THE CHURCH BEING FOR THE KINGDOM
The Lord’s eternal purpose is to have a kingdom. However, His enemy, Satan, knows this. Satan does everything he can to damage whatever is for the kingdom. The church is not for the church, but for the kingdom. Therefore, Satan does his best to destroy and ruin and corrupt the church. First, he brings confusion into the church by putting in the tares. Then he changes the nature of the church by causing it to become a great tree, being mixed with the world. Furthermore, he hides much leaven in the church life to corrupt it. Because of this, the Lord Jesus comes in to call out the overcomers. The overcomers are simply those who overcome the confusion of the tares, the worldliness of the great tree, and all the corruption of the leaven. They overcome everything in order to have a proper church life. The recovery of the church life today is for the kingdom. Satan knows that God’s way to have the kingdom is through the church, so he does his best to damage the church. We must overcome all the damage of Satan.
THE LORD’S WISDOM
Here we see the Lord’s wisdom. The Lord knows that some of His dear children who have really been saved will not be faithful to Him and will not cooperate with Him. Therefore, He holds forth a section of His kingdom as a kind of a reward and prize to encourage them to seek Him in a desperate way. He urges them to seek the kingdom. Those who are faithful and diligent will participate in the manifestation of the kingdom, but those who are not faithful and not cooperative will lose something and will suffer some punishment. The Lord will make the heavenly part of the millennium a prize and reward to all His faithful and overcoming ones. The hope of the reward to all the faithful ones is a strong encouragement to seek the kingdom. Today, we may have salvation, but we do not yet have the prize and the reward. Whether we will receive a reward is up to us. May the Lord have mercy upon all of us that we would seek the kingdom in a desperate way!
(The Kingdom, Chapter 50, by Witness Lee)
