Not long after this, the main body of Protestantism, in particular that system of state churches under the influence of Luther, became weak in the matter of life. Although in the matter of truth they were more clear than the Catholic Church, their condition was like that of the church in Sardis in Revelation, being weak and dying. For this reason, the Lord raised up the mystics within the Roman Catholic Church, who emphasized the inner life. They paid particular attention to the pursuit of the inner life and the spirit. The leading ones among this group were Father Fenelon and Madame Guyon. They were quite good in the experience of life, and they said quite a lot concerning the Body of Christ. They even knew something concerning the principle of the Body of Christ. However, they did not have the practical church life. They remained in Catholicism and were not even fully delivered from idolatry.
After the mystics, a brother by the name of Zinzendorf was raised up in the eighteenth century in the southern part of Germany near Bohemia. He received many persecuted and exiled Christians. Brothers from different denominations went to him for refuge. He prevailed upon all these brothers to give up their doctrinal disputes and backgrounds, and to meet together in oneness. There they began to practice the church life. In church history, this group of people was known as the Moravian Brothers. Although they brought in a great revival, it can only be considered as an elementary stage. Nothing was fully on the right track yet.
Almost another century passed by. By the nineteenth century, the Lord raised up the Brethren in England. Among them there were many famous teachers, including J. N. Darby, Benjamin Newton, and William Kelly. They were raised up at about the same time and became extremely prevailing. The vision and revelation poured out of them like waterfalls. Not only did they see the light in a thorough and complete way; they have opened up the prophecies, the types, and many basic truths such as the dispensations, the distinction between the Old and the New Testament, and the matter of law and grace. At the same time, they made quite a lot of progress in different aspects of practices such as the way to meet, worship, serve, and work. Unfortunately, they paid too much attention to the truths. In a short time, within thirty years, Darby and Newton began to have different views on the truth concerning the second coming of Christ. One was for rapture before the tribulation. The other was for rapture after the tribulation. From that time on, the Brethren were divided. Up until today, they have been divided into over a thousand groups. Due to this division, the Brethren became desolate by the twentieth century.
Because of the failure of the Brethren, the Lord could not get through in the West. For this reason, during the 1920s the Lord went to the Far East and began His new recovery in the virgin soil of China. The first one raised up by the Lord among us was Brother Watchman Nee. He was a very brilliant person, and he was especially capable in reading books and selecting materials from them. He was saved at the age of seventeen and began to publish books at the age of twenty. By the age of twenty-two, he had collected about three thousand volumes of basic books in Christianity covering subjects such as church history, biographies, sermons, and commentaries. Not only had he read through these books; he extracted the best points from each one. He was able to introduce others to all the truths beginning from the second century. Today, we have collected most of these truths in the New Testament Recovery Version. Concerning matters related to the church meetings, worship, and service, there was nothing before Zinzendorf. Something worthwhile was there at the time of Zinzendorf. By the time we come to the British Brethren, there are more that deserve attention. When Brother Nee began his ministry, he picked up eighty percent of the practices of the British Brethren, such as the way to meet, worship, break bread, and work. These matters were practiced among us for over ten years.
After 1933, Brother Nee went on and began to see further light from the Lord. He began to put question marks on some of the Brethren practices of the church life. Finally, his study led him to conclude that the Sunday morning message meeting with one person speaking and all the others listening in a big congregation should be condemned. He strongly rebuked this practice in the two books The Normal Christian Church Life and Church Affairs. He mentioned this matter first in 1937 and then again in 1948. The following summer, the mainland fell into the hands of the Communists. Thereafter, Brother Nee was put into prison. He remained there for over twenty years until he passed away in 1972. He did not have a chance to see the matter put into practice.
In 1949 I came to Taiwan. At that time the conditions in Taiwan were very harsh. Brother Nee was in prison, and we had lost our support. It was difficult to have a start in the work. Notwithstanding, we had inherited what Brother Nee had given us through his thirty years of studying, and we continued to work in Taiwan. Although I was very clear at that time that Brother Nee had condemned the Sunday morning message meeting of one person speaking and all the rest listening, speaking according to the circumstances, the time was not ripe for any change. We continued with this for over thirty years. By 1984, the Lord’s recovery had fully penetrated into the English-speaking world and had spread from the United States to six continents throughout the world, with over eight hundred churches. However, the condition among us was somewhat like that of the church in Sardis in Revelation. Before God, we had everything. But nothing was completed (Rev. 3:2b). Some churches could be compared to animals in hibernation; they were half-asleep. For this reason, we spent over four years here in Taipei to make a study based on the record of the Bible and the practices of Christians throughout the ages. We believe that the result of our study is complete and scriptural.