As your spirit touches people, the more scrupulous the touch the better.
goodness, feigned piety, assumed humility, manufactured gestures, a makebelieve mannerism, and so forth. For people like this to be delivered, a double effort is required. God must first destroy their falsehood, expose all their pretensions, demolish their unnaturalness, wreck all that appears more than they really are; and finally, He must deal drastically with their flesh.
As soon as you are in contact with a brother, you should learn whether he is transparent or pretending. If there is only outward appearance, he needs to be dealt with by God. You must ferret out the man's hypocrisy. The person who laughs before you today may be putting on a facade. He may not be really joyful. Or another person may speak good words and assume a fine manner, but after conversing with him for a while the experienced in the Lord's ways of dealing can sense he is not altogether right.
All who wish to be true servants of God need first to recognize falsehood in themselves. Some are deceived by others because they have become pretentious and dishonest themselves. In order to deal with other people, the would-be worker of God must first learn to judge all falsehood in his own self. All that is fabrication without inward initiation must be purified out. Only after he has dealt with his own falsehood can his spirit become quite clean and sensitive. He can then detect falsehood in others as soon as he encounters it. For his spirit will now react to all falsehood with discomfort, even anger, because it defiles him.
6. The condition of the person's spirit. As your spirit touches people, the more scrupulous the touch the better. You must discover the condition of their spirit. The spirit of some seems to be timid; it withdraws as soon as it comes forth. If your spirit is clean, you can touch this timid spirit. You will encourage him a little in your talk with him. Or perhaps the spirit of someone has been wounded. This may be the case because in former days he may have had a family problem or he may have been misunderstood or ill-treated. When you find out about such a condition, you must seek how to help him. You may need as it were to pour wine and oil upon him. He should be assured of what you are doing. With someone else, however, you may need to "strike" him and intensify his wound in order for your assistance to be of any profit to him. On the other hand, there may be someone else who would be completely crushed if he were hurt or wounded further. But then again, another person's so-called wound may be only superficial, requiring you in this case to "strike" again. In dealing with people,
you yourself must have the conviction as to whom wine and oil should be applied and upon whom deeper wounds need to be inflicted. In the case of some, you should comfort with the word of the Lord. In the case of others, you need to reprove with severe words. And in the case of still others, you must awaken their slumbering spirit. First find out his actual condition; then decide what treatment, whether light or heavy, to use. The spirit of some is in slumber; the spirit of others appears to be under heavy pressure. Some seem to be crushed; others appear to be unconcerned. Each condition is different.
To sum up, then, before you can deal with people, you need to learn the condition and cause of their spirit's situation. You must be clear about the one with whom you deal: you should not be vague. A worker must be so objective as to be able to discern man's spirit. A worker who uses his mind and mental knowledge to help people produces no spiritual value. What is the use of parroting some form of words? In short, God's worker must himself be dealt with in order to deal with and give help to others.
7 A kind of unknown spirit exists. In dealing with people you will come to see that the six kinds of condition mentioned above relative to their spirit are comparatively common. Yet beyond these six conditions, there exists another kind. This is the unknown spirit, which is hard to decipher. As you listen to a person talk or give testimony, you sense he is not well, yet you cannot tell where his spiritual illness lies. The state of his spirit does not seem to fit any of the above six kinds of condition. You cannot pinpoint his problem. You sense there is something wrong, but only vaguely. Such a condition is usually the result of some unknown sin, most likely of some hidden sin; or else the result of something far more serious than sin, it perhaps being the result of even the work or attack of the devil. It may be due to some unexplained sin that gives Satan ground to work in him. The one who is experienced in the Lord is able to detect and decipher this peculiar condition. You should learn to use your spirit to touch this unspeakable condition.
Now in fellowshiping with brothers and sisters, if you as God's worker are able to recognize these seven kinds of condition in their spirit, you can apprehend almost all their problems. This I would say especially in reference to the experienced ones among us.
How to Judge with the Spirit
I would now raise a fundamental question for our consideration together. How do you use your spirit to touch another's spirit? How do you judge with your spirit? Let me say at the very outset that for anyone to be able to judge with his spirit, his outward man must be broken. There is no shortcut. He must be dealt with by God, learn all his lessons, and have his outward man broken. Then his spirit can naturally be used. Without the breaking of the outward man his spirit is unusable. The reason why his spirit is unusable is because it is affected by outside influence. His outward man is so strong that his spirit cannot freely launch out. His spirit is bound either by thought or emotion or volition. The outward man is so strong that the spirit of God's children is laid under siege. Therefore, our outward self must be broken. Only after the outward shell is cracked open can the spirit be released. Between you and the other party there is the outward man. In order to touch the other's spirit with your spirit, that outward man of yours has to be broken. Then are you able to know the other's spirit. Without the release of our spirit we lack the basic
instrument by which to know others.∗
∗ The author has devoted an entire volume to this very important lesson of the Christian life. Please
consult Watchman Nee, The Release of the Spirit (Indianapolis: Sure Foundation, 1965), translated from the Chinese.—Translator
Let us understand that there is an affinity between spirit and spirit. But the outward man is blocking the way. With the breaking of the outward man, though, your spirit can have a greater nearness to God and can have close contact with the spirit of others. It then becomes reasonably easy for your spirit to go forth and help those others. Only those whose outward man is broken can learn to judge with their spirit the feeling and condition of others.
As you listen to people, the first thing to be done is to exercise the spirit. When you are fellowshiping with brothers and sisters and listening to them, you must bring your whole being to a restful calm (this is not passivity). It can be likened to reining in tens of thousands of horses, so as to be able to hearken quietly to people's words. You do not first of all use your mind; you instead use your spirit. For thought is but an auxiliary instrument. If the condition of your spirit is clean, tender and gentle, whatever people say will just naturally
touch your spirit. The spirit of the other person will leave an impression on your spirit, causing you to feel either defiled or clean, either resistant or able to be entreated. Your spirit may touch his subjectivity, his emotion or his thought. Your spirit must therefore be altogether quiet, gentle, and clean in order to touch his spirit. Do not use your mind to think; rather, use the spirit to touch. Such kind of knowing is far more dependable than listening with your mind to a two-hour report by a brother. Knowing by the spirit is the spiritual way.
In this kind of spiritual work we all need to learn humbly and slowly. I do not expect any of us to graduate in a short period. It will require at least three to five years for us to learn. But let us realize and never forget that our thought is not the primary factor here. We cannot put our trust in man's mind for this kind of service. We will go far off the mark if we engage our mind as the primary instrument. And let us never forget, too, that learning to use our spirit in this way is not for our knowledge nor is it for enabling us to pick at people's faults or to criticize them. No, no, no! Such learning is only for the purpose of building up, of helping, and of service. It must in no way be used for tearing down, or for finding out people's faults. To the contrary, in coming to know how to use the spirit to touch the spirit of others, we can render much help to them.
3 Spiritual Judgment: The Basis Of Diagnosis And Judgment
We have already discussed the principles of judgment, the way to discern people's various conditions, and how to use the spirit to touch others in need. We have also pointed out the absolute necessity of our being dealt with before God. Today we intend to inquire into two more things.
Diagnosis Upon using your spirit to sense another's condition, whether that be in his mind or in his spirit, it does not mean you are now able to diagnose and even heal. Touching man's spirit is one thing; diagnosing is another. Touching man's spirit only gives you the knowledge about the condition of his spirit. How will you interpret his condition as to whether his spirit is right or wrong? How will you know? After you have touched a person's mind and even the spirit behind the mind, how will you diagnose? This is not so easy. You need to have sufficient, comprehensive learning before you can diagnose his sickness. For instance, as you listen to a brother you sense he is one who can quickly lose his temper. But without sufficient experience and learning, you will not be able to tell where the cause of his losing of temper lies. Those who are experienced know that man's temper comes from pride. A quick-tempered man cannot stand any disobedience to his words; he cannot tolerate an unkind word. He looks down upon others. There you touch his pride. It is because there is pride within that he loses his temper. The inexperienced in such matters will not know that loss of temper is but a symptom, not the cause, of a spiritual disease. If a person realizes that loss of temper is but a symptom, he will then try to find its cause in order to heal. But if he does not have sufficient learning, he will fail to pinpoint the cause.
Touching people's spirit with the spirit can be likened to the use of a thermometer in measuring body temperature to determine if any fever is present. Yet you will still need to discover the cause of the fever, since it is but a symptom. The same will be true with the loss of temper. The failure to get to the root cause of bad temper renders healing impossible. What is the use of advising an ill-tempered person to be more patient? Such will be useless for he will simply lose his temper again. If you are ever to know the cause of quick temper in another person, you must learn to know the cause of your own
loss of temper. If you are knowledgeable as to your own condition, you will begin to understand that other people are not that much different from you. If you have been able to learn from both yourself and other people, you come to recognize that pride is the cause of bad temper. You may also have discovered that subjectivity, too, may cause the loss of temper: a person may explode if his opinion is not accepted; or if his expectation is not reached, he likewise loses control over his temper.
Brother T. Austin-Sparks once said, "Be observant." We need to learn to observe. In assisting people we must find out the cause of their spiritual sickness before we can help them to go to God and be dealt with. We need to be able to explain both the symptoms and the cause of sickness. Whenever we are faced with a particular issue in brothers and sisters, we should pray to God and examine these brethren. Take crying, for example. You may meet one sister who cries quite easily but another sister who never cries. Your spirit may have already sensed the difference, but what can you do if you fail to judge the cause? You must know by learning that to cry or not to cry is but a symptom. You need to ferret out the cause. Which is correct: to cry or not to cry? Will you encourage people to cry or not to cry? This person's crying is wrong, so you exhort him not to cry. But that other person is wrong in not crying, so you should admonish him to cry. The giving of such counsel has come about because you have come to know by experience where the cause of crying or not crying lies. You have learned this knowledge by first looking at yourself.
Oftentimes you yourself are the best teacher, for you can ask yourself, When did I cry and why? The answer to your inquiry as to why, simply put, came down to the fact that there are two reasons for crying: the first is a crying due to self-love; the second is due to having been dealt with and stricken by God. As to the first reason, a person loves himself so much that he pities himself and cannot deny himself. Such a one will think of himself as too good to incur such trouble as has come his way. The more he muses, the more bitterly he cries. He cannot see himself suffer. And hence, his current trouble stirs up his self-love. And so he cries. Man's self-love often lies in a state of slumber until it is awakened by whatever trouble befalls him. We see, then, how self-love is the first reason. The second reason for crying is as the result of being overthrown by God. At the outset a particular person was not easy to change, he having been hard and unconcerned. He could not be shaken, he not being prone to cry or to laugh. Now having been stricken by God through repeated circumstances of His allowance, the person finds himself unable to
overcome God; therefore, he cries.
There are, then, at least these two reasons for crying. If later you see someone crying, you can check his cry against these two reasons in determining why he cried. Crying is not necessarily right, but one who has been stricken by God definitely will cry. Though crying may not always be good, even so, a person who has never cried evidences the fact that he has never been overthrown by God. If someone boasts that he has never cried, that one is undoubtedly a very hard person.
Incredibly, one who is very stubborn before God may pass through many trials and be stricken many times by God and still remain ignorant of any spiritual knowledge as to why all this has been happening. Another person, on the other hand, seems to be soft, and he, too, may go through trials and learn nothing. Normally speaking, many trials and many disciplines of the Holy Spirit should result in many learnings. Yet these people have not learned anything. Why is it that these two persons—one hard in nature and the other one soft—have undergone similar happenings resulting in both having failed to learn any spiritual lesson? We need to find out the cause. We must know not only their symptoms but their causes as well.
Let us review the cases of these two people again. On the one hand, here we have a person who is stubborn and hard before God and reaps no spiritual fruit when under trials. His trials bring in no spiritual blessing from lessons having been learned, only painful experiences. He quarrels with God, is dissatisfied with God's dealing, and disobeys His discipline. He steadfastly believes it is wrong for people to ride above his head; instead, he wants God to make it possible for him to ride over other people's heads. Furthermore, while still under discipline, he lets off steam: he feels misunderstood and considers God to be wrong and he himself to be right. Such a person will never submit himself under God's discipline. He learns absolutely nothing about the place of thanksgiving and praise. Due to the hardness of heart, he learns nothing. On the other hand, here we have another person who, just the opposite, is unusually soft. He too has undergone many trials, having experienced the discipline of the Holy Spirit; and yet he also has garnered for himself no spiritual learning and no spiritual knowledge from his painful experience. The discipline of the Holy Spirit is ineffective in his life as well. Why is this so? In his case it is because he lacks the supply of the ministry of God's word.
In view of all that has been said, therefore, you and I must learn to know
people's various conditions and know their meanings. Just knowing that a person has a fever of 100 degrees is not sufficient. You should know its cause. You cannot simply say his fever is due to his physical weakness. You need, on the one side, to observe as does a physician, but on the other side, to have personal dealings before God. After three or five years of diligent observation and lessonlearning discipline, you may be able to diagnose correctly. You yourself must be a gentle and open person before God, acknowledging frequently your proneness to error and your undependableness. With such intensive learning on your own personal level, you can then more readily sense in your spirit the symptom and cause of your brother's weakness and in addition show him the way of healing. In sum, then, in this matter of judging and discerning, the first step is to touch with the spirit; the second is to differentiate with the spirit; the third, to diagnose and find out the cause of sickness; and finally, to heal (for more on the healing step, see the next chapter).
The Foundation of Judgment. Brotherly Love In learning to recognize people's problems and diagnose their situation, we must realize and continually affirm what is the fundamental basis to all our judging and discerning endeavors. Let us never forget that we do not desire to know and to discern for the sake of seeking or accumulating knowledge about others for ourselves. An abnormal Christian would like to know another's business. But a normal Christian does not seek to know another's condition just for the sake of knowing. Although we indeed must know the conditions of our brethren, it is not out of curiosity or for self-interest. In order to serve and help people, we are compelled to know them. Otherwise, we would rather not know their conditions if such were not necessary. We are busy enough with our own affairs; we have no time to be busybodies. One who desires to know the conditions of others and is continually inquisitive is seriously sick. In fact, he himself needs to be healed! The only reason for knowing is for service and help. I need to know the condition of the brother whom the Lord has placed in my care so that I may help him. Except the Holy Spirit arranges the contact, I have no pleasure in knowing his affairs.
To those who are God's workers let me say again and again that I hope you will never have the lust of knowing others' business. I do not want or expect any one to carelessly gather materials for gossip. Let none of us casually take up the burden of others. May we have no other intention than to
help others with whatever knowledge we have gleaned about them.
The social intercourse among the children of God must be based on "love" and not "knowledge." We must never fellowship with brothers and sisters according to knowledge, only according to love. For the basis of Christian fellowship is always to be the latter, never the former. In the world, social intercourse is carried on for the sake of finding bosom friends. But our fellowship is conducted on the basis of brotherly love: we love one another. It is difficult to be true Christians, however, if we base our fellowship on knowledge. If God has not maintained His fellowship with you on the basis of His knowledge of you, then by the same token He will not entrust the knowledge of your brothers and sisters to you if your fellowship with them is based on knowledge. For if it be on that basis, then the more you come to know them the less you will be able to be a Christian: for if it be according to your knowledge of the brethren, you will shake your head at everyone and declare all of them undone. You will shake your head at this brother and that sister till you become so disillusioned that you will hardly be able or even willing to fellowship with any Christian. In the end you will totally shake yourself out. Hence our fellowship with brothers and sisters can only be maintained on the ground of love.
As we have said, then, one's knowledge of a brother is solely for the sake of helping and serving him. You come to know his condition as you work with him. You must never mix up the "knowledge" of the brother with "love" for the brother. God's trusted servants are those who are able to separate "knowledge" and "love" in dealing with people. Those who are unable to separate these two are not fit to be God's servants. May I warn you beforehand that you are responsible if you wrongly mix up these two. For example, in dealing with your son these two elements of love and knowledge are bound to be present: a father needs to know his son's weaknesses, yet no true father fails to love his son once knowing of his son's weaknesses. The interrelation between father and son is based on love. And love is blind, or should be in this situation. The father's knowledge of his son does not affect his love for his son. And if this be true between father and son, then how can you love your brethren any less than you would in loving your son? What really is fellowshiping in the church on the basis of love? It is simply this, that as you fellowship with your brother, it is done as though you know nothing at all of his weakness or his fault: your fellowship with him is based not on knowledge but on love. And that must always be the basis of our fellowship together.
Judging according to knowledge will make of us politicians, which is not Christian. A person who reaches the age of around fifty is experienced and wise. He is one who will not be easily deceived or fooled in the latter part of his life. Now the world would call such a person a clever old man; for such cleverness is the way of the world. However, no Christian—though he knows so much and so well about others—may follow this clever worldly pathway. Today our knowledge of brothers and sisters may be meager, but after several years of dealing with brethren our knowledge of them will greatly increase. By that time, we will be able to know a person after only a few words of conversation. And the consequent danger is that it will become increasingly difficult for us to love that person. Let not such a thing happen in our midst. If we Christians treat brothers and sisters according to knowledge, it is true we may avoid many crosses and incur far less trouble than were we to follow the way of love; nevertheless, if we treat our brother according to knowledge, we too will become clever—and even tricky—old hands. That is not progression, it is regression.
We must ever keep ourselves in the love of God. Whatever knowledge the Lord gives us about brothers and sisters is for the sake of healing ministry. I do not need to remind you that once a worldling is betrayed, he finds it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to love anymore. He becomes fearful. This is not to be so, however, with a Christian; for among believers in Christ love must reign supreme, no matter what. Let us not become clever because we have the opportunity to know brothers and sisters so well. If our knowledge of them is only obtained for the purpose of protecting ourselves from being cheated by them, or less bothered by them, then our knowledge merely helps us to be a clever person who can thereby avoid unwanted problems.
Let us ask God to grant us greater love for the brethren. We should pray that our love for them may surpass our knowledge of them. May our love of the brethren transcend all. Let us also pray that our love for them will not be affected by any cleverness we might be tempted to indulge in so as to make life easier for ourselves. To know others is to facilitate our service to them, not to lessen our trouble. Let us ask God to so fill our hearts with love for others in the body of Christ that we seem to be totally ignorant of their weaknesses, faults and problems. If such an attitude be taken, then this is truly otherworldly in character. Let us bear in mind that the more we know our brethren the narrower will be our way: we must never be afraid of being bothered or cheated or defrauded or even betrayed: instead, let our love overcome all. In
the end, "brotherly love" is the only way.