Paul is a pattern of a person who was desperate and diligent in cooperating with the Lord to carry out His desire for the organic building up of the Body of Christ (1 Tim. 1:16; Eph. 3:8). Paul was a pattern by the grace of God, not by his own endeavoring. Paul was what he was by the grace of God, and by this grace he labored more abundantly than all the other apostles (1 Cor. 15:10). In Ephesians 3:8 Paul said that he was less than the least of all saints. He was such a small Christian, yet he received the grace to make him such a person. If the less than the least of the saints received this grace, all of us can receive this grace. We are qualified to receive grace by exercising ourselves. We need to pray, repent, and confess to get ourselves exercised. Then grace will come to us, and this grace will make us another person. Paul said, “By the grace of God I am what I am.”
Paul is also a pattern of one who was fully exercised in the gospel. He said, “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel” (1 Cor. 9:16). Do we want to receive the blessing or the woe? If we want the blessing, we must preach the gospel. In Colossians 1:28-29 he said that he announced Christ, warning and teaching every man in all wisdom to present every man full-grown in Christ; laboring and struggling according to the operation of Christ in him in power. What a pattern Paul is! He labored by struggling. To struggle is to wrestle, to strive, and to fight. He struggled according to the operation of Christ in him. We all have this operation of Christ within us, but if we do not get ourselves exercised, the operation will stop. The operation of Christ within us is like a motor. When we switch on by getting ourselves exercised, the motor operates. We have to get ourselves exercised according to this operation, not according to our natural energy, natural strength, or natural ability. We labor and struggle according to Christ operating within us in power. This power is the power of the divine dynamo, the divine motor.
In Acts 20 Paul said that he taught the believers publicly and from house to house, admonishing each one of them night and day with tears (Acts 20:19-20, 31). Paul told us that he ran, not as uncertainly, that he boxed, not as beating the air, and that he buffeted his body and led it as a slave (1 Cor. 9:26-27). Paul subdued his body, but most people are controlled by their bodies. The body is rebellious, so we have to buffet it and lead it into slavery, making it a slave to serve our purpose. Paul presented himself to us as a pattern in this matter.
The unfaithful and imprudent slave and the evil and slothful slave will suffer punishment in the kingdom age. We need to read Matthew 24:45-51 and 25:24-30 again and again to be impressed with this warning. Today it may seem that nothing happens if we do not preach the gospel or take care of the meetings, but in that day it will not be all right. The Lord will come to judge, and we will have to give Him a full account of what we have been and of what we have done. He will send the evil and slothful slave into outer darkness. That will be a dispensational punishment in the kingdom age. Because I do not want to see this happen to any of the saints, I must be honest to present this warning.
The truth has been clearly presented to us in the Lord’s recovery. If we do not take His grace to follow Him according to His will, we will suffer the loss of the enjoyment of the kingdom and a dispensational discipline for a period of time. What I have presented in this book is the truth from the Bible. We should reconsider our concept in the light of this truth. The Lord’s recovery is full of truth. The Bible tells us the more we know the truth of the Lord’s will, the more we are held responsible (Luke 12:47-48).
If we are desperate and diligent in practicing the biblical way to serve and to meet, we will redeem the time (Eph. 5:16). Time is very precious. If it were not precious, it would not be worth being redeemed. Anything that is worthless is not worth redeeming. Because time is so precious, we have to redeem it by seizing every available opportunity. We have to treasure the time that we have, and seize every available opportunity to serve the Lord. One day He may check with us even concerning what we are reading here. In that day, the Lord could ask us why we did not respond to this fellowship. If we receive the fellowship in this book, it will be a great blessing to us and to many who will be our beneficiaries. They will receive the profit from our service, and they will be grateful to us. The church as the Body of Christ will be organically built up as the Lord’s testimony. If we do not exercise to practice the biblical way, we will suffer loss. Sinners will not be saved by us, the church will not be built up by us, and we will have no way to stand before the judgment seat of Christ.
To redeem the time, we need to be wise to abandon the things of the evil age, which destroy, damage, and spoil our time. Our talk on the telephone may be an evil thing that damages our time. If we cut short our talk on the telephone, this will save us a lot of time. We may say that we are too busy to pray, but when we get on the phone, we have much time. We have to abandon needless talk and gossip on the telephone. We need to redeem the time for the Lord.
Today you may be thirty-five years old. You may seek after the Lord and come to the meetings regularly without wanting to bear any burden. You may only want to “enjoy Christ.” Time goes by quickly. Before you know it, you will be fifty-five and then sixty-five years old. When you are sixty-five, you may consider your situation with regret. You may say: “I have been saved for so many years, and I have been meeting regularly with the church and loving the Lord, yet I have not borne any fruit. I cannot point out anyone on this earth whom I have brought to the Lord.” Even before you appear before the judgment seat of Christ, especially when you are about to die, you will recall all your years with the Lord and what you have done for Him. You will be full of regret if you did not redeem your time to gain some profit for the Lord’s interest, but regret will not bring back your time. The time will be gone.
I still remember the story of D. L. Moody as he was about to die. He said happily to all the surrounding saints, many of whom were saved through his preaching: “Good-bye!” I believe that when he was dying, he considered his past years of work for the Lord in preaching the gospel faithfully to bring thousands to the Lord. While he was dying, he was victoriously happy. How about us? When we are going to leave this earth, will we be able to happily say “Good-bye!” to the brothers and to our relatives? On the one hand, we may have some comfort in the Lord’s salvation. On the other hand, we may feel very regretful because of the way that we lived our Christian life. Thank the Lord, though, that we still have today, just as the book of Hebrews tells us (Heb. 3:7-8, 13, 15; 4:7). It is not too late for us because we still have today.
When we appear before the Lord at His judgment seat, what will matter is how much fruit we have borne. We cannot tell Him that we did not have time to bear fruit when we spent much time to take care of our homes and private interests. In this age, we need to be fully occupied with the Lord’s interests. Then the Lord will say at the judgment seat, “Well done, good and faithful slave...enter into the joy of your lord” (Matt. 25:21, 23). If we are not faithful to cooperate with the Lord in this age, He will call us evil and slothful slaves and will cast us out into outer darkness (Matt. 25:26, 30). May the Lord have abundant mercy upon us that we will reconsider our way and take His way to please Him.