Int’l Training for Elders and Responsible Ones (Spring 2016)

SERVICE FOR THE BUILDING UP OF THE CHURCH

Message One

Serving God by Knowing the Age, by Realizing the Way Christ Fulfills His Economy, by Seeing the World Situation as the Indicator of His Move,and by Spreading the Truths of the Lord’s Recovery for His Coming Back

Scripture Reading: Zech. 1:18-21; 3:9; 4:6-7; 5:5-11; 12:1; Acts 5:31; 17:26-27a; Matt. 24:14 (Hymns 960)

Outline

Day 1

I. We need to be those who know the age of today’s Christianity in a particular way, especially in relation to the revelation of the Scriptures, the divine truths, and the genuine and proper theology:

A. Not one of today’s theologies, including the Nicene Creed,stresses adequately the following five critical points concerning the Spirit of God in the move of God’s eternal economy:

1. The Spirit that gives life being “not yet”—John 7:39b.

2. The last Adam becoming a life-giving Spirit—1 Cor. 15:45b.

3. The compound Spirit typified by the anointing ointment—Exo. 30:23-25.

4. The Spirit of life, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, Christ Himself,and the indwelling Spirit in Romans 8:2, 9-11 all referring to the compound Spirit that gives life.

5. The seven Spirits—Rev. 1:4.

Day 2

B. The believers are held back by imperfect and unscriptural theology from the central revelation of God and come short of the completion of God’s eternal economy because they miss, neglect, or oppose the above five critical points concerning the Spirit of God.

C. The Lord’s recovery today is just the recovery of these critical points concerning the Spirit of God in the move of God’s eternal economy.

D. The Lord’s recovery and the central revelation of God are God becoming the flesh, the flesh becoming the life-giving Spirit, and the life-giving Spirit becoming the sevenfold intensified Spirit to build up the church that becomes the Body of Christ and that
consummates the New Jerusalem; this is the full ministry of Christ in three stages—incarnation, inclusion, and intensification.

E. Regarding the Lord’s present recovery, we should all be up to date and not held back by our old theology or by our old understanding of the recovery.

II. The book of Zechariah reveals that the way to fulfill God’s economy in the divine history is by Christ as the sevenfold intensified Spirit in our spirit and that the building of the church will be consummated by Christ as the sevenfold intensified Spirit of grace to be the topstone
of grace—4:6-7, 12-14; 3:9; 12:1, 10; Rev. 4:5; 5:6:

A. The focal point of the divine history within human history is the two comings of Christ for the testimony of Jesus, the building of God—Zech. 4:2-3; 6:12-13; 9:9; 11:7-13; 12:10; 14:3-5, 9.

B. We must see that Babylon is characterized by the wickedness of business, or commerce, involving covetousness, deceit, and the love of money; our Christian life should be without the love of money, and our Christian work should not be a money-making trade—5:5-11; 1 Tim. 3:3, 8; 6:5-10; Acts 11:29-30; 20:33-34; 2 Tim. 3:2-4; Heb. 13:5; 2 Cor. 2:17; 12:15; cf. 2 Kings 5:15-27:

1. Of the cargo sold by Babylon, the first item is gold and the last is the souls of men; souls of men refers to men who sell themselves for employment,neglecting God and their eternal destiny—Rev. 18:12-13; cf. 2 Pet. 2:3,15; cf. Luke 12:13-21.

2. God’s sovereignty will cause the wickedness in business, which the people of Israel learned from the Babylonians in their captivity, to go back to Babylon (the land of Shinar)—Zech. 5:10-11; Gen. 11:2, 9.

Day 3

C. Christ is the last Craftsman used by God to break the four horns; the four horns are the four kingdoms with their kings—Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and the Roman Empire—also
signified by the great human image with four sections in Daniel 2:31-33, the four stages of locusts in Joel 1:4, and the four beasts in Daniel 7:3-8, that damaged and destroyed the chosen people of God—Zech. 1:18-21:

1. The four craftsmen are the skills used by God to destroy these kingdoms with their kings; each of the first three kingdoms (Babylon, Medo-Persia, and Greece) was taken over in a skillful way by the kingdom that followed it—Dan. 5; 8:3-7.

2. The fourth Craftsman will be Christ as the stone cut out without hands,who will crush the restored Roman Empire and thereby crush the great human image as the totality of human government at His coming back—2:31-35, 44-45.

3. This crushing stone is the corporate Christ, Christ with His overcomers,who are His dispensational instrument to end this age—Joel 3:11; Zech.14:5; Rev. 12:1-2, 5; 19:11-21.

4. After coming to defeat Antichrist and to crush the aggregate of human government, the corporate Christ—Christ with His overcoming bride—will become a great mountain to fill the whole earth, making the whole earth God’s kingdom; this kingdom will consummate in the New Jerusalem—the ultimate and consummate step of the divine history—20:4, 6; 21:10.

5. Thus, the great human image will be replaced with the eternal kingdom of God, the corporate Christ in the image of God for the glory of God.

Day 4

III. The world situation is the indicator of the Lord’s move on earth—Acts 5:31; 17:26-27a:

A. The mystery of lawlessness is working today among the nations and in human society; this lawlessness will culminate in the man of lawlessness, Antichrist—2 Thes. 2:3-10:

1. Antichrist will be the power of Satan, the embodiment of Satan; he will persecute and destroy the people of God—both the God-fearing Jews and the Christ-believing Christians—Dan. 8:24; Rev. 12:17; 13:7.

2. Antichrist will demolish and desolate the temple of God and the city of God; he will cast truth down to the ground—Dan. 9:27; 8:12.

3. Antichrist will have sharp insight to perceive things and will speak things against the Most High—7:8, 20, 25.

4. Antichrist will wear out the saints of the Most High—v. 25.

5. Satan and Antichrist want the souls of men to be the instruments for their activities in the last age—Rev. 18:11-13; 2 Tim. 3:5; cf. Zech. 12:1.

Day 5

B. The ten kings typified by the ten toes of the great image in Daniel 2 will be under Antichrist, who will be the last Caesar of the revived Roman Empire; all of this will transpire in Europe—Rev. 17:10-14:

1. Before the crushing of Antichrist and the totality of human government transpires, the Lord’s recovery must spread to Europe and be rooted there.

2. The United States, Europe, and the Far East are the three influential factors of the present situation of the world; the recovery has taken root in the United States and the Far East, but there is a void in Europe.

3. Europe, in the consummation of the fulfillment of the vision concerning the great human image in Daniel 2, is more vitally crucial than any other country or race—the crushing of the two feet of the great human image being the crushing of the entire human government.

Day 6

IV. The spreading of the truths of the Lord’s recovery will be a preparation for the Lord’s coming back to bring the recovery and restoration not only to Israel but also to the entire creation—Matt. 24:14; 28:19; 19:28; Isa. 11:9:

A. Immediately after Christ’s ascension, these four things—the gospel, war, famine, and death—began to run like riders on four horses, and they will continue until Christ comes back—Rev. 6:1-8:

1. The spreading, running, and racing of the gospel of the kingdom throughout the whole inhabited earth is the kernel of the divine history within human history—Matt. 24:14.

2. The gospel of the kingdom, signified by the white horse of the first seal in Revelation 6:1-2, will be preached in the whole inhabited earth for a testimony to all the nations before the end of this age, the time of the great tribulation.

B. We are not preaching a partial gospel but the full gospel that encompasses everything from Matthew through Revelation—the gospel of God’s eternal economy to dispense Himself
in Christ as the Spirit into His chosen ones through His judicial redemption and by His organic salvation for the building up of His Body in the local churches to consummate the New Jerusalem as His bride, His wife, for His eternal expression—1 Tim. 1:3-4; Rom. 1:1; 5:10; Rev. 1:10-11; 21:2-3,9-11; 22:1-2.

C. Actually, the gospel includes all the divine truths; the entire New Testament is the gospel, and the New Testament as the gospel is typified by the Old Testament; thus, we may say that the gospel includes the entire Bible.

D. God’s unique purpose in this age is to have the gospel preached so that the church as the Body of Christ might be built up to consummate the New Jerusalem—Eph. 3:8-11.

E. The overcomers who preach the gospel of the glory of Christ become the riders of the white horse—Rev. 19:11, 13-14; cf.Rom. 10:15.

F. May the Lord burden us to learn the divine truths of the gospel and to spread them everywhere for His recovery to bring in His restoration—Isa. 11:9.