The Testimony of Miss Fischbacher — China

Narrator: You’re listening to a podcast by Lance Lambert Ministries. For more information on this ministry, visit www.lancelambert.org and follow us on social media to receive all of our updates. We have a new release coming next month! We will be releasing the audiobook for Lance’s book Let the House of God Be Built: The Testimony of Halford House in late April. In the meantime, we will be focusing this next series of podcasts on testimonies from our brothers and sisters in the Lord. These are testimonies of salvation and testimonies of what the Lord has been doing in the lives of his people. The majority of these messages were given at Halford House in Richmond, England. In this episode, we will hear the testimony of Miss Elizabeth Fischbacher, given at Halford House. Miss Fischbacher was a servant of the Lord in China and a worker in the China Inland Mission. Let’s listen. Miss Fischbacher: Our brother spoke a moment ago, he said how glad he was to have two of his sisters, two of your sisters here in the midst. And I counted the "verys". He said, very, very, very glad. Three of them. Well, your two sisters are not less glad. We are very, very, very, very glad. I was just thinking as I listened that it's really rather amazing. But it should be so because Richmond is almost an unknown place to us, and you are almost an unknown people to us. There's scarcely one name known to us apart from our brother who is leading, I doubt if one name is really known to us. No letters whatsoever have passed from our end to this end during the two and a half years at least, since we were here. And we were only once here one evening when Mr. Shaw kindly brought us along to attend an evening meeting. It's not very much contact. And yet why? Why should you be very, very, very glad to have us? And why should we be very, very, very, very glad to be here? That's an amazing thing. Well, we've read just now, we've found just now of the Church, the body of Christ. It's a reality. We're in a mighty reality. A mysterious reality it is. But, oh, how real. We had one personal letter, I think, during the more than two years that we were away. Margaret Tricky wrote us one. I don't think any letter came apart from that one. So no strain was made this end to keep up contact, and none was made our end. Someone must have kept it up. But another amazing thing, and yet not at all amazing, happened when we arrived home. Miss Jones and I both had a real desire to come over to Richmond. We didn't express it to anybody, but we did, on our knees, express it to the Lord. But we had no idea that there was the same registration within, a desire for contact, for physical contact, and for some more positive expression fellowship. Well, we're very very very very glad to be here, and we count it a privilege. We believe it is in the Lord's purpose, and we are trusting, because everything in the body of Christ is mutual, that there will be real blessing on both sides, that we shall be in the hands of the Lord, a means of blessing. It would be a dishonor to our Head to expect anything less than that. But we expect also to receive a blessing, and not just a little blessing while we're here. Those few words by way of introduction. I have no thought at all this evening of presenting in any consecutive way a record of the work. In fact, there is no burden on our hearts to give a record of the work, even a disjointed sort of record. We're not two missionaries home on furlough doing deputation work. That's far from our thoughts. We haven't a single meeting on the board, and we're not expecting any. We have no thought of telling of the work. It's very remote from our thought. We have no thought of telling of our own work or anyone else's work. But because the Lord has put on all our hearts here something of burden regarding the Lord's interests in the Far East. We feel that tonight the Lord would allow some little impression of what he is doing to be conveyed here. And as we waited before the Lord, it was borne in upon us that perhaps the Lord would just have a little bit of an impression that has been made upon our lives, have that expressed and that little impression left. We trust that it will make its own impact. As we waited before the Lord, a few verses of Scripture were borne in upon my heart. I have no thought of expounding Scripture. I wasn't asked to do it, and I don't want to. But I believe that the Lord would have these two scriptures that we shall read be basic to anything we may say. I Peter 1:23. Having been begotten again. I trust that is true of us all here. What a tremendous thing. Begotten again. Oh, it's coming home to us more and more. That God has given us nothing short of his very own life. That makes everything possible. Then onto chapter two, verse three. Ye also as living stones are built up a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. So being begotten again has something in view. Here it is in verse five. Not just deliverance from sin as we find it set forth in verse one. Something very positive, something very glorious. Something glorious beyond anything you and I had dared to dream of when we first came to the Lord Jesus. Ye also as living stones to be a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. It comes home to me again and again. Day after day, the tremendous privilege that is ours, that we, simply because we are begotten again, simply because we are possessed of the very life of God in Christ, ministered by the Spirit, we are in a position to offer something to God that God wouldn't have if he hadn't you and me. It's an amazing thing. If God had not secured you and me, if he had not been able to find or to cleave a way into our beings to implant there eternal life, his very own life, then there's something he would crave and not have. He's done it for this purpose that we, in turn, might be able to offer up something to him. And it says here, spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Well, it's a certain kind of sacrifice he wants, a certain kind of offering, the kind that will really be acceptable to him, that will really satisfy his heart. He's got something quite specific in his heart and mind. That's what he's after and that's what he's created us for. That's the purpose for which he has given us his very own life, his life that can enable us to minister in a way that will perfectly correspond to his own nature and fully satisfy his own heart desire. But having noted that much that we are to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God. There is another word which we'll not turn to, but perhaps suggests itself to you immediately that God wants us to present our bodies a living sacrifice. Holy. Acceptable. Acceptable. But of late, the Lord has been emphasizing to me, to us, I should say, because when I speak, I'm not just speaking as an individual. Ms. Jones is sitting in the back there. But I think anything I utter I shall be uttering on behalf of both of us. He has been very much emphasizing something to us both for a while. And we'll find the thought in Leviticus 1. 1:2 speak unto the children of Israel and say unto them when any man of you offer an oblation unto the Lord, ye shall offer your oblation so on, so on, so on, so on. Verse 3, the latter part at the door of the tent of meeting that he may be accepted before the Lord. When any man of you offereth, he shall offer it at the door of the tent of meeting that he may be accepted before the Lord. So there is a certain kind of sacrifice which alone is wholly acceptable to God. It's called a spiritual sacrifice. And as we see from that little passage in Peter, there's a history preceding the offering of any truly spiritual sacrifice. There must be, first of all, a breaking in of God into a human life to implant in that life a spiritual life, and then much else. But it can be summed up in that verse five of the second chapter of Peter being built together, constituted by God's own mighty working. A spiritual priesthood, then, can begin a spiritual offering, offerings acceptable to God. It's a type of offering, a kind of offering. But here it says that if any of us, if any man of you offer it unto the Lord, if any of us have a heart to offer the kind of offering to God that his heart craves, well, then there's a specific place to which we must bring that up. All that has been borne in upon us, Ms. Jones and I have been under the hand of the Lord for years to get that borne in upon us, a place a specific place, a God chosen place for the God appointed offering. He shall offer it at the door of the tent of meeting that he may be accepted before the Lord. Spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God, and here offered in God's own appointed place that he may be that it may be accepted before the Lord. Shall we turn to another passage? Deuteronomy twelve, verse one. These are the statutes and the judgement which ye shall observe to do in the land which the Lord, the God of thy fathers, hath given thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth. Ye shall surely destroy all the places wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains and upon the hills and under every green tree. Verse five. But unto the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes, to put his name there, even unto his habitation shall ye seek, and thither thou shalt come; and thither ye shall bring your burnt-offerings, and your sacrifices, and your tithes, and the heave-offering of your hand, and your vows, and your freewill-offerings, and the firstlings of your herd and of your flock: Verse ten. But when ye go over Jordan, and dwell in the land which the Lord your God causeth you to inherit, and he giveth you rest from all your enemies round about, so that ye dwell in safety; then it shall come to pass that to the place which the Lord your God shall choose, to cause his name to dwell there, thither shall ye bring all that I command you: your burnt-offerings, and your sacrifices, your tithes, and the heave-offering of your hand, and all your choice vows which ye vow unto the Lord. Verse 13. Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt-offerings in every place that thou seest; but in the place which the Lord shall choose in one of thy tribes, there thou shalt offer thy burnt-offerings, and there thou shalt do all that I command thee. Tremendous emphasis. When I was a little girl of seven years of age, my father one day called me, and my eldest brother, who is a year older than I, some of you may have met him, called us to himself, and he had two red cash books in front of him. It was a very important day in our history. He said, from today on I'm going to give you a penny a week, vast sum of money, and you can do exactly as you like with it. Now, there were pennies that were given us for collections and there were all sorts of things given us at different times, but this was our very own and we could do exactly as we liked with it. And he told us of various possibilities. And he gave us some very helpful instruction regarding saving and spending and so on. We're very indebted to him. And he presented us with a collection box, a missionary box. He said, you can also put some of your money in there. Well, his example went a lot further than his instruction, though his instruction was good. He gave and gave lavishly, gave on a large scale, gave him very many directions, and he gave very sacrificially, and we owe him a great debt for that. We learned and learned very early. At the age of seven, I began to learn to give and to give sacrificially. I don't think either of us spent many pennies, scarcely any ever, on sweets. And quite a few halfpennies, perhaps an odd penny went into the missionary box. But that began a little story of giving. We are deeply indebted to my father for teaching us to give and to give sacrificially not just money. He'd come to us on a Sunday or on some occasion when we were having special treats, some very good things to eat and he would say to the whole family, now, who's going to give up such and such today? We'll go and visit such and such a person and we'll take these things. Well, I want to pass this over this. But it's just introductory to what followed later. We learned to give and we learned to give in many directions. We learned to give to other lands. And my father's wide horizon meant that his free sacrificial giving meant that not only did much go out in the direction of many lands but people from other lands came into our home and magazines came in, so on. Letters came in. It was very enlarging. We were naturally interested in missions. And I personally was exercised from my very early days almost from the day of my new birth at 14 about other lands and particularly about China. But I have no thought of dwelling on that. But I feel tonight that the Lord would have me leave with you, if possible, a little impression of what he is doing in the Far East through impressions made upon my own life. Because I have not just in an objective way seen what God is doing. I have met what God is doing. And something from the Church of the Living God in different parts of the Far East has entered into my very makeup. But when I went out to China believing the Lord called me, having learned to make many offerings first my halfpennies at seven in this little missionary box and then gradually bigger offerings as resources increased. And offerings not just of money but of various other kinds. I learned to make offerings, but I made them here and there and everywhere. All kinds of offerings offered in all kinds of places, offered in all kinds of ways. I hadn't the remotest idea that there was a specific place to which we should bring all our offerings. Nor had I any idea that there was a specific kind of offering which alone was utterly acceptable to God. I offered time, I offered strength, I offered health, I offered education. I offered all that was dear to me as far as I knew. Oh, I sacrificed. Sacrificed beyond my own ability. Sacrificed to a point that there was a great deal of repression in my life and nature sought vengeance later on. But to make a long story short, I offered to the China Inland Mission, I brought my offering to that door. I knew something of the blessings of the Lord in those days and beyond, I was sent into the interior. And there, offerings of various kinds continued, offered at various places in various ways. But I had never thought a thought about the door of the tent of meeting. I had never thought of the tent of meeting. I had never seen the church of the Living God. I hadn't seen it objectively. I hadn't. Much less had I met it subjectively. I hadn't even got a mental apprehension of it, much less a spiritual revelation. It didn't really enter into my thoughts. I wanted to belong to God. I wanted to offer myself to God. And I offered and offered and offered. Well, I hadn't been up very long when my health broke down and I was sent home and after about three years went out again and I think it was shortly after I returned the second period in China I can't clearly recall. I was out one day, traveling and because of difficulties on the road I was held up in a wayside inn. I wasn't feeling particularly well. In fact, I was feeling rather unwell that day and it was very hot and it was a miserable kind of an inn. And I lay down on the on the brick platform there feeling a bit sorry for myself. I had a Chinese companion and this Chinese companion was sitting on the brick platform beside me reading a magazine while I lay there. And after a bit she said to me would you like me to read something to you? I said yes, thank you. And she began to read. And before very long I'd forgotten all about my aches and pains and my misery. And I was sitting bolt upright, looking over her shoulder. She was reading an article by Watchman Nee. Now, that was my first registration of something other than I had known from my childhood. I was so interested that I begged the magazine and I read and reread that article. I thought, Well, I've never met anything like this. I was meeting a stream of life. Well, from that time on I occasionally read an article of his in Chinese in a Chinese magazine and occasionally I heard an odd remark about the work that he was engaged in or his associates. But there was a real desire in my heart that one day I would come into touch with this brother and with those associated with him. Perhaps I would attend a conference sometime in Shanghai. But Shanghai was a very, very far, distant call and I was a member of the China Inland Mission in the interior of China, gradually becoming a sort of revivalist whose services were wanted over the wide area. And I used to go around conducting conferences at various so called churches. I never thought at all of the question of church or churches until on a certain occasion, I was invited to help with some student work in Cheeloo University Shandong province. When I got there, I found myself in a very big city. And after spending some time amongst the students there, which was not China Inland Mission province at all, but the mission had allowed me to extend my efforts beyond their area. After I had done a bit of work amongst these students, and I was tremendously impressed by these students, I met something that I had not met anywhere else. I called it the cross. I felt there was an atmosphere about them that I hadn't made elsewhere. And I found that these had been influenced by workers who had come from Shanghai and who were associates of brother Nee. There was just a feeling, something of a feel about them. It made me want more than ever to touch the center of things. Well, after having a time with those students, I was invited by one of the denominations in this part of China, in this city to conduct a series of revival meetings or something of sort. And I was invited by the Presbyterians, and I was invited by the Baptists, and I was invited by several different sections in this great city. And for the first time, something registered. What's all this? Different groups in the one city, and they're all asking me to take meetings. What are these different groups doing? And the thought of churches and church began to exercise my heart. There was something just not right here. In the interior, there was over a large area only China Inland Mission work, so that any converts just automatically joined the local church. And so the thought of divisions, denominations, it never occurred to me. But when I reached this big city, the thing forcibly impressed itself upon me, and I thought, there must be a solution to this problem. Well, as I mentioned, these young students, a group of them had been influenced by brother Nee or his associates. And there was a stamp about them that was somehow different from that which I met in the denominations. And it filled me with a real desire to touch some of the leaders. In 1935, I found myself in the summertime at a summer resort, and as I was staying with a friend, the guest of a friend, another guest arrived on the scene, Watchman Nee. There was a story of the sovereign ordering of God in that meeting which wasn't even remotely planned by me, I hadn't dreamed up. But from the first moment I knew that I was touching a man of God and strangely enough, the first moment I saw him, I thought I've met you before. You've got the same feel about you that those students have. They had at least a little bit of that same atmosphere around them. Well, just before this meeting, I had heard quite a bit about Watchman Nee and his associates and work. I'd heard from different people, and from almost all I heard, it was as though he and those associated with him were all people to be shunned. In fact, I heard him and his associates spoken of in such a way by Christians and Christian workers that one might have thought they had the pest. I remember saying to myself, well, if that's the pest, let me get it, and let me get it badly. Well, I was still a missionary in the China Inland Mission and before long I found myself dissociating, cutting my connections with the China Inland Mission and moving out. I didn't know where. I believe, and I've stated it, don't hesitate to state it openly, that I precipitated an issue. I moved out. But God knew my heart, and though he dealt with me drastically for moving, he, in his goodness, in his own time, led me in a spiritual way into real association with his servant and those associated within the local churches. That meeting in Cheefoo, though it was just a very ordinary meeting, we were just two guests in the same house and had a limited amount of touch. That marked the beginning of a deeper relationship with the Lord. It marked the beginning of real spiritual history. It marked the beginning of great bewilderment, marked the begin of distress, trials of various kinds such as I had never known. Well I felt I had come to a crisis and must leave China and get far enough away from everybody and everything to get perspective. And I was very much afraid of personalities and human influences. So I determined to thrash things out myself, get alone with God, alone with the word of God, alone, away from work, away from everything, everybody and get clear on church, sisters' position, and sisters' ministry, and my ministry and so on and so on. Well, that's my story, and I don't bring it in any further except in as far as it's related to what I know of the east. Well, I don't want to pursue this in detail, but again, through the east the Lord met me in a very definite and rather overwhelming way. I found myself brought face to face with the reality of spiritual authority or I could say, face to face with God, the demands of God, the throne of God, the headship of Christ, if you like. But I didn't meet it a way up in some remote realm where I had always sought to meet it up to that point and could always dodge it. I made it right down on the earth related to persons and places. In places and ways that it couldn't be dodged anymore and my life was turned topsy turvy. I had never until after that meeting in Cheefoo, in the Far East, I'd never touched Honor Oak but after that time when I came home, the Lord led me to Honor Oak but I'm not here to tell any Honor Oak history. In the year '39, towards the end of '39, I went back to China. I went back to China on that occasion to work under the authority of the local church in Shanghai. The tables had been turned. I had a period of quite a number of years in Shanghai and that included an internment period where Ms. Jones and I met and had fairly close touch for about two and a half years. And then we came home in '46 again. Again, it was a long period at home, about ten years, where all thought of the Far East was given up. Never dreamed of seeing the Far East again. Suddenly when we'd well settled in, in a little house of our own in Forest Hill, the Lord said now pack up, go out east again. By the way, in Cheefoo on the memorable meeting with some of the brothers and sisters of the local churches in China, we came into touch with brother Witness Lee, who will probably be coming over here shortly. He was the leader of that particular local company. One of the outstanding impressions of that time was I had met brothers and sisters. Of course, I had read the Bible, read about a brother or a sister, but a deep and permanent impression from that first meeting with one of the local companies in China was I've got brothers and sisters. I am a sister. It was a sweet and precious impression. There was nothing sentimental about it. It was just utterly real. And that has remained. When the Lord brought us out again, sent us out again east, Ms. Jones and me, just about two and a half years ago, there was one thing that was very, very clear to us, that we two were going out east as two sisters. We were going out to a local company, the Lord's children, but we were going out just as two sisters, to be two sisters, to brothers and sisters out there. And the Lord maintained us in that position. But to revert to the word which we have stressed here, God had made it very, very plain, but he wanted not a lot of indiscriminate offerings. Not even great offerings, not even many offerings. He wanted offerings of a particular type, and he wanted them all offered in a specific place, and yet cut across everything apart, is quite shattered, shattered all apart. And I'd like just to say this that when that thing broke in upon my spirit, I was covered with confusion. Ashamed. Ashamed to the deeps of my being of every offering I had ever offered before then. I had known what it was to confess sins, confess sins, to be very detailed and very definite. I's sought, as far as ever I knew how, to be very clear and have a clear cut with that whole realm, as far as I understood. But I had never in my past history known conviction as I knew that. Conviction of sin was nothing compared with conviction of offering offerings to God that were unacceptable to him. Offering offerings to him in places that he hadn't chosen. It was devastating to discover that these sacrifices I had made for God, many costly sacrifices that I had made for God, I wouldn't have made them for anybody else, that they weren't acceptable to him, weren't the kind he wanted. They weren't offered in the place he wanted. I was far more ashamed of my sacrificial offering than I'd ever been ashamed of any sin I'd ever committed. I saw the vast ground between the utmost any man can offer and that that God requires and that that God can receive from a human creature on earth who has been begotten again. Because through that begetting again, there is the possibility of offering sacrifices that are spiritual sacrifices and offering sacrifices in the right place. But without going into any details, I should like to say, I feel I want to stress this point that God in his great grace took me out east. I believe definitely, he took me out in the first place. He took me out. I went out as a missionary, oh an ordinary, a very ordinary missionary, but on a missionary pedestal doing missionary work. A teacher of the Chinese. I'd gone out to the heathen Chinese to instruct them about the things of Christ. But God in his great, great grace, brought me piece to piece with the church of the living God. Yes, with churches, local churches, but with churches that were not just New Testament, churches that were not just right in technique, or perhaps numerically strong, or very evangelical, but he brought me to the reality of that indefinable mystery called the church, brought me into touch with it on the earth in ordinary places amongst ordinary people. You try to define it. Where is it? What is it? You just know you've met, you've met the reality of God when you meet the reality of the Church of God. Well, that supremely, I should say is the thing that we have seen and in the grace of God, to some extent, enter into it in touching the east. We went out, Ms. Jones went out as a missionary, likewise, in another mission. And she would count it her greatest, the greatest grace of God that he shattered her missionary pedestal, as I would count it the greatest grace of God that he shattered mine and brought us to the door of the tent of meeting. And he enabled us because of that mighty begetting to offer something that was acceptable to him. And we were led in that offering by our eastern brothers. So our going out on this second occasion, was something of a very different or this last occasion I should say was something was very, very different order from our first going out. We might sacrifice before. We might give up this and give up that. We might give up very much. We might even give up everything we knew. But we weren't seeking to give up things. We weren't seeking to do things, but we were trusting that mighty, mighty life, that mysterious life in us, to offer in that reality, that mystery called the church of Christ, the church of the living God. We've been there to offer the kind of sacrifice, the kind of offering that God wanted. Just a few moments more, just for a few words regarding our time in Hong Kong? [Take as long as you'd like] We went out really not knowing where we were going, except that we were going far east and that we took our tickets originally to Singapore. And I think just because there is an emphasis in my spirit tonight, I'll tell you just a fraction about our being sidetracked, if you like. Sidetracked for the right place. We had been approached by Honor Oak as to whether we would consider going to Singapore, being very much out of the blue when we were most deeply exercised about going east. And we took our tickets to Singapore and then had a great big query, and a closed door. No way to Singapore. We couldn't get permits to enter. And yet when the permits were refused us, we had a strange sense of it being right that they were refused us, and it being right that that door was shut and yet a stronger sense than ever that we were to pursue. And an amazing thing happened. I got a strong registration in spirit that I had to apply, I was to write a letter to brother Witness Lee and tell him that we wished to come out east and we would be happy to come as far as Hong Kong and have fellowship with him if he responded. We got a letter back. And from the moment in spirit we had touched this door, if you like, everything opened wide and everything cleared. I believe, well we know, though we had been cut off for many years from the far east, we realized that in the ordering of God, headship was vested there. We had at an earlier period had to meet the question of headship as vested in the God appointed leader of the work, brother Nee. And we had had very little touch with brother Witness Lee. But the moment this registration came in spirit and we wrote addressing brother Lee, everything flowed. We knew were touching the river of life. We extended our tickets to Hong Kong went there, knew we were in the place of God, and from that moment, everything, we were in a way of release, a way of life. But the very first day we arrived in Hong Kong, and I should proceed that by saying Hong Kong hadn't so much as figured in our thinking up to that point, much less had we had any desire to live there or labour there, and we had heard very little about Hong Kong and what we had heard was not very satisfactory. So we had queries. Is there a real church there? And we knew a few people by name but could God commit himself in that full way to such people under such conditions? And so on so on, so on, so on. With these questions, we arrived. It was a Saturday and the elders were having their meeting that day. They called us in for a little while and before we left they said would you care to take some sisters' meeting? Well, neither of us had spoken Chinese for at least ten years and we had been in concentration camps two and a half years before that so Chinese was not very handy. And in any case, I had not, neither of us had been doing much talking of any kind, much less preaching for a very long time. And as we came out of the elders' room, I turned to Ms. Jones and said I haven't any burden. But the words had barely escaped my lips when I had a check in spirit. Who asked you? What I didn't reason, you see, I was thinking in terms of men. I was thinking in terms of well, these sisters, I haven't any burden to do that sort of thing. And without praying or saying a word my spirit just bowed before the Lord. That was the whole transaction. And that night, after I had got to bed I think probably I'd been to sleep and awakened in the night, we hadn't been praying or thinking at all about the possibility of meeting. It was as though the Bible opened and the passages came, the words came, the illustrations came and there was material there for several, well as many meetings as one was going to take. Well, where does that come from anyway? It was as though on that very first day in a church that you might have queried, wondered if it really was the church of God, with a very checkered history and with very many faulty and failing brothers and sisters, God said, well, you may think it's not very safe for me to commit my authority there, but here you see, it is committed. There's a river that flows from under the throne of God and that river is full of water. And we knew we were touching the throne of God because the moment one's spirit just bowed, the river flowed. Again and again and again we had that experience. Ms. Jones and I had this experience this two years, over two years that we've been out. We've sometimes queried this and queried that and how could this be right? And how could that be right? And is this according to church principles? Is that not a violation of the body? Just a tiny little check in spirit and the minute the spirit bows, bows under the throne of God, and ceases to look at men, ceases to look at people, ceases to look at circumstances, and situations, the river flows. Though we have touched the reality of the river of God that is full of water. And we know there is not only a throne of God up in heaven, but there's a throne of God on the earth. And it's in the midst of very ordinary people, very poor people, very feeble people, very faulty people like you and me, but it's there. And people that you and I wouldn't dare commit too much to, somehow, God runs terrific risks and he dares to commit a very great deal. Yes, he dares to commit himself to such people if they are really committed to him. And who's going to be the judge of that? We can ask questions in many places. We can take exception to people and things in many cases and God will not take it [unintelligible]. But there are some cases that you just daren't ask too many questions and there are certain people amongst whom you daren't ask too many questions. You can only thank God is his great grace has shown us that there is the possibility here on earth of offering even to the eternal God, even to the God of glory, sacrifices that are acceptable to Him. But these have to be offered in a certain place. Take heed lest thou offer them in any place that thou shalt choose. But if we locate the place that God has chosen and accepted, whatever we may think of the place, and recognize the authority of the throne in heaven as vested on faulty, failing men on the earth, and not take issue with the man, but have dealings with God himself and bow to his throne, it's amazing what we meet of God's grace and of the reality of that river that is poured forth. Well, we are challenged Ms. Jones and I, again and again and again, challenged by the throne of God on the earth in specific places and specific people, and our way of life is always just to bow. It was our way through, and it was the way of relief. But a great, great challenge has come to us from behind the Bamboo Curtain. The greatest challenge I think we've ever met, is that right? It has come from Shanghai. There, our brother Nee and some of the brothers and sisters with whom we had close fellowship in earlier days, they are serving sentences in Communist prisons. And we've heard people say oh, what wealth might come, could come, would come to the Church of God if only these servants of his were released. What words they could utter today, how they could set forth the Christ, how they could proclaim the whole council of God, how needed they are. We have no sense it is so. We are challenged by the mighty ministry that is being ministered to God from those prisons. We have reason to know, we had sufficient data to cause us to know that an offering is being offered to God that is very acceptable to him. In that Leviticus passage just a little bit further down from the word which we read, if any man would offer it's referring to the burnt offering, if any man would offer, let him bring it, his offering, to the door of the tent that it may accepted to God. And some of his servants have brought that offering and they've brought it there and God has accepted it. And it says of that offering that it's a whole burnt offering, an offering made by fire of a sweet savour unto the Lord. That is perhaps one of the strongest emphases in my heart these days. We think we can offer an offering and when we get through that will be more release and we'll have a bit of ministry to the Lord. We'll be able to go somewhere and do something or other. We have a bigger offering, a bigger challenge and a bigger response and a bigger offering, and then a bigger release, and we go somewhere else and we do something else for the Lord. Then we have yet a bigger offering, and then we have some more release and perhaps some uttered ministry and perhaps a bit of very obvious ministry. We think that's the issue of all my sacrifice, of all that cost in the past and we're always hoping for an issue. But God has said he has given us all, he has given us even the very, his very own life in His Son. He's given us that to enable us to offer acceptable offerings, not to get through with it and to get on with somebody, something else. And one thing that has deeply impressed itself upon us through our touch with the Lord's servants in Hong Kong and in other parts earlier on, but perhaps more particularly through the channels that come to us from Shanghai is this, that the offering God is asking is one all inclusive offering, a whole burnt offering. An offering made by fire of a sweet savour unto the Lord. It's not an offering that will lead to something of release. It's not an offering that will have an issue in wonderful uttered minister or some very obvious form of usefulness to God and to God's people. It is an offering that is an end in itself. The process is not leading to something. It is the thing itself. Narrator: May you offer sacrifices to the Lord that satisfy His heart. May you know the deep deep love of Jesus.