THE SECOND PART: A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
The Acts of Apostles
Message Four—The Prayer, the Spirit, and the Word
Scripture Reading: Acts 1:8, 14; 4:24-31; 6:4, 7; 12:24; 19:20
I. The book of Acts shows that the God-ordained way to carry out God’s move to fulfill His New Testament economy is entirely by three main substances—prayer, the Spirit, and the Word—Acts 1:8; 4:31; 19:20:
A. Prayer, the Spirit, and the Word are the three substances of the power in the Lord’s recovery—Acts 1:8, 14; 4:31; 6:4, 7; 12:24; 19:20.
B. We must pray that we might have the Spirit as the power to spread the Word—6:7; 12:24; 19:20; cf. 1 Tim. 5:17-18:
1. We must get ourselves saturated, constituted, and even soaked with the holy Word; if we are burdened to preach the gospel, we must get into the Word and be persons who know the Word—Col. 3:16.
2. We should ask the Lord to bring our entire being into the light and be dealt with by Him to become persons of power, who are full of the Spirit within and without, essentially and economically—Eph. 5:18; Acts 2:38; 5:32b; 4:8, 31; 13:9, 52.
C. The early disciples could not have maintained the one accord if they had different ways, means, agents, or substances for them to carry out the Lord’s move on this earth; in order to maintain the unique one accord, we all must learn to do the same thing by the same way—1:14; 4:31.
D. We must not think of taking a way other than prayer, the Spirit, and the Word; any other way will cause dissension and division.
E. The picture of Lot’s family and his seed by incest shows that when God’s people lose the proper function in life, they use ugly and worldly means for securing the increase—Gen. 19:30-38:
1. Desiring to have seed regardless of the means, Lot’s daughters bore sons out of their father by incest, thus breaking the governing principle ordained by God.
2. In principle, to use any kind of sinful or worldly methods to secure increase for our success in the Christian work is to break God’s governing principle and thus to commit spiritual incest—cf. Matt. 7:21-23.
3. It is possible for God’s people to be drugged with the wicked current of the evil world and care only for success, not for the means; they may care for soul-winning but not for the proper way of doing it.
4. Some groups use rock music, dancing, drama, movies, and games to satisfy their desire of securing the increase; in the eyes of God this is spiritual incest, which brings forth “Moabites” and “Ammonites”—cf. Ezek. 25:3, 8.
5. Our spiritual activities must be the doing of the Father’s will; if we do things without this assurance, we break the governing principle and commit spiritual incest, being workers of lawlessness—Matt. 7:21-23.
6. Ishmael, brought forth by fleshly effort, was rejected by God (Gen. 21:10-12); Moab and Benammi, brought forth by incest, were a shame in history; only Isaac, brought forth by God’s grace, was used to fulfill God’s purpose.
7. In order to bear fruit we should live by Christ, live out Christ, pray, and help people to receive the living word of God so that they might be reborn; this is the way to bring forth the proper fruit to be the “Isaac” for the fulfilling of God’s purpose—Gal. 4:28.
II. The book of Acts shows that the apostles never initiated any work without prayer; whenever they wanted to do something, they stopped themselves by their prayer, giving God a way to come into them, to f ill them up, and to saturate their entire being—Acts 1:14; 6:4; 13:1-4:
A. In order to be one with the Lord in His work, we need to pray ourselves into God and pray God into us so that we are mingled with God—Matt. 6:6.
B. To pray means to stop ourselves from doing anything apart from the Lord so that He can do His work through us—cf. 14:22-23.
C. To pray means that we realize that we are nothing and can do nothing; prayer is the real denial of the self—Gal. 6:3; cf. Mark 9:28-29.
D. To pray by calling on the name of the Lord is to deny ourselves and to declare, “No longer I but Christ”—cf. Gal. 2:20a.
III. The book of Acts shows the prayer that we need in order to be filled with the Spirit essentially and economically so that all our activities would be the activities of the acting God:
A. The prayer that we need is the prayer that brought in the outpouring of the Spirit—Acts 1:14; 2:1-4, 16-17a.
B. The prayer that we need is the prayer that brought Peter into a trance and brought a heavenly vision to him—10:9-16.
C. The prayer that we need is the prayer that opened the prison gate for Peter—12:4-14.
D. The prayer that we need is the prayer that brought the five prophets and teachers into the Lord’s commission—13:1-4.
E. The prayer that we need is the prayer that brought in a great earthquake and shook the foundations of the prison house—16:23-26.
F. The prayer that we need is the prayer that brought Paul into a trance and into the Lord’s speaking to him—22:17-21.
IV. The book of Acts shows that our working together with God to build up the church is a spiritual warfare and that prayer is the secret to accomplish God’s work—4:24-31; Psa. 2:1-2; Eph. 6:10-20.
Ministry Excerpts:
The book of Acts begins with the one accord and stresses the one accord. The early disciples could not have maintained or kept this one accord, however, if they had had different ways, means, agents, or substances for them to carry out the Lord’s move on this earth. If we read through the entire book of Acts, we can see that the way they took to carry out God’s move on this earth to fulfill His New Testament economy was entirely by three main substances—prayer, the Spirit, and the Word. Not only in Acts but also throughout the entire New Testament, prayer, the Spirit, and the Word were used for the carrying out of God’s economy. The different groups in Christianity today use many other ways. This is why I do not feel that it would be a profit to the move of the Lord in the recovery to establish schools or other things like this. This might be a distraction that keeps the churches somewhat different. If we have different ways to do things, it is hard to keep the one accord. In order to maintain the unique one accord we all have to learn to do the same thing by the same way. The substances which constitute the unique way for the Lord’s move are prayer and the Spirit, which result in the Word.
THE WORD GROWING AND MULTIPLYING
Acts never tells us that the Spirit grew and multiplied but that the Word grew and multiplied. There are three sections in the book of Acts concerning the move of the Lord through His Word. Chapter six is the end of the first section where it says the word of God grew (v. 7). Chapter twelve is the end of the second section and tells us that “the word of God grew and multiplied” (v. 24). Then Paul’s ministry began in chapter thirteen. Finally, chapter nineteen is the end of another section, telling us that “the word of the Lord grew mightily and was strong” (v. 20). The Lord’s move eventually is not to have something resulting in the Spirit. What we do actually is to carry the Word to people. The Word is the real contents, the real constituents of the New Testament economy of God. God’s Word constitutes the New Testament Bible and also constitutes the very New Testament economy of God. We should pray that we may have the Spirit as power to spread the Word.
GETTING CONSTITUTED WITH THE WORD
We have to pick up the Word to an even greater extent than Peter did. Peter probably did not have a share, as we do, in the fourteen Epistles written by Paul and in the book of Revelation written by John. This is why he charged the saints in his later ministry to take whatever the Apostle Paul wrote (2 Pet. 3:15-16). In John 16 the Lord told Peter and all his companions that He had many things to say to them which they could not have borne at that time. He said that they had to wait for the Spirit of reality to come for further speaking (vv. 12-13). Mostly, the Holy Spirit spoke in continuation of the Lord Jesus through Paul on the New Testament economy of God. The word spoken by the Lord Himself directly to Peter is mostly in the four Gospels. After Pentecost, the Lord spoke to all His people mainly through the Apostle Paul in his Epistles. Peter with all his companions had to pick up mainly what was recorded in the Gospels, but today we have to pick up much more. We have to pick up the words of the Lord from the four Gospels and especially from the fourteen Epistles of the Apostle Paul. After giving Life-study Messages on the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, the first thing we published in collective volumes was our Life-studies on Paul’s fourteen Epistles because we consider that his Epistles are more crucial for us to know God’s economy.
For us to know the Lord Jesus in His earthly ministry we surely need the four Gospels. To know His birth, His youth, His living and ministry on this earth, His death, resurrection, and ascension we have to pick up the record in the four Gospels. But for us to know the definition, the full revelation, of God’s New Testament economy concerning the Body of Christ, we surely have to pick up the fourteen Epistles of Paul. The four Gospels show us the Head, while Paul’s fourteen Epistles show us the Body and reveal the Head to us in an even deeper way. Because we are living in the Body today under the direction of Christ as our living Head, these fourteen Epistles are more crucial to us.
I charged the new full-timers in Taiwan to spend half a day, every day, in the Word. This is a must. Even when they were out preaching the gospel to the villages, they still spent the first half of the day praying together in the Word. They even brought their Life-studies with them. They always study the Word regularly according to their schedule. If these young ones do not have an adequate constitution of the Word, they will have nothing to present to others regardless of how much they pray. But the full-timers in Taiwan have something when they open up their mouth because they have been studying the New Testament in the Recovery Version with all the notes and the Life-study Messages. They are full of the divine revelation. They are full of the divine Word. They have much to say, and this is quite convincing when they meet other Christians. They open up the Recovery Version and give away some booklets and Life-studies; thus, many get attracted and would even like a copy of the Recovery Version for themselves.
SPEAKING THE HIGHER GOSPEL, THE RICHER WORD
By going out to the small villages, they baptized one thousand nine hundred seventy-five within three weeks. The main reason for this is that they preached the gospel with a higher, richer word. The Word works. If a farmer sows nothing or even if he sows some poor seed, what kind of harvest can he expect? We need to speak the higher gospel, the richer word, which is very logical and philosophical and which meets the need of the modern, young people in this age.
The young people today, generally speaking, are very philosophical and scientific. The more scientific and logical people become, the more they want to know the meaning of human life. The age has changed and is much different from one hundred years ago. When the missionaries went to China, the people there were very conservative. They did not have much knowledge and only were concerned with ethics and with doing something to make a living. But today people all over the globe have become very educated and are very philosophical and logical. If you were only to tell them that they are sinners who are going to hell, they would not like to hear this. They are bored of this. Within them there is a desire to know the deeper truths, the real meaning of this universe, the real meaning and reason of human life.
Today the United States is the top country on this earth. The young people today on the campuses are seeking more knowledge concerning human life and the reality of the universe, yet superficial knowledge will not fill up the void within them. They would like to know the truth of the universe, the real meaning, the real significance, of human life. We have what they need. We have a proper translation of the New Testament with notes that open up the text, many booklets for distribution and many truths to speak. These truths have to be our constitution. We have to be saturated and soaked with all these divine realities. Then we need to go out to speak with our Recovery Version and with our pockets or handbags full of the rainbow booklets, which contain a slightly edited version of the Life-study Messages. When you are speaking the high gospel to someone, after a certain point give them a booklet. This really means something. Thank the Lord that He has given us a rich deposit of His Word. The early believers went out not only with the Spirit, but even the more with the Word. The Spirit by Himself is too abstract. We can minister the Spirit to others, but we cannot present the Spirit. What we can present in a thorough way is the Word.
Nearly every nation on this earth today promotes their people being educated. All the educated people know that there is a unique and famous book called the Holy Bible. Every philosophical and logical person would like to know this book. They would even like to know this book as literature. If a person does not know something about the Bible, he may be considered as backward. I believe that once one gets educated there is a desire in his heart to know the Bible. If you go to a thoughtful, educated person and open up some crucial verses to them to show them what this book teaches, he would be happy to hear you. You should go to them with prayer and with the Spirit to present the Word. Then the Word will be living. Because we go with prayer, the Spirit, and the Word, something will surely happen.
Many thoughtful persons would like to know something about the book of Revelation because they are curious. If you cannot share with them from this book, you will lose their interest. After reading the first verse of the New Testament, a thoughtful person may ask you the significance of “the book of the generation of Jesus Christ, Son of David, Son of Abraham” (Matt. 1:1). This question is a real testing. If you say that you do not know, you cannot capture this person. Many curious questions would be asked of you when you go to contact logical people, so you must be prepared by having a deposit of the rich Word in your being. Your preaching of the high gospel will be very convincing and will gain the respect, the regard, of the one to whom you are speaking. Our goal, though, is not merely to get regard from people. We want to sow the Word into people’s minds and hearts and eventually this Word will be used by the Holy Spirit to get into their spirit to regenerate them. This is why it is altogether worthwhile for us to study the Word.
MAINTAINING THE ONE ACCORD BY PRAYER,
THE SPIRIT, AND THE WORD
Instead of using our hall to establish a school or as some kind of center to take care of children, we need to spend our time on the Word and to contact people. There are thousands of Chinese families in many major cities in the United States who would be open to our visitation. Even though many brothers have a job, they can still use their evenings and weekends to visit these families door to door. To go to visit them in prayer by being prepared with the holy Word and filled with the Spirit will be very prevailing. To use the church meeting hall for a school or as a center to care for children will bring a lot of complications to the hall. The children will have to be controlled, a playground will have to be prepared for them, and a substantial amount of the day will be occupied by them in which the hall will not be free for the church’s purpose. All the churches should use every inch of the hall for studying the Word and for prayer to receive the Spirit to bring people to the hall that they may get saved.
To maintain the one accord we must take one way for our driving. If we have different ways to drive surely our one accord will be somewhat damaged. In the New Testament there is only this one unique way constituted with these three substances—prayer, the Spirit, and the Word. Apparently, to use the hall as a place to care for children is not something distracting or making division. But after a while, some saints who have given quite much will not agree with the hall being used for that purpose. It may also be that some of the elders may feel to have a meeting during a time which has already been designated for the purpose of the children. We all have to try to do everything that would not bring in this kind of dissenting effect or thought. Whatever you do by prayer, whatever you do to get the Spirit, and whatever you do to take the Word, no one would dissent with.
Suppose a brother would propose that we use a certain kind of music to preach the gospel. Some may feel good about this but others may not. No one, however, would have different opinions concerning prayer, concerning the Spirit, and concerning taking the Word and preaching the Word. This is the unique way everybody knows because this is God’s ordained way. This is not the way I invented or taught, but the way God invented and ordained in the Bible. We need to take this principle in all our practices. Try the best to always limit and restrict your practice by the Word. Whatever the Word does not say, it is better not to take. To preach the gospel by any way other than prayer, the Spirit, and the Word may cause some different thinking.
People would take another way because they do not want to spend that much time in the Word. To take other ways besides prayer, the Word, and the Spirit are short-cut ways for the sake of convenience. We cannot be entirely successful by taking a short-cut way. The genuine way, the proper way, the most profitable way to take is the unique way. The unique way in doing anything is God’s ordained principle. The entire universe is full of principles set up by God, the Creator. If you are going to be married, you must take God’s ordained way with the principle of marriage of one husband and one wife (Matt. 19:3-9). If you take a short-cut way, you will get in trouble. In our world and in the universe there are many God-ordained principles. Science actually discovers all these God-ordained principles.
To use other ways to preach the gospel or to carry the church on might be profitable, but that is the short-cut way. The short-cut way will always have some side effects. Only the proper way will never have any side effects. The best medical doctors are careful not to release any medicine that may have harmful side effects. Therefore, we should not use anything other than prayer, the Word, and the Spirit to carry on the gospel or the church life. Otherwise, we should be prepared for some side effects like dissension, which will damage the real one accord.
TOILING IN THE WORD, LABORING IN PRAYER,
AND BEING DILIGENT IN DEALING WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT
It may seem very awkward to take the genuine way. It takes time and patience; we have to labor and toil. Let us toil in the Word, labor in prayer, and be diligent in dealing with the Holy Spirit. This is worthwhile. We have to spend much time to get into the Word; we have to get ourselves saturated, constituted, and even soaked with the holy Word. We must also get ourselves constituted with our contact with the Lord. We have to contact Him day by day and hour after hour; then we will be the right person.
In 1958 I went to the Cow Palace in San Francisco to listen to Billy Graham’s preaching. Some told me that Dr. Graham spent much of his time on his knees praying. That was the source of his impact. I admired the way he applied the Word to the present world situation in his preaching. If he had not had an adequate knowledge of the Word and had not spent an adequate amount of time in studying the Word, he could never have applied the Word so adequately and soberly to the present world situation. We all have to spend time in the holy Word.
If you are burdened to preach the gospel, you must get into the Word and be one who knows the Word. A person may be a manager of a bank or a college professor, but he still has to spend time in the Word. A professor may know a lot, but God is not asking him to present his studies to people. For you to go out to contact people, you need to know the holy Word. Then use all your available time to pray to contact the living Lord.
ASKING THE LORD TO BRING OUR ENTIRE BEING INTO THE LIGHT AND BEING DEALT WITH BY HIM TO BECOME A PERSON OF POWER, FULL OF THE SPIRIT WITHIN AND WITHOUT
Do not merely ask God to give you the power; the power is waiting for you. You need to be cleansed, dealt with, purified, chastened, and chastised by the Lord. No elder or any brother can deal with or purify your inward being. Only the Lord Himself can deal with you directly. You need to give Him the way in your being every day. Just as we need to wash our hands frequently, we also need to be cleansed by the Lord frequently. To handle the gospel is a most holy thing. This could never be done by anyone whose hands are dirty. We need to come to the Lord and open our entire being to Him to be dealt with, to be enlightened, to be exposed, to be checked, and to be humbled. The power comes from this kind of prayer.
We should not merely pray for the power. The power is there to be appropriated by you, but who are you, what are you, and where are you? You may be dirty, never dealt with, proud, criticizing others, offending your wife, despising the elders, and rebelling against the church. You may be feeble in this way, and yet still be zealous for the gospel. You cannot be a prevailing one to preach the gospel if you are this kind of person. If you are going to be a prevailing one, you need to go to the Lord every day to get yourself adjusted, cleansed, enlightened, exposed, and rebuked, not by man’s words but by the Lord’s Spirit directly. The Lord has no chance to deal with you unless you pray.
When you pray, do not be occupied with your work or with other things. Do not even be occupied with gospel preaching. You have to keep yourself absolutely free and open to the Lord. Leave yourself open to the Lord. Let Him come in for at least ten minutes to speak to you, to enlighten you, to point out to you all your shortcomings, sinfulness, evil, and impure thoughts. Ask Him to bring your entire being into the light for a full and utter exposure of your real condition. This kind of prayer would make you prevailing. You do not need to pretend that you are powerful. As a purified and chastised person, when you open up your mouth, every word will be a word of power. Whatever comes out of your mouth will be powerful. Even your voice will be powerful because your person will be power. This will be the case because through your prayer you have been saturated by the cleansing One.
The One who cleanses you is also the One who purifies and saturates you. As a person saturated with the Lord, you will be empowered. This is why a word spoken by one person is powerful, and the same word spoken by another means nothing. Prayer makes your person. Prayer makes you another person, a person of power. Such a person of prayer will be full of the Spirit within and without.
When you go to contact others, as a person who is full of power and full of the divine revelation of God’s New Testament economy, the impact will be there. When you go, you must have the unique one accord backing you. You should be one with the church, one with your co-workers, one with all the brothers, and one with all the sisters. You should mean business with the Lord. If you are such a person and if you are not carrying out something on your own and for yourself in the Lord’s recovery, the impact will surely be there. (Elder’s Training, Book 07, ch. 2)