I.　Because the church has become degraded through the many centuries of its history, it needs to be restored according to God's original intention; the recovery of the church is typified by the return of the children of Israel from their captivity—Ezra 1:1-11; cf. Gal. 6:16; 1 Cor. 10:6a:

A.　The particular intention of the recovery of Israel from their captivity was to rebuild the temple as God's house on the earth among His elect and to re-establish the kingdom of God on the earth for the accomplishing of God's eternal economy—Ezra 1:2-5; Neh. 2:17.

B.　Likewise, the particular intention of the Lord's recovery of the church in this age is to have all the saints in this recovery come together in their localities to be built up together as the house of God in many cities; through such a house, God will have His kingdom for the carrying out of His economy—Matt. 16:18; Eph. 2:19-22; Rom. 14:17; Acts 1:8; 1 Cor. 1:2; Rev. 1:11.

C.　The recovery of a remnant of the children of Israel from Babylon to Jerusalem for the rebuilding of the temple and the city signifies the Lord's recovery of a remnant of the church out of today's division and confusion back to the original ground of oneness for the building up of the church as the house of God and the kingdom of God—17:1-6; 18:2, 4a:

1.　God's people need to be recovered out of Babylon back to the unique ground of oneness—Deut. 12:5, 11-14; Psa. 133; Rev. 1:11.

2.　God's people need to be recovered back to the enjoyment of the unsearchably rich Christ as the all-inclusive Spirit, typified by the good land—Eph. 3:8; Gal. 3:14; Deut. 8:7-10; Col. 1:12; 2:6-7.

3.　In the recovery of the church we are building up the Body of Christ, the temple of God, the house of God—Eph. 4:11-16; 1 Cor. 3:9-17.

4.　In the recovery of the church we are living the kingdom life to reign in life in the reality of God's kingdom—Rom. 14:17; 5:17; cf. Matt. 5:3, 8; 6:6, 14-15, 20-21; 7:13-14.

5.　This fulfills God's original intention to have a corporate man to express Him in His image, and to represent Him with His dominion—Gen. 1:26.

II.　The stirring up of the spirit of Cyrus and the spirit of the leaders of the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi (Ezra 1:1-5) was a work of the hiding God (Isa. 45:15), who secretly took care of His oppressed elect in their dispersion, for His move to rebuild His house in Jerusalem:

A.　The Lord's recovery begins from our spirit, which has been stirred up by God; our spirit is God's dwelling place, the base on earth where Christ as the heavenly ladder has been set up for the building of God into man and man into God—Ezra 1:1, 5; Eph. 2:22; 2 Tim. 1:7-8; 4:22; Gen. 28:10-22; John 1:51.

B.　Once we are stirred up in our spirit, we will "rise up, go up, bring up, and build up"; the bringing up of the vessels of gold and silver from Babylon to Jerusalem typifies the bringing up of Christ's riches to the unique ground of the genuine oneness of the church to build up the church—Ezra 1:3, 5, 7, 11.

III.　The Lord's recovery is the recovery of the oneness in our spirit; to be in our spirit is to be in Jerusalem, the place of simplicity and oneness, whereas to be in Babylon is to be in our mind, the place of confusion and division—3:1; John 4:24; cf. 2 Cor. 11:2-3; Rev. 3:14-16.

IV.　The building up of the house of God requires the priesthood represented by Joshua and the kingship represented by Zerubbabel—Ezra 3:2; 5:1-2; Zech. 4:7-10; 1 Pet. 2:5, 9:

A.　To have the priesthood we must contact God, be saturated with God, and be occupied and possessed by God to minister God into people—cf. Acts 6:4.

B.　To have the kingship we must be under the headship of the Lord Jesus, allowing Christ as the life-giving Spirit to rule within us—Col. 1:13, 18b.

V.　For the recovery of the church as God's house, we need the recovery of the altar; this is the recovery of the real consecration for God's building—Ezra 3:2:

A.　The altar is mainly for the burnt offering, which typifies Christ in His living a life that is absolutely for God and uniquely for God's satisfaction—Exo. 38:1:

1.　We need to take Him as our burnt offering every morning—Lev. 6:12-13.

2.　We must put all that we are, all that we have, and all that we can do on the altar for God's satisfaction; otherwise, it is impossible to recover God's house—Rom. 12:1-2; cf. Gen. 12:8; 13:18.

B.　For the recovery of the church as God's testimony, we need an "upper room" consecration, paying the price for the heavenly vision; to take the way of the Lord's recovery requires a costly consecration, the consecration of a Nazarite—Acts 1:12-14; Rev. 3:18; cf. Num. 6:1-9.

VI.　We have returned to the place of God's choice, the genuine ground of oneness to lay the unique foundation of Christ; in the Lord's recovery we care only for Christ as the centrality and universality of God's eternal economy—Ezra 3:9-13; 1 Cor. 3:11; 1:9; Col. 1:17b, 18b.

VII.　In the Lord's unique recovery we should never have any mixture; we must be pure, absolute, and on the alert, rejecting everything from and not compromising with the world and Babylon—Ezra 4:1-5, 23-24; Rev. 2:12-13; 17:3-6.

VIII.　God's command that the captives return was not only for the rebuilding of the temple of God but also to prepare the way to bring Christ to earth the first time; similarly, for His second coming Christ needs some of His people to return from their captivity to the proper church life—Micah 5:2; Ezra 2:21; Neh. 7:26; Matt. 2:4-6; 1:12-13; 2 Pet. 3:10-12.