However, it is not adequate merely to have a large quantity of gold. We may have a thousand talents of gold and not yet have the lampstand, for we may just have the substance without the form. How can we have the form? All fundamental students of the Bible agree that the lampstand was made by beating the gold. One brother may have ten pounds of gold, another may have seven pounds, and still another may have five pounds. How can all this gold be formed into a stand? Only by its being beaten together. All the gold must be brought together into one. This refers to the building. Firstly, we need the substance and then we need the building by beating. It is a shame to the Lord if today He cannot see any building. Many people argue with us about the church, asking how we can say that we are the church and that they are not the church. But the question is: where is the building? You may even have a great deal of gold, but if you do not have the form, by the way of the building, you do not have the lampstand. This means that you may be rich in gold but poor in the lampstand—the building.
If you would have the stand, you must be beaten together with others. You need to lose your identification. Do not say, “This is my gold. I’m spiritual.” For you to be spiritual as an end in itself is meaningless as far as the lampstand is concerned. Your experience and enjoyment of God must be beaten together with that of others. Our gold must be put together, beaten, and built up as one entity, as one unit. Then we not only have the gold, but are also built into a golden lampstand. This is the church.
If those in the church in Anaheim are merely several hundred individual units, we are finished. God does not desire hundreds of individual units of gold. He wants all the gold put together and beaten to form the lampstand. What a need there is for the building! If we have seen the building, we will never be individualistic. Rather, we would realize that whatever we gain or receive of the divine element is for the building of the lampstand. Because God’s desire is for the building, we have given message after message saying that we need God in Christ as our very substance that we might be built together. It is good to have a large quantity of gold and thereby to be rich in God. But are you still individualistic, or are you part of a corporate entity? We need the building.
Even though we may have the gold and are beaten together and are built into one as a lampstand, we still need the seven lamps, the seven Spirits of God as the expression. If we do not have the seven Spirits of God, we shall be unable to shine to express God. Whether we are young or old, we daily need to be filled with the sevenfold Spirit of God. Whenever we are filled with God’s sevenfold Spirit, we are living and shining. Because we are filled with the seven Spirits of God, we cannot be dead or dim. Being filled with the sevenfold divine pneuma, we can never be like a flat tire. Nothing can suppress us. Because we are full of the Spirit of God, the more we are pressed down, the higher we bounce up. I can testify that the more difficulties I have, the higher I rise up. Many times, others have advised me not to say certain things, but I could not keep from speaking about them because of being filled with the seven Spirits of God. Someone once asked me this question: “Why are you so living, fresh, and evergreen? Please tell me your secret.” My secret is that I have the Spirit.
There is no need to prepare yourself to function in the meetings. If you do this, your function will be a performance. To function is simply to be what you are. Sometimes the leading brothers strongly encourage the saints to function in the prayer meetings. But all such functions are not genuine functions but performances, because the saints are not filled with the Spirit. Rather, they are deflated like flat tires. They are deflated before they come to the meeting. But the leading ones may still insist that these flat tires roll around a little in the prayer meeting. This kind of activity does not come from the infilling and indwelling pneuma but from the pushing of the elders. After a brother or sister has been forced to function, he may not pray for two weeks. I can testify of this from my experience. Pushing never helps. When a tire becomes flat, it is better not to roll it around, for the more you roll it, the more damaged it will become. However, none of us should be a flat tire. Instead, we must be filled with pneuma. We have a “station” in the third heaven, and we can always be filled with the heavenly pneuma. When we are filled with the Spirit, we can function at any time. This function is not a performance—it is our living. When I am filled and bubbling over with the Spirit, I am active, aggressive, and youthful. I can even deliver a message to the demons. If the Devil would come to me, I would give him a good teaching. When we all are filled with the sevenfold Spirit of God in the built-up church, this sevenfold Spirit of God will become the very expression of God in Christ.
Now we come to the fourth aspect of the experience of the lampstand—the reproduction. Both in Exodus and Zechariah the lampstand was uniquely one. But in the book of consummation, there are seven lampstands signifying seven local churches. This indicates that Christ as signified by the lampstand in Exodus and the Spirit of God as signified by the seven lamps of the lampstand in Zechariah are not only for the production of the universal church, but also for the reproduction of the local churches. One lampstand is reproduced in the seven lampstands. All the local churches as the many lampstands are the reproduction of Christ and the Spirit as the one lampstand. The more the critics oppose the local churches, the more reproduction there will be. Opposition simply lays the tracks for further reproduction. Do not care about the opposition. Simply care for the substance, the building up, and the expression. The more we have of these three things, the more we shall see the reproduction. What is this reproduction? It is actually a multiplication of the wonderful expression of Christ as the life-giving Spirit in a practical way. This is the reproduction of the church. I am glad to say that I have the full assurance that this reproduction will pave the way for the Lord to come back. By means of this reproduction, the Lord will have a beachhead on which to place His feet for His coming back to possess the whole earth.