This time, we want to consider before the Lord together the matter of testimony and witness.
We see that testimony is central in the Word of God. God Himself has left His testimony on this earth. When He created heaven and earth, He put His own testimony and glory in His creation. From the heavens and the earth that He created, we can see His deity and His power.
Then He gave the Israelites the law. The law is the testimony of God. To Him, it is testimony; but to us men, it is the law.
Because of the weakness of man, the testimony could not be carried through in the law. So the law could not accomplish anything. But we praise the Lord: coming to the time of the New Testament, we see that our Lord Jesus came into this world.
In Him, the testimony of God is accomplished, because our Lord came not to abolish the law, but to fulfil it. Today, the testimony of God on this earth is in His Son, Jesus Christ. Those who know His Son Jesus Christ are those who know the testimony.
We also have shared the testimony of Jesus Christ, because this testimony is what we have to see, what we have to hear, and what we have to experience.
Our Lord Jesus testified that He is the First and He is the Last. He is the beginning of all things, and He is the conclusion of all things. All the will of God is upon Him, and through Him it is accomplished. All things will come back to Him.
He is the living One, because He is the source of life. What comes from Him is life. Whatever is not life is not from God.
Because He loves us, He was dead. Through His death, He destroyed Satan, who has the power of death. He was resurrected from the dead, and He shall live forever and evermore.
He is the resurrected Lord, and He is the victorious Lord. In Him are the keys of death and Hades. Our Lord is such a Lord, and this today is His testimony.
His testimony is now entrusted to His church. This morning, we want to speak about this matter of witness.
We know that if there is a fact, but nobody has seen it, heard it, or personally experienced it, then although the fact is there, there is no witness.
Because there is no witness, the fact will be buried, and others cannot benefit from it. So, not only must we see the fact of the testimony; we must also see that there has to be a group of witnesses who can testify to that fact.
We praise the Lord that through the ages God has reserved for Himself witnesses.
One of the purposes of God’s creation of man is that man may be His witness. Therefore, He created man according to His own likeness.
All creation testifies to the glory of God, but the testimony of creation is limited. The testimony of all creation is passive, because created things cannot experience God Himself. They cannot have the subjective experience necessary to express Him.
Created things express the eternal power of God and, to a very small extent, the deity of God. But their testimony is passive. For His own testimony, God created man.
Man is created according to the likeness of God. The likeness speaks particularly of the inner nature. God is Spirit; therefore, when man was created, man had a spirit within him. God has free will, and man, created by God, also has free will.
Only because man is created according to God’s image is he able to receive God into himself. He can be connected and united to God in life. He can experience God Himself and partake of the nature of God, so that the character of God may be constituted in him.
Among all creation, only man can have a more complete testimony for God. When man testifies for God, that testimony is active, not passive. Because he has partaken of the nature of God, his testimony is more powerful.
This is one of the purposes of God’s creation of man: that we may testify to Him.
When God put the man whom He had created into the garden of Eden, man did not give a good testimony for God. He was attracted by Satan. This shows that man had his own secret desire within him.
When man sinned in the garden of Eden, not only did he fail to give a good testimony to God; he gave a false testimony. He made Satan see God as though God had a narrow heart, as though God were jealous and kept things from man.
From the time of Eden until now, man’s testimony on this earth has been false testimony. Man cannot express God, and man cannot express the character of God. Man’s testimony is false testimony—indeed, it is anti-testimony.
Although man can fail, God never fails. We remember that our Lord Jesus said:
My Father worketh even until now, and I work also.
From the time of Eden, God has been working. Our Lord Jesus, while on this earth, also worked. What is that work? The work of God is to recover His own testimony. He wants to recover His own testimony so that man may be recovered to be His witness.
When man was driven out from the garden of Eden, God began to recover His testimony. In Hebrews 12:1, we read that we have a cloud of witnesses surrounding us. These witnesses refer to those in Hebrews 11.
When the testimony was lost on this earth, there were people among mankind who kept the testimony of God. When the first man failed, God obtained Abel in the second generation to be His testimony.
What did Abel testify? He testified that God is righteous. He admitted that he himself had sinned, that the wages of sin is death, and that this is an unchanging truth. He also testified that God has salvation.
We cannot save ourselves. We are sinners, and we should die. But God is a God of mercy and grace. Abel’s offering was a lamb, because the will of God is that our sins should be forgiven through the blood of the Lamb.
Abel’s testimony to God was a true one. Although he was killed by his brother Cain, he still spoke from the ground.
Cain was also counted as one who worshipped God. Perhaps, when they gave their offerings, they came to the east side of Eden, outside the garden, where there were cherubim and a flaming sword guarding the way to the tree of life.
Cain offered God the best thing that he could produce from his ground. Yet God rejected his offering and rejected him. Cain’s testimony was a false testimony. He did not acknowledge that God is righteous, and he did not accept that he needed the salvation of God.
We thank God that, in this world, He still kept Abel to be His witness.
When men multiplied on the earth, corruption began and became worse and worse. God chose another person. When Enoch was sixty-five years old, he began to walk with God for three hundred years.
Before he was sixty-five, Enoch may have been like other people—raising children and occupied with the world. At that time civilization had already advanced. The descendants of Cain had invented musical instruments, built cities, and developed ironwork. They seemed to be concerned with material enjoyment rather than spiritual things.
But when Enoch was sixty-five, there was a great change within him. God used him to be a testimony on the earth. When his son Methuselah was born, Enoch received a revelation that, when this child died, the earth would be judged.
Methuselah lived for 969 years, the longest life on earth. Why did God allow him to live so long? Because the day of judgment would come. Enoch received this revelation, feared God, and rose up to walk with God.
By the mercy of God, his son lived so long, because God is willing that all should be saved and that none should perish.
Enoch not only walked with God, but he also gave testimony. He testified that the time would come when the Holy One would come with thousands of His saints.
Behold, the Lord came with ten thousands of His holy ones,
to execute judgment upon all,
and to convict all the ungodly of all their works of ungodliness.
This prophecy not only refers to the judgment of the flood; it speaks of the end of this age, when one day our Lord will return and judge all who are ungodly.
Enoch’s testimony was truly a strong one. In that time, God raised him up to be His witness.
But it is not easy to walk with God. We all hope that we can walk with God; actually, we often wish that God would walk with us. That is more comfortable. But to walk with God is not easy, because our God is holy and we are unclean.
If you want to walk with God, you have to be holy. You have to receive much discipline before Him. Enoch was willing to receive all the discipline of God because he wanted to walk with God.
God testified to him, and God took him. He walked with God for three hundred years, and on the last day he walked into heaven.
Hebrews 11 tells us that if a man wants to please God, he must believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of those who seek Him. We must believe not merely that God exists, but that God is.
This is His name: “I AM.” He is the sufficient One, the all-sufficient One. He is our all. This is the testimony of God. Enoch accepted this testimony of God and walked with Him.
Man on this earth still violated the testimony and was unwilling to repent. Later, God raised up Noah, who received grace from Him.
Noah received the revelation that the days of that world were numbered. Our God is patient. He waited 120 years. Noah had the fear of God within him and built an ark according to God’s instruction.
At that time it had never rained upon the earth. Vegetation grew because of mist, and there had been no rain. Yet Noah built an ark.
I believe many people looked at him and asked, “What are you building?” Nobody had ever seen an ark. But Noah testified to the people, “This world is going to be covered by the flood. You quickly repent.” Everyone laughed at him, because it had never rained.
But Noah had the fear of God within him. He testified to God and preached, but nobody believed him.
Noah’s family—eight members—entered the ark. We see that God obtained not merely one person, but a family to be His testimony.
Even after the calamity of the flood, the sins of the world multiplied. The people built the tower of Babel and said, “Let us make a name for ourselves.” They had no God in their eyes. Therefore, God confused their languages and scattered them throughout the world.
Fallen man became deeper and deeper in his fall. Men not only failed to worship God, but they worshipped idols. Idols filled the earth.
This was about 2,000 years before Christ. At that time, God again called witnesses for Himself. Among many people, He called Abraham. The God of glory appeared to him, and Abraham followed God.
Although Abraham went through many trials, his faith was in a God who can resurrect man from death and make something out of nothing. God promised to give him descendants, and when he was one hundred years old, he received Isaac.
But what Abraham saw was not merely Isaac. He saw Christ, of whom Isaac was a type. Our Lord Jesus said:
Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day;
and he saw it, and was glad.
In Isaac, Abraham saw Christ. God gave him the land of Canaan, but Abraham wandered in that land as a stranger. He received no lasting possession of land except a burial place.
According to Hebrews, Abraham was looking for an eternal city, a city which has foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God. He saw the New Jerusalem beyond Canaan.
Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt. Their number multiplied, but a king who did not know Joseph arose. The Egyptians persecuted the Israelites and made them slaves.
At that time, God was working again. This was about 1,500 years before Christ. When Moses was born, he should have died, but God preserved him.
Moses was willing to suffer with God’s people rather than enjoy the treasures of Egypt. He considered the reproach of Christ more precious and more honourable than all the enjoyment of Egypt. He saw the unseen One.
Moses saw the glory of Christ. He was willing to suffer the reproach of Christ and despised all the treasures of Egypt. God used him to save the Israelites out of Egypt.
When Israel was brought to Mount Sinai, God entrusted His testimony to a nation. That nation was separated from all other nations. Among the nations, Israel was to testify to the one true God.
If Israel had been faithful to the law of God, she would have been the foremost nation. But if she violated the testimony of God, judgment would come upon her.
Israel failed again. The Israelites did not testify to God; they turned to idols and became no different from the nations. Although God sent prophets to call them back, they did not repent.
For four hundred years they could not hear the voice of God. But when the time was fulfilled, God sent His own Son into this world.
Through the ages, although God reserved some witnesses for Himself, their testimony was limited because man is limited. Our capacity is limited, the revelation we receive is limited, and the testimony we can give is limited.
God did not have a complete testimony because there was no complete person to give Him such a testimony. But we praise God: for His own testimony, He sent His own Son into this world.
When His Son came into this world as a man, God obtained His complete testimony in Him. Our Lord said:
He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.
I can do nothing of Myself.
What I do is what I see My Father do.
I can speak nothing of Myself.
What I speak is what I have heard My Father say.
Here is a Person who is one with God. He can fully testify God. When men heard Him and touched Him, they touched God. He declared God.
No one has ever seen God, but the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has declared Him. When our Lord was on this earth, He was a faithful witness.
The Bible tells us that before Pontius Pilate He gave the good testimony. He has a name: the faithful and true Witness. Our Lord is that Witness, and His testimony is complete.
The testimony of God is the testimony of Jesus Christ. If you know Jesus, you know God. He is the complete Witness.
When our Lord was about to ascend into heaven, He told His disciples to wait in Jerusalem to receive the Holy Spirit from heaven. Then He said:
Ye shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem,
and in all Judaea and Samaria,
and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
While our Lord was on this earth, He not only testified to God; He also called His disciples to be with Him. They heard Him, saw His life, and followed Him. These disciples were apprentices.
What were they learning? They were not learning merely the skill of preaching. They were learning the pattern of our Lord. They looked at the Lord to see how He lived.
Our Lord said:
Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me;
for I am meek and lowly in heart.
Our Lord was on this earth carrying a yoke. This yoke was the will of God. His whole life was under the will of God. He was meek and lowly; He was willing and had no resistance to the will of God.
If the will of God said, “Go to the cross,” He went to the cross. For Him, there was no other choice. Therefore, He tells His disciples, “You have to be yoked with Me. I am on one side of the yoke; you put your neck on the other side.”
We have not been trained, like wild animals, and we want to act according to our own way. But we must be yoked with Him. We must see how He obeyed His Father and learn from Him, so that His character may become our character. Then we can serve Him and be His witnesses.
The Lord said that the Holy Spirit would come to bear witness to Him because the Holy Spirit knows Him. The Spirit and the Son are one. But the Lord also said that His disciples would bear witness to Him because they had been with Him from the beginning and knew Him.
Brothers and sisters, our Lord has given a good and beautiful testimony in this world. He has shown us the will of God. Now He entrusts His testimony to His church and says, “You have to bear witness to Me.”
Today, the church is the vessel of the testimony of God. God once entrusted His testimony to the nation of Israel. Now, from people of all nations, He has called them together and made them one Body in Himself.
This Body is to be a witness for the Head, who is in heaven. The testimony of Jesus Christ has been entrusted to the church of God. This is a glorious thing, but it is also a great responsibility.
In the book of Acts, we see that when the church began on the day of Pentecost, Peter and the eleven stood up and spoke. They testified that the Jesus whom the people had crucified, God had made both Lord and Christ.
Under the power of the Holy Spirit, they gave the testimony, and thousands repented of their sins and believed in Him. They continued steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship. They broke bread from house to house and were together in one accord.
How powerful that testimony was. The church at that time testified to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. They enabled others to see the resurrected Lord. This was what they had seen with their own eyes and personally experienced.
The Lord to whom they testified was the living Lord. Within a few decades, the gospel had spread throughout the known world—in Asia, Africa, and the Roman countries. Churches were established in many places, and they were witnesses for Jesus.
Toward the end of the apostolic age, corruption began. There was also external persecution. When we read Revelation 2 and Revelation 3, we see the condition of the churches at the end of the first century.
John was still living, and he received the revelation containing the messages of the Lord to the seven churches. The Lord saw the beginning of corruption in the church.
The seven churches were represented by seven lampstands. The church is the lampstand. The church itself is not the light; the church is the vessel that supports the testimony. The church does not exalt itself; the church exalts Christ.
Only the church in Smyrna was persecuted. The churches in other places had flickering light, and some life was already dying.
The testimony of Jesus is holy and complete, but because of corruption we have damaged that testimony. Therefore, God was calling the overcomers.
What is an overcomer? An overcomer is not an unusual Christian. An overcomer is a normal Christian. The Christians at that time were not normal because they had lost the testimony.
The Lord entrusted Himself to the church and revealed Himself to the church, but the church had become too far from the Lord. Therefore, the Lord called His people to repent and return to Him, so that they might bear witness for Him. Overcomers are those witnesses.
From that time until today, we see the history of the church. We may not be very clear concerning the history of the second and third centuries, but from the fourth century we have what is called church history.
Much of what is recorded is official history—the history of Christianity. But we have not always seen the real history of the church: the history of those who truly gave testimony to the Lord Jesus.
Through the ages, many who gave a true testimony to the Lord were rejected, regarded as heretics, and killed. Yet, if we examine these things carefully, we see that throughout these two thousand years God has preserved His witnesses on earth.
In the second and third centuries, the Roman Empire began to persecute Christians. There were ten persecutions. To be a Christian often meant receiving a sentence of death.
Sometimes there were intervals without persecution, and it seemed that Christians could relax. But when they relaxed, their testimony and spiritual life also began to decline.
By the second century, Christianity had already become relaxed. People began to pay attention to outward form and organisation, and we see the beginning of the system of bishops.
At that time God raised up Origen. When Origen was seventeen years old, his father, a godly man, was imprisoned because of God. Origen urged his father, “You have to be faithful until death.” His father became a martyr.
Origen became a biblical scholar, a famous and respected one. Yet he emphasised that the church of God must be spiritual. It is not outward form or organisation; we must pay attention to the spiritual nature.
Other people were raised up, including Montanus and those associated with him. They saw that Christians had become mixed with the world and had begun to love the world. They called for a return to original purity and godliness and waited for the return of Christ.
They gave full authority to the Holy Spirit. In their meetings, the Holy Spirit had authority. Among them were two well-known sisters, Prisca and Maximilla.
In the third century, God raised others, including the Donatists. They paid attention to strict discipline. During persecution, some denied the Lord and later sought to return to the church. There were arguments among the believers concerning whether such people should simply be received or subjected to discipline.
The Donatists paid attention to strict discipline because they wanted an accurate testimony to God.
In the fourth century, Christianity became the state religion. Through centuries of persecution, the Roman Empire had declined, but the church of God had prospered. Constantine became emperor of Rome and opened the way for Christianity.
Yet at that time Christians failed greatly. During persecution, a group of people had held the testimony of the Lord. But when they relaxed, a great mixture entered.
The Lord raised up groups who paid attention to the Word of God. They said that believers should be separated from the world and should pay attention to union with Christ.
Later, we see the development of Roman Catholicism. Christianity became a vast organisation, and in the world it gained position and power.
In the seventh century, God raised groups of people who felt that meetings should be simple. Later, some migrated from Bulgaria into Asia Minor. They were called the Bogomils, a name meaning “friends of God.” These people also testified to God Himself.
The people mentioned in these centuries were hidden people. In the history of Christianity, they were considered heretics because they did not walk in the accepted way of institutional Christianity.
Many were martyred because they wanted to testify for God. They were not martyred at the hands of the Roman Empire, but at the hands of Roman Christianity. Thousands of people suffered in this way.
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, there were groups in Europe such as the Waldensians. They said that all church life and church truth must be according to the Bible.
These were often names given to them by others. They did not necessarily call themselves Waldensians or Bogomils. They called themselves Christians, and they called one another brothers.
Peter Waldo was an influential and wealthy businessman. He did not know much about the things of God, but when a guest suddenly died at a feast, it deeply affected him. He sold his possessions to give to the poor and began to preach the Word of God.
A group of people went with him preaching. They were called the Poor Men of Lyons. They gave testimony to the Lord.
In the fourteenth century, Christianity had become increasingly corrupt and dark. God raised up people often called mystics, such as Meister Eckhart, John Tauler, and Thomas à Kempis. They spoke of themselves as friends of God.
They paid attention to communion with God. Some among them truly knew the life of the Lord.
In fourteenth-century England, the condition was also one of outward form. God raised up a learned man named John Wycliffe.
Wycliffe attacked the corruption of the contemporary church. He said that we should return to the Bible and rise up to follow Christ. His major contribution was translating the Bible into English, so that English people could read the Bible in their own language.
Another group went out to preach the gospel. Others called them Lollards, meaning babblers. They were not gossiping; they were preaching the gospel. Wycliffe’s influence was great in England.
In Europe, there was Jan Hus, and there were people with him who became known as Hussites. They gave testimony to the Lord. They were arrested and burned.
In the eyes of Roman Catholicism, they were rebels. Yet they sought to testify to Christ.
In the fifteenth century, God raised up two groups in Europe. One group was called the United Brethren.
They said that when believers were baptised, they should be immersed. They also said that Christian life must be holy and that the liberty of conscience must be respected.
They did not seek to become a separate organisation. They were willing to be one with all believers.
Another group was called the Brethren of the Common Life. They wanted to establish schools, and whatever they studied and however they lived was to be according to the gospel of Christ.
Their schools had great influence. The Imitation of Christ was written by Thomas à Kempis, who was associated with this movement.
The sixteenth century was the time of the Reformation. Christianity had lost the testimony. Truth had been changed, and people no longer understood how men are saved. They thought that salvation came by works.
The church sold indulgences in order to build cathedrals and increase its treasures. People were told that if they paid money to buy a certificate of indulgence, their sins would be forgiven—even sins they had not yet committed.
To this extent, the testimony of Jesus Christ was completely lost. But we thank the Lord that God raised Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Ulrich Zwingli.
They proclaimed justification by faith and enabled people to read the Word of God. But unfortunately, the Reformation was not thorough.
Although Martin Luther saw much more than he was able to reform, circumstances caused him to stop there. Yet there were groups of people who felt that the Reformation was not sufficient. They were willing to return to the Bible and do all things according to the Bible.
These people were called Anabaptists. “Anabaptist” means to be baptised again. At that time, infants were baptised by having water sprinkled on their foreheads and were considered saved and included in the church.
This group felt that this was not according to the Bible. A person must believe and then be immersed in water, to die, be buried, and be resurrected with the Lord.
They proclaimed fellowship with the Lord. They said that the church is a group of believers gathered together in the Holy Spirit, separated from the world. They also proclaimed peace and the separation of church and state.
From the end of the sixteenth century into the seventeenth century, there were the Huguenots in France. They also were a testimony raised up by God.
In the seventeenth century, the Reformation had already taken place. England had the Church of England, but again it became merely an outward form. Therefore, God raised up the Puritans.
The first immigrants to the United States included Puritans who came to escape religious persecution. God also raised up George Fox. He said that there should be light within and the leading of the Holy Spirit within. People called his followers Quakers.
Others were called Independents, Baptists, or Presbyterians. These were dissenters who separated themselves from the Church of England. At that time, they wanted to rise up to maintain the testimony of God.
In Europe, groups associated with spiritual renewal also arose. They wanted to follow the life of the apostles in their own lives. They desired meetings according to 1 Corinthians 14.
This was the brethren movement. They paid attention to the Bible, and many vital truths that we know today were released at that time.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Christianity entered another phase of organisation. Yet God raised up people in places such as California and Kansas, and the Pentecostal movement began.
There was also the Welsh Revival. The revival was so great that judges would put on their white gloves because there were no cases to try. This shows the extent of that revival.
The Keswick Convention, though it began in the nineteenth century, also prospered. Men such as Evan Hopkins were associated with it.
Around 1960, there was the charismatic movement and the neo-charismatic movement. At that time, many ordinary churches had become very dead. God raised up this new Pentecostal movement, and many people were saved.
Although sometimes there were excesses, we thank God that this was a reaction from God against the deadness of Christianity.
In England, God raised up Brother T. Austin-Sparks. He knew particularly the eternal purpose of God and the spiritual nature of the church.
God also raised up brothers who showed us the spiritual life and spiritual warfare. Although there were sometimes excesses, we thank God that these movements were a reaction from God.