In this fellowship I would like to share with you the intrinsic problems among us.
At this point I am burdened to share something with you concerning the real history among us in the Lord’s recovery. Our God is a working God. After He worked to create the universe, He continued to work through different ages. Every age is a dispensation. In each age God’s way to work is different. For instance, with Abraham God worked according to His promise. Then in the age of Moses, the age of law, God worked according to the law. God is still working today in this age. We do not believe that we are in an age of silence without God’s work. Today we are in an age at the end of God’s old creation, and God is surely working.
According to the whole Bible, God works mainly by and with His word. God’s working is by His speaking. God created the universe by speaking things into being. He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast (Psa. 33:9). What- ever God spoke, that was it. God’s work is God’s speaking.
In the recent training on Joshua, Judges, and Ruth, I pointed out that just as there were the twelve tribes of Israel, there have also been twelve tribes among God’s New Testament elect, the real “Israel of God” (Gal. 6:16). Throughout the New Testament age God has spoken to His elect. No doubt, God spoke to the early apostles. Then God spoke to the church fathers, to the martyrs under the Roman Empire, and to the individual reformers from the Roman Empire to the Reformation. Then especially in the Reformation, God spoke to Martin Luther. He continued to speak to the mystics, the Moravian brothers, the British Brethren, the inner-life Christians, the evangelical Christians, and the Pentecostal Christians. Today He is speaking to the twelfth tribe, the Lord’s recovery, which has recovered the New Testament revelation back to the early apostles. The Lord’s recovery may be considered as the tribe of Levi, the tribe which enjoys all of the top, special, and particular portions of the other eleven tribes. We are enjoying all of the experiences of Christ in the other eleven tribes, including the early apostles, the church fathers, the martyrs, the reformers, the Protestants, the mystics, the Moravians, the Brethren, the inner-life Christians, the evangelicals, and the Pentecostals.
The Lord’s recovery with us began with Brother Watchman Nee. God raised up such a young man in a heathen, pagan, old, conservative country with the biggest race on earth. His speaking shocked all the missionaries. They were amazed that a young Chinese native could speak the word of God in such an extraordinary way. God used him to speak among us for thirty years, from 1922 to 1952, the year in which he was imprisoned.