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We have surely seen the Lord’s blessing since we have taken His ordained way. There are a good number of new ones among us who have been saved into the Lord’s recovery in recent years. Many of them are open and seeking. This is very encouraging. This is the result of the blessing in the Lord’s new way. Thank the Lord that we are here for this way, yet thus far, one thing has not been ministered into our being.
We always think, talk, act, work, and do things according to what our being is. We were meeting, serving, and preaching the gospel in the old way for many years. Our practice in the past was too much in a natural way. Our thought concerning meeting, serving the Lord, and carrying out the preaching of the gospel so that sinners might be brought to the Lord is still according to the natural concept. The natural concept is to have preaching meetings as in Christianity. We may believe in the preaching by one professional person who has great capacity, ability, gift, and function. I would not say that this does not work. It does work to a certain extent. But through these recent years, under the Lord’s mercy, the Lord has shown me that this way is natural.
Then we may ask, “What way is not natural?” The personal contact with people is the way that is not natural. Recently, a number of small churches have been raised up in Southern California. These churches were not started by any worker or by any professional work. They began through brothers who moved to these new places. A number of the working saints among us could not afford a house in a big city, so they moved to suburbs and small towns. The dear saints in these small places brought in new ones but not through preaching meetings or conferences. They brought them in through personal contact.
A group of about five or six families may move to a new locality. Then they can gather together with the Word, with the Spirit, in the Lord’s name, and in the light of the recovery. When the saints move to new places, they just need to live the recovery. When ten saints are raised up in a new place, they may simply come together and have the Lord’s table. They do not need to declare that they are taking the ground. Although elders have not been appointed among them, they have spontaneously become the church there. The raising up of these new churches is evidence of the profit of gaining people for the Lord by our personal contact.
Thousands of people were saved in Jerusalem in the early days of the church. But eventually, the Lord allowed a great persecution to occur. Acts 8:1 says, “There occurred in that day a great persecution against the church which was in Jerusalem; and all were scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.” All the saints, thousands of them, were scattered to preach the gospel. Verse 4 says, “Those therefore who were scattered went throughout the land announcing the word as the gospel.” Their being scattered issued in the spreading of the gospel. New ones were brought in not by preaching meetings but by each saint’s personal preaching and personal contact with others. I did not see this in the past as emphatically as I do now.
Years ago I thought that in order to gain people, we had to have a proper preacher with a big meeting. The saints could be used as a means to bring people to this meeting. By listening to the preaching, these people could be saved. We did this for years. I thought in the past that this practice was needed and was prevailing. Today I realize that it was not that prevailing. During the past seventy years of our history, from 1920 to the present time, that way never brought us an increase of over twenty percent. I have been in the recovery for sixty-one years, and I have seen this through my experience. We found out that the old way of one person speaking and the rest listening was not that satisfactory.
By the Lord’s mercy, the recovery has spread to all the major continents. There are over thirteen hundred churches throughout the earth. Most of these local churches, though, are small. Of course, according to history, there has not been a church in Christianity that has continuously had an increase of thirty percent. If any church had a continual increase of even twenty percent, that would be a very flourishing church. We have not reached this percentage of increase in a continual way. We have to admit that the old way of having preaching meetings with a gifted preacher is not the spiritual way. That is the natural way.
Now I want to come to my point. If you would receive mercy from the Lord to live Him, to live for Him, and to preach Him to gain sinners for Him, just do it yourself. Do not trust in any preacher. Do not expect to get help from any speaker. Just gain people for the Lord yourself. Surely, you can save one person within one year. I am burdened that we have a breakthrough in this matter. I am looking to the Lord that each one of you would make a decision to get one person saved for the church life every year. In the natural realm it is normal for people to have children. But today for us Christians who love the Lord, it seems difficult to bring forth a spiritual child. The Lord told us in John 15 that He is the vine and we are the branches (v. 5). He appointed us to go forth and bear remaining fruit (v. 16). We all should desire fruit that remains.
In these recent years we have stressed the truth concerning fruit-bearing in John 15 again and again. We may have prayed, “Lord, we hate barrenness. We want to bear much fruit.” But the bringing forth of fruit among us has not entered into the God-ordained, practical way. We are still mostly in the natural way. We may wonder what the God-ordained, practical way is. We need to realize that as believers, we must and we should bear fruit. We have to bring forth children. Then we must gain a certain amount of skill in bringing forth fruit. We have to learn how to bear fruit and to practice fruit-bearing continually.
As believers, as members of Christ, and as branches of the vine, we must bear fruit. The Lord said that if any branch does not bear fruit, it will be cast out (vv. 2a, 6). To be cast out is not to suffer eternal perdition but to lose the enjoyment of Christ in the organic union with Him. It is serious not to bear fruit. Many of us, however, do not have a serious consideration about our barrenness.
Some brothers and sisters have been faithful in the recovery and for the recovery for many years, but I have observed that they have not borne fruit. They love the church, they are for the church, and they support the church financially, but they are not bearing fruit. They should realize that to not bear fruit is a serious thing before the Lord. The Lord wants us to have a spiritual life in the church, to go to the meetings, to worship Him, and to live Him. But what is all this for? If all the saints in the church were like this, yet no one bore any fruit, the church would eventually die out. If the people of a nation did not bear children, the nation would eventually become extinct. The most basic, crucial, and vital thing is for us to bring forth children.
By His mercy, I have found out that to bring forth spiritual children, you must make a serious decision to contact people directly. Do not trust in preachers and in preaching meetings. Just trust in your direct, personal, continual contact with people. I assure you that if you make such a decision, you will at least bring two people to the Lord yearly.
I would like to present a simple way to bear fruit. First, you should make a vow to the Lord. You can pray, “Lord, as one of Your branches, I realize that I must bear fruit according to Your charge in John 15. If I cannot get one sinner saved within a year, this is a shame. Lord, every week I will spend two or three hours to contact people for their salvation.” This is the principle. This does not mean that you have to spend two or three hours at one time in one day. You may spend some time in the morning to consider how to contact and save your unsaved relatives. You may spend twenty-five minutes to pray and make a record of these relatives. These twenty-five minutes should be reckoned as part of your two to three hours of labor in the gospel every week. In the evening you may write a letter to one of your relatives to find out how he is doing, opening the door for you to have further contact with him. The time spent in writing this letter is also a part of your gospel labor. Let us suppose that you have five unsaved cousins. If you labored three hours a week on these cousins in a concentrated way for one year, surely at least one of them would be brought to the Lord.
In order to be fruit-bearing branches of Christ, we need to be revived by the Lord day by day. Our publication called The Holy Word for Morning Revival has been a help to the saints to be revived by the Lord every morning. The most effective way to live the Christian life is by having a vital, living, active morning watch with the Lord. We should get two verses from the Scripture to live on every day and then contact people for the Lord in a definite way. In addition to this, we need to bear fruit. The reason we do not bear fruit is that we do not practice contacting people directly, personally, and faithfully.
I would beg you elders to learn to have a start in this. You yourselves have to do it. Do not expect others to do it. You yourselves do this one thing. Practice personally contacting people every week. Contact them individually. You can contact your relatives, friends, neighbors, colleagues, classmates, etc. You need to plan and schedule your time so that you contact two or three individuals every week. You should pray, “Lord, I do not want to contact them in a natural way. I do not want to have natural talk when I meet with them. Lord, show me the vital way, the living way, to bring them to You.” If you pray such a prayer, the Lord will show you. Today there is the need of some faithful doers in the practice of fruit-bearing.
We need to practice contacting people. We may contact someone without any success or result. Then we can go to the Lord to repent and open to Him for His adjustment. He will impress us to go back to them in a certain way. When we follow the Lord to contact people according to His way, they will be saved. As we go out to contact people one by one, we will find out the proper way from the Lord. We will also find out the right persons to visit. We will learn not to waste our time. We have found that just to knock on doors in a general way can be a waste of time. We must look to the Lord to get a proper candidate for our labor. Then we need to work on him in a proper way. This is the successful way to labor in the gospel. The ones on whom we labor should be those with whom we are acquainted, either directly or indirectly. In this way the time we spend will be worthwhile.
Whether or not this can be worked out depends upon our endeavoring. We cannot just make an announcement in the meeting, encouraging others to go. We ourselves have to go. We should start by ourselves and then get a companion to labor with us. After half a year we can bring forth four new ones who will labor in the same way that we are. For the future of the church in our locality, this is needed. We have wasted too much of our time. We must make a budget to be very economical in the way that we spend our time. We need to redeem our time by praying for our acquaintances and relatives, writing them letters, and sending them booklets. Then we can make appointments to go see them. As we labor, we need to learn with an honest and sincere heart. We need to learn how to talk to people and how to gain them within a short period of time. If we endeavor like this, we can bring at least two persons to the Lord yearly as remaining fruit. We may baptize more than five, but out of the five, two will remain in the church.
Keep this in mind — you must practice this yourself. I beg you to forget about having preachers and preaching meetings. That does not work so well. Just practice visiting people one by one personally and directly. Then after a short time, maybe two or three weeks, other saints will follow you to be your companions. Then you will have a start of the practice of fruit-bearing in your locality. You must spend your time on the right persons in the right way. In order to gain a valuable result, you must labor.
Do not trust in preachers with large preaching meetings. That will waste your time and delay others. You yourself must have a start in the practice of fruit-bearing in such a strict way. Every week you should spend two to three hours to contact individuals. You should carry this out as a business. Then you will see the results. I hope and pray for this. I believe that the Lord will eventually work this out, making each one of His lovers a winner of sinners.
You must go to contact people one by one by yourself directly through planning. You do not necessarily need to go out to knock on doors. We have found that going out to knock on doors is good, but it does not work that definitely. We must take a way so that we can bear fruit in a definite way. Just plan how to contact your acquaintances. Every week you should spend two to three hours on the gospel in this way. Do not send others. You must make a vow with the Lord that you would plan, schedule your time, and find a way to contact your acquaintances directly, at least once a week. If you take any other way, the result will not be that definite. The definite result only comes out of your plan and out of your schedule. Otherwise, you will waste your time.
You do not need to announce anything to the church. If the saints in the church remain the way they are, do not blame or condemn them. Rather, go along with the church, and help it to go on. But you yourself need to labor in a definite way to gain people. New ones will then be brought into the church life through you, and everyone will see this.
I would especially like to talk to the elders among us who are full time. Among the saints, you have to be the examples, the living ones who get three to five people saved every six months. Then you can labor so that one or two of them will remain in the church life. It is not pleasant to see our co-workers serving the Lord full time and yet not bringing anyone to the Lord within a year. We must labor in the gospel definitely. We have to bring forth some children by ourselves. We should be able to point to some who are our spiritual children. We have to study how to contact people ourselves. We still have much to learn in contacting people. Just to copy what others do does not work. The Lord will show us. If we are definite and desperate to gain people, we will find a way.
You need to contact people directly and individually, laboring in the gospel two to three hours every week. You should find out who is available for you to contact and then contact them directly and continually over a long period of time. You will gain one of them. If you take this way of directly contacting people one by one, I can assure you that you will bring two people into the church every year. You should make a decision and tell the Lord that you will spend two to three hours every week in the gospel. Then ask the Lord to lead you to contact people one by one. You should not stop going to the church meetings. You should still live your regular church life. You do not need to promote what you are doing. You just need to go and do it. Then gradually, some will see what you are doing, and they will join you.
We have tried many ways in the last six years, and they may work, but they do not work satisfactorily. Only the way of contacting people directly brings a satisfactory result. We need to plan how to contact our acquaintances. We have to keep working on one of them directly, individually, and continuously. To get someone saved and established takes about six months, and to bring them into the church will take another six months. We may think that to bring one or two a year into the church life is too slow. But this slow way is actually the quick way. If twenty are meeting together in a locality, and five of them bring two people into the church life, that is a fifty percent increase. I can assure you that this can be worked out. Any other way will waste our time.
As branches of the Lord, we should give Him three hours a week for the gospel. Then we can pray, “Lord, lead me, teach me, and give me the wisdom in planning, in scheduling my time, in making appointments, and in talking to people.” Then we should practice this directly and definitely. Surely, we will gain people for the Lord’s kingdom.
We have to change our concept concerning having a preacher with a preaching meeting. We ourselves need to labor directly to bring one or two into the church life yearly. This should be a goal in our labor. We love the church, but we may not have brought one person into the church in the past five years. We must have a definite beginning. We must practice contacting people to bring definite fruit into the church. We also need to practice the church life in group meetings and in larger prophesying meetings. This is really needed. But we need the adequate number as a base for our practice of the church life. The elders need to work two to three hours in the gospel every week to bring one or two remaining fruit into the church within a year. If the elders do this, others will rise up to follow. We should not give any announcement about this or promote it. We have been doing this for years, with little result. Promotion does not work. We need to labor ourselves to build up a living example.
This is altogether up to our decision. Would we still remain in the natural way, or would we turn to this way, a way full of the need for learning? A working brother’s job may occupy him to the uttermost, but he should still endeavor to save some time every week for definite laboring in the gospel. Many of us have been busy working for years with little result. We must change our way.
We must have a plan for reaching people. We should make a list of all our acquaintances and study their situation. Then we can work on them according to our study. This is the way to gain the proper persons. We should not leave our bearing of fruit to fortune. It is not a matter of fortune but a matter of labor. We all have acquaintances for whom we can pray. We need to consider them and pray for them. We need to study their situation and decide when the best time would be for us to visit them. Farmers do not labor in a loose way. They study the situation of their land, their crops, and the weather, and they labor accordingly so that they can reap a proper harvest. We need to be the same way in our labor to gain people. We must have a plan and a schedule to labor on people two to three hours every week. We need to learn how to gain people.
I would ask the elders if they are happy about the increase in their locality. We must make a strong decision to labor in a personal way for the increase of the church. We should schedule our time for the weekly preaching of the gospel. For the Lord’s recovery we all need a turn from barrenness to fruitfulness. We need the new ones. We need “new blood,” newly saved ones. All the local churches must pay attention to this. If our number remains the same year after year, the saints may eventually lose interest in serving. Instead of being busy in the church life, they may become busy in a negative way. Mothers with young children are consumed with taking care of them. They do not have much time for other things. The only rescue for us is to change our way so that we can gain the increase. This is the only remedy.
If we cannot gain a thirty percent increase in a year, we should consider that as a failure. A twenty percent increase is good, but not that good. If twenty out of one hundred saints take this way, they can bring in at least thirty yearly. We do not need the whole church to work in this way. But it is altogether reasonable, logical, and possible that one-fifth of the saints will work in this way. Then we can gain a thirty percent increase yearly. This increase will stir up the interest of the whole church.
This burden has been on my heart for a long time. The increase of the local churches is disappointing. Many churches have been existing for years with under one hundred saints. This has caused me great concern. In the physical realm the parents are eventually concerned that their children have children. If the parents have five children, and none of them has any children, the parents will be bothered and disappointed. Not to beget children is a serious thing. The increase of the churches is the key point to us today. I have been in the Lord’s interest for about sixty-five years. I have no trust in any kind of revival. We found out by history and through our history that big gospel campaigns do not work for the long run.
The Lord needs some of His saints to practice the priesthood of the gospel according to His ordained way. Then the Lord will have a way. The way of revival with big speakers does not work so well. What we need today is the proper increase due to our labor. If we labor faithfully, we will see the result. We need at least twenty percent of the saints among us to labor in this way. These ones can bring a thirty percent increase to the church. This will lay a foundation for the Lord to start a solid building up of His Body. In the local churches the number of basic, promising members is short. We need solid members for the solid building. We have to look to the Lord for His mercy that this work could be started among us.
