Week of 18 April 2021

HWMR

Reading the Book of Proverbs with a Praying Spirit so that it will Render Us Nuggets and Gems to Strengthen Our Life of Pursuing Christ for the Fulfillment of God’s Economy

Proverbs is a collection of the words of the wise; it stresses the wisdom that man receives of God through his contacting of God, and it teaches man how to behave and build up his character in his human life.

Proverbs has a particular character; that is, it presents to us the words of wisdom by many ancient wise men, which is unanimously considered good by all the people who read it; but what the book of Proverbs is to us depends upon what kind of persons we are and by what way we take it. If we are ethical persons with a strong mind and have a desire to be perfect as genuine moral persons, surely this book would help us to make a success in our pursuit of perfection; however, it would not help us to be persons who live in our spirit according to the Spirit of God. When we come to the book of Proverbs, we need to turn ourselves from the mind to the spirit by praying in our spirit; if we come to Proverbs in this way, we will be touching the Word by the new man, and we will live a life not by our natural man, by our old man, and by our self but by the Lord Jesus, who is our life and person living in our spirit.

According to God’s economy, the big proverbs, like nuggets, and the small ones, like gems, are not for us to build up our old man; rather, they are for us to build up our new man to strengthen our life of pursuing Christ for the fulfillment of God’s economy in producing and building up the Body of Christ, which consummates the New Jerusalem as God’s heart’s desire and ultimate goal. We need to receive the living and operative word of God with a praying spirit so that we can build up our new man and so that we may be able to discern our spirit from our soul. The enemy’s strategy is always to mix our spirit up with our soul. The way to purge such mixture is through the revelation of the Holy Spirit. Revelation is seeing what God sees; it is God opening our eyes to see our intentions and the deepest thoughts in our being as God sees them. As soon as God exposes our thoughts and shows us the intentions of our heart, our soul will be separated, divided, from our spirit. Whatever we see under the shining of God from the word of God is killed by the light; the greatest thing in the Christian experience is the killing that comes from light; the dividing of the soul and the spirit comes from the shining.

Ephesians 4:22-24 tells us clearly that a believer in Christ has two men—the old man and the new man; the old man is of Adam through our natural birth, and the new man is of Christ by a new birth, regeneration; we need to live a life of putting off the old man and putting on the new man; according to God’s economy, Proverbs should not be used to cultivate and build up our old man but to cultivate and build up our regenerated new man. In order to enter into the intrinsic significance of the book of Proverbs according to God’s economy, we need to be those who are living according to the new creation. When we exercise our spirit to contact Christ as the living Word of God in the written word of God, He becomes the applied word of God as the Spirit to us. Then our reading of any word in the Bible will become spirit and life to us to revive us. We need to turn the Bible from a book that apparently teaches us to cultivate the self and to build up the natural man into a book that actually is full of light, life, spirit, and spiritual nourishment by receiving it in a spirit and atmosphere of prayer; this will tear down our self, break our natural man, and supply us with the consummated Spirit of the Triune God.

We must be persons who love the Lord and pursue Christ, not self-perfection, and who love the Lord’s word in the entire Bible and read it with a praying spirit, not to seek the doctrine of letters but to seek the Spirit and word of life; we should read Proverbs not to gain any help for self-cultivation but to nourish our spirit so that we may live a Christian life that is perfect in the divine virtues, which are the expressions of the divine attributes.

(Source: https://www.churchintaipei.org/bible-truth/conference-training.html)

Experience of Christ as Life

Commissioned with the Ministry of Reconciliation for the Lord’s New Creation

In 2 Corinthians 5 we see that reconciliation has two steps. Fallen human beings cannot be fully brought back to God simply by the first step. The second step is necessary. As Paul speaks of his ministry of bringing others back to God, he spontaneously presents a clear view of the two steps of reconciliation.....

The entire human race is in the world, outside the tabernacle. But whenever a person repents and desires to return to God, he comes to the altar. The altar signifies the cross, where Christ died for our redemption. In the Old Testament, sacrifices were offered to God for atonement. But in the New Testament Christ died on the cross for redemption. In the typology of the Old Testament there was atonement, but in the fulfillment in the New Testament there is redemption. In the outer court there was also a laver, with water used for washing. Once a person had repented, had been redeemed, and had experienced the washing, he could enter the Holy Place. This is to be reconciled to God. Therefore, passing through the first veil signifies the first step of a sinner and a rebel being brought back to God and being reconciled to Him. The believers at Corinth once were sinners and rebels, but they had been reconciled to God. However, they were still in the Holy Place, not in the Holy of Holies. Paul’s purpose in 1 and 2 Corinthians was to bring these believers into the Holy of Holies.

In The Economy of God I pointed out that the outer court corresponds to Egypt, that the wilderness corresponds to the Holy Place, and that the good land, the land of Canaan, corresponds to the Holy of Holies. For the children of Israel to come out of Egypt and enter into the wilderness is equal to leaving the outer court and coming into the Holy Place. This was precisely the situation of the Corinthian believers. As the children of Israel were wandering in the wilderness, so these believers were wandering in the soul, in particular in the mind. Because they were wandering in the Holy Place of the soul, Paul wrote these two Epistles for the purpose of bringing them into the spirit, where Christ is. The spirit is also related to the good land and the Holy of Holies

The believers at Corinth had experienced the first step of reconciliation, but they had not experienced the second. They had not been reconciled to God in full. As there was a veil between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies, so a veil still remained between the Corinthians and God. According to Hebrews 10:20, this veil is the flesh. The flesh was the veil that kept the Corinthian believers away from the direct presence of God in the Holy of Holies.

Paul and the other ministers of the new covenant, those who had been constituted of the processed Triune God and who were mature in life, were no doubt in the Holy of Holies. They lived in the spirit, and they were ripe, ready to be raptured. Their only goal was to please the Lord by living to Him. Spontaneously, being such persons, they were able to bring others thoroughly back to God. For this reason, at the end of chapter five Paul indicates that they, the ministers of the new covenant, are those who seek not only to reconcile sinners to God, but also to reconcile the believers to God in full. These ministers of the new covenant were qualified to bring back to God anyone who had not been fully reconciled to Him.

(Life-study of Second Corinthians, msg. 14)

Concerning the Gospel

Consecration and Coordination

Our consecration must be specific. The more specific our consecration is, the better it is. Consecration of the heart is an abstract thing. We can say that our heart is consecrated, but in actuality, our heart may still be with us. Our heart can only be truly on the altar when our entire body and our possessions are on the altar.

Romans 12 is the clearest, most absolute, accurate, and definite passage in the entire Bible on consecration, and it speaks of coordination at the end of the chapter. If a man is not willing to consecrate himself, how can he be coordinated with others? We should not think that we are consecrating when we offer up a little money and material goods. Consecration means offering up our entire person. Only this will bring us into coordination with the brothers and sisters. If we hold back anything for ourselves, we are merely practicing a kind of individualism. If we are so individualistic, how can we coordinate with others? In order to coordinate with others, we have to deny ourselves and live in peace with all men, if possible. Many people, however, drop their countenance, become angry, or murmur over a little money. They argue and squabble until their faces turn red over what belongs to them. When we hand over everything, it is easy for us to coordinate with the brothers and sisters. Coordination is spontaneous.

Handing ourselves over will afford the brothers and sisters a way to get into the gospel business in one accord. Many people are willing to put their whole heart into a secular business but are very indifferent about the gospel. They work mindlessly and do not apply any seriousness to the work. We can only give our whole heart to the work when we have handed ourselves over.

Handing Over Being the Responsibility

If all of us, young and old, will consecrate our all, the cheap way with us in the past will be gone once and for all. We have to make up our mind to have a share in the gospel of the church. We have to hand over our occupation, our time, and our money for the gospel. This is the only way to bring in the power. The Lord will not be satisfied until we preach the gospel this way. The only thing that will satisfy the Lord is for the entire Body to be consecrated. The only thing that will satisfy us is this very same thing.

Our handing over will satisfy the Lord, and it will satisfy us. Time is short. The Lord's coming is near, yet the responsibility of the gospel is still great. Many places in China still have not heard the gospel. If the church does not rise up together to preach the gospel, the Lord will delay His coming.

I hope that from this day forward we will drop all dissenting thoughts. Let us abandon all care for ourselves. We should have only one profession— preaching the gospel. We should have only one goal—letting all sinners hear the gospel.

Prayer

Lord,... For all these years the church has not been absolute enough to rise up to preach the gospel together. Forgive us and grant us the grace. Lord, You have come to cast a fire upon the earth. You said this when there was a baptism awaiting You; Your spirit was pressed! You have gone through that baptism, and Your life has been released. The fire has been released, and it has been burning during the past centuries. Now we ask that You start this fire... within all the brothers and sisters.

(CWWN, Vol.61 , set 3, pp.155,156,157, 158)