Now we do not need more teaching. What we need is practice. We all must practice in our daily walk, on our job, in our school, at our homes. Practice! Practice burning the incense! Do not fear exposure—to be exposed is a kind of glory. The most glorious among the twelve disciples was Peter—he was so exposed; the Lord continually put him on the spot. He was so open, so bold, and so stupid. But that is exactly what the Lord needs. We all need to be like that; then we will learn something. We will learn to be right by being wrong. That is the only way. The more mistakes we make, the more we will be corrected. In any case, exposed or not, almost everyone knows where we are; so why hide? Let us put ourselves on the altar and allow the High Priest to divide us joint from marrow.
In the early years the church in Taipei grew very quickly due mainly to one reason—a willingness to be exposed; everybody was willing to be exposed. Everyone but yourself knows where you are; you are the only one who does not know your own state. You need to be exposed, not for others’ sake, but for your sake. It is so good to be exposed. Let us practice all the time, practice to burn the incense, not fearing to be exposed. Let us practice individually, in small groups, and in the meetings. Practice will make perfect. We should not merely go on according to the stage we have already attained. We must learn something ever new and fresh.
As we have mentioned already, it is really difficult for any Christian to discover the proper way for Christians to meet— this matter is not specifically recorded in the New Testament. The way we have practiced in the past has been more or less traditional; we have either followed the traditions of Christianity or we have instituted traditions of our own. In the past thirty-five or forty years, we who have been in some responsibility among the Lord’s children have had a deep conviction that the way we have carried on the meetings is questionable. In a sense, we do not know what is right, but we do know what is wrong. We do not know what we should have, but we do know what we should not have.
Brother Watchman Nee is so bold to say in some of his writings that the so-called fundamental Christian services must be done away with. He said on occasion that such services were just “the custom of the nations.” When the people of Israel were brought into the land of Canaan, God clearly told them that they should not adopt any customs or habits of the nations surrounding them. But eventually they did this very thing: they assimilated many things, not from the law of Moses, not from the teaching of the prophets, but from the practices of the nations. Likewise, Brother Nee had the boldness to declare that the modern Christian services do not spring from the teaching of God, but from “the custom of the nations.” We are all well aware of the general arrangement of these meetings. There is usually an eleven o’clock Sunday morning service, set at that hour so that everyone may have an opportunity to sleep late. Then the church-goers arrive for the time of “worship”; but what is called the “worship service” is almost a period of entertainment and relaxation. The burden of responsibility falls upon the hired pastors. The men of the congregation have been working in their offices, and the women have been laboring at home; therefore, this is the time, they say, for the pastor to do his job. The pastor preaches and the choir, led by the director of music, sings to the congregation. If any of the pew members are asked to function, with few exceptions they will say that this is not their job, but the pastor’s. I am not being critical, but just presenting the situation.
Praise the Lord for His recovery. It is a recovery of being in the spirit and on the ground of the church, but it is something more. To be in the spirit and on the proper ground are vital, but these are only preparatory to burning the incense. In the center of God’s dwelling place on this earth is the altar of incense. The goal of the entire service within the sphere of the tabernacle is the burning of the incense. We must have the burning of the incense in the church meetings. We have seen that it is the priesthood, the corporate body of the priests, that burns the incense. Who are the priests? The hired pastors, the director of music, the choir, and the soloists? I believe we are clear that we are all the priests.
To burn the incense we need the priesthood and we need the sphere of the priestly ministry, the proper tabernacle. The practical expression of the tabernacle today is undoubtedly the local church. There is no other way to interpret the typology. If we do not have the local church, we cannot have the tabernacle. As the people of God, we need such a tabernacle to worship and to serve God. Praise the Lord for His recovery of the local churches. Now in this country we do have some genuine local churches, we do have the reality of the tabernacle. Whether this tabernacle is up to standard or not is another matter—we leave that for the moment. In any case, we do have the local tabernacles. If it were only universal, we could not touch it; it must be local. Just the tabernacle alone, however, is useless: We must have the tabernacle with the priesthood, and since we are the priesthood, we all must learn to function.
Brothers, you must function. Sisters, you must function. If I could, I would be a troublemaker to every one of you. I would give you no rest until every one of you learns to function in the meetings. It is really difficult to be delivered from anything traditional. I know your habit of looking at the ceiling or looking around at the walls in the meetings. You may say that you are more for God than that—you do not look around or care for the adornment of others. You care for the Lord, but in a silent way, waiting for either the pastor, the responsible brothers, or the full-time workers to do their job. Am I right? This is the traditional way. So many take this for granted as normal and proper, but we are bold to say that it is one hundred percent wrong, one hundred percent according to tradition. This is Christianity. I challenge anyone to find a verse in the Bible saying that when we come together as Christians we must be silent. On the other hand, we have this word, “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord,” mentioned seven times in the Psalms. Who taught you to be so silent? Not the Lord. You must not bring your traditions into the Lord’s recovery.
For years we have been seeking a way to help all the Lord’s children function in the meetings. I do believe the Lord has begun to show us the way by the corporate pray-reading and praise-reading of His Word. I am not predicting, but I have a deep conviction that there is yet something new awaiting us. In any case, the principle is this: we all must learn to function. Do not still be controlled by the traditions. May the Lord be merciful to fully recover us.