We continue with a portion of his open letter from the twenty-fourth issue of The Christian, published in December 1927:
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Bible contains numerous teachings which ordinary believers cannot fully understand. Moreover, the testimony of the Lord is so incomparably great that we cannot receive and preach it completely. During the time of my waiting and praying, God committed to me the testimony which He wishes me personally to bear. I consider the book The Spiritual Man to be an outline of the special testimony which the Lord has committed to me. In the past years, day by day the hand of the Lord has become heavier upon me, forcing me to realize that He desires me to bear a special testimony for His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. There are many who have ordinary testimonies, but the Lord wants me to bear a special testimony for Him. Therefore, I am ready to give up the work of expounding the Scriptures, which thing I would like to do most, in order that I might bear the specific testimony which God has freshly committed to me. The wonderful thing about it is that the Lord is also leading all the brothers and sisters who are meeting and having fellowship in Shanghai in the same way. Hence, by means of the coming issues of The Present Testimony, according to what we have received from God, we shall specifically explain "the deep things of God" to the Body of Christ. We wholeheartedly desire to bear this unique testimony which the Lord has committed to us. We also fully realize that the Lord will raise up many other believers besides us to bear this testimony together. The more we walk on the spiritual path, the more we realize the importance of the message of the cross. Believers today have failed because they have not allowed the cross to work deeply and destroy all the works of the flesh. There is still a mixture of the new and the old creation in the lives of believers, because the old creation has not yet been replaced by God. Such mixture always results in loss to the new creation. Correctness in outward behavior, excellence in church organization, increase in Bible knowledge, and exertion in God's work are all insufficient to guarantee against a mixture of the flesh within. On the contrary, the flesh can act freely in all these things and promote them with all its might. For this reason, the work of the cross annihilating the old creation is indispensable. Without the cross standing between the new and the old creations, a person's spiritual life is false, shallow, and superficial. Since a believer's life is always related to both "self" and the Lord, the cross must destroy the self so that the Lord can have His legitimate place. The time of the millennium will be the right time for the Lord to overcome Satan. Therefore, by the grace of the Lord, we would remind the church of God that the Body of Christ must rise up to work with Him to bring in the kingdom. Our desire is that the enemy might soon be put to shame and that Christ might soon be glorified.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
In his open letter published in the first issue of The Present Testimony of JanuaryApril 1928, he said:
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
We publish this little magazine because we have received the commission from God to help His children specifically in matters relating to spiritual life and warfare. In every age there is a unique truth especially needed for that period. For those of us living in these last days, there must also be some specific truth which we especially need. By means of The Present Testimony, we intend to bear testimony to the truth needed in this present age.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________