The Book Opened My Eyes about the Church, Byeong Gyu Bang

Even though I established a church in Korea and was the pastor for ten years, my thought of the church was just the gathering of the believers. Although I worked for three years as an associate pastor in a big denomination that has ten million people, still the church was just an organization to me. The only thing that was important to me was to announce Christ to others so that they could know more and experience more of Christ. The denomination I was affiliated with insisted that we study the Bible and that a Christian life should follow what the Bible reveals. So many believers read the Bible a lot and studied the Bible diligently. I also went back to the Bible and I exercised to experience Christ and to live Him out and I taught others that. However, I always felt vanity in the depth of my being. To overcome this feeling I struggled in prayer and fasting and staying up late, but those efforts could not dissolve this feeling. I just tried to be satisfied with the many young people that followed me.

Meanwhile one day in December 1997, I was sent to Chile as a missionary. I was temporarily sent out to build a church. There were five families waiting for me who pursued the Lord and studied the Bible seriously. The church life that I began with them in Santiago, Chile was a suffering. They always competed with one another to attract my attention and stepped on one another to do more work for the Lord. This caused me to consider what the real church is and what the Lord wants. One day I prayed with much struggling that the Lord would show me the church life. The Lord told me that He would open the book of Revelation to me. Although I had studied the Bible a lot, many things in the Bible were a secret to me. The book of Revelation was like untouched territory. The Lord's speaking that He would open this book stirred me up.

One day I visited a believer's home and I saw an exposition on the book of Revelation. At that moment I opened it and read, and felt the promise that the Lord gave to me was fulfilled. When I borrowed that book and read it, I gradually got to know what the church is. On the one hand I was bothered by seeing that my present church life was inadequate before the Lord. I could not let this book go. In reading this book every day, I wondered who Witness Lee was and I looked forward to the local church life. How wonderful it is that the Bible is open so clearly! The Lord gradually captured me and empowered me to leave where I was. From that point on I began to fellowship with the brothers in the local church in Santiago. I told the believers whom I met with in the denomination what I saw and asked them to decide, through prayer, which way they might take. I dropped my position and I entered into the local church in Santiago simply as a brother.

After that I got to know the ministry of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee. I discovered the Lord's great hand with these brothers in recovering the truths in the Bible and the church life. I thank the Lord for His mercy. The Lord is so faithful by recovering the real church life for me and opening the way for me to live a life of genuine faith. In this last age the Lord has had a way through the ministry of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee. I am really happy I can also be in this way. I confess that in the past I hindered the Lord's work as a pastor. I am really thankful that the Lord turned me from that way to His way. I love the Lord deeply because He did not give me up and He is embracing me. Amen.