The elderly saints among us are full of vigor and vitality, the working saints among us are like brave lions, and the young ones among us are lively and full of strength. First John 2:12-19 addresses the fathers, the young men, and the young children, classifying the saints in the church into these three categories. Verse 14a says, “I have written to you, fathers, because you know Him who is from the beginning.” The word fathers refers to the believers who are mature in life. They are the qualified ones, the ones who know Him who is from the beginning. God the Father is even more qualified than the fathers are. This is the first category. Verse 14b says, “I have written to you, young men, because you are strong and the word of God abides in you and you have overcome the evil one.” In the Bible the Lord Jesus as an overcomer is called the Lion of the tribe of Judah (Rev. 5:5). Hence, the overcomers are also like lions that overcome the evil one. This is the second category. The third category consists of the young children, such as the high school and junior high school saints. First John 2:13b says, “I write to you, young children, because you know the Father.” Young children only know to call on their fathers and mothers. Thus, the young children in the church only know the Father.
First John 2:12-14 shows that there are clear distinctions among the fathers, the young men, and the young children. Then verses 15 to 17 say, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him; because all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the vainglory of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and its lust, but he who does the will of God abides forever.” This passage explains what it means to overcome the evil one. The evil one is in the world. Hence, we should not love the world. What is the world? It is all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the vainglory of life. Vainglory is empty pride. The vainglory of life includes all the things that we boast of in the present life. All these things will pass away. If we are in all these things, we are not in the Father and do not love the Father. If we love the world, then God’s love, the love for God, is not in us.
The last part of verse 17 says, “But he who does the will of God abides forever.” To be for the Lord does not mean that we merely obey the will of God but that we do the will of God. If I charge you to do something, if you are to obey, you must do it. To do something is to carry out and accomplish a certain goal or purpose. The will of God is a goal or purpose, and when we carry it out, we are doing the will of God. Only those who do the will of God abide forever.
Verses 12 through 28 are divided into three sections in the Recovery Version. In these three sections, the fathers, the young men, and the young children are mentioned repeatedly. The first two times the apostle writes to these three groups of people, his speaking to the fathers is simple. Both times he speaks the same thing to them, saying that he writes to them and has written to them because they know Him who is from the beginning. As to the young men, his first speaking to them is simple, but his second speaking is not that simple. In his second speaking he says, “You are strong and the word of God abides in you and you have overcome the evil one”; he also tells them not to love the world (vv. 14b-15a). This reveals the goal of overcoming and the reason why many do not overcome. It also reveals that the obstacles that we must overcome in this warfare are in the world. In the world are the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boast, vainglory, and pride of the present life. These are the appropriate words that the Lord has given us today.
Some people have asked us why we have different levels of meetings among us, such as the meeting for the elderly saints and the meeting for the working saints. We decided to change our system three years ago because now the goal is to gospelize Taiwan. In gospelizing Taiwan we do not want to merely preach the gospel all over Taiwan. Rather, we want to saturate Taiwan with the gospel. This will require the cooperation of all the saints. The reason we chose Taiwan to be the first place, the starting point, for our gospelization was that even though the Lord’s recovery has already reached the six continents, only Taiwan has the deep capacity to be gospelized.
According to the statistics we gathered four years ago, there were around 610 local churches all over the globe. Now the number has increased to over 900. Among all these local churches, why did we choose to start the evangelization with the churches in Taiwan and not in another place such as the United States? The reason was that although Taiwan is not big and cannot be compared with the United States in size, Taiwan has the deepest capacity and the richest background. In other words, Taiwan truly has a rich heritage and abundant resources.
For instance, recently we held a large-scale gospel meeting in China Stadium for the high school and junior high school students. During our preparation we estimated that around six thousand people would come, but in the end over fifteen thousand came, which was one and a half times more than what we had expected. Hence, we have been inwardly enlightened that the Lord has chosen Taiwan, and we thank the Lord for bringing us to Taiwan and making Taiwan the birthplace of our gospelization work. Taiwan is rich in “minerals.” Since Taiwan is so rich in resources, we have to “mine” and dig up these resources.
Let us consider another example. In the most recent meeting for the elderly saints we expected to have five or six hundred people and thought that most of them would come late. However, fifteen minutes before the meeting was to begin all the elderly saints had arrived. When we entered the meeting, they were already singing and were full of vigor, just like the young people in the young people’s meetings. Their youth had been renewed. Hence, even the meetings for the elderly saints are a huge “gold mine” for us to dig. We should dig the “gold mine” of the elderly saints in every meeting hall. We do not mean that we should ask them for gold to build a big meeting hall but that we should cause each one of them to be living. It is the same with the young people’s meetings. The number attending these meetings is quite high. They truly are the young people. They are like a neat and orderly army. The churches in Taiwan are rich in capital and should be developed.