Scripture Reading: Joel 1:4; 2:28-32; 3:11-21; Eph. 3:16-21; 4:15-16; Rev. 19:7-9; 22:17a

DAY 1 Outline　MorningRevival

DAY 2 Outline　MorningRevival

DAY 3 Outline　MorningRevival

DAY 4 Outline　MorningRevival

DAY 5 Outline　MorningRevival

DAY 6 Outline　MorningRevival

«　WEEK 3　DAY 1　»

　　Joel 1:4 What the cutting locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten; and what the swarming locust has left, the licking locust has eaten; and what the licking locust has left, the consuming locust has eaten.

　　3:11 Hurry and come, all you surrounding nations, and be gathered. There cause Your mighty ones to descend, O Jehovah!

　　Four words for locust are used in Joel 1:4, probably referring to one kind of locust in various stages of growth. The four stages of this one kind of locust refer to the nations that devastated Israel in four consecutive empires: Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome, including Antichrist, who will be the last Caesar of the Roman Empire (Rev. 17:8-11). The armies of these empires were like locusts (Joel 2:25) coming to devastate and consume Israel totally, devouring her people, land, fields, produce, food, and drink and cutting off her offerings. These empires correspond to the four sections of the great human image in Daniel 2, to the four beasts in Daniel 7, and to the four horns in Zechariah 1. They will be overcome and terminated by Christ, who will set up the kingdom and reign among the saved Israel in the age of restoration. (Joel 1:4, footnote 1)

　　Israel has been suffering the cutting, swarming, licking, and consuming of the locusts for twenty-seven centuries…. God used the suffering of the Jews to bring in the incarnation, an unprecedented event that brought God into man and mingled God and man as one. Furthermore, God has used the locusts to afford all the necessary facilities in the environment for the carrying out of His purpose. The Roman Empire, the aggregate of the four empires, afforded everything necessary for the incarnated God to live and move and work on earth. It also provided the means for Christ to be crucified for the accomplishing of God’s redemption (John 18:31-32), the occasion for the pouring out of the Spirit as the processed and consummated Triune God upon all flesh to produce the church as the organic Body of Christ (Acts 2), and the facilities for the spreading of the gospel to the entire inhabited earth (Matt. 28:19; Acts 1:8).

　　The Bible is a record of two histories: the history of man, the human history, and the history of God, the divine history. The former is like an outward shell, and the latter, like the kernel within the shell. In the Minor Prophets the human history is clearly defined and is signified by the four kinds of locusts mentioned in Joel 1:4. The divine history within the human history is also revealed in considerable detail. The divine history, as the divine mystery of the Triune God in humanity, began in eternity past with the eternal God and His eternal economy (Micah 5:2c; 1 Tim. 1:4; Eph. 1:4-5, 9-11). It continues with Christ’s incarnation (Micah 5:2a); His death, burial, and resurrection for the spreading of God’s redemption and salvation to all the nations on earth (Jonah 1:17; 2:10); His pouring out of the consummated Spirit to produce the church as the corporate expression of the Triune God (Joel 2:28-32); His second coming as the Desire of nations (Hag. 2:7a) and as the Sun of righteousness (Mal. 4:2a); His coming with His overcomers as His army to defeat Antichrist and his army (Joel 3:1-15); and His reigning in Zion in the thousand-year kingdom (3:16-21; Micah 4:7). Eventually, the kingdom will consummate in the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and the new earth for eternity. The New Jerusalem will be the ultimate, the consummate, step of God’s history. (Joel 1:4, footnote 1)

　　We need to have a clear view of these two histories—the physical human history and the mysterious divine history—and I hope that we all will have such a view. The history of man, the history of the world, is outward. The divine history, the history of God in and with humanity, is inward. This history is a matter of the divine mystery of the Triune God in humanity. (Life-study of Joel, pp. 35-36)

　　Further Reading: Life-study Joel, msgs. 4-5

«　WEEK 3　DAY 2　»

　　Micah 5:2 (But you, O Bethlehem, …of Judah, from you there will come forth to Me He who is to be Ruler in Israel; and His goings forth are from ancient times, from the days of eternity.)

　　2 Thes. 2:8 And then the lawless one will be revealed (whom the Lord Jesus will slay by the breath of His mouth and bring to nothing by the manifestation of His coming).

　　Before His incarnation God moved only with men and among men in the Old Testament…. But that was not God’s direct move to carry out His eternal economy for Christ and the church. God’s move with men and among men was just the indirect move in His old creation for the preparation of His direct move in His new creation for His eternal economy. This is why the church is not mentioned in the Old Testament. The church was a hidden mystery….God’s economy in the New Testament is absolutely unique. In the Old Testament you cannot see God’s move for His eternal economy directly. God did a lot indirectly to prepare for the day when He could come to do the direct work….The Old Testament [was] a preparation for God’s move in man in the New Testament. (CWWL, 1993, vol. 1, “The Move of God in Man,” pp. 399-401)

　　God’s history, the divine history, is recorded in the Bible. God’s history is of two portions—the history of God with man, found in the Old Testament, and the history of God in man, found in the New Testament…. In the New Testament God’s history is a history in man, for this history involves God’s being one with man. Therefore, the history of God in the New Testament is a divine history in humanity.

　　The incarnation [of Jesus] was an unprecedented event. Prior to the incarnation, there was not such a person, a person who is both God and man. But now, as a result of the incarnation, there is a wonderful person who is the mingling of God with man.

　　At the end of His life and ministry on earth, the Lord Jesus went willingly to the cross. His crucifixion was a vicarious death, an all-inclusive death which terminated the old creation and solved all problems. His death ushered Him into resurrection. On the one hand, in His resurrection He was begotten to be the firstborn Son of God (Acts 13:33; Rom. 1:4; 8:29). On the other hand, in and through His resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b).

　　Furthermore, through Christ’s resurrection millions were begotten, regenerated, by God (1 Pet. 1:3) to be sons of God and to be members of the Body of Christ, the church. The Christ who was incarnated, crucified, and resurrected, the Christ who ascended to the heavens and then descended as the Spirit, has produced the church as the corporate expression of the Triune God. The church today is the enlargement of the manifestation of Christ. Thus, the church also is part of the divine history, the intrinsic history of the divine mystery within the outward, human history. This part of God’s history has lasted for more than nineteen hundred years, and it is still going on.

　　At the end of this part of the divine history, Christ will come back, descending with His overcomers as His army (Joel 3:11) to defeat Antichrist and his army. There will be the meeting of two figures—Antichrist, a figure in the outward, human history, and Christ with His overcomers, the Figure in the intrinsic, divine history. The Figure in the divine history will defeat the figure in the human history and then cast him into the lake of fire (Rev. 19:20). Following this, the thousand-year kingdom will come. Eventually, this kingdom will consummate in the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth. The New Jerusalem will be the ultimate, the consummate, step of God’s history. (Life-study of Joel, pp. 38-39, 34-35)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1993, vol. 1, “The Move of God in Man,” ch. 1; Life- study of Joel, msgs. 6-7

«　WEEK 3　DAY 3　»

　　Rom. 12:1-2 …Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be fashioned according to this age…

　　1 Cor. 1:2 To the church of God which is in Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, the called saints, with all those who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place…

　　We all were born in the human history, but we have been reborn, regenerated, in the divine history. Now we need to ask ourselves this question: Are we living in the divine history, or are we living merely in the human history? If our living is in the world, we are living in the human history. But if we are living in the church, we are living in the divine history. In the church life God’s history is our history. Now two parties—God and we—have one history, the divine history. This is the church life.

　　With the divine history there is the new creation—the new man with a new heart, a new spirit, a new life, a new nature, a new history, and a new consummation. We praise the Lord that we are in the divine history, experiencing and enjoying the mysterious, divine things. (Life-study of Joel, p. 36)

　　We are living in an age, the continuation of the preceding ages, in which our God is still moving. He is working among the Jews and by the nations to perform His economy in the building up of the organism of the Body of Christ.

　　We need to see that today we, the believers in Christ, are in the Body of Christ. We all are members of the Body of Christ, which is the organism of the Triune God. As members of the Body, we should aspire to be overcomers, the mighty ones (Joel 3:11) who will return with Christ to deal with Antichrist at the battle of Armageddon and who will be His co-kings in the millennium.

　　Furthermore, we should be clear concerning our goal as members of the Body. Our goal is to enlarge the manifestation of Christ intrinsically….We desire to see the intrinsic enlargement of the manifestation of Christ in the Spirit of the processed Triune God and by the life of our Father, the eternal, almighty divine Being.

　　Christ is now on the throne in the heavens, waiting for us to be perfected and matured. Eventually the time will be ripe for Him to come back to deal with the nations, to save the remnant of Israel, and to complete God’s economy with us. Then the age of restoration will be ushered in. That age will consummate in the New Jerusalem as the ultimate consummation of God’s expression in Christ. (Life- study of Joel, pp. 26-27)

　　God’s blessing us in eternity past with the spiritual blessings in the heavenlies was according to the good pleasure of His will (Eph. 1:5b) to the praise of the glory of His grace, with which He graced us in Christ, His Beloved (v. 6).

　　This is God’s history in eternity past and this involves us. In eternity past God made an economy to produce the church for His manifestation and to head up all things, including us, in Christ. He also held a council to determine that the second of the Divine Trinity should come to die for us to carry out His economy. Then in eternity past He chose us to have His nature and to have His divine life so that we could be holy as He is and be His sons as His children to express Him. This is God’s history in eternity past, and this history is our history. The Christian life began from God’s choosing us and predestinating us in eternity past before the foundation of the world.

　　We need to know God in such a way from a deeper angle. Our God has a marvelous history, which includes us. Actually, whatever He has done, whatever He is doing, and whatever He will do in His history are all for our Christian life. His history builds up our Christian life. (CWWL, 1991-1992, vol. 4, “The History of God in His Union with Man,” p. 26)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1991-1992, vol. 4, “The History of God in His Union with Man,” ch. 1

«　WEEK 3　DAY 4　»

　　Eph. 3:16-19 That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man, that Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith, that you…may be full of strength to apprehend with all the saints…the breadth and length and height and depth…, that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God.

　　If we would know the divine history that takes place within the human history, we first need to realize that the Triune God is eternal. For God to be eternal means that with Him there is no beginning. Within Himself, this eternal One made an economy. According to His economy, God wants to work Himself into man to be one with man, to be man’s life, life supply, and everything, and to have man as His expression. God’s intention in His economy is thus to have a corporate entity, composed of God and man, to be His expression for eternity. This divine history began with the eternal God and His economy. (Life-study of Joel, p. 34)

　　The history of God’s people on earth is actually the history of the working God energizing among His chosen people in the Old Testament and even the history of the operating God energizing in His redeemed people and having them energize themselves together with Him for the accomplishment of His eternal economy concerning Christ and His increase, which will consummate in the New Jerusalem.

　　I hope that…we all will see and realize that our living, our daily walk, our schooling, our job, and our business must be a part of God’s history in His marvelous and excellent move on the earth today. To be a normal Christian, to be today’s overcomers, to answer the Lord’s present calling, and to meet the Lord's present need in His recovery, it is altogether not sufficient simply to be a so-called good brother or good sister, attending the church meetings regularly, behaving rightly, and living a life which is somewhat perfect in the eyes of men. We need to be one with God in His history, moving and energizing in His loving overcomers; that is, we need to be one with God in life, in living, and in our entire doing today on this earth! We need to write God’s today’s history! We need to march on as one with the energizing God! In Him! With Him! By Him! And for Him! We need to be vital, living, and active! We need to be today’s Joshuas and Calebs to take possession of the God-promised land for Christ that we may become His possession. We need to be today’s Ruths to turn to God’s economy, to enter into the land of Immanuel, and to marry ourselves to Christ that we may bring forth Christ to meet the need of men today. (Life-study of Joshua, pp. 2-3)

　　God’s economy is to make Christ everything, to make Christ the centrality and the universality, for the producing of God’s increase, God’s enlargement, which is the church. The increase, the enlargement, of God is the fullness of God for His expression. The consummation of this fullness will be the New Jerusalem. If we consider the New Jerusalem as it is described in Revelation 21 and 22, we will see that the New Jerusalem is God’s eternal increase with Christ as the center and the circumference.

　　We may say that in eternity past God was a “bachelor,” meaning that He was alone without anyone to match Him. In eternity future, however, God will no longer be a bachelor but will have the New Jerusalem as His wife (Rev. 21:9-10). This wife will also be the tabernacle (Rev. 21:3). This wife, this tabernacle, is the increase of God. Thus, the New Jerusalem, the consummation of God’s selected people, is the enlargement of God. Christ is the centrality and universality of this enlargement. This is God’s economy. (Life-study of Jeremiah, pp. 12-13)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Joshua, msg. 1; Life-study of Jeremiah, msg. 2

«　WEEK 3　DAY 5　»

　　Rom. 8:28-30 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. Because those whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son;…these He also glorified.

　　[The Bible] conveys a heavenly vision, a vision that should direct our steps, control our living, and bring us into God’s consummation. This vision is able to keep us in God’s economy so that we may live the church life with the goal of reaching the millennium and the New Jerusalem.

　　Such a vision from God will always direct our steps and control our living. This was true even in the Old Testament, where we are told that without vision the people will perish (Prov. 29:18a). Under the heavenly vision we are directed toward God’s destination, and our life is controlled according to God’s economy. Because we have seen [this vision], we can press on in spite of suffering, defamation, and all kinds of trouble.

　　This vision has become the principle that directs our steps and that governs our way….We take this way because we have been caught by the vision of God’s economy. Because we have seen this vision, throughout the years heavenly light has been flooding into the Lord's recovery. The reason for this light is that we are under this vision. Whenever we come to the Word of God, the light shines because we are in this directing, controlling, governing vision. (Life-study of Mark, pp. 452-453)

　　We in the Lord’s recovery must have a clear vision of God’s economy. Then we need to be governed, controlled, and directed by this vision. Because I have seen this vision and am directed by it, I have never changed my tone throughout the years. I know what I have seen, I know what I am teaching, and I know what I am ministering to the Lord’s people. If we have the vision of God’s economy, we shall automatically have only one choice, preference, taste, and ministry. We shall care only for the all-inclusive and all-extensive Christ and for the genuine and proper church life. Today we in the Lord’s recovery must be strong and unshakable in the vision of God’s economy, God’s eternal will. Because Paul had seen this vision and was faithful to it, he could be very strong. We all need to be strong and steadfast in this way. (Life-study of 1 Corinthians, p. 138)

　　Through our coordination and cooperation, God will consummate His eternal intention to make Christ preeminent through the rule of the heavens. Apparently, the destiny of Israel is in the hands of the human government, the power of the nations. Actually, the destiny of Israel is in the economy of the God who has chosen them and who rules over all the human government with the heavenly authority. The human government began with Babylon, represented by Nebuchadnezzar, and will end also with Babylon, represented by Antichrist.

　　Christ is the centrality and universality of God’s move in the divine economy. Christ was crucified to terminate the old creation and germinate through His resurrection the new creation. He is the excellent and precious One in the appreciation and expectation of God’s chosen people. He will receive the eternal kingdom from God and appear to end and smash all the human government from its toes to its head and become the enlarged kingdom of God throughout the whole earth.

　　In His divine economy God will perfect Israel to be His priests, and He will prepare His created and restored (not regenerated) nations to be His people. In addition to this result of the manifested part of His economy, in the hidden part of His divine economy God will complete the building up of the church as the Body of Christ to be God’s royal family to rule as kings in the new heaven and new earth. Eventually, in eternity in His eternal kingdom God will have His kings, His priests, and His people forever. (Life-study of Daniel, pp. 78, 113- 114)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Daniel, msgs. 9, 12-13, 17

«　WEEK 3　DAY 6　»

　　Rom. 12:4-5 For just as in one body we have many members, and all the members do not have the same function, so we who are many are one Body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

　　Rev. 19:7 Let us rejoice and exult, and let us give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.

　　God’s ultimate move is to have Christ as the mystery of God enter into us as our life. Then we become His living members and together form His Body, which is the very fullness of the One who fills all in all. We do not understand this in an adequate way, but this is what is in the Bible. This is Paul’s completing ministry, telling us that Christ is God’s mystery and Christ has become our life; that we are the church, which is Christ’s mystery (Eph. 3:4-6); that the church is the Body.

　　Those who live Christ, who live in the spirit, are the actual Body of Christ corporately. This Body is one (4:4). They are also the new man in actuality, a new creation with a new living to express the Triune God. (CWWL, 1981, vol. 1, “The World Situation and God’s Move,” pp. 327-328, 354)

　　We must realize our tremendous responsibility…. First, we must preach the gospel properly, adequately, and genuinely. Second, we must teach people the Bible, bringing them to the full knowledge of the truth. We must be a people who really respect and know God’s divine Word. Third, we must drop all kinds of religion and practices and come together according to the Bible. We have to be genuine, biblical, bona fide, regenerated, saved, blood-washed Christians coming together to meet in the name of the Lord Jesus according to the Bible, with no organization. However, although all these help, they still cannot satisfy God’s desire, … [which is] for us to live Christ, to have Christ as our living, to have Christ as the reality, the real contents of the church life, making every local church a golden lampstand. The Body life will reach the reality of Romans 12, and this will be the spontaneous preparation of the bride for His coming back. From the very beginning, even from eternity, this is what the Lord has desired. This is the goal of the Lord’s recovery.

　　God…is sovereignly ruling over the world situation. He has… supplied us so that we may go out with His Word, spreading His ultimate move, that His eternal intention may be carried out. The Lord’s recovery is not just a common piece of Christian work. Surely the Lord has shown us something of His ultimate move on this earth. You must bring what you have heard to the Lord and pray. You must fellowship with your wife or husband and with others who are close to you again and again. Just to make a living…is too low. Be burdened with God’s ultimate move. Then you will see God’s oneness with you, and there will be no problem with your living.

　　The time is short; the end is close. If you know world history and the trend of history, you will realize that it is unlikely God would prepare another country to be a power in this world for Him to take yet another step. I believe that America is the last power God will use for His final move. This fourth step, His final move, is the carrying out of His eternal intention to have a number of His seekers, His lovers, live Christ and be the lampstand in their locality, that He may prepare His bride.

　　All that is needed is our faithfulness. We all have to be faithful; we all must seek after Him. We must treasure this time in which we live. We must treasure the vision of the recovery, and we must treasure our responsibility. Just forget about everything else. Rise up and stand for the Lord’s recovery. This is the ultimate time for God to accomplish His purpose to bring the Lord back. (CWWL, 1981, vol. 1, “The World Situation and God’s Move,” pp. 308-309, 320-321, 335)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1981, vol. 1, “The World Situation and God’s Move,” chs. 3-7