The church is built up basically by the priestly ministry, not by the teaching ministry. All the local churches must be local bodies of priests. We do not need much speaking, but we need the priestly ministry. A strong local church is one that is full of praying people. They may not be so strong in talking or in teaching, but they are very strong in praying. Their spirits are strong in prayer because they practice the priesthood in their daily walk. They have learned to open themselves to the Lord, to go to Him and spend time in His presence. They have learned to be filled and even swallowed up by the Lord. Therefore, their spirits are so living, so active, and so aggressive. When they come to the meetings, nothing can quench them. There is something burning within their spirits.
Do not think I am encouraging you to pray by asking the Lord to do something. This is not my point. Real prayer is not to ask the Lord to do something for you or for the church. Real prayer is to open yourself to the Lord. Do not ask Him to do anything, but simply open yourself to Him, and let Him fill and saturate you with Himself. Then He will burden you to pray, and He will give you guidance to pray. Your prayer will then be according to the inner feeling, not according to your mind.
Why do we need to pray? It is because we cannot do anything. We can never be elders, we can never be deacons, and we can never be evangelists. We just cannot do it. So we must pray, which means that we put our trust in the Lord. The second reason we need to pray is because we realize that God must do something through us. Without us, even God cannot do anything. This is quite remarkable. Without us, the Lord cannot preach the gospel. Without us, He can never save sinners. Although we need Him, He needs us even more. So we have to pray because we cannot do anything and because without us God cannot do anything. The third reason we must pray is because God wants to mingle Himself with man. Therefore, we pray to open ourselves to Him that He may mingle Himself with us. When God and man are mingled together through priestly praying, God will flow out through man to do His work.
So we see that if we are going to build up the church, we must first realize that we cannot do anything. We cannot build up the church; yet we must. This burdens us to pray. Even the Lord cannot build up the church unless we pray. The building up of the church can only be accomplished by the mingling of God with man. There must be certain ones who offer themselves to the Lord that the Lord may mingle Himself with them. Then it will be possible for the church to be built up. This building is not by the ministry of the Word, but by the ministry of the priesthood. We must simply learn to practice the priesthood; then we will see the result.
In reading the history of the church and the biographies of many spiritual persons, we found the same principle. It is not a matter of work or a matter of ministering. It is a matter of practicing the priesthood. We must have the priestly ministry. Of course, we do need people to work in the outer court, but we must know that all the activities in the outer court are under the direction of those who are in the Holy Place or the Holy of Holies. Without the priests in the Holy Place or the Holy of Holies, there is no direction for the people to work in the outer court. All the outward activities must be under the direction of the inward priesthood. We need this priestly ministry today.
I must repeat again that to fight the battle or be the army in Ephesians 6, we need the priesthood. We must offer ourselves to the Lord that He may take us over, saturate us, and make us one with Him. Then, in this mingling, the Lord will move deep within us to express something. This is the priesthood, and this is basic and necessary for any kind of ministry. Without this, whatever teachings, messages, ways, or gifts we have will not work. Past history has adequately proven this. All these things have been tried in the past centuries. Teachings, ways, messages, gifts, and so many different kinds of practices have been tried and found wanting.
If we are not in the life of the Spirit, regardless of what way we use, we are still in deadness. Once a brother told me that about sixteen or seventeen years ago, he learned from the Brethren the way to have a meeting, that is, to arrange the seats in a circle rather than in one direction. So they changed their arrangement of chairs and found that they had more deadness. After a period of time, they decided to return to the old way of arranging the chairs in one direction. If we are not in the life of the Spirit, the more directions we have, the more deadness we will have. If we arrange the seats in one direction, we will have one direction of death. If we arrange the chairs in four directions, we will have four directions of death. When you are a dead person, no matter what way people arrange you, you are still dead. When I am living, regardless of how I am seated, I am still living. It is not a way; it is life. It is not the message; it is the Spirit. It is not the gifts; it is the priesthood.
There are too many teachings in today’s Christianity, and all the ways have been tried in the past. It is not the way, but the life, the Spirit, the priesthood in the Holy of Holies. Forget about the way; get into His presence and let Him saturate you.
We must see today that it is not this or that, but it is a matter of life in the Spirit. When I was young, I would argue about a number of things, saying that they were scriptural. But today I know it is foolish to argue in that way. It is neither this nor that, but the life in the Spirit. We have to be in the presence of the Lord, We have to open ourselves and be filled with Him.
In the priesthood the only way is the presence of the Lord. We must have the Lord’s presence. This is why it is rather hard to find any kind of way in the New Testament. What is the best way to preach the gospel? No one can tell you. What is the best way to hold a meeting? Again, no one can tell you. If you were to ask me what the right way is, I would have to say that I do not know. I really do not know what the right way is. In the Bible you can never find a way to minister the Word or to do the work of the Lord. This is because the New Testament is the dispensation of the Spirit. Whatever way you use, it must be in the spirit. Everything must be in the spirit. In these last years, wherever I have gone, I have never paid any attention to the way. Regardless of the way people meet or serve the Lord, it does not mean anything. The real problem is this: is there the presence of the Lord? Is there the life in the spirit?
May the Lord have mercy upon us that we may be delivered from anything other than the priesthood. We must learn this one lesson of being in the presence of the Lord. Then we will come out of the Lord’s presence with the bread and wine to minister to the people’s needs. This is what we need. If we are an army, we must be a priestly army. If we are apostles, we must be priestly apostles. No matter what kinds of persons we are or functions we have, we must be priests. Then there will be the free course for the Lord to go on and accomplish something through us to fulfill His purpose.
It would be rather foolish for us to repeat the tragedy of history. Since the recovery of the Lord started, five hundred years ago, the priesthood has not been recovered completely, even today. The Brethren have seen the so-called universal priesthood—that everyone should function. But that does not work. You cannot expect dead people to function. You cannot expect those who are empty to minister Christ to others. The priesthood is not just something universal; it is something of life, something living, something divine, and something in the presence of God. We believe that in these last years the Lord must recover this priesthood—not the universal priesthood, but the holy and royal priesthood.
We must be brought into the reality of contacting the Lord and being filled with Him. Then we will be so living and so aggressive in the spirit to minister something of the Lord to others. This is the priesthood, and this is what the Lord is going to recover in a corporate way. The priesthood is not something individualistic, but something corporate. It is a body of priests working, coordinating, and functioning together in a body way. I have the assurance that the Lord is going to recover this priesthood in these last days.