Since October of 1984, at the time when I finished writing the notes in the Recovery Version of the New Testament, I began to have the burden to reconsider the practice of the Lord’s recovery. We are here in the Lord’s recovery, and we do not like to go on blindly or do anything in a contented way. We like to be on the alert as to what the Lord is doing, what He wants today, and what He wants to do among His children. Over the past sixty years, under the Lord’s mercy, I have been watching over the Lord’s recovery and the situation of today’s Christianity. I also did my best to observe the world situation. Based upon my observation, I would like to fellowship in this chapter concerning three things: the need of the present world, the divine truths that the Lord has shown us throughout the years, and all the blessings we have been receiving from the Lord through these many years.
First, we need to see what the need of the present world is. During the past sixty years I have studied the world situation. Soon after I got saved, I began to study the Bible, others’ writings concerning the Bible, the history of the church, and many biographies of the spiritual giants throughout church history. Also, by His mercy and under His grace, I had the opportunity to read the central messages of the great Bible preachers and teachers in the past twenty centuries.
I began to study the world situation soon after the first World War. Before that time, the so-called Reformed theology was very prevailing in Europe. Reformed theology does not believe that Christ will come before the one thousand years of the millennium. Reformed teachers preach and teach post-millennialism, which means that Christ will come after the millennium. According to their thought, mankind could be improved in society and adjusted by culture, by education, and by the teaching of the Bible. They probably did not believe that a Christian has two natures—a new divine nature plus the old human nature. They thought the old human nature could be improved and adjusted. This kind of teaching annuls regeneration. Even though they might not say this, what they taught implied this. Suddenly to their surprise, Germany began the first world war in Europe, and that war nullified the Reformed theological concept that human society could be improved by culture, education, and Bible teaching. Even though the Bible was taught so much in Europe, World War I still broke out. After that war, Reformed theology decreased in popularity. Then many of the Bible teachers began to write something concerning prophecy, Christ’s second coming, and the millennium.
When we were being raised up by the Lord in those days, we studied the writings of the great Brethren teachers who saw many prophetic truths concerning Christ’s second coming. The Brethren were raised up by the Lord in the early 1800’s. In the next approximately one hundred years the Brethren teachers put out many teachings. The visions, the revelations, they received of the Lord were like a flood coming to them all the time. We received great help from their writings. Besides the Brethren, we also received much help from the inner-life people, among whom were William Law, Andrew Murray, Jesse Penn-Lewis, and the speakers of the Keswick Convention. The Keswick Convention speakers and the inner-life teachers were quite prevailing and wrote a number of good books. However, since the end of the second world war in 1945 nearly no valuable spiritual life book has been written.
When I came to the United States in the early sixties, I subscribed to some of the top Christian publications. I looked at these publications for about four or five years and I saw nearly no spiritual study of the Bible or nearly no spiritual teaching from the books of the Bible, nearly no divine revelation, and nearly nothing concerning the inner life. At the end of the seventies, I noticed that many seeking Christians began to love to study the Bible. Also, a number of Christian publishers began to reprint the old expositions of the Bible. Some even reprinted Dean Alford’s New Testament. Although some of these good and older expositions have been reprinted, it is difficult to find some new writing on the Bible or on the inner life which is valuable and spiritual today. In the last century England was so rich in producing good, spiritual, Christian, and scriptural writers. During the last century and up to the first third of this century, many spiritual books came out by many good writers and speakers, among whom were D. L. Moody, A. B. Simpson, Charles Trumbull, Mary E. McDonough, and Ruth Paxson in the United States. Today, however, it is hard to find Christian literature which is purely in life, truth, and light.
The thoughtful people of today realize that they need a proper life, a philosophical, logical life. They do not want a religious or superstitious life, but a practical life. They do not want to live merely in a scientific or material way, but they are seeking something very logical and even philosophical. Today’s students in the universities and colleges are very logical, philosophical, rational, and practical, seeking something real in their human life. If you would go to the campuses today, you could see that so many young people are seeking something. In other words, they are seeking the truth, the true meaning of human life, the reality of human life.
The world situation today is that all the philosophical and logical young people are seeking something practical, real, and meaningful to their human life. They may be very much involved in their university studies, yet deep within they are seeking the reality of human life. They do not like being nonsensical, superstitious, or religious. They want to be practical and real. Furthermore, the seeking Christians are seeking after the proper Bible knowledge. The ones who serve in the bookroom in Taiwan told us that the ones who do not meet with us come to buy our Recovery Version and our Life-study of the Bible. They care for the books on the knowledge of spiritual things. All of this indicates that deep in the human heart and the Christian heart there is a need, a thirst, and a hunger after the truth. We have to believe that this is the Lord’s doing.
Our brothers who formed the gospel team went purposely to speak the truth on the college campuses. They discovered that there are many young students that are hungry for the truth. Because of the hunger they saw, they were encouraged and stirred up to have a burden to visit, if possible, all the campuses in the United States. They do not have the burden to preach the superficial, religious things, nor even to preach the shallow gospel. Their burden is to preach the deeper truths. The first message in their gospel preaching was concerning the Triune God. That message attracted a good number of thoughtful, young people. They were attracted by the subject of the Triune God.
The present need of the present world is the truth. Some brothers from the United States went to Taiwan to visit the college campuses there. They discovered that all the students were open not to the superficial things but to the deeper truths. They want to hear the deeper truths from the Bible. When some of them see our Recovery Version of the New Testament, they want to get a copy for themselves. Our God who is the moving and working God is really moving and working in the human heart in these last days, turning human intention toward the seeking after Himself. Many people cannot express exactly what they are seeking after, yet we know that what they are seeking after is the reality of the Triune God. The reality of the Triune God is the real meaning of our human life. The reality of the processed Triune God is what today’s world needs.