In the last chapter we saw that the fourth major item in the advance of the Lord’s recovery today is the prophesying for the building up of the church as the organic Body of Christ. Prophesying in 1 Corinthians 14 is not in the sense of predicting but in the sense of speaking for the Lord and speaking forth the Lord to dispense Christ to people. It is the excelling gift among all the gifts, making its seekers excelling.
In this chapter we want to see three more crucial points related to prophesying: first, all the believers have the capacity and the obligation to prophesy; second, all the believers have been charged by the apostle to pursue, to desire earnestly, and to seek to prophesy; and third, in the Lord’s advanced recovery, there is the need for the highest meetings of the church.
All the believers have the capacity to prophesy and have the obligation to prophesy (1 Cor. 14:31, 24). The capacity is the ability. First Corinthians 14:31 says that we can all prophesy one by one. The word can indicates the capacity, the ability, to prophesy. Any kind of life has a certain capacity. The peach tree has its life, and in this life there is the capacity to produce peaches. In our human life, there are many capacities. There is the capacity to hear, to see, to smell, to speak, and to eat. A normal child’s organs are complete at his birth. With all the organs are the capacities. These capacities need growth, development, and practice. A little infant learns to walk through growth, development, and practice. His capacity to walk is developed based on the growth in life with the help of some instruction from his parents. By practicing, he is gradually able to progress from crawling to standing to walking. Eventually, he is able to run and jump. This is an example of the capacities in our human life.
There are also capacities in the divine life that we have received. Through regeneration we received another life, the divine life, which is the eternal life. The divine life is eternal in space, in time, and in quality. It is altogether unlimited. This life is full of capacities, and the most striking capacity is the capacity to speak for God, to prophesy.
The capacity to prophesy is in the divine life, which the believers possess and enjoy and which needs to increase within them that the capacity may be developed unto their ability. Because we have the divine life, we have the capacity to speak Christ. We possess and enjoy the divine life, and this divine life needs to increase within us. We all need to grow with the increase of God. The increase of God within us increases our capacity so that this capacity is developed unto our ability.
Right after someone receives the Lord Jesus and is regenerated, a desire is put within him to speak something for Christ. He may not know how to speak, but this desire is within him. As he begins to speak in the meetings of the church, his speaking function develops. As he continues to practice speaking, he is like a babe who learns to stand, to walk, and eventually to run and jump. His spiritual function is developed through his practice.
Fifty-seven years ago a small church was raised up in my hometown. That was the first church in north China in the Lord’s recovery in 1932. I have been attending meetings regularly since that day. By attending all these meetings, I have received much instruction. Through this instruction and growth in life, my capacity to prophesy has been developed. Today it is so easy for me to prophesy. As we attend the meetings regularly and practice speaking with some instruction, we will be perfected to prophesy.
A newborn babe who is only five days old is not able to speak, but as he grows in life, there is the increase of his capacity to speak. At a certain point he is able to say “ma ma” and “da da.” As he grows in life, the capacity to speak within him is developed. How much someone can speak depends upon how much growth he has had. The growth of the human life develops the capacities of the human life. Besides our growth in life, we still need the practice. If a newborn babe is never allowed to speak throughout the course of his life, he will eventually not be able to speak because he has not practiced speaking. The strategy of Satan is to make only a small group of people, the clergy, a speaking class. By devising the clergy-laity system, Satan has made the majority of the Lord’s children dumb.
We need to abandon the old way of one man speaking and the rest listening. In 1937 Brother Watchman Nee, who brought the revelation of the Lord’s recovery to us, saw that the practice of one man speaking and the rest listening in the meetings of the church is not scriptural. He talked about this in The Normal Christian Church Life. He pointed out in this book that the church meeting should be a meeting of mutuality. We did not find a way to practice what Brother Nee passed on to us. He mentioned this matter again in 1948, and this fellowship is in the book entitled Church Affairs. As I began to reconsider our way beginning in 1984, I realized that now is the time for us to practice our senior brother’s vision. He saw the vision fifty-two years ago, and now we must practice it. We need to cooperate with the Lord to enter into this scriptural way. In endeavoring in this scriptural way, we should not be disappointed. Whenever we change from an old way to a new way, it is difficult for us. But as we practice, we will eventually be brought into it. When we practice the truth in the Bible, the Triune God will be with us, and we all will enter into this truth.
The obligation to prophesy is the fulfillment of our spiritual service, in which we are indebted to God’s salvation. Verse 24 says that if all prophesy the unbelievers and unlearned persons are convicted and judged. Verse 31 says that we can all prophesy one by one. These verses show that we all should bear the responsibility to prophesy. We all have the obligation to prophesy. It is so good that we have the capacity to prophesy. This should encourage us. But we also have to realize that we have the obligation to prophesy. We owe something to God and to His dynamic salvation. His salvation is with, by, and in the divine life. In this dynamic salvation, there is the capacity to prophesy. Furthermore, since we are enjoying such a salvation, we are indebted to this salvation. It is our duty to prophesy for the building up of the church. We have received the dynamic salvation, yet we have been annulled by the traditional practice that made us passive. We have to drop the way of the clergy-laity system and come back to the way of every member functioning for the building up of the Body of Christ.
Many of the saints have never prophesied according to the revelation of 1 Corinthians 14. When any of us speaks in a meeting, that meeting becomes the top meeting to us. A certain meeting may be high, but if we do not speak in that meeting, we do not appreciate it that much. A high meeting may be poor in our sight because we did not speak. Even if a meeting was low, if we spoke in that meeting, it became the best meeting to us. To us it was the best meeting because we spoke something. If all of us come together as “pew members,” that meeting will be full of death. But if all of us come together, and all of us exercise to speak one by one, that meeting will be in the heavens. It will be the highest meeting.
Some may feel that they do not know how to speak, but I do not believe that we do not know how. Who among us cannot tell people that the Lord Jesus is good? Someone in the meeting can say, “The Lord Jesus is good.” Another one can follow by saying, “Yes, the Lord is good. Even this morning I tasted Him in His presence.” All of us, one by one, can at least speak one sentence concerning Christ. On the other hand, we may speak for five minutes, but our speaking may be a “sea story” with little content of Christ. We should not think that just because all speak, the meeting will be heavenly. If we all speak things other than Christ, the meeting will be full of death. A brother may even speak things in a scriptural way with quotations from the Bible, but his speaking may not be the actual speaking of Christ.
Throughout the history of the church, there has almost never been a body of Christians that has been brought to the right track of all prophesying for the building up of the church as the organic Body of Christ. First Corinthians 14 gives a full description and even a charge for all to prophesy when the church comes together, but today there is not such a situation among the Lord’s people. According to our study of the history of the church, there has almost never been such a thing. First Corinthians 14 surely should not be cut out of the Bible. The Lord told us that heaven and earth will pass away but His word will not pass away (Matt. 24:35). Every bit of the Lord’s spoken word will be fulfilled. First Corinthians 14 will definitely be fulfilled. This is a great chapter in the divine revelation, showing that all of us need to pursue, desire earnestly, and seek to prophesy for the building up of the church. I have spent so much time to stress this one matter because this chapter has been neglected. This burden for all of us to prophesy is of the Lord for the building up of His organic Body.