Week of 20 June 2021
HWMR
The Factor of Cooperating with the Lord to Bring In a New Revival That Will End This Age
The title of this ITERO is the Important Factors to Recover the Church Life. This message covers the first factor - The Factor of Cooperating with the Lord to Bring In a New Revival That Will End This Age. According to the Old Testament to the New Testament in the bible, we can see that among God’s elect there has always been an aspiration to be revived. Witness Lee pointed out near the end of his ministry that by arriving at the highest peak of the divine revelation, practicing the God-man living, and shepherding according to God will bring in a new revival which has never been seen in history, and this will end this age. We can enter in to a new revival by arriving at the highest peak of the divine revelation given to us by God - the revelation of the eternal economy of God. God becoming man that man might become God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead for the producing and building up of the Body of Christ to consummate the New Jerusalem is the essence of the entire Bible, the “diamond” in the “box” of the Bible, the eternal economy of God. The central revelation of God and of the Lord’s recovery is God becoming the flesh, the flesh becoming the life-giving Spirit, and the life-giving Spirit becoming the seven-fold intensified Spirit to build up the church that becomes the Body of Christ and that consummates the New Jerusalem. “I hope that the saints in all the churches throughout the earth, especially the co-workers and the elders, will see this revelation and then rise up to pray that God would give us a new revival—a revival which has never been recorded in history.”
A revival is the practice, the practicality, of the vision we have seen. God needs a corporate people to be raised up by His grace through the high peak of the divine revelation to live a life according to this revelation. The life of a God-man is the reality of the Body of Christ. If we practice living the life of a God-man, spontaneously a corporate model will be built up, a model living in the economy of God. This model will be the greatest revival in the history of the church to bring the Lord back.
The human living of Christ on earth as the model of a God-man is living God by denying Himself in humanity, revolutionizing their concept of man. On the night of His resurrection, Christ breathed the Spirit of life and reality into the disciples. This would guide them into all the reality of what they had observed of the Lord when they were with Him for three and a half years. Today as the followers of Christ, our life should be a copy, a reproduction, of the model of the life of Christ, the first God- man. The only way to live the life of a God-man according to the Lord’s model is to set our entire being on the mingled spirit, walking, living, and having our being according to the mingled spirit. “We should all declare that we want to live the life of a God-man. Eventually, the God-men will be the victors, the overcomers, the Zion within Jerusalem. This will bring in a new revival which has never been seen in history, and this will end this age.”
The content of God’s entire New Testament economy in His complete salvation is Christ as the Son of Man cherishing us by redeeming us from sin, accomplishing His judicial redemption through His death, and Christ as the Son of God nourishing us to impart the divine life into us abundantly, carrying out His organic salvation in His resurrection. We need to shepherd people according to the pattern of the Lord Jesus in His ministry for carrying out God’s eternal economy. We need to cherish people (to make them happy and to make them feel pleasant and comfortable) in the humanity of Jesus; we need to nourish people (to feed them with the all-inclusive Christ in His ministry of three stages) in the divinity of Christ.
The apostle Paul shepherded the saints as a nursing mother and an exhorting father in order to take care of God’s flock. We need to shepherd people according to the pattern of the apostle Paul. We can enter into a new revival by participating in Christ’s heavenly ministry to feed His lambs and shepherd His sheep in order to take care of God’s flock, which is the church that issues in the Body of Christ; this is to incorporate the apostolic ministry with Christ’s heavenly ministry. “I hope that there will be a genuine revival among us by our receiving this burden of shepherding. If all the churches receive this teaching to participate in Christ’s wonderful shepherding, there will be a big revival in the recovery”.
(Source: https://www.churchintaipei.org/bible-truth/conference-training.html)
Experience of Christ as Life
Taking the Lord’s Promises by Praying
Certain parts of the word are a promise. Isaiah 54:1 and 2 are a promise to the barren. They say, “Give a ringing shout, O barren one, you who have not borne; / Break forth into joyful shouting and cry out, you who have not been in labor; / For more numerous are the children of the desolate one / Than the children of the married woman, says Jehovah. / Enlarge your tent site, / Let them stretch out the curtains of your habitations; / Spare not; / Lengthen your cords, / And strengthen your pegs.” When we read this, we may pray in a brief way with a strong spirit to take the Lord’s promise: “Lord, I take Your word as a promise to me. I myself cannot break forth into joyful shouting, but You can do it. My tent site is my spirit. Lord, enlarge it. Enlarge it and stretch out the curtains of my habitations.” Keep this word as the promise of the Lord and spend some time to pray over it. If we deal with the Lord in this way, the Holy Spirit will give us living utterances. Then the more we speak them, the more we will taste, enjoy, and absorb not mere knowledge but the Lord Himself as life and nourishment.
Reading the Word in a New Way, the Way of Life
This is the right way to read the word. It is absolutely something different from the old way. The old way to read is the natural way, the way in which people read any common, published material. The way that the children of God read the living word must be different. It must not be natural and religious but spiritual and living. We may further illustrate reading the word by praying with Isaiah 15:1. This verse begins, “The burden concerning Moab: / Indeed in a night it is devastated.” When we read this, again we may pray: “Lord, I do not know what Moab is, but I know that the city in which I presently live can be like Moab. Lord, grant me a burden for this city.” We can simply pray to the extent of our spiritual understanding. Then the Scripture will not be only a word or some knowledge but something living. Many times through this kind of prayer the Lord will do something. The Lord will hear and answer our prayer and grant us to be burdened for the city in which we live. From that time on we will have a real burden day by day. Even while we are working or driving, we will pray with tears for our city.
There is a great difference between the way of knowledge and the way of life to realize the word, to make the word living in the spirit. What we have is the living word of God. To come to the word properly always paves the way for the Holy Spirit to come in. If we practice to come to the word properly, the Holy Spirit will come in, and many things will result in a living way. Let us open the way for the Holy Spirit to do many wonderful things. What we are reading is not the word in dead letters; it is something living.
First Timothy 6:1 says, “As many as are slaves under the yoke should regard their own masters as worthy of all honor, lest the name of God and our teaching be blasphemed.” Since we are not this kind of slave, we may have no inspiration to pray with this verse. We should not force ourselves to get something from it. Rather, we may leave this verse for now and continue to read. However, sometimes we may be inspired by this kind of passage.
We may have the realization that the Lord is the Master; we have to serve Him honestly and faithfully. If we have this kind of sense, we should turn it into prayer. Again I say, do not formulate a prayer. Instead, simply have a spontaneous talk with the Lord. If we compose a prayer, we will drift into the mind. We must always avoid exercising our mind in this way.
We should be simple to speak from the depths of our being, to say something from the spirit. We may say, “O Lord, although I am not this kind of slave, I am Your slave, and You are my Master. I want to serve You honestly.”
Taking the Word by Prayer Requiring our Practice
Someone may ask, “If I do not compose a prayer, how can I pray?” This requires our practice. Eventually we will arrive at the point when we simply pray without composing. When we have a family talk, we do not compose anything; we simply talk. We need to practice talking to the Lord while we read His word. Without thinking, considering, or composing we simply speak from the spirit: “O Lord, I do not have an earthly master, but I do have You as my Master.”
With everything there is the need of practice, and this matter is no exception. We need to practice to exercise our spirit and train our faculties to be accustomed to this kind of reading and praying. We look to the Lord. From now on we all have to learn this way to contact the word and to transfer the word into the Spirit. Then we will enjoy the Lord and always pray in the spirit. Our spirit will be strengthened, enlarged, and enlivened. Then when we come together to meet, we will have a strong, living spirit and the accumulation of divine content within us.
(Enjoying Christ as the Word and the Spirit through Prayer, chap. 4)
Uprooting the Old Way and Planting The New Way, which Gives the Believers Equal Opportunity to Function as the Organic Members of the Organic Body of Christ
Last year the leaders of a denomination in the United States had a conference to fellowship about the burden to evangelize the entire globe by the year 2000. The conclusion of that conference was that they were short of manpower, despite their having many millions of members in the United States. This example shows that most of the Christians' functions have been annulled. All of them have been disabled by the wrong practice of today's Christianity. Christianity for the past centuries did a marvelous job in gaining millions of people for Christ, but at the same time their practice annulled the functioning of those whom they gained.
After a babe is born, this little babe normally has all the organs necessary for it to function properly. A newborn babe has a listening organ, a speaking organ, and a seeing organ, but all these organs need years to develop. Eventually, this babe will become a full- grown person who is fully and normally functioning. Because all his organs and members have been exercised, he can see, hear, speak, smell, walk, and do many other things. If infants were not allowed to use their eyes for a long period of time, they would become blind. Their eyesight would become useless because the capacity, the ability, of their seeing organ would have never been developed.
On the one hand, Christianity gained millions of believers, but on the other hand, the practice of Christianity killed their function because it took away every chance for their development. Nearly all the chances are given to a small number who are educated in seminary or some kind of theological school. This practice produces a clergy, and this clergy builds up a hierarchy, leaving all the common Christians as the laity without any chance to practice so that their functions can develop. The United States is a top nation because it affords opportunities to everyone. In the church life everyone should have equal opportunity. The practice of Christianity does not give the believers equal opportunity to function as the organic members of the organic Body of Christ.
According to the New Testament, a local church should have elders, but these elders are not a clerical class. The elders are the overseers, which the King James Version refers to as bishops. Ignatius in the second century taught that an overseer, a bishop, is higher than an elder. From this erroneous teaching came the hierarchy of bishops, archbishops, cardinals, and the pope in the Roman Catholic Church. This erroneous teaching is also the source of the episcopal system of church government. As the overseers, the elders are leading ones. Every overseer is a leader. If this were not the case, the churches would be in a state of anarchy because there would be no leadership.
In Peter's first Epistle he says that the church is God's possession and that God has allotted His possession to the elders. The churches are allotted to the elders as their allotments, their portions, entrusted to them by God for their care. The elders are the “keepers” who look after God's possession. Although they are the leaders, Peter charges the elders not to lord it over the allotments. The elders should not be the lords to lord it over the churches. Instead, the elders should shepherd the flock of God. The elders in the church can only take the leadership (not the lordship), which all the believers should honor and follow.
The function of the elders in the churches is absolutely necessary, but equal opportunity should be afforded to all the saints to speak in the meetings, to preach the gospel, to feed the new ones, to take care of the young ones, to perfect the saints, etc. In all things, opportunities should be afforded to each one of the saints equally. The United States is a top country because of its policy of equal opportunity. Furthermore, the United States endeavors to have a situation in which every citizen is working and producing.
To do something properly, a person needs a basic education. For someone to become a carpenter, he should finish his high school education and also learn the trade of carpentry. If a person is going to be a barber, he should finish his high school education and learn the trade of a barber. In the United States everyone has an opportunity to receive an education. A high school education is even considered as a kind of compulsory education. Because of this the United States is a strong country. Are the churches in the Lord's recovery like this? Is everyone equal in everything?
Fifty-seven years ago a church was established in my hometown, and I was a leading one there. Since that time I have seen many things. I have participated in the leadership throughout these fifty-seven years. According to my observation and understanding, I have not seen a church among us that has given equal opportunities to every member. Since I have been involved in the leadership in the churches, some may wonder why I did not give the saints equal opportunities in the churches where I labored. I did not have the intention of not giving equal opportunities to all the saints, but the system of our practice did not allow me to do this. In the way that we practiced the church life, there was no possibility for us to afford equal opportunities to all the saints. This is because the way was wrong.
To illustrate this matter of having a wrong system, we can consider two systems of government. People may talk about democracy, but their political system may be one of autocracy. If the system of government is autocracy, how can they exercise democracy? This is impossible. How can things be done democratically in a country of autocracy? If the people in that country want to practice democracy, they have to uproot their autocratic system and plant a new system, a system of democracy. Then their country will be a democratic country in which they can practice democracy. In order to practice democracy, the principle and the system of government need to be completely changed to a democratic system. Likewise, in order to carry out the New Testament priesthood, we need to uproot our “autocratic” way, our old way.
Our preaching of the gospel in the past is an illustration of an old system that did not bring all the saints into the preaching of the gospel. At a certain time the elders would arrange to have either a gospel preaching meeting or a conference. Then they would appoint one good speaker who could be considered as an evangelist. Perhaps a number of people were brought to these meetings by the saints, and through these meetings a number were saved and baptized. No one can criticize this. The problem is that this practice became our system of gospel preaching. After this gospel preaching meeting or conference, most of the saints did not go on to carry out the preaching of the gospel in their daily life. Preaching the gospel has become an optional matter with many of the saints.
Furthermore, instead of the saints paying an adequate amount of attention to the preaching of the gospel in their daily life, they paid their attention to when the next gospel preaching meeting would take place. A brother may have said to his wife, “Do you know when the church will have another gospel preaching meeting? I am very burdened for my old schoolmate. I feel I owe him something. When we have our next gospel preaching meeting, I will bring him to get him saved.” This was our practice in the past. Unconsciously, it had become the system of our gospel preaching. To preach the gospel by any means is right, but in what kind of system are we preaching the gospel? What we do may be right, but the system in which we do it may be altogether wrong.
The traditional way of preaching the gospel, the old way, “drugs” the minds of the believers concerning the preaching of the gospel. Most believers do not have the consideration that the preaching of the gospel must be every believer's obligation. Preaching the gospel is not just a matter of having periodic big meetings. The preaching of the gospel is a daily matter in the daily life of the believers. Therefore, the system of having only big gospel preaching meetings is altogether wrong. I do not mean that having big meetings for gospel preaching is wrong, but the system has to be uprooted. We have to plant another system in which every saint is a New Testament priest to carry out the New Testament priesthood of the gospel.
We may have preached the gospel in the past without having the thought that we have to be priests in order to preach the gospel. The preaching of the gospel is not done by an ordinary person but by a priest. A priest is a particular person. He is one who is very close to God, who contacts God moment by moment. Such a person is one with God, and he receives God's word so that he can speak God out to others. He can bring God to man, and he can bring man to God. He has to bring God to his close relatives, to his neighbors, to his colleagues, and to all men.
Because we are priests, we have to have something to offer to God. A priest is one who offers sacrifices to God. The main sacrifices that a New Testament priest offers to God are not his praises or good works. The main sacrifices he offers to God are living persons, sinners who have been regenerated to become members of the living Christ In the eyes of God these regenerated sinners are living sacrifices, spiritual sacrifices. As the New Testament priests, we have to offer these sacrifices to God. How can we gain these sacrifices? Should we just wait until the church makes a decision to have a big gospel preaching meeting? That meeting will result in the offering of some sacrifices, but all these sacrifices will be offered up by only one or two brothers. Eventually, the rest of us have a portion only in a Levitical service. We are not functioning as priests, but the brother who speaks becomes the unique priest. Therefore, there is no equality. All the “laymen” among us need to be emancipated. I am doing my best to emancipate all the saints.
(The Advance of the Lord's Recovery Today, Chapter 8 )
