THE FOURTH PART: THE PATHWAY OF LORD’S RECOVERY
The Course of the Church
Message Three—From Reformation to the End of the Nineteenth Century
Scripture Reading: Rev. 3:1-2; 4-5; 2:24-26
I. In the fifteenth century there were some people in the church who rose up to recover and to correct the situation; the Reformation was brought in through Martin Luther; Martin Luther, who was still a monk in the Roman Catholic Church, was raised up by God; once he stood up, many others responded, and the well-known Reformation in history exploded—cf. Rev. 3:1-2: (The Testimony and the Ground of the Church, Section Three: The Degradation and the Recovery of the Church, msg. 3)
A. God’s recovery began with the foundational truth of justification by faith; Martin Luther expressed this matter with much light and great clarity. (Three Aspects of the Church: Book 2, The Course of the Church, msg. 13)
B. However, those who followed Luther to come out of Catholicism were not sufficiently pure and thus were still somewhat confused; therefore, Protestantism is still complicated. (Three Aspects of the Church: Book 2, The Course of the Church, msg. 13)
C. The recovery of justification by faith was a good beginning, but even before Luther’s death, the Protestant churches were in confusion because of their union with politics. (Three Aspects of the Church: Book 2, The Course of the Church, msg. 13)
II. Although Martin Luther formally brought the church out of Catholicism, there were still many spiritual people in the Roman Catholic Church; Thomas à Kempis was such a person; he lived before the time of Luther; after Luther, from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, there were many spiritual people in the Roman Catholic Church—Rev. 2:24-26: (Three Aspects of the Church: Book 2, The Course of the Church, msg. 13)
A. Some things were recovered by those in the realm of the Roman Catholic Church; Protestantism recovered justification by faith, but those in the Roman Catholic Church recovered the knowledge of the inner life. (Three Aspects of the Church: Book 2, The Course of the Church, msg. 13)
B. Aside from these two items, in more than a hundred years between Luther in the sixteenth century and Madame Guyon in the seventeenth century, there were no other clear recoveries—only a general recovery. (Three Aspects of the Church: Book 2, The Course of the Church, msg. 13)
C. The first recovery was justification by faith, and the second recovery was the knowledge of the inner life; Madame Guyon is representative of those who recovered the knowledge of the inner life; they paid attention to the inner fellowship with God and to living before Him; historians call them the mystics. (Three Aspects of the Church: Book 2, The Course of the Church, msg. 13)
D. God let the recovery of the inner life take place in Catholicism in order to show that the Reformation could not meet His need on the earth and that Protestantism does not meet the standard of His testimony; the recovery of justification by faith was a great thing; the recovery of the knowledge of life was also a great thing. (Three Aspects of the Church: Book 2, The Course of the Church, msg. 13)
III. In the sixteenth century the Reformation was fully formed, and in the seventeenth century the knowledge of the inner life was prominent; a hundred years later, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Moravian Brethren and Count Zinzendorf were raised up—cf. Rev. 3:7-13: (Three Aspects of the Church: Book 2, The Course of the Church, msg. 13)
A. This was an important development in the recovery, which emphasized leaving politics and earthly organizations. (Three Aspects of the Church: Book 2, The Course of the Church, msg. 13)
B. These brothers left both worldly and religious organizations; they were very living and strong; in fifty years they sent out more missionaries to preach the gospel in foreign lands than all the mission boards in the entire world had sent out in the preceding two centuries. (Three Aspects of the Church: Book 2, The Course of the Church, msg. 13)
C. They were very strong at that time. Because they had left worldly and religious organizations, the Holy Spirit was able to work freely among them. They recovered going out into the entire earth to bring the testimony of the gospel to all people. (Three Aspects of the Church: Book 2, The Course of the Church, msg. 13)
D. Moreover, the Moravian Brethren had many special characteristics, such as loving one another and having a condition of one accord. (Three Aspects of the Church: Book 2, The Course of the Church, msg. 13)
IV. Although the recovery with the Moravian brethren was quite strong, God did not stop there; instead, He continued to take the way of recovery; approximately a hundred years after this great recovery, God had another strong recovery with the so-called Brethren—Rev. 3:7-13: (The Testimony and the Ground of the Church, Section Three: The Degradation and the Recovery of the Church, msg. 3)
A. This recovery began in England in the early part of the nineteenth century, formally in 1828; this recovery was even stronger; readers of the Bible who have the light all acknowledge that this recovery was the fulfillment of the Lord’s prophecy concerning Philadelphia—Rev. 3:7-13. (The Testimony and the Ground of the Church, Section Three: The Degradation and the Recovery of the Church, msg. 3)
B. The name Philadelphia means “brotherly love;” when the Brethren were raised up, they were truly a “Philadelphia”; a situation of brotherly love was recovered and manifested among them. (The Testimony and the Ground of the Church, Section Three: The Degradation and the Recovery of the Church, msg. 3)
C. This recovery was very thorough, and it might be said that what needed to be recovered in the church was recovered completely; every item related to the church was restored to its original condition it was truly pleasing to the Lord. (The Testimony and the Ground of the Church, Section Three: The Degradation and the Recovery of the Church, msg. 3)
1. First, they obeyed the Lord’s word absolutely; at that time the Bible in their hands was truly an opened book, a shining book; many important truths were released at that time; the Brethren released almost all of the biblical and orthodox truths preached in Christianity for the past one hundred years, from the truth of the gospel to the deepest truths; what a tremendous matter! (The Testimony and the Ground of the Church, Section Three: The Degradation and the Recovery of the Church, msg. 3)
2. Furthermore, their separation from the world and forsaking of idols was thorough and absolute. (The Testimony and the Ground of the Church, Section Three: The Degradation and the Recovery of the Church, msg. 3)
3. It was not until the time of the Brethren that the hierarchy in the church was truly and thoroughly eliminated; they were brothers together; among them, they called each other brother in their preaching; when shaking hands they called each other brother; in their conversation they also called each other brother; they always addressed each other as brothers; when people first went into their midst, it seems as if they could not hear anything else; they only heard “brother.” (The Testimony and the Ground of the Church, Section Three: The Degradation and the Recovery of the Church, msg. 3)
4. In the beginning the Brethren absolutely eliminated sectarianism and maintained the testimony of oneness; the matter of leaving the denominations began with them; in the beginning many of them were believers who came out of denominations; they came together to maintain the testimony of the oneness of the church; this point also was stressed very much among them. (The Testimony and the Ground of the Church, Section Three: The Degradation and the Recovery of the Church, msg. 3)
5. The Brethren were freed from organization; they had no branch churches or headquarters. So, they absolutely allowed Christ to be the Head and the Holy Spirit to rule among them. (The Testimony and the Ground of the Church, Section Three: The Degradation and the Recovery of the Church, msg. 3)
V. In the first twenty or thirty years after the Brethren began in 1828, they had the original condition of the church; regrettably, this situation did not last long; around 1850, after they had met for approximately twenty years, some problems arose among them which led to their failure—Rev. 3:14-22: (The Testimony and the Ground of the Church, Section Three: The Degradation and the Recovery of the Church, msg. 3)
A. The first division was between J. N. Darby and Benjamin Newton; their dispute was concerning the rapture of the believers; Darby was strong concerning pretribulation rapture, whereas Newton was strong concerning posttribulation rapture. (The History of the Church and the Local Churches, msg. 3)
B. Later, there was a second split among them; this division was between the so-called closed Brethren and the open Brethren. (The History of the Church and the Local Churches, msg. 3)
C. Although the beginning of the divisions among the Brethren started over a disagreement concerning the rapture, the truths that were revealed to them greatly benefited all the Lord’s children. (The History of the Church and the Local Churches, msg. 3)
D. However, due to the Brethren’s overemphasis on doctrines, they were divided again and again. (The History of the Church and the Local Churches, msg. 3)