Today if what we are doing is not related to this, we are not doing the will of God. We should live in the church and practice the Body life. This is to do the will of God. The first thing we should do in the church life is bring people to salvation. Preaching the gospel to bring people to salvation is our obligatory commission. We are the branches of the Lord as the vine, and since we are branches, we have to bear fruit. The branches of the vine are not for producing blossoms for people’s appreciation but for bearing fruit. Our fruit is the saved ones, and our fruit-bearing brings people to salvation. The tree of life bears new fruit every month, twelve times a year (Rev. 22:2). The vine should bear clusters of fruit.
Today in every place the rate at which the number of saved ones is increasing is very slow. The Lord’s recovery in the English-speaking world has been spreading from the United States for more than twenty years and has added more than six hundred churches with an average of around 100 to 150 saints in each locality. However, this rate of increase is not very fast. The result of our study has found that we have not been bearing fruit properly because our way of meeting is wrong and the form of our church life has become rigid. In most of our church meetings, one person speaks and everyone else listens. This nullifies the function of the saints, causing them to be unable to bear remaining fruit. I hope that from now on when we come to the small group meetings, we all would speak for five minutes at the most. We do not need to speak too much. In this way our meetings will be full of liveliness and vitality.
Today the gospel preaching in Christianity lacks power. Not many people are saved through it, and of those who are saved, not many remain. It is the same among us. The main reason is that the way we meet is wrong. The Lord is showing us the way of door-knocking. This is not a common kind of door-knocking, so we all must be trained. We have had two terms of training during which 800 trainees visited 24,000 people. We not only knocked on doors, but we also had home meetings to keep the saved ones.
In the past we spent enormous amounts of effort to bring people to the church and to baptize them, but after less than two weeks, they were gone. There have been around 100,000 people who were baptized in Taipei, but now less than 5,000 are meeting. There have been seventy to eighty thousand people who were baptized in other areas of the island, but now only three to four thousand are meeting. Where are the rest of them? We often meet many people in various professions who are our brothers and sisters, but they are not meeting. What is the reason for this? The reason is that the way we meet is not proper and makes it hard for people to stay. This may be likened to spending much effort to give birth to a child but abandoning him afterward. This is a pitiful situation.
Whether or not the gospelization of Taiwan can be successful hinges on the young people. The young people are the pillars of the church. They have to take up the responsibility to do God’s will. God’s will is for us to live the church life; this is our main job. Today we must clearly see that the best way to preach the gospel and deliver the gospel is to visit people by door-knocking. This is the pattern that the Lord left us. The Lord Himself came to the earth from heaven and visited us personally. Since He visited us, we also need to visit people and preach the gospel to them. After we have baptized people, we should meet with them at home. We do not need to fear that we will not have anything to say. We simply have to go, and the Lord will give us the word to speak.
Once a person is saved through our door-knocking, we need to meet with him in his home the next day. If we meet with him in this way, we will be able to gain his household. Two households may then be combined together to be a small group. Then several small groups may be gathered together in a way similar to our meetings in the meeting hall. In this way we will surely be very busy, because we will be doing God’s will all day long. In addition, we will spontaneously have no time, interest, or taste to take care of the things of the world. “The world is passing away, and its lust, but he who does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:17). I believe that we are all wise and that we want to seek the things that will last forever. What lasts forever? Only the will of God lasts forever. This is our commission, our will, and our main job.
Never fear that you will lose your job or that you will lack something in your living if you do this. In my journey of following the Lord for sixty years, I have never seen a person who, because of his love for the Lord, was unable to make a living. If we would say, “O Lord, I do not want anything else; I just love You,” then the Lord would say, “I will give you whatever you ask of Me.” This is real. Some people have asked me, “Mr. Lee, you believe in Jesus, but does He take care of your meals?” I dare not answer whether Jesus takes care of my meals or not. But I can testify that if you truly love Jesus, He will not only take care of your meals, but He will also take care of the meals of your offspring for thousands of generations. Jehovah promised this to His people, saying, “Showing lovingkindness to thousands of generations of those who love Me” (Exo. 20:6; Deut. 5:10). Our God is omnipotent; nothing is impossible with Him.
The prosperity of Taiwan today is due to the presence of the church. The more we love the Lord, the more Taiwan will be blessed. Many years ago when I was in England, I applied for visas to Denmark, the Netherlands, and Belgium. The Belgian who worked in the embassy asked where I came from, and when I told him that I came from Taiwan, he did not even know where Taiwan was. The whole world can testify that they never expected Taiwan to develop to such a degree, especially in its economic achievements. The main reason for this development is that there are people here who love the Lord. This is the main factor for Taiwan’s being blessed. Hence, do not worry. You should have a job to support your family, but you also have to live the church life. If you are working, you have to preach the gospel to your colleagues in addition to working with them. For example, you can preach the gospel during your break in the afternoon. Preaching the gospel should be our occupation, our main job. Our preaching of the gospel sows the seeds. One day the seeds may sprout and grow.
We need our view to be broadened to see that the church life is not merely meetings in the meeting hall. We long to see the day when there will be two hundred thousand homes in Taipei with home meetings. At that time, when we go to a store to buy something, we will meet the brothers and sisters. When we go to school, we will also meet the brothers and sisters. When we go to Tainan or Taipei, we will also meet the brothers and sisters. In this way Christians will be all over the earth, and our brothers and sisters will be everywhere. This responsibility lies upon us, and especially upon the young people. We all have to see that taking this new way will bring us back to the proper church life that we may do God’s will.
God’s will is for us to preach the gospel every day and to bring people to salvation. We should not go door-knocking merely for a week or two. Rather, we need to go out every day to knock on doors and to preach the gospel. Once people are saved, we should have home meetings with them. When we meet with them, we will spontaneously learn many things, such as how to lead them, how to supply them, how to open the way for them, how to open their understanding, how to help them to know the Holy Spirit, and how to teach them to pray. If we merely know these things but do not do them, there will be no effect. Only when we practice doing them will there be the result. If the young people rise up, the new way would surely be successful.