Lord, we need You, and we need You to have mercy upon all of us. Lord, we thank You for Your sovereign environment. You have brought us all together; Lord, we thank You for this gathering, and we believe it is of You. We believe, Lord, that You have a purpose for this gathering. We do treasure this time. Lord, be with us.
We thank You, Lord, for Your cleansing blood. This is what we trust in every day. Lord, we are still so natural, so full of the old creation. Too much we have been living in ourselves or doing things in the flesh. Even our view, Lord, our purpose, our motive, and our intention are altogether impure. How much, Lord, we need Your cleansing, the cleansing of Your redeeming blood. We thank You, Lord, for the redeeming blood. Lord Jesus, even in our service to You, our activities for You, the work we have done is impure. We are so impure, Lord; we need Your cleansing. Cleanse us thoroughly. Lord, we have regret for the past, and we repent to You of all the things. Lord, we still take You as our sin offering and our trespass offering.
Lord, we come together to look unto You that we may receive mercy and find grace to meet our timely need. Lord, we need You; we need You to grant us a further visitation. Lord, open the heavens and clear the sky. Even, Lord, open Yourself to us. We are looking to You and to Your speaking, to Your unveiling, and to Your deep, deep work within us.
O Lord Jesus, we can do nothing, and we have nothing. Lord, everything is entirely up to You. Lord, give us the willingness, and make us ready. Lord, purify our intentions, and purify our heart. Give us a sober mind; even, Lord, give us a seeking and open spirit. Lord, do cover us. We trust in Your prevailing blood. Lord, defeat the enemy for Yourself, for Your recovery, and for these two weeks of this training. Lord, defeat him in me every day. Lord, keep us in Your presence. Amen, Lord.
In our burden to see the Lord’s present move among us in His recovery, we need to consider twelve main items, beginning with the ministry of the New Testament. Second, we need to see what the up-to-date vision in the Lord’s recovery is. Third, we need to see the way to carry out this vision, which is a very crucial matter.
Fourth, we will fellowship about the use of reference books. The Lord’s testimony has been on this earth for over nineteen centuries. Many saints have been very much used by the Lord, and many of them have written something. The way we will use those books is a major consideration that has very much to do with our present work and surely affects this work either profitably or not profitably. We need a thorough consideration of how to use the reference books.
In addition, we will fellowship about the regions of the ministry, and about the relationships between the regions of the ministry and the local churches. These are items number five and six. Seventh, we will consider the Chinese-speaking work and the Chinese-speaking meetings. This has been raised up by the Lord’s move, especially in recent months. Therefore, we need to consider how we should cooperate with the Lord’s move in this matter. Eighth, we need to fellowship about the matter of publications for the Lord’s ministry.
Furthermore, we need to spend more time to fellowship about the elders’ position and function. We need to reconsider, to review, and to thoroughly get into the matter of the elders’ position and function. This is the ninth item. Tenth, we need to fellowship thoroughly about the damages of control. Then we will fellowship about the liberty of the saints.
As the last item, we need to fellowship again concerning our attitude toward the denominations and the free groups. In other words, we need to reconsider what our attitude should be toward our fellow Christians, the fellow believers who are not meeting with us.
When we come to the ministry of the New Testament economy, we need to see why the apostle Paul emphasized the matter of the New Testament ministry so strongly in chapter three of 2 Corinthians. The word ministry is defined by the apostle Paul very much in that chapter, which we have covered quite thoroughly in the Life-study of that book. Paul stressed the New Testament ministry in that chapter because he was strongly vindicating his ministry, which he called the ministry of the new covenant, compared with and in contrast to the Old Testament ministry, which he called the ministry of the old covenant. In 2 Corinthians 3 we can see that in God’s eyes there are only two ministries in the entire Bible. One is called the ministry of the old covenant (vv. 7, 9, 14), and the other, the ministry of the new covenant (v. 6). The word covenant is actually the same as the word testament. It is more clear and more convenient for us to use the word testament because the two sections of our Bible use these two terms, the Old Testament and the New Testament. What we call the New Testament and the Old Testament, Paul calls the new covenant and the old covenant.
In the Bible, God only revealed to us two ministries, one of the Old Testament or the old covenant, and one of the New Testament or the new covenant. Actually, these two ministries are one, just as the Old Testament and the New Testament are one Bible with two parts or two sections. The Bible means the Book, and it denotes God’s holy writings, the Holy Scriptures. The Scriptures also mean the writings, so all of these terms refer to the same book. God does not have two Bibles; He has only one Bible with two sections, the Old Testament and the New Testament. In the same way, God’s ministry is actually one with two sections, the old section and the new section. The Old Testament was a preparation for the New Testament which was to come.
After much study of the holy Word and after many years of laboring in the Lord’s Word, we can see today that God’s ministry is to use His chosen vessels to carry out His economy, that is, to fulfill His eternal purpose by dispensing Himself into His chosen people that they may express Him. For the accomplishment of His economy, God needs men as His chosen vessels.