Some may say, “I am not an elder and I don’t want to be a leader among the Lord’s children. I want to be free, take it easy, and not be bothered by this kind of thing.” Although you may say this, I do not believe it, for everyone likes to be a leader. If you say that you do not like to be a leader, you are a liar. Deep within, you enjoy being a leader. When the service groups are arranged, you like to be number one. You do not want to be the last. The sisters may say, “As females, we don’t care for the leadership.” Sisters, do not say this. Suppose a piano service group is formed which includes five sisters. Every sister on the group will be concerned about the order in which the names are mentioned. When the fifth sister hears that her name is mentioned last, she may be so bothered that she will be unable to pray for a week. She may say, “If I can’t be the first, I should at least be the third, but I’m not even the fourth. I have been saved for over fifteen years. Why should I be the last? What have the elders done? Don’t they have any discernment?” This is the ambition for leadership.
I thank the Lord for this ambition. It is a good ambition, far better than the ambition to be the President of the United States. It is good that Christians have such ambition. If we had no ambition, we would be like chairs and benches, and God could do nothing with us. But because we are so ambitious, God can do something with us. Probably only those who are aged are no longer ambitious. A brother who is close to eighty years of age may have no ambition, but a young man may desire to be today’s Apostle Paul. I encourage all the young people to be like this. I would be happy if all the young people would desire to be today’s Peter or Paul.
In our life-study of Genesis, we have seen that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob plus Joseph are aspects of one complete person in the experience of life. In like manner, we should not consider Korah as being separate from Moses. In our nature, we have the same ambition Moses had. When Moses was forty, he was ambitious to take the lead to rescue God’s people from the tyranny of the Egyptian king (Acts 7:23-27). However, in Moses there was also the rebellious element of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Young brothers, I know that you have both the positive nature of Moses and the rebellious nature of Korah within you. Even worse, the negative elements of Dathan and Abiram are also in you. In the following message, we shall see that God has judged the rebellious nature and resurrected the positive element, the element of resurrection life.
If you had never been saved, you would have no ambition among God’s people. Why are you so ambitious in the church life? Simply because you love the Lord. If you did not love the Lord and if you had no ambition, you would be like the street people, wandering about aimlessly, having no ambition to be anything for God. But today, as those who are in the church loving the Lord, you are ambitious and expect that one day you will be qualified for the leadership. This is a good ambition, yet it must be resurrected. But we must also realize that within us we also have Korah, Dathan, Abiram, and all the rebellious elements. At the same time that we are ambitious for God’s goal, we are also rebellious. I understand this very well because I have been sick of this disease myself.
Not only is there within us the rebellion against other leaders, but many times our soul rebels against our spirit. Often our mind says, “Spirit, why cannot I serve God? Why cannot I, the mind, do something for God?” Have you not had this kind of rebellion within you? Many times my soul has rebelled against my spirit, saying, “Spirit, I don’t agree with this. I am smarter than you are and I can do a great deal. You are a part of Witness Lee. Am I, the soul, not also a part of Witness Lee? Are we not all the children of God? Why do you, the spirit, take so much upon you?” Many times in functioning we have used our soul in a rebellious way to show that our soul can do something for God and that we, the natural man, can do some service for God without exercising our spirit. This is a type of rebellion.