In every Christian meeting we worship God, edify others, are built up, and shame God’s enemy, the devil. This is the fourth aspect of the purpose of our meetings. If we do not meet, we lose the opportunity to shame the devil. The meetings are the greatest shame to the devil. This is the reason he does not like Christians to meet. Whereas the positive side of Christian meetings is to receive grace, the negative side is to put Satan to shame. Putting Satan to shame involves two points.
Christian meetings are for the display of God’s grace. The displaying of God’s grace is a shame to Satan. For example, a brother may stand up in a meeting and testify that he used to live in sin; he was bound by sin because he played mah-jongg and indulged in dancing. But now God has forgiven and saved him, “the foremost of sinners.” Another sister may testify of how she was saved from worshipping the devil and how hearing the gospel, she went home and burned all her idols. These testimonies display God’s grace. The displaying of God’s grace is a shame to the devil.
Christian meetings are also an exhibition of Christ’s victory. Whenever we gather together, we exhibit Christ’s victory. We can exhibit the victory of the Lord Jesus in the meeting by speaking of the Lord in our practical living. This is also a great shame to the devil.
This does not mean that we come to the meeting in order to curse the devil. Some people continually curse Satan in their prayers, saying, “Lord, curse Satan and bind him.” This kind of cursing is not very effective. We need to display God’s grace to us and exhibit Christ’s victorious work upon us. Such a display and exhibition are a shame to the devil.
Christian meetings glorify God and shame the devil. Thus, we do not meet merely to attend a so-called Sunday service; rather, we meet to worship God, edify others, be built up, and shame the devil. These are great and important matters.
Having covered the purpose of meeting, let us now consider our preparation before a meeting. We should prepare ourselves before every meeting in order to be ready. There are also four aspects to our preparation—toward God, toward man, toward ourselves, and toward the devil.
Before coming to a meeting, we need to come before God to deal with our offenses and mistakes and with any condemnation in our conscience. These need to be dealt with by the Lord’s blood one by one. When the sense of condemnation in our conscience is cleared, the barrier between God and us is removed. We should not come to a meeting with a barrier between God and us. If we do, we will bring burden and death to the meeting. Therefore, before every meeting we must come before God and have a thorough dealing. Through prayer and confession, we should ask for forgiveness and cleansing by the Lord’s blood. We should comply with whatever God requires of us, and we should remove whatever He wants us to remove. We must remove all the barriers in order to commune with God freely. If we do this, we will be a benefit to the meeting, and we will benefit from the meeting.
When we prepare for a meeting, we need to have a desire to minister and help others in the meeting. It is not right for us to have an indifferent and nonchalant attitude. We should care for others and be willing to be used by the Lord to supply and help others.
We must remember that whoever supplies others will be supplied, and whoever helps others will be helped. The more we supply others, the more we are supplied, and the more we help others, the more we are helped. If we stop supplying others and have no desire to help, we will not receive much supply or help.
Even if we were saved yesterday, we should prepare ourselves in this way. We should not think that we cannot offer any help because we do not know anything and cannot do anything. This concept must be changed. No matter who we are, by the Lord’s mercy our attitude must be that we are pleased to allow God’s grace to flow through us so that others may be supplied and helped. We need to prepare in such a way before the meeting.