God-Ordained Way
Two kinds of eating: eating in sowing and eating in harvesting
“Many of you have testified regarding your enjoyment of the Lord, but all that I have heard pertains to your eating, your enjoyment in sowing. You have not yet reached the level of eating with regard to harvesting. The initial sowing is easy, but the final harvesting is not so easy. After the seeds are sown, whether or not there will be a harvest is still a question. Up until now, your eating of the Lord for enjoyment has been in the initial stage, the sowing stage.
Therefore, I have to make it clear to you, brothers and sisters, that you should not stop at the enjoyment of sowing, but go on to the enjoyment of harvesting. When you sow, you simply bury the seed into the ground. After sowing, you still need to take care of the sprout that it may grow and bear fruit. Only then can you have the enjoyment of the harvest. In our enjoyment of sowing, we receive something of the Lord into us. Whenever we call on the name of the Lord and pray-read His word, we receive a portion of the Lord as a seed into us. Whether this will result in a harvest depends upon our willingness to let the seed grow. If we let it grow, it will surely yield a harvest. Otherwise, nothing will happen.
…Today I want to check with you all. Do you as sowers truly have seeds? Do you as eaters really have bread? Perhaps you have only half a bowl of rice, which is not enough even for yourself. If you cannot feed yourself adequately, how will you be able to take care of others? What is the reason for this? It is because you sow the seed, yet you do not labor to let the seed grow.
We all know that when a farmer labors on a field, he has to remove the stones, eliminate the weeds, water the soil, add fertilizer, and sometimes apply some pesticides. What do you do? You have done very well eating the Lord and pray-reading His word, but you do not remove the stones, nor eliminate the weeds, nor water the soil, nor add fertilizer, nor apply pesticides. In the end you might as well have not sown at all. If you do not sow, your seeds will remain intact, but once you sow, you lose the only seeds you have. There are some people who indeed have a reserve of a small portion of the Lord before pray-reading the Word, but after they gained the Lord through pray-reading and then are disobedient by not laboring, they lose the presence of the Lord. The Lord went farther away from them.
…Let me ask you, brothers and sisters, what do you eat today, manna or the produce of the good land? Some say they eat manna; others say they eat manna as well as the produce. This is true. However, I hope that those who eat manna will gradually stop eating it. Do you know where manna was eaten? It was eaten in the wilderness. Therefore, eating manna is a strong proof that you are a wanderer. Where was the produce of the good land eaten? It was eaten in Canaan! Moreover, the top tenth of the harvest of the land — the firstborn of the herd and of the flock and the firstfruits of the grain — were not to be eaten at home. They had to be brought to the temple and eaten before God. This shows that their wandering had ceased. Do you want to be a Christian who eats manna or a Christian who eats the produce of the good land? Everyone wants to be a Christian who eats the produce of the good land. True, manna is good; but it is not good enough because it is the diet of those who wander about in the wilderness.
…To obtain manna does not require our laboring, but to get the produce of the land of Canaan does. While we are enjoying the Lord and receiving Him into us, He often raises up circumstances and allows many things to happen for our good, so that the seed in us can grow and produce something. For example, a sister, whose husband always makes things difficult for her, prays every day, asking the Lord to cause her husband to love Him as much as she does. However, the more she prays, the less he loves the Lord; the more she calls “O Lord, Amen!” and the more she pray-reads, the more her husband is annoyed…. Let me tell you that all those things that happen are the Lord’s raising up the north wind to blow upon you (S.S. 4:16). Instead of asking the Lord to change your husband, pray that the Lord will grow in you: “O Lord, make me willing to accept Your dealing. O Lord, subdue me from within. O Lord, cause me to submit myself under Your hand and take the breaking.”
…Twenty years ago, when I saw brothers who had good character and proper behavior and who gave good impressions wherever they went, I greatly appreciated them. However, now in retrospect those brothers with good character and proper behavior did not bear any good fruit. On the contrary, some careless and sloppy ones were able to bring people to salvation. The church life, the testimony of the church, is not a matter of behaving well or not behaving well, nor is it a matter of being or not being above reproach. The church life, the testimony of the church, is a matter of eating the Lord as the seed and allowing this seed to grow. Like a farmer, you remove the stones, eliminate the weeds, water the ground, add fertilizer, and apply pesticides so that the Christ in you will gradually grow into a harvest. This is not a matter of being well-behaved or not; it is a matter in a totally different realm. Behaving and not behaving are in the realm of good and evil. What we are speaking about is the realm of Christ. You are full of Christ, and you bring in your topmost portion before God to enjoy with the saints in the meeting. This is our proper meeting today. The emphasis in the meeting is not on singing, praying, praising, speaking in tongues, or functioning; the emphasis is on bringing in the topmost portion of the Christ that you have produced. I bring my portion, and you bring yours. Apart from any forms, we all present our Christ.
…Now we all have learned to eat. We have learned that there are two kinds of eating. One is the eating in sowing, and the other is the eating in harvesting. The eating in sowing cannot constitute our worship; we need the eating in harvesting. When you bring the eating in harvesting, that will constitute the true worship and the genuine church life. The church needs this. We have to look to the Lord and open up to Him that we all may learn to be exercised in the matter of eating.”
(Eating the Lord, chapter four)
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Something must be improper or wrong if we are not bearing fruit
“Barrenness is an even more subtle enemy. Some married couples are not able to have children, and this becomes a big problem to them. According to human desire, the meaning of a couple’s life is to have children. Likewise, if we do not bear fruit, beget some spiritual children, there is not much meaning to our church life. Without fruit-bearing, there is no practical church life. Suppose that we baptized fifty-eight new ones in the next Lord’s Day church meeting. All of us would be excited and joyful in the Lord. But we do not have much joy, because we are barren. Barrenness is the biggest enemy that annuls the proper church life.
If we cannot have children in our human life, we can have the Lord as our replacement. But the Lord will not be the replacement for the fruit that we do not bear in the church life. We may feel that we have been enjoying the Lord every day, but a tree is known by its fruit. The real church life can be evidenced only by fruit-bearing. If we have not borne fruit for three years, for five years, or even for ten years, our enjoyment of Christ should be questioned. Something must be improper or wrong if we are not bearing fruit.
In the seven epistles to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3, the Lord touched the deadness with Sardis and the lukewarmness with the Laodiceans, but He did not touch barrenness. This is because He had already dealt with this very seriously in John 15. In the four Gospels the Lord did not deal with deadness or with lukewarmness. But He dealt with barrenness to the uttermost in one chapter—John 15. Some people would say that this is a chapter on abiding in Christ. Actually, however, it is not on abiding but on fruit-bearing. Abiding is for fruit-bearing. The Lord said, “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes it away…If one does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is dried up” (vv. 2a, 6a). For a branch to be cast out means that it is cut off from participation in the riches of the life of the vine.
If we do not bear fruit, there is a danger that we will be cut off from the vine tree. This does not mean that we will suffer eternal perdition but that we will lose our enjoyment of Christ as our portion. This proves that if we do not bear fruit, there is a problem with our enjoyment of Christ. This is just like a couple who cannot bring forth children. They may say that they do not feel that anything is wrong with them, but actually something is wrong, which is preventing them from having children. They may even go to some doctors to find out what is wrong with them. This is an illustration of our problem of barrenness. We may feel that there is nothing wrong with us, but based upon the fact that we have not borne fruit, we must realize that something is wrong with our enjoyment of Christ. If we do not have fruit, our so-called enjoyment of Christ can be a self-deceiving matter. It is not so real.
We may think that we have seen a number of saints who have not borne fruit for quite a long time, but we did not notice that they were cut off from the enjoyment of the Lord. My answer to this is that the matter of life is a mystery. There may be a couple who cannot bear children, but no one can see the reason. In the same way it may seem that we are doing quite well, but where is our fruit? This is a test. If we are not bearing fruit, this is evidence that we have lost our enjoyment of Christ. In this chapter I want us to realize that every day, day and night, these three enemies are around us: deadness, lukewarmness, and barrenness.
In the previous chapter I shared that we need to get some companions, at least two or three, with whom we can labor in the gospel. We should never work by ourselves. Instead, we should work by fellowshipping with our companions. The trouble is that we do not like to have fellowship with others. We are self-contented, and some of us may think that we are omnipotent and all-capable. But according to my over sixty years of experience, none of us is omnipotent. Each of us is very limited in his capacity and ability. You need the help, and I need the help. My helpers in the work know how much I need them. I purposely fellowship with them and ask them questions in order that I may learn. I want to be taught by them. If there is no fellowship among us in our work, there cannot be the real one accord. We need to labor in oneness through thorough fellowship. Because of our unwillingness to have thorough fellowship, we are dead, lukewarm, and barren. We must get some companions and open up ourselves to fellowship with them to the uttermost.”
(The Training and the Practice of the Vital Groups, Chapter 3, Section 2)
If you are a believer, you have to open up your home for meeting
“And day by day, continuing steadfastly with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they partook of their food with exultation and simplicity of heart, praising God and having grace with all the people. And the Lord added together day by day those who were being saved.” (Acts 2:46-47)
According to the Greek expression in Acts 2:46, they met from house to house. This indicates that they did not select some houses that would fit their purpose. They met from house to house. They included every house. Today we should have our home meetings entirely according to the Holy Spirit’s created and ordained way. According to our feeling, we may say, “How could every brother have a meeting in his home? There are so many weaker ones. Oh, we had better consider and select some stronger ones.” But we must realize that selecting is not the Holy Spirit’s way—it is the human way. In Chinese this phrase means “door after door.” This indicates no selection, no missing. Whether you are weak or strong, whether old or young, whether knowledgeable or unknowledgeable, as long as you are a believer, you meet in your home. Do you dare do this? You say yes in the meeting, but after the meeting some may say there is no way to practice this. Some would say, “We selected thirty homes, but eventually fifteen have been sifted.” If you would select in this way, I am afraid that after another period of time only twelve homes would be left that are good for the home meetings. But you have to see that at the very beginning the way created by the Holy Spirit and ordained by God was to meet in two ways, in the congregational way and in the home way, not in selected homes but in all homes. If you are a Christian, if you are a believer, you have to open up your home for meeting. This is the first pattern at the initiation of the church life.
Since the Lord has shown this, I have begun to see all the benefits of this God-created-and-ordained way. If a new one would believe in the Lord, be baptized, and right away begin to open up his home for meetings, this opening up of his home would encourage him and even uphold him. Therefore, we can see that the home meetings are the top way, the super way, and eventually the unique way to meet.
(CWWL, 1985, vol. 3, “The Home Meetings—the Unique Way for the Increase and the Building Up of the Church,” ch. 1, pp. 114).
What is the God-ordained way?
“The term the God-ordained way was invented by us, and we saw that this God-ordained way revealed in the Scriptures is of four steps: begetting, feeding, perfecting, and building. We need to beget, to produce, new believers. Then we need to feed them that they may grow. Then we need to perfect them, not by one teacher but through the mutual teaching in the groups. In the groups everyone is a teacher, and every teacher is a student. Through the mutual teaching in the groups the new ones are perfected unto the work of the ministry, as pointed out in Ephesians 4:12. This makes them qualified to prophesy, to speak for the Lord, for the building up of the church. To take the God-ordained way is by these four steps, but how do we carry them out? We found out that the way to carry out these four steps is by the vital groups.”
(Fellowship Concerning the Urgent Need of the Vital Groups, ch. 24)
Vital Groups: The Building Blocks of the Church – Mark Raabe (May 18, 2019)
Afternoon fellowship spoken by Mark Raabe at the Mid-Atlantic Working Saints Retreat on May 18th, 2019.
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On Small Group Meetings with Tom Goetz (March 31, 2019)
Special fellowship on small group meetings — spoken in Huntsville, Texas on March 31st, 2019.
Open Letter from brother Andrew Yu (May 29, 2020)
Download Open Letter from Brother Andrew (29_5_2020)
An open letter (Fellowship from Brother Andrew Yu on May 29, 2020). Translated from original in Chinese, not verified with speaker.
NOTE: An updated version of this letter is available at https://www.churchinalhambra.org/en/2020/05/31/br-andrew-yu-an-open-letter2020-5-29/. Reprinted here:
Dear brothers and sisters,
“The time of the Lord’s return is at hand. For this reason we are reevaluating many matters in the light of the judgment seat.”
The above quote is from “An Open Letter” in Issue No. 1 of The Present Testimony by Brother Watchman Nee published in January of 1928. Today, ninety-two years later, we are even closer to the time of the Lord’s return. Today, seeing all the things happening around us, we feel even more deeply that the time of the Lord’s return is closer than any of the previous ages. The instability of the world situation, the global spread of the pandemic, the panic in people’s hearts, the uncontrollable environment, and the economic crisis all indicate that this age is nearing a fundamental turning point. At this solemn moment, it should be a time for us to have a reevaluation. To reevaluate means that what was formerly the standard can no longer be the standard for today; what’s considered acceptable living can no longer be our living today; the former goals in our lives can no longer be our goals today; our former mode of valuation can no longer be the mode of valuation today; and our former ways can no longer be our ways today. Everything needs to be reevaluated in the light of the judgment seat. This means that everything needs to be reevaluated according to the Lord’s return and the consummation of the age. Our former church life, former services, and former ways of living all need to be reconsidered and reevaluated.
First we need to reevaluate our living. The Lord said, “Do not be anxious for tomorrow,” but “seek first His kingdom and His righteousness” (Matt. 6:33, 34). Do we trust in God in everything to live the life of the tent on the earth, having a living that is uprooted from the earth and storing up our treasures in heaven? Or are we still anxious for tomorrow? The young people are anxious for their employment after graduation, as well as their marriage and family. The middle-aged people are anxious for their career and their business performance for the next quarter or next year. The elderly people are anxious for their health, savings, and relationship with their children and grandchildren. We need to reevaluate. The apostles called people to be delivered from sins and turn to the Lord, but the Lord called people to be delivered from mammon to follow Him (Matt. 6:24). Many preach the gospel of prosperity, but the Lord preached the gospel of poverty. The age is coming to an end, and one of the signs of the Lord’s coming is that people are storing up treasures (James 5:3). The ten virgins are “going out of the world” to meet the bridegroom (Matt. 25:1, note 5). The harvest needs to be “dried of all the earthly water” (Rev. 14:15, note 2) to be ripe for reaping. Brother Lee, in his diary right before the great revival in Chefoo, wrote on December 23 of 1942: “We should not be concerned with what we will eat, what we will drink, or what we will be clothed with; this is what the worldly people seek. We should care only for God’s kingdom and His righteousness. The worldly people lack clothing and food because they care only for their own living and not for God’s kingdom and His righteousness” (CWWL Vol. 2, p. 28). A day earlier, he wrote: “How desolate is the situation on earth today! Even more desolate is the condition within man! How many hearts and souls have suffered to the extreme? How many souls are perishing every day? The church has lost her function…The church is like this because her consecration in the past was not thorough” (p. 27). On December 26, he wrote: “The reason we are quiet, have no aspiration to spread the Lord’s kingdom, have no power and courage to spread the Lord’s gospel, have no living faith, and are timid is all because we have not had a thorough consecration, have not stopped living for ourselves, and have not lived entirely for the Lord!…If we live entirely for the Lord like Peter on the day of Pentecost, we will also be able to say as Peter said, ‘In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene rise up and walk’ (Acts 3:6b). But to say this, we must also be able to say, ‘Silver and gold I do not possess’ (v. 6)!” (p. 29)
We need to reevaluate: does our living today have dispensational value? Do we, our person, have a dispensational significance before the Lord?
In order to have this kind of living, we need to be filled with the Spirit inwardly and outwardly every day (see The Way to Practice the Lord’s Present Move, ch. 2). If a balloon is not filled with air, it cannot ascend. Why do we need to have much and thorough prayer? It is for us to be filled both inwardly and outwardly. Why do we need to confess our sins and repent? It is because they are the requirements for us to be filled with the Spirit. Without a living that is daily filled with the Spirit both inwardly and outwardly, we cannot have a living that has dispensational value. In order for the virgins to meet the bridegroom, the requirement is that their vessels be filled with oil (Matt. 25:4). In order for us to redeem the time, we must be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:16, 18).
During these days, the more difficult the outward environment is, the stronger we feel inwardly that now is the time for God’s children to be uprooted from the world and to live the life of the tent. The benefit of migration is to cut off our old background and to learn to simply look to God to live a life of faith. The spreading of the kingdom is inextricably linked to being cut off from the world. The persecution in Acts 8 suddenly uprooted all the disciples and scattered them everywhere, which put the Lord’s command in chapter 1 into action. In order for the gospel of the kingdom to be preached to the whole inhabited earth, there is the need for some to live the kingdom life. For the Lord’s return to become real, man must “go out of the world” as the virgins did in Matthew 25. One hundred fifty years ago the gospel of grace was preached to China. One reason for that was that some in that age saw that the Lord might return in that generation and that the gospel needed to be preached to the whole world in that generation. Today, the gospel of the kingdom needs to be preached to the whole inhabited earth because the time of the Lord’s return is even closer. At this juncture, should we not reevaluate how we should spend our remaining days on the earth? Should we not cut off the old ties at this time to practically live the life of the tent, live for the gospel, and move for the Lord?
At this moment, we also need to reevaluate our church life. Whether the Lord is satisfied with our church life is one thing, we should first ask ourselves whether we are satisfied with our current church life. True, we have very good truths, and we also have a church life that we have been comfortable with for many years. However, what we need to reevaluate is whether or not this kind of church life can satisfy the Lord’s need, whether it can usher in the Lord’s return. In the church where we are, has the number of saints grown? Are the saints vital?
In 1992 and 1993, Brother Lee was deeply dissatisfied with the church life at that time, so he released the messages on the vital groups, hoping to produce the overcomers outside of the infrastructure of the church life at that time, who would be delivered from the three great enemies of death, lukewarmness, and barrenness. Unfortunately, although the messages were released, the practice has yet to be seen. In the past twenty-three years, although the church life in each locality has gone on steadily, they are still mainly composed of meetings and mainly carried out by way of asking people to come to the meetings, and what is treasured among us is still the great number of attendance. Please consider: in the light of the Lord’s return, shouldn’t this kind of church life be reevaluated?
Since the outbreak of the pandemic, the brothers and sisters have been limited physically. All physical meetings have stopped, and the saints can only communicate mostly over the internet in smaller settings. But in this process, many found out that brothers and sisters actually prefer this new mode of church life. Over the internet, everyone prays for one another, has mutual fellowship, and cares for the new ones. Everyone is able to function, and everyone practices begetting, nourishing, perfecting, and building in an organic way. This is actually the vital groups that Brother Lee talked about, which is for everyone to function and for everyone to serve as a priest. In this way, many new ones have been saved, and many who have not been meeting have been reconnected. In many localities, the number of people has increased, and many members of the Body have been enlivened. It turns out that this is the way for the Body of Christ to be built up. Of course, we are not saying that we should not resume the physical meetings after the pandemic. However, in light of this new situation brought in by the pandemic, isn’t it worthwhile for us to reevaluate our church life? Shouldn’t we turn more from “meeting” to “people,” from “coming” to “going,” and from “big” to “small”?
In the light of the Lord’s return, we should also reevaluate our service. The ultimate goal of our service is to perfect people. The work of the ministry is to perfect the saints unto the work of the ministry, unto the building up of the Body of Christ. Today our work is not to raise up a work but to raise up people. The effectiveness of our work today is not measured by how much work is done but how many people have been raised up. Strictly speaking, our work today is not to do the work but to distribute the work. Today the question is not how much we ourselves have done but how much others have done. The parable of the slaves in Matthew 25 reminds us that the question is not how much we have maintained but how much we have reproduced. The five- talented one perfected another five-talents, and the two-talented one perfected another two-talents. Thus, they received the Lord’s approval. But the one-talented one did not perfect anyone, and he was cast into the darkness. The Lord is coming to settle an account with each one of us.
Today in the light of the Lord’s return, we all need to reevaluate our service and see whether our service, in the light of the judgment seat, will be approved or not. The good and faithful slaves were not those who merely maintain their portions but those who reproduced themselves. The evil and slothful slave was not one who abandoned his service but one who did not reproduce himself. Whether in the church or in the vital groups, our duty is to perfect others unto the work of the ministry, unto the building up of the Body of Christ. We need to use all wisdom to perfect others. We need to use all those whom people regard as useless. We need to dig out all the one-talented ones from the earth, so that their talents are no longer buried in the world. The growth in life is gradual, but the trading of one’s talent is immediate (Matt. 25:16). In the light of the Lord’s return, we need to evaluate our service to see whether it is up to the Lord’s standard.
Lastly, in the light of the Lord’s return, we need to reevaluate our work. There are two basic questions: whether our work is of a maintenance nature or of a pioneering nature, and whether our work is static or dynamic. The pattern of the brothers who went before us is that they were always moving and progressing. At the outset of the Sino-Japanese War, Brother Nee founded the magazine called The Open Door. He reminded the co-workers that they should not merely try to cope with the environment; instead, they should preach the gospel everywhere to spread the Lord’s testimony. The co-workers should not stay in one place but should travel everywhere. Actually, the testimonies today in many places throughout Southeast Asia were all started at that time.
The Lord’s testimony has been on the island of Taiwan for over seventy years. From the beginning Brother Lee’s hope was that Taiwan would be a starting point where the Lord’s testimony would spread to the whole world. Today in this special time, should we not reevaluate the direction of our work? Actually, just in Taiwan alone, there are still quite a few cities and towns that do not have a church and require propagation there. The needs outside Taiwan are even greater. Now is not the time for us to stick to our own place. Now is the time for us to spread the gospel of the kingdom with a view of the whole earth. Should we allow ourselves to be stuck in one place till the Lord comes? If Abraham had not left his own land and his own country, God’s move on earth could not have begun. What the Bible gave us is not the biographies of the apostles but the acts of the apostles. Recently after the three rounds of 24-hour prayer and the 30-day global prayer, a brother in China saw lightning and heard voices of thunders in his prayer and immediately consecrated himself and migrated with his factory to a place in Southeast Asia where there is not yet a church. Is this a precursor of the Lord’s move?
May the Lord cause us to see the opportunity afforded to us today to cooperate with His move. At a time when the whole world is facing an unprecedented challenge, may we reevaluate our living, meetings, service, and work in the light of the Lord’s return.
Andrew Yu
May 29, 2020
(keyword: Zoom)
To speak incorrectly in the meetings is much better than not to speak
“The Spirit is always ready and expects to speak with us and through us, but we would not always cooperate with the Spirit to speak. Whenever we come to the meeting, we must try to speak. In a good sense, it does not matter whether we speak properly or wrongly, well or poorly. As long as we speak, God will be happy. Parents always like to hear their young children speak…. For many years our Father in heaven has not seen us speak much in the meetings, and this should have bothered Him. If we come to the meetings speaking, even in an incorrect way, He will be happy. To speak incorrectly is much better than not to speak. When someone speaks, even incorrectly, he is learning to minister to others.”
(CWWL, 1990, vol. 2, “The Practice of Prophesying,” pp. 367-368)
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How should we meet according to God’s economy?
“And day by day, continuing steadfastly with one accord in the 1temple and 2breaking bread from 3house to house, they partook of their food with exultation and 4simplicity of heart” (Acts 2:46)
Acts 2:461 temple
In the initiation of God’s New Testament economy, the early believers and even the first group of apostles were not clear that God had forsaken Judaism with its practices and facilities, including the temple (see Matt. 23:38 — “your house,” referring to the God-forsaken temple). Hence, according to their tradition and habit, they still went to the temple for their New Testament meeting.Acts 2:462 breaking
The early believers remembered the Lord by breaking bread daily in their houses; this showed their love and enthusiasm toward the Lord.Acts 2:463 house
Or, at home; in contrast to in the temple. Meeting in homes as the Christian way of meeting together is fitting to God’s New Testament economy. This way differs from the Judaic way of meeting in the synagogues (6:9). It became a continual and general practice in the churches (cf. Rom. 16:5; 1 Cor. 16:19; Col. 4:15; Philem. 2).Acts 2:464 simplicity
Or, singleness; describing the heart’s being simple, single, and plain, having one love and desire and one goal in seeking after the Lord.
“Now Peter and John were going up into the 1temple at the ninth-hour prayer” (Acts 3:1)
See note 461 in ch. 2 [above]. It was not only the early believers who were not clear concerning God’s New Testament economy in relation to the Judaic temple; even the early apostles did not have a clear vision concerning God’s abandoning of the Judaic things. Hence, even after God poured out the Spirit upon them on the day of Pentecost to initiate a new dispensation, they still would not separate themselves from the Judaic temple. At the initial stage God tolerated their ignorance in this matter. But this led to a mixture of the church with Judaism, which was not condemned by the early church in Jerusalem (cf. 21:20-26). Eventually, the temple was destroyed by Titus with his Roman army in A.D. 70, as prophesied by the Lord in Matt. 23:38 and 24:2. That destruction cleared up the religious mixture.
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