We have seen that the way for Christians to meet as revealed in the Bible is a way of revival and overcoming. If we are not revived and overcoming, and if we do not live in the spirit, then we will be through. If we want to walk properly in this way, we must be ones who are overcoming, spiritual, living in the spirit, and fellowshipping with the Lord. Not only so, we hope that we can influence all the brothers and sisters so that everyone would be revived. If we would be faithful to carry out this new way of the Lord perfectly, the result will be a great revival. If there are ten attending a meeting, all ten will be revived. If a hundred are meeting, all one hundred will be revived. If a thousand are meeting, all one thousand will be revived. Wherever there is a meeting, there will be a revival. This is a tremendous thing! Today there are hundreds of millions of Christians on the earth, yet Christianity is completely powerless. This is because the old way of meeting in Christianity has annulled the function of so many. Since we in the Lord’s recovery want to return to the Bible to take the way of life, we can no longer expect to have this kind of preaching meeting with one speaking and the rest listening. Every one of us must exercise to practice speaking the Lord’s word. Not only the brothers have to practice this; the sisters have to practice this as well. I hope that in your four months’ training here, you would specifically practice speaking. Of course, you still have to take care of the home meetings and bring people to the group meetings. The key now is how you speak the Lord’s word.
In order to speak in the meeting, it is not enough just to memorize a few verses of the Bible, nor will we succeed just by practicing for eight or ten days. You must spend a long time to read and enjoy the Lord’s word daily and to receive the Lord’s word into you. This is like a person taking in food. Not only does he have to receive; he has to take the food into him. If you would allow the Lord’s word to be digested in you, the digested word will become the living and instant word spoken out from within you when you go to the meeting. Paul told the Hebrew believers, “For when because of the time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you what are the rudiments of the beginning of the oracles of God, and have become those who have need of milk and not of solid food....But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their faculties exercised for discriminating between both good and evil” (Heb. 5:12, 14). This shows us that the mature ones who can take in solid food have had their faculties exercised through practice. This is why you must be exercised in the Lord’s word.
To be exercised in the Lord’s word means that you do not just receive the Lord’s word; you also allow the Lord’s word to be applied in you and in your daily life. In other words, you must apply the verses that you pray-read and memorize every morning to your practical daily living. The more you apply them, the more they will be used. The more they are used, the more you are exercised. The more you are exercised, the more you become skillful and well trained. Suppose this morning you read 1 John 2:15, “Do not love the world.” You should apply this in your living today. You should pray, “Lord, You love me. You have redeemed me. Now I belong to You. I love You. I do not want to love the world.” If you pray this way, you will touch the Lord and the Lord’s word will operate within you. When you go to the department store to shop and pick up an item, something within will say, “Do not love the world.” When you drop it and you pick up another item, something within will say again, “Do not love the world.” If you drop that and pick up a third item, something within will say, “This is the world.” In the end, you will not buy anything. This is how you apply the word “Do not love the world” in your practical living.
This kind of experience will enable you to speak the living word. When you open up your mouth to speak in the meeting, your speaking will not be merely letters from the printed Bible; rather, it will be words that you have digested and experienced. We should speak this kind of word in the meeting. While you are being trained here, you should not merely learn a technique for speaking. We previously mentioned different ways of speaking such as speaking with the word, with the Spirit, with singing, and with prayer. All these are necessary, but the person is the most important. You must take in and digest the Lord’s word and apply it in your practical living so that the function of the Lord’s word can be fully manifested in you. Otherwise, merely learning a technique will not work. If you merely use a technique, your speaking will not be living or practical but will be empty doctrines. Hence, you must practice. I hope that you will not practice merely memorizing two verses a day. That is for the other brothers and sisters in general. You who are burdened to serve the Lord full time for the rest of your life should labor in the Lord’s word to receive, take in, digest, be exercised in, and apply the Lord’s word. In the end, your whole being will become the word. Today, I am advanced in age. For me to memorize the Bible chapter by chapter and book by book is not easy anymore. But all the words of the Bible are in me. I am very clear where each verse is, and what each chapter talks about. This is why it is very easy for me to speak the Lord’s word. I hope that you can be the same as I am. In the next few years, not only do you have to carry out the new way in Taipei; you must succeed in learning the Lord’s word. In this way, no matter where you go in the future, you will be a person who takes in the Lord’s word in a full way and is exercised by it.
A message given by Brother Witness Lee in Taipei on November 26, 1987.