This meeting was called because of an urgent need. This urgent need is still related to the home meetings. You can tell by now that I cannot forget the home meetings even in my dreams. Even though I may be giving other messages, in the end I always come back to the home meetings. I cannot help it. Whatever fills the heart will come out from the mouth. My heart is in the home meetings. My concern is for the home meetings. My joy is in the home meetings, and my complaints are concerning the home meetings. I do not care for anything else. I just care for the home meetings. If we have the home meetings, we can say Hallelujah. If we do not have the home meetings, even if we say Hallelujah, it will not be for long. Only when we have the home meetings will our Hallelujahs be strong and long-lasting.
I am not joking. Based on my observation from every angle, I am convinced that the increase and spread of the church depend fully on the home meetings. This is based on my sixty years of experience. I have discovered the law for the increase and spread of the church. Everything has its own laws. Science is the discovery of these laws. The law for the increase of the church is the home meetings.
We have been meeting on the island of Taiwan since 1949. It has now been thirty-six years. On the one hand, I have been constantly working. On the other hand, I have been constantly researching in the laboratory. I never stop studying. Today the university education continues to improve every day. The improvement does not come from the classrooms. It comes from the laboratory. We all need an awakening. The less we study, the less we progress. While we work, we must find out the principles and the laws.
For the past five years I have been studying the reason for the lack of growth of the work in Taiwan. Why has there not been any increase in the number of saints in the churches in Taiwan? I have been looking for a reason. Recently the Lord has shown me something. Since I came back last year, I have been speaking about the home meetings. The home meetings are the foundation for the building of the church. If we give up this foundation, surely our number will not increase. Today on the five continents, there are over six hundred churches. The work here in Taiwan is the largest among them all. Of all the six hundred churches, the biggest church is the church in Taipei. For this reason I had to come back here. Taipei is like a source. If we do not take care of the source, if the source is not strong, the other churches will have a difficult time.
At present, there are about eighty churches in Taiwan. There are over twenty churches in Japan, and in Korea there are also over twenty churches. In Malaysia there are also over twenty churches, and in Indonesia the number is between twenty and thirty. In Thailand there are fifteen to twenty churches, and Hong Kong and Singapore have one each. In the Philippines there are over a hundred and thirty. In Australia there are six, and in New Zealand we also have over twelve. In North America, with the United States and Canada together, there are over a hundred and ten churches. In Central and South America there are another hundred churches. Altogether, in the Americas there are over two hundred churches. Another thirty or more are in Europe, and in Africa there are over ten. All these five continents are open to us. Most of these places were raised up through the English publications. All of them are waiting like babies for their parents’ feeding. Our workers are too few. But I feel that the source of the Lord’s recovery is in Taiwan. If Taiwan stands still, it will be difficult to move all the other places. When I compared Taiwan with the other places, I had no choice but to sacrifice the other places. I did not do this lightly. I made this decision after much deliberation.