Revelation is the last book in the Bible and the last book to the church. We have seen clearly that this book is from the seven Spirits to the local churches. There is no doctrine in this book. It is a long book with twenty-two chapters, yet there is no doctrine. What then is this book about? It is a book about the local churches: “John to the seven churches which are in Asia” (1:4a).
In this book for the local churches, the Spirit of God is the seven Spirits before the throne. “Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is coming, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne” (v. 4b). Here the sevenfold intensified Spirit is now in the second place of the Triune God. He was in the third place (Matt. 28:19), but now in this book He is in the second place, because the age has been changed. The Lord has turned the age from doctrine to the Spirit. So there is no doctrine in this book, but the seven Spirits. If we have the seven Spirits, we have everything; if we do not have the seven Spirits, we have nothing.
The seven Spirits are before the throne. Revelation speaks of the throne a number of times. The first occurrence is in 1:4 as we have seen in the above quotation. Then 4:5 says, “Out of the throne come forth lightnings and voices and thunders. And there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God.” The last is in 22:1: “He showed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.” It is so clear that there are two things that come from the throne of God: one is the burning fire, and the other is the flowing water. There is no doctrine in this book, but there are the fire and the water. The fire is the seven Spirits of God. The seven Spirits of God are the seven lamps of burning fire. What then is the water? To see this we must turn to the Gospel of the same writer. In John’s Gospel we are told that the water is also the Spirit. “He who believes into Me, as the Scripture said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. But this He said concerning the Spirit” (7:38-39). The same Spirit is both the burning fire and the flowing water. Again I say that there is no doctrine in this book. When we come to this book, we only meet the throne with the fire and the water. The fire is to burn us, and the water is to supply us. On one hand, we need to be burned, and on the other, we need to be supplied and watered.
In these chapters we have been much occupied with the matter of the local churches. The local churches should not be full of doctrines, but full of burning. Doctrines only stir up different opinions. If a local church is a genuine, proper, normal, and living one, there will be more burning than doctrines. When we turn and touch the throne of God, we are burned. O brothers and sisters, how much have you been burned? If you say that in the local church here you have received many new teachings, I will be disappointed. But if so many of you say, “Praise the Lord, I have been burned here!” I will be so happy. We all must be burned. Our opinions must be burned, our different concepts must be burned, and our doctrines and knowledge must all be burned. The local church must be a burning place. The more we are in the local church, the more we should be burned.
When I was saved, I attended the meetings of a very strict Brethren group. It seemed that they knew the Bible extensively, so I spent more than seven years with them and received much knowledge. Then in 1933 the Lord brought me to the local church in Shanghai. When I attended the meetings of the church there, I felt ashamed of my dead knowledge. After a few months in the local church, all my dead knowledge was burned away. The more I attended the meetings, the more I was burned. The local church must be such a refining place. Regardless of what we know and what we are, we all must be refined by the burning fire in the local church.
Last year, when a group from some of the local churches in this country was in Taipei, some asked how many who were taking the trip were at one time preachers, ministers, and missionaries. I believe that over thirty arose. We all realized that the most difficult people to deal with in the local church are of this type. But praise the Lord! Though we have so many preachers, ministers, and missionaries among us, we do not have problems. All the problems have been burned away in the local church.
The more we touch the local church, the more we will be burned. All the old doctrines, the old backgrounds, and every kind of oldness will be burned away. In the book of Revelation, the fire comes before the water, because at that time the church was degraded. Many negative things had come in, and all of these had to be burned away. Teachings can never do this. Only the burning of the seven Spirits can accomplish it. The Spirit is the sevenfold Spirit in the local churches to do a burning work. The more we touch the throne, the more we will be burned. The more we say, “O Lord,” the more we will be burned. The more we say, “Amen,” the more we will be burned, and the more we say, “Hallelujah,” the more we will be burned. To be burned simply means to be rid of all the old things. If we will call, “O Lord, Amen, Hallelujah!” we will sense that we are rid of something. After a few days we will look back and be disgusted with all the old things we used to admire. That is the burning.