I am not fellowshipping in a legal way, but in principle I beg the elders to reconsider the way to carry out the meetings. We must have a very available way to carry out God’s purpose. We cannot go the religious way. Even today our way of meeting is still very much governed and influenced by the religious way. We come together to pray, read some verses of the Bible, give some messages, and the people who have been sitting in our meetings for years eventually only get some kind of inspiration. This is better than nothing, but for the long run the Lord could not carry out His purpose in this way.
We cannot take the old way of our meeting life. If we continue to take our old way, I am afraid after another ten years we will be in the same condition. We are just giving people a little injection to help them grow in life mainly by inspiration, but no solid truth has been constituted into their being that can remain in their memory and that can be presented to others in a proper doctrinal way. By taking the way we have taken, we have lost the nature of the testimony of Jesus which must be a constitution of the proper truth that produces a proper daily living. If the saints are not properly constituted with the truth, they cannot live a proper life. If they only live by inspiration and not by the constitution of the truth, I do not trust in that kind of living to be a testimony of the Lord.
I feel that we must endeavor to make all the church meetings educational centers to build the saints up with the proper knowledge. Our meetings should not merely be a restaurant to feed the children or a hospital to heal people. If the parents of a child would not care for the education of their children until they become ten years old, their children would grow up to be persons who are not very useful to society. Proper parents must take care of bringing their children up through elementary, junior high, high school, and college. In like manner, we must educate our spiritual children. We should not only help them grow in life, but also help them to be educated and built up in the proper knowledge of the truth. To carry out this educational work we must come to the Life-study messages with the Recovery Version and the notes. If all the saints could go through the entire New Testament and the Life-studies with the Recovery Version and the notes in five years I would worship the Lord. This would be wonderful.
There is also a need among us for many young people to dedicate two years to the Lord after graduation from college. These young people who are full-time should spend four hours in the morning to study the Word. Every morning for five days a week they must get into the New Testament from Matthew through Revelation. They should study book after book and chapter after chapter with no choice for a particular book of their preference. They should go directly to the book of Matthew and study their way through the entire New Testament to the end of the book of Revelation with the help of the Recovery Version with its notes and the Life-studies. Hopefully within two years they could finish their study of the entire New Testament. In addition to these four hours of study in the morning, in the afternoon they could pray and have some fellowship and in the evening they could go to meetings or go to the campus for the work there. This would be wonderful if many of our young people could give two years to the Lord in this kind of way. It would be wonderful if there would be a number of young saints in each locality who were fully educated in the basic truth of the entire New Testament. They will be the foundation and they will teach others. After they are married, they will teach their children.
Also, the elders have to endeavor to get into the truth. Do not excuse yourself by saying that you are too old. Even at the age of eighty I spend a certain time every day in the Word. If I can make it, so can you. It all depends upon whether or not we have the heart. We all know the universal proverb which says, “If there is the will, there is the way.” All of us elder brothers need to get ourselves saturated, soaked, and constituted with this basic knowledge of God’s Word. I must testify that I love God’s Word. God is Spirit and God is life. The Spirit is in the Word and the Word is life.
It is not too much for me to propose such a thing strongly. I propose that you study the Bible with an opener, with a help. All of us who have some experience with the Life-study messages know that they may be considered as the best help. They are the most availing and prevailing key to open up the New Testament to all of us. We must remember that at the beginning of any endeavor we always feel awkward and not so successful. However, we must realize that the beginning is the experimental stage, and if we keep endeavoring to get into the truth, I believe the result that will issue will be very promising.
We should encourage the saints to have a private time in the Lord’s Word and that they should do this as a proper rule of their daily life. Regardless of how busy or how tired we are, we can reserve thirty minutes a day for a time with the Lord in the Word. It all depends upon our will. If there is the will, there is the way. To save half an hour among twenty-four hours is not a hard thing. If the saints could practice one hour or more in the Lord’s Word this would be wonderful, but at least we should encourage them to give a half an hour to the Lord every day. The saints should be encouraged to separate or sanctify thirty minutes every day to the Lord. We all can realize what a blessing this will be, and I believe this will make the Lord very pleased. Then every local church needs to find a way to carry out the meetings in the principle of giving the saints the proper education in the full knowledge of the truth.
The truth concerning the salvation of the soul is contained in a textbook we have published entitled God’s Full Salvation. Over sixty years ago Brother Nee taught the things concerning the salvation of the soul. I received this teaching and I believed in it, but I could not teach it adequately because I did not know much about it. As a result, I began to study. At that time there were no other books from which I could get any help in this matter. Just by studying the Bible, I had no key to help me to understand what the salvation of the soul was. When I was with the Brethren for seven and a half years, I never had this kind of concept. I could not get any books to help me in this matter, so I had to go back to Brothers Nee’s books. Even in his books there were not that many messages, so I had to endeavor. Eventually, I learned how to present this matter. Very few of the Chinese saints who received a great amount of help through Brother Nee’s ministry could present a message on the salvation of the soul. We have covered the salvation of the soul quite often and have published many pages on this matter with many points. We must ask ourselves, though, if we are able to present an adequate message on the salvation of the soul. It seems that we all heard this and probably we all knew this, but when we try to present it we cannot make it.