We need to continue what we have studied and emphasized here in the past and see together the secrets of building up the home meetings. We have pointed out that the crucial elements of meeting are the word, the Spirit, singing, and praying. If you want the meetings to be living and rich, they need to be full of the Lord’s word, and the word must have the Spirit. If the word does not have the spirit, then it is merely the letter; it is dead and empty, and it causes people to be depressed. The word of God must have the Spirit in order to be life. Therefore, fundamentally, Christian meetings should be full of the word of God, and the word of God should be filled with the mingled Spirit of God. When we come to the meeting, the first thing is to sing the word of God with the spirit. The second thing is to pray, and there should be much prayer. Regardless of whether we are in the home meetings, small group meetings, district meetings, or even in large meetings, we have to practice these four things: the word, the Spirit, singing, and praying. After praying, you have to speak; after speaking, you have to sing; after singing, you still have to pray. In this way, our meetings will definitely be living, high, rich, and full of impact.
In the recent past, we have conducted some experiments to practice these four things in different kinds of meetings. However, the results have not been entirely satisfactory. Our situation is still too rigid and monotonous. Therefore, I spent time to study again all twenty-seven books of the New Testament, from Matthew to Revelation, to have a reconsideration. When I put together all the verses concerning meeting, I can see that the meeting of the believers is not an independent matter, but an issue and expression of our daily living. How we have our daily living will determine how we meet when we come together. If our daily living is of one condition, yet we come to the meeting and put on masks like those in the opera to portray something of another condition, that is not a meeting, but a performance. Our Christian meetings must be genuine; the more genuine they are, the more proper they are. How we are in our daily life should be how we are in the meetings. We must be genuine, without any falsehood at all. It should not be that you do not talk in your daily life, yet you talk without stopping in the meetings. Neither should it be that you talk so roughly in your daily living, yet you speak so gently when you are in the meetings. When the Lord Jesus was on earth, He rebuked the Pharisees as hypocrites. At that time, this word hypocrites was used to refer to the Greek and Roman actors who spoke wearing a mask; hence, they were false and were pretending. Our Christian meetings should not be like that.
Therefore our meeting cannot be separated from our daily living. The entire New Testament reveals to us that Christian living is not a matter of teaching and doctrine, but a matter of the Spirit. The verses we quoted this morning show us that Christian living is a living of being filled with the Spirit. Ephesians is a profound book. At the end it says, “Do not be drunk with wine...but be filled in spirit” (5:18). According to the entire revelation of the book of Ephesians, to be filled in spirit is to be filled with the Triune God. Today our God has passed through many processes, and He has been prepared. This processed Triune God has become the all-inclusive Spirit. He is just like the air, upon us, in our mouth, and even within us. Simply by taking a breath, we can be filled with Him. Eventually, we will be “speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” From this you can see that the living of the members of the Body of Christ must be filled in spirit with the Triune God. Romans chapter eight also has a similar word telling us that the genuine spirituality is to walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit (v. 4). Galatians chapter five also says that we who live by the Spirit should also walk by the Spirit (v. 25). These words adequately prove that Christian living is altogether a matter of the Spirit.
If we have this kind of living, when we come together, we will also have this kind of meeting. Our living is of the Spirit; our meeting is also of the Spirit. This is altogether a matter in the Spirit. If we merely have the Spirit, yet we are not in the spirit, then our living is not a Christian living; rather, it is no different from that of the worldly people. In that case, when we come together, of course, there would be no Christian meeting. In the worldly meetings, people are gathered together, and each one is seated in an orderly way one by one. There may be someone in the meeting making an announcement on a specific matter, or someone giving a speech. When we Christians are not in the spirit, our meetings will also be like this. The ushers will invite everyone to be seated. When the time comes, an elder will call a hymn, another elder will offer a prayer, and then a brother who does the speaking will give a message. If he speaks well, everybody will be happy; if he does not speak well, everyone will be disappointed. If the speaking is good, everyone will offer some praise; if the speaking is not good, some will criticize him behind his back and will not even want to come back again. This kind of meeting can sometimes offer people some edification. But as a whole, it does not perfect people, nor does it edify the spirits of the Christians. It does not build up together the members of the Body of Christ in the Spirit of Christ.
In order to have the God-ordained meetings according to the New Testament economy as revealed in the Bible, the persons attending the meetings must be living in their daily life, overcoming, not loving the world, not lusting after sin, not living by the flesh, and not pitying the self. Also, they need to exercise their spirit to call on the Lord Jesus moment by moment, fellowship with the Lord unceasingly, and speak the Lord’s word to others all the time. This is the daily life we ought to have. Unfortunately, many among us lack this kind of exercise. When they get up in the morning, they do not call on the Lord’s name. Naturally, they do not have prayer or the reading of the Word. They are merely busy with different matters all day long. All six days of the week they do not live in the spirit, nor do they fellowship with the Lord. Of course, their heart toward the Lord becomes cold. And gradually, they fall into the world, live according to the flesh, and even fall into the snares of sin. When the Lord’s Day comes, because they are believers, they cannot stay away and not come to even one meeting a week; therefore, they come to the meeting. However, though their body has come to the meeting, they are dead inside. Even if they want to say something, they do not know what to say. They may want to call out, yet they cannot; they simply have to sit there in silence. Under such a situation, there is, of course, the need for someone to come to give a message. In today’s Christianity, whether Catholicism or Protestantism, and even among us, the general situation of the meeting is like this. This is not a meeting of the living, but a meeting of the dead. The large meeting is a meeting of the dead; the small meeting is also a meeting of the dead. If this is the case, even if the church changes the system, it will be useless.
Therefore, in studying the Lord’s new way, we have discovered in the end that this is a key issue. If we cannot have a breakthrough on this point, by the Lord’s mercy, regardless of what kind of change we have in our ways, it will be useless. That would be just like changing the coffin for the dead. If the large meetings are changed to small meetings, and one person speaking is changed to many persons speaking, yet the people still are not living, not able to utter a word, then we might as well take the old way to invite a pastor or a preacher to come to give a message, so that at least he may have something to say. This would still be better than changing to small meetings where you look at me and I look at you, yet with no one able to utter anything. Therefore, I advise you that if everyone is not living, not in the spirit, then we do not want to change the system.