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Scripture Reading: Acts 5:42; 1 Cor. 14:26; 12:8; 1 Tim. 3:2; 5:17
Prayer: Lord, how we worship You and thank You that You have raised up Your recovery in these final days. Thank You, Lord, that You have opened up Your Word to us and have unveiled to us so many truths concerning God’s New Testament economy and the Triune God being processed and consummated. Lord, we thank You for this time. Thank You for Your present move among us. Lord, we all are here. We want to tell You that we are ready. Lord, have Your way and have a free course among us and in each one of us. Spread Your move throughout the United States and throughout the entire world. Lord, gain the glory and carry us on. Do not let us go. We like to cooperate with You. Thank You for Your mercy and thank You for Your grace. Amen.
In this chapter we want to see the way to practice the Lord’s present move. We do not want to practice anything from the past or even anything practiced among us in the United States in the past twenty-three years. We want to practice the Lord’s up-to-date move. The Lord is moving. Since Genesis 3, right after the fall of man, the Lord began to move. He moved through Abel. He moved through Enosh. He moved through Enoch. He moved through Noah. He moved through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He moved through Moses, Samuel, David, and so many others in the Old Testament. He moved through John the Baptist. He moved through the very embodiment of the Triune God, Jesus Christ, and He moved through the apostles. He moved throughout church history through many of His loving seekers. The Lord is also moving right now.
Our God is neither dead nor dormant, but He is living and moving here and now. The Lord is still moving on the earth among us and with us. We have the assurance to say that the Lord is moving among us up to the present day. We are talking about the way to practice the Lord’s present move. Do not refer back to Elden hall in Los Angeles. That was in the past. We are not talking about that but about the Lord’s present move. We all should be excited about His present move. Praise Him for the up-to-date way to practice His present move.
The first point of the up-to-date way to practice the Lord’s present move is to be filled. The way is to be filled, not with culture, religion, or education but with the Spirit, who is the ultimate consummation of the processed Triune God. We need to be filled with such a Spirit inwardly and outwardly, essentially and economically, for life and for work.
We should remember that we are not filled once for all. What Christ has accomplished is once for all, but what we have to experience is not. Time after time, day after day, morning after morning, evening after evening, all day long, we have to experience being filled with this wonderful, all-inclusive, processed, consummated Spirit for our entire lives. Every day in the morning the first thing we have to pray is, “Lord, fill me afresh. Fill me, Lord. Fill me with Yourself as the consummated Spirit. I like to have You filling me up within and without. I want to be wrapped up and mingled with You.” Every morning you should pray this prayer—“Fill me up, Lord. Fill me up!” I would like to hear many testimonies that even in your dreams you are crying out, “Lord, fill me up! I need You to fill me up! Saturate, infuse, transfuse, soak, and permeate me!” Exhaust all the verbs in the dictionary to tell the Lord you want Him to fill you up. Do this every day. Tell the Lord, “I was too dormant, but now I want to rise up by being filled with You.”
Forget about Elden hall. Forget about yesterday’s enjoyment of Christ. You need a fresh enjoyment. You need something up to date. The Lord was there in Elden hall, but He is not there now. He is here presently moving in His recovery, and He is in you. Wherever you are, He is in you, and He is in you right now. Do you believe that He is repeating all the things He did in the past? He is not repeating anything. He is always going on and on and on. The Lord is working. He is moving.
Are you a person of yesterday? All of us should be people of today. Every day is a today. With some people every day is tomorrow, and with others every day is yesterday. Some of the saints may say, “How good it was in 1952 when I got saved!” Even to look back to 1982 is to not be up to date. Do not look ahead to the future, and do not look back to the past. We are people of today. Do not talk about your old experiences in the past. Talk about your experience today. Be filled today. Be filled, not yesterday nor tomorrow, but today. Every day is a today. We do not have yesterday. We had yesterday, but we do not have it now. We will never have tomorrow. All the time we have is today. Every day is a today. When we enter into the New Jerusalem, we will have today since every day in eternity is today. The only day we have is today. Be filled inwardly today. Be filled outwardly today. Be filled today.
We should not preach a superficial, superstitious, or low gospel. Some saints in Taiwan began to call our Recovery Version “the gold bar” because of the precious, valuable truths it contains. On this basis, I would say that we all need to preach “the gold-bar gospel” and teach “the gold-bar truths.” We need to teach the truths of the processed and consummated Triune God and of the enjoyment of the dispensing of the Divine Trinity in the divine transformation for the divine conformation by living in the organism of the Divine Trinity and participating in the dispensing of the Divine Trinity. We need to teach the truths concerning the New Testament economy of God and concerning God, Christ, the Spirit, the believers, the church, the kingdom, and the New Jerusalem.
We preach the gospel and teach the truths by diving into the Word. By diving into “the gold bar” we will be enabled and equipped to preach and to teach. Whatever we are filled with inwardly is what we will utter. We have to be filled with all the truths by diving into the Word. We need to fill our entire house with Life-studies. Scatter all the Life-studies throughout your house so that every room has some Life-studies in it. We should spend only about five minutes to read the front page of the newspaper to get the proper knowledge of the world situation. Besides eating, sleeping, exercising for our health, and working, we should use all our time to dive into the Word. If you open to any page of the Recovery Version and read one of the footnotes, you will receive the profit. We have the Recovery Version of the New Testament, the Life-studies, The Conclusion of the New Testament, and the Truth Lessons, systematizing the entire Bible into one hundred ninety-two lessons. We need to get ourselves saturated, infused, filled, and soaked with all the truths contained in these writings. Then whenever you speak, you will speak the truth.
We all should preach the gospel and teach the truths any time and any place. Our preaching and teaching should have no limit of time and space. We preach and teach by diving into the truths. Do not think that it is the job only of the full-time workers to go out to preach and to teach. We all are priests of God, branches of Christ, and slaves of the Lord, so every day at any time and any place we preach and teach what the Lord has revealed to us.
We need to somewhat forget about our own enjoyment and think about the Lord’s propagation and the Lord’s increase. Think about the thousands of dear Christian brothers in your vicinity who need the truth that you have. They need the truth in the Recovery Version and in the Life-study messages. They need us to go to them to read one page or one paragraph of our publications with them. They will receive the light. If we go to others again and again in this way, our entire locality and region will be enlightened. We need to go out to spread the marvelous truths the Lord has shown us.
Our place is the best place for the Lord to propagate Himself, to get an increase for Himself. The leading ones should not be the only ones who enter into the preaching of the gospel and the teaching of the truths. Even the smallest ones among us should do this. In Berkeley, California, many young teenagers who passed through the summer school to study the truths concerning God’s economy went to the campus to speak to the professors and students about the Triune God, about God’s creation of man being for the purpose of expressing Him, and about man being a vessel, a container, to contain God. That surprised many people on the campus. This should not be done only once in a while but once a week on the weekends. Hundreds of young boys and girls can go to the campus to tell others who the Triune God is and why He created them. If the young people cannot explain that much, they can open the Recovery Version to let the ones they contact read something for themselves.
All the saints in the recovery, old and young alike, need to go out. Go to visit your neighbor with your Recovery Version and take with you many of the rainbow booklets we have published, which contain a slightly edited version of the Life-study messages, for the purpose of distribution. We have thousands of copies of these booklets in storage and are continuing to print more, but many of the churches have not picked up the burden to carry out the distribution. It is not a requirement for you to read all the booklets before you go to distribute them. Put some booklets into your pocket and go to your neighbor. The booklets you choose will sovereignly be the right ones for your neighbor. The titles of these booklets are capturing. By reading some of the titles of the booklets to a new one, they will be attracted to the truths contained in them. We have booklets with titles such as: A Proper Living in the Relationship between Wife and Husband, The Surpassing Greatness of God’s Power, The Hope of God’s Calling, A Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation, The Spirit—the Pledge of Our Inheritance, The Sealing of the Holy Spirit, and Chosen to Be Holy. If you would spend five minutes with your neighbor to give him these booklets and read the titles to him, you have done a marvelous job. We should go out to saturate all the homes with these booklets, and we have to do this to the uttermost. We should fill, saturate, and soak the homes in our localities with all the truths we have in our hands, in our hearts, and on all the tapes. The publications are the weapons and the bullets to fight the spiritual warfare. The ministry offices in Taiwan and Irving are the arsenals creating all the weapons. Many of these weapons are stored in Anaheim and Irving. We are printing every day in Irving and Taiwan to create more and more weapons, but we need some soldiers to use them.
If a country, a nation, is going to be strong, it must produce and support an army. Not everyone goes to the battle, but some younger, strong, bolder, and daring ones have to be in the army. The rest of us should do everything to support our army. The full-timers may receive their support from the church or from individual saints, but they should take nothing from the Gentiles (3 John 7). Do not be bothered that some full-timers might receive more than others. Remember that there is the principle of equality (2 Cor. 8:14). If we do not keep the principle of equality, the Lord will keep it for us. We do not need to be bothered, though, because we have the living God in us. We have the principle of equality working in us.
When we receive more, we should give more. If you receive more, do not spend that much. My wife and I always practice to save something for the Lord’s interest. When we give our money to the Lord for His move, it goes to our bank in heaven (Matt. 6:20). It is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35). An older brother in Taiwan who was over ninety years old had saved seventy-five thousand dollars. When he heard the news about our plan to build a training center at Linkou, he decided to give this entire amount for that purpose. I thank the Lord that there are many stories like this in the Lord’s recovery. Do not think only about your need; think about the Lord’s need.
When we were building the meeting hall in Anaheim, California, I spent day after day on its design. The entire hall, basically speaking, was designed by me. Although I am a layman in civil engineering, I spent much time to design the stairways. About eighty young people dedicated half a year to help build this hall. When the building work was nearing completion, they told me they wanted to build a house for me. At that time I was living in an apartment. While they were busy working on that house, I was still busy working on the meeting hall. One late night I went back to see the house. When I saw many sisters there painting the walls, I was moved nearly to tears. That was quite inspiring. I did not care for my need but for the Lord’s house. But He sent so many dear saints to build a house for me and take care of my need. They finished that house within eight weeks so that my family could be moved in before the training.
One pair of doors in my house is uneven; one door is about one-eighth inch longer than the other, but I do not want to adjust it. I love those two doors because they were built by my dear brothers. In my bedroom the sliding doors of the closet do not fit the corner of the frame, but I will not let anyone adjust it. I want to keep that as a souvenir of all the divine love that the Lord has exercised over me. When we were being moved in, I was still busy on the stairways in the Anaheim meeting hall. My testimony is this—if you work for the Lord, He will take care of you. When you receive more, do not keep it for yourself. When you receive more, give to the Lord.
I also like to see my co-workers live well. If they live poorly, I am unhappy. Do not expect others to take care of your co-workers. You have to help them. Furthermore, all the co-workers need to give at least ten percent of their income to the Lord. I can testify that the more I give to the Lord, the more He gives. The Lord’s loving care is within us, and this working principle of equality is within us.
We all should do our best to save money to spend on the Lord’s interest. Everyone should offer five percent of his income for the full-timers’ support, and the church should put this into a separate account. I do not mean that any of us should live poorly but that we should not live excessively. Do not live a life that exceeds the proper necessity. You know how much you should save and how much to be restricted in your spending. The Lord will lead you. We should always have the thought of saving something for our Lord. If you can maintain a good living by nine hundred dollars, do not maintain it by one thousand dollars. Save the extra one hundred dollars for the Lord’s sake. I do not mean that you should not have any savings. You must keep something for your children’s education. The Lord does not want us to be foolish people. We have to keep a proper budget, and we should do well in our job to take care of our wife and children properly. We still should have some surplus to offer to the Lord. We are living in the United States, a very rich country. The Lord will bless us if we give to Him faithfully. If we would all practice giving in this way, many things could be done for the Lord, and He will have a free way to go on.
All the elders need to fellowship with all the saints about these things and even promote them. Promote the infilling and the outward filling of the Holy Spirit with the saints. Promote the preaching of the gospel and the teaching of the truth in your locality. Promote the producing and the supporting of the full-timers. Do this every week. We are here for the Lord’s propagation and increase.
In one message I said, “In Canada you brothers have to go back to make noise. Don’t let those people sleep so peacefully. Give them an alarm clock. Don’t let them sleep. Wake them up. Wake them up. The Lord’s recovery has been in Canada for over twenty years. How many are there? Just a small number.” Some of the brothers from Canada went back and made a big poster of this statement and put it in their meeting hall. What I said to the Canadian brothers I say also to you. Elders, make some noise in your locality. Do not let those people sleep so peacefully. They have been sleeping too well. Give them an alarm clock. Wake them up. Elders, wake yourselves up first, and then wake up others. The churches in the Lord’s recovery have been sleeping peacefully for quite a long time. Do not sleep anymore but wake up. Go to preach. Go to teach. Wake up! Rise up! Go! The Lord needs the propagation and the increase. Go to teach and to preach any time and anywhere. We need an army. We need bolder ones, stronger ones, who dare to die, to be full-timers to form an army.
The elders have many things to do. To produce full-timers is not an easy task or a light matter. It needs a lot of work. The elders need to fellowship with all those who intend to go full time to find out whether or not they are qualified. Is their education adequate? Is their character proper? Some dear saints who love the Lord have a poor character. They always do things loosely and always treat people carelessly. They may think that Mark has twenty-eight chapters and that Matthew has sixteen chapters. When they are asked to turn to a particular book of the Bible, they may not know where it is located. They also may not possess the adequate spiritual vocabulary and utterance to preach the gospel and to teach the truths.
The elders have been with the saints for years and should know everyone. We depend upon the elders to exercise their discernment to make a decision as to whether someone in their locality is qualified to go full time. It depends upon that person’s education, spiritual qualification, gifts, and character. Is he a person who can endure trials and suffer poverty? Paul said that he knew how to be abased and how to abound (Phil. 4:12). By His mercy, I have learned how to be poor. I was poor for a long time, having gone through a long tunnel and a long night of poverty. Now I have learned how to abound. By His mercy, I have distributed much money in recent years. A full-timer should be a person who can endure suffering, suffer poverty, and withstand riches. Anyone who cannot stand the test of riches is not qualified to be a full-timer. If money comes to you and God becomes second to your money, you are not qualified to serve the Lord full time.
I was happy to see that so many responded to the call for full-timers, but everyone must realize that there will be a proper sifting. Not everyone who desires to be a full-timer should be a full-timer. The producing of full-timers also involves moving in the Body as the one new man by fellowshipping locally and universally. One who becomes a full-timer will not pass a formal exam but a spontaneous test through all the churches as to whether or not he is qualified. An army cannot be formed with loose people. A person must be trained and disciplined, and his character must be built up; otherwise, he cannot be a soldier in the army. The people in the air force must be precise and accurate; otherwise, they will damage their aircraft.
This does not mean that the elders should pour cold water on the ones who want to be full time. They need to stir up many to be full time and promote the matter of being full time. Then the elders need to have the proper fellowship to find out who is qualified. Some may be what 2 Thessalonians calls “busybodies” (3:11). These ones should be encouraged to do a good and steady job for five years. Then they may be qualified to go full time. The elders in each locality have to do this because they should know the saints. They need to ask the ones who want to go full time how much they read their Bible daily and how much of the Recovery Version text and footnotes they have read. Based on the elders’ discernment, some of the saints should be told that the time is not right for them to go full time.
You should not be disappointed if the brothers in your locality do not feel that you should be full time. It may be that one of the elders is very strict and that he would hardly give his approval to anyone. Do not be disappointed. David was very much rejected and put down by Saul, but he was the real one God had anointed. When the time was right, David was raised up by God Himself. If you are the right person, you will be a full-timer even if the elders say no to you. This is the Lord’s recovery, and no one can manipulate or control anything. If you are the right person to be a full-timer and you cannot get through in your locality, you will get through in the Body. The Body will vindicate you. If the elders in your locality say no to you, just say, “Amen. Praise the Lord!” Remain happy to serve the Lord in your locality. If your speaking in the meetings edifies, builds up, and saves people, even the angels will testify that you are the right one.
The elders should do their best to promote the matter of being full time and if possible to raise up some to be full time. Then the elders need to train these saints in life and in truth. They can render the help concerning how to read the Word, how to pray-read the Word, how to enjoy the Lord and contact the Lord, how to pray, and how to live a life by faith. The elders need to do something initially. Then the leading co-workers surely will regard what the elders say. The crucial key and hinge of the practice of the Lord’s present move are the elders. How the elders will fulfill their duty will determine how the churches practice the Lord’s present move.
We need to forget about our old way of meeting. Most of us hold the concept that the meeting should be for our enjoyment. However, the Lord gives us the enjoyment of Himself for His purpose to spread the truth and to minister life to others. Mostly we hold the concept that we come to the meeting for our enjoyment, but we neglect the fact that our enjoyment should be for others (Eph. 3:2; 1 Pet. 4:10). We should go to preach, teach, and minister Christ to others.
Some saints would say that they do not come to the church meetings because they do not have any enjoyment when they come. When we come to the meeting, we surely want to receive some grace, to enjoy something of the Lord. The meetings should minister something to the attendants. However, the purpose of the meetings is not for our enjoyment but for the spreading of the truth and the ministering of Christ to others as life. If we would forget about our own enjoyment and take care of others’ need, I believe the Lord would afford us much enjoyment. We have to change our concept.
Our old way of meeting is like a cocoon that we need to come out of. This cocoon eventually needs to be burned and buried. Our fellowship is an attempt to draw the churches with the saints out of the old cocoon. We need the rearrangement of the meetings for the purpose of teaching the truths and ministering life to others, and the elders need to instigate the saints to rise up for this.
I propose that we use the entire Lord’s Day morning for handling the truths, because people are accustomed to going to worship services at this time. We must utilize this time in the same way that the Lord Jesus took advantage of the Sabbath to preach the gospel to people. The apostles did the same thing. They did not have any intention of keeping the Sabbath or attending a synagogue, but they took advantage of people’s custom in order to preach the word. We need a general meeting to take care of the “Sunday goers.” In this meeting it is possible to teach the truth and give testimonies that attract and capture others.
Besides this, we need to set up classes, but not so-called Sunday school classes. We need classes to teach the Truth Lessons. The first volume of twelve lessons has already been published. There are four levels, and each level contains forty-eight lessons for a total of one hundred ninety-two lessons. These lessons cover the general view and knowledge of the entire Bible plus the general view and knowledge of Christian experiences, from being called by the Lord unto maturity, reaching conformation and glorification. All the saints in the church should get themselves registered according to their choice of the appropriate level they need. Different rooms will be needed to teach these different levels.
In addition there is the need of a gospel meeting for the unbelievers. The saints can bring their unbelieving contacts to this meeting. Many of the Sunday goers are already regenerated, and a gospel meeting may not interest them or meet their need.
It could be that on the Lord’s Day morning a number of different meetings take place simultaneously. If your meeting hall is too small, you can have sessions. You could hold the first session from 9 A.M. to 10:30 A.M., the second session from 10:30 A.M. to noon, and the third session from 3:30 P.M. to 5:00 P.M. You could also have an evening session. Do not build another hall for having these sessions, but do not be satisfied just to build a small hall. Some brothers recently fellowshipped with me concerning their intention to build a hall that can only take less than four hundred. I told them that I felt that this was too small for their city and that they needed a building that could hold eight hundred to one thousand. We must realize that the age has changed. Do not say that you have been in your locality for twenty years and have only one hundred fifty people; therefore, a hall to hold four hundred people is sufficient. This is the old way. We are in today’s move of the Lord, not in yesterday. How do you know that after three years you will not have one thousand people meeting with you? We all need the faith to believe that in every big city after three years the church will be filled with one thousand people.
To take care of this many meetings, the church needs many speakers. The leading ones, therefore, need to make everyone a speaker. Do not say that a certain brother is not qualified. Let him do it. He is qualified. I was told by the leading brothers in Taipei that so many brothers were not qualified to be elders. I told them that fifty-two of these unqualified ones were actually qualified to be elders. The care for the twenty-one halls of the church in Taipei is now in the hands of these so-called unqualified ones. I did this based upon what Paul did in Acts. In Acts 14 he went to Lystra and Derbe to preach the gospel (vv. 6-21a). Probably within the same year he came back to establish elders in the churches there (v. 23). All the elders in the churches in Lystra, Derbe, Antioch, and Iconium were “baby elders.” Even though they might have been saved less than one year, they were all qualified. Some of the new elders in the church in Taipei have been in the church life for over fifteen years. Every one of them is surely qualified.
The elders need to give many brothers a chance to labor. Let them practice. Do not control them. The Bible never says that the church is the church of the elders. Let the church be the church of the saints (1 Cor. 14:33). If the mothers would always keep the kitchen under their strict control, none of their daughters would learn to be good cooks. The daughters need to be permitted to burn some things. Let them make some mistakes. Eventually, they will cook a delicious meal. I have been in the Western world for twenty-three years, and over three hundred churches have been raised up. If I had the attitude that no one was qualified, there would probably only be one church in Anaheim with three hundred fifty saints under my “pastoring.” I would be so contented with this single church under my care. Because I do not have any church “in my pocket” and because so many are qualified, there are over three hundred churches in the Western world. A number of saints have said that my only fault is that I overtrust people. But it is better to overtrust. If I did not trust people, I could not do anything. Even the Lord Jesus made a purposeful “mistake” in choosing Judas to be one of His twelve disciples. But without Judas, how could the Lord have been crucified? Even this mistake was a blessing. I am so glad to see that my overtrusting has turned into blessing. The elders should not control the saints. Let the saints serve. They are all qualified.
The churches should also gather together for the Lord’s table meeting and the prayer meeting. For the Lord’s table a short message of life supply should be prepared. The elders with some helpers should select a short portion from our publications of about two or three pages. At the end of each Lord’s table, a half hour can be reserved to fellowship over this message. At the end of the prayer meeting, a half hour can also be reserved to read a selected message concerning the spiritual principles of the Lord’s service. This can also be extracted from our publications and should be about two or three pages. Then every week the saints will fellowship over a message of life supply and of the spiritual principles of the Lord’s service.
Then you must have a home meeting. I hope that every home will be a meeting place of all the saints every week. The home meetings are not mainly to help ourselves but for us to spread the truth and preach the gospel to have the propagation, the increase. Do not expect the home meetings to be so formal, so official, so spiritual, or so high. When I was in Taipei, Sister Lee and I went to attend a home meeting scheduled for 7:30 P.M. When we arrived at 7:20 P.M., no one was there except the host, and none of the chairs were arranged. As Sister Lee and I began to arrange the chairs, I was somewhat disappointed. After 7:30 P.M., everyone gradually came in with some new ones. I discovered that the reason no one was there initially was that they all went to bring some new ones. Eventually, they caught a good number of people, and they began to meet. I was so happy to hear their prayers and their sharings. A young sister prayed a marvelous prayer that really surprised me. She had been saved for only seven months. This small group had only seven basic members, but within one year they brought in nineteen new ones. I had to acknowledge that they were living and that they were for the Lord’s interest. They do not care for the so-called normal, formal, official, or good meetings. They care for people being brought to the Lord. They care for the spreading of the truths they have received. They care for the ministering of the very life they have enjoyed. This is why the church in Taipei has baptized over five thousand people within one year.
We should not move individualistically nor even move merely in our locality but in the Body. Many churches in the United States have been awakened to the fact that they have been too independent, especially since 1977. Many of the churches have been loving each other but going on separately without adequate fellowship. With the raising up and supporting of the full-timers we need to enter into the experience of the Lord’s one move. The elders in particular should move in the Body as the one new man. The one new man is on the entire globe and not in any specific locality.
We move in the Body as the one new man by fellowshipping locally and universally. No place can decide anything by itself. In your place you may feel that a certain brother is not qualified to be full time, but the Body may feel that he is the best one. Do not make any decision by yourself in your locality. Try the best to fellowship. Fellowship with the other churches in your area, in the United States, and all over the world. If you have more financial supply, it should not be for your place only but for the entire Body. I believe that the Lord will not just give but will richly rain His abundant blessing upon His recovery. There will be a real oneness around the globe in the recovery for the expression of His Body as the one new man moving on this earth for His interest.
