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Scripture Reading: Matt. 28:19; John 15:16; 1 Cor. 15:58; 2 Tim. 4:2
In our hymnal there is a precious hymn that says,
“Must I go, and empty-handed?”
Must I meet my Savior so?
Not one soul with which to greet Him:
Must I empty-handed go?
(Hymns, #930)
The story behind the writing of this hymn is very touching. A number of years ago a certain saint was dying and was full of regret for not having brought anyone to the Lord. A servant of the Lord told this saint that he would write a hymn that would help others in the coming years to rise up to take the time while they are still living to save sinners. The matter of saving sinners is something that all of us need to seriously consider. If we were to go to meet the Lord this very day, what would our condition be related to this matter?
Within the past four and a half years the Lord has led me to raise up this matter of gospel preaching. I did not have any intention to raise up a doctrine or concept. My burden, which I believe was of the Lord, came from my realization that most Christians today, including us, do not have the real and sincere burden to save sinners. Some may have such a desire, but they do not have the proper way to carry out their burden. Therefore, the result has been poor.
I began to study the Word to see the way that God ordained related to gospel preaching. From such a study we have now seen that the way that is ordained by God is for the believers to go to people. In the New Testament the word go is a big word. Another big word is the word come. I gave one or two crucial messages concerning these two words while I was in Shanghai more than forty years ago. I said that in the New Testament there are two words that are crucial. The Lord said, “Come to Me” (Matt. 11:28; John 6:37; 7:37). Then after we come to the Lord, He tells us to “go” (Matt. 28:19). He desires us to come to Him and then go to others. After the word come is the word go.
Actually, the preaching of the good news is the very propagation of Christ Himself in His person and in His wonderful redemptive work. As long as we preach Him through the power of the Holy Spirit, such propagation should not be opposed or criticized. If there had been no opposition within these past three years, by now many thousands of sinners would have been brought to the Lord, and there would have been a very high revival among us. Instead, this matter of visiting sinners to preach the gospel to them has become a subject over which some would debate. What a shame this is!
In the New Testament the primary matter is to come to the Lord and to come to Him continually. We need to come to Him. Then after coming to Him to touch Him, He will tell us to go. The more we come to Him, the more He will trouble us to go. It may be that He will trouble us to go to another country or to go to our parents. My experience is that, almost without exception, whenever I come to the Lord, He always charges me to go.
He charges us to go with Himself. We must go to our relatives and to everyone with Christ. God’s kingdom is spread by our going and by our preaching. This is God’s ordained New Testament principle, but without our willingness to go, His principle cannot be carried out.
He has never charged His angels to do this, because the preaching of the gospel is fully based upon the principle of incarnation. God lives with man, and man works with God. Without the mingling of God with man, without the incarnation of the divine person with the human person, God cannot accomplish His purpose. In Acts 10 an angel went to Cornelius and told him to send men to Joppa to get Peter (vv. 3-6). This was done so that Peter could come to Cornelius in order to preach the gospel to him. As a young person reading this portion, I asked myself, “Why would the angel not preach to Cornelius?” Later, I saw the principle that we are saved by men, not by angels. As men, we should not only go and preach the gospel but also pray for the ones to whom we would preach. Without our going, our preaching, and our praying, men cannot be saved.
We do not need to pray to see if it is the Lord’s will for us to preach the gospel. If we are considering marriage, then we should pray very much. However, related to preaching the gospel, the Lord simply says for us to go and disciple the nations (Matt. 28:19). Paul says that we should preach the gospel “in season and out of season” (2 Tim. 4:2). This means that we need to preach the gospel whether the opportunity is convenient or inconvenient and whether we are welcome or unwelcome. Whether the time is in season or out of season, we have to preach the word. The Lord said, “Go out into the roads and hedges and compel them” (Luke 14:23). We have to go to gain the people for the Lord.
Once we go to preach the gospel, we will be revived, and we will see the church in our locality revived. The devil is the one opposing the preaching of the gospel. If he can stop us from preaching the good news for another five years, the issue will be death. This is his goal. Within the last few years the saints in Taipei have become convinced that they need to preach the gospel. They are all of the same mind to go to preach the gospel. Because of this their attendance at the Lord’s table, which was three thousand five years ago, has now become five thousand.
I have the burden to stir us up to go out to preach the gospel, but in order to preach the gospel effectively, we need to practice certain practical points for fulfilling the priesthood of the gospel. Some may say that they do not know how to preach the gospel. If we have this feeling, we should still go and preach the gospel. We should not wait. A good number of us may have been stirred up. If we have seen the need for us to preach the gospel, and we are burdened, we should pray and fellowship with some who are close to us. They may also have the same burden. Then we can go. There is nothing wrong with our going. There is no need for us to wait for the elders to do something. Furthermore, the elders do not need to wait for someone else to do something. Anyone who is burdened should just go to preach the gospel.
A brother gave a testimony concerning how his grandfather labored to visit people for Christ. His grandfather worked in a bakery in Germany. His work began early in the morning at four o’clock, and he worked there over ten hours a day. Upon returning home, he washed and dressed, took his Bible, and went to visit people. He did this nearly every day. He went to the unbelievers and to the believers. This was his habit. Through his going to visit people, he helped a large number of saints each year. I believe some surely were saved through his contact with them.
If you could gain one person within a year, that would be wonderful. In preaching the gospel, we need to be like farmers. All the farmers know how to trust in God. Farmers have to labor patiently and persistently, but regardless of how much they labor, without God’s blessing a single storm can destroy all their work. We should go out to visit people as farmers. We should labor with patience and put all our trust in God.
We do not need to wait for anyone. We should just go. Some saints may say, “To preach the gospel is good, but I don’t feel that I should go.” They may not say this openly, but deep within them they may have such a feeling. Therefore, we should not wait on others. If we decide to wait for others, heaven and earth may pass away before they pick up the burden to preach the gospel. We should not wait; instead, we should gather one or two who are close to us. We may want to get one younger one and one older one to go with us.
Where shall we go? We can go anywhere. We should go to visit people by knocking on their doors. This door-knocking is our going by faith. If we gain one within a year, that is very good. Throughout history it is difficult to find a church that has grown by thirty percent yearly. But if we all gain only one within three years, the church where we are will have a thirty-three percent yearly increase. If we continue to go to people’s doors for three years, I believe that we will gain at least one person. Instead of reasoning, we should simply go to preach the gospel.
It is good if we can give the Lord either two afternoons or two evenings weekly. There is the way to do this, especially in this country. Many of us are off from work on Saturday and the Lord’s Day. We can give part of these two days to the Lord. Also, on the other days of the week we may work only eight hours a day, which gives us time in the evenings. If we give the Lord two of our evenings each week for visiting people, we will still have five evenings for other matters. We should go out regularly and consistently every week. Our going out is not for our pleasure but for His pleasure. It may be a suffering to us, but it will be a pleasure to Him. If we have a desperation to live in this way, we will gain some for the Lord. We may not gain one the first week, but in the following weeks at least one will be gained for Him.
We do not need to try to get too many. It is best not to try to baptize more than you can care for in a good way. We all know God’s principle in nature. It takes nine months to conceive one child. A mother can have only one delivery within a year. Therefore, we should give the best care to one whom we have baptized. This is more profitable than to have a large number of baptisms if we do not have the way to care for them.
Within a certain period of time, perhaps two or three weeks or even two months, we will see two or three baptized. Then we need to spend time with them, caring for them as our babes. We need to feed them, nourish them, and cherish them. Our cherishing will make them happy. We may need one or two years to take care of them. Then they will grow. We will bring forth fruit, and our fruit will remain. Bearing remaining fruit is a long-range labor. It does not depend on luck but on our diligence, patience, persistence, faith, prayer, and labor. If we love the Lord and desire to live for His kingdom, we will go persistently and regularly to preach the gospel and care for the new ones whom we gain.
From the very beginning of the Lord’s recovery in mainland China, Brother Nee did much preaching of the gospel. He was a student in a small college of about five hundred students. After he began to see the recovery, the first thing he did was to preach the gospel. He preached to everyone, and his preaching reached all the students. Then when I came to the recovery, we used to go out to the streets to preach during the evening. Many people were brought in. At the beginning of the recovery, the preaching was very high and very prevailing.
When we went to Taipei, we printed enough tracts for every citizen in Taipei. Then we printed gospel posters with big characters and posted them at the railway station, the bus stops, the crossways, and all the crucial places. The posters said things like God Loves the World and Believe in Christ. We formed gospel teams. Every Lord’s Day afternoon we went to a park in Taipei that had an area with about three thousand seats. Every Lord’s Day afternoon we filled that place and collected more than four hundred names. The next day, Monday evening, the saints came together, and we classified the records of the names according to their streets. Then we distributed their names to the saints so they could care for them. Hundreds were saved through this effort, and many of them are now elders in the churches. Some of them even have grandchildren in the church life now. In recent years we have been too silent. In those early times in the church life, we stirred up the whole city with the gospel. Eventually, everyone in Taipei knew that there was a group of people preaching the gospel.
When we go to preach the gospel, we should go in teams of three. After many years of experience and study of the Bible, we have found that this is the most economical and effective way for gospel preaching. We must first be stirred up and then pick up another two saints to form a team to go to visit people.
There is no need to wait for the elders to announce a prayer meeting to pray for this or to prepare a register with names and regulations for the teams. We should forget all this and just go. Then maybe the elders and others will follow us to preach the gospel. We should not try to “unify” the church into the practice of gospel preaching. From 1949 through 1955 in the church in Taipei, the gospel atmosphere was quite high, but still the entire church was not “unified” into the practice of the gospel preaching.
In going out as a team, it is best that there are both brothers and sisters. It is best to have at least one brother for baptizing the believers, and it is best to have at least one sister so that if a female is baptized, the sister can take care of her. A team of three, with two brothers and one sister or one brother and two sisters, would be very good. Our experimenting and testing in Taipei have shown that this way will produce results. We need to go in the trained way. I may go to play the piano for two years, yet without being trained I will still not know how to play the piano well. In order to preach the gospel effectively, we must pray and endeavor to learn the secret of gospel preaching.
To prepare ourselves to preach the gospel, we first must consecrate ourselves, give ourselves, to the Lord. We must tell the Lord, “Lord, I was saved by You. I belong to You. You redeemed me. You purchased me. You bought me. I am Your property. I am Your asset. I belong to You, so now I give You Your full rights. I am here.” Then we must pray and prepare ourselves to use some material in order to preach the gospel to someone. We may want to use some Bible verses, but still we need training in order to be able to talk with someone. We may prefer to use The Mystery of Human Life. It is not simple to use this booklet. We have to get ourselves into it until we can nearly recite every paragraph and every section. We can practice at home with the members of our family. Thirty-eight thousand were brought to the Lord through the use of The Mystery of Human Life. We have to give ourselves to be trained. If we humble ourselves, we can be trained.
We even have to learn how to knock on a door. This means that our knocking must sound “sweet.” When the people within open the door, the first sentence out of our mouth should cause them to open the door wide, and the second sentence should open their heart. Our wrong attitude or tone of voice may cause them to close the door. We can practice knocking on doors at home. A husband can knock on his wife’s door and let his wife criticize him. It is not too much for us to practice like this. When a young girl is learning to play the piano, she sits for hours at the piano. She is always being adjusted by her teacher. Her teacher is always showing her how to hold her fingers, how to sit at the piano, etc. Otherwise, she cannot learn to play the piano well.
In the same way we must give ourselves to be trained in how to talk with people and how to bring people to the Lord. We must learn when to bring them to the Lord and what words to speak to them. We must exercise and practice. We even have to learn how to be coached by our companions. This means that we must learn to be adjusted. As we practice, we will improve week by week. We need to consider whether people would be caught by our way of talking to them. We have to study and be patient, always learning and always trying. We should never be disappointed or discouraged. Rather, we should always exercise to be encouraged.
It is very helpful to try your best to make an appointment with certain ones whom you are going to visit through others who know them. You can make an appointment through your relatives, through your classmates, or through your colleagues. After preaching the gospel to your colleague, you may ask him to recommend you to his relatives or neighbors. Then you can telephone this person before going to visit him so that you may get to know him over the phone. We must learn to pick up many ways to go to people to get them saved. This is just like doing business.
The church in our locality may not be stirred up to preach the gospel, yet we may be stirred up. Those of us who are stirred up to preach the gospel need to be careful not to have an attitude that will offend those who have not yet been stirred up. In the church we must be very general in our attitude, but we must be very faithful in our work. We should neither oppose door-knocking nor be too much for door-knocking. We should always be general in our attitude. There is no need to boast, but rather, we should always exercise not to offend one another. Whatever we do should be done in a wise and proper way.
We should bring the new ones to the church meetings right away. We were cautious in bringing the new ones to the church meetings in Taipei at first because the church meetings had become old. This was a valid concern but also somewhat of a loss. If you baptize one and only go to his home for a few weeks, it becomes more difficult to bring him to the meetings of the church. It may create a habit in him of just loving and preferring to have home meetings. If you go out today and one gets baptized, you should suggest to him that tomorrow you will bring him to a meeting of the church. You must do everything you can to help him get to a church meeting. The best way is to give him a ride. This is the proper care of the newly baptized ones.
It is also good to invite the unbelieving ones to the church meetings. We can let them know when the church in our locality will have a meeting. We can offer them a ride and bring them with us. It is good to have some tracts or other literature to leave with them that have the address of the church meeting hall. Then on a certain day the Holy Spirit will work to burden them to go to the church meeting.
Paul says that our labor is not in vain in the Lord (1 Cor. 15:58). If we will labor for the Lord in many ways, some results will issue forth. You may visit someone this week, and it may seem that nothing has happened. Then another gospel team may go to visit him, and he will be baptized. Such a thing happened in Taipei. One man was finally convinced by the fifth gospel team that came to visit him. He got baptized, fully expecting a sixth team to come to him if he put it off longer. He became convinced because of the persistence of the saints. He rejected them four times, but he received the Lord when the fifth team came to visit him. This is a good example of our need to go and to continue to go. We must go until the unbelievers become convinced and subdued. We should not only go to them but also invite them to come to the meetings. We should invite everyone. We should keep going until they get convinced and subdued. Sooner or later they will receive the Lord and be baptized. We all must be very exercised to see this carried out.
After bringing someone to the Lord and baptizing him into the Triune God, we should begin to have home meetings with him right away. We should not delay in having the home meetings.
After gaining some for the Lord, it is good for us to testify of some of the good cases in the church meetings in order to encourage others. Such testimonies in the meetings of the church will be convincing to others. However, these testimonies should not be too long, or they will become boring. If we will speak for one or two minutes, others will also have time to testify, and more saints will be convinced by many testimonies.
