What is God’s ultimate move to carry out His intention? God wants us to have Christ as life to us, flowing in us, saturating and permeating us, transforming us, conforming us, and making us fit to be built up into His Body for His expression. Today, at the end of the Twentieth Century, this is what our God is after. Here is where our focus also should be. Three items have already been recovered: the preaching of the gospel, the teaching of Bible truths, and the scriptural way of meeting. Now this final matter must be our concern.
Of these three items, the third matter, that of meeting together scripturally, has been lost among today’s Christians. What Christian group pays attention to this? The United States is like an amphitheater, where all kinds of Christian meetings can be seen. In some Christian groups there are dramatic performances. They put on plays, with actors playing the role of Peter or James, and they have rock music. Other Christian groups meet in many different ways. There are Pentecostal groups with dancing, jumping, or shouting. Christians come together according to what suits their taste. It seems little thought is given to meeting according to the Bible. From around 1828 or 1829 the Brethren assemblies were raised up and gradually began to make their meetings very scriptural. But today even many of the Brethren assemblies have drifted away from having their meetings according to the Scriptures.
Even the second matter that was recovered, the teaching of the Bible, has been neglected. Among the Closed Brethren, up to fifty years ago, there were good teachers of the Bible. Other Christians do not teach the Bible as much as they did. Many denominations simply have lectures or sermons with a Bible verse to support the speaker’s point.
If the scriptural way to meet and the sound teaching of the Bible have been neglected, what is left? Only gospel preaching. Yet much of today’s preaching of the gospel is of the lowest standard. No doubt many of you have read the biographies of the great evangelists of the past. There were C. H. Spurgeon, D. L. Moody, Charles Finney, and George Whitefield. They used no gimmicks in their preaching. Their way was to pray. I read that once Charles Finney went into a factory and looked at the workers there. Just by his looking at them, a number of the workers wept and repented. What was the power behind these preachers? It was prayer. It was the spending of time in the Word of God, learning the Scriptures, and then selecting a subject from which to preach the gospel. This is the proper way.
Even those who play guitars in the meetings must be careful lest they offend the Lord. The Lord Jesus did not promise that if we play the guitar well, people would be saved. He said that we would be clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:49). The proper preaching comes from this power. Those who are concerned about the gospel need to fast and to pray desperately.
In Chefoo, beginning in 1940, the church spent the New Year’s time in the preaching of the gospel. The New Year’s celebrations in China are far more elaborate than Christmas here. Instead of buying food and making special dishes like everyone else, the saints made no special food preparations at all. The entire family, old and young, gave themselves to prayer. The whole church prayed. When the gospel was preached, there was an impact. In the marketplace and on the street the unbelievers warned their friends, “Don’t go into that building. If you do, you will be subdued.” The power was there. It came by prayer and by the Word. There was no special music, just some singing of choruses. It is a matter of prayer and the Word. The Apostles said, “We will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:4).
Those who use rock music and other gimmicks in their gospel preaching may bring some people to the Lord by these means, but all such will be Moabites. They will be the sons of Lot, brought forth in an improper way, by Lot with his daughters (Gen. 19:30-38). Too many Christians are Moabites, born improperly. Today the Lord is again recovering the proper gospel preaching.
He is also recovering the proper teaching of the Bible. Last year an article was published in a Christian magazine saying that young people are attracted to the local churches because Witness Lee teaches the Bible. In most churches, the article said, the Bible is not taught. It also said that Witness Lee is a prolific writer and speaker. Yes, we have published one hundred twenty Life-studies on Genesis and already over one hundred on Exodus, which we have still not finished. In addition, there are Life-studies on Matthew, John, most of Paul’s Epistles, and Revelation.
We must become familiar with the Bible. I hope all the young people would devour the Life-studies. If I had found such materials on the Bible when I was young, I would have stayed up late at night, swallowing up what was in them! But in those days very little was available. I bought nearly all the Christian books I could find, but they contained mostly husks, with very few grains. The Life-studies, though, are filled with nourishment on almost every line. If you love the Lord, you need to know the Bible. Twice the Bible tells us that the one who serves the Lord must be “apt to teach” (1 Tim. 3:2; 2 Tim. 2:24). Teach what? Not the newspaper! Not some magazine! No! He must be able to teach the Bible, book after book.
The Lord is also going to recover the proper way of meeting. How are we to determine if our way of meeting is scriptural? While no one can say that our meetings are unscriptural, it is hard to say what is the scriptural way to meet. We have published a book called How to Meet. If you read it, however, you will still be puzzled as to the proper way to meet. But I do know that dancing or rock music or drama in the meetings are wrong. Having soloists is wrong. These things are not only wrong, they are against the Lord’s way. The Lord is still recovering the proper way to meet.
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