I was born into Christianity. My mother’s grandfather was saved and became a Southern Baptist. I was the fourth generation Southern Baptist. Eventually I turned to the Chinese Presbyterian church. But that disappointed me also. During that time I got saved through a young sister who was an evangelist. After I got saved I was even more disappointed with the Chinese Presbyterians. Then I turned to the British Brethren, where I stayed for seven and a half years. But neither was I so satisfied with them. Eventually I came into the inner life. Eventually I felt it was not satisfactory to me, so I went to taste something of the Pentecostalism. Pentecostalism altogether makes a show. Nothing is hidden. Everything is on the surface. There are no mystical things. Everything is an exhibit. The Pentecostal meetings are like public shows. Neither was I satisfied with this.
When I was in the Philippines I purposely went to the Catholic cathedrals a number of times to study the situation. I stayed there for a time to see how the people bought the candles and how they looked for a “saint.” Sometimes a lady would go to “Saint Teresa,” and the next time she would go to “Saint Mary.” I watched how they burned the candles and how they made their prayers to reduce the length of their parents’ time in purgatory.
When I was very young, even though I was born into Christianity, sometimes I was brought into the Buddhist temple, and I saw how the Buddhists worshipped their idols. In 1935 about seven or eight co-workers and myself stayed with Brother Watchman Nee at the famous Western Lake. Around the lake on the shore were many temples full of idols. Every morning the worshippers went there to worship the idols and to make some funny noises. I purposely went to watch their worship.
In 1958 I traveled through Europe. I went to Tehran, Persia, today’s Iran. I went to Baghdad, Iraq. I went to Beirut, Lebanon. Wherever I went I did my best to study how the people worshipped. When I was in Athens, Greece I went purposely to the Greek Orthodox Church to contact their people and to study and to look at their worship. When I was in Jerusalem I went to that square with the big denominations at the four corners: the Greek Orthodox, the Roman Catholic, the Protestant, and the Armenian. I saw all their services. I even went to the well in Samaria and paid two dollars to buy a cup of water brought up from that well by an Armenian monk. I have studied all these religious things. When I was in Jerusalem I went to the second most important mosque of Islam. The first is in Mecca and the second is in Jerusalem on Mount Zion. Probably it occupies the site of the old temple. The first thing they ask you to do is to take off your shoes. We all took off our shoes and put on their so-called holy sandals. I noticed how the Moslems, the Arabs, worshipped God. In a big yard in the open air they all prostrated themselves on the ground. They worshipped there, not just for one hour, but nearly for half a day. My point is this: I found out that different religions all invented different ways to have their worship to God. I learned all these things before 1958.
Then in 1959, as I mentioned before, I had another time to study the Pentateuch. It was with the background of the study of all the different kinds of worships invented by all the different religions that the Lord showed me the unique worship He actually wants.
After God created Adam and Eve He didn’t command them to worship Him. The principle in Genesis 2 is the same as in Exodus and Leviticus. After God created man, God brought him not to the matter of worship, but to the matter of eating. God didn’t charge them to worship, but to eat. They should eat the right thing and eat rightly. Then they would get life. If they ate the wrong thing and ate wrongly, they would get death. After man’s fall, man saw his own nakedness, and he did something to cover his nakedness. Of course, God came in and did something. He made a covering of the skin of the cattle. The main thing mentioned in Genesis 3 is the matter of eating.
Abel was the second generation of mankind. What did he do? Did he worship God? Did he sing a hymn? Did he praise God? There was no record of such a thing. He offered of the firstlings of his flock to satisfy God. Abel was the first priest because he offered the proper sacrifice to satisfy God, through which he was accepted by God. He was pleasing to God, and he was acceptable to God.
Don’t think that the priests began from Aaron and his sons. Noah also was a priest. Also in Genesis there was a priest whose name was Melchisedec. What is a priest? Or who is a priest? It is one who offers some food to God, one who serves God, not by singing, not by praising, not by bowing down, but by offering some food for God’s satisfaction. That is a priest. Singing, praising, and bowing down are all natural, human, religious inventions.
What is revealed in the holy Word concerning worship? To worship God is to offer something that pleases God and satisfies God. And this something we have to offer, according to what is revealed to us in the entire Bible is just Christ Himself. Abel’s offering to God was a type of Christ.
God’s chosen people, the children of Israel, all got fallen into Egypt. God came in and redeemed them and delivered them out of tyranny to a meeting place. To do what? To do the priestly service to God, just to bring what God wants, to bring what can please God and satisfy God to God as God’s food. Then they were to eat together with God and to rejoice in what they ate. Brothers, this is how to meet. God’s redemption and God’s salvation are for such a goal. God redeemed us to meet. God saved us to meet. God brought us out of the tyranny of Satan and the slavery of sin to a meeting place.