It is difficult for a capable person to rely on God and receive leading. Nine out of ten who rise up for the Lord are bold and strong in their will. In the service of the Lord, such people need to be softened within once they rise up. One who is weak is useless, but one who is too strong is also useless. One who is weak cannot rise up, but one who is too strong does not trust in the Lord. We must always remember that serving the Lord is a matter of the Lord’s work and of meeting His need in coordination with Him. Most people are weak when they should be strong and strong when they should be weak. Hence, among so many people, it is difficult for the Lord to find some who are truly useful. Some people, no matter how many times the Lord calls, cannot rise up; they are either concerned for their wives or concerned for their children. Others who rise up, however, cannot be softened inwardly. They are like a wild donkey, acting apart from the Lord.
In the matter of serving the Lord, we must be clear concerning three points, or we will be altogether useless. First, we must see that the Lord’s work is carried out by His mingling with man. The Lord does not work alone, and neither can man work by himself; rather, the Lord works in union with man, and man needs to let the Lord work because He is Lord. Second, we must see that we need to rise up strongly to cooperate with Him to meet His need. Third, we need to see that once we rise up, we must immediately prostrate ourselves before the Lord. Otherwise, our zeal, our pursuit, and our desire will not match the Lord.
The Lord often wants us to stop, but we cannot stop. Furthermore, when we rise up in response to the Lord, He will say, “You should fall down in Me.” Many of us cannot do this without tricks and methods. In my service with the brothers from 1946 until now, I have learned to not use tricks or human methods when we encounter problems. I fear tricks more than sins. This does not mean that we should be foolish or even that we are not tricky but that the One whom we serve does not need our tricks. Everyone who serves the Lord must learn these three crucial lessons.
It is difficult for those who cannot rise up to rise up, but it is also difficult for those who have risen up to fall down. Only those who have risen up and then fall down are useful before God. Only those who can stop in God’s work, rise up in His call, and fall down in His service can serve God and administrate the church. When we sense that the Lord is not in a certain work, we should not do it. Even if it will have a great impact, we should not do it. Although we may receive people’s praise, we should not do anything that the Lord is not in. Without fellowshipping with the Lord and without His presence, we should not go on by ourselves. Moses’ leading of the children of Israel depended upon the Lord’s presence (Exo. 33:15). When we serve the Lord, we also need the Lord’s presence.
These three points—stopping in God’s work, rising up in His call, and falling down in His service—seem to be contradictory, and some people cannot tolerate the changes. When we want them to stop, they cannot stop, but once they stop, they go to an extreme and even stop meditating and praying. Stopping when the Lord wants us to stop is not an easy lesson. A brother who had great enthusiasm was unable to stop no matter how much we implored him. When he finally stopped, he stopped to the point of not even acknowledging that he was a Christian. This is a problem. When we wanted him to stop, he could not stop, but when he stopped, he stopped in an extreme way. As a consequence, he lost his usefulness to the Lord. Hence, we must learn to stop ourselves in the Lord’s work, to rise up in the Lord’s command, and to continually fall down in His service. No matter how much the children of Israel tormented Moses, he was willing to rise up, but he also always fell down before God and let Him work.
Question: Although we should not play tricks when we serve the Lord, we also need to be prudent. What is the difference between playing tricks and being prudent?
Answer: Matthew 10:16 says, “Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be therefore prudent as serpents and guileless as doves.” To be prudent is to escape the difficulty and harm that come from others; to be guileless is not to hurt others. Prudence is related to avoiding being hurt by others; hence, it is not applicable among the saints. Being prudent is different from employing tricks. Tricks are used to reach one’s goals, and prudence is necessary to avoid being hurt by others.
Question: Peter followed the Lord unconditionally because he met the Lord. However, we have not met the Lord. What should we do?
Answer: If a person wants to answer the Lord’s call, he first must experience the Lord’s call. If we have experienced the Lord’s call, we have met the Lord. Peter answered the Lord’s call so quickly because he met the Lord. If we have not met the Lord, we do not need to answer the Lord. However, I do not think that there is anyone among us who can truly say that he has never met the Lord. If a brother says that he has never met the Lord, he must not be saved. Every saved one has met the Lord in his spirit.
What does it mean to be saved? A brother once said that the strictness of our interview with people before their baptism should be re-examined. However, the strictness of the interview is not the point; rather, we must be able to sense that a person has met the Lord when we interview him. If he has met the Lord once, he is saved. However, if he has merely heard, believed, and received a doctrine, he is a pious person at the most. If someone has met the Lord, he may outwardly say that he does not believe, but he cannot help but believe inwardly.
Every saved one has met the Lord, but the difference is that some have met the Lord in a strong way, and others in only a more moderate way. Likewise, whenever a person meets the Lord, there is some demand within him; this demand is the Lord’s calling. Our concern is not whether someone has met the Lord, but whether, after meeting the Lord, he is serious, quick to respond, and absolute. Before he meets the Lord, he does not need to answer the Lord’s call, but after he is saved and has met the Lord, he should immediately answer the Lord’s call.
It also is unlikely that we have not met the Lord after being saved because the Lord comes to us repeatedly, even as we are walking on the street. Sometimes when we are in the car, He comes to us; sometimes when we are shopping, He comes to meet us. He comes to meet us at different times. The real question is how we respond when He comes to meet us. Our problem is not related to being unable to touch and meet Him but in being too slow and dull in answering His call.
Question: Was Moses called after he turned eighty?
Answer: A person’s calling has a beginning, course, and completion. If we investigate the time when Moses was called, it was before the foundation of the world. The calling of Moses was not an accidental act or idle whim of God. The name Moses means “drawn out.” Long before the foundation of the world, he was drawn out. God also set apart Paul in his mother’s womb (Gal. 1:15). Not only did the matter of our calling take place before the foundation of the world; even our salvation occurred before the foundation of the world.
This shows that God took several steps in the preparation of Moses. First, God prepared godly parents who infused him with godly thoughts after his birth (Exo. 2:7-9). Second, God prepared the environment of the palace in Egypt for him so that he could receive the best education of his time to lead the children of Israel (3:10; Acts 7:22). Moses’ commission could not have been undertaken by someone who did not have any training. Hence, God allowed him to enter into the palace to be properly regulated and cultivated. Third, through the infusing of his parents, Moses had the godly thought and concept that he needed to rescue the children of Israel (Heb. 11:24-25). To him, this was the beginning of God’s calling. Fourth, God prepared the wilderness for him in order to train his character. Although he had godly thoughts and had received a high education, his character was not fully trained, nor had he gone through any human sufferings (Acts 7:23-28). He was very strong. He had no children or any special environment, so God caused him to shepherd a flock in the wilderness for forty years so that he could be refined in a furnace like hard steel (v. 29). When all these environments had been arranged successfully, God came in and called him in a definite way. At this time, God’s calling was complete (v. 30).
Hence, it is difficult to determine when God called Moses. If we consider the source, we must say that it was before the foundation of the world, but also it was in the palace, the wilderness, and the training process. Then God came in. The principle is the same with us. If we look back, we can testify that our calling was predestinated by God in eternity past. Then at a certain time, He arranged for us to be in the proper environment and did not let us go; it was at that time that we answered His call.
Question: Does the so-called boundary of work apply only to the workers?
Answer: In the Bible, the noun work has a broad and a narrow sense. In a broad sense, whatever God does in this age through the church, the saints, and the workers through their service to Him is the work of God. In a narrow sense, there are a few, such as Paul, who are chosen and called by God and commissioned by the Lord to do His work. Hence, the meaning of the word worker also has two meanings, one broad and one narrow. In a broad sense, all the saints who preach the gospel for God are God’s workers. In a narrow sense, only those, like the apostles, who are sent by God to preach the gospel and establish churches in every place are workers of God. For example, in the broad sense we may tell the saints that everyone needs to do God’s work, meaning that all the brothers and sisters have a part in the work of God. In principle, the narrow sense is included in the broad sense. For example, some answer God’s call particularly and serve God in a specific way.
Question: After hearing this kind of message, we are afraid to move in the meetings. For instance, if we think that God has not moved, we do not want to move; consequently, no one even dares to open his mouth to pray.
Answer: This shows that you have not touched the main point of the message but instead the trivial points. It is not right if you do not move and do not pray because God has not moved during the time of prayer. If we need to wait until God moves in order to breathe and eat, could we survive? Without God moving, man should not move. This is the right principle, but you have applied it in a wrong way. Not moving without God means that our service before Him must be initiated by Him, not by us. This is a great principle.
Of course, this great principle can be applied in small matters. For example, in a prayer meeting, if God does not move, we should not move. In terms of the responsibility of the meeting, this is the right principle. However, we need to see that the responsibility for coming to the meeting is related to the burden we have received. Hence, when we come to a meeting, we should bear the burden to pray, sing, or share. This is not a matter of coming to the meeting and asking whether God is moving or whether God wants us to bear the responsibility of the meeting. Before bearing responsibility, we should first ask whether God has moved and entrusted this responsibility to us. If God is moving in us, guiding us, leading us, and wanting us to bear some responsibility, we will know what is from God as soon as we receive it. After receiving a responsibility, we do not need to wait any longer and continue to seek the Lord. If someone entrusts a child to our care, and we are clear that this is of the Lord, we must care for him by cooking for him and giving him a bath; there is no need to wait for the Lord to move further. In our service we often have the right principle but the wrong application.
In the meeting a brother may say in a very spiritual way, “If God does not move, I will not move; if I move first, it would be only a religious activity.” A brother who says this, sooner or later, will become passive. We do not come to a prayer meeting simply to attend but to pray. We can first ask the Lord inwardly, “Should I go to the prayer meeting?” This can be compared to someone inviting us to eat a meal at his house. Before going, we should consider whether or not to go. But after deciding to go, we should freely eat and drink when we are at his house. If we do not eat or drink anything, people will ask us why. It would be improper for us to say that we need to consider it, because the time for consideration has passed. Therefore, in a meeting, we should actively use our spirit to fellowship with God. In this fellowship we will touch God’s feeling, and we will know whether or not we should pray. We should not be passive in the meetings.
A genuinely spiritual person usually has much to minister in the meetings because he is joined to the Lord in fellowship. In a fellowship meeting, if everyone is waiting and no one opens his mouth, at a certain point someone will give a strange testimony, and then someone else will also give a strange testimony. This will damage the meeting. Everyone wants to be spiritual and wait for the moving of the Holy Spirit, but this will cause the entire meeting to fall into a kind of passivity. If we all actively exercise our spirit to fellowship with the Lord in spirit, we will have something to say, and the meeting will be living. Therefore, we should actively fellowship with the Lord in spirit in every meeting and not passively wait for Him to move our deadened spirit. We must all learn this lesson.
What does it mean to be active in spirit? What does it mean to be passive in spirit? What does it mean to act in fellowship? And what does it mean to act independently? We must learn these lessons. Acting independently is religion; acting in union with the Lord is the church. We must exercise our spirit so that our spirit will be strong to touch God. We should not give our opinions, but we can ask God to give us His commands. We must be so strong that we can ask God, force God, and urge God to issue commands. This is to exercise our spirit and to be active in spirit. This means that we must exercise our spirit to touch the Spirit of God and allow the Spirit of God to push our spirit. In this way, when we contact God, we will be able to touch God’s will immediately. If our spirit is living, we will cause the entire meeting to touch the Spirit whether we are praying or reading the Bible.