Scripture Reading: Ezra 7:6, 11-12, 21; Neh. 8:1-13; 12:26
Ⅰ
In the Lord's recovery today, we need Ezras to do a purifying work and to constitute God's people by educating them with the divine truths so that they may be God's testimony, His corporate expression, on earth—Neh. 8:1-8, 13; 2 Tim. 2:2, 15; 1 Tim. 3:15:
A
Ezra was a priest and also a scribe, one who was skilled in the law of God; as such a person, Ezra had the capacity to meet the need—Ezra 7:6, 11-12, 21:
１
A priest is one who is mingled with the Lord and saturated with the Lord; Ezra was this kind of person—8:21-23.
２
Ezra was a man who trusted in God, who was one with God, who was skilled in the Word of God, and who knew God's heart, God's desire, and God's economy—7:27-28; 10:1.
３
Ezra was one with the Lord by contacting Him continually; thus, he was not a letter-scribe but a priestly scribe—Neh. 8:1-2, 8-9, 11-12; 12:26.
B
Ezra spoke nothing new; what he spoke had been spoken already by Moses— Ezra 7:6; Neh. 8:14.
C
The priests and the Levites were gathered to Ezra the scribe in order to gain insight into the words of the law; in Nehemiah 8:13 insight refers to apprehending the intrinsic significance.
Ⅱ
In the Lord's recovery we need Ezras, priestly teachers who contact God, who are saturated with God, who are one with God and filled with God, and who are skillful in the Word of God; this is the kind of person who is qualified to be a teacher in the Lord's recovery—Matt. 13:52; 2 Cor. 3:5-6; 1 Tim. 2:7; 2 Tim. 1:11:
A
In His ministry the Lord Jesus "went around the villages in a circuit, teaching"—Mark 6:6:
１
Man's fall into sin broke his fellowship with God, making all men ignorant of the knowledge of God, with such ignorance issuing in darkness and death.
２
The Lord as the light of the world came as a great light to shine on the people who were sitting in the shadow of death—John 8:12; Matt. 4:12-16.
３
The Lord's teaching released the word of light that those in darkness and death might receive the light of life—John 1:4.
４
The Lord Jesus, in His service to fallen men, carried out such teaching to bring people out of the satanic darkness into the divine light—cf. Acts 26:18.
B
Teaching is actually nothing less than a divine revelation; thus, teaching equals revelation, which is the opening of the veil—1 Tim. 2:7; Eph. 3:9:
１
For the Bible to be profitable for teaching means that it is profitable for unveiling, for rolling away the veil—2 Tim. 3:16.
２
To teach is to roll away the veil; as we are teaching others, we should be taking away the veil so that they may see something of the Triune God.
３
When we speak something in the church meeting, our speaking should be the rolling away of the veil; this means that our teaching should present a revelation—1 Tim. 4:6, 11, 16.
Ⅲ
The greatest need we must meet is to bring the saints in the Lord's recovery into the truth to carry the recovery on—1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Tim. 2:2, 15:
A
The Lord's recovery is the recovery of the light of the truth—John 8:12, 32:
１
The Lord's recovery is the recovery of all the truths in the Bible that were lost—2 Pet. 1:12.
２
The Lord's recovery has the highest truths; in the recovery the light of the truth is up to date.
３
The truth in the recovery is the consummation of the truth of the past twenty centuries—2 Tim. 2:2.
B
The reason that Christianity is degraded is that it has lost the truth and is short of life; both the truth and the life are Christ Himself—John 14:6:
１
The truth is an outward definition and explanation, and life is the inward and intrinsic element—Col. 1:5; 3:4.
２
Christ is in us as our life, but the experience of life needs an explanation; this explanation is the truth.
３
In order to experience Christ as our life, we must know the truth; if we do not know the truth, we will have no way to enjoy Christ as our life.
４
By life and truth Paul encouraged Timothy and inoculated him against the decline of the church—2 Tim. 1:1, 10; 2:15, 25.
C
To be constituted with the truth is to have the truth wrought into us to become our constituent, our intrinsic being, our organic constitution—2 John 2:
１
The intrinsic element of the divine revelation must be wrought into and constituted into our being—Col. 3:16.
２
Once the truth gets into us through our understanding, it remains in our memory, and then we retain the truth in our memory, causing us to have an accumulation of the truth—1 Pet. 1:13; 2 Pet. 1:15; 3:1.
３
After the truth gets into our memory, it becomes a constant and long-term nourishment; then we have an accumulation of the truth, and we are continually under the constant nourishment—Col. 3:16, 4; 1 Tim. 4:6.
Ⅳ
We all need to be helped through the Life-studies and the Recovery Version with the footnotes to see the intrinsic significance of the word of the Bible—Neh. 8:8, 13.