THE TRUTH OF THE CHURCH

Message Six
What Are We?

Hymns 1237

Scripture Reading:

John 1:22     They said then to him, Who are you, that we may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?

2 Pet. 1:12   Therefore I will be ready always to remind you concerning these things, even though you know them and have been established in the present truth.

Established in the Present Truth

The reason we are here is that God has given us a special calling. Second Peter 1:12 mentions the words “established in the present truth.” The “present truth” can also be rendered the “up-to-date truth.” We need to ask: “God, what is the present truth?”

Truth Recovered During the Sixteenth Century

From the sixteenth century on, God has been recovering different truths. The sixteenth century was the age of the Reformation. It was a time of monumental change in religion. We have to consider the history from the time of the Reformation as belonging to four periods. The first period is the period of the Reformation. The second period is the time immediately after the Reformation, from the sixteenth century to the eighteenth century. The third period is the nineteenth century, and the last period is the present twentieth century.

First, let us consider Luther’s Reformation. The best thing about him was his recovery of the truth of justification by faith. This is Luther’s particular recovery.

The Recovery of Truth
from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century

Following this we come to the period from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. In 1524 the Anabaptists, a group of believers who proposed re-baptism after infant-sprinkling, were raised up in Germany. They were followers of the earlier brothers from Lhota who preached the baptism of believers. After twelve years, in 1536 John Calvin was raised up by God. Finally, in Scotland he had a fresh beginning and established the Scottish Presbyterian Church.

At this time in Germany, God raised up Philipp Jakob Spener. He became a pastor in a Lutheran Church in Frankfurt in 1670. By that time the Lutheran denomination had fallen into a kind of formal religion. By reading his Bible, Spener found out that the church at his time was full of human opinions, something forbidden by God. For this reason he began to lead others into the practice of 1 Corinthians 14.

By 1732 the earliest missionary body in the world was conceived, the so-called Moravian Brethren. They were the first group of brothers to go throughout the entire world to evangelize.

At the same time there was a new discovery within the Catholic Church. A group of spiritual people were raised up by the Lord. Madame Guyon was born in 1648 and died in 1717. She was even more knowledgeable in the matters of the union with God’s will and the denial of the self.

The reforms of the sixteenth century affected the world not only spiritually but politically and socially as well. Those reforms of the eighteenth century exercised their influence mainly on the spiritual side. Of all the movements in the eighteenth century, the most noteworthy was the testimony of the “Philadelphia” church. They assimilated all of the previous major recoveries. Among them, one can find all of the major truths.

The Discovery of God’s Truth in the Nineteenth Century

In 1827 a group of people were raised up in Dublin, Ireland. Among them were men like Edward Cronin and Anthony Norris Groves. They saw that many things in the church were dead, lifeless, and formal. They began to ask the Lord to show them the church according to the biblical revelation. Through prayer and fellowship, they felt that they should rise up and meet according to the principle of 1 Corinthians 14. As a result, they began to break bread at a brother’s home.

In addition, the Brethren made many discoveries concerning the millennium, the question of rapture, and the prophecies in Daniel and Revelation.

Afterward God raised up George Muller in England. He learned many excellent lessons concerning prayer and concerning faith in God’s word. God gained another sister, Mrs. Jessie Penn-Lewis. Mrs. Penn-Lewis was one who truly bore the cross. Through her experiences, many believers were attracted to pursue the truth concerning the cross. We can see that the discovery of God’s truth is progressive; the more it advances, the more complete it becomes. By the end of the nineteenth century, almost all of the truths had been recovered.

The Advance of Truth in the Twentieth Century

During the great Welsh Revival of 1904, many towns saw their whole population saved to such an extent that there were no more souls to save. Many phenomena of Pentecost were manifested among them.

From them we have learned two truths: first, the revival work of the Holy Spirit is brought in through a group of people who are bent and subdued. Second, from this time on, many began to understand the work of the evil spirits.

God’s Work Today
and the Cumulative Revelations of God

We know that God’s truths are cumulative; later truths do not negate earlier ones. All the past truths of God form the foundation of the truths today. What we see today are the cumulative revelations of God.

From 1926 on, we began to release many messages concerning salvation, the church, and the cross, and we testified much concerning these things. By 1927 we concentrated our attention on the subjective work of the cross. What we speak of today is resurrection as a principle of life. It is not just a doctrine but a spiritual fact. After this, God showed us what the Body of Christ is and where the reality of this Body is. We began to realize that as there is only one life of Christ, there is only one church. By February of 1928, we began to mention something concerning God’s eternal purpose. It was not until 1934 that we realized that the centrality of everything related to God is Christ. Christ is God’s centrality and God’s universality.

God’s overcomers are a group of people who take the lead to stand in the place of death on behalf of the whole congregation. Their relationship with the church is that of Zion’s relationship with Jerusalem. All of God’s requirements fall upon Zion. When Zion is gained, Jerusalem is gained. When both Zion and Jerusalem are secured, God’s purpose is fulfilled.

Sounding out a Call

Our work is to sound out the call to God’s children to return to God’s central purpose, to take Christ as the center of all things, and to take His death, resurrection, and ascension as the basis of everything. This is the message of Colossians 1 and 3. We know the position of the church in the New Testament. We realize that this position is lofty and spiritual. We thank God for the help rendered to us from the Western missionaries. Yet God is showing us today that we should bring everything back to God’s central purpose. Our work today is to return to the biblical ground of the church.

All of God’s truth has the church as the starting point. Paul was first put in the church in Antioch. Later he was sent out from the church in Antioch. All of the truths that we preach today have the church as the starting point. This is our work and this is our testimony.

Four Responsibilities Today

We have four responsibilities today: (1) Concerning the sinners, we have to preach the gospel. (2) Concerning Satan, we have to realize there is a spiritual warfare. (3) Concerning the church, we have to hold fast what we see today. (4) Concerning Christ, we should testify of the fact of His preeminence in all things (CWWN, vol. 11, pp. 843-859).

Reference: CWWN, vol. 11, ch. 15.