I did my best to enter into your prayers, but I could not make it. I would like to say frankly that your prayers were not prayers in a corporate way. All of you prayed individualistically. This is something of the old tradition. We must learn to come to a prayer meeting to pray as a body, a corporate body. To pray in the spiritual realm must be something corporate. Even in the worldly realm, to play football with eleven members on your team or basketball with five members on your team is not done individualistically, but in a corporate way. I was waiting, watching, and seeking a time for over half an hour that I could enter into your prayer, but I could not see what your line or what your goal was. Everyone who prayed had his own mind, his own goal. This is altogether due to our traditional background. I hope we all can realize that this morning we had a prayer meeting without a line, without a goal. We just came together to express our own feeling.
A long prayer always kills the prayer meeting. A long prayer indicates that you only care for yourself and that you do not care for others. You only care for your feeling; you do not care for the atmosphere and the flow in the meeting. When we come together to pray, you should not be the flow but the Spirit should. You should not be the line but the Spirit should. You should not be the goal but the Spirit should. We all must hold such an attitude with such a spirit that we are not the center, the flow, the line, the goal, but the Lord, the Spirit, is. Therefore, we are open—open to the Lord and open to the Spirit. If He would use us to start a prayer, maybe we would pray for just two seconds. We would not pray a long prayer to express our opinion, our feeling. Perhaps we have the inner feeling that this meeting of prayer should begin with the Lord’s mercy. Then maybe we would pray, “Lord, have mercy upon us. Thank You, Lord. Thank You that Your mercy can reach much farther than Your grace.” This is good enough. The Lord just uses us this much to open the prayer meeting with His mercy.
If we were not following the way from our traditional background and if we were following the living Spirit instantly, no one would pray a long prayer full of doctrinal points. The prayer meeting does not need that. The prayer meetings need a lot of instant, fresh inspiration with fresh points. This fresh inspiration is news, even the heavenly news. We all would pray one after another just like a team in a ball game. The members of one team play with one ball. This morning, however, everyone who prayed had their own ball. When I came in, I did not know “which ball I should catch.” How many teams were here this morning? It seemed as if everybody was a team.
Do not think that I am too strict. We are here in the Lord’s training and we are the leading ones. We are the so-called co-workers and the entire recovery of the Lord is in our hands. Yet we the leading ones were holding a prayer meeting in such a way. Since this is the case, what could we expect of the church prayer meetings? From our prayer it seems that we have never been in the Lord’s recovery. We are merely a group of Christians coming together to pray, but seemingly not something in the Lord’s recovery. I must tell you truthfully that I was very much disappointed by the prayer meeting this morning.
When some of you brothers stand up to give a testimony you like to preach. When you pray you also preach. When you speak it is always something long—a long prayer, a long testimony, and long sharing. This indicates that you probably have never dropped the old traditions. I would like to hear many of you stand up and share just two sentences. Do not tell a story, do not explain the reason why you did something, and do not present your knowledge. When some of you brothers were with us, I was always afraid of your beginning to speak either in the testing in the training or in giving a testimony. When you give a testimony, you always like to give a message full of stories at the end and at the beginning. You even pray in the same way. This shows that you have kept the oldness throughout the years. You brothers need to learn to stand up and show people “the diamond” in your testimony. You do not need to tell people that you bought the diamond from Hong Kong and that its expense forced you to borrow the money from your cousin and from your father. You do not need to tell us a story. You do not need to teach us or preach to us concerning what the diamond is and how you acquired it. This is wasting time. This is the oldness. Just take out the diamond and show it to others: “See this diamond. Do you like it? You can get it. Praise the Lord.” This kind of testimony is good enough. I am speaking to you in an allegorical way, but I believe you understand the point. In the same way, long prayers kill the prayer meeting. Your long prayer tests people’s patience. Your prayer tests how long people’s endurance will last. Brothers, we must drop the old way.
Do you believe that when the one hundred twenty met together in Jerusalem in Acts 1 that they prayed in our way? If they had prayed in this way I am sure they would have been tired and bored after ten days. The element of our traditional background could still be seen here this morning. I am not too strict. I feel that since we are in the training, I must be honest to all of you.
We must learn to forget all the things we have, all the things we know, and even all the things we have heard recently.Let us come together to pray with an open spirit with nothing occupying us; just come to the prayer meeting in an empty way. We should come to the prayer meeting with our whole being on the altar so the Lord can operate within us and even expose us. We should come to the prayer meeting with the attitude that we do not know anything but that we only know the Lord Himself. I want to assure all of you that if you would continue to use your old doctrine, your old knowledge, and your old experience or anything old you are through in the Lord’s recovery. The Lord’s recovery has nothing to do with anything old. Re means “anew”; it means to renew or to be new. It is not to be strange, peculiar, or odd, but to be new.
After we had been here together for five days, I was very burdened last night to call this prayer meeting for this morning. I expected that our oldness would be killed in the last five days. We should have come to this prayer meeting this morning very empty and very new. Our attitude should have been that we know nothing, that we have nothing, that we are nothing. Even if we are something, that does not mean anything. If you had presented yourself to the Lord in such an open, empty way the Lord would touch you instantly. I do not believe that He would touch you to pray for three minutes. He would just touch you with a feeling which could be expressed in two seconds. This is good enough. This is very living! If you would open up your mouth and speak two or three sentences from within in this way, the entire heaven would be open. Not one of you can deny that after thirty minutes of your praying together this morning no one among us had the feeling that the heavens were opened. There was no open heaven. The more you prayed, the more clouds were brought in. There was a cloudy sky due to your prayer. I do not care who is right or who is wrong. I only care for the fact that this morning in our prayer we did not have a clear sky above us. My fellowship with you this morning is a part of this training.
I have been together with some of you for over fifteen years. Your coming here has always been a test to me. I have been very much tested by your way of speaking, praying, testifying, and sharing. I do not mean that we only say, “Praise the Lord! Amen! Hallelujah!” I mean that we must practice to live in our spirit. In the Lord’s recovery we practice one thing—to live in spirit. We should not live in the old way of prayer, nor should we follow the old way of prayer. We must live in spirit and walk according to spirit. Your long prayer is altogether according to your knowledge, to your hearing, and to your kind of realization. There is no Spirit there. There are a lot of sentences full of wasted words. I would say that nearly your entire prayer was a waste; It was just to express your kind of feeling. This is not a prayer meeting. I say again that a prayer meeting should be like a team. All the members of the team are on the alert to play with one ball. You should pray in a way that the next one who prays can continue your prayer. If you played ball in such a way that no one could continue playing, you would be off the team.
Many among us here have been in the Lord’s recovery for over thirty years, but this morning some of us were silent and did not pray and others prayed in a long way. We should not think that the ones who prayed were wrong and that the ones who did not pray were not wrong. I must ask those of you who did not pray why you would not pray. Did the Spirit lead you not to pray? I must also ask those of you who prayed if the Spirit led you to pray. I think with both questions the answer is no. You prayed and the Spirit did not lead you to pray; you did not pray and the Spirit did not lead you not to pray. Therefore, we all came here and behaved in ourselves and in our old way.
The experienced ones among us have learned to be “wise.” The wisest way is not to open up your mouth. If you open your mouth, you will get in trouble. This morning, however, I am giving trouble not only to the ones who opened their mouths, but even more to the ones who did not open their mouths. Neither of you were right. The praying ones were not right. The ones who did not pray were even more not right. Therefore, we all have killed the prayer meeting this morning. We must learn from this. If the ones who did not pray had prayed in a short way, they would have taken over the prayer meeting, leaving no gap for the long prayers to creep in. If eleven members on a team are playing football and nine of these members are strong, they would take over the entire play and the two weaker ones would be left there. The game would still be quite good. I hope this fellowship will help us for the future.