Prayer: Lord, how we treasure this time. How we thank You for the fellowship in the Spirit. We first trust in Your cleansing blood. We worship You for Your cleansing blood. Lord, we thank You for Your recovery, and we thank You for Your revelation among us. We can never thank You enough for all the mercies and grace You have shown us. We trust in You for the fellowship tonight. O Lord, open up Your heart. Open up Your Word. Open the heavens. And open us. We would like to have a thorough fellowship, a fellowship full of light, transparent. Lord, give us the freedom. Anoint us. Give us the clear anointing with the holy anointing oil. Thank You, Lord. Thank You, You are now the Spirit. We look unto You not only for ourselves, but for all the churches, for all the leading ones in the churches. We pray desperately that they all may see Your vision, that they all may see Your heart, that they all may see the desires in Your heart. Speak a clear word to us tonight that we all may be brought in, into Your desire, into Your move today. Lord, do cover us. We are fighting. You know the battle. Defeat Your enemy, and destroy the power of darkness. Lord, we would reject him in Your mighty name. Satan has to be condemned. He has to be under our feet. Cast him under our feet. This is the day for You to do this. Release Your truth. Release Your recovery. Release Your Word. Amen.
When the Lord’s recovery came to this country, I had a strong burden as to what I should do. And I did according to the Lord’s leading. I had no liberty from Him to speak on other subjects. From the beginning I have always been in the Lord’s central lane, His focus for His economy. The Lord’s recovery among us is absolutely different from any kind of reformation. We are not here for a recovery of any doctrine or any practice. Because of this, in the twenty years that I have been here with you all, I have given messages only on the central lane, on the focus.
Because of my observation, I have become really burdened for some of the churches. It seems some of you do not have the clear vision about this. You may be satisfied just to have a church raised up. There is a danger ahead. If the elders lack a clear vision as to what the Lord is doing—and this vision must be very strong—we are doing things in vain.
I strongly stressed this need when I gave the messages on The World Situation and God’s Move. In those messages I pointed out very clearly that it is not enough to have the best gospel preaching, the best exposition of the Bible, and the most scriptural way of meeting. These three things are respected by all Christians. They are what the Brethren practice. In their early days, as their writings at Darby’s time indicate, the Brethren were clear about something higher and deeper than these three things. But by the time I got into the Brethren assembly, there were only these three things.
I can recall when I was with them. They did not even stress gospel preaching that much. Mainly they emphasized Bible teaching, the exposition of the types and practices and the teaching of the different books. It was a help to me. They also insisted that everything, every little thing, be according to the Bible. Why didn’t they celebrate Christmas? It was not according to the Bible. The same with the Chinese New Year. The Brethren assembly in my home town did not celebrate any holiday, including even the Chinese New Year. It seemed very strange.
But I can recall also that there was no center, no focus. Christ as God’s mystery, how He was processed to be the Spirit, they never mentioned. They had no idea of it. Nor did they have any idea about life. Even regeneration they could not define. I asked them to tell me; they had no proper definition. As for the church as an organism to be the Lord’s Body, this also was never mentioned. That they did not speak of the church ground there is no need to say.