Will you please turn to the Gospel according to John—John’s Gospel, Chapter 1, verses 14 and 16.
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth.
For of His fullness we all received, and grace for grace.—John 1:14, 16
The Book of Isaiah, Isaiah Chapter 53, verses 10 and 11.
Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He hath put Him to grief:
When Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed,
He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.
He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied:
By His knowledge shall My righteous Servant justify many;
And He shall bear their iniquities.—Isaiah 53:10-11
The letter to the Ephesians, Ephesians Chapter 1, verse 17.
That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.
—Ephesians 1:17
And finally, Matthew Chapter 16, verses 24 and 25.
Then said Jesus unto His disciples, If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
For whosoever would save his life shall lose it:
And whosoever shall lose his life for My sake shall find it.—Matthew 16:24-25
May we look to the Lord in prayer.
Dear Heavenly Father, we do thank Thee that Thou hast enabled us, through the blood of Thy beloved Son, our Lord Jesus, and the new and living way that He has opened for us, to come into Thy very presence.
Our prayer is that, if there be any veil still upon our hearts, Thou wilt remove it. We pray that we may behold the glory of the Lord with open face, that we may be transformed from glory to glory according to Thy image, by the Lord the Spirit.
So, Lord, we do offer Thy Word back into Thy hand and ask Thee to bless it, to break it, and to give it to us, that it may be life and spirit. And to Thee be the glory, in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
We have been considering together before the Lord this matter of the recovery work of God. We believe that the work of God today, as it has been for a long time, is a work of recovery.
By recovery, we mean more than something that has been lost and is now recovered. Recovery is always linked to the eternal purpose of God.
In eternity past, before the foundation of the world, God purposed a purpose in Himself. Ever since, God has been working toward that purpose, and God will never cease working until that purpose is fully recovered. So, we believe that the nature of God’s work today is the work of recovery.
Then we shared together something on the essential things that must be recovered in this recovery work. Aside from the recovery of the authority of the Word of God, the headship of Christ must be recovered. The full growth of the Body of Christ—that is, the bride—must be recovered. The centrality and universality of the cross must be recovered. And first love must be recovered.
Now, this morning we would like to consider together this matter of the principles of recovery.
Our God is a God of principles. He usually works according to the principles that He has set down for Himself. But, of course, we know God is greater than His principles, and sometimes, to our surprise, He may not work according to the principles that we understand.
But ordinarily, usually, you will find that God always works according to the principles that He lays down.
In Psalm 103:7, it says:
He made known His ways unto Moses,
His acts unto the children of Israel.—Psalm 103:7
To the children of Israel, they knew only the acts of God—the isolated, individual acts of God. But Moses was given the understanding of God’s ways. Now, by ways, it simply means God’s principles.
Because Moses knew God’s ways and knew God’s principles of working, you find that sometimes he could even predict what God was going to do. Because of that, he was able to cooperate fully with God.
So, we believe that it is very important for us to know the principles of recovery. By knowing these principles, we may be able to cooperate better with God.
These principles of recovery are not theories. They are working principles. They are living and very practical. In other words, you find that these principles, as we find them in the Word of God, have been worked out in the lives of God’s chosen people.
Through these vessels, He brings in His work of recovery. So, I do hope that, as we consider these principles, we do not take them as theories for us to contemplate, but that we will accept these principles as living and operative. We will be open to allow these principles to work in our lives.
And if we do, you will find we are on the way to recovery.
The first principle that we would like to share together is grace.
Grace is one of the characteristics of God; it is His activity. Our God is the God of all grace.
You remember once when Moses came to the Lord and said, “Lord, show me Thy glory.” The Lord said, “No one can see My face and live. But you are privileged to see My back.”
God commanded Moses to stand on the rock, and He said, “When I pass by, I will hide you in the cleft of the rock until I pass by; and then I will let you see My back.”
So, you find that the glory of the Lord passed by. When the glory of the Lord passed by, Moses heard a declaration. God declared Himself to Moses as to Who He is.
In Exodus Chapter 34, His declaration is:
The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious.
—Exodus 34:6
In other words, our God is a gracious God. He is merciful and gracious.
Again, we find in the New Testament: the Word became flesh and tabernacled among men, full of grace and truth. When our Lord Jesus was on earth, He was just full of grace and truth. And of His fullness we receive grace upon grace.
Now, what is grace? We all know grace is unmerited favor. Grace is sovereign. God is the donor of grace. Grace does not depend upon what we are and who we are. Grace depends completely upon God Himself.
Grace is freely given, and grace is universally given. Grace comes from God.
In love, God purposed and created man. But we have sinned. We rebelled against God, despised His love, and forfeited all right.
So far as we are concerned, we have absolutely no right upon God. We cannot claim anything from God, because we have lost all right.
You know, we are like that prodigal son, who was given his portion of inheritance, but he wasted it. When he came to himself and desired to return to his father’s house, he knew very well that he had no right whatsoever to claim upon his father.
The only thing he could think of was that, if he could go back and become a hired servant, that would be enough. Now, that was his logic, and it was very reasonable.
But thank God, when that prodigal son returned home, to his real surprise, he found that his father not only forgave him, but his father still took him in as his beloved son.
Now, that is grace.
So, brothers and sisters, from the very beginning to the very end of our life with the Lord, it is a matter of grace. Grace not only saves, but grace also recovers.
Here we go back into history. We find that in the Garden of Eden, Adam was created in the image of God, and he was given dominion over the fowls of the air, the beasts of the land, and the fishes of the sea.
But finally, he lost all. After he sinned against God and fell against God’s Word, he who was created in God’s image lost that image. He who was given dominion over all the things that God had created lost that dominion.
He hid himself among the trees. He hid himself from God. Then you find God came into the garden and called his name. God came to restore him.
On the one hand, you find God found him out. God did judge him. But on the other hand, you find God made wonderful provision for him, to restore man to Himself. And that is grace.
At the time of the flood, we find that Noah found favor in the eyes of God. Favor is grace.
During that time, people had all rebelled and sinned against God, and there was violence and corruption everywhere. God said the time had come when He would destroy everything that He had made. He repented that He had made man.
But Noah found favor in God’s eyes, and grace kept Noah and his family through the flood—not only through the flood, but to receive the new earth as an inheritance.
After men multiplied, they tried to come together and build a tower to magnify their own name. So God came down and confused their tongues, and they were scattered all over the world.
Even after they were scattered, they had not changed. They were scattered, but they did not worship God. They were scattered, but they began to worship idols. The whole world turned into idol worship.
The family to which Abraham belonged was no exception. When Joshua addressed the children of Israel in the land of Canaan, in Joshua 24:2-3, he related to them their past history:
Your fathers dwelt of old time beyond the River, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor; and they served other gods.
And I took your father Abraham from beyond the River, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan.—Joshua 24:2-3
Now, brothers and sisters, here you find God took the initiative in taking Abram out of Ur of the Chaldees and leading him into the promised land. You heard the words: it was not something that Abraham did, but it was God Who took Abram. He took the initiative.
Grace initiated the whole life of Abraham, the father of faith. It is grace.
It was grace that the children of Israel were delivered out of all the slavery in Egypt—not because the people were good, but because God heard their cry. God was compassionate upon them, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Again, you find God took the initiative to deliver the children of Israel out of slavery. He sent Moses to Egypt to deliver them out. It was pure grace.
After He delivered the children of Israel out of Egypt, He covenanted with them. He put them under the law. But during those forty years in the wilderness, how they provoked the Lord and how they did not believe in God.
That whole generation could not enter into the promised land. But eventually, you find the children of Israel entered into Canaan. It was not because they were righteous according to the law. Actually, they violated every commandment.
But it was under another covenant. You remember that when they were on the plains of Moab, on the other side of Jordan, God made a new covenant with them—the covenant of mercy. It was not under the law that they entered into the promised land; it was under mercy that they entered.
Again, you find it was grace.
After they entered into the promised land, for four hundred and fifty years they were under the judges. They did not fully possess their possession. They did not enter fully into all that God had promised them. It was because of their unbelief and because of their abominations.
God raised up judges, and the judges tried to revive them, restore them, and recover them. But while the judge was living, they seemed to serve God; when the judge died, they left God again.
As you come to the end of the Book of Judges, you find that their condition went down and down. Even when the judges were living, they did not serve the Lord with their whole heart. They never fully possessed what God had promised to their fathers.
Now here, you find grace began to work.
In the time of the judges, there was famine in the land. Canaan was a land of milk and honey, a land under God’s constant watch, a land blessed by God. Yet, in the time of the judges, there was famine in the land because the people did not follow the Lord. There was a curse upon that land.
There was a man by the name of Elimelech, and his name actually means, “My God is King.” But instead of depending on and returning to God, this man left Bethlehem and went down to Moab.
But even with that kind of failure, we find grace began to work. It was when he sojourned in the foreign land that we find God brought in Ruth.
Now Ruth was a Moabitish woman. According to the law, the people of Moab, even to the tenth generation, were not allowed to enter into the congregation of the children of Israel. In other words, the Moabites were forever excluded from the commonwealth of God.
Yet you find Ruth, a Moabitish woman, was brought into relationship with Israel when Israel was in failure. Now, that was grace.
After Ruth was married into the house of Israel, you know the story of Ruth—how she came back with Naomi and how, finally, she was married to Boaz. Out of that marriage came David, the man after God’s own heart.
Through David, the kingdom was established. Under the time of David and under Solomon, you find the children of Israel fully possessed their possession. That is grace.
Even after the children of Israel were carried into captivity because of their unfaithfulness to God, God sent His prophets to them again and again, trying to restore and recover them. But they would not listen to the prophets whom God sent.
Finally, Judah was completely taken into Babylonian captivity. Then, after seventy years of Babylonian captivity, grace began to work.
Again, you find God touched the heart of Cyrus, a Gentile king, a king who did not know God. Yet God could stir his heart to issue a decree allowing the children of Israel in the land of captivity to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the house of God. That was grace.
So, throughout the Old Testament, we find that whenever God works, He works on the principle of grace—not only in the beginning, but also in restoring and recovering.
Of course, when we come to the New Testament, we see it even more clearly. Why? Because God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.
When Christ Jesus came into this world, He was full of grace and truth. It is out of His fullness that we receive grace upon grace. Our Lord Jesus not only dispenses His grace to us, but He is the grace of God.
We do receive from Him grace upon grace. Now, brothers and sisters, we have no right upon Him. We cannot claim anything from God. But thank God that His grace should come upon us through Christ Jesus.
Grace not only saves us, but grace continues to work in us until what God has purposed from the very beginning will be fully realized in our lives—not only individually, but even together. So, we find all this is the grace of God.
The Apostle Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15, says:
But by the grace of God I am what I am.
—1 Corinthians 15:10
Brothers and sisters, when we come to God, the first thing we need to remember is that it is all grace.
When you look into the writings of Paul, you find that every epistle of Paul begins with grace: “Grace to you and peace.” Every epistle ends with grace: “The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.”
He was a person who knew what grace is. If you look into the life of Paul, you find he was a person who did not know grace in the beginning. He was a Pharisee, a Pharisee of Pharisees. All he knew was law—the righteousness according to law.
He despised the grace of God in Christ Jesus. He even opposed it and persecuted those people who received the grace of God. That was the situation of that man, Saul.
He was a proud man. He thought that he could make it. He thought he could do it. He did not need the grace of God. He thought that he deserved everything; he would work it out for himself.
But thank God, on the road to Damascus, when the Lord Jesus appeared to him and said, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me? It is hard for thee to kick against the goad,” he immediately realized, and he capitulated to Christ. He received the grace of God in Christ Jesus.
From that day onward, brothers and sisters, I think among God’s people probably there is no one who understood the grace of God more than this man.
In 2 Corinthians Chapter 12, Paul received such visions and revelations. He was caught up to the third heaven and heard things that people had never heard and could not even utter. He was caught up into paradise.
Because of the greatness of his visions and revelations, God allowed a thorn, a messenger of Satan, upon his flesh. You remember how three times he asked the Lord to remove that thorn.
He had every reason to ask for that, because he was the messenger of God, traveling and preaching the gospel, the power of salvation. There he was in weakness, and he was not a good example of what he preached. So, for the sake of God—perhaps not for himself—he asked God to remove that thorn.
And the answer was:
My grace is sufficient for thee.
—2 Corinthians 12:9
Knowing this, you find what Paul did. He said, “I boast in my weakness, because when I am weak, then I am strong.” The power of God is manifested in human weakness.
Now, brothers and sisters, the reason why we do not know grace is because we are so strong, because we are so proud of ourselves.
We need to be a people who know ourselves—that in ourselves there is no good. In ourselves there is no strength. There is nothing in us.
If we come to that place, brothers and sisters, we will understand that everything is of grace.
When we are in charge, when we are working it out, God will stand by. We may be able to build a kingdom, but we cannot build the house of God. We can build the tower of Babel, but not the house of God.
Unless we come to the point of seeing that we are weak, that there is nothing in us—or, as one brother put it, that we need to be bankrupt—grace will not work. Bankrupt in our spirit.
Blessed are the poor in spirit.
—Matthew 5:3
It is blessed are those who are bankrupt—people who cannot have confidence in themselves, that is, in their flesh. It is at that point that you find grace will begin to work.
When grace works, recovery is on the way.
Sometimes we wonder why God does not do the work of recovery. You know why? It is because of you.
If you humble yourself before Him, instead of trying to do that work of recovery, then He will do it by grace. Because all that God does is according to the principle of grace.
So, brothers and sisters, I do hope that we may see that everything is of grace, especially in this work of recovery when we are coming to the last days.
We know that God is doing the work of recovery. Because we know He is doing the work of recovery, we are also anxious to help Him. In helping Him, we delay Him.
So step aside. Do not be too ambitious. Do not be too powerful. Be in weakness, and let the grace of God take over. You will find He will finish that work of recovery in us.
So, that is the first principle.
Now, the second principle is travail.
If there is no travail, there is no birth. If there is no travail, there is no recovery. This is a very basic, fundamental principle in the universe.
In Genesis Chapter 1, we find that as God created heaven and earth, the earth became waste and void. Then you discover that the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
Now, brothers and sisters, if you can see this picture, you find the whole earth was covered with water, or the whole earth was covered with ice. Probably there was a time when the earth entered into an ice age. It was so cold and desolate; everything was lost in ruin.
Here you find the Spirit of God brooding over, imparting His life and His warmth to the coldness all around, in order to bring this earth back into a habitable place.
Now, what is that? That is the travailing love of God. God travailed over this ruined earth, and out of His travail, you find this earth was restored to be habitable.
The same thing happened in the Garden of Eden. When Adam and Eve sinned, they hid themselves from God.
That is quite understandable, especially if you have children in your family. Whenever one of your children does something that is against your will, and of course he or she knows it, you find that when you come home, he will hide himself from you. That is very natural, you know.
It was God Who came to the garden to find Adam and to call him.
When a mother comes home and cannot find her child, immediately anguish will build up within that mother. She will look over all the rooms, calling the name of that child. In other words, the mother is travailing, wanting to restore that fellowship and that love with the child.
Oftentimes, you find that even when the mother goes out to the child, the child is still very reluctant to come back. It is strange: it is not the one who is sinned against; it is the one who has sinned who seems to be very reluctant to be reconciled.
Here you find God again travailed. He came to the garden to find that man. He called his name. He tried to restore him back to Himself.
Of course, our brother already mentioned last night, in the case of Abraham, the travailing prayer of Abraham actually expressed the travail of God.
The cry of the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah had risen up to heaven. Still, God wanted to come down and make a final judgment. You find God was so reluctant to do that. He could just rain His punishment from heaven—fire and brimstone from heaven—and burn up the whole cities. But He did not do that.
I think probably He came down to see Abraham. He knew there was a man there who understood His travailing soul.
The story is fascinating. He came to Abraham, and Abraham treated Him. Abraham served Him. Abraham stood by and led God and the two angels to eat.
After they finished eating and were going, they did not say anything. But because Abraham so loved the Lord, he would not just let the Lord go. He said, “I will go a distance with You.”
Abraham’s heart was toward God, and he began to travail in intercession. God recovered Lot.
Our brother also mentioned Moses. The same thing happened. The children of Israel sinned against God, and God was going to wipe them out. But Moses knew the heart of God. Moses knew that God did not want to do that.
So Moses travailed in intercession, to the extent that he was willing to have his own name wiped out from the book of life if God would forgive. Of course, God forgave, because that was the very thing He wanted to do.
So, in other words, you find travail. All these people who travail are only expressing the travail that is in God’s own heart.
The children of Israel were in the land of promise. They were under the judges, but their condition became worse and worse.
If you read the last few chapters of the Book of Judges, you find the situation of the children of Israel could not be worse. It was so bad, so bad. Even the judges, like Samson, had lives that were so questionable.
The last of the judges was Eli. In the time of Eli, you find that the vision of God was rare, and the Word of God was not precious.
In other words, the spiritual condition of the children of Israel at that time was so bad that God could not speak to them. God could not appear to them. If God could not speak to His own people, to whom could He speak? If God could not appear to His own people, to whom could He appear?
In other words, God was completely shut in. God was put to silence. So God reacted in grace.
You have to see the travail in God’s heart. Suppose your children refuse to talk with you, refuse to listen to you, and you are forced into a situation where you just cannot talk to your children. What anguish would be accumulated within your heart?
That is the same thing with God. You find that within God’s heart there was such anguish—if I may put it in a human way—such a kind of love within His heart. He said He had to do something. He had to do something.
And He found a vessel: Hannah. Hannah. You know, the very name Hannah means grace.
There was a woman by the name of Hannah, whose name means grace. Hannah was the beloved wife of Elkanah, yet God shut up her womb.
Today it may not be a big thing, but in those days, especially among the chosen people of Israel, it was a very, very big thing. Why? Because according to the Word of God, a woman who is blessed by God will bear many children; if a woman is cursed by God, then she will have no child. It was a sign of being cursed by God.
Hannah was a devout woman, one who feared God, one who loved God. Yet, strangely, you find God shut up her womb.
What shame, what reproach, she had to bear in her life. Again and again, when they came to Shiloh to worship the Lord, she would pray and ask the Lord to remove that shame from her.
People could not understand. People would say, “Well, she must have sinned secretly somewhere, hidden, and that is the reason why she is under a curse.” So she prayed and prayed, and God did not answer her prayer.
Why? Because God was leading her to see the need of God instead of seeing only her personal need. She was praying for a son for her need, but God purposely postponed the answer.
Until one day, she vowed a vow before God and said, “God, if Thou wouldst give me a son, that son is for Thee.”
In other words, God used Hannah as a vessel of His travail to bring forth Samuel.
So again, you find travail. Travail is a basic principle in recovery.
Our brother also mentioned Daniel. It was through the travailing prayer of Daniel that the promise of God concerning the children of Israel was brought forth.
Sometimes, when we read the Word of God and find certain promises there, our attitude is that we will just sit back and say, “Oh, thank God, there is such a promise.” So we just wait for that promise to be fulfilled.
We think that God’s promises will be fulfilled mechanically and automatically. But that was not the way with God, because God is a living God. Everything about God is living, even His promises.
When you discover the promise of God, what you need to do is not sit back and passively wait for it, but rise up and actively enter into prayer for it.
Here you find Daniel. When he read in the Book of Jeremiah that the seventy years were almost over, because it was the first year of King Darius and in two years the seventy years would be fulfilled, he did not sit back and say, “Thank God, only two more years.”
Of course, God will keep His promise, but He had to raise up some person to travail. So, through the travail of Daniel, God brought in His promise to the children of Israel.
When you come to the New Testament, I think the principle of travail is demonstrated to perfection.
There you find the love of God not sparing His only begotten Son. We cannot understand the travail in God’s heart. It must be tremendous that He was willing to give up His only begotten Son, the One in Whom His love is centered.
Isaiah Chapter 53 is such a wonderful chapter. It speaks of the redemptive work of our Lord Jesus. Then in that verse, it says, “It pleased the Lord to bruise Him.”
We all know, brothers and sisters, that even though outwardly it was man who crucified Christ, man did that work under the instigation of Satan.
From nine o’clock to twelve o’clock, the first three hours our Lord was on the cross, it was man who mocked Him. It was the enemy who laughed at Him, saying, “Now You are finished.” But there you find our Lord Jesus was still in communion with His Father, and the Father gave Him strength to bear all the mockings, despising, and suffering.
But from twelve o’clock to three o’clock, the sun was hidden. The whole universe seemed to hide its face. Why? Because at that moment, the Father bruised—crushed—the soul of His Son.
It was during that time that He Who knew no sin was made sin for us. Because He was thus made a sin offering, God crushed Him.
You know the anguish, the travail, in the heart of our Lord Jesus—how He cried:
My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?
—Matthew 27:46
But out of the travail of His soul, He shall see a seed.
Dear brothers and sisters, the church is born out of the travail of the soul of our Lord Jesus. Out of His side came blood and water. It is with the blood and water that came out from His side that God found the woman, the bride, the church.
If there is no travail, there can be no birth.
Even this travail came upon the one hundred and twenty disciples. They gathered together in that upper room for ten days. They were together with one accord, and the Bible says they gave themselves to prayer.
They did not just go into that upper room and wait passively for the promise of the Father to come upon them. The Lord said, “Go back to Jerusalem. Wait until the promise of the Father, the power from on high, will come upon you, and then you will be My witnesses.”
They did not simply come back, stay in that upper room, and wait for that promise to come to pass. Instead, you find they gave themselves to prayer. I do believe these prayers were travailing prayers. They really travailed before God.
Out of that travailing prayer came Pentecost, and the church was formed.
Wherever a church comes into being, it has to come through travail. Today people try to organize church, but church is something you cannot organize. You can organize an institution.
A church has to evolve. It is not something that we just gather a few people together, appoint among ourselves a few elders and a few deacons, and then say, “Well, we have a New Testament church.” It does not work that way.
A church has to come through travail. God has put a burden for His testimony in the place where you live, in the hearts of a few. These few will give themselves to prayer. They agonize in prayer.
Out of that prayer, God will bring forth the church. That is the way the church comes into being anywhere, at any time, on this earth.
The Apostle Paul, as our brother mentioned too, said in Colossians Chapter 1:
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body’s sake, which is the church.
—Colossians 1:24
Here you find the Apostle Paul labored for the church. To the Galatians he said:
My little children, of whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you.
—Galatians 4:19
There you find an apostle who really travailed before God. Out of that travailing soul, many churches were established.
When you look into church history, you find the same thing again and again.
If you will allow me to mention this: in the late 1920s, God began a work in China through people like Brother Watchman and others. But the reason why there was such a move of the Spirit of God was because there were two women.
Two women. They were there. They were from England. They were there as missionaries, trying to preach the gospel to the villagers. But they realized that for the work of God really to take hold in China, God had to raise up some young men, intellectual young men, for that work to be done.
So they gave themselves to prayer. It was through the travail of these two women that a move of God came into China.
I think of the Welsh Revival in 1904 and 1905. The instrument God used was Evan Roberts, a young man, a miner.
You listen to his prayer. His prayer was, “O God, bend the church and save the world.” That was very impressive.
I do agree fully with what our brother said last night. The reason why we do not see the work of recovery among God’s people today as it should be is because there is a great lack of people who are willing to give themselves to travailing prayers.
That is a principle of recovery, and it can never be bypassed.
Now, thirdly, the third principle of recovery is revelation.
Whenever God does anything, it has to come through revelation.
When you go back even to Genesis, you find that when God began to restore the earth, the first thing God did was say, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
Everything has to begin with light—heavenly light, with revelation from above.
It is only light that exposes and reveals the true condition of things. We do not know ourselves.
We live in a situation and become so accustomed to it. We become acclimatized. We come to a point where we do not see anymore.
We need light, and that light exposes and reveals our true condition.
When light comes, you will find it not only exposes, but it slays. It kills all that which is not of God. But thank God, light also heals. It also gives life.
That is the reason why Paul prayed for the Ephesian believers that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, would give them the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Him.
We need revelation.
In the Old Testament, you find the God of glory appeared to Abraham when Abraham was in the land of Ur, a city of idols.
The glory of the Lord appeared—a great contrast between the glory of God and the shame of those idols. That brought Abraham out on that heavenly journey toward the city which hath foundations.
Moses, even though perhaps his mother told him while she was nursing him that God had a destiny for him, that God wanted to use him to deliver His own people—somehow it stuck in his mind.
Even after forty years, when he had learned all the learning of Egypt and was a mighty man, he did not forget what his mother had instilled upon his heart. So, he tried to go out and save his people, and he was a total failure. He had to escape for his life.
For forty years he was in the wilderness. He unlearned everything he had learned in Egypt, as it were, and there he learned to know God.
But, brothers and sisters, the work of deliverance would not come until he saw that vision: the bush was burning, and it was not burned. Why? Because God was in it.
It was on the basis of that vision that Moses was sent back to deliver the children of Israel.
Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint.
—Proverbs 29:18
The people disintegrate. They fall into pieces. They go each their own way. But it is only revelation, vision, light from God, that will bring in God’s work of recovery.
Our Lord Jesus, of course, is the revelation of God.
As the writer of Hebrews said, God spoke in the past, in former days, in many portions through the prophets to our fathers. Now, at the end of these days, He has spoken to us in His Son.
Our Lord Jesus is the revelation of God, the full revelation of God. He is the light of the world, and he who walks in His light will not be in darkness and will not stumble.
Brothers and sisters:
If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth us from all sin.
—1 John 1:7
Paul, throughout his life, when he gave his testimony, summed it all up in one word: “I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.”
So, brothers and sisters, in this work of recovery, revelation, or light, or vision—whatever word you may want to use—is needed.
Of course, today we cannot have so-called new revelation, because Christ is the revelation of God. All that God desires to reveal to us has already been revealed. In other words, it is all in this Book.
God has spoken. God has revealed. He has revealed fully and completely in His Son. So everything now is here. The revelation has been given.
We cannot have any revelation extra to the revelation in the Word of God. If anyone professes that he has new revelation extra to the Word of God, he is a false prophet.
But we need to have new revelation in the sense that what God has once spoken in the Word will be spoken to us again by His Spirit. That is the revelation that we need.
Brothers and sisters, we have the Word of God in our hands. We may read it, but we may not see it. We may memorize it, but we may not hear it. We may even store it in our hearts, but we may not have the understanding of it.
The Word is dead; it is letter, and the letter kills. How often, when we read the Word of God, we find we are condemned because we cannot do it. We are far from it.
But, brothers and sisters, when the Holy Spirit begins to open up the Word, when light from heaven begins to shine upon that Word, it becomes living, powerful, and operative. It works.
That is the revelation we are talking about.
Recovery can never be done on the basis of tradition, however accurate that tradition may be. Recovery has to be done through revelation.
That is the reason why often in the first generation of people, they have a revelation. They know what they are doing, and God is in their midst. But with the second generation, they just receive what has been handed down.
It is the truth, but there is no reality to it. It does not work. Very quickly, it is reduced to a system, to an organization.
We need to go to the Lord and ask Him that He will give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of God.
Finally, another principle of recovery is the cross.
Every recovery work of God is a work of grace. It is grace that originates the work of recovery.
When grace comes, it induces travail. We often think that grace is free, and because it is free, it is cheap. But if you know grace, you will find that it is free, but it is very costly.
It not only cost our God; it costs you to receive grace. Why? Because a person who really receives or knows the grace of God, that very grace will induce him into travail.
It is inevitable. If you do not know the grace of God, you can live freely. But once the grace of God comes upon you, brothers and sisters, you are under a burden. You cannot escape. You have to carry it out. It is costly.
Of course, the recovery work of God is always carried on by revelation. God has to reveal. There has to be first-hand knowledge.
For grace to work, for travail and revelation to become reality, there must be the cross.
Brothers and sisters, if by the grace of God He has given you a revelation of His Son, of His purpose, or of the church—whatever it may be—do you think because He has revealed it to you, therefore you have it?
No.
After you have received light, without doubt that light will bring you to the cross. It is only by the working of the cross in your life that vision becomes vocation.
Otherwise, that vision which you receive may or may not be true. Even if it is true, it makes you a visionary—good for nothing. You can talk about it, but you will never get it.
The cross is a very basic principle in the work of recovery.
The Lord Jesus said:
If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
—Matthew 16:24
Otherwise, it will not work.
The one thing that stands in the way of recovery is self.
There is no enemy greater than this enemy called self.
It is the pride of self that rejects the grace of God. It is the comfort and ease of self that will not travail. It is self-preservation that closes your eyes to revelation.
Self is the enemy of the recovery work of God. Brothers and sisters, there is no other way to deal with self but the cross.
The Bible does not teach self-improvement, self-reformation, or self-beautification. The Bible teaches death to self.
We have to deliver that self to the cross, and that is the only salvation.
So, brothers and sisters, we have just very briefly mentioned some of the principles of recovery. Whenever you find these principles at work, you will find signs of recovery.
Shall we pray?
Dear Heavenly Father, it seems to be easy for us to talk about these principles. But, Lord, unless Thy Holy Spirit brings these principles into our lives, it is all of no avail.
So we just cry unto Thee that, Lord, by Thy Holy Spirit, Thou wouldst work these principles into our lives, both individually and corporately, because we do want Thy recovery work to be done.
In the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.