Week of 11 April 2021
HWMR
The Multifarious Wisdom of God
The book of proverbs stresses wisdom that we receive from God through contacting God. The subject of Proverbs is living a godly life by God’s wisdom. The central thought of Proverbs is that we should seek after wisdom so that we may live a godly life on earth that is acceptable to God. Proverbs 2:6 says: “Jehovah gives wisdom; / From His mouth come knowledge and understanding”; revealing that wisdom comes from God. In certain portions of Proverbs the wisdom of God is personified. This is referring to Christ. For example, Proverbs 3:9a says: “Jehovah by wisdom founded the earth”; wisdom, as the master workman of God’s creation of all things, is God’s delight (Prov. 8:30). God’s creation of all things is through Christ, who is wisdom and God’s delight..
Romans 11:33a speaks of God’s wisdom: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!” Wisdom is for planning and purposing. Wisdom is seen in the initiation of something, as indicated by Romans 11:36: “Out from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.” God is the unique Initiator. He has initiated many things by His wisdom. The wisdom of God is “God’s wisdom in a mystery, the wisdom which has been hidden, which God predestined before the ages for our glory”. “To the only wise God through Jesus Christ, to Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen”. The wise God has given Jesus Christ to us according to the revelation of the mystery, which has been kept in silence in the times of the ages, who also is the One who has saved us, regenerated us, and through His divine dispensing is continually renewing and transforming us, and who will eventually glorify us and conform us to the image of God’s firstborn Son, bringing us into glory.
Christ is the wisdom of God. In the New Testament the personified wisdom of God is Christ as its reality. Matthew 11:19b indicates that wisdom is Christ. In Luke 7:35 the Lord Jesus said, “Wisdom is justified by all her children”. Those who believe in Christ are the children of wisdom, those who justify Christ and His deeds and who follow Him as their wisdom. In Christ “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden” God is the unique source of wisdom and knowledge. We need to trace wisdom and knowledge to their true source in God. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ, who is the mystery of God. If we exercise our being to contact the Lord, Christ as the life-giving Spirit will saturate our spirit and our mind, and we will have in our experience the wisdom and knowledge that are hidden in Christ.
As believers, we are in Christ, and Christ has become the wisdom from God to us (1 Cor. 1:30). As our wisdom, Christ is all-inclusive, becoming wisdom to us from God in righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. By Christ as our righteousness, we have been justified by God so that we might be reborn in our spirit to receive the divine life. By Christ as our sanctification, we are being sanctified in our soul, that is, transformed in our mind, emotion, and will with His divine life. Christ as our redemption is for the redemption of our body, by which we will be transfigured in our body with His divine life to have His glorious likeness. In 1 Corinthians 1:30, for Christ to become wisdom to us from God indicating that there is a transmission of Christ as wisdom from God to us for our daily experience.
Ephesians 3:10 says that through the church the multifarious wisdom of God will be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenlies. Through the church God will make His wisdom known not mainly to human beings but to those rebellious angels who are the followers of God’s enemy. Even the rebellion of Satan is within the realm of God’s wisdom. When God’s chosen and redeemed people partake of and enjoy the riches of Christ, these riches constitute them the church, through which God’s multifarious wisdom is made known to the angelic rulers and authorities in the heavenlies.
The New Jerusalem, as the ultimate consummation of the church, will be full of wisdom. The New Jerusalem is designed and constructed by God, the Architect and Builder of “the city which has the foundations” (Heb. 11:10). In His wisdom God constructs the New Jerusalem by dispensing Himself as the Architect and Builder into our being. If we realize that the New Jerusalem is a sign that signifies spiritual and divine things, we will begin to see the wisdom of God in this city. God is a wise Architect and Builder who designs and builds such a city to be the full manifestation of His multifarious wisdom.
(Source: https://www.churchintaipei.org/bible-truth/conference-training.html)
Experience of Christ as Life
Experiencing and Enjoying Christ in the Epistles as a Letter of His
Second Corinthians 3:3 says, “Since you are being manifested that you are a letter of Christ ministered by us, inscribed not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tablets of stone but in tablets of hearts of flesh.” ....
A letter of Christ is composed using Christ as the words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs. From beginning to end, Christ is every part of such a letter. Therefore, a letter of Christ speaks Christ, for every part of the letter expresses Him. In order to make us the living letters of Christ, He needs to be written, wrought, into us. People should be able to read Christ on our being. We may preach about Christ, but how much of Christ can people read on us? When people observe the way that we live, they should read Christ. We need more of Christ written upon us; that is, we need more of Christ wrought into us. Christ should be wrought into our thinking, our loving, our choosing, and into our entire being. The extent to which Christ can be seen or read by others in us depends upon the extent to which Christ has been written into us. This is a matter not of doctrine but of experience.
When a man is regenerated by the Holy Spirit and his spirit is made alive, he becomes a living epistle of Christ. This living epistle is written with the Spirit of the living God. This means that God writes Christ into the believers by the Spirit, imprinting Christ into them.
By having Christ inscribed into us, we also become living letters of Christ, which can be read by others. There are many cases of young people who have been read by their parents. At first, their parents opposed them because they had turned to the Lord or had come into the church life. But even while the parents were opposing them, they were reading what had been inscribed of Christ into them. As a result, after a period of time many of these opposing parents turned to the Lord’s way. Even if your parents are opposing you, they are still watching you, reading you as a letter of Christ. Eventually, if you live and walk in the Spirit of life in your relationship with your parents, they will be convinced. Although you may not intentionally try to honor your parents, spontaneously you render them the most excellent and wonderful respect because you walk according to the spirit. Your parents will notice this, appreciate it, and eventually may be convinced and subdued by it,
(The Conclusion of the New Testament, msg. 400)
Gospel
In the Principle of Coordination
Today God is taking the way of the church. Everything should be done in the principle of coordination. My heart rejoices to see that, under God's grace, we can coordinate together, not only in preaching the gospel but in offering up our money and time. We should not choose our field of study carelessly as we did before. Rather, we should choose subjects that are related to businesses that the saints have and concentrate on these professions. In the coming days, these professions will afford us an unfettered occupation to support ourselves. After three or five years, many brothers and sisters will be prepared to be sent to other places in China for the gospel. First, we should gospelize the strategic places, and then we should move out to the surrounding towns and villages. How different is this kind of preaching from the individual preaching of one or two persons that we experienced in the past!
Presently, there are over five hundred assemblies in China. We have close to seventy thousand brothers and sisters. If we pool our efforts together for the gospel enterprise, instead of working independently here and there, this will create a great impact! In the past our co-workers did not like to work in coordination. Now they have to learn the lesson of coordination. They should take the lead in this matter, but this work does not belong to the co-workers alone; everyone has a part in it. We should not think that we only have to offer a little money or material goods. This work is the responsibility of all of us. If the Lord is gracious to us, I hope that many brothers will rise up, including older ones, and forsake everything to serve in coordination in the church.
The Whole Body Preaching the Gospel
Presently, the highest interest the bank pays is forty-five percent. If we can have a fifty percent increase in our gospel, every brother and sister will bring in half a person in a month. This means that every two months we will bring in one person. In two months there will be one hundred forty thousand saints in China. In four months we will have two hundred eighty thousand saints. This means that in a few years' time, the gospel will spread throughout all the big cities in China. If our preaching is isolated, we will never meet the need of the gospel in today's world. The whole church has to rise up to preach in coordination. May the Lord ignite the flame in China, and may it grow and spread. May the church be as absolute as the early church in preaching the gospel. This fire will then spread to the West. We can procrastinate no longer. If we do not take this way, our independent gospel work will not get us very far in ten or twenty more years.
In 1928 there were four hundred thousand Protestant communicants. By 1948 the number only increased to four hundred eighty thousand. In 1928 there were eight hundred thousand Catholics. By 1948 the number increased to 2.3 million. What are we Protestants doing? Why has our number increased so slowly? This is truly our shame! Today the Chinese population grows at the rate of two persons every five seconds. The number that we bring in cannot even match the rate of birth in China. Protestantism has been in China for over one hundred twenty years. After a century and a half of preaching, our number is still only five hundred thousand. Of this number, many are nominal members. When we compare ourselves with the early church, we cannot help but be ashamed!
It is indeed foolish for God's children to not give themselves in a desperate way in this age. Please forgive me for saying a seemingly angry word. We all think that the present political climate makes it hard for the church to preach the gospel, but how do we know that this situation is not sovereignly arranged by God? How do we know that this is not for the purpose of turning the church to the Lord's will? What the Lord could not gain through His calling, perhaps He is gaining through the environment. If the Lord cannot move His children through love, He can turn them through chastening. The rebuking rod often will do what the voice of love cannot do. If we do not learn to coordinate together for the gospel in the present situation, God may allow the devil's hand to move further, and the situation of the church may worsen still.
(CWWN, Vol.61 , set 3, pp.153-155)
