What is the Church Universal?
The Church Universal is something which our Lord
said, I will build my church.
It is something that comes from the Lord
Himself.
The Lord is the builder.
The Lord is in charge.
The Lord is working.
It is true in the church local we
are all employed in that building.
But you do not build each according to
your idea or your will.
We build under the authority of our head.
So you see, in everything, I do not
have the time to go into all these
things, but in everything you will find what
is the principle of the Church Universal is
now being brought into practice in the church
local.
What constitutes a local church?
What local church do you belong to?
I am at a loss.
I do not know how to proceed.
All right.
Let me dibrate a little.
I will give my testimony.
Not that my experience is difficult, but just
to illustrate.
As I told you yesterday morning that I
was brought up in a Methodist church.
I was saved among the holiness people.
I was not saved among the Methodists because
our type of Methodists are not the shouting
type.
I was not saved there.
But the Lord brought me among the holiness
people.
You know, that holiness people actually is a
branch of Methodism.
It is still Methodism.
And by the grace of God, I was
not saved by Methodism though.
I was saved by the Lord.
I have to make that clear.
But I was saved among the holiness people.
Now after I was saved, having joined myself
to the Methodist church even before I was
saved, I became a member of the Methodist
church before I was saved.
An active member too.
So after I was saved, of course I
become more active.
Even though at that time I was quite
young, I was still in high school, but
the Lord has set the fire.
So I was very active in the Methodist
church.
Whenever this Methodist church of which I was
associated with had a gospel meeting, you know,
sometimes they had gospel meetings, I was not
old enough to stand on the pulpit.
They won't allow me to do that.
But one thing I volunteered to do.
That is, I went to the street.
When there was a gospel meeting in the
church building, I will be standing on the
street trying to pull and push and persuade
people, force people to get into the building
to hear the gospel.
That was my work.
And I can tell you a story.
You know, in Shanghai we have a rickshaw,
you know.
That was during the early days.
Very few people have cars.
Even if you have a car, it's not
too comfortable because of the way the streets
are paved.
We have a rickshaw, you know.
And of course on the street there will
be rickshaws just standing there, and the rickshaw
man will be sitting in the rickshaw waiting
for business.
Now I tried to get the rickshaw man
into the hall.
And I couldn't do it.
I'm waiting for business.
I said, I'll leave my rickshaw and go
in.
Well, I think he should hear the gospel.
Do you know what I did?
I was standing by him and talked to
him about the gospel.
He wouldn't listen.
He put his hands upon his ears.
He wouldn't listen.
So I shouted.
I had a loud voice.
Well, I was very active.
And I was too active, in a sense.
That Methodist church is not enough for my
activities.
So, even though I was very young, I
joined myself with lots of activities.
I joined with activities of visiting prisons.
I was in prison many times.
And I visited hospitals.
And we organized evangelistic bands going to the
villages.
And I can tell you, we went to
the villages.
You know, we tried to preach the gospel.
We were all very young high school students.
But we were on fire for the Lord.
So we went to these places.
And when we went to preach in the
villages, well, people would say, well, here is
someone sick.
They expect us to pray for the sick.
We went.
And I remember very vividly, we went into
one house.
A boy was sick.
And we all knelt down.
And some put their hand upon the feet.
Some put their hand upon the head and
all over the body.
And we prayed and asked the Lord to
raise up that boy.
Actually, he was dead already.
And he was dead of meningitis.
But you can see the fervency, the zeal
I was in.
That's all I know about the church.
I was very happy.
I was very busy.
I was very active.
I felt everything was fine.
Yes, I met Brother Mee very early.
Within a year, I was saved.
I can still tell you what he spoke.
That was about 40 years ago.
I was impressed.
I went to the place where he spoke.
I listened to him.
I was impressed.
But I wasn't ready for what the Lord
had shown me.
I wasn't ready.
I was too active, too busy, too successful.
But the Lord, in His strange way, You
know when I was saved?
Another funny thing.
In the old days, when they have a
revival meeting or a conference, you know?
Always the same thing.
The last day of the conference is the
day of consecration.
That's always the same thing.
So I was saved just a day or
two before the last day of the conference.
And then on the last day of the
conference, a large map of China was put
on the wall behind the platform.
And the preacher began to come.
Anyone who really loved the Lord, anyone who
wants to serve the Lord, volunteer.
Come up!
Point your finger on the place that you
will go for the Lord.
I was just saved.
I was constrained by the love of Christ.
I walk up the platform.
I put my finger on Mongolia.
I felt if I want to serve the
Lord, I want to go to the furthest
place, to the most difficult place, to prove
my love for my Lord.
I did it with sincerity, with honesty.
I did not know at that time that
He is the Lord of the harvest.
He has the same.
He does not want volunteers.
But anyway, I volunteer my service.
And I made it.
It wasn't an emotional thing just at that
moment.
I made it.
After I did it for a whole year,
I tried to get everything on Mongolia to
read about Mongolia.
I prayed every day about this thing.
I set my heart and my mind towards
Mongolia.
I felt that this is the place I
will go to serve the Lord.
I will not go to college.
I thought it was a waste of time.
What's the use of going to college and
spend four years there?
And try to learn the things of this
world which is refuse to me.
So I determined in my heart, how can
I serve the Lord?
Well, the only thing I know how to
serve the Lord is go to a Bible
school.
How can you prepare yourself to serve the
Lord if you don't go to a Bible
school or a theological seminary?
Sure, that's the only thing you can do.
That's the only thing I knew.
So I chose my own Bible school.
It was a good one.
I associated with them in evangelism.
So I knew them.
And after I graduated from high school, I
had a talk with my father.
I have good relationship with my father.
But you know the Chinese family.
The relationship between the father and son is
rather formal.
He loves us very much.
We respect him very much.
But it's a little bit formal, you know.
So after I graduated, I talked to my
father.
I said, I had determined to go to
a Bible school to prepare myself for the
service.
I thought my father certainly would agree because
my father loved the Lord very much and
he was a Methodist.
But to my surprise, my father objected.
My father said, Son, no.
You are not going to Bible school.
Now, you go to college.
After you finish college, I'll send you to
United States of America to study theology.
So I should come many years ago to
this country to study theology.
I was depressed.
My whole plan was shattered.
I thought, what can I do?
As a young boy, I had to obey
my father.
I had to go to college.
But my plan was shattered.
God moves in a mysterious way.
In going to college, I had to leave
my home for the first time.
I had to leave that warm atmosphere among
God's people.
Oh, we have so many dear ones in
high school.
We have meetings three times a week.
And one-third of the student body came
to the meeting voluntarily.
Many of the faculties came.
Many got things.
We had very good times together.
And the Lord took me away and put
me in another city.
In an entirely different When I arrived in
that city, of course, it was a university
run by the Methodist church.
My root in Methodism is very deep.
I went to that university, and as soon
as I got to that university, I threw
myself immediately into activities again.
There was a university church nearby.
There was Sunday school.
So I once again threw myself into it,
you know.
I made a sad discovery.
I want to open myself to you, brothers
and sisters.
You forgive me.
I have to go on.
I discovered one thing.
I discovered there are different kinds of so
-called Christians.
I never dreamed it.
I thought that all Christians are alike.
All Christians believe in the Lord Jesus.
All Christians believe in the Bible.
All Christians love the Lord.
That's what I know.
But when I went to that university, I
didn't know it was the center of Methodism
in East China.
I didn't know that.
I came into collision.
Whenever, in our discussion time, I try to
bring out the Lord, I try to bring
out the Bible as it is, my missionary
professor will cut me off and try to
bring in the economic, the political background and
things like that.
Every time.
And gradually the Lord opened my eyes to
see and say, This is not it.
This is not Christianity.
This is not Christian.
They don't even believe the Bible.
So, I gradually withdrew myself from these activities.
But I had to be active.
So I asked my father.
Later on my father moved to that same
city.
He became the pastor of the university church.
So I asked my father to give me
some work to do.
And you know, because of my youth, he
will not make me the superintendent of the
neighborhood Sunday school.
But actually I ran that.
In the afternoon, Sunday afternoon, we went out
to gather children on the street.
There were children who lived in the boat,
in boats, boats.
You know, boat.
They lived in the river.
These wild children.
Never heard the gospel.
Never learned discipline.
Never.
We gathered them and helped them.
I did it for a long time.
I enjoyed it.
But the one thing that I lacked most
during the early days of my college years
is Christian.
I was taken out of a warm Christian
atmosphere and was put in an icebox, as
it were.
I had almost no comfort.
The only comfort I had was in my
own room.
I lived in school in the beginning.
We had three in the same room.
My only comfort was every day I spent
hours on my knees before the Lord.
I read the Bible on my knees.
I prayed.
Students would go in and out of the
room.
I didn't care.
I had to get to the room.
That was my only comfort.
And that sustained my life before the Lord.
I was longing for fellowship.
It was during that period I began to
read some writings by our brother.
And these writings began to make sense to
me.
When I was in the activities, these things
come and go without making any impression.
Yes, any impression is good.
But that's all.
But when the Lord put me aside and
in my quietness before the Lord, the Lord
began to open, to open up something to
me.
It began to open.
Of course, the first thing that really came
to me was this matter of baptism.
I was baptized in a Methodist church when
I was an infant.
That was the practice of the Methodist church.
After I was saved, one of my friends,
actually he was my classmate and later became
my fellow worker.
He was also a son of a Methodist
preacher.
After a year, he got baptized by immersion.
So he came back to us and tried
to talk us into it.
And I remember very vividly myself and another
friend, a teacher in our high school.
We were all saved around the same time.
He was also a son of a Methodist
preacher.
And when this brother came and tried to
convince us of the need of baptism by
immersion, delivered baptism, we two argued with him,
you know.
And by sheer force, silence him.
But the Lord began to speak.
You cannot silence the voice of truth by
argument.
You can delay it, but you cannot silence
it.
After, I think, a year or within a
year, this brother who stood with me against
that brother was baptized.
So I was baptized.
And they tried to work on me.
This brother wrote a long letter to me
to explain why he was baptized, you know.
And when I read that letter, I threw
it away and said, if you want to
be baptized, go ahead.
Why bother to explain to me?
But one holiday, I went to Shanghai.
And this brother had moved to live with
Brother Milam.
I visited this brother.
And he began to work on me again.
I was so angry.
He saw that I was angry.
So he left me alone.
And there I was alone.
I was praying.
I said, Lord, you know very well, one
day I will be baptized.
I know it.
But it is not convenient now.
You know my father is a Methodist preacher.
Well known.
How can I be baptized?
By immersion?
And if this news should go out?
What will happen to my father?
I love my father very much.
I cannot do it.
But after I graduate from college, after I
become independent, I'll do it.
I promise you.
I'll do it.
I know it is right.
As I was praying to the Lord in
this manner, the word of God came to
me.
He who loves his father and mother more
than me cannot be my father.
Dear brothers and sisters, all my life, I
have one desire to be his disciple.
So when that word came to me, I
cannot argue anymore.
I told the Lord, all right, I'll be
baptized.
I went down from the upstairs, went to
the other stairs, knocked the door.
I asked to see Brother Meek.
I wanted to talk with him.
I told him I wanted to be baptized.
And I was baptized that very evening.
Dear brothers and sisters, the reason why I'm
mentioning this is because this is the first
step that leads me to further.
After I was baptized, I remained there with
them on Sunday.
And of course, on the Lord's Day, they
always have the Lord's table.
I took communion in the Methodist Church once
a month.
And it was very real to me.
I went to the communion, I can remember.
I went to the communion with a very
honest heart.
I knelt at the altar when I took
the communion.
And it was very real to me.
But when I had the Lord's table with
our brothers and sisters there in Shanghai, in
that most simple way of remembering the Lord,
immediately I know in my heart, I cannot
go back to the Methodist Church and have
communion there.
I cannot do it.
Because I know the people who kneel with
me do not believe in the Lord.
How can I have fellowship with them over
the same table, same prayer?
I cannot do it.
But it became a problem to me.
My father was the pastor there.
Everybody knew me.
I was a very zealous person.
I was supposed to continue my fatherhood.
I was promised to be sent to this
country to study theology.
Everybody thought that I would succeed my father.
How can I do it?
But I knew I could not go back
and have communion with those who do not
believe the Lord.
This is not the body.
I have to discern the body.
But anyway, I broke the bread there.
I went home.
I didn't know how to solve this problem.
Every month on the first Sunday, I try
to think of an excuse not to be
present.
I dare not to tell my father what
happened to me.
But I just try to keep myself aware.
Every first Sunday morning.
And dear brothers and sisters, I have to
tell you that it is very difficult.
It is very difficult trying to serve two
masters.
I have done that.
Gradually but gradually, the Lord began to open
more to me.
Yes, I still went to the Methodist church.
I still was involved with the neighborhood Sunday
school.
But during this period, the Lord began to
open more and more to me.
The Lord began to show me that the
Lord's people cannot be divided.
You cannot divide God's people into Methodists, into
Presbyterians, into Baptists, into all these sects and
parties.
That is not the Lord's design.
The Lord wants His people to be one.
To be one.
It is the body of Christ.
I do not know too much at that
time yet.
But gradually the Lord began to show me
I have to be one with my brothers
and sisters.
I have to stand on the ground of
the unity of the body of Christ.
I find it increasingly difficult to continue in
that way.
And thank God during that period, the Lord
gave me some brothers and sisters.
We have two or three brothers in the
same university.
And during the week, three or four of
us would go and find an empty row
and pray together.
And then later on, on the Lord's Day,
we don't know anything.
We just...
We don't know anything at that time.
But on the Lord's Day, after a while
we became just the three or four of
us.
We used a classroom.
And we began to break the bread without
knowing what's involved.
We feel that we want to remember the
Lord.
We just break the bread together.
And then we heard way out on the
other side of the city, there was a
hospital.
It was a Presbyterian hospital.
A big one.
And we heard that there were some sisters
there who took train by turn to Shanghai
to meet with the brothers and sisters.
So finally we got together.
They have four, we have three.
We got together.
And we say, let's pray.
And see what the Lord wants.
We pray for about half a year without
coming together.
After half a year, the Lord moved us
all to feel that we should come together.
So we came together.
I remember very well that was about 38
years ago.
We came together.
And on that day, just the seven of
us, we broke the bread together and remembered
the Lord.
And then we cried to Him.
Cried with joy.
Sensing the presence, just
as we began, the Lord brought His servant
to us.
We had to borrow benches.
And we met in a sister's home.
That is our sister, Miss Gu's home.
Her sister was there at that time.
We met in that home.
And dear brothers and sisters, let me tell
you one thing.
For quite a long time, I was in
struggle.
On the one hand, I saw something.
I saw what the Lord was after.
I saw that God's people must return to
simplicity.
God's people must return to unity.
I saw it.
Dearly, I saw it.
It was growing in my heart.
More and more I was moving in that
direction.
And now the Lord has given brothers and
sisters a few.
Yet, we come together in fellowship.
And I could see the Lord will be
adding to us.
In a sense, environment was such.
Take the lead in everything.
The sisters, two sisters especially, they were much
more advanced than we were.
We were all students.
There were two sisters, Miss Gu's sister and
another sister.
They knew the Lord much more than we
do.
But they wanted to keep their place.
So they were wonder brothers to take the
lead, you know.
Of course, we fellowshiped with them.
Because we knew very little at that time.
And yet, we had to take the lead.
Oh, dear brothers and sisters, I remember that
when we first met.
I was everything and everywhere.
I usually was the first one arrived there
to open the door.
Swept the floor.
Set the chairs.
Waiting for the brothers and sisters to come.
Open the meeting.
Lead the prayer.
Preach the word.
Count the money.
Not alone.
Send the brothers and sisters off.
Close the door.
Foolish.
But on the other hand, one of my
feet was still in Methodism.
I was pouring between two poles.
To me, it is the church of Methodism.
I only relate my experience.
I had been exercised over this matter for
some months.
I knew that if the Lord was going
to find a way in my city where
I studied, something had to be settled in
my life.
I couldn't go on in this way.
If I was like that, what would happen
to other brothers and sisters?
They were looking to me to lead them,
in a sense.
I was deeply exercised.
Very much exercised.
For months.
And then a servant of the Lord.
The first morning.
It was a Sunday morning.
He preached on Luke chapter 14.
And the essence was, before you do anything,
sit down and count your cost.
Lest you cannot finish it.
Then it will be something to be laughed
at.
So after the meeting, we all ate together,
you know, being new, you know.
We invited the friends to come here.
And then we all rested awhile for the
afternoon meeting.
I was sitting there alone by myself.
I was praying, Lord, You know something isn't
right in me.
I want to go all the way with
You.
But I cannot.
The ties are too strong.
Too strong.
I said, Lord, is it because I have
never really counted the cost?
All right, let me count the cost.
See whether I can follow You or not.
So I began to count.
Oh, I counted my cost.
Well, if I should follow the Lord in
the way that He is leading me, probably
I cannot continue in that university.
I will be cast out.
If I continue in this way, probably I
will be cast out from my home.
If I continue in this way, I will
never be able to go to United States
to study theology.
If I go this way, everything, my plan,
my desire to serve the Lord, because I
knew nothing, no other way, well, all dismissed.
I felt the cost was too great for
me.
I told the Lord, it's too great, too
great.
I saw the Lord.
Whether it is physical or mental, I don't
know.
But I saw Him.
I saw Him coming to me.
He showed me His hands, and He told
me one thing.
I did all these for you.
And brothers and sisters, when I saw all
the bleeding land, my only answer was, Lord,
everything, everything, my blood, my everything belongs to
You.
I cannot waver anymore.
It's You.
Thank God, by His grace, it was settled
in my heart.
But that doesn't mean the problem was solved.
It was just a willingness.
It took me three days and three nights.
I couldn't sleep.
I couldn't eat.
I went to classes.
I didn't hear a word.
I was struggling and struggling and struggling before
the Lord.
The Lord said, You have promised.
You have given Yourself to me.
All right, step out.
Step out for me.
In my heart, I knew I had to.
But I struggled.
I struggled.
After three days and three nights, thank God,
He gave me strength.
I remember I asked to see my father.
We had a talk together.
I told my father, I said, Father, I
hid things from you for years, for a
year, over a year.
I said, I was baptized.
My father said, Why don't you tell me?
He said, I will never forbid you to
be baptized if that's the way you feel,
that of the Lord.
But he said, I'm hurt because you're hiding
from me.
So I told my father, I'm sorry.
I did not have the courage to tell
him.
And I told him everything.
I said, I tried to keep myself away
from the Communion.
My father said, I noticed that.
I knew that.
And I told my father, I said, The
Lord has shown me a new way.
I cannot go in this way anymore.
I have to follow the Lord.
And my father said, I knew all these
things.
I consider Methodists, just as a few.
I'm not sectarian.
If you feel you cannot go this way,
he said, of course I'm disappointed.
But you have to go the way the
Lord leads you.
And dear brothers and sisters, all the difficulties,
all the troubles, the mountains of difficulties, of
my imagination, all fade away.
The Lord set me free.
By the grace of God, I was able
to meet with my brothers and sisters.
Not on any ground of division.
Not on any ground of special truth.
Not on any ground of special organization.
Not on any ground of special person to
follow.
But the Lord brought me out of all
these divisions and just stepped on the unity
of the body.
I'm free to fellowship with all the children
of God.
I'm open to all the truth of God.
The Lord began to work.
Souls are being saved.
Many are attracted.
But during that time, persecution began.
Even though we were just a very small
group, less than a hundred, and yet all
the persecution, not from the world, but from
the Christian world.
I remember very well a pastor, a Methodist
pastor.
He sent me a magazine.
And he put circles and lines over certain
passages.
Asked me to read it.
It's an article on Communism.
He accused me of that.
And you know, in my youthful innocence, I
knew this pastor was not saved.
I had the courage.
I went to him and preached the gospel
to him.
We were accused of many things.
We were put out from many places.
We were greatly persecuted.
Every step of my step was lost.
They couldn't do anything to me.
Because my father was the pastor of that
church.
He was the president or the director of
the university.
They couldn't do anything to me.
But I have to tell you one thing.
My father suffered a great deal for me.
I am not trying to praise my father.
But I have to say this.
When I was following the Lord in simplicity,
because they couldn't get me on me, just
a young boy, they got on my father.
All the denominations in that city, all the
schools, hospitals, institutions related to all these denominations,
they met together for three days just to
discuss us.
We are nothing.
And people openly accused my father.
Look at your son.
You know what my father said?
My father was a wise man.
He quoted a word of the Scripture.
You know, Galileo said, If it is of
God, don't touch it.
If it is of man, that's my father's
answer.
So let me tell you brothers and sisters.
My father was persecuted for my sake.
Yet he never said a word.
He gave me absolute liberty.
I was a youngster at that time.
In my junior, sophomore, junior year.
But my father gave me perfect liberty.
And I have to testify that I was
so busy again, I didn't have time to
read my books.
I do not encourage young people not to
study.
My sister and I, you know, my sister
and I were both in college at that
time.
And in many classes, we were in the
same class, so we bought only one book
because we were poor.
And she always had the book.
I never seemed to read.
I didn't have the time.
My mother was so worried because I was
out.
In the morning I went to university to
study and in the afternoon I disappeared.
I didn't come back until late.
I was doing visiting and I was doing
everything, you know.
But I have to testify one thing.
It is for the glory of the Lord.
You don't know how dull I was.
When I was a little boy, in kindergarten,
I was trying to memorize just one sentence,
two sentences.
I don't know the English name for these
two flowers.
Just to remember the names of the two
flowers.
One flower is like a cup.
The other flower is like the crown of
a clock.
You know what I mean?
What do you call that?
No, anyway.
The sentence runs like this.
This flower is like the cup and that
flower is like the crown.
And I spent hours on it and couldn't
remember it.
That was always my problem.
I liked to study.
I was a bookworm.
Even now I am still.
I like to study.
I can remember in my grade school, after
the school is over and came home, we
had a snack and then I would study
until dark.
I liked to study.
But the more I studied, the more I
got confused.
I memorized something and then I forgot.
As I continued to memorize, I forgot.
I don't know, I overworked myself.
Always like this.
Very dull person.
Most dull.
I think nobody is as dull as I
was.
As I am.
But I have to testify that during those
years in school, I did not purposely not
read.
I had to give my time to the
Lord.
I prayed much, prayed much, and the Lord
heard my prayer.
He gave me back the time as it
were I spent.
Miracles after miracles happened in my study.
Anyway.
During those years, on the one hand, it
was difficult.
Very difficult.
With all these pressures and persecutions going on.
But on the other hand, I have to
tell you that these were most precious years.
The Lord was so near.
Oh, the Lord was so near.
You may think that I usually preach very
long.
You should know the way I preach at
that time.
You know, in the early days, Brother Nee
used to preach three hours.
At a stretch.
And I used to preach, if not three
hours, at least maybe two hours.
I don't know where the word came from.
You know, sometimes I look back and try
to remember, recall the days, my early days.
I didn't know much.
And yet, I had so much to say.
I don't know why.
Dear brothers and sisters, in a sense, during
those days, the Lord showed me, in a
practical way, what a local church is.
We do not know anything.
We look to the Lord for everything.
The authority of the Lord, by His Holy
Spirit, is our only guide.
So far as we know, we allow the
Lord to take His place at the head
of the body.
So far as we know.
So far as we know, in spite of
all the persecutions that come to us, our
hearts are open to all the children of
God in that locality.
We do not know much about the truth
of the local church.
But so far as our understanding goes, we
are learning to pray.
Forgive me, I'll continue a little bit more.
After two years, I graduated.
That became another crisis in my life.
Immediately after I was graduated, our dear brother
and me, and other workers, they felt that
I should join them, serving the Lord together.
That was in 1935.
But I myself withdrew.
I felt I couldn't do it.
I knew, dear brothers and sisters, one day
I had to serve the Lord.
If the Lord had called me, I knew
it.
But on the other hand, I hesitated.
For two reasons.
One reason is, I felt I was not
ready.
I had never been to Bible school.
I need time to study the Bible.
And another reason is, I would rather stay
where I was, because I love these brothers
and sisters.
I don't want to go away.
I thought that they were under my care.
So when the brothers asked me to go
to Shanghai to join with them, you know,
they pressed and pressed and pressed and pressed
and said, you must go, you must go.
So finally I said, all right, I will
come, but I won't promise you how long
I will be there.
I went there a week and stayed back.
At the same time, I was trying to
find a job.
A teaching job.
Of course, it was a policy of the
denominations.
Those who come to our meeting will not
be employed.
So I cannot find employment with the religious
world.
I have to find employment in the secular
world.
But dear brothers and sisters, let me tell
you a tragedy.
A tragedy.
It was during that time, one young brother,
whom I love very much, he was in
high school.
His family was in another city.
And after the school was over, before he
went back to his home, he and a
few friends, they swam in the river.
And he was drowned.
They notified me.
His parents were not there.
I had to take care of everything until
their parents came.
After we sent his body to the funeral,
parlor to the cemetery, I came out.
For a whole night, I wrestled.
I blamed him for everything.
I said, Lord, you are unfair.
Such a young life you take.
It's unfair.
You know we need brothers.
That's not right.
I wouldn't let him go.
I struggled through the night until the morning.
I wouldn't give up.
I told the Lord that I couldn't agree
to that.
It was just too much.
He shouldn't do that.
My spirit was in rebellion against God.
And in the morning, I went to the
sitting room, shut the door.
I knelt down and prayed.
I was still blaming the Lord for what
had happened.
And the Lord said, the Lord said, all
right.
Do you know that brother died for you?
Do you know that he is so young
and yet his life is taken away?
How long do you think you can live?
How long do you think you can wait
until you come out and serve me?
That brother died for you.
It's a lesson for you.
Anyway, that is the way the Lord spoke
to me.
So I told the Lord, you have to
leave.
I had another thought in my mind.
Everybody was away that day, fortunately.
Only my father and I were in the
home.
We had a long talk together.
I told him, the Lord has shown me
that I have to go and serve him.
You know what my father said?
My father said, I knew it long ago.
If you doubt your calling, who is calling?
You were trying to find a job.
I knew you won't be able to get
it.
He said, even though I would like you
to serve together with me, for so long
as you serve him, it's all right.
It's all right with me.
We knelt down together and I could never
forget the prayer of my father.
He committed me to the Lord.
And he said, Lord, not just one child,
but everyone.
You can't have.
He just committed me to the Lord and
let me go.
I left home from that day on.
And brothers and sisters, I was privileged to
meet with many brothers and sisters who were
way ahead of me.
And they took care of me.
They taught me.
They helped me in many, many ways.
I was just learning to serve the Lord.
But I have to continue a little bit
just to finish it.
After I have served the Lord for many
years in different parts of China.
You know, at that time, all I knew
was the local church.
That was all I knew.
Everywhere we went, we preached the gospel.
We gathered God's people.
We baptized them.
We taught them to remember the Lord at
His table.
And we tried to help them knowing more
about the Lord and about the Bible.
But you know, in a way, my work
at least is mostly involved with what I
call building the local church.
And after doing that for some years, I
get tired.
I got tired.
That came to 1942.
That was the war time.
We fled to India.
And the Lord allowed us to stay there
in a sister's home for over a month.
And during that month of quietness, the Lord
began to open my ears.
I saw that for the local church to
really work, it is more than just to
gather God's people, get them baptized, set up
the table.
They have to catch a vision of the
glorious church that the Lord is at.
Brotherhood mysteries, it opens.
I began to see there is more than
the technicality of a local church.
There is the reality of the local church
as the church universal in all its principles
is being practiced.
Oh, then I began to see there will
be no limit to it.
No limit to it.
The richness of Christ is in the church
local.
Dear brothers and sisters, remember this thing.
By the grace of God, He has continuously
opening up, opening up, opening up, opening up
something more.
There is no end to it, dear brothers
and sisters, no end to it.
This church, the eternal purpose of God, that
which is going to satisfy His heart, there
is no limitation, there is no end to
it.
Do not think that you know it all.
You may just get a glimpse of it.
There is more, there is more.
Thank God in all these years, brothers and
sisters, sometimes through deep affliction, sometimes.
By the wonderful mercy of God, the Lord
gradually opens me to see that delight of
His heart, the church, how wonderful it is,
how glorious it is.
It is nothing but the extension of Christ.
It is Christ extended.
Oh, dear brothers and sisters, I don't know,
I was prepared to speak to you on
church truth.
Church truth.
But I cannot do it now.
I feel that I have to, I have
to give my testimony to you.
I believe in one church.
By the grace of God, I want to
practice this one church.
I cannot see the division, the separation between
the church universal and the church local.
I believe that God's people should be filled
with a spirit which is universal, but God's
people should walk in the way of Him
as a testimony to the world today.
You read Revelation.
You find in Revelation chapter 2 and 3
the seven golden days, the church.
But you come to Revelation 21 and 22,
one giant land, the church.
How does God come to have that church
universal?
The work is done today in the church
local.
It is the church local that leads to
the realization of the church universal.
If we do not live in the light
of the local church, how can we expect
God, the reality of the church?
Again I say, today it is the local
church in which He works.
One day you don't find a local church.
It is the church.
Just feel free to pray in the morning.