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Scripture Reading: 2 Tim. 3:15-17; Col. 3:16; Eph. 5:18; 1 Thes. 5:20
In this chapter we will consider the focal point of the change of the system, which is the speaking of the Lord’s word. The degradation and failure of Christianity and its greatest lack lie in the fact that the believers do not speak the Lord’s word. The principle of the New Testament is that every saved person is a member of the Body of Christ and a priest of God. As such, everyone should serve God and speak for God. Therefore, we all have to learn to speak the Lord’s word and to teach others to do the same.
We were all originally born in Adam to be the descendants of Adam, a part of Adam, and even the members of Adam. It does not matter in which country we were born and what language we speak; we are speaking for Adam and are even speaking Adam. It does not matter whether one belongs to a high class, speaking refined words, or to a low class, speaking coarse words; he is speaking Adam. The whole world is a kingdom of Adam, a sphere of Adam. This was our condition not merely before we were saved, but even after we were saved, it could be possible that we still speak for Adam.
After we were saved and regenerated, we were transferred from Adam into Christ and joined to Christ, to become members of Christ. The vision and light are very clear among us, but we are short of a living in Christ. The revelation and the teachings are here, but the reality is lacking. If we do not live in Christ, we may be in Christ in name, but in reality we are still in Adam. The only difference is that before salvation we were free to sin, but now after salvation, and especially after we are stirred up to love the Lord and are brought into the church life, we begin to refrain from sinful things and to behave more properly. But in our daily walk we are still in Adam.
In Paul’s Epistles the believers are exhorted to refrain from murmurings and reasonings (Phil. 2:14). They are also exhorted not to judge (1 Cor. 4:5). This shows us that there were often many such things among the brothers and sisters at that time. In Greek the word for reasoning has the sense of arguing and debating. Today even among the churches in the Lord’s recovery, it is still difficult to avoid reasoning, arguing, and debating. In Colossians Paul even says that there were complaints one against another (Col. 3:13a). If there are complaints among us, this proves that we are not living in Christ. If we live in Christ, we will be closely knitted together, but if we live in Adam, there will be complaints, opinions, and frictions. All these things are in Adam, proving that we are speaking for Adam. We do not have to learn to speak for Adam. All of us are perfect representatives of Adam.
Since we are saved and are the members of Christ, it is reasonable that we should speak for the Lord; however, most of us are still not speaking. This is because we lack the knowledge of the truth. Therefore, the Bible tells us that God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the full knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4). As soon as a person is saved, he should learn the truth and should come to the full knowledge of the truth. When we were born, we knew nothing of the truth. Even after we become a Christian, if we do not learn the truth, we will not know the Lord, and consequently we will not be able to speak for the Lord. For this reason, immediately after we are saved, we should learn the truth; then we will be able to speak God’s word in Christ.
Luke 1 records three examples of speaking for the Lord. The first one is Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist; the second is Mary, the mother of the Lord Jesus; and the third is Zachariah, the father of John the Baptist. When Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, she lifted up her voice with a loud cry and said to Mary, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And how has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby leaped with exultation in my womb. And blessed is she who has believed, because there will be a completion of the things spoken to her from the Lord” (vv. 42-45). Although Elizabeth’s word is short, it is very sweet and rich. Her blessing by the Holy Spirit reveals that the Savior in His humanity is the “fruit” and in His deity is the “Lord.” She recognized the fruit of Mary’s womb as her Lord and acknowledged the deity of the child to be born of Mary (Psa. 110:1; Matt. 22:43-45). How different is this kind of speaking from the so-called outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the tongue-speaking in the Pentecostal movement! Most of their tongue-speaking is, “My people, the time is short! Behold, I come quickly. There will be an earthquake in such and such a place, and the whole city will go into the ocean!” They speak this kind of word because these are the words they receive all the time. They are always listening to these words; therefore, when they receive the so-called outpouring of the Holy Spirit, they spontaneously speak these words. None of them can give a concise word of revelation as Elizabeth did.
Next, let us look at Mary’s speaking. Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has exulted in God my Savior; because He has looked upon the low estate of His slave. For behold, from now on all generations will count me blessed, because the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is His name. And His mercy is unto generations and generations, unto those who fear Him. He has exercised might with His arm; He has scattered those who are proud in the understanding of their heart. He has brought down potentates from thrones and has exalted the humble; the hungry He has filled with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty. He has upheld Israel His servant to remember mercy, even as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever” (Luke 1:46-55). Mary’s word is not too long, yet it is very rich. Almost every sentence is quoted from the Old Testament. She put crucial points from the Old Testament together to produce a psalm of praise. Doubtless, she must have been very familiar with the Old Testament. Not only so, she must have been well exercised in it. With such a person who is full of God’s word within and well exercised in these words, God’s word will flow out from within him as soon as the Holy Spirit is poured out. If today the Holy Spirit is poured out upon you as He was upon Mary, I am afraid that you will not be able to speak the same words as Mary did because you lack God’s word in your daily life.
Last, let us take a look at the long psalm of Zachariah. When Zachariah was filled with the Holy Spirit, he prophesied, saying, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, because He has visited and accomplished redemption for His people, and raised a horn of salvation for us in the house of David His servant, even as He spoke through the mouth of His holy prophets from of old—salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, to accomplish mercy with our fathers and to remember His holy covenant, the oath which He swore to Abraham our father, to grant us that we, having been delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days. And you also, little child, shall be called a prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of salvation to His people by the forgiveness of their sins, because of the merciful compassions of our God, in which the rising sun will visit us from on high, to shine upon those sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace” (vv. 68-79). After reading this portion of the Word, we will realize that for anyone to speak such a long psalm, he must be very familiar with the Bible.
We have already mentioned that Christians are those who speak for the Lord. Whenever Christians are gathered together, their meeting should be for speaking the Lord’s word. However, it is not that easy for everyone to speak this way. As a result, a clerical class of pastors and preachers is gradually produced. These people have studied theology specifically and are the professional speakers for the Lord. Once the clerical class is brought forth, the situation of one speaking and the rest listening is produced. This practice of one speaking and the rest listening best fits people’s situation because no one needs to labor, and it eliminates the trouble of learning the Lord’s word. Everyone can then be busy all day long with their secular business; all they need to do is come to a meeting on Sunday. In the meeting they do not need to open their mouths. Professionals like the pastors and preachers who have been trained in theology will come to speak. These ones speak with skill, persuasion, and eloquence. They are too good. This kind of meeting with one speaking and the rest listening may help people superficially, but actually it chokes to death the function of all the members.
When I was in my hometown at the age of twenty-two or twenty-three, I loved the Lord and sought after Him very much. One day I attended a Bible study meeting. I sat on the last row, thinking that no one would notice me. To my surprise, the one who went to the podium that day was the founder of that Bible study group. He knew me very well. After reading the Scriptures he said, “Today we would like to invite Mr. Witness Lee to pray.” I was so shaken that I forgot where I was. I did not know how to start the prayer. At that time I already loved the Lord very much. I studied the Word a lot, read many reference books, and took a lot of notes. But for me to pray before two to three hundred people was something that I had never done before. I believe that many of you have had the same experience as I did. This is the situation in Christianity. A person may be very seeking yet still be unable to pray in the meeting.
On another occasion I was meeting with the Independent Church of Christ in China. The pastor there had a high regard for me and invited me to preach at a large worship service on a Lord’s Day morning. For that I spent a week or two practicing at the seaside, where nobody could see me, speaking to the ocean over and over again. Then I became somewhat confident of my speaking. But when I stepped onto the platform that Lord’s Day morning, my knees were shaking. I forgot nearly everything except the Lord Jesus Christ and His cross. I managed to piece together my message, speaking for about forty minutes, and hurriedly left the stage. Although I loved reading the Bible, took notes for all of my readings, and was very thorough in my studies, I felt very uneasy when asked to pray or speak for the Lord. In principle, this is the general situation of Christianity and is even to some extent the situation among us. Many brothers and sisters have loved the Lord for years. They study the Bible, listen to messages, take notes, and are full of riches within. However, they feel uncomfortable when asked to pray or to speak some words for the Lord in the meeting, because they have never been trained in this way.
In order to change this situation of one speaking and the rest listening to that of speaking to one another and listening to one another, everyone has to learn to speak the Lord’s word. It is easy to talk about this but not easy to practice. To take the old way of Christianity is easy, but to take the God-ordained way in the New Testament is not easy. It requires learning. Everyone has to learn to speak the Lord’s word. We all know that speaking is an easy matter, but it requires you to learn when you are young until it becomes habitual through practice. When a mother says to her child, “This is bitter,” the child follows by saying, “This is bitter.” When the mother says, “This is sweet,” the child follows by saying, “This is sweet.” By practicing in this way, the child will gradually be able to speak. After a person is saved and is brought into our midst, if from the first day we would teach him to practice speaking the Lord’s word in the same way that a mother teaches her child to speak, that one will soon be able to speak. In the past I could not understand why the brothers and sisters were not willing to speak. Later, I realized that the problem was not that the brothers and sisters were not willing to speak; rather, it was that we have not led them to speak.
I hope that you all would see that the most difficult step in the changing of the system is to have everyone speak in the meeting. If this kind of meeting of speaking to one another and listening to one another is not realized, we do not have the scriptural way to meet. Then we would have to take the old way, still depending on one speaking and the rest listening. But since the Lord has spoken this word in the Bible, surely He will fulfill it. He will change the system from one speaking to everyone speaking. Of course, this requires a lot of labor. To train one Chinese person to speak English is not too difficult, but to train every Chinese person, both young and old, to speak English is very difficult. This is why today we cannot be hasty in changing the system, taking the new way, and getting everyone to speak the Lord’s word. I believe that if we would practice this constantly, by the time the next generation rises up, there will be a situation in which it would be difficult to ask them not to speak the Lord’s word. Today we are in the transitional stage. If this stage is handled properly, the whole atmosphere will gradually be changed.
During this period the most important thing is for every one of us to learn and to practice speaking the Lord’s word, and to help others to practice speaking the Lord’s word. First, this requires that we base our speaking on the Bible. If we want to base our speaking on the Bible, we must be thoroughly familiar with the Bible. In particular, we must familiarize ourselves with the New Testament; otherwise, it will be difficult for us to speak the Lord’s word properly. When those in the Pentecostal movement speak in tongues and interpret their tongues, their interpretations never go beyond the few books such as Psalms, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. This is because they, like the Jews, are familiar only with the Old Testament. They have no concept concerning the central vision of the New Testament revealed in such books as Ephesians and Colossians. Therefore, no matter how they experience the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and no matter how they speak in tongues, they are not able to utter the revelations in Ephesians. This shows us that to learn to speak the Lord’s word, we must carefully study the New Testament, especially the book of Ephesians.
Second, we have to learn to speak by means of the hymns. The words of the hymns are also based on the Bible. They are words of the Bible put into poetry and songs. For this reason we also have to familiarize ourselves with the hymns among us and to bring others into the riches of the hymns.
Third, we have to learn to speak by means of the spiritual publications. Today in the Lord’s recovery there are many spiritual publications that can render us help in the knowledge and experience of the Lord. We also have to spend time to get into these publications so that we will have the rich words.
We learn to speak the Lord’s word in this way. When we go to the new believers, we also teach them in the same way little by little, just as a mother teaches her child to speak. When a child learns to speak, it may be quite slow at the beginning. He can only utter something word by word, but after two or three years his speaking will consist of sentences and paragraphs.
Hence, after we baptize someone, we should go back to him and help him to know that he is saved. At the same time we have to lead him to know this Savior Jesus Christ. He is God; He is also the Spirit, the ultimate expression of God. In His flesh when He was upon the cross, He was our Redeemer, but today within us He is the Spirit of life. Then we have to open up the book of Romans and tell him, “This Spirit is like the word, so near to you, even in your mouth and in your heart. It is very simple to receive Him. All we need to do is open up our mouth to call on His name with our spirit, saying, ‘O Lord Jesus!’ His Spirit will then touch our spirit.” After we guide him once in this way, he will know how to call on the name of the Lord.
Then we should teach him to pray, “O Lord Jesus, You are my Savior and my life.” This is the beginning of his speaking of the Lord. Next we should teach him to read the Bible and acquaint him with terms such as the Triune God, Christ, the Spirit, the church, sanctification, and justification. We should not expect him to learn everything all at once; rather, we have to teach him slowly, little by little.
Concerning speaking to one another and listening to one another, I think that as long as one quarter of those meeting in the church are willing to practice this, we will have the proper result. Take the church in Taipei as an example. I fully believe that there are one thousand brothers and sisters who will take the lead to practice this way to speak in the meetings. The rest of the brothers and sisters will learn from them. After a period of time there will surely be great improvements. Among this one thousand people, there are the elders, the co-workers, the full-timers, and the young students, especially the college students. These four groups of people should take the lead to speak in the meetings. Especially the elders, as the head sheep, should take the lead among the flock to practice speaking the Lord’s word in the meetings. I believe that if these four groups of people are stirred up in their spirit and would come to the meetings to speak, the church will progress rapidly in the new way.
