In order to go on, we all need to drop our old concepts and pick up the new view of the Lord’s present recovery. For the building up of the Body of Christ, we need the material. In Haggai the Lord charged the Israelites, “Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified” (1:8). Today we need to go to knock on doors because we need the material for God’s house. I am sharing this with the hope that we could be rescued from the wrong understanding and wrong position. We all have to admit that there are many ways to preach the gospel, but to visit people in their homes is the best way.
The Lord told us in Luke 14:23, “Go out into the roads and hedges and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.” The higher class people are not in the hedges. Only those who are lazy and idle will be there. In 1 Corinthians 1, Paul says that God has not called many wise, powerful, or wellborn people. Instead, most of the people God has chosen are the weak of the world, the lowborn of the world, and the despised (vv. 26-28). In Luke 14 the Lord told us to compel these people to come in.
We may be fully biased in our understanding and yet still believe that we are enjoying Christ. If we have not been bearing fruit for years, we may be cut off from the vine without realizing it (John 15:2a, 6). We may be in a self-deceiving position. If we are really enjoying Christ, we will surely bear fruit. Where has our fruit been in the past years? For our local church to remain at the same number year after year is a shame. I must be honest to the One whom I serve and to the ones whom I serve. We are too biased. We must come back to the straight way.
First, we have to visit people to gain them for the Lord’s Body. Second, we must keep going back to visit them to have home meetings. Regardless of how little we think we know, we still must contact them as much as we can and minister to them as much as we know. After a child is born, the mother must immediately begin to care for him. We must go back again and again to visit the new ones begotten through us to take care of them. According to Ephesians 5:29, the Lord knows how to cherish and nourish His Body. We have to follow the Lord to cherish and nourish the new ones. Third, we also have to have small group meetings to teach and perfect them. Fourth, we have to perfect them to speak for the Lord, to prophesy, in the church meetings. Regardless of a person’s ability, as long as he will labor, there will be some result. We have received a view of the Lord’s present recovery. Now we must put this view into our practice.
You also must take good care of the present situation you are in. You may be in a local church that is not so high, so living, or so encouraging. Hardly anyone may like to visit people by knocking on their doors, and some may even oppose it. What should you do in such a situation? You may have been sick with the same disease, so you should be able to sympathize with all the sick ones. You should be patient with them. You need to visit these dear ones to pray with them, to have fellowship with them, to warm up their cold heart, and to stir up their down spirit. You may have to do this for an entire year to get a few to rise up to realize the burden you are bearing. I believe the proverb that says: “Where there is a will, there is a way.”
We need to practice the Lord’s present recovery, His new way, but we should not be too hasty or rough. We need to be patient with the saints and we should not categorize them. We should love everyone with the same love and avoid creating any kind of division. We need to be with the saints the way Paul was in Ephesus. He told the brothers there, “You yourselves know...how I was with you all the time” (Acts 20:18). He was with the saints day by day for three years. Many of us may have to work for a living, but we still should have the evenings and weekends to give to the Lord. We can use our leisure time for the Lord’s interests.
The unbelievers spend much time for their pleasure, amusement, and recreation. Actually, the best amusement is the church life. A brother among us told the story of his grandfather who was a baker. He worked in a bakery from 4 a.m. to 4 p.m., but nearly every day the first thing he did when he came home from work was to go and visit people for the Lord. No matter how we labor, it is much better than being idle. How wonderful it is to be in the Lord’s recovery, and now by His mercy we have a way to practice the church life by the preaching of the gospel, home meetings, small group meetings, and church meetings. This way is full of labor but also full of joy. If we take this way, we will enjoy the Lord’s presence, and we, our family, and our church will be greatly blessed.
According to our present situation, I feel that the wisest thing is for us to go on in a positive way. We must bring the saints into the full realization of the new way gradually by the Lord’s leading. We should not lead the church into this in a hasty way. I want to point out again that the new way is composed of the following steps: 1) preaching the gospel for begetting; 2) having home meetings for nourishing; 3) having group meetings for teaching; and 4) having church meetings for building.
We have to visit people in their homes to pass on the gospel to them. I hope that all the churches will try to enter into preaching the gospel by visiting people in their homes. Once they believe and are baptized, we have to go back to them. In the first month it is best if we can visit them ten times. We need to continue to visit them in order to nourish and cherish them. In the first two or three times with them, we should do our best to help them realize that our Savior, Jesus Christ, is today the life-giving Spirit in their spirit. They need to realize that they have a regenerated spirit which they can exercise by calling on the name of the Lord and praying. Whenever we exercise our spirit, He moves and works within us. We can also help them to speak, first by helping them to give a testimony of their salvation. From the very beginning, we can train them to speak for the Lord. Every time we go to visit them, we can check with them, “Do you have something to say for the Lord or of the Lord?” We should always do this. Then from the very beginning of their Christian life, they will learn to speak the Lord.
We do not have many verses in the Bible to tell us how to carry out the home meetings and small group meetings, but we know that we need to pray much, exercise our spirit, and release our spirit when we meet with the new ones in their homes. We need to pray, praise, sing, and read verses from the Scriptures in a living way. Then the new ones will follow us and learn from us. The children spontaneously speak the language of their parents. When we release our spirit, they will learn from us. When we speak, we can also instruct and encourage them to speak by exercising their spirit. We can encourage them to first tell how they were saved and then encourage them to speak concerning how they experienced the Lord. They may say: “This morning I did not have any joy. Then I prayed to the Lord and called upon Him, and I became joyful.” We can encourage them by saying: “Amen! Hallelujah! This is a good testimony.” After about three months, they can be brought into the habit of speaking.
We need to go on from the home meetings to bring them into contact with other saints in their neighborhood for a small group meeting. In the small group meetings, there is the need of further teaching. It is helpful to use either the Life Lessons or Truth Lessons because all the necessary verses and material are there. It is not necessary to try to finish a lesson in one session. We may cover one lesson in three meetings with them. We also need to perfect the new ones to prophesy in the larger church meetings. Recently, I heard a new one who had only been saved for one year stand up in a meeting to speak on the life-giving Spirit. He spoke a good message concerning all the different titles of the Spirit, the essential and economical aspects of the Spirit, and the functions of the Spirit. Such a new one is evidence that the new way really works.
If there are fifty saints in a local church, we need to look to the Lord that all of them will be occupied with some practical service to the Lord. Fifteen saints could go out to gain people by knocking on their doors. Another fifteen may take care of the home meetings. Perhaps the ones who go out to preach the gospel could transfer the care of their new ones to the ones who are burdened for home meetings. Another fifteen saints could pick up the burden to take care of the small group meetings. Within a short time, maybe just three or four months, all fifty saints could be occupied with some practical service to the Lord, taking care of new ones and young ones. If each saint could take care of one newly baptized one for one year, think how much this new one would grow! All the teaching materials, the lesson books, are ready for us to use. We can pass these things on to the new ones through the Spirit by much prayer. By taking this way, it will be easy for the church to double in a year. The new ones that we gain will be born, raised up, and taught in the scriptural way. They will be xerox copies of us, doing the same thing that we do in our service.
It is not worthwhile for us to remain in the old way any longer. We need to take the new way gradually and positively. After the small group meetings, we need church meetings, or district meetings, of about fifty saints. Occasionally, we can have conferences to meet the need of the churches through the ministry of the Word. This way of gospel preaching by visiting people, home meetings, group meetings, and church meetings is scientific. This is the God-ordained, scriptural way that we must take for the building up of the Body of Christ. We pointed out in chapter one that even the Southern Baptists have said that visiting people in their homes with the gospel is the New Testament plan and will never be improved on. If we do not visit people where they are, how can we expect to gain them? If we only beget them and do not visit them again and again to nourish them and cherish them, how can we expect to keep them? In the past we encouraged the saints to share in the meetings, but we did not properly teach them to do this. If we do not teach the new ones under our care properly, how can we expect them to speak? All over the world today, there is a common system of education with six years of elementary school, six years of junior high and high school, four years of college, two to three years of graduate school for a Master’s degree, and another two or three years for a Ph.D. This is the scientific way of educating people that is practiced, in principle, worldwide. The new way to practice the Lord’s present recovery is also scientific and cannot be improved upon.
As we practice the new way, we should not criticize other places that are not practicing the same way that we are. Every place will be practicing the new way to one degree or another depending on the situation in that locality. I also ask the leading ones in every place not to restrict any of the saints. This is my word of love. An elder should not have the attitude that the saints need to get permission from him to go out and knock on doors. The elders may have the heart to keep the church in a good order, but they should not restrict the saints in this way. All the saints need to be free to exercise in order to develop their function. The people in the world exercise themselves by going to worldly and even sinful amusements, but actually the best amusement for the human life is the church life. The church life is the best place for us to exercise ourselves unto godliness (1 Tim. 4:7). To come to the church meetings to sit and listen to others is not to exercise. To exercise is first to pray much and go to knock on people’s doors to preach the gospel to them. This will help us to enjoy the Lord more. It will even give us a greater appetite for the Lord as our spiritual food. The more we exercise, the greater our appetite will be. We can continue to exercise in the home meetings, small group meetings, and church meetings. We have to instruct the new ones how to prophesy in the church meetings with the exercise of their spirit. We even need to instruct them to speak loud enough for others to hear them. We need to perfect them.
If we take this new way the Lord has shown us, we will double after one year and many of the saints will have been trained, perfected, and instructed to speak with content. I believe that the Lord will recover this way to the uttermost. The result of this way is not a great congregation of people coming together as a facade to make a good show. If we are faithful to the Lord, the time will come when the Lord will gain twenty thousand out of a city of one hundred fifty thousand. On the Lord’s Day, they all may be serving the Lord in different ways. Some may go out to knock on doors, some may go out to take care of home meetings, and others may be taking care of small group meetings. Then many homes throughout the city on nearly every street and lane will be worshipping the Lord, singing hymns to Him, praising Him, and speaking Him. Occasionally, maybe once a month or once every two or three months, the whole church will come together. If we do not have a big hall, we can use an auditorium or a stadium. We do not need the eldership to control things without the proper moving in the Lord’s way. This is not according to the Scriptures. On the day of Pentecost, three thousand were baptized (Acts 2:41). Within a short time, “the number of the men came to about five thousand” (4:4). How could so many be under the mere control of the elders, that is, without the positive activities according to the Lord’s leading? The only way that things could be under the elders’ mere control is for the church to remain with a small number. Such lack of increase is a shame to us.
The way in the past did not work. The Lord desires to discard everything of the old, traditional, and unscriptural way. He desires to do something for His recovery in a new way. We must pick up the view of the Lord’s present recovery. Otherwise, we will make ourselves dropouts. We will remain contented in our oldness. Whether or not we will go on with the Lord in His present recovery is up to us. But we have to realize that when the age turns it will not wait for us. Once the age changes, we can be passed by and become dropouts as far as the Lord’s move is concerned. We must see the vision of the Lord’s present recovery and practice it. Week after week and month after month, we will experience and learn something. As we do this, I have the assurance that the Lord’s joy will be with us. Even more, I believe this practice will bring us into His presence. I am so strong in my old age to work so much because I have the deep sensation and consciousness that I have the Lord’s presence. While I am speaking, I have the assurance that I am in His presence. His presence gives me the boldness. We must realize that no one can shake the Lord’s recovery because it has been built upon life and truth. Although the storms come, the foundation of the Lord’s recovery can never be shaken. The Lord’s recovery is something built solidly on Christ as the rock, and it is still going on.