In this chapter we shall continue to see something concerning the Word and the Spirit for the meetings. We need to pay our attention to the title of this chapter. It says, “Experienced in the Word.” Even among us, not many have ever realized that in the New Testament there is such a thought, the thought of being experienced in the word. Hebrews 5 speaks of the negative side, saying, “inexperienced in the word.” Paul, to some extent, blamed the Hebrew believers for not having adequate experience in the word of God, saying in verse 13, “For everyone who partakes of milk is inexperienced in the word of righteousness.” Paul blamed them concerning this matter because, according to the context of this book, especially chapters five and six, the Hebrew believers, after being saved and going on for a while, stopped in the course of their spiritual life at the beginning of the word of Christ, the “good word” in Hebrews 6:5. The good word is the word of the beginning of Christ’s salvation (6:1). Because they stopped there and did not go on, there was the need for the Apostle Paul to write the book of Hebrews.
The book of Hebrews is an advance in the understanding of God’s holy Word. Now, the word that the stopped believers must go on to experience is the word of righteousness. In the New Testament there are terms such as the word of grace (Acts 20:32), the word of life (Phil. 2:16), and the word of truth (2 Cor. 6:7). It may be easy for us to understand what the word of grace is and what the words of life and the words of truth are. However, I doubt that many, even among us, have an understanding of the word of righteousness.
The word of righteousness is the teaching in the book of Hebrews. Paul told the Hebrews that they had enjoyed, tasted, the good word of God, which is the beginning of the word of Christ’s salvation, but they had not gone on. They had never become experienced in the word of God’s righteousness, the word concerning God’s dispensational dealing with His chosen people. We must become experienced in the word of righteousness. We need to know the truth, not just the beginning of the truth, but the advanced truth which is the word of righteousness.
We must be experienced in the word and also filled with the Spirit. In Hebrews 5:13-14 is the thought of being experienced in the word, and in Acts 4:31 is the clear fact concerning the filling of the Spirit. As to the Spirit we need to be filled; as to the word we need to be experienced.
I do not like simply to pass on doctrines. We need the help to realize our real situation. What is needed today in the Lord’s recovery is the increase. Recently four brothers from Orange County in Southern California came to me with a purpose. They had prepared more than five pages of statistics with a spiritual budget. Those statistics show that in the past ten years the rate of increase in the Lord’s recovery has not been encouraging. It has been too low, on the average lower than ten percent.
In the past ten years we have built two large halls. In 1976 over eighty young saints dedicated themselves to build the first large hall in Anaheim, and five years later in Irving, Texas, we built another hall. On the first day of use during the training on Revelation the hall in Anaheim was filled with over four thousand saints. The hall in Irving was completed in the fall of 1982. Now there are approximately ninety-eight churches in the Lord’s recovery in the United States, and seven more in Canada. This number, as a whole, is still very low. The percentage of increase today is much lower than in the years from 1963 to 1973. In those ten years the increase was always over thirty percent yearly, but in the last ten years the rate has come down even to less than ten percent. Now more of the truth has been released and so many have grown quite much in life. However, the low rate of the increase bothers us.
We have been meeting in the Lord’s recovery in this country since 1962. I still remember our meetings in Los Angeles in those ten years from 1962 to 1972, especially in the few years after 1969. Nearly every meeting was an exciting meeting. Whoever met with us from 1969 through 1971 could never forget the high meetings. Actually, the meetings never started in the hall or even on the way to the meeting. Before dinner time, after all the saints had come home from work, they began to meet in their homes. At the dinner table they began the meeting—singing and fellowshipping. Then they all came to the meeting in groups, singing on the way, shouting, “hallelujahing,” and “amening” on the way. At 7:30 the meeting started. If you had come at even five minutes before seven, it would have been hard to get a front row seat. But regrettably, in many of today’s meetings only a few are sitting on the front row at 7:30; most of the saints have not yet come.
This is not a very positive and encouraging sign. The rate of the increase has been getting lower and lower. The high atmosphere in the meetings has also been coming down. These two things are troubling. The four brothers who came from Southern California to fellowship with me felt that they could not tolerate this situation any longer. They wanted to revolt against the present situation, to have a revolutionizing change in these two things. They said that at any cost we must uplift the rate of increase; at any cost we must uplift the atmosphere of our meetings. They said that Southern California should no longer be a “Dead Sea.” They considered that all the saints in over fourteen churches in Southern California are at the present time like a Dead Sea, with little flow coming in or going out. Without an inflow the Dead Sea would be dried up. In the churches today there is nearly no going out, no migration, and no producing of full-timers. This situation is a standstill. Thank the Lord that there has been a rate of increase, which is better than nothing. The recovery is not going down, but it is going up. The rate of increase, however, is too low. It is low to such an extent that we do not realize that anything is happening. It is as if there is no rate of increase at all.
In October of 1984 I went back to Taiwan. I went there purposely at the sacrifice of the Lord’s recovery in the western world because we do have a great heritage, a big investment in the Lord’s recovery there. Because the work there was started by the Lord through this ministry, I had the full position and right to say whatever the Lord led me to say. I told the saints there that the entire situation of the Lord’s recovery, including the work in the churches, needs to be revolutionized. I told them to forget about the old way. At that time the church in Taipei had over eleven thousand meeting in twenty-one halls, with only less than six elders. In the past, for over five years, whenever I checked with the leading ones, I said that the eldership there was not strong and needed to be strengthened. They answered that nearly no one else was qualified to be an elder. After a year I checked with them again, saying that there was the urgent need to increase and strengthen the eldership in Taipei. Once more they said that nearly no one was qualified. They considered the brothers name by name, showing me that nearly no one was qualified.
Last October I went and I gave messages telling the churches that everything should be revolutionized and that we should not remain old. After I gave those messages in two or three conferences, they all agreed to have a change. First, in one night fifty-two new elders were established. The leading ones agreed to raise up all those “unqualified ones” to be elders. The former six were not excluded, but were put into a special responsibility. The fifty-two bear the direct responsibility in twenty-one halls for the church.
The second thing I did was to nearly annul, to kill, all the big meetings. They had only practiced to gather over eleven thousand saints into twenty-one halls and had trained about twenty or thirty speakers to take care of the speaking every Lord’s Day morning. I proposed that they should establish small group meetings with no speaker and no leader. I said that everybody should be a speaker, including the sisters and even the young boys. Everyone has to be a speaker, everyone has to be a leader, everyone has to be an usher, and everyone has to be a song leader in the small group meeting. Likewise, every home has to be a meeting hall. Thank the Lord that He blessed and confirmed this way. Much blessing has been brought in already.
These four brothers from Southern California who came to me went to Taipei in October, November, and December of 1985 while I was there. They saw the blessing and were inspired, touched, and very much influenced. Coming back to Orange County, they told the saints that they could not tolerate the situation there. They could not tolerate the low rate of increase and the Dead Sea situation. Ten years ago we had many migrations, but within these ten years there has been nearly none. These brothers reminded me that I had challenged them twice in the past one or two years concerning migration. There were many openings in the Southeast, in the so-called Bible belt from North Carolina to Arizona. The Lord has opened many places for us, but not many would migrate to fill the openings. They also vindicated me in the matter of the full-timers. They told the saints in Orange County that I had challenged them with the urgent and great need of more full-timers. However, among seventeen hundred saints in Southern California not many responded. Therefore, these four told the saints there that they could not tolerate the situation any longer. They are burdened to “set a fire to burn the old house,” to burn the old practices, the indifferent practices, the lukewarm practices, the standstill practices, the old Dead Sea practices. All the churches should be a spring, a living spring out of the living fountain to have a living flow. Honestly speaking, we cannot see this in the Lord’s recovery today.
We must reconsider our way, as the Lord said through the prophet Haggai, “Consider your ways. Ye have sown much, and bring in little...and he that earneth wages, earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes” (Hag. 1:5b, 6). What is the reason? There is nothing wrong with the Lord’s recovery. Much more of the truth has been released, but the situation among us is at a standstill. What is the shortage?