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Scripture Reading: Matt. 16:18; 18:17; Acts 8:1; 9:31; 12:1; 13:1; 14:23; Rom. 16:1, 3-5a, 16, 20; 1 Cor. 12:28; Rev. 1:4-5a, 11
The four pillars in the Lord’s recovery are the truth, life, the church, and the gospel. In the New Testament the first person is Christ, and the second person is the church. Today Christians in general pay some attention to Christ, but they do not pay much attention to the church. Although they often mention the church and discuss it, in their realization the church is nothing but a building or a human organization. However, the Bible clearly shows us that the church is the Body of Christ (Eph. 1:22b-23). The church was produced by Christ, Christ is the Head of the church, and the church is the Body of Christ. A human body is not an organization but a living organism. Likewise, the church is not an organization but an organism. As believers, we are the members of this organism.
A person’s body has many members, but it is still one body. The members of the body are comely and lovely and are able to receive the supply of life. However, once a member is separated from the body, not only will it lose its life and function; it will also become a dreadful member. Suppose someone cut off his own hand and gave it to you. This would scare you. However, if his hand remains attached to his body, it can warmly shake your hand. It is regrettable and terrible that many Christians today are like hands cut off from the body. They have become individualistic members who are detached from the Body. In addition, because they are separated from the Body, they lack the life supply of the Body and lose their usefulness in the Lord’s hand.
The Bible also says that the church is the house of the believers (cf. Gal. 6:10). In this house God is the Father, and we are the children. Hence, this house is the house of God (Eph. 2:19; 1 Tim. 3:15; Heb. 3:6). If a person is homeless, he becomes a wanderer. Many Christians today are like homeless wanderers. They would rather be Christians “on the roadside” than children in the Father’s house. Whether it is referred to as the Body of Christ or the house of God, we believers need the church. Since we are members of the Body of Christ, we must remain in the Body; since we are children in the house of God, we must stay in the house.
The Bible reveals to us that the Lord’s purpose in saving us is to build us into the church. Christians often say that they need to edify and build themselves up, but the Bible says that the Lord wants to build the church (Matt. 16:18). In my experience of serving the Lord for more than fifty years, I have never seen an individual Christian who was able to build himself up. The more individualistic we are, the more we are unable to build ourselves up. We can be built up only when we are in the Body, the church. When we are in ourselves, we can only cause problems. The more individualistic and peculiar a believer is, the more he will be full of the self. The more individualistic and natural he is, the more he will be full of the disposition of the self. The peculiar disposition and natural life of a Christian cannot be removed in any other place; they can only be dealt with in the church. Every member in the church is both a supply and a dealing to us.
Suppose there is a person with a quick temper who is concerned about doing everything with speed and efficiency. Even after such a one has been married for twenty-five years, his wife may still be unable to deal with his quick temper. However, once he comes to the church and is built up in the church, his quick temper is slain. He wants to be fast, but the Lord arranges a slow person to coordinate with him. Suppose there is another person who has a slow temper. His family also may have no way to deal with him. However, once he comes to the church, the Lord will have a way to make him become faster. This is really wonderful! The Lord arranges the quick ones to hasten the slow ones, and He arranges a few slow ones to deal with the quick ones.
All the married ones know that husbands do not know how to deal with wives, nor do wives know how to deal with husbands. If a husband is too harsh on his wife, she may refuse to cook or do the laundry. She may also murmur a lot. All husbands confess that not one of them is capable of dealing with his wife so as to make her a better wife. Husbands simply have no way to do this. Therefore, if a husband wants his wife to be dealt with, he has to bring her to the church. The church is the best place for her to be dealt with. In the same way, there is not one wife who can adjust her husband. The best way to adjust one’s husband is to send him to the church.
The church is the best place for us to be dealt with. For example, if my feet wanted to walk but my hands were not willing to go forward, these two would have to fight and deal with one another because the feet cannot tell the hands, “Since you are uncooperative and unwilling to go forward, we should be separated.” This separation would cause the feet to become dreadful feet. Today some Christians are similarly dreadful. May our eyes be opened to see this serious matter. Once we are detached from the church, we are useless and become the most dreadful persons. We have no other way or choice; our destiny is in the church. This is God’s sovereign wisdom.
We stand on the ground of locality in the Lord’s recovery and cannot choose a church according to our desire. Today Christianity is like a marketplace of churches. This is not right. If you want to buy a pair of shoes that you like, you can choose between a few shoe stores; however, you cannot choose which church you would like to go to, because there is only one church in a locality. If you complain that your local church is not good and decide that since you are not satisfied with it, you want to choose another one, you will have to move to another locality. You may move to another place, but if you have not changed, the church there will be even worse. Eventually, you may move many more times. Thus, you will become a Christian who is “on the roadside.” This is very pitiful.
Hence, when we mention the church, on the one hand, it is so sweet, but on the other hand, it is unbearable. The first stanza of Hymns, #852 says, “Thy dwelling-place, O Lord, I love; / It is Thy Church so blessed.” However, many people do not think this way. They may say, “O Lord, Your dwelling place is pitiful. I really cannot live there any longer. Why don’t You give me a better church?” Eventually, having left the church, these ones are without a church and become wandering Christians, individualistic members. Peter is the best pattern of our need to be in the church. In Matthew 16 the Lord Jesus said to him that he was a piece of stone and that He had to build him, this piece of stone, into the church (v. 18; 1 Pet. 2:5). Peter was one who had a quick temper (Matt. 17:24-27). Only the church could deal with him and make him mature. Everyone who is as fast and wild as Peter has to be in the church in order to be transformed.
On the one hand, the Lord has to build the believers into the church, and on the other hand, the believers cannot leave the church. In Matthew 18 the Lord said that if a brother refuses to hear the church, let him be just like a Gentile (v. 17). This does not mean that we should excommunicate him but that because this brother does not behave properly, we cannot regard him as a brother; instead, we should regard him as a Gentile. Hence, for a believer to leave the church is a kind of punishment. For this reason, in the church we should seriously receive the dealings arranged for us by the Lord.
The Lord mentioned the church in the Gospel of Matthew, but the church had not yet been produced at that time (16:18; 18:17). However, as recorded in Acts, one day three thousand people were saved, and then about five thousand were saved on another day (2:41; 4:4). In chapter 8, instead of being called the believers in Jerusalem, they were called the church in Jerusalem (v. 1). In Acts 9:31; 12:1; 13:1 and 14:23, the believers in different places were called the church in those places. Chapter 14 records that Paul went out to preach the gospel, passed through many places, and led many people to the Lord. Perhaps in less than a year Paul went back to these places and “appointed elders for them in every church” (v. 23). Those believers had been saved for no longer than a year, but the Bible still calls them the church, and there were some who became elders in the same year that they were saved.
According to our concept, we tend to think that a group of newly saved people cannot be considered the church. They can only meet together, and there is no way to appoint elders from among them. How could a Christian who has been saved less than a year be an elder? However, Paul did not think this way. Right after he had preached the gospel and led some people to be saved, he came back to those places, called them churches, and appointed elders in place after place. No doubt, those churches were young churches, and those elders were “baby elders.”
Although we are all spiritual children when we are saved, once we start meeting and living in the church life, we spontaneously grow. The church is a place that causes us to grow. Perhaps someone will say that since he has been saved for thirty-eight years, whenever he comes to the meetings, he finds that everyone there is either a spiritual child or a young person, so he simply stays at home. However, he has never considered that if he stays at home, he will become a thirty-eight-year-old child, “an elderly infant.” If we want to grow, we must remain in the church. Once a person stops meeting with the church for two or three weeks, immediately he stops growing. If he does not meet for two years, he will become like a child again. If he stops attending the meetings for another three years, he will be nearly finished in his spiritual life.
This is a wonderful matter. Even though the condition of the church may not be good, when people come to meet, they spontaneously grow in life. Never think that in the church meetings the message is not good enough, the sharing is not up to the standard, the singing is a mess, and that you would rather stay at home. If you do so, you will lose many blessings, and your spiritual life will wither. The principle of God’s blessing is that His blessing is in the Body, the church. Hence, attending the worst church meeting is better than staying at home, because whoever becomes individualistic loses the Lord’s blessing. If we want to be blessed, enjoy grace, and grow in life, we have to attend the church meetings. Even though we may just be following others to pray and sing in the meetings, we will still grow in life. For example, suppose there is a church that truly resembles the church in Laodicea; it is neither hot nor cold. When people come to the meetings, they become sluggish, wanting to rest and sleep. Even the elders doze there. However, even if this is the case, as long as we do not leave the church, we will still grow in life, because God’s blessing is in the church.
Some people may argue, saying, “I can read the Bible anywhere. I can come near to the Lord at home.” This is true, but if you leave the church and pursue the Lord at home, your pursuit will surely not last long. You may be able to rise up at 6:00 A.M. on the first day, but on the second day you will change your rising time to 6:15. On the third day you will change it to 6:45, on the fourth day you will postpone it until 7:15, and on the fifth day you may not get up at 8:00. Then on the sixth day you may not even want to come near to the Lord. Thus, it is impossible to pursue the growth in life apart from the church. The blessing is in the church. Even the weakest church is stronger than the individual.
The Bible pays much attention to the church. Romans 16 tells us that there was a deaconess of the church in Cenchrea, Phoebe, who loved the church very much and served the church absolutely (v. 1). Then it also mentions a couple, Prisca and Aquila, who knew nothing but the church (v. 3). Wherever they were, they “operated” a church. When they were in Rome, they “operated” the church there, and when they went to Ephesus, they also “operated” the church there. Why do we say that they were “operating” the church? It is because wherever they went, the church in that locality would meet in their home. Because of their love toward the church, Paul said that he and all the churches of the Gentiles gave them thanks (vv. 4-5a). Many readers of the book of Romans have not seen that it concludes with the local churches. The last chapter of Romans is focused on the local churches. Only the local churches can fulfill God’s purpose and deal with God’s enemy. Hence, if we had been in Cenchrea, we would have had to meet with the church in Cenchrea. If we had been in Rome, we would have had to meet with the church in Rome. If we had been in Ephesus, we would have had to meet with the church in Ephesus. Only in the local churches can we allow God to have the ground to crush Satan under our feet. In other words, only when we are in the church can we overcome Satan and crush him under our feet (v. 20). This is the revelation that we see in the book of Romans.
In Revelation the Lord Jesus showed John that he had to write to the seven churches so that grace and peace would come to them from the seven Spirits who are before His throne (1:4). The majority of Christians see only the one Spirit, but at the end of the Bible, Revelation speaks of the seven Spirits. These seven Spirits are entirely for the local churches. Hence, if we are not in a local church and do not remain in a church in a definite way, we will lose the supply of the seven Spirits. In the local church there are the seven Spirits, the sevenfold intensified Spirit, supplying the church in a sevenfold intensified way. For this reason we must see that wherever we are, what we need the most is the church in our place and that this church is the best church for us. We should never make our own choice.
How then should we practice the church life? First, every saint has to nourish, take care of, and lead the new ones. In the church there are always those who are younger than we are whom we should take care of. We have baptized many people, but usually less than ten out of a hundred remain in the church. In other words, we give birth to a hundred babies, but over ninety of them disappear. What is the reason for this? It is because no one takes care of them. The saints have a wrong concept that the elders should bear the responsibility of taking care of people. However, there are only a few elders. How can they take care of so many saints? Since the church is the house of the believers, everyone in the church has to bear the responsibility of taking care of others.
Before His departure from the world, the Lord charged us to go forth and bear fruit. Once we bear fruit, the fruit will become lambs that need our care. Thus, at the end of the Gospel of John, the Lord said to Peter, “Feed My lambs” (21:15-17). Do not think that the Lord’s word was only for Peter. Peter is our representative; we all have to take care of the lambs. If we preach the gospel to others, lead them to be saved, and bring them to the church to be baptized, we should not leave them alone. We have to take care of them. A mother, after giving birth to a baby, would not leave him alone. Rather, she would feed him and take care of him in a detailed way for at least eighteen years. When some people hear this word, they may feel that this is too troublesome and would dare not preach the gospel. However, please remember that before the Lord charged Peter to feed His sheep, He first asked him, “Do you love Me?” Today the Lord is asking us the same question. Do we love the Lord? Do we love His church?
There is a hymn that says, “We are for the Lord’s, / We are for the Lord’s, / We are for the Lord’s recovery!” (Hymns, #1255). We all love the Lord, the church, and the Lord’s recovery, yet we may not love the lambs, because feeding the lambs is a very troublesome matter. Therefore, many people say, “It is fine to ask us to preach the gospel. If a person is willing to believe in the Lord, we will bring him here to be baptized. If he is not willing, we will not force him. However, to feed him and make him a remaining fruit after his salvation will not be that easy.” This is why, although everyone sings, “We are for the Lord’s recovery,” there is still very little multiplication and increase. This proves that in the matter of feeding the lambs, the churches are altogether unable to follow the Lord’s steps and meet the Lord’s standard. We cannot continue to sing, “We are for the Lord’s, / We are for the Lord’s recovery” if the number of saints who have stopped meeting keeps increasing year after year. We must go out to recover these saints and bring them back to the proper church life.
In the past there were thirteen to fifteen thousand saints on the name list in the church in Taipei, but only five thousand were meeting regularly. There were still eight to ten thousand who were not meeting regularly. This is abnormal. We are busy preaching the gospel and baptizing people the whole year, but after we have baptized one hundred people, ninety of them disappear in three weeks. This is not right. We should feed them. Do not say that the elders should feed them. There are only a few elders in a church; they cannot do that much. Neither should you say that all the other brothers and sisters should pick up such a burden. Each one of us has to say, “I am the one who should bear the responsibility of feeding others.”
First, we have to review the information that we have gathered concerning all the saints. Then we should form every twelve people into a group, incorporating everyone into a group. We should not form the saints into groups according to their spiritual condition, nor should we assign a leading or responsible one for each group. We want every saint in each group to be responsible. Since they are in the same group, they should meet together. They can decide when and where they will meet. However, perhaps the majority of the saints in the groups may not meet regularly. It may even be the case that all the saints in the group do not meet regularly. This is the one thing that we should pay attention to. If this is the case, then we will need some full-timers to rise up and serve in coordination to take care of the saints in those groups.
Concerning the full-timers, we need to have a kind of understanding that they are not preachers but full-time serving ones. They must spend every morning to study the Recovery Version of the New Testament, including the footnotes and cross references, and also the Life-studies. They should be able to read two Life-study messages in four hours each day. There are approximately twelve hundred messages in the Life-study of the New Testament. If we read two messages each day, we will be able to read fifty messages a month and six hundred messages in twelve months. Then we will be able to read through all of them in two years.
Because most of the saints do not have sufficient knowledge of the truth, there is the need for the full-time serving ones to pick up the burden to speak the truth to people. Since the full-timers have to speak the truth, they must first equip themselves. This is different from simply giving a message on the Lord’s Day. They must speak to people every day. Also, the full-timers have to help people to establish and lead the groups, and they should also speak the truth to those in the groups. Not only should the full-timers speak to them in small group meetings, but they should also speak to them individually and lead them in how to read the Recovery Version of the New Testament and the Life-studies.
We should pursue the truth to such an extent that we put the Life-study messages everywhere in our homes—not only in our living rooms and on the nightstands but also in the bathrooms. In this way the brothers and sisters in the Lord’s recovery will develop an atmosphere of pursuing the truth. At the same time we should encourage one another not to engage in any idle talk when we visit people. Instead, we should share the truth with them. Also, when we meet each other, instead of exchanging pleasantries, we should fellowship about the truth through mutual asking and answering. Then the saints will make progress in the truth.
Today the majority of Christians, including us, may not have an adequate knowledge of the truth in general. Even some elders of the local churches cannot speak clearly concerning the difference between the titles Jesus Christ and Christ Jesus. This shows us that the degree of our understanding of the truth is too poor. Thus, we all have to learn from the very beginning. Everyone who has a heart to serve the Lord full time must spend at least two years to study the Bible. When you go to visit people, do not speak idle words. Speak the truth. Then, gradually, you will be able to build them up and form them into a group. Then everyone in the church will enjoy coming to the meetings, and everyone who comes to the meetings will study the truth and know how to speak the truth. Unconsciously, this will bring in a revival.
I really have a burden to promote the Life-studies over the six major continents until every saint has the Life-studies at home. I believe that if every household in the churches all over the globe had the Life-studies, it would take only three to five years to bring in a new revival. The Lord’s word is life, power, spirit, the living water, and even a consuming fire. Today the reason why we are so cold and weak is that we do not have much of the Lord’s word in us. When we enter into the Life-studies and are filled with the Lord’s word, we will be empowered by the Lord’s word as the power and set on fire by the Lord’s word as the consuming fire.
Thirty years ago most of the churches in the Lord’s recovery outside of mainland China were in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines. Together they added up to less than one hundred churches. Today there are at least five hundred fifty churches in the world. There are over three hundred churches in the Far East; the Philippines alone has about one hundred thirty churches. Over a hundred of them are in the southern part of the Philippines, having been raised up through getting into the sixty topics of Crucial Truths in the Holy Scriptures. Moreover, there are more than eighty churches in Taiwan, twenty in Japan, twenty-seven in South Korea, at least twenty in Indonesia, fifteen in Singapore and Malaysia, and around ten in Thailand. When we add up the numbers of all these churches in the Far East, it is over three hundred.
As for the churches in other continents, there are over ninety churches in the United States and more than ten churches in Canada, so there are over one hundred churches altogether. There are around sixty churches in Brazil, South America, and at least twenty to thirty churches in Mexico, adding up to around one hundred churches. So the Americas have around two hundred churches total. In addition, there are at least twenty churches in Europe, including churches in England, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, France, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Spain. In Africa there are at least five countries—Ghana, Nigeria, Libya, South Africa, and Zimbabwe—that have churches, with at least fifteen churches total. Also, there are churches in New Zealand and Australia. In total, apart from the churches in the Far East, there are at least two hundred fifty local churches in those other continents. Thus, there are five hundred fifty churches spread over the six major continents.
We should have a burden to promote the Life-studies continent by continent until every household has the Life-studies, and every saint has the Life-studies both inwardly and outwardly. The Life-studies are for teaching and helping people to read the Bible. When you read the Bible, your mind may not be enlightened even after reading it a hundred times. However, when you open the Recovery Version of the New Testament, there are footnotes that open the truth to you in the places you cannot understand. Once the word of the truth is opened, you will receive the revelation. Then when you read the Life-studies, you will be enlightened even more. After you have read the Life-studies, the few verses that you have studied will be fully opened to you. Ephesians has only six chapters, but there are ninety-seven messages in the Life-study of Ephesians. If you read two messages a day, you will need about fifty days to finish it. After you have spent fifty days to read through all these ninety-seven messages, the content of the six chapters, the entire book of Ephesians, every sentence, and even every word will be clear and enlightening to you. In other words, Ephesians, this mysterious and marvelous book, will be fully opened to you.
Now, based on the information that we have received concerning the saints, we should form groups of twelve and have the full-timers help the saints, not to have a Sunday service or to form a small meeting with them but to study the truth of the Bible together. Moreover, we also have to pour out our love. If the small group is meeting at your home, you should prepare the best refreshments for them. Do not love your money, but release your money to prepare the best refreshments. I believe that those saints who do not meet regularly will be enlivened by eating these refreshments.
Furthermore, when we go to establish and lead the small groups, we should not go to the husbands first, because they are harder to deal with. Rather, we should first go to the wives, because they are usually softer and more cooperative. In many of the saved families, the husbands usually are not willing to open their homes at the beginning. However, the wives are willing, and in the end the wives influence their husbands to open their homes for the small group. Therefore, we have to contact the sisters first. Once you set them on fire, they will be burning. Then let the sisters influence their husbands. In this way the saints will open their homes one by one.
The fourth pillar in the Lord’s recovery is the gospel. Every saint should open his home for the preaching of the gospel. When we go to help the saints to open their homes for the preaching of the gospel, we should not replace them. Rather, we should perfect them and let them speak and preach the gospel. They may decline and say that they do not have the gift and that they do not know how to speak. At that time we have to help them. We should first speak to them and then let them speak accordingly. Experience tells us that it is through this kind of speaking that their inner being becomes burning, and the meeting becomes even more burning. Hence, the best way to recover the saints who have not met for a long time is to strongly encourage them to preach the gospel and to help them to speak the Lord’s word to others. Once they begin speaking, their inner being will be burning.
We all have had the same experience. When we preach the gospel to people, our inner being is set on fire. Some people are cold inwardly because they do not speak for the Lord or preach the gospel. As long as we are willing to stand up to speak for the Lord, no matter what we speak or how we speak, we will be enlivened and even set on fire.
We encourage the saints to form the small groups with twelve people in each group. This is based on the Scriptures. The first small group in church history comprised the twelve apostles appointed by the Lord Jesus. It was the first small group since the dawn of history. Today we are following the pattern of the Lord Jesus to establish the saints as groups of “twelve apostles” so that the churches will be full of “apostles.” First Corinthians 12:28 says, “God has placed some in the church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers.” If we are faithful, all the saints in our locality will be apostles, prophets, and teachers in five years. Every small group will have twelve apostles, prophets, and teachers. Some people may ask, “Who would dare to say that he is an apostle?” As long as we are sent by the Lord to speak for Him and preach the gospel to our parents, relatives, friends, and neighbors, we are apostles. If we can speak more, we will become prophets. Prophets do not necessarily speak prophecies; they are those who speak for the Lord Jesus and speak Him forth. Then we also have to teach people; in this way we will become teachers. First, we become apostles, then prophets, and last, teachers. If all the saints are like this, the churches will be strong and flourishing, full of apostles, prophets, and teachers.
However, if we all have the desire to be apostles, prophets, and teachers, we must first learn the truth. If what we speak is the truth, the work of the Holy Spirit will follow our speaking. Then the words that we speak will touch our parents and friends, and they will believe and receive. After they have believed, we have to speak the deeper truths to them. Then we will become prophets, and they will know the Lord more. If we continue to speak to them for two to three years, we will become teachers, and eventually they will all know the Lord and will also speak to others. If the churches in the Lord’s recovery are full of this kind of speaking and teaching, the churches will be stronger and richer and will bring forth the multiplication and increase.
Therefore, we need the truth, life, the church, and the preaching of the gospel. We also need for everyone to rise up to be an apostle, a prophet, and a teacher. In this way the church will be strong, rich, and victorious. May God bless us in receiving such a word.
