Now we come to the second aspect of the Lord’s recovery today—the practice of the proper church life. The genuine experience of Christ always issues in and demands the church life. The more you experience Christ, the more something within requires that you live in the proper church life. Satan is subtle. Throughout the centuries, he has concealed the real experience of Christ, making Christ altogether objective, an object of human belief and worship. But once we experience Christ in a genuine and living way, He will require us to get into the church life because the dispensation of Christ into us is for the producing of the church. God dispenses Himself into us as everything for the purpose of gaining His corporate expression, which is the church.
The experience of Christ is somewhat hidden and mysterious, but the practice of the church life is quite complicated. How confused is the situation today regarding the church. Look around you. Where is the church life? We can see the Catholic Church with all its idols, images, and pagan things. The so-called Catholic charismatic movement even tolerates the worship of Mary, exposing the impurity of that movement. Consider all the denominations. They only have division and confusion. Every denomination is a deviation from God’s center lane. Some denominations are larger and others are smaller, some are farther away and some are closer, but none of them is in the center lane. What about the free groups? They are too free. When the members of the body are so free, the body is dismembered and ceases to be a body. As we survey the situation of today’s Christians, we see that there is no real church life. Hence, there is a need of the recovery of the genuine church life.
In order to have the proper church life, we must have two main things: Christ, the life-giving Spirit, as the content, and the standing on the ground of unity in locality. In Anaheim, we are not standing on any doctrine; we are standing on the unity of the Body. Wherever we are—in San Francisco, Cleveland, New York, or any other city—we must be one. If we stand for doctrines, we shall be divided immediately, for one will have his concept, another his opinion, and still another his view. But when we take Christ as our life, as our person, and as our everything, this Christ within us will require the proper church life. In fact, the Christ in us will become the church life. Christ both requires and becomes the church life.
Eighteen years ago, some young learners under my training in Taiwan were influenced by a certain ministry of spirituality. As a result, they began to declare that they had seen the vision concerning Christ and that they wanted nothing to do with the church, saying that they cared only for Christ. We had the full assurance that this was not something of the Lord, and after a period of time their number gradually decreased. If we do not experience Christ, we shall have nothing, and if we experience Christ but do not want to have the church life, we shall also become nothing. Having Christ without the church is like having the head without the body. If there is no body, then there is no head. We must have both. What would you do if there were no church life in the United States? If there were no church life, I would feel that it would be useless to go on living. I cannot live without the church life.
We have seen that in order to have the church life, we must have the real experience of Christ and the proper standing on the ground of unity in localities. Because we have seen this vision, we do not have any divisions. God’s intention is to have a corporate expression. According to the book of Revelation, each of the local churches was in its own locality, and there was never more than one church in a locality. For example, the church in Ephesus was in Ephesus and the church in Smyrna was in Smyrna. The church in Smyrna equaled the city of Smyrna. Revelation 1:11 makes this very clear.
In Revelation 19:6-9 we are told that the Lamb’s Wife has made herself ready and that the marriage supper of the Lamb has come. One day, the Bride, the Wife of the Lamb, will be ready. But if there were no church life on earth today, how could the Bride be prepared? It would be impossible. Could the Bride be prepared in the Catholic Church or in the denominations? No! Could she be prepared in the free groups or in the charismatic movement? Certainly not! I believe strongly, not because I am in it but because I have seen the vision, that the Lord intends to spread His recovery to build up the proper church life throughout the world that His Bride might be made ready.
The Wife of the Lamb in chapter nineteen of Revelation is smaller than the Wife in chapter twenty-one, for the Wife in chapter nineteen is the Bride during the millennium composed of only the overcoming believers, and the Wife in chapter twenty-one will be the Wife in the new heaven and the new earth after the millennium in eternity, consisting of all of God’s redeemed. This means that at the end of this age, the church will be ready, but not in a general way. Rather, a small number, the remnant, the overcomers, will be ready. It is a shame to be in the Lord’s recovery and yet not be an overcomer. Everyone in the Lord’s recovery must be an overcomer. To be an overcomer means to overcome degraded Christianity.
We must leave religion and get into the Lord’s recovery of the full experience of Christ and of the proper practice of the church life. If we do this, whenever we come together, we shall be the testimony of Jesus. This will be a shame to the enemy and a preparation for Christ’s coming back. I believe that the preparation of the Bride for the Lord’s coming back is in the church life. This is why I have the complete confidence that nothing will be able to suppress the Lord’s recovery. The recovery is like a ball filled with heavenly pneuma: the more you hold it down, the higher it rises. I hope that you will bring these two items into your prayer, saying, “Lord, show us the consummate experience of Christ and the real, practical church life. Lord, we shall live in this and die for it.” May we all see the vision that the Lord’s recovery today concerns the experience of Christ and the practical church life.