I feel that through the past Friday night meetings we all have come to a very needy situation. This training is very particular. Of course I realize there are some younger ones among us. They do have a heart, yet I have a deep sensation that according to the life procedure they haven’t come up to a state that they really understand what we have been talking about these past few weeks. Surely what we have been speaking is very strange. Life matters can only be comprehended by life itself. If I did not have a human life, I could not understand the human life. Regardless of how much I might talk about human life to dogs, they could not understand because they do not have the human life. Even among human beings there may be a lack of understanding. It is difficult for a two-year-old child to understand what a seventy-five-year-old man is talking about. You need life to understand life. But I do have a deep sensation that many of you here do have a stature to understand what we are talking about.
A testimony from my own experience may help you to understand. For more than five years after I got saved I didn’t know, and I was unable to know, what is the real experience of the co-crucifixion with Christ. I learned this truth— of being crucified with Christ—in the same year I got saved, but it bothered me at least five years. During those first five years of my Christian life I read many books concerning the co-crucifixion with Christ. I even taught others and helped others in this matter, yet I myself did not understand the real meaning of co-crucifixion with Christ. Why? Because for the first five years of my Christian life I did not have the measure, the stature, to understand it.
All the parents know that they cannot teach their children certain things when they are only one year old. As they grow, you begin to teach them more. Even in school, the sixth grade lessons cannot be taught to the first graders. You cannot go too fast. You must wait. Grade after grade as they are growing, they are picking up and they are learning. Then you can pass on more and more to them. According to the human educational system, there is the need of altogether sixteen years to finish a university degree. It takes six years for elementary school, six years for high school, and four years for college. Without passing through the sixteen years it is hard for anyone to understand the things up to the level of university graduation. You cannot expect a boy fourteen years of age to graduate from the university. There is the need of growth.
In principle life is the same, whether it is animal life, plant life, or human life. Today we are enjoying the divine life, and the principle is the same. There is the need of the birth; there is the need of the growth; and there is the need of the maturity. Even after maturity there is the need of the top maturity. Although the students may have graduated from a four year college, they still need another two years to finish a master’s degree, and they need another two or three years to finish a Ph.D. All are matured, yet some are at the top of maturity. This Perfecting Training is to perfect the saints in maturity. If you don’t grow or if you don’t have growth, this training will mean nothing to you, and you will get nothing. This is a special training, not a kind of preaching or teaching. We have come to a crucial point of our need.
Why do we talk so much about peculiarity? I have a burden. The vision we have received from the Lord is that what the Lord needs today is an actual Body life, an actual building up of the Body of Christ. It is not just to have a group of seeking Christians meeting in the name of the Lord and on the proper ground. Although this is good and this is needed, this must be considered as an initial stage. In the initial stage the Lord’s seekers must come together to meet in the Name and on the ground of oneness as a proper local expression of the Body. From this stage we all have to go on to reach the point that we will be built up together.
Since we moved into Elden Hall in 1965, I have been watching and observing the situation among the saints. Fifteen years have now passed and I have seen many saints who came into the Lord’s recovery since we were in Elden Hall. After about eight to ten years some of the dear ones just began to have nothing to do. They sought after the Lord, they turned this way, and they have been practicing the church life. They have been meeting with the saints in the Name and on the ground of oneness, but after so many years it seems they have nothing to do. We know that the church is one. We know that the meeting must be in the Name. We know we must be on the ground of oneness. We know this, and we have been practicing it now for perhaps ten years. What is the present need? Basically, we need two things today: we need to grow, and we need to be built up.
According to my observation, so many dear ones have come in to practice the church life, to meet in the Name and on the ground of oneness, but they do not have much growth. They have picked up a lot of knowledge, but not much growth. I don’t believe that there is another Christian group today on the earth which puts out so many messages as we put out in the Lord’s recovery. Within the past seventeen or eighteen years about three thousand messages have been printed. These have been mainly from Paul’s Epistles, from other books of the New Testament, and from the Old Testament. We have the Life-studies of Matthew, John, Romans, Galatians, Philippians, Ephesians, Colossians, Hebrews, Revelation, and others. Besides these we have messages which were given on the Psalms eleven years ago concerning Christ and the church. We have the Life-study of Genesis. We have the Song of Songs. We have a study on Ezekiel. We have over fifty messages given on the kingdom. We have finished more than fifty messages on Exodus.
I don’t believe you could study so much from the Bible even in a Bible institute. Yet today I read with the brothers a kind of paper concerning us by a certain group. That paper said we were people just in our emotions, with no genuine teaching. They say that all we do is pray-read, that we have no genuine teaching. Actually, they don’t know where we are. All the time we have been having the Life-studies.
However, I’m very sorry to say that, in spite of so many messages being given, with some of the dear saints there is not much growth. Because there has been a lack of growth, there is nearly nothing of building. As long as the growth is short, the building is empty. Anyone in such a situation would be jobless. He would have nothing to do. He would consider, and he would ask: What else is there for me to do or to be in the recovery? He knows the church, he comes to the meetings, but he has nothing to do. Thank the Lord that the percentage of saints in this category is very low. Actually the percentage on the positive side, by His grace, is quite high. So I have the confidence to carry on this kind of Perfecting Training. Here is a crucial point: Why must we talk so much concerning this matter of peculiarity?
Well, I remember from last week, Brother Lee, that you ended the meeting saying that the peculiarities are the things that keep us from the oneness with the brothers. If the peculiarity has been dealt with, our opinion has been dealt with, which is one of the main things corrupting the relationship with the brothers. And, of course, this is extremely necessary for the building so that we would not be divided. I feel that our peculiarities make us unique in ourselves. We somewhat treasure our uniqueness. This makes us exclusive in ourselves, and we may have even a desire to be unique and exclusive.