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Although each of the four Gospels refers to the matter of gospel preaching, the record in the Gospel of John is the most particular. At the end of Matthew the Lord charged the disciples to preach the gospel (28:18-20), and at the end of both Mark and Luke the Lord also gave similar charges (Mark 16:15-16; Luke 24:46-48). In the Gospel of John, however, the Lord did not charge the disciples to preach the gospel. Instead, He told them that He wanted them to bear fruit. The Gospel of Matthew presents the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom, the Gospel of Mark presents the preaching of the gospel to the whole creation, and the Gospel of Luke presents the preaching of the gospel for forgiveness of sins. The Gospel of John, however, is a book, a Gospel, concerning life. Hence, in the Gospel of John the preaching of the gospel is mainly not in the way of proclaiming or preaching but in the way of releasing life.
In John 15:4-5 the Lord said to the disciples, “Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit.” The branches’ abiding in the vine is not merely the preaching of the gospel but the overflowing of the inner life. For example, fruit trees in an orchard do not preach the gospel there; they just grow. Moreover, their full growth is the overflow of the life within them. This overflowing life will practically issue in much fruit. Hence, the fruit-bearing of the branches of the fruit trees is the issue of the overflow of their inner life.
In John 15 we see the same picture. There it says that the Father is glorified in that we bear much fruit (v. 8). Many Christians do not know what it means for the Father to be glorified. The Father’s being glorified is His being multiplied. For example, suppose there is a young man who does not have any children after being married for ten years. Thirty years later he still has no children. Finally, when he is ninety years old, he remains barren. If you went to visit him at his home, you would see only an old man with his body bent over and his old wife who can hardly walk. Instead of having a sense of glory, you would have a sense of pity. However, suppose a young man after being married for twenty years has begotten twelve sons and eight daughters, and suppose all his children also beget sons and daughters after their marriages, giving him fifteen grandchildren. He may be only fifty-five years old, yet he already has numerous offspring. If we saw how many offspring he had, we would admire him and say, “Glorious, glorious! This is really glorious! You have produced so many offspring.”
Our Father is glorified in that we bear much fruit. This means that the Father’s divine life is expressed through our fruit-bearing as the branches of the vine, and in this He is glorified. When we see so many young people in the church rising up to love and serve the Lord and so many being brought into the church, we joyfully exclaim, “Glory!” We exclaim this because the Father’s divine life is being multiplied.
Thirty years ago, when I first visited the Philippines, some among the responsible brothers at that time looked like trees with hardly any growth, and with some we could not tell whether they were little plants or stones. However, more than twenty years later they are all growing gray. Suppose that in the Philippines there was only a group of such elderly saints. Suppose that there were no young people, not to mention local people, who had been brought into the church, and that even the children of the elderly saints had been lost. If this were the case, our hearts would be frozen. If we heard the elderly saints singing weakly and feebly, we would surely weep and sob because if a church does not have young people, it has no posterity and therefore no future. However, when we see all the young people, especially the new ones, rising up, and when we hear them singing in the meeting, it is really glorious. This confirms what the Lord said: “In this is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit.” If the meeting halls in our localities are filled with young people, what a glory it will be!
For this reason we all need to be reminded that we have to go forth and bear fruit. Every one of us has to make a vow before the Lord that we each will bear one fruit a year. If we cannot bring one person to the Lord, that is, bear one fruit for the Lord in one year (three hundred and sixty-five days), this will be a shame to us. Perhaps week by week we come alone to the meetings with only our Bible and hymnal. Five years ago it was so, and now, five years later, it is still the same—we have not brought one person with us. If this is our situation, then there is no glory at all. However, suppose next spring each of us brings a lamb, and in the second half of the year each one of us brings another lamb. Then we will all have the inward sense that this is glorious. If each of us would bring two lambs by the second half of next year so that all the seats of the meeting hall are filled, then the expression will be even more glorious.
I can testify to you that I have lambs everywhere. This is why I am so happy. Wherever I go, there are flocks of lambs receiving my feeding. When I am feeding them, my heart feels joyful and glorious. I hope that you all would answer the Lord’s call, forgetting about everything else and not caring about the situation of the meetings, but you would simply go forth and bear fruit, bringing the lambs into the church life.
I do not mean to incite anyone; I just want to point out the way of life to all of you. The reason we do not have much growth in life is that we are barren. Hence, we must drop all other things and simply go forth and bear fruit. Once we bear fruit, all our sicknesses will be healed spontaneously. Those who are weak will be made strong, and those who are spiritually unhealthy will become normal and healthy.
Every parent has this kind of experience. Sometimes they are very busy and tired and even become sick, but once they see their children, their sickness is gone, and all their strength wells up. When a person is sick, he may ask for a leave from his company, but he cannot ask for a leave from his children. Once he sees his children, all his sicknesses will be gone. Similarly, when we see our “lambs,” the ones we have led to salvation, our problems will all disappear, and our sicknesses, whether physical or spiritual, will all vanish.
Yesterday at lunch, due to a little overeating, I did not feel well and became sick. Last night after I had released the message in the meeting, I took my temperature at home and found that I had a fever. Perhaps I began to develop the fever while I was releasing the message, but for the sake of feeding my lambs I did not take care of myself. It was not until after I had fed my lambs that I was conscious of my rising body temperature. After I took some medicine, my fever was gone. When I got up this morning, I felt very hungry and did not have any energy. Originally, I had intended to rest today, but when I remembered that the lambs needed to be nourished, I came to the meeting. As soon as I opened my mouth, my strength welled up. Thus, I deeply believe that when we go forth to bear fruit and shepherd the lambs, all our sicknesses will be gone, and all our weaknesses will disappear. Moreover, we will surely grow in the spiritual life.
The way that John wrote his Gospel is very special. He first mentions in chapter 15 that we have to go forth and bear fruit. This is related to the plant life. Then in chapter 21 he says that we have to feed the lambs (vv. 15-17). This means that the plant life becomes the animal life—each fruit becomes a lamb. It is relatively easy to bear fruit, but it is not that easy to take care of and feed lambs. Every parent knows that even though it is laborious to give birth to a child, it is still somewhat easy. However, after the child is born, it is not easy at all to raise him up to be an adult. According to John’s words, to lead someone to be saved is to bear fruit. Initially, this one is a like a grape; however, after he is saved, baptized, and regenerated to be a child of God, he becomes a lamb that requires much feeding for his growth in life. This is truly a toilsome task.
Today we all desire to lead people to salvation, but once some are baptized, we usually hand them over to the elders of the church to be taken care of. However, a church has only a few elders at most. Even if they are all experienced “mothers,” they still cannot take care of so many children. Hence, many of these children either die prematurely or are taken away by others. In the end we may gain a hundred, yet only five may remain in the church. Time and again, many were regenerated through the church’s baptism meetings, but after they were baptized, it seems that there was no follow-up care. This was because we were interested in delivering babies, but we neglected to nurture them. In the past the church in Taipei also had the same kind of problem. The church there led many people to be saved and often baptized eighty to ninety people at a time. However, the more people were baptized, the more people were neglected because no one took up the responsibility to take care of them. From now on, every saint in the church has to learn to be a responsible parent and to change the former situation of handing over the new ones. After you give birth to a baby, you should not just hand it over to others; rather, you have to take good care of him and feed him. If you have brought in a new one, you should bear the responsibility to shepherd him. Since he is your baby, you must take care of him and feed him. Only by this way can the new ones be kept and become remaining fruit. If we only lead people to salvation without bearing the responsibility of shepherding them, later we will still have to give an account before the Lord. The Lord’s words to Peter clearly reveal that we must shepherd the few lambs that the Lord has committed to us.
While we are fulfilling the obligation of feeding and taking care of the lambs, we will find that our knowledge of the truth is very inadequate and that we need more learning and equipping. At the same time we will realize that our experience of Christ is inadequate and that we therefore need to pursue a deeper experience of Christ, just as parents, in taking care of their children, realize their insufficiency and are forced to learn more and practice more. Only this will cause the growth of the whole church.
I do not mean to criticize anyone, but the fact is that the older saints tend to be easily drawn to the old things. All the elderly saints have to realize that the situation today is very different from that of twenty years ago and is altogether different from that of half a century ago. Therefore, do not keep talking about how the situation of the church was in 1934 or in 1964. We should not confine ourselves to the old, traditional ways. Rather, we should just go forth and bear fruit. The Lord’s recovery in the Philippines already has a history of twenty to thirty years, but the number of saints is less than ten thousand, merely .02% of the entire population. Excluding the southern part of the Philippines, we have less than one thousand saints in the whole metropolitan area of Manila. This condition is not a glory but a shame to us. Do not say that the elders should bear this responsibility. There are only a few elders, and even if they exhausted themselves, they still could not bear such a responsibility.
I say this in order to stir you up to go forth and bear fruit. Every saint in the church has to go forth and bear fruit. Once a fruit is produced, it becomes a lamb. We should not be lambs. We should be little shepherds feeding the lambs. If we all take care of our lambs, they will also be influenced by us to go forth to bear fruit and feed the lambs. This will become the family tradition in the Lord’s recovery. The church will multiply endlessly and expand and grow year by year. In this way, when people come to the church and see that there are so many new ones growing healthily, they will surely have a glorious feeling.
The Gospel of John is a book on life, but John was also particularly fond of using the word truth in his writings. Hence, in his Epistles, just as in his Gospel, he first mentions the truth and then presents the matter of life. This shows us a spiritual principle. If there is no truth, there will be no life; and if there is no life, there will be no truth.
In John 14:6 the Lord put life and truth together. Then in chapter 15 the Lord spoke of the matter of fruit-bearing. This indicates that fruit-bearing has a great deal to do with life and truth. Experientially, our barrenness exposes our shortage in life. Why are we barren? It is because we are not rich in life. If we have an abundance of life, we will spontaneously bear fruit. If we would pay attention to fruit-bearing, we surely must pay attention to the growth in life. If we would pay attention to the growth in life, we must also pay attention to pursuing the truth. Once we have the truth, we will be led into the experience of Christ. In this way we will be able to shepherd our lambs. Otherwise, we will have nothing to feed our lambs with and no way to take care of them. Without knowing the truth or growing in life, we may still be able to lead people to be saved and baptized; however, if we lack the knowledge of the truth and the experience of Christ, we will not be able to properly fulfill the responsibility of feeding.
Parents feed their children by giving them food to eat and milk to drink. Similarly, in order to feed our lambs, we must prepare spiritual food and milk. The Lord’s word is the bread of life (6:35, 63) and the spiritual milk (1 Pet. 2:2). If we know the truth in the Bible and the word of the Lord, we will be able to give our lambs much nourishment. For example, we can use the Gospel of John to feed others, saying, “John 1 says that the Lord was God, and as God He became flesh. Furthermore, with Him came the truth, which is the Word of God. Then chapter 8 says that the truth shall set us free, and chapter 17 says that we are sanctified in the truth. In actuality, the truth is nothing less than the Lord Jesus Himself. Thus, we have to love the Lord, pray to Him all the time, and read His Word every day.” How good this is! The Gospel of John speaks of life and truth. This life and truth are just the Lord Jesus, and today He is the Spirit who lives in us and supplies us day by day. Hence, chapter 6 tells us that the Lord is the bread of life for us to eat (vv. 35, 48). When we eat Him, we live because of Him (v. 57).
If we have a rich knowledge of the truth and a considerable measure of the experience of life, when we go to visit our lambs, we will be able to supply them with the milk of the word according to their situation. This is the proper practice of feeding the lambs. Regrettably, when most of us see our lambs, usually we can only say, “Do you attend the Lord’s Day meeting? Why don’t you come to the meeting? The meeting is really good; you surely have to come.” We only know to say this to our lambs over and over again. Eventually, they get so tired of us, and gradually they do not like to see us anymore because they know that we have nothing to say except, “The meeting is really good; please come.” This is not feeding them; rather, it is like serving them a summons to appear in court. Therefore, they not only are not supplied, but they even grow tired of us.
Therefore, when we see our lambs, we should not say, “The meeting is really good; please come.” Instead, we have to speak the truth to them. The truth is the Lord’s word. Perhaps some saints will say, “There are many places in the Word that I do not understand; I cannot even comprehend the Gospel of John.” The Lord has already opened the entire New Testament to us in the Life-study messages. If someone does not understand the Gospel of John, he should read the Life-study of John, where all the truths are opened. Once he reads the Life-study messages, he will be able to understand the intrinsic significance of the book.
After we have learned the truth and we see our lambs again, we should not say, “The meeting is really good; please come.” Instead, we should invite them to read John 1:14 with us: “The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us...full of grace and reality.” Then we may explain to them, “The reality here is the truth, and the truth is the explanation of Christ. This explanation is found in the entire Gospel of John. Verses 31 through 36 of chapter 8 tell us that everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. The truth, however, shall set us free. So we have to pursue the truth, and when we have the truth, the truth shall set us free.” This simple word will supply them with a cup of “the milk of the word” and two small pieces of “solid food” so that they may be nourished substantially. When they go back, the Holy Spirit will surely work through our speaking, because the Lord’s word is spirit, and they will have the Spirit operating in them. Even though we may not ask them to come to the meeting, they will surely come the next time.
Later, we may further speak to them, “The truth not only shall set us free, but it is also an explanation of the Lord. The Lord is life and is inside of us. John 15 says that we have to learn to abide in the Lord and that the Lord will also abide in us. Then we will abide with the Lord mutually. We can enjoy Him, and He can be our life. Eventually, we will be able to bear fruit for the Father to be glorified.” If we feed them in this way over and over again, after two or three months they will grow in life, overflow life, bear fruit, and bring people to the Lord. Their fruit will then become their lambs, and they will feed their lambs according to the way that they were supplied by us. In this way one link is connected to another—we take care of them as our lambs, they take care of others as their lambs, and their lambs take care of still others as lambs. What a glorious situation this will be! This is the overflow of life and the feeding of life.
The churches in America have already started a practice in which the college students set apart two years right after their graduation to serve the church. Of course, this is not a regulation but something of the saints’ own free will. Once they graduate from college, they learn how to serve in the church. They spend four hours in the morning, five days a week, to focus on reading the Life-study messages in order to study the truths in the New Testament. After two years they will have studied the entire New Testament once. In the afternoons they either go to visit people in the homes or to contact students at the campuses. In the evenings they may join the meetings or go out to do the Lord’s work. This kind of practice is very effective, and those who serve this way also receive much benefit. After two years the church will decide, according to their performance and desire, as well as according to the Lord’s leading, whether or not they should remain full time or go to get a job.
If the college young people in the Lord’s recovery would dedicate two years after their graduation to go forth for the preaching of the gospel and to receive spiritual edification, the future of the Lord’s recovery will be immeasurable. In the church there should be some who serve the Lord full time. In the Lord’s recovery, serving full time does not mean that you enter the profession of preaching and earn your livelihood by preaching. The Bible shows clearly that this is not necessarily so. For example, Paul was one who served full time, but in times of need he also made tents (Acts 18:3; 20:34-35). Aquila and Priscilla were also tentmakers by trade like Paul, but they were like full-timers. Wherever they went, they opened their homes entirely for the church and the saints (Rom. 16:3-5a; 1 Cor. 16:19b). Thus, serving full time is a practice, not a profession. The college graduates can set apart two years and then get a job. After a period of time, if the church has the need or they feel that they should acquire further learning, they can come out to serve full time again. This kind of practice is living and organic, without any element of regulation.
As a rule we all should consecrate our time to the Lord. The more time that we consecrate, the better. In particular, there are many housewives among us. During the day most people have to go to work or to school, but these housewives have a lot of time. Thus, they should give their time for the Lord’s use. A definite way to do this would be for them to open their homes and invite their relatives and friends to hear the gospel. However, they should not invite the elders to come and preach; instead, they should preach the gospel themselves. Perhaps many of them will try to make an excuse, saying that they are not able to preach the gospel. However, their inability is the exact reason that they need to learn the truth and be equipped with the truth. Please bear in mind that if you invite the elders or the gifted ones to preach the gospel, the result may not be good. Only when you yourself preach and speak will the gospel be living and effective.
If all the saints would serve and function—not relying on the gifted ones but diligently learning the truth, experiencing Christ, endeavoring to give their time, opening their homes, and trying their best to preach the gospel—the impact would be great. In Taipei we also mentioned the burden of serving full time, and surprisingly, many people immediately responded. Now there are about six hundred who have the desire to serve full time and another six hundred who want to serve part time. We are full of joy concerning this. These one thousand two hundred saints may be considered the future of the church in Taipei. In the same principle, I hope that there would be an adequate number of people everywhere willing to serve full time so that the Lord would have a free way to do whatever He wants to do in every place.
