I.　The Lord needs the overcomers to carry out the economy of God to have a Body and to destroy His enemy—Eph. 1:10; 3:9; 1 Tim. 1:4; Rev. 12:11:

A.　Revelation is a book on the overcomers who consummate God's economy— vv. 10-11.

B.　The recovery is the Lord's way to help us to be overcomers.

C.　The overcomers are for the building up of the Body of Christ to consummate the New Jerusalem—Eph. 4:16; Rev. 2:7b; 3:12, 21:

1.　The will of God is to obtain a Body for Christ to be His fullness, His expression—Rom. 12:2, 5; Eph. 1:5, 9, 11, 22-23; 5:17, 30.

2.　The highest peak of the Lord's recovery that can carry out God's economy is for God to produce not many local churches in a physical way but an organic Body to be His organism—1 Cor. 12:12, 27; Eph. 4:16.

3.　Without the overcomers the Body of Christ cannot be built up, and unless the Body of Christ is built up, Christ cannot come back for His bride—Rev. 19:7-9.

4.　The building up of the Body of Christ is by the overcomers produced by Christ as the sevenfold intensified life-giving Spirit—1:4; 4:5; 5:6; 3:1, 12.

5.　The building up of the Body of Christ by the overcomers in this age is for the initial consummation of the New Jerusalem in the kingdom age and eventually for the full consummation of the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth—2:7; 21:2.

D.　The overcomers see the Body, know the Body, and care for the Body—Rom. 12:4-5; 1 Cor. 12:12, 18, 24b-27; Eph. 2:16; 4:4, 16; Col. 2:19.

E.　The overcomers overcome anything that is against Christ or that replaces Christ—1 John 2:18, 22; Phil. 3:7-11.

F.　In overcoming the degradation of the churches, we need to overcome three "isms"—satanic Judaism, demonic Catholicism, and dead and Christless Protestantism—Rev. 2:9-10, 24-28; 3:1-5, 20-21.

G.　The Lord has been delayed because He still needs some who will pay the price to be His overcomers—v. 18; Matt. 25:9:

1.　The overcomers make a resolution to be vitalized ones—Judg. 5:15; Rev. 3:19b.

2.　The overcomers are those who care for God's interests above everything, including their necessities—Matt. 6:33.

3.　The overcomers resolve to deny themselves and to pay the price required by the Lord to be the overcomers for the Lord, for the recovery, and for the Body—16:24; Rev. 3:18; 12:11; 14:1, 4.

4.　The overcomers are the way for Christ to come back—22:20.

H.　The secret of overcoming—the way to be an overcomer—is to eat the Lord Jesus—2:7, 17; 3:20.

I.　God is waiting for the overcomers to defeat His enemy, to destroy Satan— 12:10-11:

1.　Christianity cannot fulfill this work for God, and even the church life carried out in a routine way cannot accomplish God's desire; He needs the overcomers.

2.　As members of the Body, we all should aspire to be overcomers, the mighty ones who match the unique mighty One and who will return with Christ to deal with Antichrist and be His co-kings in the millennium—Joel 3:11.

II.　The Lord's recovery is to build up Zion—the overcomers in the church, the reality of the Body of Christ—Rev. 14:1; Eph. 4:16:

A.　In the New Testament the overcomers are likened to Zion—Rev. 14:1:

1.　In Revelation 14:1 the 144,000 overcomers are not just in Jerusalem— they are on the peak of Zion.

2.　In the book of Revelation what the Lord wants and what the Lord will build up is Zion, the overcomers.

B.　The church life is today's Jerusalem, and in the church there must be a group of overcomers; these overcomers are today's Zion:

1.　Zion is the beauty of the holy city (Psa. 48:2; 50:2); likewise, the overcomers are the beauty of a local church.

2.　Psalm 132:13-18 is Jehovah's speaking concerning Zion; this is a picture of the top church life—the situation of the overcomers in Zion.

3.　Psalm 134 indicates that those who are in Zion, the highest people, can bless everyone and teach everyone; the blessing comes from Zion, from the highest peak, from the ones who have attained to the top, the position of the overcomers.

C.　Zion—the highest peak in God's economy—is the reality of the Body of Christ consummating in the New Jerusalem—Eph. 1:22-23; 4:16; Rev. 21:2, 10-11:

1.　We may have a good church life, but among us there is almost no reality, actuality, and practicality of the Body life; this is the need in the recovery today.

2.　Our goal is to have Zion for the fulfillment of God's eternal economy.

3.　The church life in the Lord's recovery must go on and on until some of us, if not all, reach Zion—Psa. 84:4, 7.

III.　"To serve the Lord, to be one of the co-workers, the first requirement is faithfulness not only to the Lord but also to His recovery:

A.　"We must regard the Lord's recovery and not consider it as anyone's personal work.

B.　"Merely to be faithful to the Lord is not adequate. We must also be faithful to the Lord's recovery.

C.　"To show our faithfulness to the recovery, we must consider ourselves married to the recovery.

D.　"We all need to get ourselves married to the Lord's recovery.

E.　"May the Lord have mercy on us all." (The Ministry of the New Testament and the Teaching and Fellowship of the Apostles, pp. 32-33).