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Scripture Reading: 1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Tim. 2:2, 15; Heb. 10:25
Since October 1984 I have returned to Taiwan many times, but instead of my burden decreasing, it has increased with each visit. I am filled with hope for Taiwan, and I have faith that the “gospelizing” and “truthizing” of Taiwan is not a dream. The Lord’s recovery will be successful in Taiwan.
Many brothers and sisters are willing to offer themselves for the present move in the Lord’s recovery. They are joining the Lord’s army; they are enrolled in “Calv’ry’s hosts” (Hymns, #473). This work is not what is commonly called a revival work in Christianity. The Lord is calling us to enroll in Calvary’s hosts, that is, to give everything for His recovery. We must spend our time, strength, and money, and we must give our spirit, soul, and body, our entire being.
The most important thing in an army is the morale of the troops. The highest demand with regard to the morale is that the soldiers have no opinions. Everyone in an army must put aside his individual thoughts and views and have one heart and one mind. Then they can be in oneness without any differing opinions or goals.
In the past we stressed the truth that the ministry is for the churches but that the churches are not for the ministry. However, the churches need to be in one accord with the ministry. If the churches are not in one accord with the ministry, the ministry has no way to build up the churches or to fight for the Lord’s recovery. When we say that the ministry is for the churches, we mean that the ministry builds up the churches; the ministry does not build up itself. When we say that the churches are not for the ministry, we mean that the churches are not for the building up of the ministry. However, this does not mean that the churches should not be in one accord with the ministry.
For example, every country needs an army, but the army is not for itself; the army is for the country. However, the country must supply and support the army. Whoever is of military age in a country should fulfill his military service and be in one accord with the army. Then the army will be able to fight for the country. In addition, every citizen must be in one accord with the army and support it even if he cannot join the army. In this way all the citizens can be for the army. In the same way the churches must be in one accord with the ministry, supporting the ministry and being for the ministry.
We are not calling the entire church to join the army. This is a call for a group of brothers and sisters to fight for the Lord’s recovery. The result of their fighting is for the churches, not the ministry. Whatever the ministry does is for the churches. The ministry builds up the churches in every locality. Today the Lord’s recovery has more than six hundred churches all over the earth, and they are all supplied by the ministry.
I came to Taiwan in 1984 to establish a model for the building up and spread of the church. The brothers in America learned about this and wanted to copy what we were doing. I told them that copying is useless and that being in one accord is the most important matter. When the Lord Jesus was on the earth, He fed more than five thousand people and helped thousands of people. But after His resurrection He appeared only to over five hundred brothers (1 Cor. 15:5-8). In Acts 1 there were one hundred twenty people praying in the upper room. These ones were in the Lord’s army. They were not afraid of the threats from the Jewish leaders, and they prayed in one accord for the Lord’s move. They did not have any opinions; they simply prayed in one accord for ten days. Previously, they had differing opinions and argued (Mark 9:34), but in Acts 1, Peter and the sons of thunder, James and John, no longer contended. They prayed earnestly in one accord to receive the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
In the degradation of the church the Roman Catholic Church formed a huge religious organization in which the pope occupies the top position and controls everything. Later, Martin Luther brought in the Reformation. This promoted an atmosphere of freedom, but it also created a scattered and divided situation. Christianity is still filled with this atmosphere. Christians say that they do not accept human control and justify this by saying that they are following the Holy Spirit. Everyone supposedly follows the leading of the Holy Spirit, but the result is that every person has a different leading. This situation can be compared to the situation in Israel during the age of the judges; everyone did what was right in his own eyes because they did not have a king (Judg. 21:25).
Since the time that the Lord’s recovery was raised up, we have rejected control because it is not found in the Bible. The first twelve chapters of Acts show that Peter took the lead during the first stage of the church. During the second stage of the church, Acts 13 through 28, Paul took the lead. Even though Peter and Paul did not control anything, Timothy and Titus, Paul’s co-workers, did not have the so-called freedom to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. When Paul exhorted Timothy “to remain in Ephesus,” Timothy remained in Ephesus (1 Tim. 1:3). When Paul said to Titus, “Be diligent to come to me at Nicopolis,” Titus came to Nicopolis (Titus 3:12). This is not the situation today; instead, people say, “Even though you want me to go, I must pray to see how the Holy Spirit leads me.”
First Corinthians 16:12 is a special case. In this verse Paul says, “Concerning our brother Apollos, I urged him many times to come to you with the brothers; yet it was not at all his desire to come now, but he will come when he has opportunity.” Paul fervently hoped that Apollos would go and help the Corinthians resolve their problems, but Apollos said that he did not desire to go at that time. This was Apollos’s opinion. Timothy and Titus, however, were in one accord with Paul and did not do things in this way. Apollos was also a co-worker, but he was not one with Paul; he had his own views and feelings. This shows that the situation in the early church was not clear. Acts 18:24 clearly says that Apollos was an eloquent man and that he was powerful in the Scriptures. First Corinthians 3:6 says that Paul planted and Apollos watered. This one who could expound the Scriptures and teach others did not follow the Spirit to be one with the leading co-worker. This caused some believers in the church in Corinth to say that they were of Paul and others to say that they were of Apollos (v. 4).
We must be one of Gideon’s three hundred skilled warriors. We must not say Amen when things are peaceful but when the battle begins, say that we need to reconsider because it is not convenient. When we were in mainland China, many people said, “Brother Nee, we want to follow your leading.” They read all the books published by Brother Nee, but when they gave messages, they spoke their own words. They did not pay any attention to what Brother Nee spoke. Brother Nee could not do anything about this. If we want to succeed in the work, we must be in one accord.
Paul had a group of co-workers who walked and moved in the same step with him. They were in one soul, not merely in one spirit (2 Cor. 12:18; Phil. 1:27). In Romans Paul says that the believers should glorify God with one accord with one mouth (15:6). In 1 Corinthians he beseeches the brothers to “speak the same thing” (1:10). This means that if the believers could not speak the same thing, it was best for them not to speak. In Ephesians 4:3 Paul, speaking of the oneness in reality, exhorts the Ephesian believers to be “diligent to keep the oneness of the Spirit.” In Romans, 1 Corinthians, and Philippians Paul speaks of the practical one accord.
Being one in heart and in soul, thinking the same thing, and speaking the same thing are the foundation for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Many Christians hope to obtain the outpouring, the baptism, of the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit is never poured out upon individual members. The Holy Spirit is poured out upon the Body of Christ so that the Lord can obtain an army to fight for Him. The one hundred twenty believers in Jerusalem were in one accord, continuing steadfastly in prayer (Acts 1:14), and the result was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
Every lover of the Lord should be a full-time serving one. Some drop their jobs to serve full time, and others serve full time while keeping their jobs. Some people are able to make money, but they are unable to expound the Bible. If we ask them to speak a few words for the Lord, they are unable to speak a clear word. Other people are the opposite; they are unable to make money. Therefore, those who are able to make money should make money for the Lord, and those who can expound the Bible and who have a gift to speak and teach should drop their jobs and serve full time.
Gospelizing Taiwan in five years is not an empty dream. If we produce five hundred full-timers every year, we will have two thousand five hundred full-timers in five years. These two thousand five hundred full-time serving ones will need more than two thousand five hundred money-making full-timers to support them. Even though God is omnipotent, He still needs man’s cooperation. A money-making full-timer should subtract from his earnings whatever amount his family needs to live on and place the remaining amount on the altar for the Lord’s use. If he does not practice this, he is not a full-timer. We are the true Israelites. When the Israelites were leaving Egypt, God told them to plunder the riches of Egypt (Exo. 3:22; 12:35-36). If our heart is for the Lord, He will certainly bless us. We should fear being enticed by money so that we are unwilling to give to the Lord. If five thousand people in Taiwan are willing to live a life of giving their all to the Lord, it will certainly be possible to gospelize and truthize Taiwan.
When I gave up my job to serve the Lord full time in 1933, there were only two or three thousand people in the Lord’s recovery. These believers gave their all. In order to save money for the Lord’s use, some people would walk instead of taking the electric tram. We were supported by what the believers gave. Sometimes we would receive a gift of one dollar when it seemed that we were about to eat our last meal. The environment in Taiwan today is rich; if we are willing to give everything to the Lord, He will have a way.
The educational standard in Taiwan has been raised because education is compulsory for everyone. This has given every person, regardless of his occupation, a desire to learn the true meaning of human life. Christianity has lost the truth and has fallen into methods, traditions, superstitions, and shallowness. Most people are tired of hearing the simple and shallow teachings about going to heaven or hell. They want to hear the truth concerning the meaning of human life. The Lord’s recovery has the truth, but we need people to go out to dispense the truth.
We are happy that many of the young brothers and sisters pray using terms such as God’s dispensing, God’s New Testament economy, and divine transformation. Even the older saints in their fifties and sixties can pray with these terms. We are also encouraged that the saints do not sing common hymns. The labor of the ministry has not been in vain because a number of spiritual things have entered into the saints. The believers in the Lord’s recovery are not the only ones who need the truth. The believers in Christianity and the unbelievers need the truth. First Timothy 2:4 says that God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the full knowledge of the truth.” How will all men come to the full knowledge of the truth if we do not go forth to speak? Therefore, we must see that our commission is to send forth the gospel and the truth as quickly as possible.
There are three important matters for the spread and increase of the church, namely, begetting, nourishing, and teaching. Every country is founded upon its society, and the soundness of a society depends upon begetting, nourishing, and teaching. The church, as a heavenly society, also needs begetting, nourishing, and teaching. The church begets by preaching the gospel. We need a plan to preach the gospel in every school, in every home of every neighborhood, to every level of society, and in every village. After gaining people, we need to nourish them. In society nourishing takes place in the homes; in the church nourishing should take place in the home meetings. I hope that there will be a home meeting in the home of every brother and sister. If there are two thousand family units in Taipei, there should be two thousand home meetings. Every home should be for begetting and nourishing.
Taiwan places much emphasis on education, and everyone admires this. Some people in America showed me a cartoon in which a Chinese boy was studying while his mother was preparing a meal for him, his father was fanning him, and his younger brother was massaging his back. The entire family was helping him to study. Some Americans say that education is the current Chinese idol. Parents in Taiwan economize on their food and clothing in order to save money to educate their children.
In the church life we have Truth Lessons for our education. We need a change in our concept to emphasize truth education in the church. According to our old system, there were four kinds of meetings. There was the big meeting on the Lord’s Day that attracted people with messages. Every Lord’s Day people asked who was giving the message that day. They loved to listen to the brothers who spoke eloquently. There was the meeting for preaching the gospel, which was held whenever there was a need to preach the gospel. There was the bread-breaking meeting to remember the Lord, and there was the prayer meeting. We had these four kinds of meetings every week of every year, but we did not beget or nourish many people, and we did not have sufficient education.
When the work began in Taipei more than thirty years ago, as soon as a person was saved, he was placed in a home meeting. We also had three or four months of training every year. But when I returned in 1984, there were only these four kinds of meetings. There was a lack of teaching the truth for education and a lack of nourishing in the home meetings. For this reason my burden is to hold a training to train full-timers, elders, and co-workers to do three things: preach the gospel, build up the home meetings, and teach the truth. This is to beget, nourish, and teach.
If we do not intensify our effort in these three things—preaching the gospel, building up home meetings, and teaching the truth—the church will not be strong. Some people say that the home meetings will not work. Of course, if we do not go and practice, they will never work. Whether or not something works depends on our willingness to practice. For example, the freeways in Taiwan are flat roads, but when they were being built, many obstacles needed to be overcome. The people who built the freeways needed to cut through mountains and build bridges over rivers. If we want the church to be strong and the Lord’s work to spread, we need a group of laboring ones to rise up to preach the gospel, build up home meetings, and teach the brothers and sisters how to learn the truth.
One brother invited a couple to attend a home meeting. In the home meeting they read portions from The Living Needed for Building Up the Small Group Meetings. The husband prayed to receive the Lord, and a brother baptized him in the bathtub. While the husband was being baptized, the sisters preached the gospel to his wife, and she also was baptized. This newly baptized couple came to the meeting on the Lord’s Day. This is the function of the home meetings. If the church in Taipei has four hundred home meetings functioning in this way, there will certainly be the increase. A person who believes and is baptized as a result of attending a meeting in a believer’s home will remember this experience for his entire life.
Furthermore, we must emphasize Truth Lessons. There is a locality near Taipei that holds two classes for Truth Lessons at four different times on the Lord’s Day. In one day they have eight classes in which they perfect the saints to teach the truth. All teachers know that teaching a matter, rather than simply studying it, is the best way to gain a thorough understanding. If we study something by ourselves, we can be careless in our understanding, but when we teach others, we are forced to understand the material thoroughly. Truth Lessons should be studied in a group. This method of teaching will enable us to enter into the truth.
Some people say that Truth Lessons are too deep and difficult to understand. If a person reads a lesson several times, he will spontaneously understand it. When I was young, I read the statement “The way of great learning depends on developing the bright virtue,” and of course, I did not understand it. However, I later understood it. We should never demean the truth. The elderly brothers and sisters are able to understand matters such as the divine dispensing, transformation, conformation, and the essential and economical Spirit. In the same principle, when we preach the gospel, we should not speak a shallow word because we fear that people will not understand us otherwise. We must speak the excellent truths in the Bible. If people do not understand the truth today, they will understand after they hear the truth over a period of time. Our responsibility is to preach until every home knows the truth. Then everyone will know the truth, and every family will speak the truth.
May all the churches in Taiwan practice begetting, nourishing, and teaching for the increase and building up of the church. To practice these three things is to preach the gospel, to build up the home meetings, and to teach the truth.
