Brother Nee once said that if someone regularly attends meetings in which one person speaks and everyone else listens, over a period of time this way of meeting will become a habit to him and will be hard to change. If we are going to change our habit, we need something to replace it. After three years of study, we truly have many riches that can enable us to have a change. The saints, especially those in Taipei, often do not speak, even though they are actually full of riches. Often they do not speak, but when they do speak, they speak excellently. I encourage all the saints to “sell” the “cargo” that is in them. If you receive something from your propagation group at home, then when you go to the meeting in the evening, you have to sell what is in you. Never think that you will be “sold out.” The biblical principle is that if you give, it will be given to you, but if you keep, even what you have kept will be taken from you (cf. Matt. 13:12). Hence, we all have to give. Our burden is to encourage all of us to bring out what we have in the meetings.
I believe that many of us have had the experience that when we did not open our mouths in a meeting, the meeting did not seem so enjoyable to us. On the contrary, we also have had the experience that when we did open our mouths in a meeting, although the meeting may have been poor, we still felt that it was a good meeting. I myself have had this experience. If I am speechless in a meeting, no matter how good the meeting is, to me it seems cold. But once I open my mouth, no matter how bad the meeting is, I myself am set on fire. Others may or may not be edified or supplied through my speaking, but at least I am supplied. Those who speak in the meetings are the first ones to be supplied whereas those who do not speak suffer loss.
I hope the elderly saints would speak in the meetings for at least two minutes. However, do not merely say, “Hallelujah! Amen!” as in the past, because this will not supply others much. Instead, you may speak about something for two minutes like Elizabeth (Luke 1:41-45), you may speak something longer for four to five minutes like Mary (vv. 46-55), or you may speak a word with content and revelation for twenty minutes like Zachariah (vv. 67-79). You may practice all these things. It is a heart-breaking matter to see one who has been meeting among us for decades and yet has not produced or manifested any gift. If the saints are willing to practice speaking a little bit more each time they meet, in a year they will be able to speak for five minutes. In this way, the meetings will be full of flavor.
If we quarrel with our neighbor at home and then come to the meeting in the evening, we will be unable to say “Hallelujah.” Suppose, however, that someone comes to us asking for trouble, but we are inwardly enjoying the Lord and consequently do not say anything back to him and are not bothered. Instead, we thank and praise the Lord. In this way we will be overcoming and will spontaneously be living in the meetings. This kind of a meeting is a scriptural meeting, a meeting that requires us to be overcoming. What is the new way? The new way requires people to be overcoming. If you are not overcoming, you will not be able to take the new way. If you do not take the new way, you will not be overcoming. From this we see that there can be no pretense in taking the new way. You cannot perform like an animal in a circus. What is the change in system? In brief, the change in system is a change in our way of meeting, and it requires everyone to be overcoming.
The new way requires us to live in our spirit. If we do not live in our spirit, we will be unable to speak in the meetings. One who lives in the spirit does not want to argue or gossip. Rather, he wants to speak the Lord’s word to people, to preach the gospel, and to edify them. This kind of person will spontaneously be living and joyful when he comes to the meetings. Hence, the meetings in the new way require people to be overcoming. In the past we may have come to the kind of meeting in which one person spoke and everyone else listened, and it did not matter whether we had been overcoming or not because we were not required to speak. However, the meetings today not only require that we refrain from playing mah-jongg and from arguing, but on the positive side, they also require that we walk by the spirit, live according to the spirit, be burning in spirit, and live Christ throughout the day. If this is not the case, when we come to the meetings, we surely will have nothing to say. The meetings in the new system require us to be overcoming and to live an overcoming life. Once we are overcoming, it will not be a problem for us to preach the gospel or to do anything else.