Special Burden

8 Points Concluding the 2017 Special Conference in Anaheim (After Message 5)

The key word in the following eight points is we need to know.

  1. We need to know the present age. Not only the secular age, but also the religious age, particularly Christianity, which is what Paul called the present evil age in Galatians 1.
  2. We must know the present truth. The central revelation of God and the Lord’s recovery. As brother Joe mentioned, the present truth is not a truth that we invented, but the truth that was always there since the times of the apostles, but these truths have been lost neglected, twisted and forgotten. So today in the ministry and in the recovery, that truth has been discovered or re-discovered and brought back to us. We need to know all this present truth to cooperate in His move today.
  3. We need to know God’s sovereignty. We must know God’s sovereignty. That is God’s absolute and unlimited right to carry out His will by His eternal and unchanging government. This is a great thing for us to cooperate with the Lord. We must know that God is sovereign and that there is a man on the throne who rules this universe.
  4. We must be those who know the Divine History which contained in human history. That is the universal history that is according to God’s economy. It’s not just knowing the outward history but also the inward divine history of God.
  5. We must know the word situation is an indicator of God’s move at any time. In that past for sure but definitely today again. So much of this involves the entire earth, but particularly with Europe in light of the Lord’s return in His prophetic word. And also even for the rest of us in the United States, which Lord uses to take the lead in affording the world a kind of condition in which His move can proceed forward.
  6. We must know God’s ultimate move and the Lord’s ultimate recovery. This is a great thing, underline the word ultimate. That is to carry God’s economy concerning Christ as mystery of God and the church as mystery of Christ according to Paul’s completing ministry. Let me say it again. It is just Christ becoming the life-giving indwelling Spirit to dispense the processed and consummated Triune God into His elect, His believers, to make them members of His own Body for His corporate expression, and that expression is expressed in this age on the earth locally as golden lampstands, which are an aggregate, the testimony of Jesus. We must be clear that this God’s ultimate move and the Lord’s ultimate recovery.
  7. We need to know our ultimate responsibility in light of all this knowing.
    To be saturated and permeated with Christ that we may be one with Him
    To bear His testimony by establishing local churches as lampstands all over the earth.
    To follow the lamb wherever He may go in a faithful manner.
  8. We must know the headship of Christ and the fellowship in the Body of Christ so that that we may be kept from a movement rather than the move of God and further be preserved in the unique oneness and even in the one accord.

These eight points are a kind of summary of this weekend and I hope that all the brothers will know them and get into them. I would like to recommend two books:

  • The World Situation and God’s Move given in 1991
  • The World Situation and Direction of the Lord’s Move given 1991