Brothers and sisters, when you come to the meeting, do you expect to hear a capable speaker? Your concept of relying on capable speakers must be turned. This is the first thing I want to do tonight. What should we do after we all have turned our concept? We all have had experiences of having our concepts turned. At the moment he is saved, everyone has his concept turned. Then we had to learn to pray, read the Word, know the truth, grow in life, experience Christ, gain Christ, and enjoy the riches of Christ. Christ is our good land of Canaan. When we labor on Him, daily working on Christ, we shall reap a harvest.
God’s way of working is always balanced. You see that a man has two hands and two shoulders. The left side is the big meetings and the right side is the home meetings; thus the big meetings and the home meetings are balanced. After we are balanced, we need to double our prayer, double our reading of the Bible and our seeing of light from the Bible, and double our experience of Christ.
In the church, all the brothers and sisters love the Lord. It is based upon your love of the Lord that I have the burden to lead you. Since you love the Lord, you must mean business with Him. Your love for the Lord should not be vain talk. Do you love the Lord? Let me tell you, the Bible tells us that the Lord has only one way to build His church, to reach His goal. This way is the home meetings. This is something that the big meetings cannot accomplish. The big meetings in Christianity are like the age of the judges. The age of the judges depended entirely upon a spiritual giant. When a Samson rose up, it was good. When he died, Israel was through. The age of the judges of the Old Testament prefigured today’s Christianity. If we only pay attention to big meetings and neglect the home meetings, we are reenacting the story of the age of the judges. We must have our concept turned. We do not want judges; we want homes. Every home must be strong, and to have a strong home, you must first be strong.
It is preferable for the home meetings to have not more than twelve people. Five or six is the best. Seven or eight is also good. Eight or ten is fine. Because we love Him and mean business with Him, we pray daily, read the Word, learn the truth, see the light, experience Christ daily, and labor on Christ. When we come together, the eight or ten of us all have experiences to share. Then spontaneously we will not just come to be a part of an audience depending on others to speak. Last night I met a Dutch brother. He spoke Chinese very well. He told me that he can speak Dutch and that he has also learned German, French, English, and Chinese. He knows five languages. Today, is it easier for you to follow Christ, experience Christ, enjoy Christ, or for a Dutch man like him to learn Chinese? He can turn his Dutch tongue into a Chinese tongue and speak Chinese. Why can we not turn our tongue into a “Christ tongue”? It is because we are not willing. We love the Lord, and every day we carry our Bible bags and rush to the meetings. Let us not just bring our Bible bags. Please read the Bible and learn to speak the word of Christ. Then you will have experiences to bring to the meetings and the meetings will be rich.
The Spirit in Acts is the speaking Spirit. He speaks continuously. If everyone in a meeting rushes to speak first, if one has not finished speaking and another wishes he would quickly finish speaking, would that meeting not be rich? With meetings like this time after time, everyone’s taste for depending on the big meetings will be changed. The ones who were just brought in and the ones who have not been meeting for a long time will no longer be concerned with the big meetings, and they will feel that the small meetings are also very good. A church meeting like this will have turned from building on the wrong foundation to building on the right foundation. Only a church like this is worthy of praise. It does not matter whether the capable speaker will come today or not; we can meet by ourselves. This church then has a foundation.
The church in Taipei is both big and stable, yet it may not be reliable. If the concept here is turned to the point that, even if the so-called capable speakers do not come for ten years, the church still flourishes and progresses, then we will have succeeded. We should preach the gospel and lead the brothers and sisters to stand firm, so that everyone is a soldier and our army is everywhere. In this way the church will be stable. At that point we will really be able to evangelize Taiwan. If we continue to depend on big meetings and cannot even evangelize ourselves, how can we evangelize Taiwan? If your small family has not been evangelized and your relatives have not been evangelized, it is impossible to evangelize Taiwan. We need the Holy Spirit to initiate the work so that even a newly saved one can speak. Every family speaks. Everyone speaks. Every saved one is a preacher.
I hope that everyone’s concept will be changed. Only after our concept is changed will these things follow: intensifying our prayer and reading the Bible; intensifying our fellowship with the Lord; intensifying our pursuit of light, truth, and seeing the vision; growing in life to follow the Lord; enjoying Christ; and gaining Christ. If you have all these, you will have something to say in any meeting you attend. In your home meetings now, there is some giving of testimonies and some calling of hymns, but this is mostly done in a natural way. Some of these things have become a regulation. Both the natural way and the way of regulation are not right. What is right? You must stay home to pray more, read the Bible more, fellowship with the Lord more, have more experience of life, and seek more light and truth. If you are like this every day, when you stand up to speak, what you say will not be natural or by way of regulation. You will have so many riches that you will overflow. This matter of overflowing is the following of the Spirit. Formerly, I did not know what it meant to be carried along by the Spirit. Now I am clear. You pray, read the Bible, experience the Lord, and you are filled with the Lord within. Then wherever you go, the Holy Spirit carries you along. When you are full and come to the home meeting, your speaking will not be according to the natural way; neither will it be by way of regulation. Rather, it will be the outflow of the Lord’s riches. You overflow, and I overflow. This home meeting will then be rich. In the home meetings we speak in everyday language. Everyone can speak this language. Whatever you hear in your daily life, you speak. You do not need to put on a show or to pretend; you simply overflow naturally and spontaneously. The foundation of the church is not with the long sermons of the apostles, but with the homes. You give a testimony, and I speak a word of enlightenment. If everyone speaks, this will add up to an abundance. Seeing and hearing this, the newcomers and the newly recovered ones will all receive the profit. In this way the foundation of the church will be solid and the church will last.
The first thing we must do is change our concept. The home meetings are not merely a method. From now on we will neither uplift the big meetings nor despise them. We will regard the big meetings and the home meetings equally. According to today’s situation, you should not consider that to recover someone, you must bring that person to the big meetings in order to be successful. Of course that is very good, but you should not require this. As long as he can come to the home meetings every week, that will be very good. First, lay this foundation in him. Second, the home meetings should strive to recover those who have not been meeting for a long time. In Taipei, there are tens of thousands of brothers and sisters who have not been meeting. The three to five thousand of you who are meeting regularly must all be in the home meetings to recover those who have not been meeting for a long time. Third, preach the gospel widely. The home gospel must go out from the homes. Even the campus work can go out from the homes. The homes are the foundation. If the homes are not strong and even you yourself need shepherding, then who can shepherd? If the home meetings are not strong, even the children’s work cannot be done. For a nation to be strong, the homes must be strong. For a church to be strong, the home meetings must be built up. The homes are the foundation, the base, of all activities. Fourth, keep the people. The home meetings must keep and uphold people and even cause people to want to come back. You have to work on the home meetings to such an extent that they have the power to attract and keep people. Fifth, you need to strengthen the riches in the home meetings. The content of the home meetings must be rich. Sixth, when the home meetings become so rich, the highest goal of expressing Christ will be attained.
The home meetings are not easy to build up. This is a great and high mountain which is not easy to climb. Beginning with changing our concept, then recovering those who have not been meeting for a long time, widely preaching the gospel, upholding, strengthening and enriching the content of the meetings, we will finally reach God’s highest goal for the church—expressing Christ. May the Lord have mercy on us. May we all pray for this matter.