Beginning from the second century the fathers of the church began to argue concerning the Person of Christ. Strictly speaking, there is no science of Christology in the Bible. This science was invented by certain teachers in order to study who Christ is. Some said that Christ is divine, and others said that He is human. Some even said that Christ was first human and eventually became divine. This resulted in fighting, which caused division. In A.D. 313 Constantine became emperor of Rome, and eventually he made Christianity the state religion and encouraged many thousands of people to be baptized into Christianity. As the emperor, Constantine did not like to see fighting in his realm, so he called a council at Nicaea in A.D. 325 to gather together the great Christian teachers. It was there under his presiding that the Nicene Creed was formed. However, that did not solve the problem of fighting in the church. From that time onward, Christianity has been filled with different kinds of doctrines. The hierarchy kills the functions of the Body of Christ, and the different teachings divide the church and cut it into pieces.
After Constantine encouraged thousands of unbelievers to be baptized into Christianity, the church adopted many pagan things, such as Christmas, Easter, and the worship of Mary, which was patterned after the worship of a pagan goddess. Today we can still see relics placed on display to be venerated by people. Because of this, Christianity has become a religion full of tradition, superstition, and falsehood. This is all around us today in Catholicism, the denominations, and even the free groups. In religion there is no light, life, truth, or reality; that is, there is no Christ. Christ is there only in name, not in His Person and living reality. Likewise, there is no church in reality. The church is the living Body of Christ, but what surrounds us today is a religion full of traditions, organizations, teachings, doctrines, performances, and falsehood. The Lord cannot accomplish His purpose in this situation.
Revelation 17 tells us that at the end of this age the Lord will sovereignly use Antichrist to terminate religion (vv. 16-17). Then in chapter 19 the bride is prepared for Christ (vv. 7-8). There is no possibility for the Lord to prepare His bride in Catholicism, the state churches, or the denominations. The Lord prophesied in Matthew 16:18, “Upon this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” Roman Catholicism claims to be the church built on a certain kind of rock, but that church cannot stand against the gates of Hades. Nevertheless, the Lord will not give up His promise to build the church and prepare the bride. According to the principle in the Bible, the Lord will once again turn away from today’s religion and go to the “Sea of Galilee” to call some young people. Because many older ones have been influenced with a certain amount of religious thought, the Lord is forced to go to the younger generation to call the young people, train them, and send them out.
Since the Lord began His recovery in the United States in 1962, we have been laboring, suffering, and struggling. Eventually, our history has proven that the Lord is taking the way to reap the young people. Many in the local churches today are young people. It is difficult for some over fifty years old to turn to this way, and some who do may bring in opinions. This may be the reason that the Lord Jesus did not call Nicodemus or other older ones from Jerusalem to follow Him. He called mainly the young simple ones. When He said, “Follow Me,” they followed Him. They gave up the secular world, and they had relatively little of the religious world to bring with them. The Lord’s strategy today is to gain the young people, train them, and send them to “Jerusalem” to raise up the church.
The younger ones among us still need some years of training. However, they should not go to a seminary. They need simply to remain in the “Galilean” church life to have the experience of Christ and the church. Eventually, they should bear the responsibility to go first to the larger universities throughout the United States to contact the students there. Within a short amount of time the number of saints in those places will increase. Following this, some should also go to the smaller universities. At the same time, others will be burdened to emigrate to Europe. Because America and Europe are the two most crucial continents with respect to the world situation, the Lord desires to gain them. To this end, the young people should study the European languages. Then after a few years, they will have the experience of Christ and the church, the experience of knowing and contacting people, and the ability to speak to them in their language. Some may go to a major city in a particular European country to study the language for a few years. During that time they can contact their classmates and schoolmates. After a certain amount of time they will become a nucleus for the Lord to gain that city. In every country in Europe, and also in Israel, there must be a nucleus for the church life.
For this purpose the young people must be burdened, and they need to pray to ask the Lord whether He would send them to a college campus in the United States or to Europe. This is the unique way to have something absolutely new for the Lord. We all need to drop our concepts, have no opinions, be unloaded, and support those who go out by our prayer. The older ones must pray day and night for the young people to carry out the Lord’s recovery in this way. If we take this way, the Lord will gain the United States, Europe, and Israel.