In this message I would like us to pay our attention to Ephesians 5:14, which says, “Awake, sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” Even though we have released a number of messages concerning the practice of the vital groups, my burden has not yet been discharged. The speaking Spirit is very keen. He knows much better than we do. The speakers for the Lord always have this kind of experience. We may feel okay about what we have shared and what we have heard, but the speaking Spirit says, “No, the burden is still not discharged.”
If you are going to burn a house, you cannot burn it unless you get the right spot. If you put a little gasoline on that spot and start the fire, the entire house will burn. In order to stay burning for the Lord, to stay vitalized, we must also come back to the right spot.
In this message I want to come back to the very root of the vital groups. Whether or not we have started the practice of the vital groups depends upon our experience of this root. I have a deep concern that not many have really started the vital groups. Instead, you may take the teaching as an outward way and try to put it into practice. But this is not right and does not work.
From the beginning I have pointed out that you should not form a vital group. You have to produce a group, not form one. How do you do this? You do not do it by the way of a movement or by the way of propaganda. The way to produce a vital group is by you yourself going to the Lord. You should have a burden because you see that you are old, dead, lukewarm, fruitless, pitiful, and numb, with no feeling. This should cause you to go to the Lord to repent. This is the very start of the vital group. I say again-go to the Lord. Without going to the Lord by yourself, what you do means nothing.
You may get some help from the fellowship on the vital groups, but that is not what the Lord wants. What the Lord wants is for you to have a new start by realizing your need. You may desire to be vitalized, yet you may not feel that you have any need. But consider the people of this world who need the Lord, yet not one of them realizes it. This is why we have to go to preach the gospel to them to stir up their heart and to open their eyes to see something. Then from within they realize that they need the Lord. The first thing we should point out to them is that they must contact the Lord. Even if they do not have a heart for this, they still need to do it. We are the same way. We may not feel that we have a need, but we surely do have a need. We must go to the Lord. He is the source that can render us a real start.
You may go to Him once, and nothing will happen. Maybe even after twenty times, nothing will happen. That might disappoint you. But our experience tells us that if we keep going to the Lord, sooner or later, He will shine on us. He is the light (1 John 1:5). Go to Him, and light will shine on you. The light might not shine today, but it will tomorrow. Throughout the Bible, there is always a call to go to the Lord (John 7:37; Isa. 2:5; 55:1; Matt. 11:28). Even at the end of the Bible there is a call to all the thirsty ones to come to the Lord (Rev. 22:17). We must go to Him and contact Him. I cannot enlighten you. What can enlighten you is God Himself. You must go to Him.
The Lord has shown us that the only way for us to go on is to come back to His Word, and His Word tells us that He ordained a way in the New Testament for us to take. He has shown us that we cannot take this way as a form or a ritual. If we do, we are just dropping an old ritual and picking up a new one. You hate the old routine, but you love the new routine. We do not want to pick up another routine. This is why you have to go to the Lord directly.
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