Well, dear brothers and sisters, it is our pleasure to have the opportunity to be with you and fellowship with you.
As I waited upon the Lord, it seems to me that the Lord led me to a few passages of Scripture. So this I will share with you.
Will you please turn to Luke 10? We read from Luke 10:38-42.
Now, I read from Darby’s Bible. I wonder if you have heard of this version. It is not a popular version, but so far as I am concerned, I find this Bible seems to try to give us an accurate translation from the original. Because of that, he sacrificed fluency, so it will never be popular. But since I have been using it for so many years, bear with me that I will still use this version.
And it came to pass as they went, that He entered into a certain village;
and a certain woman, Martha by name, received Him into her house.
And she had a sister called Mary, who also, having sat down at the feet of Jesus, was listening to His word.
Now Martha was distracted with much serving; and coming up, she said, “Lord, dost Thou not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Speak to her, therefore, that she may help me.”
But Jesus answering said to her, “Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things;
but there is need of one, and Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken from her.”
Please turn to the Gospel according to Matthew, Matthew 18:20.
For where two or three are gathered together unto My name, there am I in the midst of them.
And finally, Zechariah 4:10.
For who hath despised the day of small things?
For these seven shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel.
These are the eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro through the whole earth.
Let us have a word of prayer.
Lord, we do want to thank Thee for gathering together this evening. Thou knowest that we do gather unto Thy name, and because of this, we believe that Thou art here in our midst.
Lord, we pray that Thou wilt use this hour and speak to our hearts, and transform us and conform us to Thine own image. May Thy Holy Spirit do the work that He is sent to do.
We commit ourselves to Thee. We open our hearts to Thee, and, Lord, trust Thee to use this little time to fulfil Thy purpose. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.
Well, brothers and sisters, I do not have something special. If you are waiting to hear something special, you will be disappointed. I just want to share the burden that the Lord has put upon my heart.
When our Lord Jesus was on earth, He visited from city to city and village to village. He went to Jerusalem many times. He offered Himself to them, but He was rejected.
So we remember how He said, “The Son of Man hath nowhere to lay His head.” In other words, He could not find anything anywhere that could really satisfy His heart.
But strangely, you find that out of all the land of Judea, there was a little house in Bethany. And in that house, He found His rest.
You remember especially when our Lord Jesus entered Jerusalem for the last time, offering Himself for the last time to His people Israel. He cleansed the temple and spoke to them, but He never stayed there for the night.
Every night, He left Jerusalem and went to this little village of Bethany, because this was the only place where He could rest.
So I wonder if there is some lesson He wants to teach us.
We remember that when our Lord was on earth, He came with a special errand. He came for one purpose.
Now, sometimes we think that He came to seek and to save the lost, which is true. But this was not really His purpose in His first coming.
If you read the Gospel according to John—not just as a physical history, but as a spiritual one—you will find that the real purpose for which our Lord Jesus came into the world the first time was that He came to seek for His bride.
So even to the very last of His ministry, when He was rejected by the nation, He retreated to the border of Caesarea Philippi. Now, Caesarea Philippi was a Gentile city, and while He retreated to that border, He asked that important question.
He asked His disciples, “Whom do men say that I am?” Of course, His disciples only gave Him the good reports. They did not tell Him all the evil reports they had heard.
So they said, “Now, You are John the Baptist returned to life. You are Elijah, the greatest prophet. You are Jeremiah, because You wept. And You are one of the prophets.” Or even, “You are the prophet, as prophesied by Moses: God will raise up among your brethren a prophet. If you do not listen to Him, you will perish.”
In other words, you find all their reports were rosy. But our Lord was not satisfied. So He asked His own disciples, who had followed Him over three years, “Now you must know something better.”
And thank God for Simon Peter. He said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
And our Lord Jesus said, “This is not something known by flesh.” All that the flesh could know was what the world said: “You are John the Baptist,” or, “You are Elijah.” This is My Father who is in heaven, who has revealed it to you.
Then you remember how, in Matthew 16:18, the Lord continued to speak. As the Father revealed Him to His disciples, so He began to reveal His real purpose in coming into this world.
He said, “You are Peter. I will build My church upon this rock, and Hades’ gates shall not prevail against it.”
You were formerly Simon, made of dust, of earth. Now, because of your confession of Me, you have become a stone—a living stone, a piece of that rock. I am going to build My church upon this rock.
Now, of course, today I suppose we all know that our Lord is playing with words. You are Peter, a living stone; I will build My church upon the rock, the massive rock.
This massive rock refers to our Lord Himself. He is the Rock of Ages. And as we find in 1 Peter 2, Peter understood it perfectly.
He said that we are coming to the living stone, and as we come to the living stone, we all become living stones, built up together to be a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God.
So Peter understood it fully. We know today that as we come to the Lord Jesus, there is a transformation within us. We were men of earth, of dust, of Adam. But as we come to the Lord Jesus, we receive a new life—a life that we did not have before.
We become living stones. We receive the life of the Lord Jesus in us. We are living stones, and being living stones, the Lord Himself said He will build His church with these living stones.
Now, I often wonder that in modern days we have people called church planters. They feel they are called to go everywhere to plant the church. But in actuality, men cannot build the church of God. Men can only build a Tower of Babel, and that is what we see in Christianity today.
The Lord Himself is the only One who can build His church, His house, in which He can find Himself and rest and be satisfied. The Lord is using those who believe in Him as little living stones, chips out of Him, to build together to be a house in which He can rest.
Of course, He said, “The gates of Hades shall not prevail against it,” because we know that in the universe there is a spiritual battle going on.
God is building His church, and the enemy is trying his best to prevent it from happening. Why? Because you know, God’s strategy of destroying him is by using man, a little lower than angels, to finish the archangel that has a higher rank. This is the strategy of God, and this is what the church is for.
Positively, the church is for the testimony of Jesus. But negatively, the church is to bring the enemy to naught, to bring the victory of Christ over all things, subdue all things to the feet of the Lord Jesus, and save the universe.
So wherever there is a real building of the church of God, there must be a spiritual battle going on. Hades will open all his doors and try to swallow it up.
Just as you find in Revelation 12, the apostle John saw a vision. It is a vision of the last days. He saw a woman clothed with glory, and he saw a red dragon waiting before the woman.
Strangely, the purpose of that dragon was not to swallow that woman, but he was waiting for the child in that woman. He knows that the church in the last days is like the church in Laodicea. It will not hurt him. It will not in any way destroy him, so he will let it go.
But he knows that when a woman is in travail, out of that travailing there will be a man-child. And that man-child will mean his finishing. So here you find he is waiting to swallow that child.
And, brothers and sisters, in a very real sense, we find that it is happening in Christianity today.
Christianity today goes for bigness. Today we find people are not satisfied with local churches. They want to build churches that are so big. They think that this is success; this is the real way of building the church.
But we know the so-called mega church is popular today. Everything goes for bigness and greatness. Now, this is the idea of the world. This is not the idea of God, because God is not out for quantity; He is out for quality.
And if it is quality, it cannot be big. It has to be small. It has to be little.
You remember in 1 Corinthians 3, the apostle Paul said he is like a wise master builder, laying the foundation. The foundation is none other than the Lord Jesus Himself. And we who are the Lord’s, we are all building on that foundation.
But how are we building? There are two different kinds of building. One kind is that you may build with gold, silver, and precious stones. The other kind is that you can build with wood, grass, and hay.
Now, when you are building with gold, silver, and precious stones, you cannot expect to see a big building, because it costs too much. It is bound to be small. It probably will not be noticeable, but there is quality there. There is reality there.
Gold represents the nature of God. It comes out of God’s character. Silver represents the redemption of our Lord Jesus, because in the old days the redemption money was silver.
And precious stones speak of the work of the Holy Spirit, because a precious stone is produced after a long period in darkness, under pressure, under fire. That is where precious stones are produced.
So, in other words, the only way to build a house of God that will really satisfy God’s heart, that will destroy the enemy, is by building with gold, silver, and precious stones. It is costly. It has to be small. It is insignificant in the eyes of the world, but it is something precious to our God.
But the world’s idea is entirely different. The world’s idea is always big, great, massive. Of course, if you use wood, grass, and hay, you can build a big house because it does not cost too much. It is cheap.
But we know that wood represents the nature of man, not the nature of God. Man is like wood. Grass represents the beauty of the flesh; it fades away. And hay represents the work of man, because you use hay to build in Egypt.
So, brothers and sisters, here you find the Lord shows us the principle in the building of the house of God. If we are seeking for something big, you can do it, but usually it is made by man himself.
But if you are expecting to see the real work of God, it has to be small and insignificant. Yet there is reality and quality that satisfy God’s heart.
That reminds me of Matthew 18:20. The Lord Jesus said, “Where two or three are gathered together unto My name, there am I in the midst of them.”
Now, we all know that in Matthew 16:18, when the Lord said, “I will build My church upon this rock, and Hades’ gates shall not prevail against it,” the Lord was speaking of the spiritual principles governing the universal church.
Wherever the church is, there are certain principles there. This you find in Matthew 16. But when you come to Matthew 18, there is a difference, because the Lord is talking about practical things.
If your brother sins against you, what will you do? Will you repay him with the same, or will you forgive him? The Lord says more than that: not only do you forgive him, you have to restore him.
Then the Lord said, “Where two or three are gathered together unto My name, there am I in the midst of them.” In other words, in Matthew 18 the Lord is referring to the local church.
Why? Because we who are in the church are still in this mortal body. We cannot be everywhere—not until we take up the spiritual body. But now we who are saved are still in this mortal body, so we are limited by time and space.
The Lord has placed us in the particular place where we are living today. Why? Because the Lord has a purpose behind it. Wherever we are located, this is where He wants us to bear His testimony. This is where He wants to use us to defeat His enemy.
So wherever you are located, it is not something meaningless or by chance. You remember that our Lord Jesus, in His parable, said how in this world He will plant His wheat, His seed, there. Then, of course, the enemy will try to place his tares into that very locality, trying to confuse everything.
So, brothers and sisters, here the Lord shows us the real meaning of the local church. What is the local church? Well, two or three. Why? Because this is the minimum of the church. One person cannot be the church. You need at least two or three.
I recall there are occasions when people are meeting together, and of course, when they are meeting together, even the Lord is there. But you are there too.
So the problem is not that the Lord is there. The problem is that you are there. And as long as you are there, you cannot have a perfect church.
People try to find a perfect church, but after they arrive there, the church becomes imperfect because of ourselves. We still have self within us.
But why are two or three gathered together unto My name? Now, that is the difference.
Why do we gather? I often ask people, “Why do you gather in this way? There are many denominations. There are many independents. Why is it that you brothers and sisters have to meet together?”
Of course, it is not for division. On the contrary, it is for unity. Because you do not want to belong to any special group and, in doing that, separate yourself from your brothers and sisters.
You want to stand together with your brothers and sisters in the locality, worship the Lord together, and testify to His own name. That is the reason for your gathering.
For, brothers and sisters, where two or three are gathered together, the Lord said, “Unto My name.” That is the difference between the church and any society or fraternity. Here, we are gathered together unto the name of the Lord Jesus.
How sad it is today that the name of the Lord Jesus has been denied.
You remember in Revelation 3, when the Lord praised the church in Philadelphia, there is one thing that He was happy with: “Thou hast not denied My name.”
You are supposed to gather together unto My name, not unto any other name. But today you find people gather together unto many other names: the names of famous Christians, the names of certain special doctrines or teachings, or the names of certain forms or rituals—but not unto the name of the Lord Jesus.
Now, do we know what is meant by gathering together unto the name of the Lord Jesus? I have an example, and I hope you will not be displeased by it.
When a lady is married to a gentleman, you know what has happened. She begins to take the name of her husband, the surname of her husband.
Now, what does it mean? It means that in that family there is only one head. The husband and wife work together, but the husband is supposed to take the headship—not in a despotic way, but in a way of fellowship.
I remember once an elderly married sister wanted to visit China. That was in the days when China was under Communist rule. She asked me to help her get a visa.
I was at that time in Washington, D.C., so I went to the embassy, to the visa department, trying to get a visa for her to visit China.
This elderly sister, being elderly, kept the old Chinese custom. Her name was in four characters instead of three or two characters.
You know, the Chinese usually have a surname, and after the surname, that is your own name in one word or two words. But she had four words. Why? Because she had her own surname and given name, and above that, the surname of her husband.
So when I inquired about her, as the cultural representative, I was lectured. He said, “This is feudalism. Now in China, the girl, after she is married, maintains her own name.”
Now, brothers and sisters, in the spiritual realm, when we really gather together unto the name of the Lord Jesus, it is not just a name. It is not just something we talk about. There is a spiritual reality with it.
In other words, when two or three are gathered together unto the name of the Lord Jesus, they do one thing: they give up their own name and take up the name of the Lord Jesus.
To put it another way, they accept the Lord Jesus as the Head of the gathering, and they all, in a sense, lay their heads aside.
In the church, the principle in the local church is that wherever two or three are gathered together, it is to be together unto the name of the Lord Jesus. That is to say, everyone who gathers together lays down himself.
They lay down their own headship. You know, we all like to be head, in control. But you cannot do that in the church. You have to lay down yourself and accept the Lord Jesus as the Head.
If the two or three all do that, then you find the Lord says, “I am in your midst.”
Now, how can it be done? Because when we hold fast Jesus as our Head, then you find the Holy Spirit, who dwells in each one of us, in practical terms represents the headship of Christ.
The Holy Spirit is the nervous system in our body. He goes all through the body, and He will relate to us what is the thought of the Head. So we will all go back to Him with what we receive from our side, and we allow Him to take charge of us.
That is the headship of Jesus Christ. And if you have the headship of Jesus Christ, you have the expression of the local church.
So, brothers and sisters, we thank God because today we find all over the world there are people who want to maintain the unity of the body of Christ, who want to be the testimony of Jesus.
The love of God constrains them. Wherever they live, they try to gather together unto the name of the Lord Jesus, so they will have the presence of the Lord with them.
It is the Lord who is the Head, and we all lay down ourselves and allow Him to do so. If we are doing that, that is the house in which our Lord is pleased to dwell.
You know, brothers and sisters, the time that we are living in today, we usually say we are living in the days of recovery. Now, what do we mean by that?
When you read the Book of Acts, you see how the church began. It began in Jerusalem, and within thirty years it had spread to the end of the world at that time.
But then, toward the end of the first century, when you read Revelation 2 and 3, you find that the church had already departed from God.
The church in Ephesus was famous for their love for the Lord, but what remained were all these outward works, and they had lost their first love, and so on and so on.
That is the reason why you find the last call in the Bible is the call to overcome.
Now, brothers and sisters, when you read the Old Testament, you find the children of Israel, how they rebelled against God. Finally, they were taken into Babylonian captivity.
But in God’s mercy, after seventy years of captivity, God allowed them to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple.
During that period, God was no longer called the God of the heavens and of the earth. He was only addressed as the God of the heavens. Why? Because He had no testimony upon the earth.
Jerusalem was destroyed. The temple was destroyed. The temple, the place where His name was placed, was destroyed. So He had no representative, no testimony upon this earth.
But then you find how God, through King Cyrus, gave a decree, saying that whoever was willing to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple might go.
Now, we would suppose that if that were the case, everybody would rise up and go. I still remember in China during wartime, especially the war with Japan. I was in Chungking, interior China.
When the news came that the war was over, everybody who came from the east coast of China wanted to return home. We found it very difficult, because only high officials who had missions were able to fly back. Even a boat was hard to find. Everybody wanted to return.
But that was not the case with the nation of Israel. You find that only a remnant returned. Why? Because after seventy years of captivity, they had built up their own houses and trades in the land of captivity. They were very comfortable.
Not only that, they had invented the system of the synagogue. You know, the synagogue is an ingenious invention.
With a synagogue, if you have ten men of leisure—and by that, I mean ten men who are willing to give some time for God—you can organize a synagogue. You do not need to walk far because you have a synagogue next door.
So you have synagogue here and synagogue there. Every trade has its own synagogue. If you are not happy with the people, you can get another nine persons and establish another synagogue.
In the synagogue, you can do everything. You read the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses. You read the prophets, pray the Psalms, and exhort each other. It is open.
You find even in the Book of Acts, when Paul and Barnabas went to a synagogue, the ruler said, “Now, you are strangers, but you look like teachers. Do you have anything to say?” There was much freedom there.
So they had everything. The only thing they did not have was that they could not sacrifice, because you have to sacrifice in Jerusalem, in the temple, at that altar. But without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin.
But that is what you find in the old days. Only a remnant, whose spirits were touched by God, were willing to be uprooted, brave all dangers, and return to the city in ruins to build the temple.
And, brothers and sisters, this is what we are doing.
As they built the temple, they met opposition, and the work was stopped for about fifteen years, until the prophets Haggai and Zechariah were raised up by God to encourage them. So they began to build.
As they were building, something happened. The old men who had seen the old temple before, they wept.
Why? Because the old temple built by Solomon was so big, so glorious, so magnificent. But the temple they were now building—they did not have the manpower, and they did not have the wealth.
Even though they put everything into it, it was bound to be a small building in comparison with the glorious building of Solomon’s temple. So some people began to be in despair.
“If it is that small, that insignificant, why bother?”
You remember how the prophets Zechariah and Haggai encouraged them: “Do not despise the day of small things.”
Brothers and sisters, in the recovery time, God’s principle is small, not big. If it is too big, usually it is out of God’s order.
Now, I do not say that anything small must be of God, but it should be of God.
So, dear brothers and sisters, do not be disappointed. Where two or three are gathered together unto the name of the Lord Jesus, there is the presence of the Lord. This is what really matters.
That leads me back to the little house in Bethany. That little house was composed of only three members: no father, no mother. They were all orphans—a sister, Martha; another sister, Mary; and a brother, Lazarus.
It was not a rich family, and it was in this little village of Bethany, insignificant. Yet we find that when our Lord was in the flesh, this was the only place, as it were, where He found rest.
So, dear brothers and sisters, I want to encourage you not to be disappointed if you find yourself only a handful of people gathering together. The Lord is not out for quantity. On the contrary, He is out for quality.
If we have the quality there, that is a representation of the local church.
Now, in this little house at Bethany, there were only three members. Why was it that the Lord’s heart was there and He found rest there?
You find in Martha the service of love.
Even though today we have certain thoughts about Martha, actually our Lord Jesus was not displeased with her service. Our Lord was displeased with her anxiety.
What if nobody prepared the food? Then the Lord would have to go hungry. The Lord did appreciate that, and Martha actually did it out of her heart.
One thing you may notice: because she was the elder sister, she was in charge of that house. She could very well have said to Mary, “Come and help me prepare the food.” But no, she asked the Lord’s permission.
What does it mean? She realized that in her house, Christ was the Head of the house. The headship of Christ was held up in that house. So you have the labour of love there.
Then, of course, you find Mary sitting at the feet of the Lord Jesus—a hearing ear.
Because sacrifice and oblation God does not want, but as our Lord Jesus was prophesied in Psalm 40: “Thou hast prepared Me an ear.” A hearing ear.
To the Lord, the most important thing is a hearing ear, because the Lord appreciates people who are listening. And you listen in order to obey.
As you read the Bible, you feel very strange. If you love the Lord, you would expect that among the women who loved the Lord so much, when the Lord was crucified, Mary would be there, weeping. But you do not find Mary of Bethany there.
You would expect that she should be like the other Mary, early in the morning on the third day, bringing perfume and trying to go to the tomb to embalm our Lord Jesus. But she was not there.
As a matter of fact, she already did it before the Lord’s death. How did she know? She was so sure of the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus. Where did she get the information? As she sat at the feet of Jesus.
So, brothers and sisters, this is what the Lord wants. He wants us to sit at His feet, listen, understand, and obey.
Then, of course, you have Lazarus. Strangely, as you read the Bible, you do not hear a word from Lazarus, before or after he was recalled from death.
The only thing you find is that he sat with the Lord Jesus—a silent testimony.
The Bible says that when people came to see Jesus and Lazarus, they believed in the Lord Jesus. A mighty testimony—a testimony of life, not just a testimony of work.
People today have great knowledge, but where is that life? If your life does not correspond with your knowledge, it condemns; it does not edify.
So you find in the little house of Bethany everything that the Lord is looking for. This is where His house is. And by His house, it means where He can rest with joy.
So, brothers and sisters, this is my prayer for you all: aim for quality, not be bothered by quantity.
Learn to serve Him with love, listen to Him and obey Him, and live as a testimony to Him. May the Lord bless you.
Shall we pray?
Lord, if it pleases Thee, use these scattered words to strengthen our faith towards Thee. Lead us in the way of life.
Bring us into the place where we are truly gathered together unto Thy name, that we may experience Thy presence with us.
Lord, all we desire is Thy presence. Nothing else matters. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.