Christianity also opens the way for the nominal Christians to move and act in the so-called churches. We have already mentioned this point in our fellowship concerning the tares. The tares are false believers, believers only in name, who do not have the divine life in them. The Lord tells us that the tares are the sons of the evil one (Matt. 13:38). The judgment upon the tares will be so serious (vv. 40-42) because they have been confusing, frustrating, and damaging God’s economy. In the eyes of God, the tares are exceedingly evil. Christianity is full of false believers.
Christendom also builds up hierarchy. The hierarchy in the Catholic Church has been fully established with the pope as the head followed by the cardinals, the archbishops, and the bishops. The woman depicted in Revelation 17 is clothed in scarlet (v. 4). The color scarlet is found everywhere in the Vatican. The most striking use of scarlet is in the garb of the cardinals, who have red hats and red robes. The daughters of the great prostitute in Revelation 17 follow their mother in this matter of hierarchy. Which denomination has no hierarchy? The highest degree of hierarchy can be found in The Mother of the Prostitutes, while a lower degree of hierarchy is practiced and found with her daughters. Therefore, we must hate any kind of hierarchy.
If the elders in the local churches consider themselves higher than others, that is the satanic thought of hierarchy. There is no hierarchy among us. No one in the churches is higher than others. Everybody is the same. The thought of hierarchy is in our fallen nature. Everyone likes to be a king or a leader. Some brothers are ambitious to be elders, and some wives of elders feel that they are above others. The wives of the elders should not consider themselves as queens but as wives of slaves. All the elders are slaves to the saints. It is a shame for an elder’s wife to consider her husband higher than others. The Lord Jesus Himself exposed this matter of ambition and hierarchy in Matthew 20:20-28 and 23:1-12. For me to consider myself higher than another brother is shameful. If you consider me to be higher than you, the satanic thought of hierarchy is in your mind. We all have to love each other and respect one another, yet we should not consider anyone to be higher than others. Among us there is only One who is higher than everybody—the Lord Jesus. All of Christendom is filled with hierarchy.
Christendom also utilizes the big meetings as a facade to attract people into the religion of Christianity. Since October of 1984, I began to promote the small home meetings. Some of the saints thought these small home meetings were very poor in comparison to the big meetings. I attended a small home meeting in Taipei. At first I was disappointed. By the scheduled time of meeting there were only an old man, a small girl, and a young school teacher. Gradually, however, many new ones came. The stronger saints had gone out to bring these new ones to the meeting. By the end of the meeting I was very encouraged with the functioning. Some, however, like to have the facade of the big meetings to attract people. Today’s Christianity attracts people with a formal, religious gathering. When the Lord Jesus was on this earth, He had a small meeting in the house in Bethany (John 12:1-3). He also ministered to a large gathering of five thousand in the wilderness (Matt. 14:14-21). This large gathering in the wilderness was full of spiritual reality, unlike the big meetings in Christianity which are full of formal attraction with little spiritual reality.
The new way for the Lord’s new move in Taipei has brought in thousands of people. Since August of 1986, twenty-four thousand have been baptized and one-third of these still remain to meet in their homes. We have never had so many home meetings in our past history of thirty years in Taipei. When we had only the big meetings, we had very little increase. The attendants came to the meetings again and again to see the same faces. Whenever new ones were in the big meetings, we were happy. But very few of them remained. Eventually, many of the saints began to lose their heart for the meetings, and they only had a heart to come to see each other. Many of us have to admit that the meetings in the Lord’s recovery have been lacking in power and motivation. This is why I told the church in Taipei in October of 1984 that we must drop the old way, which is a part of the degraded Christianity. We have to take care of all the saints, but not in the old way of Christianity. We have to take care of them in the new way by helping them and stirring them up to function in bringing people to the Lord and in sending meetings to people’s homes. We should not merely ask the new ones to come to the church meetings, but we should bring the church meeting into their homes.
Finally, the deformed and degraded Christianity forfeits the proper church life, not caring for the building up of the Body of Christ. The whole practice in today’s Christianity is forfeiting and annulling the church life. There is no concern for the building up of the Body of Christ, so the divine economy is altogether dropped and missed. The Lord’s new way is to recover the church life so that the Body of Christ can be built up through the church life in many localities.
My burden is to open up the real situation of today’s Christianity that we may know where we should go and where we should remain. We should stand for the testimony of Jesus in this age. We need to compare what is revealed in the Bible with what is being practiced in today’s Christianity. We must stay away from the practice of the deformed and degraded Christianity and come back to the divine revelation for the Lord’s recovery. The preaching of the gospel and the teaching of the Bible do take place in Christianity. But in a larger sense, the religious practice of Christianity kills the living members of Christ and annuls the organic function of the members of the Body of Christ. This religious system also involves the building up of hierarchy.
We must come back purely to the God-ordained way to practice the New Testament economy so that God can operate in His Trinity to dispense His triune being into us that we may be filled and saturated with the divine being to become His very expression on this earth. This is what God wants today. Christianity has missed this, and God is recovering this in His recovery. The way to meet is not a small matter. The traditional way of meeting kills and annuls the functions of the members of the Body of Christ and builds up something satanic and demonic. We must come back to the biblical way, the new way, the living way, that affords God the opportunity to operate among His chosen people.