In every local church, time after time there are some burned out wicks. The lampstand may not shine so well. Rather, there are black, burned out wicks. Then there is the need of the Lord to come in to cut off, to snuff, the burned out, black wicks. Quite often, a local church will also be short of oil, short of the Spirit, so the Lord has to come in to fill the local church with the oil. Then the local church will be cleansed from the burned out wick and will be filled with more Spirit to shine more brightly as the testimony of Jesus. It is by this way that a local church is built up bit by bit and more and more until it becomes a golden lampstand in reality. According to the vision, a local church is a golden lampstand, but in our locality, the actuality, the practicality, of the church may not look exactly like what we see in the vision. But we have to believe that the day will come when the churches of the Lord will be golden lampstands in reality.

We may realize that the church in our locality is not yet according to the vision in Revelation 1 of a golden lampstand. But when we say "not yet" this indicates that there is hope that the time will come when all the churches will be golden in reality. In the Lord's heavenly ministry, His intention is to snuff all the burned out wicks of the local churches, to cut off the unnecessary, negative things. No doubt, there are some negative things in the local churches, but we must be careful not to focus on these things and talk about them with a critical spirit. If we are critical, then we become a part of the burned out wick. We do believe that in the church meetings and in the ministry meetings the Lord's snuffing and the Lord's filling up the lampstands with oil is going on.

Year after year, the local churches are being brought more and more into the reality of the golden lampstands. More of the Father's nature as the gold is being added to the churches, and the churches are being more and more shaped into the form of the Son, into the image of Christ. Furthermore, as the oil is being added to the lampstands, the churches are becoming more shining. Year after year, we can see more light in the local churches. This means that the Lord as the Priest is cleansing the lamps by snuffing the burned out wicks and filling the lampstands with the oil so that they are increasing in the Father's nature, increasing in the Son's image, and increasing in the Spirit's expression. As we dive into the Word with the help of the notes of the Recovery Version and the Life-study Messages, we partake of more of the Father's golden nature (2 Pet. 1:4), and this gives the Lord a way to shape us more and more into the image of Christ and to add more of the oil of the Spirit into us so that the lampstand will shine more brightly. Every local church needs to be an embodiment of the Triune God shining in its locality.