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Scripture Reading: 2 Cor. 3:18; 4:16; John 21:15-17
In this chapter I hope to give a word of fellowship and exhortation. After much prayer and seeking before the Lord, I feel that the Lord’s recovery both in the East as well as in the West has arrived at a stage where we need to look for a fresh revival. Particularly here in Taiwan, the elders of the churches and the co-workers should pick up the burden to seek a fresh revival.
The revival that I am talking about is not the kind of revival commonly known in Christianity. It is not something sudden, brought about by days of prayer and fasting and accompanied by extraordinary events, resulting in a general excitement. The revival that I am talking about is the renewing described in the New Testament. Second Corinthians 4:16 says, “But though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.” The renewal here is a revival. Every day we need a renewal, and this renewal has to be refreshed day by day. What we need today is this kind of renewal in the inner life as opposed to a renewal in outward actions or expression. God has set up a natural law that the rising of the sun affords a new beginning and a fresh renewal every day for everything, whether plant, animal, or human being. The same is true with our Christian life. Every morning we should allow the Lord Jesus, our Sun, to rise up in us so that we can be renewed. This is the revival that I am talking about.
I have covered this matter in an elders’ and co-workers’ meeting already, but I feel that I have not yet awakened the attention of the saints in all the localities. Although the words of this message will be short, I hope that the elders taking the lead in all the churches, together with all the helping co-workers, will practice this new revival so that the Lord Jesus may have a fresh rising within us every day.
In order to achieve this, all of you should rise up early in the morning. But to rise up early, one must go to bed early. If you cannot go to bed early, it will be hard for you to rise up early. Early rising affords tremendous benefits for a Christian. Every morning when the sun rises up, it is time for us to rise up to fellowship with the Lord. We should pray to the Lord, “Thank You, Lord, for a new beginning. May this day be a memorable day in my life.” On the one hand, we have such a fresh consecration and waiting before the Lord; on the other hand, we receive from Him fresh bestowals and enlightenings. With all this freshness, we will naturally have a revival. This is what we call a morning-by-morning revival. It is also what Paul described as the renewing day by day. This renewal happens early every morning. I hope that this matter would be practiced properly among us. All the co-workers with the elders should trumpet this call in all the places, awakening all the saints to go to bed early and rise up early. As soon as we get up, we should have a good touch with the Lord. No matter how busy we are or how important other things are, we must put them aside until we have a touch with the Lord.
This touch with the Lord should preferably be for half an hour. At the very least, it should be for fifteen minutes. This should be something very easy for us to do. Leviticus 6:12 tells us that “the priest shall burn wood on it [the altar] every morning, and he shall lay the burnt offering in order upon it.” This indicates that every morning we should offer up Christ as our burnt offering based upon His being our sin offering so that we may have a new beginning. Not only must we do this every day; we must also do it with sweetness and depth. The fifteen minutes in the morning is not mainly for prayer or supplication; rather, it is for a direct touch with the Lord by which we speak to Him and He speaks to us. For this reason, the best way is to spend this time on a few verses so that we may be filled by the Lord through pray-reading His Word in an enjoyable way. In this way we will have a new beginning and a fresh revival.
If we are daily revived spiritually, there will be no need for a big revival. Actually, none of the so-called big revivals are long lasting. For example, the great Welsh revival at the beginning of this century was over by 1933. All the revivals brought in by various spiritual movements in the past were transient. After a while they all cooled down. This kind of sporadic revival is not reliable. The reliable revival is the kind that comes from a daily renewal.
This daily revival brings transformation with it. Romans 12:2 says, “Be transformed by the renewing of the mind.” Second Corinthians 3:18 says, “We all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit.” This shows us that transformation comes from beholding the Lord. We are like mirrors beholding the Lord with an unveiled face. The more we behold Him, the more we reflect the glory of the Lord, and we are transformed into the image of the Lord from one stage of glory to another. This transformation is from the Lord Spirit. There is not just a revival but a transformation as well. Hence, to have a revival that is renewed daily is to have a transformation that is fresh daily. If we remain in this transformation our whole life, we will grow in the life of the Lord until we are matured. This kind of revival, renewal, and transformation is what we all need today.
After such a revival we should live a life of consecration daily. In such a living we fellowship with the Lord, walk with Him, and abide in Him and thus become one spirit with Him and live Him out. This is an overcoming living. By this, we will be able to consecrate everything for the Lord. Our whole being will be for the Lord. Our time, energy, family, and business will all be for the Lord. We all have to consecrate ourselves in such a reckless way, not giving up until we reach our goal. We must be like a mother nursing her baby. Whether she is healthy or not does not matter. Whether she has problems or not, she has to consecrate everything for the care of her child. The same is true for athletes in the field; they forget everything and are desperate for the goal. All our co-workers must have such a desperate spirit to assist the elders in the different places. They must perfect the saints in the same way that a mother who nurses her baby casts aside all her needs to take care of the results of her work. The elders should also be like this. First Peter 5:1-2 says, “The elders...shepherd the flock of God.” This shows us that the church is the flock of God. It is entrusted to the shepherding of the elders. An elder is a shepherd. He cannot care for the sheep according to his mood, enthusiastic today, negligent tomorrow. The care for the flock is a daily matter. We have to care for the flock daily and unceasingly until the Chief Shepherd is manifested (v. 4). This means that there is no end to the care for the saints. We do not know on what day the Lord will come. We only know to labor in care for the flock. If we do not have this spirit, it will be impossible for any of us to be a co-worker or an elder.
In order to take care of the church properly, the elders have to receive this charge from the Lord. They must shepherd the saints conscientiously. The Lord asked Peter in John 21, “Do you love Me more than these?” Peter answered the Lord, “Yes, Lord, You know that I love You.” Then Jesus said to him, “Feed My lambs” (v. 15). To feed is to nourish others with the riches of the inner life. This is a mouth-to-mouth feeding. The second time, the Lord said to Peter, “Shepherd My sheep” (v. 16). To shepherd the sheep is to take care of all the needs of the sheep. The third time, the Lord said to him, “Feed My sheep” (v. 17). At the time that the Lord said this to Peter, Peter had been following the Lord for over three years. After His resurrection the Lord charged him especially with this matter of shepherding the sheep. This shows how important it is to shepherd the sheep. Later, when Peter wrote his first Epistle, he entreated the elders to shepherd the flock of God (5:1-2).
Shepherding refers to caring for all of the needs of the sheep, whether the need is grass, water, or shelter. All the sheep are to be well provided for and well tended to. Of all the needs, the most important one is the feeding, that is, the mouth-to-mouth feeding. This is the duty of the elders. If all the elders in the various localities would do this, the saints would receive the suitable care. In the past we baptized many but brought in few. The reason for this was the lack of feeding and care. Our messages were high and deep, but after the messages there was not much care. In the end the flock was without shepherds. There was preaching without shepherding and teaching without feeding. This was our shortcoming in the past. Among us there is the begetting and the teaching, but there is a lack of feeding. As soon as a baby is born, what he needs most is feeding. A baby will not grow just by teaching him.
In Ephesians 4:12 “the perfecting of the saints” is primarily a matter of feeding. Only with the proper feeding can there be the proper perfecting, and only then can the saints be equipped and perfected. After the saints have grown to a certain measure, there is the need of teaching. A good part of the perfecting at that point will be the teaching. The saints are then like the child who has reached school age. Such a child should go to school to receive his education, but that does not mean that the parents no longer supervise the child. When a child is sent to school to receive a proper education, he must still have a good family to match his training at school. Only then will he be properly perfected. Our problem today is that we talk too much yet feed too little. The feeding and the education are not well coordinated. I hope that from now on the co-workers in the various places would talk less and feed more. They should do their best to shepherd and care for the saints. As soon as we hear of anyone sick or of anyone encountering problems, we must be concerned for him, pray for him, and go to visit him. The impact that this little bit of concern, prayer, and visiting affords is far more powerful than ten messages. Although the long messages are nice to listen to, they are far inferior to the care we can give to others in their daily lives. Care can touch people’s feeling in a far deeper way than messages can. All parents spend their all for their children. In the end the children spontaneously love their parents and are full of gratitude. I hope that all the elders would be such people, who give up everything for the saints. Although the brothers and sisters are not your children in the flesh, they are the flock entrusted to you by God as far as their spiritual life is concerned. The elders must have the compassion of a caring mother. They must be desperate to care for the Lord’s lambs.
If the co-workers and elders are such people, and every one of them would feed and perfect others in this way, the ones perfected by them will eventually do the same work. Because the saints are under their care and because they enjoy and experience this work of grace, they will spontaneously give themselves to join in this work of grace that they enjoy. At the same time the expression of love that flows out from the serving ones will become the example for the ones served. When a mother loves her child, the love expresses itself spontaneously in her living and becomes an example to the child. If the elders and co-workers would love the saints like a mother who loves her child and would render a loving, willing service to them, feeding them mouth-to-mouth and teaching them face-to-face, then when the saints are perfected, they will be just like the co-workers and elders; every one of them will be able to do the work that the co-workers and elders do.
The meetings with only one speaking and all the rest listening do not have the mouth-to-mouth feeding or the face-to-face teaching. This is why these meetings cannot perfect people and do not produce spiritual descendants. Now the new way has replaced the old way. The purpose for this change is that all the saints may be perfected and that they all may become useful persons. At present, in the church in Taipei there are four thousand people attending the weekly bread-breaking meetings. If all these ones were perfected and everyone could do the work of the co-workers and elders, the situation would be marvelous.
Actually, the work of perfecting is not very difficult. It all depends on whether or not we have the heart to do it. In the past the help we rendered to people came mostly by delivering messages in the meetings. Although there is some use in this, it can never perfect others. To this day our greatest lack is in the shepherding. Once we develop a gap in this work, it is difficult to retain people. And even if people are retained, it is difficult to perfect them. We know that no university can train professionals by merely inviting famous speakers to give lectures. The lectures can at most enlarge the vision of the students. The help actually rendered to students depends on the scheduled classes and the teaching by the professors. The elders among us have mostly been involved with the arrangement of affairs, such as the setting of meeting times. There is a lack of feeding and teaching. It is impossible to perfect others this way.
Most of you have been in the Lord’s service for many years. I believe that you understand what I am saying by just this little word. If you have a heart for the Lord, from now on you should have a revival every day to live the overcoming life, to consecrate everything for the Lord, and to strive to redeem every bit of time to contact people. Care for the saints one by one. Do not hope to contact too many people all at once. The most effective way is the slow and sure way. During the three years that I worked in Chefoo, from 1940 to 1942, I purposely set aside a small room in the meeting hall and converted it into a kitchen. I asked a brother to stay there as the cook and do nothing except prepare meals. Every weekday evening on which there was no meeting, I invited ten or twenty brothers and sisters to come and eat. During that time, I talked with them one by one. In this way I made contact with every one of the few hundred brothers and sisters. By sitting down with them, chatting with them, and getting acquainted with them, I began to have a clear impression about them. This kind of concern touches people the deepest and affects them the most. If we only have preaching and do not have this care and concern, the words preached will have only a limited effect upon people. But after we care for people in this way, when they come to listen to us, the words they hear will have twice as much effect on them. Another important thing to do is to contact people before and after the meetings. If we would go and talk to the people after a message, the results would be twice as great as our present results. But if we merely preach without contacting people, the results will be half as great, and our words are liable to be empty and impractical. Only when we contact others do we know where they are. A doctor cannot prescribe medicine just by listening to some reports about a patient. He must have personal contact with the patient and talk to him before he can write out a prescription.
I hope that all the co-workers and elders would learn to do their best to contact people. Even if they are very busy, they should still contact people. If you contact one person a day, in a year you will have contacted three hundred and sixty-five persons. If a church has three elders and each contacts people every day, in a year’s time they will be able to contact all the saints many times. The effect of this is much higher than giving many messages. Today there are many brothers and sisters who need help. Hence, we have to do our best to contact them, to be concerned and care for them in love, and to strive to help and shepherd them.
In all the churches the greatest need today is not the management of affairs nor the preaching of messages but the feeding and teaching of the saints one by one. When we go to the saints to feed them and to teach them the truth, we should not be too legal. Perhaps on one occasion I would use chapter 1 of Truth Lessons, but the next time I may not necessarily use chapter 2. Before we go out to shepherd the saints, we must first have a reserve supply. We should familiarize ourselves with the content of the Truth Lessons and should study them in detail. Then when we contact the brothers and sisters, we should ascertain their needs and should present the Truth Lessons to them according to their practical needs. We should read a passage together and then explain a little of what we read. This way of teaching has the element of feeding with it. It is not just teaching but feeding as well. Teaching of this kind is much more effective than preaching a sermon. For this reason you must learn how to care for people, how to contact people, how to visit and shepherd people, and even how to teach people face to face. This will produce great and lasting effects. Outwardly, we will not have the façade of a big meeting to show off, but actually, hundreds and thousands will be cared for.
I hope that the elders and co-workers would take this word of fellowship and exhortation to give their all and their time to contact and shepherd people. This was our shortage in the past. Now we must recover this matter. Only by this will the organic building up of the Body of Christ in Ephesians 4:12-16 and the meetings of mutuality in 1 Corinthians 14:26 be realized and practiced among us. For this we need a daily revival and a daily overcoming as the base. We also need a life and a work that flow out from the love of the Lord in order to maintain our victory. If we do not have a revived living or a labor in shepherding, we will not be overcoming for long; there will be no way for us to maintain our victory. What maintains us in the victory is a life and work of love toward the Lord. We need both these aspects.
