This book is compiled from messages given by Brother Witness Lee in the summer of 1969 in Los Angeles (USA). It examines the books of restoration in the Old Testament: the Book of Ezra, the Book of Nehemiah, the Book of Haggai, and the Book of Zechariah."We all know that the Old Testament is a book of types, and the greatest, most comprehensive type is the history of the people of Israel. In modern Christianity, many teachers and Christians apply what happened at the beginning of the history of the nation of Israel to their Christian experience... We know how to apply the Passover to our experience of redemption, and how to apply the crossing of the Red Sea to our experience of baptism. We know how to apply the enjoyment of daily manna. and even water from the cut rock to our experiences, because this means receiving Christ as our daily supply and as our living water. We even know how to apply the temple that King Solomon built to our experiences.

But many Christians do not know how to apply this last part of the story of the people of Israel. What does captivity mean to us? How can we apply captivity to our experiences? And what does restoration, return from captivity mean? And how can we apply restoration to our experience? Most Christians know how to apply the beginning, but they simply neglect to apply the ending... Captivity means that God's people are scattered; captivity means there is no longer unity. The people of God have been led away from the proper ground of unity to the wrong ground. At first all the people were in Jerusalem, gathered and concentrated in one place, but then they scattered and were taken to different places. This is captivity. Let's apply this to today's situation. Are Christians gathered or scattered today? In some ways they are more scattered than the people of Israel once were. They are very divided and very scattered. This means that Christianity is in captivity. We really need to come back and we need to rebuild. We need not only revival, but also restoration...Recovery means returning to Jerusalem. This means to return from Babylon to Jerusalem... In the type, Jerusalem signifies the ground of unity. This is the ground for the gathering of the Lord's people. The meaning of Babylon is division, dispersion and captivity. To be restored from Babylon is to be restored from division, and to be restored to Jerusalem is to be restored to the original ground of unity" ("Restoring God's House and God's City"