The Lord's Recovery
God works in the way of recovery. He created an earth that caused the angels to rejoice (Job 38:4-7), but it became “without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep” (Gen. 1:2). Then God began to recover the earth by bringing forth light, dry land, and the many kinds of life.
In the Old Testament
God's recovery work is also seen in His dealings with the children of Israel. When they were enslaved in Egypt, God delivered them through Moses, and Joshua brought them to the good land of Canaan. When the Israelites were unfaithful and turned to idols, God disciplined them with captivity at the hands of various enemies. But, when the people turned back to God and cried out to Him, He rescued them again and again by sending judges and kings to fight for them.
After the building of the temple in the place chosen by God (Deut. 12:11), He sent prophets to call Israel out of her degradation and backsliding. Eventually, the temple was destroyed, and nearly the entire nation was led captive into Babylon. Yet, after 70 years of exile, God led a remnant to return to the land. These faithful saints rebuilt the temple and the cities to prepare for the coming of the promised Messiah. This was another work of recovery.
In the New Testament
In the New Testament age, God's recovery work continued. His kingdom was given to the church (Matt. 21:43). However, the church of God was no more immune from decline than the children of Israel had been. Paul warned of future “difficult times” in which men would have “an outward form of godliness, though denying its power” (2 Tim. 3:1, 5). The epistles to the seven churches in Asia (Rev. 2-3) foreshadowed some key characteristics of the coming downward trend, including the religious hierarchy (2:15) and idolatry (2:14, 20) of the Roman Catholic Church in subsequent centuries. During those dark ages the truths concerning God's salvation, the living experience of Christ, and the building up of the church as Christ's Body were nearly lost in Christian teaching.
Yet God would again undertake His work of recovery. During the Reformation, the light of God's salvation began to shine again in the teachings of Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and others. Some who came later saw this light more and more clearly as the Lord recovered, one after another, the many aspects of “so great a salvation” (Heb. 2:3).
Yet God would again undertake His work of recovery....The light of God's salvation began to shine again. |
Unfortunately, many of these teachers divided from one another, forming denominations in an effort to preserve the light they had seen. Yet God went on to recover the inner experience of Christ as the Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2, 9-11) through believers such as Arndt, Guyon, and Law. Eventually, equipped with Christ as their Savior and their life, Zinzendorf and others began to yearn for the church promised by the Lord: “I will build My church” (Matt. 16: 18). These believers were drawn together by the Lord out of the various denominations “to keep the oneness of the Spirit” (Eph. 4:3). At the same time they were thrust out by the Lord of the harvest (Matt. 9:38) to reach all the nations with the word of the gospel.
Today
Today we stand on the shoulders of so many who have gone before us. |
Succeeding generations of seekers have continually developed along the lines of truth, life, the gospel, and the church. Today we stand on the shoulders of so many who have gone before us. As the Lord's recovery reaches its consummation, His overcomers must “arrive at the oneness of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, at a full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). We believe that the believers whose sketches are included in this website were vessels useful to the Lord along the way of His recovery. We hope that their biographies will encourage us to follow “the footsteps of the flock!' (S.S. 1:8) as we take part in God's recovery work in our own generation.
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