May we advance in our experience and enjoyment of Christ to do a work in the stage of intensification for the producing of the overcomers, and may we allow the overcoming Christ as the sevenfold intensified Spirit to produce us as the overcomers for the building up of the Body of Christ! Amen!
This week we come to our last week in the morning revival on the topic of, Vital Factors for the Recovery of the Church Life, and the general subject is The Factor of Living an Overcoming Life in the Recovered Church to Consummate the Divine Economy and Become the New Jerusalem.
A factor is, by definition, an element that contributes to a particular result or situation; there’s a result that’s being sought, and factors are elements that contribute to that result.
In a stronger way, a factor is something that actively contributes to the production of a result.
In God’s economy, there is an ultimate goal, which is the building up of the church as the Body of Christ to consummate the New Jerusalem, the bride of the redeeming God.
In this age, the age of the church, there needs to be the understanding, the experience, and the application of various vital factors for the recovery of the church life.
We may have seen very much concerning the ground of the church, the oneness of the Body, Christ as our Shepherd, and the local churches, but we have not yet arrived; we still need to press on!
The local churches are the procedure that God takes to have the reality of the Body of Christ.
However, we need to realize that, even though we may be in the local churches, we may not contribute to the bringing in of the reality of the Body of Christ.
In every church the Lord is calling for His overcomers; He is in the stage of intensification, and He is calling for those who overcome so that He would produce them as overcomers in the church.
The overcomers are those who in the local churches will consummate the divine economy and become the New Jerusalem.
On one hand, the Lord Jesus said that He will build His church (Matt. 16:18); this is His goal, He’s praying for this, He is ministering as necessary, and He is even carrying out His governmental administration for this.
Through the Body, He is engaged in warfare; through the ministry, He is engaged in speaking; through the work, He is spreading, and the focus is on the church life.
In Matt. 18:17, however, the Lord says, “tell it to the church”, referring to the local church; the Lord only regards the recovered local church meeting on the ground of oneness of the Body of Christ as the church.
In His eyes, as seen in Rev. 2-3, there is only one church in one city, no matter how much the current “pastors” and “theologians” say that things changed throughout the ages, so there are many denominations, etc.
The local churches are the procedure for the Lord to gain the building up and the reality of the Body of Christ; the Body becomes the bride for whom the Bridegroom is coming.
When the Bridegroom returns for His bride secretly, He will bring in the end of this age and the age of the kingdom where the overcomers will enjoy the first stage of the New Jerusalem, the wedding feast of the Lamb.
After the millennial kingdom, all believers will be matured and perfected to be the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth, and as the New Jerusalem, we will be the wife, the bride of the Lamb.
For this to take place, today the Lord needs to recover our practice of the church life to gain the reality of the Body of Christ; He needs to gain the overcomers who live in the reality of the Body of Christ and care for the building up of the Body.
The Overcomers are Produced by the Overcoming Christ as the Sevenfold Intensified Spirit for the Building up of the Body and the Preparation of the Bride
In Rev. 3 and 5, the Lord Jesus said again and again that He has overcome, and He as the Lion of the tribe of Judah has overcome; the Lord Jesus is the Overcomer, and He is calling for overcomers in the churches.
His way for this call to be answered is to reproduce Himself as the Overcomer in the being and lives of so many brothers and sisters who seek Him for this, pray for this, and open to Him for this.
The overcomers are produced by the overcoming Christ as the sevenfold intensified Spirit; these overcomers are burdened for the building up of the Body of Christ as the preparation of the bride of Christ (Eph. 4:16; Rev. 5:6; 19:7-9).
If we are left to ourselves, we can’t make it; but when we contact the Lord, open to Him, and pray that He would make us His overcomers, He will shine on us concerning the flesh, how we need a more severe experience of the cross.
We can ask Him to make us His overcomers, and He will do it.
The overcomers are for the building up of the Body of Christ to consummate the New Jerusalem (Eph. 4:12, 16; Rev. 2:7b; 3:12, 21); what they focus on and are burdened for is not merely the practical things that are necessary for the church life but the building up of the Body for the bride to be prepared and Christ to return.
Without the overcomers, the Body of Christ cannot be built up, and unless the Body of Christ is built up, Christ cannot come back for His bride (Rev. 19:7-9).
If there are no overcomers in the recovered church, how can the Body of Christ be built up to consummate the New Jerusalem?
Unless the Body is built up, the bride cannot be ready and the Lord cannot come back.
He may have to wait for one or even two more generations for this to happen; may we be those who cooperate with Him today to be produced as overcomers by the overcoming Christ as the sevenfold intensified Spirit!
The overcomers produced by Christ as the sevenfold intensified Spirit build up the Body in this age for the initial consummation of the New Jerusalem in the kingdom age and eventually for the full consummation of the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth (Rev. 1:4; 2:7; 4:5; 5:6; 3:12; 21:2).
The New Jerusalem is the bride of Christ; the overcomers who will be welcomed into the wedding feast will be the bride when the Lord comes with them to the earth – they will be the first stage of the New Jerusalem, while the rest of the believers will be going through a developmental stage until they are matured and perfected.
Then, when there will be a new heaven and new earth, there will be the ultimate New Jerusalem. It is crucial to realize that today the Lord needs the overcomers in the recovered church so that the Body of Christ may be built up and the bride would be prepared.
When He determines that the building is sufficient by the overcoming brothers and sisters, then He will return, for the bride has made herself ready.
Not all the believers will be ready, but the overcomers represent them all, and the Lord will return.
The Lord’s promises at the end of each of the seven epistles in Rev. 2-3 refer both to the present enjoyment of the overcomers and to the reward given to them in the coming millennial kingdom (see Rev. 2:7b, 11b, 17b, 26-28; 3:5, 12, 21).
We need to understand the important principle here; it is not that only in the New Jerusalem the overcomers will enjoy the tree of life as a reward, but today they are enjoying it and experience it, and for eternity they will receive it as a reward.
It is not that suddenly we will partake of the tree of life as a reward in the kingdom; rather, the reward we receive will be a manifestation of what we are today, of what we become intrinsically, essentially, inwardly, organically, and vitally in our Christian life in the context of the recovered church life.
Today, therefore, we need to aspire to be the overcomers by gaining Christ; for us to enter into the Lord’s joy and receive Him as our exceedingly great reward in the next age, we need to gain Christ today and faithfully enjoy Him today in this age (Matt. 25:21b, 23b; Phil. 3:8-9; Gen. 15:1). Amen!
But if we don’t faithfully enjoy and experience Christ as the reality of His promises today, we will not participate in their fulfilment in the kingdom age; if today we don’t enjoy Christ, pursue Christ, and gain Christ, we will have to go through the one thousand years of developmental growth in the outer darkness so that we may gain Him. Oh, Lord!
The principle is that what we are will become our reward (1 Cor. 9:24-27). It is good to ask the Lord in our time with Him,
Lord Jesus, produce us as Your overcomers. Make us Your overcoming saints who pursue Christ, gain Christ, grow in Christ, and enjoy Christ to the uttermost in this age. We give ourselves to You, Lord, so that You as the sevenfold intensified Spirit would make us Your overcoming ones. Make us Your overcomers for the Body. We care for the Body and we want to see the Body being built up so that the bride may be prepared for You to return. Amen, Lord, may we be the overcomers produced by Christ as the sevenfold intensified Spirit to build up the Body in this age and bring in the age of the kingdom! You are our exceedingly great reward. Grant us to hear Your speaking today and answer Your call for overcomers in this age!
Doing a Work in Three Stages to Produce Redeemed People, the Local Churches, and the Overcomers for the Building up of the Body to End this age and bring the Lord back
The full ministry of Christ is in three stages: incarnation (the stage of Christ in the flesh, from His incarnation to His death), inclusion (the stage of Christ as the life-giving Spirit, from His resurrection to the degradation of the church), and intensification (the stage of Christ as the sevenfold intensified Spirit, from the degradation of the church to the New Jerusalem).
Today Christ is not merely in the stage of incarnation or in the stage of inclusion; He is in the stage of intensification, for He has been intensified sevenfold to counteract the degradation of the church, produce the overcomers for the building up of the church, and consummate the New Jerusalem.
When He was in the stage of incarnation, Christ was in the physical realm for the accomplishing of judicial redemption; through His death on the cross, He laid the foundation for God’s organic salvation by accomplishing an all-inclusive, all-terminating, life-releasing death.
In the stage of His inclusion, Christ is the life-giving Spirit to regenerate the believers and produce the church, even to produce the many local churches filled with believers in Christ who have the life of God.
In the stage of His intensification, Christ has been intensified sevenfold to mature and produce certain ones who open to Him, making them His overcomers for the building up of the church, the preparation of the bride, and the ending of this age to bring Him back.
If we look at the church history from the very beginning, we will see that in the stage of His inclusion, Christ produced the churches, but not much of the Body was produced and built up in an actual and practical way, for degradation crept in, division was prevalent, and the church became degraded and in decline.
So for Christ to produce the Body in a full and complete way, He was intensified sevenfold to produce the overcomers.
These overcomers see God’s need, cooperate with God for the building up of the church, and receive the Lord’s grace and mercy to not only live the church life in an outward way but inwardly endeavour to be the overcomers for the building up of the Body of Christ.
Our work for the Lord should be in three sections: we should preach the gospel for sinners to be saved and enter into the kingdom of God, we should shepherd others and speak the truth for the building up and edifying the saints so that the churches may be produced, and we especially need to build up the Body of Christ for the consummation of the New Jerusalem.
We need to consider this matter of Christ being intensified sevenfold to be the seven Spirits of God (Rev. 5:6) and pray desperately that the Lord would cause us to advance and grow in life until we are being intensified sevenfold to overcome the degradation of the church for the building up of the Body to consummate the New Jerusalem.
It is necessary that we do a work in three stages: preaching the gospel, producing the churches, and building up of the Body, and in particular, we need to pray that we would be intensified with Christ to overcome degradation, build up the Body, and consummate the New Jerusalem.
This is what the Lord is after, and this is what the overcomers do today.
Lord Jesus, we are endeavouring to do our best to be the overcomers today for the building up of the Body to consummate the New Jerusalem. We don’t want to remain the same; we don’t want merely to be in the realm of the church life doing general work to preach the gospel and produce the churches. We give ourselves to You, Lord, to advance with You and be intensified sevenfold even as You were intensified sevenfold. Amen, Lord, intensify Your organic salvation in us and produce us as Your overcomers who overcome the degradation of the church that the Body may be built up to consummate the New Jerusalem! Make us the overcomers of today who do a work in the stage of intensification for the Body to be built up and the bride to be prepared so that You may return and bring in the age of the kingdom!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ron Kangas for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1994-1997, vol. 4, “Incarnation, Inclusion, and Intensification,” p. 194-197, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Vital Factors for the Lord’s Recovery of the Church Life (2021 ITERO), week 8, The Factor of Living an Overcoming Life in the Recovered Church to Consummate the Divine Economy and Become the New Jerusalem.
- Hymns on this topic:
– The full ministry of Christ / Is carried out in three stages / For the fulfillment of God’s eternal economy… / In the third stage of intensification: / To intensify His organic salvation, / To produce the overcomers, and / To consummate the New Jerusalem. (Song on, The Full Ministry of Christ)
– Now the Spirit of our God / Has become intensified: / ’Tis not one but sevenfold / That the church may be supplied! / Seven Spirits doth the Lord / For the churches now employ; / All those in the local church / May this Spirit now enjoy. (Hymns #1122)
– Christ has called us once to Him, / But He calls us once again. / To His call we say Amen! / Overcome! / For the church has fallen low, / Thinking everything they know, / But the life is missing; so, / Overcome! / Overcome! Overcome! / Overcome the degradation of the church! / All your working lay aside, / All the teachings that divide; Eat the Lord whate’er betide— / Overcome! (Hymns #1273)
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