God's whole relationship with mankind is

In 1960 I began to solemnly charge the saints to pay attention to the Spirit and even wrote a hymn that speaks of our need to have the experience of the Spirit begetting the spirit and the spirit worshipping the Spirit (hymn #450 in the Chinese hymnal). At the end of 1961 I went to the United States. When it was time to return to Taiwan, I became clear that the work of the Lord's recovery needed to spread to America. Thus, I received a burden to remain there. The work in the United States began with the Spirit and prayer. At that time the work of the Holy Spirit was very strong. The title of the first conference that I gave in the United States was "The All-inclusive Christ." In the summer of 1964 I released the messages that were published in The Economy of God. In 1966 we began to practice pray-reading the Word of God, and in 1967 we saw the truth concerning calling on the name of the Lord. When we put this truth into practice, the saints in America became burning, and their spirit reached a high peak. In an evening meeting of the church in Los Angeles, the saints opened the book of Ephesians and began to pray-read the first verse. They seemingly could not stop pray-reading and eventually pray-read through the entire book. From this we can see how rich, released, high, and full of the anointing the meetings were at that time. Whether the meetings were large or small, the saints began to pray as soon as they arrived, and everyone functioned. Whenever the saints gathered together, their spirits would be released. In 1970 we held an international conference, and afterward, hundreds of saints migrated to various cities for propagation. Because we had the Lord's leading, we were prevailing everywhere we migrated. A conference in 1973 was held in the newly built Los Angeles Convention Center, and three thousand people attended. When we released our spirit, the whole building seemed to shake. Many attendants were subdued and saw that God was in our midst.

Today, if we are to recover the new way shown in the Bible, we must daily live by grace. If we live a defeated life, losing our temper at home and quarreling with our family, we may still be able to speak something worldly, but we will not be able to speak the Lord's word, especially in the meetings. Since the meetings are the exhibition of our daily living, our living and the meetings are closely related. We need to daily draw near to the Lord, live in the spirit, and enjoy the Lord in His Word. In this way our spirit will be living, and we will be able to speak in the meetings. If we are this kind of Christian, we will certainly like to meet and will long for the meeting time to come. Then when we go to the meetings, we will have the Spirit, the Word, and the Lord within us, and spontaneously, we will flow out Christ. The Lord Jesus said in John 7:38-39 that he who believes into Him and receives the Spirit, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. The rivers of living water are the Lord's word flowing out from within us spontaneously. The chorus of hymn #450 in the Chinese hymnal says, "Spirit begets spirit, spirit worships the Spirit, So that the Spirit fills me; / The Spirit also has become the word with life abundant, / Flowing out as rivers of living water," The rivers of living water are the word. lf we open our mouth, we will be living, and the Spirit, the word, and life will pour out like a waterfall.

The way for the spirit to be released is through our mouth. One of our hymns says, "Spirit begets spirit, spirit worships the Spirit, / So that the Spirit fills me; / The Spirit also has become the word with life abundant, / Flowing out as rivers of living water" (hymn #450 in the Chinese hymnal). The phrase flowing out of us as the rivers of living water comes from John 7:38. The rivers of living water refer to the Spirit (v. 39), but the rivers of living water flow out through the word. The Chinese have an expression that describes a person's speaking: "Keeping up a torrential flow of words." Once we open our mouth to speak, the Spirit flows out as rivers of living water. The Spirit is in me, but when I speak, the Spirit becomes the word. Then when a person receives the word into him, the word becomes the Spirit again.

In 1984 I came back to Taiwan to lead the churches to change the system for the practice of the new way. I encouraged the saints to speak in the meetings because every Christian should be a speaking person. The chorus of hymn #450 in the Chinese hymnal says, "Spirit begets spirit, spirit worships the Spirit, / So that the Spirit fills me; / The Spirit also has become the word with life abundant, / Flowing out as rivers of living water." In John 7:38-39 the Lord Jesus said, "He who believes into Me, as the Scripture said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. But this He said concerning the Spirit, whom those who believed into Him were about to receive." This shows that the rivers of living water are the Spirit. I gradually realized from my experience that to speak is to flow out rivers of living water. In the New Testament the apostle Paul wrote one Epistle after another, and his speaking was a continuous flowing out of rivers of living water. If we do not speak in the meetings, the living water of the Spirit will be closed off. If we all speak, the Spirit will be released, and rivers of Jiving water will flow out. We should not be si1ent in the meetings but speak in order to let the living water of the Spirit flow out.

We can also lead people to learn to speak the Lord by the words of the Bible. The Chinese Recovery Version of the New Testament will soon be available. I hope that it can be in each one's hand. This will definitely be a great help to our learning to speak the Lord. Besides, we can also speak the Lord by means of the hymns. We must realize that the hymns are primarily for speaking, not for singing (Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16). In our practice of speaking the Lord's word, the more we speak, the more we are filled with the Spirit. Eventually, there will be a river of living water flowing out of us unceasingly. This is just like what one hymn says, "The Spirit begets the spirit, the spirit worships the Spirit, until I am filled with the Spirit. The Spirit has become the word, full of the riches of life, flowing out rivers of living water" (Chinese Hymns #450). I hope that the brothers and sisters in the Lord's recovery, as well as the newly saved ones under their leading, will be able to speak the Lord. As soon as they open their mouths, they should be able to speak without ceasing so that thousands of people may believe in the Lord and be saved.