We also need to realize the extent to which the Lord has shown us the divine truths throughout the years. From the 1930’s until this present day very few spiritual books have been published outside of the Lord’s recovery which are full of life, truth, and light. This is why Brother Nee’s books have become so prevailing. In 1950 we began to publish The Ministry of the Word in Chinese. Soon after I came to the United States, we began to publish The Stream magazine in 1963. The first spiritual book we published in the United States was The All-inclusive Christ. Since 1974 I have realized that the most needed thing for the Lord’s move on this earth is the release of the truths from the entire New Testament. I began to have two annual trainings to have the Life-study on all the books of the New Testament. Thank the Lord that at the end of 1984 with twelve years of labor we finished the Life-study of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament. I had a further realization that we needed to put out something as an index, which I called The Conclusion of the New Testament, on seven great persons: God, Christ, the Spirit, the believers, the church, the kingdom, and the New Jerusalem. This conclusion may be considered as a kind of index. If you want to know anything concerning God in the New Testament, you can come to the section on God and find all the verses concerning Him in His many different aspects.
Due to the need, I also began to compose the Truth Lessons. The Truth Lessons are arranged to be covered in four years. Each year has four volumes and each volume contains twelve lessons. Thus, forty-eight lessons can be taught in one year. The purpose of these volumes is to provide a person with a general knowledge of the Bible according to the divine truth with the spiritual principles and also to bring one into a full enjoyment of God’s full salvation. Now all the saints in all the churches will have the Truth Lessons, a Recovery Version of the New Testament, Life-study messages covering every book of the New Testament, and The Conclusion of the New Testament as an index for our study.
Since the recovery came to the United States in the early sixties, we began the publication work on a very small scale. Every year the publications have been increasing. Now we have sixty full-timers laboring in the publication work: fifteen in Anaheim, California, fifteen in Irving, Texas, and thirty in Taipei, Taiwan. Now we are going to open up a Spanish office in Monterrey, Mexico, to publish the Spanish translations.
Especially over the last three years, the Lord has shown us the New Testament economy of God. A book published by us containing forty-four chapters and entitled God’s New Testament Economy could be considered as a consummation of what the Lord has shown us in His recovery. The highest revelation that we have received from the Lord is God’s New Testament economy.
In one recent message we called the Spirit the processed, compound, all-inclusive, life-giving, indwelling, sevenfold intensified, and consummated Spirit. We have put out many messages with many verses from the Bible to reveal such a Spirit. Again, this shows us how the Lord has given His truth to us more and more over the years. The standard of the truth in the Lord’s recovery is very high today.
On the one hand, I have pointed out my concern that there are very few among us who have really gotten into all these truths. On the other hand, I can assuredly say that many of you who have been sitting under this ministry for ten years have received many riches. When some brothers among us went out and began to teach others, they were surprised at how much they did know and have retained over the years. By being under this ministry, you have been saturated and soaked in the truth day after day. You have received something unconsciously and could never be the same. Even the dear brothers who were with us for some time and left still recognize the worth of what they received in the recovery. As long as you have been in the recovery for some time, you cannot wash away what you have received because all the truths have been constituted into you.
I would like to relate a few incidents which show how the truths we have received from the Lord have touched some of the Lord’s children. Recently, a certain sister among us went with some others to the airport to meet some other brothers and sisters. While they were waiting, they met four American missionaries, among whom was a couple. The wife of that couple saw this sister’s Recovery Version of the New Testament and asked if she could look at it. While this sister was talking to the wife’s husband and to others, the wife could not stop reading the notes on the text of the New Testament. Finally, she asked this sister where she could get a copy of the Recovery Version, saying that the writer of the notes surely is a great scholar.
A sister in Taiwan gave a testimony that she met a seeking and learned Southern Baptist sister who had heard some negative speaking concerning us and who was influenced by it. When this seeking sister looked at a copy of the other sister’s Recovery Version of Matthew and read the first note on the first verse of Matthew, she asked the other sister to get her a copy. She was caught by that one note and was eventually brought into the church life. Another older sister in southern California who did not meet with us got a copy of the Matthew Recovery Version, and when she read the first note in Matthew, she began to weep. This note captured her heart.
We have to see the need of today’s world, and we have to realize what the Lord has given us and how much we have today. These truths concerning God’s New Testament economy should not be just for ourselves but for the entire earth and especially for all the children of God.
A good number of saints have been very faithful in the recovery to learn the truths, attend the meetings, and keep a good testimony. Mostly all the dear saints in the recovery bear a living, positive testimony in their working place, in their schools, in their neighborhoods, and among their relatives. Some of the saints may wonder, though, why we are seemingly so small with very little increase in the churches. Our eyes must be opened to see the positive side of our situation.
Before I came to this country in 1961, there were very few churches in the Lord’s recovery in the western world. At that time in the Far East, there were a little over two hundred twenty churches. Among these two hundred twenty churches, over one hundred were in the Philippines. Those one hundred churches were raised up by one brother who studied the sixty lessons of the basic truths published by our bookroom in The Ministry of the Word. By using these lessons, he established over one hundred churches. These one hundred churches were all raised up and established by these lessons. In 1985 I went to the Philippines and saw this brother. He told me that our church age had passed through the sixty lessons of basic truths and now we are in the stage of the Life-studies. Today there are three hundred twenty-five churches in the Far East.
Since 1962 two hundred eighty churches have been produced in the western world, which includes Africa, Australasia, Europe, North America, and South America. There are some saints in Zimbabwe in Africa who are meeting as the church. I also received a report that on the island of Tasmania, which is south of Australia, there are some saints meeting as the church. These statistics show us the Lord’s blessing on His recovery over the last twenty-four years.
In Central America and in South America the people’s hearts are open to the truth. Latin America has been dominated by the Catholic Church for centuries. Then the Pentecostal movement went there. Generally speaking, Latin America is devoid of the truth and many people are tired of Catholicism and Pentecostalism. They are seeking the truth. When you present the truths that we have seen to them, they eagerly receive them. This again shows the Lord’s blessing on His recovery.
We have passed through so many attacks, disturbances, tests, and trials, yet the Lord has brought us through. The Lord’s recovery has been firmly founded on a rock, which is a standing of the divine truth and the divine life. Everything in the Lord’s recovery is firmly founded and now is the time for us to go on. Thank the Lord that He has cleared up so many things and He has founded us upon a firm foundation. We are built upon a foundation, a rock, of the divine truth and the divine life. Now that we have seen what the need of the present world is, the divine truths the Lord has shown us, and the blessing upon the Lord’s recovery, we must go on to see what our responsibility is. In the next chapter we will fellowship concerning our need to bear some responsibility.