The Ministry Vol 02 No 10

This issue of The Ministry contains the third and fourth messages given by Brother Lee to the co-workers in Southern California in September 1996. These messages comprise a timely, loving warning from our brother to beware of four destructive matters: ambition, pride, self-justification and exposing others’ failures and defects, and not conforming to the death of Christ. Trouble after trouble has come to the Lord’s recovery over the years simply because of these four matters. But if we will deal with these four matters, the Lord’s recovery will immediately have a revival. In addition to dealing with these four matters, we must also be right in following others. In actuality, our leading is not a person but the divine truth, the divine vision. Consequently, our following others must be according to the divine truth and the divine vision. The next three messages in this issue are the concluding messages of the Living Stream Ministry’s Summer Training of 1998 on the Crystallization-study of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Message Ten emphasizes the crucial matter of the dividing of soul and spirit for the experience of the reality of the Sabbath rest. Message Eleven indicates strongly that in order for the believers to be brought on to maturity (Heb. 6:1), we must progress from the word of the beginning of Christ—the milk—to the word of righteousness—the solid food. Message Twelve, as a conclusion to the summer training, stresses the critical need of being transformed and of being matured. To be transformed is to be metabolically changed in our natural life, whereas to be matured is to be filled with the divine life that changes us. We need to go on, to be brought on, to maturity by forgetting the things which are behind and stretching forward to the things which are before, pursuing toward the fullest enjoyment and gaining of Christ for the uttermost enjoyment of Christ in the millennial kingdom. Ultimately, the Lord’s desire to bring us on to maturity must be matched by our willing cooperation with His gracious work. Lastly, we include a report concerning the International Elders’ Training in October 1998, held on the new campus for the ministry in Anaheim, California.

This issue of The Ministry contains the third and fourth messages given by Brother Lee to the co-workers in Southern California in September 1996. These messages comprise a timely, loving warning from our brother to beware of four destructive matters: ambition, pride, self-justification and exposing others’ failures and defects, and not conforming to the death of Christ. Trouble after trouble has come to the Lord’s recovery over the years simply because of these four matters. But if we will deal with these four matters, the Lord’s recovery will immediately have a revival. In addition to dealing with these four matters, we must also be right in following others. In actuality, our leading is not a person but the divine truth, the divine vision. Consequently, our following others must be according to the divine truth and the divine vision. The next three messages in this issue are the concluding messages of the Living Stream Ministry’s Summer Training of 1998 on the Crystallization-study of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Message Ten emphasizes the crucial matter of the dividing of soul and spirit for the experience of the reality of the Sabbath rest. Message Eleven indicates strongly that in order for the believers to be brought on to maturity (Heb. 6:1), we must progress from the word of the beginning of Christ—the milk—to the word of righteousness—the solid food. Message Twelve, as a conclusion to the summer training, stresses the critical need of being transformed and of being matured. To be transformed is to be metabolically changed in our natural life, whereas to be matured is to be filled with the divine life that changes us. We need to go on, to be brought on, to maturity by forgetting the things which are behind and stretching forward to the things which are before, pursuing toward the fullest enjoyment and gaining of Christ for the uttermost enjoyment of Christ in the millennial kingdom. Ultimately, the Lord’s desire to bring us on to maturity must be matched by our willing cooperation with His gracious work. Lastly, we include a report concerning the International Elders’ Training in October 1998, held on the new campus for the ministry in Anaheim, California.

In this issue we will continue four lines of ministry. The first line--The History of the Lord's Recovery--contains chapters 12 through 15 of The Vital Groups, which are in volume 5 of The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1994–1997. The chapters in this section speak of nourishing people with the unsearchable riches of Christ in His full ministry in the three stages and of how to contact people. The second line--Words for New Believers--continues with chapters 3 through 6 of Basic Principles of the Experience of Life, which are in volume 3 of The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1963. The first two chapters in this section speak of the first experience of life and the way to experience life. The final two chapters then focus on the three lives and four laws within every Christian generally and on the law of life particularly. The third line--Maturing in Life--continues with chapters 21 through 23 of Knowing Life and the Church, which are in volume 1 of The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1953. This line then continues with chapter 1 of a new book, The Subjective Experience of the Indwelling Christ, which is in volume 1 of The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1983. The first three chapters in this section speak of the result of the work being based on the worker, of needing to be earnest and not loose in working for the Lord, and of the church and service. The last chapter in this section begins by speaking of the experience of Christ as life. The fourth line--The High Peak of the Divine Revelation--continues with chapters 3 through 6 of The Practical Way to Live a Life according to the High Peak of the Divine Revelation in the Holy Scriptures, which are in volume 2 of The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1994–1997. The chapters in this section speak of seeing the unveiled truth of Christ's resurrection for the ultimate goal of God's economy, of living Christ for His magnification by the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, of being conformed to the image of God's Son so that He might be the Firstborn among many brothers, and of building up the Body of Christ by growing into Him, the Head, in all things.

In this issue of The Ministry, we resume the series of messages concerning the present practice in God’s economy. In these messages, Brother Lee fights against the influence of Christianity in the practice of the church life in the Lord’s recovery. This influence has caused the recovery to suffer a downward trend toward religion. As the crystallization of human culture, religion was invented by man when he lost God. Today the influence of religion can be seen in the unfruitful practices of Christianity, especially the practice of a few leaders exercising control over other believers and annulling their function. We must change the system in our way to meet and serve, especially by encouraging and teaching the brothers and sisters to practice the meetings in their homes in a vital way with the word of God. The following three messages are from the evening sessions of the International Elders’ Training in October 1998 concerning our vision, which includes the one ministry, the one work, and the one accord. To build up the Body of Christ, all the elders need to enter into the one New Testament ministry. Based on the one ministry, there is only one work in the Lord’s recovery today. To carry out the one work in the one ministry, we all need to be in one accord. The one accord is the practical application of the oneness of the Body of Christ, and it is also the master key to every blessing in the New Testament. Following this is a series of messages concerning the grafted life, which were given in the full-time training in Anaheim in the fall of 1997. Message One covers the vision of the grafted life—God and man entering into an organic union through grafting. Message Two presents the clear view that the Christian life is not an exchanged life but a grafted life—the mingling of the human life with the divine life. Message Three stresses the fact that the grafted life is a life in the principle of incarnation. The principle of incarnation seen in the grafted life is that God enters into man and mingles Himself with man to make Himself one with man; thus, God is in man, and man is also in God. Lastly, we include reports from the English, Spanish, and Chinese radio sections concerning the radio broadcasts in these languages.

This issue of The Ministry contains the first and second of a series of crucial messages given by Brother Lee to the co-workers in Southern California in August 1996 concerning the principles of fruit-bearing and of shepherding the young ones in corporate living. The first principle of fruit-bearing is that it is not by mass production. The second principle of fruit-bearing as seen in John 15 is that each branch bears its own fruit. As branches of Christ, our unique responsibility is to bear fruit. Brother Lee’s burden in the second message is expressed in the following excerpt: “I want to shepherd and disciple you from the Bible so you can see this matter and have a change. I am discipling you to change your concept. The God-man concept is that Christ came to save sinners, especially the top sinners....If we lose this spirit, whether we are elders, co-workers, or serving ones, we are finished. This is the main reason why we are so barren, bearing no fruit for so many years” (p. 24). Our need is to learn of the Lord to shepherd people according to His heart of love. Love covers many sins. To uncover is not love. Covering brings in blessing, but uncovering brings in a curse. The next three messages in this issue are Messages Seven, Eight, and Nine from the Crystallization-study of the Epistle to the Hebrews, which were given in the Living Stream Ministry’s Summer Training of 1998. Message Seven emphasizes the main point of Christ being our High Priest—He ministers God into us. Message Eight stresses the wonderful fact that Jesus as the Apostle came to us with God to share God with us that we might partake of His divine life, nature, and fullness so that we might be formed and constituted into His church, the house of the living God. The subject of Message Nine is the Sabbath rest, which is simply God’s satisfaction in His heart’s desire. When man is on earth expressing and representing God, God’s desire is satisfied. Lastly we include a report concerning the use of the Internet to spread the Lord’s ministry and a letter from the co-workers in the former Soviet Union concerning the usefulness of the training in the Lord’s move throughout the former Soviet Union.

The three previous issues of The Ministry contained a series of messages entitled “Vision in God’s Economy,” comprising Brother Lee’s fellowship with the elders and co-workers in Taipei in March 1986. Following this enlightening and crucial word concerning the vision that matches the age, Brother Lee began to speak concerning the present practice in the Lord’s recovery. His speaking, which we include in this issue, was a continuation of his desperate fight, begun in October 1984, to overturn the old traditions among the churches and bring in a new way, the God-ordained way, to meet and to serve. In this message, our brother emphasizes the practice of the new way: to preach the gospel, build up the small groups, and teach the truth, while not forsaking the larger church meetings on the Lord’s Day morning. Six other messages in this issue are taken from the Thanksgiving Conference in November 1997. The general subject of this conference was “The Sevenfold Intensified Heavenly Ministry of Christ.” Christ’s work in the stage of His intensification is to intensify His organic salvation, to produce the overcomers to build up the Body of Christ, and to consummate the New Jerusalem. We must advance from a work in the stages of incarnation and inclusion to the work in the stage of intensification. The Lord’s speaking in this conference through His ministry was instant and intensified, showing us the way to become lovers of Christ, martyrs for Christ, and eaters of Christ for the ultimate consummation of God’s eternal economy, the New Jerusalem. The Lord is advancing in His move to propagate Himself in Eastern and Western Europe. In this issue we include a report on the Lord’s move there, providing some details of the work to distribute our publications, the Full-time Training in London, an international meeting of brothers, and upcoming international blending conferences in five European countries.

This issue of The Ministry contains the last nine messages given during the 2004 spring term of the Full-time Training in Anaheim, California. The general subject of this series of messages is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In a simple, basic way the God of Abraham is the God of justification, the God of Isaac is the God of grace, and the God of Jacob is the God of transformation through divine discipline. Messages 2 through 7 of the October 2005 issue of The Ministry presented the God of Abraham. Messages 8 and 9 of that issue presented the God of Isaac. In this issue Message 10 concludes the fellowship concerning the God of Isaac. Isaac signifies our living a life of enjoying God; hence, we live a grace-enjoying life for God's good pleasure. Messages 11 through 17 present the God of Jacob. The God of Jacob, who is the God of transformation, issues in the God of Israel, who is the God of the transformed Jacob. Message 18 presents the Israel of God. All the experiences of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, represented by the lives and experiences of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, are to produce this corporate person--the Israel of God. We do not have the experiences of the God of Abraham merely to be spiritual persons, we do not enter into the experiences represented by Isaac simply to be individuals enjoying God's grace in a personal way, and we do not go through all the experiences represented by Jacob's long life just to end up as spiritual individuals who have some spiritual stature. God desires a corporate person; He wants a people to express Him and represent Him. Last of all, we include a report concerning the Lord's move in the United Kingdom.

This issue of The Ministry contains the last nine messages given during the 2006 spring term of the full-time training in Anaheim, California. The general subject of this series of messages is "Knowing and Experiencing the Intrinsic Constitution of the Building of God." The processed and consummated Triune God Himself is the constituent of God's building. When this processed and consummated Triune God as the constituent is dispensed into us, wrought into us, and built into us by being mingled with us, the result is not simply the constituent but a constitution. This constitution issues in a unique kind of being--a redeemed, regenerated, transformed, tripartite human being mingled with and one with the processed and consummated Triune God to be a real God-man. The intrinsic significance of 2 Samuel 7:12-14a--a prophecy concerning the building of God--is that the Triune God is working Himself in His processed and consummated Trinity into our being to make us His abode and to make Himself our abode. This is the focus of the messages contained in this volume. The all-inclusive life-giving Spirit as the extract of the processed and consummated Triune God in His economy is the constituent. God's central work is to dispense this constituent into every fiber of our being, saturating us, permeating us, constituting us, sonizing us, Christifying us, divinizing us, and deifying us so that although we remain human and therefore creatures, we become Triune God-constituted men, whose being is a constitution of the processed and consummated Triune God as the constituent. Now we, in our being, become this constitution, and as such we are part of the building of God. Last of all, we include a report concerning the Lord's move in Ivory Coast, a French-speaking country of West Africa.