All of us should be those who are feeding the Lord’s people at the appointed time (Matt. 24:45) and using the Lord’s talents in full (25:20, 22). On the negative side, we should not be those beating our fellow slaves (24:49). You may not do your duty to perform your service, but instead you are criticizing and sometimes even strongly opposing the brothers. You are not doing the work, but beating the fellow slaves. Some of the sisters are always busy on the telephone. When they hear something good about the brothers, they are not interested in letting anyone know. When they hear something bad about certain brothers, especially the elders, they become busy on the telephone. This is why many of the elders in the local churches are afraid to do anything wrong. Once they do something wrong, nearly everyone knows through the use of the telephone. These telephone calls are all beatings. Many of the saints are beating the elders.
When something negative happens to any of the saints, some can never retain it. Passing on the news of this negative situation is a kind of beating. Sometimes you may have a subtle way of praying for a saint who is in a negative situation in the prayer meeting. You may not expose him at other times, but you expose him through your prayers. God knows your heart. The intention in your heart and in your prayer is not so pure. You may pretend to be so spiritual, not criticizing or judging people. You pray for people, but about ten percent of your prayer is a kind of judging. This is beating. The elders in one location may criticize the elders in another location. This is also beating the fellow slaves.
You waste your time of service in beating. Instead of doing the service you beat the brothers, the fellow slaves. Many of the brothers can testify that they never heard me beating others by criticizing or exposing them. My only burden is to release messages. Although I have no intention of exposing anyone, many are exposed by the light in the messages I release. That is not my job but the Lord’s work. We all have to stop our criticizing, judging, opposing, and murmuring as a kind of beating. We must spend our time, our energy, and our everything to do a positive service for the Lord’s interest.
Furthermore, we should not be those who “eat and drink with the drunken” (Matt. 24:49). This is to drift away further, a further fall from beating the fellow slaves. You have fallen away to the world and have become a world lover. The worldy people are drunk and even drugged with worldly things. They are stupefied with the present age. To eat and drink with them is to enjoy what they enjoy. In a good sense, when you are beating the saints, you are still interested in the church life. If you were not interested in the church life, you would never criticize the elders. Because you are so “burdened for the church” and so interested in the church life, you criticize the brothers and the sisters. Once you make the decision to forget about the church, to have no interest in the church, you enter into the loving of the world and you keep company with worldly people who are always being stupefied by this age. A saint who loves the world has no heart to talk about what elders are good or bad. He may once have been beating his fellow slaves, but now he is fully occupied with worldly enjoyment. He is now eating and drinking with the drunken. Nearly every day may be a happy day to him and nearly every weekend a pleasant weekend because he is enjoying the stupefying of the worldly things.
We should not eat and drink with the drunken nor should we dig in the earth and hide the Lord’s talent (Matt. 25:18). The earth signifies the world, so to dig in the earth signifies getting into the world. Any association, any involvement, with the world, even a little worldly talk, will bury the Lord’s gift to us.
All these points we have fellowshipped should be a mirror to us to “see what is on our face,” to see where we are. An example that may help us to further realize where we are is our lack of bearing the burden to distribute the rainbow booklets, which contain a slightly edited version of the Life-study Messages. A few years ago many of the churches agreed to distribute these booklets. Initially, the distribution was quite encouraging, but it soon began to wane. Eventually, in nearly all the churches the rainbow booklets have hardly been distributed at all. As a result, our editing and printing of these booklets through the Living Stream Ministry office has become a real burden. We may say that we have no time or burden to spread the truth. We may have many excuses, but when we appear before the judgment seat of Christ (2 Cor. 5:10), the Lord will settle accounts with us (Matt. 25:19). Could you tell the Lord at His judgment seat that you had no time and no burden? I do not think He will take our excuses.