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Since we began to change the system to the new way in October 1984, we have released almost fifty messages concerning the practice of the new way. However, because I was busy working on the Recovery Version of the New Testament in Chinese, I was not able to give the church much leadership or help, nor was I able to give much help to the full-time training. If the Lord allows, we will use the next four months to lead the church in Taipei. We will not hold message meetings or training meetings.
During the last two and a half years our labor was concentrated on the young people. Last summer we spent all our energy on a college conference and training, and about ten days ago we had a special gospel meeting for the young people in a stadium. The stadium had seating for eleven thousand, but fifteen to sixteen thousand young people came to the meeting. There were thirteen thousand high-school students present. In addition, one hundred fifty people were baptized. This was the result of the work among the young people. Even though we did a good job, we should not be proud. Paul says that we do not have anything that we did not receive. Therefore, we should not be proud (1 Cor. 4:7).
The church in Taipei has neglected the elderly saints, the working saints, and the housewives. We need to make up for this lack and meet with these saints. In the meantime, the trainees will go to the campuses to gain students. Recently, the trainees have been saying that the fire of the gospel on the campuses is of eternal value. The trainees will spend the next six months preaching the gospel on the campuses. They want to baptize one-tenth of the university students in Taipei into the Lord Jesus. The young people are full of potential. If they begin to run on the new way, none of us will be able to keep up with them. The campus work is truly of eternal value. We should all rejoice because the young people’s work is full of hope.
We will meet with the elderly saints and the working saints because we have neglected them. We must seek the Lord’s leading concerning these meetings. We will meet for four or five weeks or even longer. In any event, we must seek the Lord’s leading. Please pray for this.
In 1984 we began to change the system to the new way because we saw a clear picture in the Bible concerning the proper church life. We also examined the world situation in light of the prophecies in the Bible that we had studied in the past. In 1962 I began the work in America. The following year I pointed out that according to the prophecies in the Bible, the world situation will eventually come to the day when the whole world is focused on the Middle East, because everyone will depend on the Middle East for oil. In 1973 there was a global oil crisis.
Today the situation in the Middle East is the object of concern to the entire world. We may also become anxious after reading about certain situations in the world. Even though we may become anxious, we should take heed to the prophetic word, because it is like a lamp shining in a dark place (2 Pet. 1:19). We have the prophetic word, which shines as a lamp in the night. Hence, we do not need to walk in darkness. We have light; we are not like the people in the world.
In 1958 I was invited to give conferences in England and Denmark, and I visited some countries in Europe. In Denmark I visited a few saints who did not have a clear view of the world situation and who therefore had the concept that Taiwan’s situation was not favorable. Everything that I said to them in fellowship has become a fact of history. Taiwan is standing strong and is recognized by all the civilized countries in the world. Taiwan has even become one of the leading economic countries in Asia. We are truly in the last days, and we must be faithful to continue in the way that the Lord has given us. We must see that the Lord wants to move quickly in these days and that we need to endeavor to cooperate with Him.
There is another point that we should pay attention to. According to our observations, during the past two thousand years of church history the gospel work was able to gain only small areas. Hudson Taylor went to China, but he was able to gain only the interior of China, and the missionaries who went to Africa gained only isolated places in Africa. In contrast, today six major continents are open to the Lord’s recovery.
In order to facilitate the work of the gospel in every country, we recently translated the booklet The Mystery of Human Life into thirty-six different languages. This means that if one thousand brothers and sisters are trained in the truth, are experienced in the divine life, and know some languages, they can take The Mystery of Human Life all over the world to preach the gospel.
All of South America is open to the Lord’s recovery. There are about two hundred localities in the country of Brazil, and the countries in Central America are open to us. Countries are opening to us, not just cities. Mexico and Puerto Rico are open to us. West Africa, North Africa, East Africa, and South Africa are open to us. If we could send one to two hundred brothers and sisters to Africa, they would help to meet the need. Europe, Australia, and New Zealand are also open to us. The entire earth is open to the Lord’s recovery.
In the past, people in the West received different impressions concerning the Chinese people. They mainly knew that China has a large population. They also considered the Chinese to be unskilled workers, because the Chinese who immigrated to America were mostly illiterate country people. Many of these immigrants worked in the gold mines in America, and some of them opened Chinese restaurants. In addition, the Western missionaries, who brought the gospel and the Bible to China, took pictures and gave reports on the negative aspects of Chinese culture, such as opium smoking and foot binding. For example, most of the pictures in a book written by Hudson Taylor show people shooting morphine, smoking opium, and binding women’s feet. As a result of these pictures that were published more than one hundred years ago, some people in America still have a bad impression of Chinese people.
More than twenty years ago, when I first began the work in America, I spent the first three or four years traveling from the East Coast to the West Coast and from the South to the North. I often stayed with typical American families who lived in small towns. These believers always commented that they had never seen a Chinese person like me, and I always responded that there are many Chinese people like me. At that time not many students from Taiwan were studying in America, but now there are students from Taiwan all over America, and the Americans know that the Chinese have excellent minds. The Americans are now open to the Chinese. Moreover, the exports and foreign currency reserves of Taiwan have surprised everyone, and the rapid development of Taiwan’s economy has caused all the countries in the world to change their concept of Taiwan. This is for the Lord’s move.
Hence, we need to train and send out thousands of young people to Africa, Central and South America, Australia, New Zealand, and other parts of the world. The young people must also equip themselves; they should not only study English but also learn a third language, such as Spanish, German, French, Japanese, or Korean. Moreover, they should learn enough Greek to be able to use reference books. Some people consider Greek to be a difficult language, but anything that is honorable and worthwhile is not easy. Any young person who has a heart to consecrate himself to the Lord must study languages. The Lord’s move today is accelerated, and we must cooperate with Him.
The Lord is advancing in Taiwan. We have never had a city in which more than one hundred full-time serving ones preached the word. For the first time the church in Taipei has six hundred full-time serving ones. Furthermore, we had our first meeting with more than fifteen thousand young people. About two weeks ago we invited all the young people in the churches in Taiwan to attend a summer young people’s conference. More than twenty buses carrying over one thousand people came from one locality in central Taiwan. The smaller towns and villages sent four or five hundred people. This was the Lord’s move, and it proves that the churches on the island of Taiwan have potential. This potential has not been released in more than twenty years.
Three or five full-time preachers or serving ones cannot do that much. Even three to five hundred full-time serving ones cannot meet our need. The Lord’s move must be accelerated because the Jews have regained their country; the fig tree that was cursed and withered has become tender and put forth its leaves. However, Matthew 24:14 says that the gospel of the kingdom must be preached in the whole inhabited earth before the end comes. Who will go out to preach the gospel of the kingdom to the whole inhabited earth? Many college students are willing to answer the Lord’s call and preach the gospel on the campuses. The campuses are their Jerusalem (Acts 1:8); hence, they must begin with the campuses. The working saints and the elderly saints have their Jerusalem in Taipei. Hence, we must strengthen the visitation service so that the gospel can be spread to every home.
We are clearer today concerning the proper church life than we were in the past. According to the revelation we received from the Lord, God desires to gain a group of redeemed, regenerated, and transformed people to be the Body of Christ, the church, as His expression and testimony on the earth. We are that group of people.
We are different from traditional Christianity. Therefore, we must forget and discard everything that we learned from Christianity along with its methods, because these things are not according to the revelation in the Bible. According to the Bible, three thousand people were baptized on the day of Pentecost. This was the work of the Holy Spirit; it was not the result of human methods. Hence, we should not consider it strange for three thousand people to be saved.
Even though three thousand and then five thousand people were baptized in the early church (2:41; 4:4), the believers did not spread. Therefore, God allowed an environment that forced the believers to scatter from Jerusalem to other regions for the preaching of the gospel (8:1, 4). Acts 8:4 says, “Those therefore who were scattered went throughout the land announcing the word as the gospel.” These believers preached the word of God as the gospel. The young people need to hear this word. We do not know how many believers were scattered, nor do we know what they ate or where they lived. However, we do know that wherever they went, people were saved. Even the Samaritans, who were a mixture of Gentile and Jewish blood, were greatly blessed. A group of believers, not a group of preachers, went out. They were disciples, and they did not go to places with chapels, gospel halls, or large cathedrals. Wherever they went, they could rely only on the opening of their mouths to preach the gospel.
The disciples had meetings in the homes of the people who believed in the Lord; they had home meetings. We believe that later some homes joined together to have a small group meeting and that the group meetings joined together to form a district meeting. Every city had home meetings, small group meetings, and district meetings. The people who were saved loved the Lord, and they gave everything that they had for Him. They were the Lord’s testimony. Furthermore, Acts shows us another meeting. In Acts 20:7 the whole church met together to break bread and to hear a word from the apostle Paul. Instead of going from house to house to speak a word of light, revelation, and vision, the apostle spoke in this gathering. This meeting is what we call a big meeting.
There are still brothers and sisters who are not willing to meet in the homes, because they feel that the home meetings lack flavor and are small and troublesome. Many saints still prefer the methods and traditions of Christianity; these saints are holding on to the big meetings. Every Sunday Christians go to a building, whether it is called a chapel or a meeting hall, to sit and listen to others sing hymns, read the Bible, and speak the word. This practice binds the believers because they do not need to function. Hence, after a period of time the believers lose their function.
This was also our situation. Consequently, the new believers we gained knew only how to meet in the meeting halls after they were baptized. They did not have the concept of functioning in the meetings, because they felt that they did not know the Bible and that they lacked spiritual experience. Therefore, they could only sit and listen, not speak. We also have saints who feel that after working six days a week, they should come to the Lord’s Day meeting to listen to a message and relax. If we require these saints to function, they may feel that they are being pressured by the church and may no longer want to attend the meetings.
Since we changed the system, we have fellowshipped this burden many times. We also arranged for all the brothers and sisters to be in home meetings. However, some of the home meetings have lost their momentum because the saints who usually speak in these meetings are knocking on doors to preach the gospel, and the remaining saints in the home meetings do not usually speak. This was the church’s arrangement in order for one-fourth of the saints to go out door-knocking. As a result, the home meetings and the small groups lost the people who usually speak, and they lost their momentum. This is our current situation.
This situation shows that a desire to strengthen only the big meetings is wrong. We need to see that the Christian life begins from the home and that every brother and sister must have a home meeting to be a strong Christian. In the past we focused on big meetings, and we did not care for the homes. As a result, our new ones did not receive sufficient care. We all need normal home meetings even if we meet only once a week. An entire family should gather together for a meeting. This is not a formal worship service in the home; rather, it is to make our families living and full of vitality. The husband may say Hallelujah, the wife, Amen, and the children, praise the Lord. They do not need to speak a special word. They need only to exercise their spirit for half an hour, and the entire family will be living.
Some sisters genuinely love the Lord. However, the more these sisters love the Lord, the more difficult it is for their children to be saved. This is because these sisters care only for the Lord; they do not care for their children. If we want our children to be well behaved and receive good grades in school, we must spend time with them. For example, we may not be able to say much concerning the economy of God, but we will gradually learn to say something by attending the home meetings. In a home meeting someone may ask, “What verse in the Bible speaks of God’s economy?” Another person may answer, “Ephesians 3 speaks of God’s economy.” Then a young brother can open the New Testament and read Ephesians 3:9-10 to everyone. At the end of the meeting someone else may suggest that everyone sing a hymn. This is a home meeting.
Some of the brothers and sisters do not speak and others do. This is the situation in every locality. A brother who works in a hospital testified recently that one hundred fifty saints work as doctors, nurses, and staff in the same hospital. Before we started the home meetings, these one hundred fifty saints did not function, but since the home meetings began, these saints have been functioning. They started meeting in different homes, and presently three to five households gather together. They do not need to determine beforehand what they will speak about, nor do they appoint a leader. They simply come together to exercise their spirit and overthrow the system of everyone listening to one speaker. By meeting in this way, they are enlivened.
When everyone is together, they exercise their spirit and say Hallelujah, Amen, praise the Lord. In addition, everyone also says something briefly concerning God’s economy. Such a meeting is sweet and rich. In the past we had traditional meetings in which everyone was silent and buried their function. Whoever went to the meeting buried his function. For this reason we did not want the new ones to go to the big meetings. We were concerned that in the big meetings the new ones would be infected with “germs” and die.
The people in the communities whom we brought to salvation through door-knocking do not know the practices of traditional Christianity. After they were saved, they immediately began to have home meetings. Their children and wives testify and pray, and they even lead the hymn singing. In the home meetings the new ones can do everything. In this way the new ones are led to experience Christ. If we bring them to the meetings in the meeting hall, they will see that only one person speaks, and everyone else listens and nods their head. This will trouble the new ones. For this reason we did not encourage the saints to bring the new ones to the big meetings.
Our former way of meeting became an old habit, but now the Lord is leading us forward. We have seen new light and a new practice; hence, we should adjust our present situation. We cannot continue with the big meetings of the past, in which everyone comes together on the Lord’s Day to listen to one brother give a message. We must all have home meetings, small group meetings, district meetings, and even big meetings, and we must all exercise to speak in these meetings.
Since the time of the Reformation of Martin Luther, most of the gospel revivals in Christianity eventually were followed by a situation of death. At the beginning of the twentieth century, in 1904, there was a great revival in Wales in Great Britain. The leader of the revival was a worker in the coal mines. As a result of this revival, the theaters closed, and no one went to the sports events. The gospel was preached to such an extent that there was no place left to preach the gospel, because everyone was saved. This was a genuine revival. However, in less than thirty years the situation in Wales became cold and dead with no signs of the revival. Even though the gospel fever had reached a peak, only a few decades later almost no one in the second generation remained.
The revival in Wales is not the only example. Every gospel revival has had the same result. The Pentecostal movement began in America and was brought to China. A Chinese pastor in the southern part of Shantung Province joined the Pentecostals and led the Chinese Pentecostal movement from 1929 to 1930. There were many miracles, and they spread throughout northern China within a short time. However, by 1933 the Pentecostal movement no longer existed in most parts of northern China. Regretfully, this is the result of all revivals.
During the time of the Reformation, Protestantism began to emphasize the letter of the law and ordinances; therefore, the Lord raised up a group of believers in the Catholic Church in the 1600s called the mystics. Madame Guyon, who focused on the inner life, was one of these believers. Fifty years ago we received much spiritual help from their writings, and we translated some of their books. One of the books we translated was the autobiography of Madame Guyon. Today, however, not many in Christianity know about the mystics. Later, a group of people who emphasized the inner life continued the line of truth taught by the mystics, and they were prevailing for a period of time. We also received much help from these believers. The prominent believers of this group were William Law and Andrew Murray. However, even in America not many believers are interested in the writings of the inner-life believers.
As we study church history, we see that the way of the denominations is dead because they abandoned the home meetings and the small group meetings. If the home meetings and the small group meetings are healthy, the churches will not die; on the contrary, they will be living. Some Communist countries appear to be closed to Christianity. However, even though the missionaries have left these countries, there is still a small number of local believers who suffer persecution. Persecution does not cause the number of believers in these countries to decrease, because these believers meet in home meetings and small group meetings. They do not have pastors or preachers; they have only the small members. Everyone preaches in the homes and speaks in the homes. This is the way the gospel is spread.
Christianity has tried every method, but eventually the result was death. We are not an exception to this. In October 1984 we began to change the system because we saw our deadened condition. Changing the system was a revolution, but we were not overthrowing other people’s lives; we were overthrowing our own lives. We must change. The young ones must change, and the older ones must change. We love the Lord and the church, but we are still unable to lead people to salvation. This is our situation.
The saints who are not in the meetings do not have peace, but if the meetings are held in the old way, the saints will not receive the supply to maintain them in their life and work. According to the old way, even after listening to messages for twenty to thirty years, the saints can only sit and listen to more messages. The saints have listened to too many messages. We must no longer remain in this situation. The Lord needs to gain a group of people who have intimate fellowship with Him and who live before Him. Furthermore, these people should have a meeting with their family at least once a week. They should also contact other families once a week or at least every other week and meet with the families they contact. In these meetings they should not merely sing hymns and praise the Lord; they should also study the truth together.
Shortly after we changed the system, we encouraged the saints to read Truth Lessons. Every lesson in Truth Lessons contains an outline and text that explains the outline. These lessons should not be read in a dead and formal way. Instead, we should read the lessons in a living way; we should pray-read them, read with emphasis, with repetition, with explanations, and even read them by singing. We need to use different ways for the contents of Truth Lessons to enter into us.
In the past the saints only listened to messages in the meetings. They listened to messages for thirty years but were unable to speak the truth. This can be compared to a person who goes to school for thirty years but still does not know simple arithmetic. It is difficult for a student to retain anything if he only listens to famous lecturers at school but is not required to do any homework. Our old method of meeting was unable to educate the saints. We must change our habit because it cannot meet the need.
We need to live before the Lord by fellowshipping with Him and studying the truth. The Lord “desires all men to be saved and to come to the full knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4). We need to know the Lord’s new way. In the new way we gained many new ones through knocking on doors. If we want these new ones to remain, we must take proper care of them. This requires that we have home meetings. In addition, we need to read Truth Lessons in the small group meetings. We need to teach the truth so that everyone learns the truth. If we do this, we will spontaneously be able to speak the truth in the Lord’s Day meetings, and we will be able to clearly expound justification and sanctification. There is no need for us to speak like a famous evangelist and give a long message. We simply need to speak in an ordinary way and explain that justification is God considering sinners to be righteous according to His standard of righteousness based on the redemption of Christ. It would be wonderful for all the saints to learn to speak in this way.
Concerning knocking on doors, the saints may be able to go out every day for two or three weeks, but for the long run they will not be able to go out every day. Hence, we must fellowship concerning what to do for the long run. We need to develop the habit of using at least one evening a week either to preach the gospel by door-knocking or to care for the new ones in their home. We need to be persistent and do these things continually. If every saint baptizes two people every three months, we will each be able to baptize eight people a year. However, we should not be too quick and baptize too many people. We must be sure that we can care for the new ones in a home meeting after their salvation.
In conclusion, as long as we all go out once a week to knock on doors, every saint should be able to baptize eight people a year. It may be that only two of the eight will remain, and the remaining six will not remain, that is, that only one-fourth will remain. With this rate of growth we will triple in one year. We should consider this. In our old way of meeting, it was not easy for us to gain one person in eight to ten years, and the ones whom we did gain did not always remain. With the new way, however, if we build up the habit of going out to contact people every week, in one year we can each gain eight people, and one-fourth of these eight people, that is, two people, should remain. This is a two hundred percent rate of increase.
May the Lord gain a group of people among us who love Him, fellowship with Him, live before Him, experience Him daily, speak for Him, and speak Him forth when they come to the meetings. For this to happen, we must exercise to constantly live in fellowship with the Lord, to live and act before Him, and to labor upon Him so that we will be able to speak for Him in the meetings.
We must first meet in home meetings and then in small group meetings. In the small group meetings we should speak to one another about what we gained in our fellowship with the Lord and in our experience of Him. It may be that we are touched by the Lord after reading Matthew 18:20 in the morning. Then later in the day when we are in our small group meeting, we may speak with the saints and say, “Brothers and sisters, this morning I read Matthew 18:20, where it speaks of being gathered into the Lord’s name, and I really appreciate the Lord’s words. I feel that in our meeting we are gathered into the Lord’s name, and we are enjoying His presence. I also feel that when I come here to be with you, I am being gathered into the Lord’s name, and I enjoy His presence.” This may seem like an ordinary word, but if we all speak such a short, ordinary word, our speaking will be full of flavor. This should be our living.
In addition to the home meetings and the small group meetings, we also need to attend larger meetings, in which we either study the truth or listen to the testimonies of other saints in order to obtain a supply. If all the saints function in this way, the church will be living.
We have no intention of canceling the big meetings, but the church must have many different kinds of meetings. We need home meetings, small group meetings, district meetings, meetings in the halls, and meetings in which the entire church gathers together. If we have a large meeting facility, we can do many things and have different kinds of meetings there every week. May we all endeavor to meet in this way.
