Some of the elders may think that this is not easy. This is correct. To be an elder is not so easy. This may encourage some of you to resign. Actually, some of you have to resign. You are like a mother hen occupying the nest without laying any eggs. It is better for you to move out and let some young hen come in to lay some eggs for the children. I am being honest with all of you. We must realize that the Bible does not give us the term of eldership. In the United States the terms for the presidency, the senate, and the congress are clearly defined; the terms are four years, six years, and two years respectively. If you are not very competent in governing, the people may not re-elect you after your term expires. There is no term, however, concerning the eldership in the New Testament. This really bothers me because some elders have been “inaugurated” into the eldership for a life-long term.
If I were occupying the nest without laying any eggs, I surely would go back home to sleep, to rest, or to go to the mountains for some good sightseeing and some fresh air. If I stay on the nest without laying any eggs, I delay the saints. If one hundred saints are under your leadership and you do not lay any eggs, they will get delayed. I do not like to see you moved off the nest, but I would like you to exercise to begin to lay eggs tomorrow. Then everyone will be happy and everyone will be peaceful in the church life. If you are there on the nest without laying eggs for two years, who could be happy? Then you may say, “If I would not be the elder, who would be or who else can be?” If you go away, you would see that some can be an elder. You must consider the real situation. The folks of your family were nearly starved to death without the proper meals being served.
In principle I hope that you would take my word to help the saints in their personal time to get into the Word and also to bring the church meeting into such a living way and, even more, a rich way. The result will come out in many directions when the saints are saturated with the truth. The Bible indicates that whenever we are filled up within we will utter something (Eph. 5:18-19). When the saints are filled up within they will speak something. Their utterance may be the preaching of the gospel, the teaching of the truth, or the ministry of life. Even now we may encourage the saints to preach the gospel, teach the truth, and minister life, but they are empty. They have the heart and the desire to speak something, but they have no word to say because they are empty. They are not full. Even if some of you try to preach, you will realize that your preaching is not that full. You may try to teach and discover that your teaching is not that full. You want to minister life to others in your neighborhood, to your cousins, to your relatives and in-laws, but you do not have the riches of life. How then can you minister life to others?
Therefore, it is basic to have the saints getting into the Word personally every day and to have the entire meeting entering into the truth. Meeting after meeting and week after week you will see the accumulation of the truth go onward. I believe this is the proper way. This proper diet will kill all the germs on the negative side. Then there will be very few problems in the church life because the germs will have been killed. So many saints will be healthy and strong because they received the nourishing diet. This holy Word with the Spirit as the content does everything for the church—it produces the church, builds up the church, heals the wounds, swallows all kinds of darkness, and nourishes, strengthens, and enriches. This is the basic thing. If we could just do this one thing, the church would be wonderful.
First Corinthians 14:26 tells us that whenever we come together, each has a psalm, a teaching, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Brother Nee once said in a message that probably most of the seeking readers of the Bible would think that while we are coming together and meeting together, the inspiration from the Spirit comes to us and each one has something. Many understand this verse to mean that while the meeting is going on, the believers have something after the inspiration of the Spirit. Brother Nee said that this was wrong. The predicate does say that this one has and that one has. However, the predicate does not indicate that you are going to have. It indicates that before coming to the meeting, you have something already. This is just like when you are going to have a love feast. Before coming together the food has already been prepared, and then you come with the food. When the time comes for the feast, each one has something.
Based upon this principle, all the elders and the seeking ones who bear the real burden of the Lord’s testimony should be charged and encouraged to pray much. For instance, let us say that tomorrow night we are going to have a meeting covering Romans 8:9-11. There may be two Life-study messages covering these three verses. All the elders and the seeking ones should get themselves prepared before coming to the meeting. They should read and pray-read the verses and look into the messages to get the crucial points. In every message there are crucial points. They should pick up the crucial points, especially the points concerning the life supply or concerning the unveiling of the truth. These seeking ones, especially the elders, should prepare themselves in this way. Then the meeting begins. You have to keep the meeting open to everybody. Let them function. After ten or fifteen minutes nothing may have come out, which indicates that the attendants are not that rich. There is no need to blame them. The elders and the seeking ones who really bear the responsibility of the Lord’s recovery in their locality must make up the lack. We must advise the seeking ones that sometimes they should bear the responsibility to give the meeting a good start, but they should not continue to occupy the entire meeting. They need to strike the match to start the burning, and then keep their hands off the meeting and let others do it. If after ten or fifteen minutes nothing good has come out, then the ones who bear the responsibility, especially the elders, must do it again. By this way no meeting will be so empty, but every meeting will be a rich meal because it is under the hand of the elders and the seeking ones.