We saw in the previous message that the way to be vitalized is to be stirred up in the first love for the Lord through repenting prayers, to make a thorough confession to the Lord, to have close, intimate, and thorough fellowship with the Lord and with the seeking saints, and to reconsecrate yourself to the Lord. In this message we want to see three particular enemies which we have today. These enemies are deadness, lukewarmness, and barrenness. This is why we feel desperate that we need to look to the Lord for Him to vitalize us. We need to be made living, burning, and fruitful.

These three enemies are mainly toward the good Christians, toward the brothers and sisters who are regularly attending the meetings. They are not enemies to the worldly Christians, to those who live in their pleasures and entertainment. We may love the Lord and attend the meetings faithfully and regularly. But we have to realize that deadness, lukewarmness, and barrenness are our habitual enemies. We may not even consider them as practical and even fatal enemies.

Death is more defiling before God than sin (Rev. 3:1; Lev. 11:24-25; Num. 6:7, 9). Furthermore, lukewarmness is an abominable thing in the eyes of the Lord. The lukewarmness of Laodicea caused the Lord to spew the Laodiceans out of His mouth (Rev. 3:16). Do we appreciate being spewed out of the Lord’s mouth? This shows us how serious it is to be lukewarm. We may be good Christians and good saints in the recovery who attend the meetings and serve the church regularly, but we are not so living or burning. We are neither hot nor cold. Instead, we are lukewarm.

Barrenness is an even more subtle enemy. Some married couples are not able to have children, and this becomes a big problem to them. According to human desire, the meaning of a couple’s life is to have children. Likewise, if we do not bear fruit, beget some spiritual children, there is not much meaning to our church life. Without fruit-bearing, there is no practical church life. Suppose that we baptized fifty-eight new ones in the next Lord’s Day church meeting. All of us would be excited and joyful in the Lord. But we do not have much joy, because we are barren. Barrenness is the biggest enemy that annuls the proper church life.

If we cannot have children in our human life, we can have the Lord as our replacement. But the Lord will not be the replacement for the fruit which we do not bear in the church life. We may feel that we have been enjoying the Lord every day, but a tree is known according to its fruit. The real church life can be evidenced only by fruit-bearing. If we have not borne fruit for three years, for five years, or even for ten years, our enjoyment of Christ should be questioned. Something must be improper or wrong if we are not bearing fruit.

In the seven epistles to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3, the Lord touched the deadness with Sardis and the lukewarmness with the Laodiceans, but He did not touch barrenness. This is because He had already dealt with this very seriously in John 15. In the four Gospels, the Lord did not deal with deadness or with lukewarmness. But He dealt with barrenness to the uttermost in one chapter-John 15. Some people would say that this is a chapter on abiding in Christ. Actually, however, it is not on abiding but on fruit-bearing. Abiding is for fruit-bearing. The Lord said, “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes it away....If one does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is dried up” (vv. 2a, 6a). For a branch to be cast out means that it is cut off from participation in the riches of the life of the vine.

If we do not bear fruit, there is a danger that we will be cut off from the vine tree. This does not mean that we will suffer eternal perdition but that we will lose our enjoyment of Christ as our portion. This proves that if we do not bear fruit, there is a problem with our enjoyment of Christ. This is just like a couple who cannot bring forth children. They may say that they do not feel anything is wrong with them, but actually something is wrong that is preventing them from having children. They may even go to some doctors to find out what is wrong with them. This is an illustration of our problem of barrenness. We may feel there is nothing wrong with us, but based upon the fact that we have not borne fruit, we must realize that something is wrong with our enjoyment of Christ. If we do not have fruit, our so-called enjoyment of Christ can be a self-deceiving matter. It is not so real.

We may think that we have seen a number of saints who have not borne fruit for quite a long time, but we did not notice that they were cut off from the enjoyment of the Lord. My answer to this is that the matter of life is a mystery. There may be a couple who cannot bear children, but no one can see the reason. In the same way it may seem that we are doing quite well, but where is our fruit? This is a test. If we are not bearing fruit, this is evidence that we have lost our enjoyment of Christ. In this message I want us to realize that every day, day and night, these three enemies are around us: deadness, lukewarmness, and barrenness.

In the previous message, I shared that we need to get some companions, at least two or three, with whom we can labor in the gospel. We should never work by ourselves. Instead, we should work by fellowshipping with our companions. The trouble is that we do not like to have fellowship with others. We are self-contented, and some of us may think that we are omnipotent and all-capable. But according to my over sixty years of experience, none of us is omnipotent. Each of us is very limited in his capacity and ability. You need the help, and I need the help. My helpers in the work know how much I need them. I purposely fellowship with them and ask them questions that I may learn. I want to be taught by them. If there is no fellowship among us in our work, there cannot be the real one accord. We need to labor in oneness through thorough fellowship. Because of our unwillingness to have thorough fellowship, we are dead, lukewarm, and barren. We must get some companions and open up ourselves to fellowship with them to the uttermost.
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