The Lord’s Move to Asia (January 2012)
International Blending Conference in Dubai, U.A.E. – Nov. 4-6, 2011
General Subject: The Four Great Pillars in the Lord’s Recovery: Truth, Life, the Church and the Gospel
Participating Saints: 127 (GCC: Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, U.A.E. plus saints from Hong Kong, India, Lebanon, the Philippines, Singapore, Slovenia, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Turkey, and U.S.A.)
Burden of the Messages
The burden of this conference was to impress the saints with a clear vision and a way to apply the four pillars in the Lord’s recovery: truth, life, the church and the gospel. These four crucial items in the Lord’s recovery are actually a wonderful person, the Lord Jesus Christ. All four items are intrinsically related with one other and are distinct but not separate.
Firstly, we realized the importance of spending time in the Word, allowing the Lord to “televise” Himself into us as the truth. As the living light shines through the word, we are saturated and sanctified with the truth, making us persons of truth. Truth brings us life, life produces the church and church is responsible for the preaching of the gospel. Truth is the very essential factor which has been revealed and released little by little through the careful study of many lovers of the Lord. The Lord’s recovery is the recovery of all the truths in the Bible that were lost. Truth is the divine light shining on the facts in the Bible and televising a heavenly and spiritual vision of these facts into our being. Truth has two functions: it sets us free from the bondage of sin and all the negative things and it sanctifies us both positionally and dispositionally. Every morning we can touch the living word and have the divine reality of the Triune God living, moving, working in us and separating us from all the bondage and negative things. Every morning we need to contact the Lord first and taste Him through His Word by pray-reading the Word of God. This helps us grow unto maturity and be filled with life and saturated with the eternal One. Many saints testified of their experience of exercising their spirit in prayer over the word for morning nourishment and of reading the Bible as a critical key in their daily life. There were altogether twenty-five saints who prophesied in this meeting.
The second pillar in the Lord’s recovery is life. Just as God’s enemy distracted man in the very beginning away from eating the tree of life, the enemy is using the same strategy with us today. This is why we need to be constantly recovered back to the tree of life. This matter is so critical that the Lord makes eating of the tree of life a reward to those who overcome the losing of their first love to the Lord. Because we are often distracted from the Lord , the importance of specific confession was explained in how this restores the fellowship and the eating of Christ as the tree of life. The Lord wants to recover the church back to the beginning by our eating of the tree of life. Today many Christians have not seen the light concerning eating the Lord. God wants man to receive Him as life by eating Him organically and assimilating Him metabolically, so that God might become the constituent of his being. Hence, eating the tree of life should be the primary matter in our church life. Christ as the tree of life is in our spirit and therefore can be experienced and enjoyed by us. In our daily life we need to live Christ by eating Christ. The Lord is not only on the throne but also in our spirit as the all-permeating spirit. By turning from all matters to God, we can experience the wonderful Christ. If we continue in this way, we will have a fresh love to the Lord. In order to enjoy this life we need to see the cycle of life in 1 John 1, which contains four crucial elements: the eternal life, fellowship of the eternal life, the divine light and the blood of Jesus, the Son of God. The eternal life issues in its fellowship, the fellowship of the eternal life brings in the divine light and the divine light increases the need for the blood of Jesus, the Son of God, that we may have more eternal life. Our tendency is to justify ourselves. Only under the divine light can we come to know who we really are. So we need to repent and confess every morning to live an overcoming life. For this we need a regular living of being revived every morning by calling on the Lord and contacting the Lord, pursuing the truth, praying at set times, meeting regularly, and contacting the new ones. Twenty-eight saints prophesied to strengthen the word on the importance of eating the Lord as the first thing in the morning and making specific confessions to the Lord.
In the third message we saw how the Lord used the outward environment to scatter the saints in the early church. Today, in like manner, the Lord has scattered us to this particular part of the earth (GCC). We are here not merely to work a job or to complain and murmur, but as we become people constituted with the truth and people of life, we cooperate with the Lord to be sowers, planters, waterers, begetters, feeders, and builders in the place where we are. As sowers, we must have seeds of life that can grow to produce Christ in others. As planters, if we grow and produce Christ within us, we will have something of Christ to plant into others. As waterers, day by day we should water the dear saints, who are plants in God’s farm that need watering. As begetters, we should be fathers who beget spiritual children by imparting the divine life into others. As feeders, we should be constantly nourished with Christ as spiritual food, so that we may be able to feed others. We need to feed on Christ to produce spiritual milk so that we may be able to feed our spiritual children. As builders, we ourselves need to be the transformed materials by being constituted with the Triune God. We should be both the builders and the building materials of the house of God. If we ourselves have not been transformed into precious materials, we cannot help others to be transformed into such materials. Several saints testified how they came to this part of the earth with only a view to work and make money but had no idea that this was the Lord’s scattering. Many freshly consecrated to be open to the Lord in becoming the sowers, planters, waterers, begetters, feeders, and builders in the place where the Lord has brought them.
The fourth message opened to us the matter of preaching the gospel. We saw that the gospel is the power of God. This power is the resurrected Christ who is able to break down any obstacle and barrier. However, in order to be effective in announcing the gospel, we must aloow this gospel to be “my gospel”. This means what Paul saw, lived and spoke, we also need to see, live and speak for us to possess this gospel and for this gospel to possess us. To preach the gospel is not to tell people about escaping perdition and going to heaven or about prosperity and peace. To preach the gospel is to tell people that God wants to enter into man to make sinners sons of God. Furthermore, these sons of God are living members of Christ for the constitution of the church. These ones live and enjoy the church life as expressed in different localities. The best place to preach “my gospel” is in our homes to all our visitors. Since we are the mouthpieces for the gospel, our homes should be the outlets of the gospel. By this practice, generation and generation after us will be blessed. This will bring forth the effective move of the Lord in the gospel. Since we are bringing captives from the kingdom of Satan to God’s kingdom, we need to bind the strong man with our prayers. We need to fulfill our priestly service by praying to bring people to the Lord and to deal with the principalities and powers in the air. This message was followed by twenty saints confiming the word as they gave themselves for this gospel to become “my gospel.”
The last two messages helped us see that God’s ultimate intention is to recover His title, His legal right over the earth through Christ in the church as the house and the city. For this we need to allow the Lord, as a man with the appearance of bronze, to measure us, bringing us further into the river of life. As we are measured and go deeper into this river we can do nothing but yield to its full control. If God is to gain the earth, there must be a group of people who live a life of the altar and the tent, people who keep nothing for themselves, giving their all to God and living merely as sojourners. To meet the need of the Lord’s recovery, we need a fresh consecration to live a life of the altar and the tent. We need to be migrating ones to spread the church from city to city, from country to country and from continent to continent, until there are local churches everywhere on earth. For this, we firstly need to migrate from ourselves into the Triune God. The more a church gives up people for migration, the more people it gets; the more a church keeps, the more it loses. We also need to practice material offerings. What we give becomes something that increases to our heavenly account. And this will be a sweet savor well-pleasing to God. Twenty-four saints were touched and prophesied after the message.
We are the continuation of the book of Acts. God is always advancing and He never stops. God’s work has always been going onward. If, as living members of Christ, we live by Him and for Him and depend on Him for everything, we will be in the “twenty-ninth chapter” of Acts. The continuation of the book of Acts is the corporate continuation of Christ; it is not by a personal move but by the move of the corporate Body. This is to continue the book of Acts as the corporate continuation of Christ with the living of the perfected God-men as the reality of the Body of Christ. To carry out God’s move and fulfill His economy we need prayer, the Spirit and the Word. We should pray that we may have the Spirit as the power to spread the word and we need to ask the Lord to bring our entire being into light and be dealt with by Him to become a person of power, full of the Spirit within and without, essentially and economically. In this last session, twenty-six saints shared and testified of their vision and practice.
In this conference, the saints very much enjoyed singing two particular hymns: “God’s eagles spread their wings to soar, to Zion’s height, forever reign with Christ” and “Let’s take the land! The land that God has given us” (Hymns # 1287). The Lord gave us a prayerful spirit throughout all six meetings and the atmosphere was very conducive to the release of the word and the spirit. We give Him all the glory for this blending fellowship in Dubai and may all the churches in GCC be built up into the organic Body of Christ.
Testimonies
1. by Brother Jospeh Lim
In June, 2010, while passing through the city of Abu Dhabi from Turkey to Manila, my wife and I arranged to meet with the saints there for blending and fellowship. I had heard reports of saints who migrated from the Philippines and are currently meeting in the church in Abu Dhabi. A good number were former trainees who had completed either full-term or short-term training in FTT Malabon or the perfecting training in Ozamis. These training graduates have been scattered throughout the United Arab Emirates (UAE) by the Lord as well as in other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. We were able to spend about 4 to 5 hours having sweet fellowship with at least four families and some single saints. The time spent was meaningful and it burdened me for the Lord’s move especially in the GCC countries. I realized that more fellowship and coordination in the spirit needs to be established and fostered for the sake of a prevailing testimony in the Arabian Peninsula.
In a campus work evaluation seminar given after last year’s Chinese-speaking conference in Taipei, brother Clement Wang fellowshipped with me concerning the burden for the Lord’s move in the GCC countries. I had in me the feeling that the responsible brothers and co-workers in the Philippines need to arrange more organized visits to the GCC countries in order to strengthen the coordination among the Philippine foreign nationals working there. I also feel we need to provide help for them to get further training and perfecting in the matter of truth, life, the church, and the gospel, the four great pillars in the Lord’s recovery. This was what paved the way for our visit to the GCC from November 3rd to 9th. We made the decision not to miss this international blending conference since we unfortunately missed the national blending conference held in Doha in May.
Much blending took place even before the international conference through the numerous email exchanges between myself and both the responsible ones and the serving saints from Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, and Al Ain. We had such sweet fellowship with one another before, during, and even after the conference. I think I can speak on behalf of brother Ric Tapel that what touched us the most was the saints’ warm hospitality, their eagerness for more fellowship, their receiving spirit, and their being poor in spirit and pure in heart for the working together for good for the building up of the Body of Christ. The local saints in the UAE took the overseas saints on tours after the conference. I can testify that not only was it enjoyable, but I could clearly touch the spirit of the local saints in their eagerness and hunger for more fellowship. Praise the Lord for His intention and move to blend His many members together from every tribe, nation and tongue into the one new man. Hallelujah !
We were warmly sent off on the eve of November 7 by many of the saints from Dubai, Abu dhabi, Sharjah and Al Ain. We then flew to our third city, Doha, in the emirate of Qatar. Again, we were warmly welcomed by the saints at the airport. That same evening, our fellowship lasted for hours late into the evening. Many families joined us for dinner and I could clearly sense their appetite for more fellowship. On our second day in Doha, we were fortunate and privileged enough to have two long sessions with the local saints and former trainees. We ministered the timely word and burden of the four great pillars in the Lord’s recovery. Our time with the former trainees from FTT Malabon greatly refreshed their vision of Christ and the church and the service required for them to build up the Body of Christ through the God-ordained way of begetting through the gospel, nourishing in the homes, being perfected in the small groups and being built up as the Body of Christ. We also had a profitable time with some expatriate Philippine friends of ours who are meeting with other Christian free groups. We pray that one day these dear ones will be recovered to the proper ground of oneness.
There is a city fifty kilometers away from Doha called Al Khor where there are some saints as well. We made the trip to Al Khor to visit and shepherd an Indian couple who is open to the recovery. We were welcomed warmly into the home of Babu and Heera for lunch and fellowship thereafter. We had a marvelous time enjoying chapter eight of Romans on the gospel of God.
We left for our respective destinations that same day on late evening flights. The saints from Singapore and Florida that accompanied us to Qatar left for Kuwait in the early evening and we left on the late evening flight for Manila and Kuala Lumpur respectively. After saying countless goodbyes in mutuality to the dear saints, I felt like the apostle Paul when he had to say goodbye to the saints each time he had to go on his apostolic journey to Asia and Europe. May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all in an unhindered way.
2. by Brother Ric Tapel
1 Timothy 3:15 – “But if I delay, I write that you may know how one ought to conduct himself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and base of the truth.”
The word of God assures us that “those who wait on Jehovah will renew their strength”. Many years have passed before the saints, scattered throughout the GCC countries, found the strength, the boldness and the leading to meet together and open their homes for the Lord’s Table Meeting. From the tearful testimonies, we see that many saints have waited for three, five, or even over ten years before the right time came to have regular meetings in the saints’ homes. Now, there are clear manifestations of the testimony of Jesus expressed in more than ten cities of the GCC.
But “wait” is a somewhat understatement in this case. Rather, we have found out from the recent International Blending Conference in Dubai that the Lord has actually scattered and preserved many saints who have some reasonable deposit of the Word, and more than a few among them even had experiences of serving in the local churches where they came from. Apparently, these are the prepared vessels that are now available for the Master’s use for the spread of the Lord’s testimony in the Middle East. Many of these have undergone either the Nazarite training or the Full-time Training in Malabon in the Philippines. During the conference, we gathered at least twenty trained ones out of the one hundred and twenty-seven attendees. We also saw familiar faces of former full-timers during our skype call with the Conference simultaneously held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. These precious gifts to the Body are prepared and ordered not by anyone but by the Lord Himself for His particular purpose. What an awesome arrangement!
The messages released in the Conference brought the saints, specially the trained ones, to the realization that they were sent out by the Lord to the Middle East, not for any of the personal reasons that they ever thought, but rather for the very purpose of carrying out God’s heart desire to gain back the earth by establishing His testimony in every city. The saints were ushered into a fresh consecration not only of themselves but also of their homes and families.
As the saints were praying for the Lord of the Harvest to “thrust out workers into His harvest”, there was a corresponding cry from deep within that says, “Lord, here am I, send me!”
Romans 10:14-15 was ringing loudly in our ears: How then shall they call upon Him into whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe into Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without one who proclaims Him? And how shall they proclaim Him unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who announce the news of good things!”
The recent International Blending Conference in Dubai afforded the saints in the GCC Region the rare opportunity to enjoy a fresh flow of life from the ministry and also to hold a gospel meeting on the first evening. This is something not usually done in public and with such a large crowd. More than fifty saints joined the gospel meeting with about twelve gospel friends. A brother presented the meaning of human life and two other saints followed with their personal testimonies. It’s a straightforward yet genuine high gospel. In the midst of the prayer of the saints, the guests called upon the name of the Lord openly and freely. Another brother concluded with an encouragement for the new believers to be baptized. A gospel friend from Abu Dhabi testified her enjoyment of the Lord in the meetings she has attended with the local church and expressed her eagerness to get baptized immediately. Another young sister, a daughter of a responsible brother in Dubai, affirmed also her willingness to testify her faith through water baptism.
So in the late night of November 4th, three carloads of saints proceeded to the beach. The saints grouped discretely and started to pray. In the middle of the night, by the cold Arabian Sea, the saints sang joyfully as the two souls were transferred out of darkness into light and out of the kingdom of Satan into the Kingdom of God. What a marvelous salvation!
On the following day, the father of the young sister testified with tears of exuberance of the faithfulness of the Lord over the salvation of his whole household. Another brother testified of gaining two gospel contacts on the flight going to Dubai, both of whom requested to be visited by the saints. These encouraged the saints to speak the gospel in season and out of season. By the second day, the burden and consecration of the saints for the furtherance of the gospel was overwhelming that we had extended the afternoon session to allow more sharing and testimonies.
Indeed, the harvest is great, but the workers few, so we need to beseech the Lord of the harvest to thrust out workers into His harvest for His reaping. Hallelujah!
3. by Brother Clement Wang
Four of the overseas saints after the blending conference had the opportunity to visit the saints in Kuwait. Although we only had two days there, the time was very profitable as we had much fellowship and blending. We were told that usually only seven to eight saints could make it to the Lord’s Table meeting every Friday morning. However, on the Friday that we were there, the Lord brought thirteen local saints to the meeting. Five were from the Philippines and the rest were from Southern India. Two brothers from the Philippines came for the first time as for more than a year their work schedule did not permit them to come. We rejoiced and worshipped the Lord in singing, praising and praying. The home where we met was very small as seventeen saints completely filled the living room. All shared something and the mutual shepherding was edifying and encouraging. We believe the reason we were all satisfied was due to the fact that the Lord was satisfied. Afterwards, we all had lunch together and “partook of [our] food with exultation and simplicity of heart”. We also had a home meeting in one of the sister’s homes in the afternoon. Again we all spoke and were fed.
We also met a Christian who owned a Christian bookstore in a place where many Christian groups gathered. There were more than twenty groups of various languages who met there from morning to night on both Fridays and Saturdays (which are their typical days off). We heard that Kuwait could possibly be the most open and free country in GCC as far as religion was concerned. The believers living in Kuwait had the full freedom to meet and the two Christian bookstores we visited had many books and Bibles in stock. We introduced the ministry books and especially the writings of Witness Lee to both bookstores. One carried several of Watchman Nee’s books but both were not familiar with Witness Lee’s books.
On the morning of our departure, we met a leader of a Christian free group at the airport. There were around forty of them meeting in that group. They had been introduced to the ministry publications by the local brothers. He told us that he and the others in his group had been enjoying the Recovery Version of the New Testament as well as the Life-studies. We had a good fellowship and looked to the Lord for another time in the future to meet together. Overall, it was a very encouraging and joyful time we had in Kuwait. May the Lord gain more of His seekers for His testimony in Kuwait.
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