Okay.
We are thankful that we can gather together again today to share testimonies concerning the life of Christ in our brother Stephen Kong. There was an overflow last week, and we felt that we should continue this week.
Let me read a Scripture, and then follow the way we were encouraged by our brother Jerry.
Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God; whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation.
Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
Hebrews 13:7-8
We are thankful for how the Lord, in our brother, touched our lives. We are thankful for this opportunity to come and share about that. As we have mentioned, we desire to lift up the Lord, not our brother. We are thankful for the richness of Christ, and there is much to share.
As we have this open time, out of love for one another, we want everyone to feel free to share. But, in a way, let us share briefly so that others will have an opportunity to share.
We also have some from out of town here today—Bowling Green, Brazil, New Jersey—all over the place today. We want everybody to feel free. We are a family of God. We are one in Christ, and everyone is free to share as the Lord would lead them.
One rule when you are up here—and this is a hard, fast, absolute rule—do not touch this mic. Or you have the wrath of Jack upon you. He actually has it rigged so that, if you touch it, you are electrocuted.
There will be some fool who will try that, actually. But do not touch the mic. And that is said in love to everybody, because I do not want anybody to get shocked.
All right. Let us pray and commit our time to the Lord.
Lord, we are thankful that we can continue in Your presence. Lord, as we come to consider Your life in our brother, we have just had the Lord’s table, and we always know how precious that was to him.
Lord, we commit this time into Your hands, that You would receive the glory and honor that is due Your wonderful name. It is, as our brother would say, not I, but Christ. We would honor that today.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.
So I get to go first.
A Scripture that came to my heart concerning one aspect of our brother’s life that touched me is Ephesians 3:17-19. These are somewhat familiar verses. It is a prayer of Paul, and I believe this was a prayer of our brother’s also.
That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith;
that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;
and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge,
that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.
Ephesians 3:17-19
As I was looking at these verses, verse 17 speaks to me about that local assembly where we are rooted and grounded, where we are built together. We know our brother’s heart: that each assembly would be strengthened as ones are rooted and grounded in Christ. That is where the great building work goes on.
But then we go on to verse 18. Paul had a desire, and our brother had a desire, that we would comprehend with all the saints. That little phrase, “all the saints,” has caught my heart, because our brother had that desire that we would not only comprehend Christ among ourselves here, but see the vastness of Christ with all the saints throughout the universal church, throughout the many assemblies that there are.
There was a vastness of Christ that he desired we would experience: that height and depth, the length and width of it. Individually, we know in part; we see dimly. In many ways, assemblies also know in part and see dimly. But as you go to another assembly, as you go to conferences and gather with other brethren, you begin to see other aspects of Christ—how He has worked and how He is manifesting Himself.
That leads into verse 19, where you can enter into the experience, the reality, of the fullness of God. The more we see the saints captured by the Lord, and see more of His life in one another, the more we experience the fullness of Him. That was always upon our brother’s heart.
He not only taught that; he encouraged us in many ways. He opened doors for us in many ways to experience that.
In 1983, there was the first Far East Service Conference in Hong Kong. Three brothers went; two of them are actually here today: Ernie Heil, Mike Manns, and Dan Boyer. They went over to Hong Kong in 1983.
Our brother was always encouraging us to go to those times, to experience the beauty of the fullness of the Lord in other assemblies. Many went and were very blessed by the times in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Sydney, and had some varied experiences, we will say. But there was always encouragement through the sweetness of Christ.
Then, in 1986, our brother, through fellowship with those on the West Coast, helped begin the West Coast Christian Conference among the assemblies there, predominantly Chinese assemblies.
I remember there would always be some days of fellowship after the conference. It was upon our brother’s heart that the assemblies out there, which were predominantly Chinese, would really know how to fit into an English-speaking country and be encouraged not to remain separate entities, but to experience the oneness of the body of Christ that we have here. At times, language can be a barrier.
One thing that touched me about our brother was that, when he first came to the States, he made a decision that whenever he was going to share, he was going to share in English. He was not going to speak in Chinese. He was in an English-speaking country, and he was going to speak in English.
Some misunderstood him for that, and that was okay with him. He always encouraged ones in that way, particularly the Chinese assemblies, that they could really enter more into the language of this country.
One thing that touched me was that, not only for the Far East Conference but also for the West Coast Christian Conference, our brother always had the next generation upon his heart. He saw that if we do not care for that next generation, the testimony of the Lord that we have seen so richly will have something missing. He never wanted that to occur.
I was thinking, too, of the brethren whom he introduced us to. I actually went through the CTM website last night. Our brother had this desire to bring many into fellowship with us, that we might experience more of Christ through different servants of the Lord.
He introduced us to Christian Chen, Dana Congdon, Gene Edwards, Johannes Fasius, Eric Fischbacher, A. J. Flack, DeVern Fromke, Manfred Haller, Ernie Heil, John Ingalls, John Kennedy, Lance Lambert, Ed Miller, Floyd Plice, Jim Reit, and Hosea Wu.
We are very thankful for that. There is a richness that we have. He never desired to be the center, but he wanted to expose us to the riches of Christ in so many brethren.
Lastly, one of the things that touched me about our brother was that, when he heard something about what the Lord was doing, he wanted to hear about it and, at times, to go and see.
He heard what the Lord was doing in Chile; he went to Chile. He heard what the Lord was doing in Europe; he went to Europe. He heard what the Lord was doing in Pennsylvania; he went up to Pennsylvania. He had to go and experience what the Lord was doing in these different places, and it would be manifested in different ways.
To me, it created a holy unsatisfaction. He was never satisfied. He knew there was so much more of Christ to see and experience.
Would that a holy unsatisfaction be within our hearts, to experience Christ more and more. As we see and experience Christ more and more, we can see the vastness of the Lord and the blessing into which we have been brought.
Finally, my most embarrassing moment with him: we were driving him to New Jersey one weekend for a sharing time, and I got stopped for speeding on I-95. I mean, getting stopped for speeding with Brother Kong in the back seat is not a pleasant experience.
But he was very gracious. Then we went on to the meeting, and you got to see a little bit of his humor. He said, “You know, there are two ways that you can keep the law: you can obey the law, or you can pay the penalty.”
He kind of looked, and he caught my eye. You are sinking down in your seat. But anyway, he was a spiritual man, and we do not ever need to forget that he was a man. He was a dear human being too, and we are thankful for that.
With that, we want to open it up. If you want to share, we have plenty of seats up here. Come on up, and you can wait for the next person. That way, we do not have to wait for people to walk all the way from the back of the room to the front. It is an open time for anyone to come up now, and we look forward to hearing from you.
As I have been thinking about our brother Kong, especially after the sharing last week, it has made me bow down and worship the Lord. I guess that is really as it should be, because that is how our brother always directed us. He directed us to the Lord. So I guess that is fitting.
I would like to read a verse that came to me in regard to our brother. This is from Psalm 92, beginning in verse 13.
Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God.
They shall still bring forth fruit in old age;
they shall be fat and flourishing.
Psalm 92:13-14
In some versions, it says, “full of sap.”
When I first met Brother Kong, he was nearly sixty. That is an age when many people are considering retirement. I know that is when my husband and I started considering retirement. But Brother Kong, as far as I know, never considered retirement as an option.
He served the Lord for another fifty years after that. That particular time was just the beginning of his service to the Lord in Richmond. He moved to Richmond a few years after that and lived here among us for nearly fifty years.
He was pouring himself out, but more than that, pouring the Lord out.
I personally was very much helped by his spoken ministry. I have thought many times, how is it that some little hillbilly like me could end up in a location where God brought His servant from halfway around the globe to live, and to benefit from that ministry? I benefited very much. I think all of us did from his spoken ministry.
But there was something else that I benefited from in his ministry: his translating ministry. He translated many, many of the works of Watchman Nee into English. What a huge gift that has been to the church.
When I was first saved, the people I happened to be with were just average college students. We were not special in any way. But somehow we were put in touch with the ministry of Watchman Nee, and we lived on the Watchman Nee books. Of course, we lived on the Word first—I do not want to misrepresent anything—but we lived on so many of those early books.
I thought of how our brother translated so many of those works. It was not just many books—dozens of books. I think those books are made up of hundreds of messages translated from Chinese into English. I was very helped by that too, and I thank the Lord for his spoken ministry and his translating ministry.
But if there is one thing that I am so incredibly thankful for, it is that he not only translated; he manifested the life of Christ in a clay vessel. He did not promote himself or lift anything up. As Mac has already said, he demonstrated the life of Christ in a human frame, pointing us to Christ.
He translated The Release of the Spirit. He translated The Spiritual Man. He translated The Character of God’s Workman. But he did not just translate those things; he lived those things.
So that we Americans could see that these things written by Watchman Nee are not merely theory. In fact, they are in the Bible. The Bible has been translated—if you follow what I am saying—manifested in a human being, so that we can see that it is real, and that the life of Christ can be displayed in a clay pot like we may be.
There can be that release of the life of Christ. A person can be a spiritual man or woman. A person can be even a workman for God by the life of Christ. Thank the Lord for the life of Christ in our brother.
I remember one little tidbit. I did not know Ernie was going to be here today, but I remember the time of Zola’s homegoing in 1998. Our brother Kong shared a word of encouragement and exhortation.
In the midst of that sharing, he was talking about how he who is absent from the body is present with the Lord. In the midst of sharing that, it was as though he were beside himself, and he said, “Oh, how I admire her.”
He was so longing to be with the Lord. Of course, we know he was here another twenty-four years, but that longing never diminished. Now, praise the Lord, he has his own heart’s desire.
I think we have that desire within ourselves too: that we follow in our brother’s footsteps all the way to the presence of the Lord.
When I met Brother Stephen in 1981, it was a fellowship that I did not know anything about. I did not know anything about serving the Lord without a title, without a position, without a religious order.
But I came into a freedom that was so rich in the Lord that I could not stay away. John used the word drift not too long ago, and I drifted a long time. I worked, I had kids, I was busy, and I served, but it was sort of religious.
But after I saw the Lord in reality, He met me, and there was an exchange of life—His life and my life. Way beyond salvation. I was saved, but there was a difference.
Stephen, at that time, had two things that really struck me that I have to share. One is: cooperate with the Holy Spirit.
Our brother did not really tell us how to cooperate with the Holy Spirit. He just said, “Cooperate.” What he did was point us to Jesus to teach us. He knew that it was the Holy Spirit who does the teaching, that we would know Jesus.
That little phrase, “Cooperate with the Holy Spirit,” has been with me ever since. It really is the thing that I agree with in prayer:
Father, Your will, not my will.
Father, Your way, not my way.
Holy Spirit, I agree with the work You are doing in me. Have Your way.
The second way he pointed us to the Lord in his latter years was: be prepared. You might have a list of things that you have to do to be prepared, but again, it is Jesus.
Paul said in Philippians that he forgot what happened in the past and pressed on to know Jesus—to know Him. In that knowing, do not accept a knowledge level that you have attained, but keep pressing on. Maintain what you have attained, but press on to know more.
Being prepared is looking to Jesus, because He is the preparation in our hearts. Knowing Him is the only thing that can truly prepare us for what is to come. It is His life. Stephen pointed us to Jesus. I have to say it again: he pointed us to Jesus.
I am Janine Martin. My husband shared last week a word that Brother Kong had shared with him. When we were going home, he said, “Are you going to share next week on what the Lord shared with us?” I said, “Well, if you want me to, I guess I will.”
A little background: Herbert and I were both raised in Christian homes. We have sort of an arranged marriage. I knew a lady named Kim from the time I was a baby; we grew up in church together. Then I met John and Dan when we were in high school.
The Lord arranged for Herbert to meet John at work, and then the Lord arranged for Herbert to meet Dan at the pool. Dan brought Herbert to the Christian Family Conference, where Herbert met Brother Kong and Lance Lambert.
Then John and Kim had an open house. John invited Herbert, and Kim invited me, and the Lord arranged for Herbert and me to meet each other. That is how it all happened.
The challenge for us, and the reason we went to see Brother Kong, was that while my parents gave their blessing to Herbert and me being married, they adamantly opposed us meeting with the saints here.
I was raised in the Southern Baptist faith and tradition. My father felt very strongly that Herbert and I, because we were raised in the Southern Baptist tradition and had benefited from it, should spend our lives serving within that structure and format.
I was living with my parents while I was engaged, and it was a very tense time. It was emotionally traumatic for me because I could not find the balance of honoring my parents, honoring the Lord, and following a path that the man to whom I was engaged believed we should go.
So Herbert asked Brother Kong if we could meet with him and if he could give us some word of counsel to help us find a way through the tension and trauma that we were experiencing.
The Lord, through Brother Kong, gave us two thoughts that have guided us our entire lives since then:
When it came to being part of this assembly and worshiping and serving the Lord here, “Live in the light you have been given” blessed me and spoke to me very specifically. I had come of age, as the brothers shared last week, in the 1970s with the Jesus Movement.
West End Assembly of God was a place our youth group visited on Sunday nights to experience the open worship, because it was so precious. When I was in college, Varsity had a Saturday core group that met on Saturday evenings to worship the Lord and let the Holy Spirit lead the worship.
This was pretty revolutionary: twenty or thirty people sitting in a room and waiting for someone to speak, pray, or read a Scripture, allowing the Lord to open a worship time and lead us all in worship.
When Brother Kong said, “Live in the light you have been given,” it released me to walk into and engage with what the Lord had already shown me.
Then, when he said, “What does the Word say?” I went to the Lord and said, “Lord, where can I find some peace or comfort in Your Word that I can take a path that I know my parents oppose? I can honor my husband, but the two of us can still live in a way and have a relationship with my parents that honors You.”
The Lord led me to Psalm 90:16-17:
Let Thy work appear unto Thy servants,
and Thy glory unto their children.
And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us.
What the Lord told me was that my parents were His servants, and I needed to leave it up to Him to let His work appear to them. My husband and I were the children of parents who served the Lord, and we needed to leave it to the Lord to reveal Himself in us and in our lives together in such a way that our parents would see the glory of the Lord.
Fast forward twenty-five years. My mom was in the hospital. She had dementia, and her dementia manifested in night terrors. There had been an incident the night before, so I was with her the following night, overnight in the hospital.
We worked our way through some of the night terrors. In the middle of the night, she started singing a song that I had never heard her sing before. She loved to sing hymns. She and Dad were in choir. We were the Listeroom Family Singers growing up, and we sang at little churches and summer revivals. Song and worship were in every fiber of our being.
When we look at Psalm 90:17, “Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us,” the song that came out of her spirit that night in the hospital was:
Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me,
All His wonderful passion and purity;
O Thou Spirit divine, all my nature refine,
Till the beauty of Jesus be seen in me.Let my wonderful Savior be seen in me,
His amazing compassion and constancy;
His great love is my goal, by His Spirit’s control,
Till my wonderful Savior be seen in me.Let the fruit of the Spirit be seen in me.
Grant me grace, all-sufficient, that I may be
True and faithful each day, every step of the way,
Pointing souls to the Savior on Calvary.Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me,
All His patience, His love, His humility;
Pure and sinless was He—like Him, O may I be—
May the beauty of Jesus be seen in me.
And the last verse, considering all the places Brother Kong traveled:
May I walk in the straight and narrow way,
True and faithful in all that I do and say;
In the throne, in the home, and wherever I roam,
May the beauty of Jesus be seen in me.
As the Lord was working this testimony into my heart, and I was reminded of learning that song with my mom, I read the words yesterday and it struck me: that song represents the way our brother Kong walked among us.
We have all benefited from the privilege of having him walk among us. Thank you.
I think I might state the obvious. I was thinking about Brother Kong and the words Jerry read last week: the testimony of Paul before King Agrippa. Paul said, “I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision.”
Some brothers shared last week that Brother Kong came to Richmond fifty years ago. Others might say sixty years. I am not quite sure what the number is, but whether fifty or sixty years, it does not matter. You see a man with vision—a man captured by vision.
You see a man consistently walking and living according to that vision through all those years. That is the encouragement.
I want to share two instances. We all know there is a Christian Family Conference. Every year, we met in family meetings to discuss what would be the theme and theme words for the conference.
There was one year—I do not remember which year—when we said there are many ways to help Christians. Why do we not do this? Why do we not do that? Why do we not share the Gospel from Matthew or Luke, or whatever?
But the concept was that the Lord raised up this conference for a special purpose: to share the eternal purpose of God. I think that settled it.
From that point on, it helped me. That is it. Our brother himself was laser-focused on the vision he had from the Lord: God’s eternal purpose. I had a chance to go back over some years of what he shared at the conference. If any of you have that opportunity, it will benefit you. You see the content of what he shared. He never drifted away from that purpose. He was always focused on God’s eternal purpose.
Now, a man of vision is not a cold man. Brother Kong was a very warm person. You cannot stay with the vision and walk after it without loving the Lord. When you love the Lord, you also love the brothers and sisters.
One thing I found in the more than twenty years that I have been here is that he loved the saints. Why do I say that? Whenever he was able, whenever he was in town, he was always here on Sunday. He was always here on Wednesday for prayer meeting, unless he was not feeling well.
He always wanted to be here. He always wanted to be with the brothers and sisters. I observed that for twenty years, and people did that for more than twenty years. That really showed that he loved the Lord and loved the brothers and sisters. That encouraged me.
During the conference, one evening I felt sad because Brother Kong was not there. I told my wife, “I think we should text Sister Dora and just tell her that we miss him.” That was on Wednesday night, and we do miss him.
But on the other hand, the Lord said through Paul in 2 Timothy 4:7:
I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith.
That spoke of Brother Kong himself. He was a person who lived out Christ’s life. He was a person who lived out God’s Word. God’s Word and Brother Kong’s life were one together.
When I think about these two verses—one from Paul before Agrippa, and one from Paul at the end of his earthly life—I believe the Lord Himself was giving that testimony and affirming Paul’s life. I think those words fit our brother Kong’s life on earth.
By God’s grace, one day, when we are done with our life on earth, what will the Lord say? I pray that for every one of us the Lord would say, “You did not prove disobedient to that heavenly vision.” We have to press on for that.
I will be very short, because I do not really have words. But I wanted to remember how there were a number of times when young adults or youth were invited over, and there would be questions and answers.
Brother Kong would just be glowing, getting to tell stories and share some history. It was such a wonderful blessing to us. I want to be thankful for that opportunity. We have been so blessed with these things.
I know he would come back from the leadership conferences, and he would be so glowing over what the Lord was doing with another generation—raising ones up. He was so blessed.
I was really grateful for his heart for the new generations.
As we were sitting here, I remembered when we were all slowly coming back from COVID. We were starting to have prayer meetings and things in person, and Brother Kong and Mrs. Kong showed up.
Mrs. Kong said, “Brother Kong just said, ‘When can we go back to prayer meeting?’” He wanted to come and be with the saints and pray. He was probably among the first ones who came back, pretty early on, to pray. He faithfully was here.
It was such a blessing to see someone for whom you know it was not easy, but he just wanted to be with the saints.
I do not have a lot to share either, but I want to share when I met Brother Kong. We were going to fellowship at D.C. Christian Fellowship, and I was a college student at Howard University. I was also a political science major.
By the time I got there, Brother Kong was not there. I guess he was traveling. I used to talk to all the brothers and sisters, and I think Lance Lambert was there.
Because I was a political science major at Howard and a lot of different things would come up, I remember asking Lance about the Six-Day War and what he thought of that. He shared with me.
By the time I met Brother Kong some months later, I asked him about Mao Zedong—what did he think? He just sat there; he did not say anything.
I love to read, so the next week I asked, “What do you think of Witness Lee?” He said, “Pray for our brother.”
For the next ten years, I stayed in D.C. and learned about the local church and the body of Christ.
Hi, I am Daniela. I am not prepared, but I want to share my first experience when I walked into this local assembly. I came in 2017.
One thing, when I entered here, was that I did not see anyone. I could only see the Lord’s table. My knees were really weak at that time, but when I looked at the Lord’s table, generally, where I had been raised or wherever I had walked in, you either saw the elders or the musicians. I could see nothing over here except the Lord’s table.
I really appreciated how the Lord used Brother Kong for this very important thing. That really touched me.
One day, he was sharing—I think it was in 2017, the second week of January—from 1 Corinthians 12:12:
For as the body is one, and hath many members,
and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body:
so also is Christ.
He insisted on that last part: “So also is Christ.” He repeated it many times, and it caught me deeply until now. I had read these words many times, but the way he encouraged us to see Christ in each other—every dear brother and every dear sister—was a very different experience for me.
Wherever I go, I still use these words. This is so important for the assembly. I remember that time and the way he put those words. He may have taught this many times, but the first time I heard him insist on it, I found a different way of looking at things.
Then, as usual, we had that fellowship meal. He was sitting in the back after he had finished his meal. I am used to trying to help the elders remove the plates and empty the trash, so I walked to him as he was getting up and tried to take his plate.
He said, “No.” Very politely and lovingly, “No.” Then he put his plate over there. That did not end there. He walked back, took Sister Dora’s plate, and dropped that one too. My wife looked at me.
That was a big lesson: how to be in the assembly and how to be in the family too. These are simple actions. Sometimes they are very small things, but they speak louder. Actions speak louder than words. In a simple act, it spoke so many things.
Thank the Lord, it was a very short time, but God gave the opportunity. According to John 3:30, as the Word of God says, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” We could see that. Thank the Lord for such a great servant of God.
I had no idea that I was going to have this opportunity to be blessed by sharing my experience with Brother Kong—Brother Stephen Kong.
In 1972, I think it was, Dana Congdon called me and said, “Ernie, I went to a meeting this last week and I heard a brother speak. You need to go and listen to what he has to share.” It was our brother Stephen. He was somewhere in North Carolina sharing.
The Lord richly blessed me because, just a month or so later, I was with a brother in New York. I am having difficulty remembering his name. Maybe some of you will remember his name.
We were talking, and he was Chinese—Sullivan Chen. I asked him if he knew our brother Stephen. He said, “Yes, I do. He is coming to Queens next week, and if you like, I will try to get an appointment with him.”
So the Lord richly blessed me. In 1971 or 1972, I had the joy, privilege, and blessing of traveling many places with my brother Stephen—to the Philippines, Hong Kong, Singapore, and many places.
I got to go and sit down and talk with him in Queens. It was a precious experience. I was a part of some groups on Long Island at the time, so it had to be in 1972.
We began to invite him to come and share among us. Every group that I can think of had the same testimony: what a blessing it was to have him among us.
As far as my own experience, there is a verse that I know all of you know, but for me it best describes my brother’s life: Galatians 2:20.
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live;
yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.
I have been so blessed by having opportunities to be with him, to be in fellowship with him, to travel to these many different places, and to hear the many messages that he gave to the brothers and sisters.
I am also blessed by all the books he wrote on the New Testament—all the books of the New Testament. Recently, my seventeen-year-old son had to share at a Saturday night youth meeting. He said, “I am sharing on Romans. Could you help me?”
I said, “I cannot, but I know somebody who can.” So I got Brother Stephen’s book out of my library and asked him to read it. He was also blessed.
Brothers and sisters, I know I would not want to displease my dear brother. He does not want us to make a lot of him, except that he was a simple, humble vessel through whom the Lord Jesus Christ lived His life.
For that, I think we ought to give much thanks and praise to our Lord. The Lord blessed us in ways that we do not even understand, simply by being with him and experiencing life together with him.
To me, he was a precious brother. I am so grateful to my Lord that He allowed me to have the wonderful experience of fellowship with him, sharing with him, and traveling with him to these many different places.
My testimony is that he was the most precious brother. But the most important thing was that he manifested our Lord Jesus Christ in whatever he did.
The first book I ever read that he wrote was The Splendor of His Ways. How many people have been richly blessed and helped through very difficult times through that book.
I can testify today that he was a precious, precious brother in whom the Lord Jesus was free to manifest His life. I am grateful, and I am grateful for this opportunity to share briefly about our dear brother.
Not this short, but probably short in length of message.
Back when the Dead Sea was probably just sick, I went to the first conference that I can remember. It was back in the 1970s, when we were meeting at the University of Richmond, I believe.
I was apparently new in the Lord, and Stephen was there teaching on the church. One thing jumped from his message and just swallowed me: the church is not an organization; it is an organism.
To me, that was as though someone had turned not just the lights on, but the sun had come all the way up. I had seen what I was looking for.
Betty Ann and I kind of grew up in Emporia in the Lord for a long time. We were struggling with coming out of the organized church. By golly, about that same time, we had started trying to meet in homes.
When I heard that message, it changed my life. My mama was sort of like your parents; she was not real sure I was supposed to be doing that. But later, before she passed away, my mama told me that I was the biggest influence in her Christian growth.
It was because of Christ. It was not Gary. I praise the Lord for Stephen’s message. It meant so much to me. That is for sure.
It is so good to hear people’s stories. Just last night, we were hearing some stories, because we remember, we learn afresh, and we have all been helped. A lot of us have been helped.
I also think of those who have not heard Brother Kong when he was younger, or who have not read a book all the way through. Among believers, we are helped by different preachers. I have been helped a lot by Brother Kong—his messages and his translated works. Personally, my life changed a lot through the person of Brother Kong.
A lot of questions cannot be answered from messages or books. Sometimes you need direct help, and I needed a lot of help. For me personally, it was a big life change. It has been a privilege to help Brother Kong and to serve the Lord’s servant a little bit.
I wanted to read a verse. Our brother was very gifted as a teacher. I do not know if I have read books that contain such good teaching or heard messages that are as clear. When it comes to teaching, I think his gifting was at the height.
Mix that with spiritual life and maturity, and it is rare. Mix that with revelation, where you catch discoveries of Christ, and it is rare. I am very excited about his messages.
If you are the type who needs someone yelling in their messages, go to his earlier messages in the 1970s, and you will hear Brother Kong very excited, yelling at you. It is really awesome. But if you like the calm messages, you just change what decade you go to.
In all of it, though, you catch Christ. Whatever energy level there was, you catch a revelation of the Lord and clarity of teaching. One of the great things about his question-and-answer times was that he dealt with questions that no one could answer.
I remember in my Bible and theology classes, professors would say, “These are age-old debates. No one knows.” Then I started listening to Brother Kong’s messages, and he would unlock ten of those impossible questions. Now I get it, and it is clear as day. He was very gifted.
But the impression I wanted to bring up is for all of us. Not all of us are called to what our brother did. He had a unique calling. Not all of us are gifted in the specific ways that he was gifted.
All of us, though, are as in Matthew 5, where He says, “Ye are the salt of the earth. Ye are the light of the world.” My main impression of this man of God is the presence of the Lord—that is something any of us can have.
Those basic things that any of us can do: step by step, walk with the Lord in this moment. Walk with the Lord. That is what I have found is the most important thing.
All of us will bear much fruit in our different ways. All of us can, in that sense, follow the example of Brother Kong and love the Lord with our whole hearts.
I think that is one reason why many of us listened to his messages so much more once we got to know him a little bit. At first, sometimes I listened because I knew somewhere in that message he was going to share some insight from Scripture that I had never heard before. That was exciting.
But then I wanted to listen because I knew he was in the presence of the Lord. Even if I heard a whole message, even if I had heard all the content multiple times, every single time I came into the Lord’s presence in a fresh way because of the person who was sharing.
That impression has really caught me: what we want as believers is to know the Lord Jesus and to be in His presence right now. Even if you do not get helped by the teaching of our brother, get helped by this reality: we have known someone who simply did what we read about doing.
We read biographies of people, and we actually met somebody straight out of those old biographies—someone who actually met many of the people in those biographies too. He lived that long. But he actually did it. He did it to the end. He did that thing Paul said: “I have finished my course.”
It is about those who love the Lord’s appearing. The crown is ready. He actually did it. We have known someone who did what we all hope to do. That is really amazing.
I thought of this Scripture in Job:
There was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them.
And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou?
Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered My servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?
Job 1:6-8
You have this sense that, to please the Lord, He does not say, “Have you heard Job’s messages? Have you seen Job’s works?” Not really. It is simply, “Have you seen My servant Job?”
I want to testify that Brother Kong is my hero, but it is because I think God was able to say something like this: “Have you seen My servant Stephen Kong?” That, I think, is a goal for all of us—to please the Lord like that. Hallelujah.
I really do not have to say anything after what our brother shared. By the way, I brought my Darby Bible. For those who remember—and for those who do not know—my brother used that Bible, and I wanted to be just like him, so I bought one right away.
But I have not made that transition fully yet. I know what it takes, because the Lord spoke it through our brother’s life.
I remember the first time I met Brother Kong. I got to hold the whole dose because it was at a conference with Brother Stephen, Lance, and Dana. This has been a long time ago.
I had just finished school at Virginia Commonwealth University, and I was back on campus one day. I met Dan Boyer, my brother and friend. A young lady walked up, who was a Christian. I saw her for about five minutes and never saw her again.
She said, “You guys need to go up to Randolph-Macon, because there is a conference.” So Dan went with me that time.
Over a two-day period, I heard all three of them speak. The only one I could remember—or when I think of that time, the person I remember—is Lance. Not because of his flamboyant spirit, knowledge, or delivery, but because there was something that prepared me.
I have never been the same. I was saved as a child. I was involved in a denominational church, loved the Lord, and sought the Lord. But there was something missing.
I hope you will allow me. I might read a couple things. There are some Scriptures that the Lord really started giving me a day ago, and this morning He made it clear that I should share them.
I copied a page out of Jacob I Have Loved. I got that book when it came out, read a few chapters, and set it aside. The Lord brought me back to it. He spoke to my heart about what it takes to be used.
When I say “used,” I do not mean being a conference speaker. I mean having a presence, a stature, a character that is from heaven—not ours, not innately ours.
As I got to know our brother, I was so blessed by what the Lord was showing me. I started to tell him how much his ministry meant to me, how wonderful his delivery was, and all of this.
The fact that I did not see him at that conference, so I did not remember him specifically, is really at the basis of this burden in my heart, because that is who he was. The Lord spoke through him. I am beginning to find out what that means.
One day I was with him and complimenting him, and he quoted a Scripture to me—Jeremiah 17:
The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately wicked.
Jeremiah 17:9
He smiled. I thought he was talking about me. I was a little taken aback by that. But it did not take long to realize that he was talking about all of us, himself included.
If I may, I would like to take an excerpt from Lance’s book, because Stephen would never write about himself like this. Lance was not specifically writing about Stephen; he was telling us about Jacob. But we can identify.
It was the disabling of his natural power, the breaking of his self-life, which produced the ability to worship God and to bless others. This principle lies at the heart of all God’s dealings with those He saves and redeems.
David said this in Psalm 51:
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit:
a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.
Psalm 51:17
And Isaiah, in two places:
For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy;
I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit,
to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.
Isaiah 57:15
And then Isaiah 66:
To this man will I look,
even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit,
and trembleth at My word.
Isaiah 66:2
Now, this is Old Testament. You might say, “Well, maybe David and Isaiah would not have said that in the New Testament because we have victory. We have resurrection life. We have the Holy Spirit.”
But without this, we would not have the New. It is just as important under and in the empowerment of the Holy Spirit that these characteristics be evident.
That is the only vessel that the Holy Spirit will trust—not to play with the words, not to take credit, not to change things.
I have spent a lot of time with Brother Stephen, as many of you have. I have never heard anyone say anything different than that his ministry, his spoken ministry—as powerful and wonderful as it was, and as many of us as it helped—paled in comparison to the person God broke.
He went through I do not know how many Jabboks. We see that example in the Word with Jacob. What did Jacob want? All he wanted was a blessing. He finally had enough of himself, but he could not change.
He wanted the blessing, and he would not let go until he wrestled through the whole night. I used to look at that and say, “How did Jacob do that? He cannot beat God.”
But I realize now that is what the Lord wants from us. He wants us to wrestle. He wants us to endure through the night with Him so that we can manifest the person of Christ and His purpose.
The cross did not annul the need for brokenness or contriteness. It sealed it. Our brother’s life is a testament to that.
We are blessed.
We are thankful that we have had this time and opportunity to share. We did want to ask, are there others who would like to share? Please raise your hand.
One, two.
I am seeing a lot of people scratching their ear. Come on, guys. I need to know whether your ear is itching or whether you would really like to share.
Maybe that is a good number. We can consider that again, and we can do the email when we do it again. Let us go ahead and close this time.
There was a verse that came to me as we were reading and hearing everything: Revelation 14:13.
And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth:
Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours;
and their works do follow them.
Revelation 14:13
Lord, we are thankful that as we hear the testimony of Your life in our brother, we see in a very living way the deeds of Your life in him following on. We know that there is an eternity in those deeds, and they will continue.
Lord, seal up what was shared today. Continue to comfort our sister Dora. Continue to allow us to learn from our brother’s deeds, from his life, that we could be the people of God that he so desired us to become.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.