We have seen that God has an economy, which is to have the Divine Trinity worked into us that we, the chosen ones who have His life, may become His corporate expression. We have also seen that in order to accomplish this eternal economy, the Triune God must go through a procedure, which is to dispense the Divine Trinity step by step into us that He might become our life and that we might become His living, that God and man may be mingled and joined as one. This procedure is His dispensing, and it is for the purpose of arriving at God's goal, which is His economy. After this, we saw that the first supply in this dispensing is the supply to the believers in their growth in life. When God dispenses Himself into us and His element is daily added into us, we the believers grow in life. In this chapter we must see another aspect of the supply in God's dispensing. God's dispensing is not only our supply in our growth in life, but it is also our supply in our daily living. This is something very practical and precious.
Since my youth I have heard many teachings and doctrines from Christianity. In general, these teachings and doctrines all teach Christians to live a moral life and to be proper and upright in their conduct, so that they may glorify God through their good works. This is not very different from the ethical teaching and philosophy taught by the Chinese. The first few sentences in Confucius' book The Great Learning are quite profound. He said, "The way of the great learning is in the developing of the bright virtue, in the renewing of the person, and it ends with supreme goodness." This means that the highest teaching is one that develops the "bright virtue" that is already within man, that man may be renewed day by day until he reaches perfection. If the Bible taught only morality and ethics, then the classical books of the Chinese would be just as good as the Bible. If this were the case, why would the Chinese have needed the missionaries to teach them? For this reason, I began to reject Christianity at the age of sixteen or seventeen.
Through the mercy of the Lord, I heard the genuine gospel at the age of nineteen. A young lady from Shanghai came to my hometown to preach the gospel. Her preaching was full of power; it was very uncommon and was different from what I had heard before. She spoke of the Egyptian ruler Pharaoh's enslaving of the Israelites; furthermore, she said that this Pharaoh was a figure of Satan, and that Egypt was a figure of the world. Today, Satan as the prince of this world is enslaving men, especially God's chosen people. When I heard this, I was deeply touched. I said in my heart to the Lord, "Lord, I do not want to be deceived by Satan anymore. Although I am still living in the world, I do not want the world anymore. I just want You." On that day I was clearly saved.