Now I would like to raise a question. We have pointed out many times that the great lampstand, the New Jerusalem, is the issue of God’s work throughout the ages. After the creation of the heavens and the earth, God began the work of building. God has only two kinds of work in the universe—the first kind is creation, and the second is building. After doing a work of creation, God began to do His work of building, first in the Old Testament age and then in the New Testament age. He will continuously build until the fullness of the times, which is when He will produce a great lampstand, the holy city New Jerusalem, to be His eternal habitation and also Christ’s bride and counterpart. This is the ultimate goal of God’s work. The small lampstands are merely the result of God’s building work in different localities in the present age. Then into which lampstand should we who have received grace and are living in this age be built? Should we be built into the great lampstand, or should we be built into the small lampstands?
Let me give the background behind this question. In the past several decades we have been paying particular attention to the matter of the church among God’s children. Because of this, we have frequently encountered questions and arguments from many brothers and sisters outside the recovery. These ones are quite zealous for the Lord. They love the Lord, preach the gospel, help others, teach the Scriptures, and lead people to be spiritual, yet they greatly neglect the matter of the church. We consider every spiritual work in all their different aspects to be good, but they must be for the church. These friends of ours in the Lord argue with us, saying, “When we preach the gospel, is it not for the church? When we lead the believers to be spiritual, is it not also for the church? Those who are saved through our preaching of the gospel will be a part of the New Jerusalem, and those who are saved through your preaching of the gospel will likewise have a part in the New Jerusalem. Therefore, are we not doing the same work?” This kind of argument sounds very reasonable, but it is here that a problem arises. Today many of God’s children speak with the same tone, saying, “The reality of the church is in the future, so there is no need to take care of the matter of the church today. To care about the matter of the church is too troublesome. We only need to diligently preach the gospel and lead people to be saved, to be zealous, and to love the Lord. This is good enough, because we will all end up in the New Jerusalem in the future. It does not matter where we meet today. When two or three meet at a home in one accord, zealously loving the Lord, praying, and reading the Scriptures, this is also the building. It is not necessary to build the church in a certain locality. Such outward building in a locality is not important. Since we are all going to be in the New Jerusalem, why do we need to look for trouble by paying attention to the matter of the building of the church today?”
Once someone personally said to me, “Thank the Lord that He has raised up a group in China such as yours. Your preaching of the gospel is very good, and your ministering of the word is also excellent. We have read the books published by your book room, and we even use some of them to preach in our church. There is only one matter that is not so good.” I immediately understood what he meant, but I still asked him, “What is it that is not so good?” He said, “It is the matter of the church. If you would simply not talk about the church, everything would be fine. Whenever you bring up the matter of the church, there are problems.”
I admit that he was absolutely right. I can give an example as a confirmation. The Christians who do not meet with us will buy the books that we publish as long as the books are on being spiritual. They will not buy any book that has the word church in its title. Previously, we had published a book whose original title had been Being Holy and Without Blemish, and many copies were sold. Christians everywhere bought that book. Later, we thought that the title of this book did not fit its content very well, so we changed its title to The GloriousChurch. It was the same book, and the content was unchanged. Only the title had been changed. Strangely, however, very few people bought it. We can see that today God’s children like to be spiritual, but they avoid talking about the church.
When I went abroad recently, I came in contact with quite a few Western friends. One day I had an honest conversation with one of them. He said, “Brother Lee, in recent years quite a few Western missionaries have gone to China. Many of them have come back to the West and testified that we have to thank the Lord for raising up your work in China in the East. Your work is truly wonderful, but....” When he said the word but, he had a sorrowful expression on his face. I immediately said to him, “Dear friend, I know what you were going to say. You were going to say that our work is wonderful except for our speaking on the matter of the church.” In the eyes of those missionaries, our work was like a fragrant ointment. Everything in our work was good, whether it was our gospel preaching, our messages for edification, our spiritual pursuit, or the light that we brought forth in our biblical expositions. The only thing that annoyed them was the matter of the church, which was like a dead fly in the sweet ointment. Whenever I encountered this kind of questioning, I had no way to answer them.
Today many of God’s children are not willing to talk about the church, even those who work for the Lord. They think that it is enough to lead people to be saved and to be spiritual and that the matter of the church can wait until the New Jerusalem is manifested. Today Christians think that they can establish churches anywhere. They think that one can set up a church in his home, and another can set up a church in a factory. A university professor can gather a few students to meet together and to form a church. Some Christians may even come together to be a “non-church” church. These are all theories conceived by the human mind and are not according to God’s plan. The eternal plan of God is to obtain a group of people in this age and in every locality who have been redeemed and saved by His grace to be built together in His life to become a golden lampstand that Christ may be the lamp upon it to shine forth God as the light within. God wants to build His church today, not in the future. According to man’s concept, to have the church is very inconvenient. However, according to God’s economy, having the church is very convenient. Man says that avoiding the matter of the church saves us from problems. God says, however, that without the church, problems will abound. Only when there is the church can the problems be solved.