Some people question us as to what we mean when we speak of the church, asking, “Do you mean that only you are the church?” We should check again with our Bible. The Lord appeared after His resurrection to five hundred brothers at one time, but only one hundred twenty were in the practical church life. We should not think that as long as we are Christians, we are in the church. If we do, we may deceive ourselves and deceive others also. We may be members of the church in name, but this means little if we are not in the church practically. We may illustrate this with the Jews on the earth today. There are more than twelve million Jews today, and in New York City alone there are about one million. To be sure, all these are genuine Jews. Every one of them can say, “I am a member of the Jewish race.” Nevertheless, not all of these Jews are the nation of Israel. In order to be the nation of Israel, they must return to their fathers’ land. Some may object to this and say, “Do not be so narrow-minded. How can I go back to Israel? I have my house, my business, and my investments here. Every month I send much money to help Israel.” Regardless of how much money anyone sends to help Israel, he is still not in the nation of Israel. He is only a helper to Israel. Only those who go back to their forefathers’ land are the nation of Israel today. In the same way, regardless of how good a Christian someone may be, as long as he is not in the local churches, he is not the church practically. He is a member of the Body of Christ, but he is not in the practical church life. To be in the church in practicality, we need to pay the price to come into the local church. This is not a small matter.
When certain missionaries asked me, “Do you mean that you are the church, and we are not?” I replied, “You do not need to ask me. Simply ask yourselves. You call yourself Presbyterians, but if you are Presbyterians, you are not the church. You do not like for us to call ourselves what we are, but if we do not call ourselves the church, what should we call ourselves? If a woman is the wife of Mr. Smith, then she is Mrs. Smith. It is not logical for someone to claim to be Mrs. Smith yet go by the name of Mrs. Johnson.” These dear missionaries eventually realized that they could not argue with me. If they did, they would lose their case. However, before they argued with me, they had already lost their case. If they call themselves “Mrs. Johnson,” they have no case to claim that they are “Mrs. Smith.” Therefore, I told them, “If you want to be the church along with us, get rid of the name Presbyterian.” However, they answered that they could not do that. As long as they cannot give up the name Presbyterian, they are not the church in practicality. Instead, they are still in Protestantism, which is a part of today’s crooked and perverted generation. The Lord desires only a pure church, a pure golden lampstand, a pure bride. To still keep some mixture is confusion. It is not the church, and it will not be a part of the New Jerusalem. Instead, it will be burned with Babylon.
We must all be saved from the crooked generation by building up the ark. Even while we are speaking these things, we are building. To say that Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism are all part of today’s generation and that only the local churches are the ark seems very bold. Nevertheless, we must fight for this truth throughout the entire world. We must fight against today’s perverted generation, which includes the world, Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism, and even the free groups with their speaking in tongues. They are not the church but a part of today’s crooked generation.
The Lord desires one church in every locality and one Body in the entire universe. Therefore, no church should say, “Since we are the local church in our city, we want nothing to do with the other churches.” Whoever cuts themselves off from the fellowship with all the churches universally is no longer a local church; they have become a local sect. Regardless of how much some claim to meet in the Lord’s name according to the teaching of the New Testament, and even according to Brother Watchman Nee’s books, if they cut themselves off from the Lord’s flow today, they are a local sect. They are not the church but a counterfeit, an imitation. Some have used the messages of my ministry from our tapes and our books, yet they have openly rejected this ministry. Morally speaking, this is not right, and we cannot believe that the Lord will honor this. Are those who do this the church in practicality? To act in this way is not to be the pure woman clothed with the sun, with the moon underneath her feet, and a crown of stars on her head. Instead, it is to be one of the daughters of the great harlot, Babylon (Rev. 12:1; 17:5). It is subtle to steal someone’s messages yet reject his ministry. If certain ones do not receive my ministry, they should reject my books and tapes also. They are not right, honest, or moral.
God desires only one church. We cannot see in Revelation more than one woman in the heavens, shining with the sun, the moon, and the stars. There is no doubt that every local church is independent according to its locality, but we also must realize that all the local churches are one Body. Only those who are ambitious, who desire to have a little empire, would say, “We are the local church here, and you are the church in your locality. Do not interfere with us.” Yes, we are the church in our locality, but we take the way to fellowship and be one with all the churches; however, others are the local church in the way of cutting themselves off from the flow of the Lord’s testimony today. This is not the church the Lord desires today. It is an old antique, in the principle of the practice of Brethrenism. That may have been good a century ago, but it is not good today. What the Lord desires today is the present testimony of Jesus.
In the ancient times, people walked with God in the way they had learned from their forefather Enoch (Gen. 5:22-24). At a certain point, however, Noah was raised up to build an ark. Some might have said to him, “We have never heard of building an ark. Our forefathers instructed us concerning godliness, telling us to take the way of salvation according to Adam, to please God according to Abel, to call on the name of the Lord and enjoy all His riches according to Enosh, and to walk with God according to Enoch. I walked with God for many years before you were born. How can you tell me something new? Did God tell you that a flood will come? Why did He not tell Enoch? This is your own foreign concept.” The preaching of Noah did not mean that people should not take Adam’s, Abel’s, Enosh’s, or Enoch’s way. However, God had His up-to-date revelation. Merely to be saved—as Adam was—or to please God, call on the name of the Lord, and walk with God—as Abel, Enosh, and Enoch did—would no longer satisfy God. At that time, there was only one thing that could fully satisfy God and rescue people from that crooked generation, and that was to build the ark.
The principle today is the same. Someone may say, “I was born in America. I am sixty-five years old, I have more than one Ph.D., and I know many things in Christianity. I have also read church history and many books from the past centuries. However, I never heard this term the local church. Who are you? You are a little Chinese man from the land of the heathen with their philosophical Confucian thought. What can you know? This is your Eastern concept.” However, do not argue. Simply wait and let time prove the fact. Those who do not receive this way will one day have to agree that this is God’s present revelation. We, the little brothers in China who were raised up by the Lord fifty years ago, do know the way to be saved, to preach the gospel, to call on the Lord’s name, and to walk with God. We have practiced these things for many years. However, one day the Lord showed us that all these are not adequate and up to date. There is only one thing the Lord desires today—the local churches as the golden lampstands according to the revelation in the last book of the Bible. Watchman Nee was captured by seeing this, and he truly influenced me. I told him, “This is it! Let us take this way at any cost,” and by the Lord’s mercy, we did take this way. From that day, more than forty years ago until the present, I have never changed my tone. In the United States I have been ministering for over twelve years and have put out many messages, but from the first day up until today my tone has always been the same. This is not an “Eastern philosophical thought”; it is the divine revelation from the Bible today.