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In Taiwan almost all of the brothers who graduate from college are required to render two years of military service. Thus, if they want to join the training upon graduating, they would have to simultaneously remain in school for another year. Then they would have to prepare for examinations while attending the training and would be unable to focus on the training. Therefore, after graduating from college, many of them do not know whether they should first join the full-time training and then serve in the military or first serve in the military and then join the full-time training. For those of you who are in this situation, this is a practical matter that you must thoroughly consider before the Lord. First, you need to consider whether you will still have the opportunity to be trained after serving in the military for two years. Since the present training in the church is a special training, once you miss this opportunity, you may not have such an opportunity again. If this is the case, then it would be worthwhile to consider deferring the military service to join the training for one year. Otherwise, you should join the military service right after your graduation from college. Nonetheless, this is a personal affair that you yourself must clearly consider. I would suggest that unless there is a special reason, you should do first things first. You should first join the military service to fulfill your obligation and afterward devote yourself wholeheartedly to be trained. Nevertheless, if you feel that your present need is to be trained, then you should grasp this opportunity and consider attending the training for one year.
Some of the trainees have said that in the training there are too many things to do. They are required to have small groups, to equip themselves with the truth, to pursue life, to preach the gospel, and to learn languages. They also have to go to the campuses to contact, nourish, and take care of people. Therefore, they have asked how they are supposed to manage their time with only twenty-four hours in a day. Furthermore, the training requires them to offer two years to be trained. Afterward, depending on the trainers’ observations of them, they may go on to serve full time if they are qualified, or if they are not qualified to serve, they may find a job. Some feel very anxious, not knowing how to use in a serious way the two short years that will decide the path they will take. You may say that the training has too many requirements, but according to my observation, there are actually not that many. It is true that we have only twenty-four hours in a day and that no matter how we use them, we still have only twenty-four hours of time each day. You may feel that the class curriculum is very full and has many requirements, but in my opinion it is not that full. Do not think that only those who are being trained are required to exercise; those who are not being trained also have to exercise in the matters of pursuing to know the truth and growing in life. Concerning the matter of carrying out the group meetings, you do not need to purposely spend time to practice this. Simply devote your whole heart to the meeting when you are there, and endeavor to learn something while doing it. The same principle applies to the campus work. As long as you abide by the schedule, there should not be any problems.
You may feel that the schedule is too busy, because you are not used to it. Therefore, you must make a schedule according to the practical situation and abide by it. If you do not make a schedule, time will not wait for you and will pass by very quickly. If you stop to take a few breaths and a rest, your time will be gone. Therefore, you have to learn to grasp the time. While you are still the master of your time, do your best to learn and practice.
Let me use myself as an example. You are all younger and stronger than I am, yet I do more than you each day. Not only do I have to lead the meetings and visit the churches; I also have to help the literature work. The Living Stream Ministry prints almost two hundred pages of messages per month in English alone, and I am the one who finalizes the manuscripts. Our literature work consists of four lines, one of which is the Life-study messages. There are other books for publication that I also need to finalize. In addition, I still have to prepare all the messages for the conferences and trainings, write Truth Lessons, and be responsible for the finalization of the Chinese books. If I gave these tasks to someone else, I do not think anyone would be able to do them all. The reason I can do all this is that I have a schedule, and I work according to this schedule.
Hence, you must learn to manage your time and to do things in a logical order. Then you will not feel that the schedule is too full or that you are tired. We human beings are living beings and therefore have a certain degree of flexibility. We can be either too loose or too rigid. Once you set your schedule, even when you relax, you will not be fully relaxed because you will know what step to take next, and you will naturally be ready. However, if you do not have a schedule, you may waste two hours just by being a little bit loose, or you may use up half of your day chatting with people. In the past six months, what has been the result of your pursuit of the truth every morning? How many books have you studied carefully? If you value this matter and set a definite time for your pursuit of the truth, the result will be better than it is at present.
You should seriously consider before the Lord whether your full-time service will be short-term or long-term. Perhaps the Lord will give you the feeling that your service should be short-term, in which case you should give two or three years to the Lord, or perhaps the Lord will lead you to serve long-term. Either way, there is a great need for full-time serving ones for the going on of the church.
Currently, there are more than eighty elders in the church in Taipei, but only a few of these elders are full-time co-workers serving as elders. Other than the co-workers and the elderly saints, there is not one elder who is serving full time. In other words, elders who are willing to receive a burden, to put aside their worldly future, and to care for the church’s needs for the testimony of the Lord have yet to appear. This worries me and grieves me very much, because the church in Taipei, as the largest church on the globe, should be a pattern in many ways to all the churches. Based on Paul’s word in 1 Timothy 5, a church that is in a proper condition should have some elders who serve full time. Verse 17 says, “Let the elders who take the lead well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in word and teaching.” Here, the emphasis of the word honor is on material supply, referring to the supplying of financial needs. Because some of the elders are full-time serving ones who are taking care of the church and laboring in the word, the saints should supply their material needs. This is an “honor” to them. It is incredible that this kind of situation does not exist in the church in Taipei, which is the largest church. This is truly a great lack in the Lord’s recovery.
In the United States the churches began this practice two years ago. At that time I felt that both in the Far East and in America there was a lack of full-time co-workers in the Lord’s recovery. I looked to the Lord that He would work in the hearts of the saints and raise up people to receive the burden to serve full time. I had always hoped that in every church there would be at least one full-time serving elder for every fifty people who are meeting. I also had the hope that among the Chinese-speaking saints ten or more would be raised up to be full-time co-workers. Later, I went to the Bay Area for a summer conference and fellowshipped with the brothers regarding this burden. They not only received it but also started to practice it. Almost all of those brothers had gone to the United States for their education. After they graduated, they worked for a period of time. Then for the Lord’s work, they quit their jobs to serve the church full time. Presently, the number of full-timers there has increased. Gradually, more elders are serving full time in various places. This is a good sign.
The Mormons have a regulation that requires their young people to do two years of church service. If they do not do this, they lose their membership and cannot take advantage of its benefits. Although we do not offer any such benefits, I hope that the young saints would receive the Lord’s leading to voluntarily offer up one to two years after graduating from college to receive the training and to be trained in spiritual matters such as studying the truth, pursuing life, and serving in coordination in the church life. In this way they will lay a good foundation and have a rich deposit within them. Afterward, some may go and get a job, and some may choose to serve full time after it has become manifest that they should do so and have the desire to do so.
I hope you all would realize that what you have faithfully learned in the training will not be in vain. We should not think that after receiving two years of training, those who are qualified will continue to serve full time, and those who are not qualified will be eliminated. In the training, qualification is not an issue, nor is continuing or not continuing to serve. It may become manifest that some should serve full time, yet they may not be able to do so due to their circumstances. Therefore, do not think that after two years of training and after failing the final examination, you have no choice but to go back into the world to pick up a job. You must realize that those who serve full time are in the church, and those who have a job in the world are also still in the church.
The two years you have offered for the training will definitely not be wasted because in the training you are studying the truth, pursuing life, exercising to pray much, learning to coordinate in spirit with the brothers and sisters, and learning to serve in the church. If all the young saints could set aside a segment of time for this kind of learning after they graduate from college, this would be a great benefit to them both in the increase of their spiritual deposit and the building up of their character. There is a big difference between someone who has been trained and someone who has not been trained. Therefore, I hope that your decision to attend the training would not be based on whether or not you intend to serve full time permanently. Rather, it should be based on what kind of impact such a basic, spiritual training would have on your life, regardless of whether you end up serving full time or holding a job. Even if you have to hold a job, the two years of training will produce something marvelous in your life.
Some of you may say that making a schedule for contacting people in the training is difficult because unscheduled times of fellowship often interrupt the prearranged activities, making it difficult to follow the schedule. During a person’s lifetime, the time when one is a student is the most blessed time because there are not many interruptions. It is a time when one is most able to concentrate on learning. Those who work in offices are there from nine in the morning until five in the evening, so their schedules are also very regular. Hence, if someone who is not a student or does not belong to the working class intends to achieve something, then he must learn how to adapt himself to changing situations. We who serve the Lord are like guerrilla fighters. We must know how to fight using “guerrilla warfare.” As soldiers in a conventional army, we will surely be defeated. The army of the church cannot merely be a conventional army fighting a conventional war. The church has to engage in guerrilla warfare, being ready to fight at any time and by any means.
In the past our Chinese hymnals were very disorganized. There were many different hymnals entitled Hymns 1, Hymns 2, Gospel Hymns, Selected Hymns, and Additional Hymns. As a result, calling hymns in the meetings was quite confusing. Therefore, after the publication of the English hymnal in 1966, we immediately undertook the task of revising the Chinese hymnal. For this task I translated more than two hundred hymns from English into Chinese. At that time I still had to go to different places in the Far East to carry out my ministry. Therefore, I did most of the translation work on the airplane while I was traveling. Even though I was very busy, I was still able to finish the compilation of the hymnal within one year. Moreover, I completed the job by myself with only a little help from one brother who did the typesetting and proofreading for me.
Today in our work we need to adapt ourselves to changing situations and firmly grasp our time. We cannot do anything and will never accomplish anything unless we have a set schedule. For example, if I had to attend to all the details of my work, I would not finish them even if I had three secretaries helping me. Nearly every day I receive a bundle of letters. There is no way that I could reply to all of them one by one. So I have set a principle for myself. I do not read the long letters right away. Rather, I wait until there is more time. If a letter is important, it should not be too long. For example, in a telegram every word counts. If I read every letter that I got, I would not be able to do other things. Many people in the world are waiting to read our books. If I care for only one person by answering his letter, I might lose thousands or tens of thousands of people. In the same principle, you need to learn to decide what to do depending on the situation. In this way you will not feel frustrated.
You also need to learn to overcome your circumstances. Paul said that in all his circumstances, in everything and in all things, he had learned the secret and knew how to conduct himself (Phil. 4:12). You cannot stop learning because you have to attend the meetings, nor can you stop attending the meetings because you have to learn. You should learn to be balanced. You have been learning to serve the Lord for a period of time, so you should be clear that you are engaging in “guerrilla warfare.” For example, if you must attend an unscheduled meeting during the time that was originally intended for the pursuit of the Word, then you must make up that time later. If you value the matter of pursuing the Word, you will find some time to make it up. For example, you may get up half an hour early to make up for the time you lost during the week. We all need this kind of attitude.
The young people in Taiwan are full of drive in their studying, because if they do not study seriously, they most likely will not have a successful future. This is the trend of this age. Therefore, some people sleep for only five hours a day, and their whole family helps them with the other aspects of their life. It would be a tremendous thing if each of you had this kind of attitude. Maybe you could read through all the crucial ministry books in two years. If the co-workers had the attitude of the students in Taiwan, our work would be completely revolutionized and would not be in such a condition today. If you want to have ease and comfort in the Lord’s work, you are in the wrong place. There is no ease and comfort in the Lord’s work.
Someone observed that during the changing of the system I highly regarded the matter of education and edited some teaching materials to meet the need. Therefore, this person asked whether I could likewise prepare a set of teaching materials for the full-time training in order to train different levels of trainees. He also asked whether we could even adopt some of the ways of the theological schools.
First of all, it is not according to the principle in the Bible to establish a school to train people to serve the Lord. In the Old Testament none of the prophets established a school. The prophets sometimes had disciples, but none of those disciples ever became prophets. Apparently, Elisha was Elijah’s disciple. In reality, however, Elisha had been chosen by God Himself. In the New Testament age, seminaries began to be established. According to church history, the establishment of seminaries led to professionalism, and once professionalism started, it was easy to bring in commercialism. Many corrupt practices were brought in, and subsequently there were endless struggles for power. The marvelous thing is that although most of those who were greatly used by the Lord throughout the generations did not come out of seminaries, I daresay that there were a few. They came out to serve the Lord not because they had been taught in seminaries, but because they were acting according to the principle of the Nazarite and were taking the way of voluntary consecration. John Wesley, George Whitefield, and Count Zinzendorf, for example, did not have a seminary background.
Actually, because all the saints have occupations, it is not easy to ask everyone to enter into the study of the truth. On the other hand, our preaching of the word in the past has not been very proper. This is why there is Truth Lessons to make up for this. Regarding the full-time training, since you are already putting in twenty-four hours a day, it is not necessarily appropriate to rely on others to instruct and guide you. The most appropriate situation is that you yourself would find a way to learn. In the recovery’s sixty years of history, there were many who were rich in truth and had much learning in the matter of life. If you want to learn from the books and seek help from others, you will find a way. This all depends on you. If you do not want to pursue, even the best way will be of no avail to you.
Regarding the church’s plan for the training of the saints, the co-workers in the past, being too quiet, did not act aggressively. They should have paid attention to the training earlier and given the young people the help they needed. Nevertheless, this kind of training can meet only a general need; it cannot meet the special need. To meet the special need, there must be a group of believers who would give themselves as Nazarites before the Lord. Therefore, you all need to consecrate yourselves thoroughly and voluntarily and take the initiative to pursue and learn before the Lord. The training can give you only a good, objective environment, including the church life, the rich truths, and the advanced saints who have had experience in both life and service. You need to go further and have a deeper and more solid pursuit by properly utilizing these resources.
I hope that the co-workers would endeavor to accomplish something and not be so passive, indifferent, and idle as before. George Whitefield was a very powerful preacher because on his knees he pray-read every word and line of the New Testament in both English and Greek. Thus, the Bible became a living book to him. When he released a message, he was full of power and authority. If you desire to accomplish something, you need to be like him in endeavoring to pursue and to learn. I am famous for being opposed in the United States. This is probably unprecedented in the history of Christianity. However, Christianity cannot defeat the truths that I preach, because what the opposers have learned in the seminaries is so incomplete and limited compared to what I teach.
Many of the opposers first rose up to attack my teaching concerning the Triune God. Eventually, however, their mouths were shut. All they could do was revile me and twist my words. They were absolutely unable to refute me. I said that the three of the Divine Trinity are distinct but not separate. They said, however, that when the Son left the heavens, He left the Father there, so that when the Son was baptized, the Father spoke from the heavens. However, in the Gospel of John, the Lord said many times that He had come from the Father. The word from in Greek is the word para, which has the meaning of “from with.” This means that the Lord came from the Father and with the Father. Not only so, the Lord also said that the Father was always with Him and that the Father had not left Him alone (8:16, 29; 16:32). Therefore, the picture of the Son being baptized in the Jordan River shows us that the three of the Trinity are distinct. However, we cannot say that They are separate. No one can deny that when the Lord Jesus was baptized, He was in the Father, and the Father was in Him, because the Lord said that the Father was always with Him.
The truth never has only one side. When expositors grasp on to one side of the truth and neglect the other sides, this results in heresy. We do not deny any side of the truth. Rather, we pay attention to all the sides of the truth. The three of the Divine Trinity are distinct but not separate. John 10 says that the Son and the Father are one (v. 30). Chapter 17 speaks of the Son lifting up His eyes to heaven to pray to the Father (v. 1). However, in chapter 14, before the Son prayed to the Father, He said that the Father was in Him and that He was in the Father (vv. 10-11, 20). People in Christianity cannot comprehend this because they have been influenced by traditional theology and have not carefully studied the text of the Bible.
Therefore, I hope that you would see that although all the truths in the Bible are in our midst, you need to spend time and energy to learn them. This, of course, is not an easy matter. I feel that the co-workers are not aggressive enough and that they should be trained. After I left the Far East in 1961, I did not come back to the Far East to work again. At most I came back to hold conferences and to visit the churches. For more than twenty years I have been living in the Western world, printing English publications in America and sounding out the call for the Lord’s recovery. I can proudly tell you that before I went to America, there were less than twenty churches in that country. During the past twenty-three years, due to my calling and the publications that I have put out, over three hundred churches have been raised up. The United States and Canada have over one hundred churches, Central and South America have over one hundred churches, and Africa, Europe, and Australia also have over one hundred churches. Before I went abroad, I left the churches in the Far East—the churches in Taiwan in particular—many assets, including a large group of co-workers and a great number of meeting halls. However, during the past twenty years, where has the increase been in Taiwan? At the time I left Taiwan, there were seventy to eighty churches, and now there are not even a hundred. Therefore, I hope that you young saints would learn not to take the old way.
Recently I was in Singapore for a conference of the co-workers from the Far East. Co-workers from Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia attended. One day I openly rebuked some of the co-workers. I was not opposing them. I was supporting them, but within me there was a feeling of indignation. I wish that, as Paul said, I could provoke them to jealousy (Rom. 11:14) so that they would rise up and hate themselves and not be so loose anymore. I wish that in continuing to work, they would have the determination to produce results, even if they have to hit their heads against the wall. Otherwise, they should discontinue their work and find a proper job. Instead of always “occupying the nest without laying any eggs,” they should let the young people try to produce some results. I do not trust in the old way. Even I am taking the lead to try new things and to make changes.
Every word in the footnotes of the New Testament Recovery Version was written by me. Every time I go back to read those footnotes, I marvel at how I could have written such words that are full of light, revelation, and supply. I am not being proud. In my hometown of Chefoo during the summer of 1936, eleven years after I was saved, I wrote two pamphlets called Gleanings from the Genealogy of Christ and Gleanings of the Generations. Even today it is hard to find a book among all the books published by Christianity on the genealogy of Christ that can be compared to Gleanings from the Genealogy of Christ. I accomplished these things altogether by my personal learning day by day during the past sixty years. Some people say that I can do so much because I have an inborn talent and am a smart learner. Actually, I do not have as much natural talent as you. The only advantage I may have over you is that I am fond of studying and can study tirelessly. Today, regardless of what I am writing, I still consult the dictionaries often to study the meanings of words.
I do not think that you have exhausted all your energy, nor have you spent your energy in a proper way. If I were conducting the training, your days would be different than they are now. You would probably feel that no day is good. You have not truly experienced hardship. Thus, when the schedule is somewhat busy, you feel that it is unbearable. I do not like to hear the brothers say, “This is too stressful. We cannot bear it.” If you truly cannot bear it, then how is it that you can still eat and sleep well? The fact that you can still eat and sleep well proves that you are still living comfortably. You truly need to be constricted.
Some say that being a co-worker in the recovery is like having a secure job, because once you have been recognized as a co-worker, you are a co-worker for your whole life. There is no need to be tested or evaluated. If there were testing, our situation would not be as it is today. However, once there is testing, the matter of working for the Lord becomes professionalized. This is something that we do not want to see. I began conducting the training in 1953. Looking back, I am not satisfied with that training. After much inward consideration, I would like to completely change my way this time. First, I will give you a demonstration, a pattern. Then I hope that I can change your concept and stir you up to endeavor.
Do not always expect others to teach you. Rather, you need to pursue deeply and diligently on your own. I did not read many books when I was young, and Christianity at that time was not publishing any books of value. Between 1936 and 1939 Brother Nee purposely did not publish any books, because he wanted to see what Christianity could produce. Under those circumstances I still endeavored to learn. Therefore, you need to be stirred up. When I was conducting the training in 1953, I told the trainees that when I was in elementary school, I read a proverb that said that if your handwriting is poor, you should not blame the pen or the ink but yourself for your lack of practice. Similarly, you should not complain about the environment or other matters. Rather, you should blame yourself for not laboring enough.
The current situation is exceedingly favorable to you, but you are taking all the blessings for granted. Consider the church life for example. When I got saved, I was young, and there was no church life. The church life in Shanghai in 1940 was nothing like today’s church life. At that time we pursued the few books that Brother Nee had published. We not only read them; we read them many times. I started to use the Interlinear Greek-English New Testament in the winter of 1932. No one ever taught me Greek. I learned the words and the grammar entirely on my own. As the saying goes, “Rome was not built in a day.” Even though I could not understand Greek, I toiled, spending much time and energy to get deeply into my studies. For example, the Greek word for truth is aletheia. There are eight denotations of this word in the New Testament. Footnote 6 of 1 John 1:6 explains this very clearly. Even a Greek expert probably could not give such a complete explanation of this point.
I am speaking these things to stimulate you so that you would stop thinking about getting help from theological seminaries. A theological seminary can teach you only to be a man with mediocre ability. If you want to be only a man with mediocre ability, then you may go to a seminary to be taught. In the training there is an ideal environment in which you can learn. Even if you eventually get a secular job and do not become a full-time serving one, the learning and influence you receive during these two years will benefit you. What I regret the most is the pitiful condition of those of us who are Chinese and who have entered into the church. I am not saying that the church is not good. The church is good, but man’s condition is not good. You have brought all the bad things of the Chinese culture into the church, such as looseness of character, lack of vitality, disorder in the meetings, and a lack of tidiness and neatness in the meeting hall. I have been groaning unceasingly about this situation. I simply cannot imagine that the elders and co-workers could lead the churches into such a situation. We are not keeping up with the times.
I am not telling you to be rebellious or to nullify everything that the co-workers have done in the past and to depreciate them. Praise the Lord that they have done their part. However, their character is undesirable. In this matter you should not learn from them. There was a great entrepreneur in Taiwan whose success was the issue of his own hard work. He said, “We all say that Japan’s economy is good, but why are we unwilling to learn from them?” This person was right. We should learn to have the spirit of the Japanese. Regarding the publication work, Japan is the best, the United States is second, and Taiwan is third. The printing press for the Japanese bookroom is in a small, square room directly above the meeting hall and is much smaller than Taiwan’s printing press, yet Taiwan’s products cannot match the standard of the products put out by the Japanese saints.
For another example, consider the carrying out of the video trainings. The church in Tokyo abides by all the regulations of the video training. The churches in Taiwan, however, violate many of the regulations. Every locality is required to keep an attendance record of the video training and to send a report to the ministry station. Only the church in Tokyo sends a report that is neat and clean; the report from Taiwan is altogether unclear. Not only so, in order that those attending the training would have some sense of responsibility and in order to raise the standard of the training, those attending the training are required to make a donation. Again, the church in Tokyo does an accurate job in this matter. Their accounts are very clear and orderly with no mistakes. The most disorderly accounts are from Taiwan.
When we do things in a serious way, results will be produced, and we will make progress. The social trend, tradition, and natural habit of the Chinese people, all of which are in our blood, are altogether the opposite. Therefore, when you learn to do the Lord’s work, the first thing you must do is to have a radical change in your character. You must completely change the Chinese character that is within you. If you learn to do this, within two years you would be the best in whatever you do, even if you take a secular job. However, if you refuse to change your character, you will be of little use no matter what you do.
