In this chapter I am burdened to have more fellowship concerning being filled with the Spirit inwardly and outwardly. Many Christians have taught concerning the believers having the fullness of the Spirit, yet hardly any teachers have referred this matter to Matthew 25. The reason for this is that the truths unveiled in the entire book of Matthew, which is a revelation of the gospel of the kingdom of the heavens, have been lost and even missed by most Christians. Some may quote portions of Matthew referring to the virgin’s son being called Emmanuel and given the name Jesus (1:23, 25), to being pure in heart (5:8) and poor in spirit (5:3), which to them is to be humble, and concerning coming to the Lord for Him to give us rest (11:28). Others may even refer to Matthew 28:19, being baptized into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, to argue concerning how to baptize people. Actually, though, what this gospel reveals has been lost. The reason why we call our version of the New Testament the Recovery Version is because this refers to the recovery of the lost truths. If you spent one day to study the book of Matthew with all the notes in the Recovery Version, you would realize that the lost truths in Matthew are recovered there.
Many of us would claim that we are in the recovery, but in what kind of recovery? Are we just in the recovery of the ground of the church or of meeting in the name of the Lord Jesus? The entire situation of today’s Christianity is in degradation. Many of us who say we are in the Lord’s recovery, even the ones saved among us who were never in Christianity and still remain with us, are in the degraded situation. If some Christians are asked what it means to be saved, they might answer that it means to believe in Jesus and to have your sins forgiven that you might go to heaven one day. Even some among us would say this. This kind of saying is a strong sign of the degradation of today’s Christianity. Many of us have never been in Christianity, but we are in the degradation of Christianity. Do not think that degraded Christianity does not include you. It does not mean that because you are meeting in the recovery, you are not in that degradation. Christianity denotes a general situation of Christians, and since the end of the first century this situation has become and still is altogether a degraded situation.
What does it mean to be degraded? To be degraded is to lose whatever God has revealed concerning His New Testament economy. Whoever has become a Christian and yet has not come up to the level of God’s New Testament economy is in this degradation regardless of where they meet. I am quite concerned that even a good number among us are also in that degradation because we are not up to this level. To merely be saved with your sins forgiven to have a right to go to heaven is a salvation in the degradation of Christianity. This is not a salvation up to the level of God’s New Testament economy. This is why I have sounded the call to rise up. Before rising up you have to wake up. Do not remain in a drowsy, stupefied condition. Today the poor preaching of the gospel in the degradation of Christianity is a kind of stupefying gospel. They preach the gospel to save people, but their kind of preaching is a stupefying. This is why I proposed that we have some bumper stickers that say “Christ will come to settle accounts with you” (Matt. 25:19). This statement is versus today’s stupefied situation.
Our present situation in the Lord’s recovery, especially in the past few years, has been and probably still is a kind of drowsy, stupefied situation. I hope that we could pay our full attention to the two portions of the Word in the Scripture reading spoken by the Lord Jesus Himself. These two portions of the Word are actually two aspects of one matter, the matter of the Lord’s coming back. The Lord told us that He would come quickly (Rev. 22:20), but one may think His coming has been slow because it has been nearly two thousand years since His ascension. But do not forget that to Him one thousand years are just one day (2 Pet. 3:8).
I was confirmed concerning the assurance of His coming back by my study of prophecies and their fulfillment. I studied the Bible when I was young by studying its prophecies, and I was taught mostly by the Brethren teachers, who have been famous and still are in the Biblical study of types and prophecies. I also studied a number of others’ writings concerning prophecy. Through my study I was deeply impressed with one thing—the Bible in its prophecies and all the prophetic writings stressed the reformation of the nation of Israel (see Matt. 24:32 and notes). The Israelites had lost their country, their fatherland, and they all had been scattered on the earth. I wondered how Israel could ever be reformed as a nation when they had lost their homeland for over twenty-five centuries. According to my concept at that time, for such a thing to happen seemed impossible. I began to watch over the world situation related to this matter since 1925. I had the habit of always reading the first page of the newspaper every day, if possible, concerning international affairs. I remember reading the front page of the largest newspaper in Shanghai one day in 1948. The headlines said that the nation of Israel had been reformed! The newspaper told the account of how the United Nations recognized the reformed nation of Israel. The returned Israelites’ fighting away the Egyptians was a fulfillment of Exodus 23:28 which says that the Lord would send hornets before the Israelites to drive out the enemies from the good land. This was a great surprise to me. I worshipped the Lord that in His sovereignty He had reformed a nation for His people.
Although the nation of Israel had been reformed, Jerusalem had not yet been returned to Israel. In 1967 I had surgery done in San Francisco and was in the hospital for seven days. Within those seven days, I read in the newspaper that Jerusalem had been returned to Israel. One scene on the television showed many Arabs throwing away their new guns and only one Israeli soldier chasing them. The fulfillment of these prophecies should warn us that the Lord is coming.