Furthermore, we have not had much feeling about our years of barrenness in which we did not bring forth much fruit. One leading brother told me that he did not bring anyone to the Lord for twenty years. However, after he began to practice door-knocking in the new way, he baptized seventeen within four months.

My burden is to wake you up because you have been drugged. The Lord says that as a branch, you have to bear fruit. This is serious. If you do not bear fruit, there is the danger that you will be cut off (John 15:2, 6). The words of the Lord in John 15 indicate that as branches of the vine we must bear fruit. If you abide in Him, you will surely bear fruit (15:4). God even took away His kingdom from Israel because Israel was barren, fruitless, and gave His kingdom to another people, the church (Matt. 21:43; Luke 13:6-9). But how about today's church? Who is bearing fruit?

Thirty-eight years ago, when I left mainland China, there were a little over three million Christians. Then the Communists took over the country, and they tore down Christianity. The organizations were closed. Since 1970, the Lord began to use the young men born under communism. Many of them were in their twenties. They picked up the gospel which we and other Christians had sown there, and they became prevailing.

I checked with some experts who researched the Christians' situation on mainland China, and I asked how many Christians there are today in mainland China. I was told that although Hong Kong newspapers reported thirty million, their research said there were fifty million. Today there are only about seventy-four million Protestant Christians in the United States, the biggest Christian country on this earth. The founders, the forefathers, of this country were all Christians. The Protestants have only increased by about nine million over twenty years since 1964, but within about fifteen years, the increase in mainland China has been about forty-seven million. A good number of these are taking the way of the Lord's recovery. Who did this? There were no chapels, cathedrals, ministers, or pastors. The gospel was preached mostly by pure Christian young people with no clergy, no hierarchy, and no organization. Therefore, all the clergy, hierarchy, and organization needs to be torn down.

Do you not think we have clergy? Do you not think we have hierarchy? We do not call anyone a pastor, but actually we have "pastors." We have followed Christianity's way unconsciously. We brought people in and we killed their function by our way. We say we do not control, but in many respects we do control. The leading ones need to ask themselves if they are part of the clergy and the hierarchy among us. Let us all drop the old way, "the old coat!" I am not only telling the elders to drop "the old coat." All of the older generation must give up the taste of the old way and take the new taste of the new way. For the Lord's sake, we need to take the new taste.