Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth,
Where thou feedest thy flock,
Where thou makest it to rest at noon:
For why should I be as one that is veiled
Beside the flocks of thy companions?If thou know not, O thou fairest among women,
Go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock,
And feed thy kids beside the shepherds’ tents.
I am the good shepherd; and I know Mine own, and Mine own know Me,
Even as the Father knoweth Me, and I know the Father;
And I lay down My life for the sheep.And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold:
Them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice;
And they shall become one flock, one shepherd.
Lord, we really thank You and praise You. By Your sovereign grace, we are gathered here together.
Lord, we are gathered here in Your name. We know that You are faithful. You promised to be among us.
Lord, we really look up to You to take away the veil from our faces so that we truly can see Your glory and beauty.
Lord, we look up to You to draw us again, so that we may follow You steadily.
Lord, would You put Your own word under Your feet again? We ask that Your Holy Spirit would quicken Your own word, for Your word is spirit and life, so that we can truly meet You face to face through Your own word.
We ask that You would do Your own work this morning, that Your heart may be satisfied. In the name of the Lord Jesus, amen.
In the Song of Solomon, we see a woman who has tasted the sweetness of the Lord. For this reason, there is a desire in her heart for the Lord. She is willing that she might know the Lord more, and she hopes to have a more intimate fellowship with Him.
Because she has such longing for the Lord, the Lord brings her into the inner chamber so that she can experience something of the preciousness of the Lord. The Lord attracts her heart, and she rises up, wanting to follow Him.
But when she was loving the Lord, her brothers did not understand her condition. They thought she was too much. So her brothers loaded a great deal of work upon her, and she did not have enough quiet time to fellowship with the Lord.
For this reason, she felt great pain within her. Therefore, she cried before the Lord:
Thou whom my soul loveth,
Where thou feedest thy flock,
Where thou makest it to rest at noon:
For why should I be as one that is veiled
Beside the flocks of thy companions?
You can see the heart of this woman. She really loves her Lord. But it seems that at that time she was not able to see Him. It seems that she was among the flocks of the Lord’s companions, as if she had a veil upon her face.
In the Chinese translation, it is difficult to see the delicate meaning here. But if you read the English translation, it says, “Why should I be as one that is veiled beside the flocks of thy companions?”
Here, there are some people who are called the companions of the Lord. They are probably called by the Lord to be shepherds. But when the Lord put forth His own flock into their hands, these companions divided the flock into flocks of their own.
Originally, the Lord has only one flock. All the companions of the Lord are supposed to shepherd the Lord’s flock. They are supposed to be under the Great Shepherd and to feed the flock together.
But these companions, perhaps unwittingly, took the flock of the Lord that was entrusted to their hands as their own. In other words, these companions considered the work as their primary thing. In this way, they used the work to replace the Lord.
This woman longs for the Lord. She feels herself to be in the midst of these companions, but the work cannot replace her Lord. She feels herself to be a person with a veil upon her face. That is to say, she is not able to see the Lord.
In some translations, this word veiled also speaks of one who is roaming—going from place to place, having no home, and not knowing where she is going.
I think that today, among God’s children, we have the same condition. There are people who truly love the Lord. In their hearts, outward activities cannot replace their Lord. They cannot consider the work as replacing their Lord.
In their hearts, it is as though they are roaming from place to place, having no home. There is no rest in their hearts. They feel themselves to be the sheep of the Lord, but where is the Lord shepherding His flock? Where does He make His flock to rest at noon?
Therefore, there is a longing within them, and they cry to the Lord. The Lord responds:
O thou fairest among women,
If thou know not,
Go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock,
And feed thy kids beside the shepherds’ tents.
Dear brothers and sisters, here we see that this woman, in the eyes of the Lord, is the fairest. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. In the eyes of our Lord, who is beautiful? It is those who have a heart longing for the Lord.
It is not those who have great work. It is those who have love for the Lord. These people, in the eyes of the Lord, are the fairest.
The Lord tells her, “If you do not know where I am, just follow the footsteps of the flock.” In the original language, the word flock is singular. There is only one flock.
The footsteps of the flock are the footsteps of the Lord, because our Lord is the Good Shepherd. He walks before the flock, and the flock follows the footsteps of the Shepherd.
Therefore, when the woman cannot see the Lord, the Lord says, “Just follow the footsteps of the flock, and then you can find Me.” The Lord is the Good Shepherd. He will never depart from His own flock. Wherever His flock is, He is there. There you can find Him.
Here we see that there is only one Shepherd and only one flock. This is what we are told in John 10.
In John 10, the Lord tells us that He has other sheep that are not of this fold. We know the background of this. The Jews were a fold, but they were not the flock.
When our Lord came to earth, He said that He was sent to the house of Israel. In that fold, He was going to call out His own, because His sheep know His voice.
But the Lord says, “Besides the sheep in this fold, I also have other sheep.” These are the Gentiles. He says, “I will bring them in.”
Not only would He bring the sheep out of the fold of the Jews; He would also bring His sheep out of the fold of the Gentiles. His sheep hear His voice, and He would bring them out into one flock under one Shepherd.
Brothers and sisters, our Lord is the Shepherd. Although on earth He has called many shepherds, strictly speaking there is only one Shepherd. He has only one flock.
All those who have been saved by grace and who know His voice are in one flock under the one Shepherd. The Lord says, “I know My sheep, and My sheep know Me.” All these sheep are in one flock under the Shepherd.
The Lord told this woman, “If you cannot see Me because of these complicated surroundings, all you have to do is follow the footsteps of the flock. There you will find Me.”
What the woman longs for is not merely the flock; what she longs for is the Shepherd. But because she longs for the Shepherd, she also loves the flock of the Shepherd. In the footsteps of the flock that follows the Lord, she can find the Lord whom her heart desires.
The four Gospels show us the footsteps of our Lord. In the Gospels, we see the footsteps that our Lord left upon the earth.
What, then, is the book of Acts? I believe Bible students would acknowledge that if the Gospels are the footsteps of the Lord, then Acts is the footsteps of the flock.
When we cannot find the Lord, the Lord says, “All you have to do is follow the footsteps of the flock, because there you can find Me.” This is why we find the book of Acts to be so precious.
The book of Acts is not merely the history of the first-century church. It shows us the footsteps of the flock. Sometimes we feel a little confused and do not know where to go. In the book of Acts, we can find the footsteps of the flock, and through those footsteps we can find our Lord.
We remember in Matthew 16 that the Lord said, “I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” In Matthew 18, He says, “Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.”
Wherever two or three are gathered in the name of the Lord, they place themselves under the name of the Lord—that is, under the headship of the Lord. This also means that they are following the footsteps of the Shepherd. When they follow the Lord in this way, the Lord says, “I am in the midst of them.”
When we come to 1 Corinthians 14, we see that when the church gathers together and unbelievers come in, the secrets of their hearts are made manifest. They will fall down and worship God, declaring that God is indeed among them. That is the church—the footsteps of the flock.
Through the footsteps of the flock, we can find the Lord whom we love.
In these meetings, we will have four sessions of fellowship concerning the book of Acts. We do not want to pay attention merely to historical facts. Rather, through the conditions and stories of the churches in Acts, we hope to find the footsteps of the flock.
Our purpose is to find the Lord Himself. Because we have only four sessions, it is not possible for us to share every footstep that we can find in the book of Acts.
We will consider four churches in Acts: the church at Jerusalem, the church at Antioch, the church at Corinth, and the church at Ephesus. We hope that through the footsteps left behind by these four churches, we can learn something before the Lord.
We are told that the things written in the past were recorded as admonitions for us who live at the end of the age. The word admonition contains two meanings. One is encouragement, and the other is warning.
When we consider the footsteps of the churches in Acts, on one hand we are encouraged. We learn how we should proceed forward. On the other hand, we receive warning. If our footsteps are going in the wrong direction, we learn how to come back.
This is the burden we have before the Lord. I hope that brothers and sisters will pray before the Lord, because unless the Lord opens our hearts and understanding, we are totally powerless regarding these spiritual things. We cannot truly speak, and we cannot truly hear. We need prayer and more prayer before the Lord.
Let us turn to the book of Acts.
Then returned they unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is nigh unto Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey off.
And when they were come in, they went up into the upper chamber, where they were abiding; Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James.
These all with one accord continued stedfastly in prayer, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brethren.
And when the day of Pentecost was now come, they were all together in one place.
And suddenly there came from heaven a sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.
And there appeared unto them tongues parting asunder, like as of fire; and it sat upon each one of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers.
We have read these verses. We remember when our Lord was in Caesarea Philippi and asked His disciples, “Who do men say that the Son of Man is?” The disciples told Him what they had heard, but the Lord was not satisfied with that. He asked, “But who say ye that I am?”
Simon Peter answered, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” The Lord said, “Simon, thou art blessed, because this was not revealed to thee by flesh and blood, but by My Father who is in heaven. Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”
The Lord said, “I will build My church upon this rock.” In other words, when our Lord said this, He had not yet built His church. When He was on earth, He was not yet building His church, but His desire was to build it. All His work was for the building of His church.
When He was on earth, the church could not yet be built because His work was not yet accomplished. He had to go to Calvary, be crucified, and accomplish the work of redemption. Then, according to that work of redemption, the church could be built.
According to history, the starting point of the church on earth was the day of Pentecost.
When our Lord accomplished redemption, He was resurrected. He appeared to His disciples for forty days, and then He ascended to heaven. God anointed Him to be Lord and Christ.
According to Psalm 133:2, the precious oil comes upon the head and flows down to the skirt of His garments. When our Lord ascended to heaven and God anointed Him to be King, Lord, and Christ, the Holy Spirit was sent to the earth on the day of Pentecost.
There were one hundred and twenty disciples. We know that the Lord had more than one hundred and twenty followers. In John 6, when the Lord said that His flesh must be eaten and His blood drunk, many of His disciples said that the word was too difficult and left Him.
But after the Lord was resurrected, the Bible says that on one occasion He appeared to more than five hundred brethren. Yet in the upper room in Jerusalem there were only one hundred and twenty. There were the eleven apostles, women who had followed the Lord, Mary the mother of Jesus, and the Lord’s brothers.
These women had followed the Lord while He was on earth. They had used their own resources to serve the Lord and His disciples. They were faithful to Him. When the Lord carried His cross to Calvary, many women followed Him weeping. When the Lord was crucified, many disciples disappeared, but these women were there.
Because of the resurrection of the Lord, His own brothers according to the flesh also returned to Him. Thus, one hundred and twenty were gathered together in the upper room.
For ten days they remained in Jerusalem according to the command of the Lord, waiting for the Holy Spirit. During those days, they continued in prayer with one accord.
On the day of Pentecost, suddenly there came a great sound from heaven. According to the original language, the description is like a person taking a very deep breath. The sound of that deep breathing filled the room.
Then tongues of fire came upon the head of every one of them. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in the tongues of other countries.
Brothers and sisters, that was the day when the church was born on earth.
Many people, when they read Acts 2, are attracted by the sound and the sight—the rushing wind and the tongues of fire. They pay attention to these outward things. But these are only something tangential.
What is Pentecost? We read in 1 Corinthians 12:13 that in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks. This is the true meaning of Pentecost.
When the Holy Spirit came, God had established our Lord to be the Christ and the Lord in heaven. On earth, He has a mysterious body. By one Spirit, believers were baptized into one body.
The one hundred and twenty were, perhaps, the best of the disciples. Before Pentecost, they were one hundred and twenty individuals—a congregation of one hundred and twenty members. But on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came, and in one Spirit they were baptized into one body.
They were no longer merely one hundred and twenty members. They were one hundred and twenty members of one single body. This is the flock. They were not just individuals; now they were one flock, one body. The Lord was their Head, and the Lord was their Shepherd: one Shepherd and one flock.
This is what happened on earth on the day of Pentecost. Indeed, heaven came down to earth. Here we see one flock of sheep, and here we see the body of Christ. This is the church at Jerusalem.
When three thousand were saved, they were not only born again; they also were baptized in one Spirit into one body. This was the beginning of the church on earth.
Today, we are not sharing all the history. Through the footsteps which the church at Jerusalem left for us, we want to find our Lord.
First, we see how the church at Jerusalem began. The church at Jerusalem was born; it was not organised.
Every one of us needs to be born again. We cannot say, “Because I was born into a Christian family,” or, “Because I went to a Christian school,” or, “Because I work in a church organisation,” or, “Because I was born into a so-called Christian nation, therefore I am a Christian.”
We know that this is not true. The Lord Jesus said, “Ye must be born again.” He said this to Nicodemus. Everyone on earth needs to be born again.
Nicodemus was an elderly man, a teacher of Israel. He was learned and moral, and he had some spiritual understanding. He recognised that although our Lord had not attended a rabbinical school, He was indeed a teacher who had come from God.
Nicodemus was willing to humble himself and come to the Lord with his question. Yet the Lord said to him, “Ye must be born again.”
I believe that everyone on this earth needs to be born again. If we want to enter the kingdom of God, we must be born again. To be born again is to be born by the Holy Spirit.
John 3:6 says:
That which is born of the flesh is flesh;
And that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
If you are born of the Holy Spirit, then you have a new spirit. This is true individually, and it is also true of the church. If we are to be this flock, the Holy Spirit must baptize us into one body.
We thank and praise our Lord that on the day we were born again, the Holy Spirit did at least two things in us. On one hand, He caused us to be born again. On the other hand, He baptized us in His Spirit into this one body.
The moment we receive the Lord, not only are we born again and saved, but simultaneously the Holy Spirit puts us into His own flock. We are already in the body of Christ. We have already been baptized in the Holy Spirit.
Today, there are still people seeking to be baptized by the Holy Spirit, but they do not know that they have already been baptized in the Holy Spirit.
The moment you are saved, the Holy Spirit and your spirit bear witness together that you are a child of God. You can call out, “Abba, Father.” Is that true?
The moment you believe the Lord, when you see another person who also believes in the Lord, is there not immediately an intimate connection between you and that person? You feel that you are related.
That relationship is deeper than our relationship in the flesh. But then we may ask, “Which denomination do you belong to?” or, “What is your interpretation of this Scripture?” Then we depart from one another.
But without these things, are we not one? Are we not in one flock? We are in one body because the Holy Spirit has already baptized us into one body.
Indeed, we need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. But the baptism of the Holy Spirit we have already received. Therefore, we are one flock.
You see, the church cannot be organised. The church can only be born. If it were an organisation, you could join and you could leave. But if you were born into a family, you could never get out of it.
This is the first footstep of the flock that we must see: the church is born; the church is not organised.
When the one hundred and twenty prayed together in the upper room, they chose one person to replace Judas—one who had followed the Lord from the time of John the Baptist until the Lord ascended to heaven. But this was preparation; it was not organisation.
They did not organise the one hundred and twenty into a so-called church. They had no organisation. They were simply waiting for the Holy Spirit to bring them forth as a body. This is the footstep of the flock.
Throughout the generations, until today, in that footstep we can find our Lord. This is the first lesson we must learn.
The second lesson is this: if something is to be born, there must be birth pangs—travail. Without birth travail, there can be no birth.
We cannot simply collect people together without going through birth travail and then claim that we now have a church.
In Judaism, when the people were taken captive to Babylon, the temple was destroyed. God wanted to cure the problem of idolatry among His people through a nation that itself worshipped idols.
When they were in Babylon, they had no temple. What could they do? At that time, they developed the system of the synagogue.
It was a very convenient arrangement. As long as there were ten Jewish men, they could organise a synagogue. If you found nine others who had the same thinking as you, then you could organise a synagogue.
If you did not like one synagogue, you could find another synagogue. You can do that with a synagogue, but you cannot do that with the church.
The church cannot be born without birth travail. The church can be born on this earth because our God has gone through the travail of birth.
Our Lord Jesus had His body broken upon the cross. He was forsaken by the Father when He was upon the cross. He tasted the pain of hell for us. He died, and the soldier pierced His side. Out came blood and water.
The blood was for the redemption of sin, and the water gives us new life. Because of the travail of birth, there is material for the building of the church.
Isaiah 53 says that because of the travail He went through, when He saw His seed, His heart was satisfied.
Not only did our Lord go through travail; our heavenly Father also went through travail. At noon, heaven and earth became dark. The Father covered His own eyes because He could not bear to see the suffering and death of His Son.
He bruised His Son, but His own heart was broken. This is travail.
Not only is there the travail of the Father; there is also the travail of the Holy Spirit. On the day of Pentecost, there was the sound of deep breathing, like the deep and labouring groaning of a woman in labour.
The church was born out of travail. Therefore, the church is precious in the eyes of the Lord.
God also wants those who belong to Him to go through travail with Him. The one hundred and twenty prayed together for ten days in one heart. They had one feeling and one heart with the Lord. They also went through birth travail.
Whenever the church is born, there must be a group of people on earth who go through birth travail. You cannot simply bring God’s people together and say, “Let us organise a church.” That is not possible.
Our God went through birth travail. We who have the same heart as the Lord must also go through travail. Unless we go through travail, the church cannot be born.
Paul said to the Colossians that for the body of Christ he desired to fill up in his flesh that which was lacking in the afflictions of Christ. He said to the Galatians, “My little children, of whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you.”
Brothers and sisters, do not take the church to be a light thing. The church came out of birth travail. It continues through birth travail. There must be a group of people who have the same heart as the Lord and who go through travail. Then comes the church.
This is extremely precious in the eyes of the Lord.
I often hear people say, “We want to go here; we want to go there to establish churches.” My heart is pained, because what is established in that way is not the church.
If this is the church, there must be the footsteps of the flock. Without going through birth travail, this cannot happen. This is the second lesson that we need to learn.
The third lesson is this: at that time, the church at Jerusalem started with one hundred and twenty. We can say that these one hundred and twenty were very mature Christians because they had followed the Lord for three years.
They had seen His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. They were indeed mature Christians.
But on that day, three thousand were saved. These three thousand were babies. Immediately in the church at Jerusalem, there were mature Christians and there were many, many babies.
This is a household. A household is not made up exclusively of older people; otherwise, it would be like a convalescent home. Neither is it made up only of young people; otherwise, it would be like a battlefield. Neither is it made up only of little children; otherwise, it would be like a kindergarten.
In a household, there are those who are mature and those who need to grow. At the beginning of the church, this was the condition.
If I were going to organise a church, I might want everybody to be like me. That would be very convenient. If there were little children, it might seem too noisy.
But brothers and sisters, we are the flock of the Lord. In the flock there are older sheep and younger sheep. They are all together.
What was the life of the Jerusalem church? There is one verse of Scripture that can represent it:
And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship,
In the breaking of bread and the prayers.
Remember, there were three thousand one hundred and twenty believers: one hundred and twenty mature ones and three thousand babies. But they were all together, continuing steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers. This is the life of the flock.
What is the teaching of the apostles? If you read carefully, teaching is singular, while apostles is plural. There were twelve apostles, but there was only one teaching.
It was not Peter’s personal teaching, nor was it the teaching of any individual apostle. Why? Because we remember what the Lord said: “Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you.”
The apostles taught what the Lord had taught them. In 1 Corinthians 11:23, Paul says, “For I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you.”
The apostles themselves do not have teachings of their own. They take what they have received from the Lord and teach it to us. The Lord said that when the Holy Spirit came, He would teach us and remind us of all that the Lord had said.
Therefore, the apostles do not have their own teachings. They teach us with the teaching of the Lord. There is only one teaching, and we all obey that teaching.
Fellowship also is only one. The apostles are plural, but the fellowship is singular: the fellowship of the apostles.
It is not that Peter has one fellowship and Paul has another fellowship. The Corinthians said, “I am of Paul,” and others said, “I am of Peter.” But Paul said, “Was Paul crucified for you?” There is only one fellowship.
First Corinthians 1:9 tells us that God is faithful, through whom we were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
We have all been called into the fellowship of the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. In 1 John, the apostle says that they report what they had seen, heard, and handled, so that we may have fellowship with them; and their fellowship is with the Father and with His Son.
The fellowship of the apostles is the fellowship of the Lord. We thank the Lord that we are all in the fellowship of the Lord—one fellowship.
Therefore, we must use diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit. Whomever the Lord receives, we must receive. This gives us joy.
How do we express the teaching and fellowship of the apostles? Through the breaking of bread and prayers.
Breaking bread is very important. Today, people may take the breaking of bread as a ritual. But in the beginning, the Lord gave us the bread so that we might remember Him.
When we remember Him in this way, we have fellowship with His blood and fellowship with His body. Although we are many, there is only one bread and one body.
Prayer is not merely individual prayer. The prayers here are the prayers of the church. We are together, in one accord, praying.
In this way, the teaching and fellowship of the apostles are expressed. Today, among us, people neglect these two things. We neglect the breaking of bread, and we neglect prayer.
Then we are not walking in the footsteps of the flock. No wonder we cannot meet our Lord. These are the footsteps which they have left for us, and we need to follow them.
If we read Acts 2 and Acts 4, we see the condition of those believers. The Lord increased their number. There were three thousand, then another five thousand, and the Lord added to them daily.
What did they do? They gathered together under Solomon’s porch, where there was a large area. They also broke bread from house to house.
They ate together with gladness of heart. They praised the Lord. They loved one another. No one said, “This is mine.” They took care of one another.
In this one household, there was indeed one flock and one heart. They loved one another. This is the footstep of the flock.
Today, society is not beneficial to our spiritual pursuit. We are all very busy.
Do you know that in those days they met every day? Of course, they had their special circumstances. But I remember being in a meeting where the believers had met in that way for one year.
From the beginning, they had two meetings a day. Before they went to work, they met first. After their work, they came back and met again. There they received the word of the Lord.
No wonder that when you were among them, you could feel that they had a very solid foundation in the Lord. When they prayed, I could not really follow them.
They prayed, “Lord, accomplish Your will according to John 3:18. Accomplish Your word according to Zechariah,” and so forth. This was how they prayed. I was lost, because although I was also a believer, I was not familiar with these things. I did not know what they were talking about.
Brothers and sisters, that kind of pursuit is something we need. Today we may feel that we have to go to meetings, but when it is time for prayer, we say, “I have no time. I cannot go.” Is that so?
Here we must see the footsteps of the flock as we see them in the book of Acts. I often feel that the day of the Lord’s return is at hand. If we have this—