There have been over sixty years of history among us. I was personally involved in the last fifty years, and I am very much aware of the true situation. During the four and a half years that I was in Taipei, the Lord gradually showed me the truth in the Bible. I have made note of these crucial verses in the New Testament according to what I saw. I have told you before that there are four steps that we have to study in the new way. The training center is a laboratory. The first step that we have to study is the preaching of the gospel. The second step is the nourishing of the new believers. The third step is to teach and perfect them that they may become useful. These three steps are the begetting, the nourishing, and the teaching. There is a fourth step which is the building.
The words beget, nourish, and teach can all be found in the Bible. For example, Paul said, “I have begotten you through the gospel” (1 Cor. 4:15). He did not say “saved you,” but “begotten” you. What you need is the life of God. By dispensing the life of God into you, I beget you. After begetting there is the nourishing. The Lord said to Peter in John 21, “Do you love Me?...Feed My lambs” (v. 15). Paul also said, “But we were gentle in your midst, as a nurse would cherish her own children” (1 Thes. 2:7). The most important work of a nurse is to nourish the baby. Paul cared for the saints like a nursing mother would care for her own baby. Peter said to the saints in 1 Peter 2:2 that believers should “as newborn babes, long for the guileless milk of the word, that by it you may grow unto salvation.” When a new one is born he needs to be nourished. Only then will he grow. The third step is the teaching. Paul said that he was not just a nursing mother to nourish and cherish, but a father to entreat, console, and teach. Ephesians chapter four says, “And He gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some shepherds and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints” (vv. 11-12). Teaching perfects people. In this way not only do the saints grow in Christ, but they also mature in life.
After the saints are perfected, have knowledge in the truth, and have the experience in life, they will spontaneously be able to speak for God, that is, to prophesy. First Corinthians 14 shows us that prophesying is the most excelling gift because it builds up the church. Christianity has taken the easy way. They train special ones to be the pastors to preach and give a sermon every week for edifying the believers. This is a wrong way. There should not be the replacement of many by one. Instead, everyone should be working because 1 Corinthians 14:31 says, “For you can all prophesy one by one.”
The way that Christianity takes is one which avoids the difficult and chooses the easy. It establishes the one but replaces the many. This is wrong. What we see in the Bible is not like this. The Bible exhorts all of us to speak and all of us to prophesy. Although we may not do too well at the beginning, as long as we lay a good foundation, it will be easy later. The old system makes a person lazy, but in the Lord’s recovery everyone has to be diligent to strive and pursue seriously. Everyone has to pray-read, enjoy the Lord’s word, and fellowship with the Lord in His word. There is also the need to allow Christ to grow in us. But this is not all. We have to go and preach the gospel, nourish the newly saved ones, and perfect them in the small group meetings so that they will learn to prophesy in the district meetings.
Let us now take a look at the outline. After preaching the gospel to save sinners and offering them up to God as sacrifices, there are still three big steps to be taken.
When you have a home meeting with the new believers, never assume that you know how to have such a meeting. You must learn to have a home meeting. God is a creating God. He can create; He does not have to learn. But every human being needs to learn. You have to realize that in order to take care of a meeting in a new believer’s home, you must first learn.
We should consider the new ones as the Lord’s lambs and feed them accordingly. This feeding will cause your fruit to remain. In the past, after we baptized people there was a lack in feeding. Therefore, in the end many were lost. Now when we go to the home meetings we must feed them properly. In this way they will remain.