BREAKING AND RELEASING
According to Watchman Nee
I. THE IMPORTANCE OF BREAKING (Chapter 1)
Sooner or later a servant of God discovers that he himself is the greatest frustration to his work. Sooner or later he finds that his outer man does not match his inner man. The inner man heads in one direction, while the outer man heads in another direction. pg 7 [Romans 7]
A. The Outer and the Inner Man --- Defined pg 7-8
1. Scriptures that divide the man into inner and outer man:
Romans 7:22; Ephesians 3:16; II Cor 4:16
2. God resides in the inner man, and the man outside this
God-occupied inner man is the outer man. Our inner man puts on our outer man like a garment. God has placed Himself, His Spirit, His life, and His power in us, that is, in our inner man. pg 8
Our inner man delights in the law of God.
3. Outside of the inner man is our mind, emotion, and will. Outside of all these is our
body, our flesh. pg 8
4. In order for a man to work for God, his inner man must be released. In order for the inner man to be released, it must break out of the outer man. pg 8
5. The Lord has to dismantle our outer man in order to make way for our inner man. As soon as the inner man is released, many sinners will be blessed and many Christians will receive grace. pg 8
B. Death and the Bearing of Fruit --- The illustration of the seed.
1. John 12:24 Life is in the grain. However, there is a shell outside of the grain, a very powerful shell. As long as this shell does not break open, the grain cannot grow. It is the action of the temperature and moisture of the earth upon the grain which results in the breaking of the shell. When the shell breaks, the grain grows.
2. John 12:25 According to the Lord, the outer shell is our own life [bios & psuche] and the inner life is the eternal life [zoe] that He dispenses. In order for the inner life to be released, the outer life, must suffer loss. pg 9
3. Two conditions of those who have the Lord's life within them.
a. Bound, surrounded, and locked up.
b. Opened up so the life [zoe] can be released.
The problem today is not how can we have life [zoe], but how we can allow this life to flow out of us. pg 9
C. The Need for the Breaking --- The alabaster flask
1. John 12:3 Mark 14:3 "she brake the box" Unless the alabaster flask is broken, the ointment cannot be released. pg 9
2. It is strange that many people appreciate the alabaster flask. They think the flask is more precious than the ointment.
3. Many people think that their outer man is more precious than their inner man.
a. Some treasure wisdom.
b. Some treasure emotions.
c. Some treasure themselves --- eloquence, ability, etc.
4. We are not antique collectors; we are not admirers of the alabaster flask. pg 10
5. We are those who are after the aroma of the ointment. pg 10
6. The Holy Spirit is working to break the outer man.
a. People face one trial after another, encounter one incident after another.
The Holy Spirit has only one goal in all of His disciplining work:
To break and dismantle the outer man.
b. The trouble with us is that we murmur as soon as we suffer a little hardship,
and we complain as soon as we suffer a little defeat.
c. The Lord is ready to use us. As soon as His hand is upon us, however,
we become unhappy.
d. From the day we were saved, the Lord has been working on us in many
different ways for the purpose of breaking the self.
7. The treasure is in the earthen vessel. The church lacks the treasure, not the earthen vessels. pg 10
D. Breaking and Timing pg 11
1. The Lord breaks our outer man in two ways:
a. He breaks it in a cumulative way.
b. He breaks it in a sudden way.
The Lord gives some people a sudden breaking first, followed by more gradual
breakings; the sudden work comes first and the cumulative work follows. Other people face situations and problems every day. Then one day, they suddenly receive one great blow from the Lord; the cumulative work comes first and the sudden work follows. pg 11
2. The Time to Break
a. Generally speaking, the Lord has to spend a few years before He can complete the breaking work.
b. We cannot reduce the time this breaking takes, but we can extend the time. The Lord completes the work in some in a few years.
c. With others, the work is not completed after ten or twenty years. Nothing is more
pitiful than wasting God's time.
E. The Meaning of the Cross pg 12
1. The meaning of the cross is the breaking of the outer man.
2. The cross puts the outer man to death and breaks open the shell.
3. The cross destroys everything of the outer man:
a. Opinions b. Methods c. Wisdom d. Self-love
F. Two Reasons for not being Broken
1. They are living in darkness [saved but not discerning]. God is working and breaking, yet they do not know that God is doing the work. They only see men, thinking that men are opposing them. Or they only see the environment, complaining that it is too harsh. May the Lord grant us the revelation to see God's hand. pg 13
2. A person is not broken because he loves himself too much. Because we love ourselves
secretly, we try to save ourselves. pg 13 - 14
G. Expecting Wounds
1. No person expresses more charm than one who has passed through such a breaking process. A stubborn and self-loving person becomes charming after he is broken
by God.
2. Consider Jacob [Brother Bloomfield's message "Change Me Lord"].
After repeated dealings by God, he changed.
3. When our outer man is smitten, dealt with, and humbled by all kinds of misfortune, the scars and wounds that are left behind will be the very places from which the spirit flows out from within. I am afraid that some brothers and sisters are too whole; they have never suffered any dealings and have never been changed in any way. pg 15
II. PLIABLENESS AFTER THE BREAKING (Chapter 9)
A. Pliableness and the breaking of the will
1. The Spirit strikes different men at different points.
a. With some people, God deals specifically with their self-love. Again and again God orders environments that deal with their self-love. pg 103
b. With other people, God deals with their pride. Again and again God orders environments that break their pride.
c. With still others, God deals with their wisdom. He tears down their trust in their kind of walk which has its source in their own wisdom. He allows them to blunder and fail in everything they lay hold of around them.
2. The Spirit deals with everyone at different speeds. pg 104
a. With some, the Lord's rod visits them in a relentless, rapid sequence.
b. With others, the Lord deals with them for a while and then gives them a period
of respite.
*One thing is unchanging: He always scourges those whom He loves. We should
find many bruised spots among God's children.
3. Everyone who is subdued shows one characteristic --- pliableness.
a. Pliableness is the mark of a broken man.
b. He deals with us once, twice, and repeatedly. By the grace of God, something will be knocked off of us through those repeated dealings. Such a severe chastisement will produce a fear in us when we try to do the same thing again. We will know that if we do the same thing again, the Lord will smite us again. If we say the same thing again, the Lord will chastise us again. 105
B. Different Manifestations of Pliableness
1. Easy to be dealt with:
a. A pliable person is one who is easy to be dealt with.
b. It is easy for him to speak to others and easy for him to ask from others.
2. Easy to have feeling:
a. A pliable man is one who has sensitive feeling.
b. Because his outer man is broken, it is easy for his spirit to be released, and it is
easy for him to touch the brothers' and sisters' spirits. pg 107
c. His feelings become very sensitive. He immediately knows whether something is
right or wrong. As soon as others' spirits move, he will respond.
d. He will not do anything foolish or insensitive, and he will not do anything that
offends others' feelings.
3. Easy to receive edification
a. It will be easy for him to listen to others. He will no longer dare despise others. b. When he listens to another brother, he will no longer try to catch flaws in his pronunciation, mistakes in his teaching, or ambiguities in meaning. He will instead touch the speaker's spirit with his own spirit. As soon as the Lord moves a little in the speaker and his spirit is activated, the brother's spirit will be revived, and he will receive edification. pg 108
c. Whenever the Spirit of God moves in a brother or sister, he will receive help. He will no longer criticize others according to his doctrines or measure others according to a letter. He will not longer pay attention to the nicety of the sermon, the eloquence of the speech, or the soundness of the interpretation. His entire attitude will change.
d. The degree to which we can be helped by others depends on the condition of our spirit. Men often pass by us, but we cannot touch their spirit and cannot
receive edification from them because our shell is to
thick. pg 109
e. Edification is when our spirit touches God's Spirit.
f. Those who hardly receive any help from anyone are not wiser than others. It only proves that their outer shell is harder than others' and that nothing can arouse them. pg 111
C. Fellowship in the Spirit
1. Fellowship is not a communication of the mind with the mind or an exchange of opinions; it is the contact of ¬spirit with spirit. pg 111
2. When there is fellowship in the spirit, there is prayer in one accord. Many people pray with their mind. It is hard for them to find like-minded companions, because they cannot find another mind to match their own even if they searched the whole world. Fellowship is carried on in the spirit. pg 112
D. No Imitation
1. The breaking of the outer man can only be done by the Holy Spirit. Man cannot imitate this.
2. Our responsibility is to ask for a little light from God so that we will know and acknowledge His hand. We want to be humbled under the mighty hand of God to confess that whatever He does is right. We should not be a senseless mule. pg 112
3. As we give ourselves to imitations and artificiality, we will gradually be led to believe that we are what we pretend to be. Even if others point out that we do not have anything real and that we have to get rid of it, we will still wonder whether their words are true. pg 114
*The outer man must be broken before the inner man can find freedom. This is the fundamental path that a servant of the Lord must learn to take. pg 116
The Breaking of the Outer Man and the Release of the Spirit by Watchman Nee
