionaries in China said, “That is a marvelous piece of work, but...” There was a big “but.” To them the “but” is like a dead fly in the ointment. To them the dead fly was the church ground. Some have said to me that if I would not say anything about the ground, I would become a wonderful and popular speaker. But I told them that I do not like to be so popular and wonderful. I like to be faithful and speak about the ground.
Some say, “Brother Lee, why must you offend others? Just preach Christ—that is sufficient. Why do you have to speak about the ground? This really offends people.” I said, “I know I offend you, because you came here to build up the Presbyterian Church, and I am for the local church. Your aim is to build up a missionary church, and our goal is to build up the local church. How can I please you?”
If we do not take the Lord’s way today to build up the local church, what shall we do? There is no way to go on. In 1933, when I was raised up by the Lord in this way, I was much criticized. Even my dearest friends became so antagonistic to me. It was really a burden. Then I went to the Lord and became so clear. I said to myself, “If I am going to be a human being, I must be a Christian. Otherwise, it is better for me to die. There is no need to be a man without being a Christian. But if I am going to be a Christian, I must take the way of the local ground. If I do not take the way of the local church, I have no way. It is better for me to quit being a Christian.” It was so simple.
Your own experiences will prove that unless you see the local church, you will never be satisfied. Something deep within you tells you that there is something missing until the day you come to the local church. Then you have the sense that you are home because you are home! If you are not home, you simply feel that you are lacking something. Brothers, there is no other way. If we do not take the way of the local church, there is no need for us to set up a meeting at any other place. That is meaningless. If we do not take the way of the local church, why must we have another meeting? There are so many Christian groups already—why not go and join them? You may say that it is rather difficult to work together with them and that it is better to start another meeting. If this is so, then you are really sectarian. If you do not have the intention to join the local church, I would advise you to go back to join some Christian group. There is no need to set up some other kind of meeting. That is really meaningless.
Bring these matters to the Lord, and you will say, “Lord, from now on, I am good for nothing but the local church. I do not know anything but the local church.” The Lord will honor this kind of prayer. Look at the situation of the recovery in ancient days. Those people who returned seemed so foolish. They did not know anything, and they did not care for anything but the recovery of the building up of the house of God. This is exactly what we must do. We must be for nothing but the recovery of the building up of the local churches.
