Please turn to the Epistle to the Colossians, Chapter 1, verses 7 and 8.
Even as ye learned of Epaphras our beloved fellow-servant,
who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf,
who also declared unto us your love in the Spirit.
And Colossians 4:12-13:
Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, saluteth you,
always striving for you in his prayers,
that ye may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God.
For I bear him witness, that he hath much labor for you,
and for them in Laodicea, and for them in Hierapolis.
And finally, Philemon 1:23:
Epaphras, my fellow-prisoner in Christ Jesus, saluteth thee.
Let us have a word of prayer.
Father, we want to thank Thee for having invited us to Thy table. We realize how unworthy we are without the Worthy One. We thank Thee for all that Thou hast done for us. Only Thou art able to do such a wonderful salvation.
And, Lord, we have to come back and thank Thee for all that Thou hast done for us. As we continue in Thy presence, we pray that Thy Spirit will move in our midst, especially among our young people, that we may really come to see what is Thy purpose for each and every one of us.
May our life on this earth be spent in a way that will fulfil Thy will. Lord, may Thy Spirit touch each and every one of us as we consider together Thy Word. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.
For the past two weeks, we have been considering two young brothers who worked together with the Apostle Paul. We thank God for these young brothers, and we thank God for Paul, because he was the one who had the burden for these young people. He was able to help these young people and use them according to what the Lord had given to them.
So, brothers and sisters, I do feel that, again, the older ones in our midst have a tremendous responsibility. Every one of us has a responsibility for our young people.
Whether they are able to be raised up and whether they are able to be used of God depends very much upon the older ones—whether we set a good example to them, whether we are able to help them in the Lord, and enable them to be ready for the Lord’s use.
So I think it works both ways. The young people have their responsibility: they need to give themselves totally to the Lord and allow the Lord to work in their lives and use them.
And the older ones have the responsibility of helping these young people to move on in the Lord and to use them wisely, as it were, according to the gift and the temperament that God has given to each of them.
So while we are speaking of these young brothers, actually, I think all of us should be involved—the old as well as the young.
Now, this morning I would like to mention another young brother. I wonder if you have ever heard his name: Epaphras. Maybe you have never heard of him, but we find that he was one of the young brothers who was greatly used by the Lord.
We do not know much about this young man. Most likely, when Paul was in Ephesus—you remember he was in Ephesus for three years—and during those years people in all Asia Minor were able to hear the gospel, Epaphras was from that area. He must have been brought to the Lord through the Apostle Paul.
But after he was saved, we find there was much growth in this young brother. He was able to move among the people in Colossae, in Laodicea, and in Hierapolis. In these three places, he was able to be used by God to help the brothers and sisters.
But because he was young, when we find that there came a problem in Colossae, he did not know how to deal with the situation. You know, if you read the letter to the Colossians, you know that the people in Colossae, at the beginning, really had a heart for the Lord. They wanted to be perfect.
And because of their desire for perfection, some people came into their midst and told them that they could be perfect if they were circumcised, if they kept some of the Jewish law, and if they knew some of the mystical teaching. Then they would be perfect.
And because of this, the people in Colossae were disturbed, because some got into this heresy. Epaphras, being a young brother who was helping these people, did not know how to deal with the situation.
Of course, he himself also wanted to be perfected. But whether this was the real way to perfection or whether it would be a disturbance, he did not have the knowledge or the ability to discern and to help the people in Colossae, Laodicea, and Hierapolis.
And because of this, he took a long trip to Rome to see Paul. We remember that at that time Paul was in prison in Rome, but this was his first imprisonment. He was able to live in his own rented house, even though he was always chained to a Roman soldier.
But there was an opportunity for him to spread the gospel among the Roman soldiers and, not only that, to reach the household of Caesar.
So Epaphras took a long trip to Rome, and there he shared with Paul what had happened. That was the reason why we have today the letter to the Colossians. Paul wrote a letter to the Colossians to show them that perfection is in Christ, not in anything else.
And Epaphras, evidently because of his visit to Paul, also became a prisoner. He was not able to return immediately to Colossae. But Paul bore witness concerning how he prayed for the Colossian saints. He prayed that they might be perfect in Christ Jesus.
And this is about all we have heard of Epaphras. We do not know what the end of Epaphras was, but I believe we can believe that he was faithful to the Lord to the very end.
So, dear brothers and sisters, here we have another young brother who was raised up by God to help the churches in Colossae, Hierapolis, and Laodicea. We do not know his future, but we believe he must have been faithful to the Lord to the very end.
So, dear brothers and sisters, as we go through these young brothers raised up by God, and see how the Apostle Paul was used by God to help these young brothers, I think we have a very important lesson to learn. We are all involved in the next generation.
It is not that the Lord will raise up one generation, and that is it. But we find that the Lord will raise up one generation, and because that generation is faithful to the Lord, through their faithfulness the next generation will be able to be raised up and continue on with the testimony.
It is a pity that, when we read the first two or three chapters of Revelation, we see how glorious the situation was in the church in Philadelphia—how God raised them up, and how they were faithful to the Lord, kept His Word, and did not deny His name.
And yet we find that after Philadelphia there was Laodicea. In other words, all the outward things are kept, but the inward spirit is missing.
So, dear brothers and sisters, for the past three weeks, as we have concentrated our attention upon our young people, I think all of us need to be before the Lord. We need to be responsible for what the Lord has committed to us.
We need to be responsible for His testimony, and we need to be those who will help our young people to be raised up and continue on with the testimony of Jesus.
As I am thinking of the relationship, I am thinking of my past. When I was a young man, I received help. Even though at that time I was in college, when I was reading what the Lord had given to Watchman Nee, I was greatly affected.
You know, I was brought up a Methodist. My father was a Methodist pastor, well known in China, and I loved my father.
But the Lord began to show me what the church is. And when I saw what the church is, I realized my difficult situation. At that time I was in college, and many of my professors were missionaries coming from this country.
I plunged myself into all the Christian work in our school. But as I was working with these professors, I was surprised, because all they talked about was political and social matters. Then they would finish the Bible and talk about them.
So when I began to testify how the Lord Jesus saved me, they cut me off. I never knew there were two different kinds of Christians in the world. I thought all Christians loved God and all Christians believed in the Bible. But it was so eye-opening when I was in college.
So finally, I had to withdraw myself completely from all Christian activities in the school. At that time, I slept in the dormitories. In our dormitory, it was a three-man room.
But I was so desperate. I found that the only way I could continue on in the Lord was prayer and reading the Bible. So I knelt there and prayed and read the Bible a lot. I did not care when my schoolmates and classmates were going in and out of the room and talking. I was just praying and reading the Word, because that was my life.
You know, at that time my greatest problem was baptism. I was baptized when I was a baby. And after I was saved, people began to tell me that I had to be baptized by immersion.
I argued with them. I said, “I was already baptized. My father baptized me in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I cannot blaspheme the name of God.” So I rejected it for years.
Until finally, when I read the Bible, I began to see that baptism is by immersion, for we are to be co-dead, co-buried, and co-resurrected with Christ Jesus. So, although I was still arguing inwardly, I knew it was the right thing to do.
One day I visited my friend. He lived next door to Watchman Nee. Again, my friend talked to me about baptism, and I argued with him again. So he gave me up and went to sleep.
I sat there by myself and prayed. I said, “Lord, You know I will be baptized by immersion, but it is not convenient now. I will wait until I am independent. Then I will be baptized by immersion.”
And while I was praying in that way, suddenly a voice came to me:
He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me.
He cannot be My disciple.
Brothers and sisters, nobody talked to me. The Lord was speaking to me. And when that word came, I surrendered. I said, “Lord, if that is Your will, Your will be done.”
So I quietly went down from my friend’s house next door to Watchman Nee’s. I knocked on Watchman Nee’s door. He came down and opened the door, and he said, “What do you want?” I said, “I want to be baptized.”
He knew my father, so he said, “Does your father know about it?” I said, “No, but I felt the Lord had commanded me to do it.” So I was baptized the next day. It was a Saturday.
And on Sunday, I met with the brothers and sisters there on Hardoon Road. When I was partaking of the Lord’s table, I was deeply touched.
You know, when I was in the denomination, when I attended the so-called communion, I was very serious. But when I was having the Lord’s table with the brothers and sisters in Shanghai, I felt a difference. It was simple, but real.
So I told myself, “I cannot continue on partaking of communion in a Methodist church.” Why? Because the one who knelt by my side—my professor—did not believe.
But this was a big problem, because my father was the pastor there. How could I be absent during that communion Sunday? So, brothers and sisters, you can see my dilemma.
For a whole year, every time communion came, I tried to find some excuse not to be there. I exhausted all my excuses.
My father was very wise. He noticed, but he said nothing. He was watching. He knew that somehow I would not partake of communion there, but he wanted to help me.
So he asked me to take care of what we called the neighborhood Sunday school. Now, Soochow is like Venice. It is a city full of water; rivers go through the whole city, and there are many boat people.
So my father asked me to gather the children of those boat people and have a Sunday school with them on Sunday afternoon. So I did, with some of my friends. We began to gather these boat children together on Sunday afternoon and began to share Christ with them.
But, brothers and sisters, let me tell you the story. I had two classmates who were in the Lord, so the three of us sometimes found an empty room and went in together to pray.
Then, after a while, we were introduced to four sisters. They were in another part of Soochow, in a Presbyterian medical school and hospital. One was the principal of the nursing school, one was a superintendent of nurses, one was a nurse, and one was a patient.
These four sisters went by turns by train to Shanghai to break bread there with Brother Nee. So finally they were introduced to us.
We said, “Well, should we come together in a simple way to remember the Lord or not? Let us pray.” So we prayed for several months, and after several months we all decided that we should begin to come together to remember the Lord.
I can still remember, even though it was so long ago, seven of us gathering in a sister’s home, breaking bread together in a simple way. We all wept. The presence of the Lord was so real.
From there, the Lord began to add to us. Very soon, all the students in the nursing school got saved, except one or two.
The Lord began to work there, and that caused a problem for me, because I was supposed to be the brother who was responsible. I was usually the one who opened the door, welcomed the brothers and sisters, played the organ, spoke, sent them away, and closed the door. I did everything at that time, and I did visitation too.
And even with a little group, it caused such a turmoil in the city of Soochow. All the denominations in Soochow gathered together—their pastors, the principals of the schools, the president of a college. All the pastors came together for three days to discuss us.
Now, I was told this because my father never said anything to me. I was told that they accused my father. They said, “You have such a son. He has stirred up such a problem in the city.”
And my father was very wise. I heard that he used the word of Gamaliel. He said, “Do not touch it. If it is of the Lord, you touch the Lord. If this is of man, it will disappear by itself.”
My father never said anything to me. He gave me perfect freedom. I was still in college at that time, but I lived at home. He allowed me to be free to do anything. He never asked any questions, though of course he tried to find out whom I was with.
But he left me perfect freedom. Oftentimes I came back late at night because I was visiting. He never said a word. I thank God for my father.
I think it was about a year after I was baptized that I told my father I had been baptized by immersion. He was hurt—not because I was baptized by immersion, but because I did not trust him.
He said, “If you wanted to be baptized by immersion, I would do it for you.” Because according to the Methodists, if people asked for immersion, they would do it. But because I did not trust him, he was hurt.
During my last two years in college, they were the busiest years of my life. I did not even have much time to read my books.
So when the examinations came, I took a book that I had never read and started to read. But the book was thick. I prayed as I read. I said, “Lord, let me read what will be the question.”
And sure enough, in my last two years in college, miracles after miracles happened. I remember one day that a professor never had any quizzes, so nobody prepared.
I sat down, and the first thing I did was pray. When I prayed, I felt the urge to look at the book, so I just flipped it open. And sure enough, when the professor came, he said there was a quiz, and all the questions were what I had read.
So, brothers and sisters, my last two years in college were wonderful years. My mother at first was worried. She said, “You never read. How can you study when you never read?” But when she saw my marks were good, she kept silent.
But, brothers and sisters, do not follow me, because I remember when I mentioned this, someone tried to follow me and she failed completely. But that is the mercy of God.
After I graduated, Brother Watchman Nee asked me to join him. Now remember, I was only twenty years old. I found myself unworthy. I felt that I did not know the Bible enough.
At that time, in the place where I was, we already had about seventy brothers and sisters, and I loved them. So I did not want to leave them. I told the Lord, “I want to find a job there so that I can prepare myself.”
My father never said a word. He would not help me at all. He just watched.
And, brothers and sisters, God’s way sometimes is very terrible.
While I was waiting, undecided, among us there was a young brother, a high-school student. I loved him very much.
When school was over, before he went home to Nanking, he went to the river to swim, and he drowned. So I was the one who had to take care of everything afterward until his parents came.
After we buried him, that night I could not sleep. I argued with God. I said, “God, we have only a few brothers, and this young brother was so young. Why did You take him?”
I could not sleep. And you know what the Lord said? The Lord said, “This young brother died for you.”
I did not understand. Then the Lord explained to me. He said, “If you, like this young brother, died, could you serve Me anymore?” And that settled it.
So the next day I talked to my father. You know, my home was very strange. We all respected our father very much. Mother was very close, but father was to be respected. When you talked to him, you had to make an arrangement.
So I arranged to talk to my father. I told him the whole story. And you know what my father said? My father said, “I know all along that the Lord has called you.”
“Even though you do not work with me, as long as you serve the Lord, it is all right. So we never doubted. We committed you to the Lord.”
And I left home for the first time.
Brothers and sisters, I tell these things because of the young people here. The Lord deals with young people. I was young at that time. The Lord was dealing with me.
And when He deals with you, you had better obey.
But I have to add something. I left home and went to Shanghai to join Brother Nee. I stayed in the upper room of the Gospel Book Room.
Nobody controlled me. Brother Nee was sick most of the time, but we made an arrangement that I would see him once a week. Usually, we would talk a little bit, and he would give me some books to read—all kinds of books.
That helped me to have the habit of reading all kinds of books. I think he did it purposely.
You know, in Shanghai at that time, it was just Brother Nee and me who spoke there, and he was sick most of the time. He never told me when I was going to speak.
It was only on Sunday morning at seven o’clock that he would send a note to me. The note had only two words. When he said, “I come,” then he would be speaking that morning. But sometimes he said, “You speak.” Then I had to speak that morning.
So, you see, I had to be disciplined in that way and be prepared every time, because I did not know when I was going to speak. I think he did it purposely, but he did well for me, because it really helped me to be ever ready, as it were, whenever you are going to speak.
But, brothers and sisters, as I look back, that was so many years ago. I was just a young man, twenty years old, and sitting before me were about two hundred people.
Some of them, like Brother Peace Wang and Brother and Sister Lee, were greatly used by the Lord. They were all sitting there listening to this young man speaking. I do not know how they felt, and I do not know how I did it, but that was what happened to me in the first year.
Then he began to send me out. When people asked him to go, he could not go, so he sent me out in his stead.
So, brothers and sisters, as a young man, do not think that you are too young, that you cannot be involved in the Lord’s interests. If the Lord calls you, if the Lord touches you, you should obey. And as you obey, He will begin to lead you step by step.
So my heart is burdened for our young people. You are not too young to be used by the Lord.
The only thing is: are you willing to give yourself totally to the Lord and allow the Lord to do whatever He thinks fit for you?
And also, for the older people here, I hope we will pray for our young people. Not only pray for them, but help them as much as we can, to encourage them.
Because, as I said at the very beginning, we are coming to our second generation. We have been here over forty years already. Unless the Lord raises up our young people, how can we continue?
So may the Lord touch each and every one of us and give us a new beginning, as it were. Shall we pray?
Dear Lord, I have spoken what Thou hast put in my heart. Now it is up to Thee, Lord.
If it is of Thee, Lord, touch the hearts of the young people here, and also all of us, that together we may be used of Thee to prepare for the second generation.
Lord, this is Thy testimony. It has to be maintained until Thy return. So, Lord, do not allow us to be lax in any way. Lord, we want to see Thy testimony continue on until Thy return.
So we give ourselves to Thee this morning, both old and young, and say, “Lord, continue Thy work in us, that Thy testimony may remain on earth as long as it should be.” We ask Thee now. Amen.