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Now we have to start our action for the increase. Recently, I visited a group of saints, and I made a discovery. I found out that they were not vital and that they do not pray much. They have not gotten into the prayer life. The only way that we can touch the Spirit is by prayer. In the Bible the Spirit is linked with our prayer. Praying and the Spirit are one. If we are without prayer, we will be without the Spirit. Of course, we can also say that without the Spirit, there can be no prayer. This is why we are told that we have to pray in spirit (Eph. 6:18). Since we are regenerated believers in Christ, our human spirit and the Holy Spirit are mingled together as one spirit (1 Cor. 6:17).
If we do not pray even for one day, we have the feeling that we are short of the Spirit. When we pray, even with just a few sentences, we have the feeling that we are touching the Spirit. We all need to have a time with the Lord every morning in prayer. If you do not pray in the morning for one week, you will be dead spiritually. There is no other way to be vital except by prayer. We have to pray and get into a prayer life.
Most of us are living in a situation in which it is difficult to find a solid time of half an hour to pray. Whenever we set aside a definite time to pray, the enemy will always try to disturb us. When we begin to pray, someone may knock on our door or call us on the telephone. We may not have any telephone calls for a long period of time, but as soon as we begin to pray, the telephone will ring. Eventually, after three phone calls, our heart for prayer may be gone. We may have to wait for a period of time until we can be recovered back to prayer. It is not easy for us to pray for half an hour without being disturbed. We need to look to the Lord so that we can free ourselves from all distractions to have solid times of prayer with Him. Prayer makes us vital. We have to take the lead to be vital. If we are not vital, we cannot pray for others to be vital.
To be vital means to be released in the spirit, and this cannot be performed. If we pray for half an hour, we will be released. If we are not released, we are not vital. To contact people, we have to be released persons. If we are not bound, we will be able to release others. A dejected, weeping person cannot make other people happy. If we are going to make people happy, we have to be happy persons. We can only help people to be what we are. In order to go out to effectively labor in the gospel, we must be vital.
Before going out, we must have some preparation. First, we must prepare some candidates for us to go to visit. We need to consider all our relatives, neighbors, classmates, colleagues, and friends. Out of these ones whom we know, we need to choose some to labor on for the gospel. Of course, we have to do this by prayer. We should pray, “Lord, who are the best two or three right now for me to work on?” I shared in a previous chapter that we all should make a list of the people we know who need to be saved. When we read this list prayerfully, we will have some kind of inner registration of the two or three whom we should labor on now. We have to consider their situation and labor on them appropriately.
We need to consider all our acquaintances, and we need the proper discernment in our consideration of whom we should labor on. We should spend our time to labor on those whom we consider to be promising and not waste our time on others who are not open. In our group meetings we should pray and study our candidates for the gospel together. We need to consider people’s condition, especially spiritually, and then act appropriately to meet their need in the gospel. We need to decide how we should visit a certain person and who would be the right one or ones to go.
How you talk to a person is crucial, and how you answer his questions is more crucial. Your word may save him, or it could delay him for many years. A person may have a question, and although you may speak many things from the Bible to answer him, he will not receive anything.
If a person asks you what eternal life is, you should not answer him in a complicated way. You should answer him strictly and simply. You may say, “Eternal life is God Himself, and God is Jesus Christ. Therefore, eternal life is just Jesus Christ. Today Christ is the Spirit with us. He is waiting for a time to enter into you to be your eternal life. Would you receive Him?” Then he may ask, “By what way?” Then you can lead him to pray and call upon the Lord’s name. Within a short time this person will be helped to know what eternal life is, who is eternal life, and how he can receive this life. Eternal life is God, God today is Jesus Christ, and He is the Spirit. By praying and calling upon the name of the Lord, we can receive Him into us to be our very life.
When we go to visit someone, we should not speak too many points to him. Otherwise, he will be complicated and receive nothing. If we go to visit someone and speak many points to him in a complicating way, our speaking will delay him. He may feel that the things in the Bible are too hard to understand, and his interest will be gone. Then he will not want to have any further contact with us. This will delay him for many years. We should be in fear and trembling when we contact people (1 Cor. 2:3). We should pray, “Lord, how should I answer this person? Help me.”
You also need to know the proper Bible verses, especially those verses that are referred to as “golden verses.” Surely you have to remember John 3:16, but in John 3 there are other crucial verses. Verses 3 and 5 speak of being born anew, being regenerated, to enter into the kingdom of God. You need to know the best verses concerning God, concerning Christ, concerning Christ’s blood, concerning Christ’s redemption, and concerning all the crucial truths related to the gospel. Your answers to people should be concise and to the point. It is somewhat simple for me to coach you, but for you to do it is not that simple. This needs your practice.
In our vital group meetings we need to spend some time to study our gospel candidates. After we go to contact a person, the following week we should give a report in the group meeting of our experience. Then we should look to the Lord and fellowship about how to take the next step with this person.
We must remember that in our gospel labor we are fishers of men (Matt. 4:19), and human society is like a big ocean full of fish. Certain fish may be very hard to catch, so we should not spend our time on them. We need to go to the fish that are available for us to catch. This is why we need the proper discernment concerning whom we should labor on. God surely loves everyone, but I am not talking about God loving the world. I am speaking about how to “hook” people with the limited amount of time available to us.
We must have something to meet people’s need. If a person goes to a store to buy something, and the store does not carry what he wants, he will go away unhappy. But if he finds a store that carries what he needs, he will surely be happy. We must have something to meet people’s need. Furthermore, we may have something, but do we know how to present what we have? We need to learn to present things to people in a way that they can receive them. We should learn to present the truth of the gospel according to the practical situation of our daily life. This requires our practice. To become proficient in any kind of athletic endeavor, a person must practice all the time. Our success in reaching people with the gospel for the increase of the Body of Christ all depends upon our practice.
I hope that we will get ourselves prepared to come to the following group meeting. We need to come prepared with the gospel candidates whom we feel we should labor on. Then we can consider how to go to them and begin our labor together in the gospel. When we labor on certain ones, we must be consistent. We should not hope that within three months someone will be saved, and within another half year another one will be saved. It may be that the three for whom we are burdened will not be saved until two years have passed. In the past we may have been very busy, but we did not bear any fruit. We must pray to get a few definite candidates. Then we need to work on them. We need to learn how to concentrate our work in order to get some definite results.
Question: Would it be more beneficial for us not to invite new ones to our vital groups right away but rather to spend time with them in their homes first?
Answer: Whether or not you invite them to the vital groups should not be a rule, a legal regulation. It all depends on the need. You have to consider whether or not it would be a help to bring a certain new one to your group right away. In certain cases it might be safer for you to go with another brother to see him for a period of time until you feel that he is ready to come to a group meeting.
If your neighbor is an open Christian and a seeker after the truth, you need to present the truth to him. It might even be good to spend some time with him to study a book of the Bible together. You could even study the truth concerning God’s predestination of us unto sonship from the book of Ephesians. You should not try to do too much at one time. Perhaps just a fifteen-minute time with him once or twice a week would be sufficient. Nothing can convince people as much as the truth, especially with a truth-seeking Christian.
Question: Someone asked me what we mean when we say that a believer in Christ is a God-man. They wondered if this means we are saying that we are omniscient as God is. How should we answer this question?
Answer: The Bible reveals that we believers in Christ have God’s life (John 3:15-16, 36) and God’s nature (2 Pet. 1:4) because we have become God’s children and have been born of God (John 1:12-13), but this does not mean that we have His Godhead. Only He is the One to be worshipped. He is almighty, omniscient, and the unique One to be worshipped, but we are not. When you share this with him, make sure you refer him to some verses in the Bible which show that we have God’s life and nature.
Do not merely tell him that we have God’s nature. You need to read 2 Peter 1:4 to him to show him that we are partakers of the divine nature. This verse shows that we believers have the way to get away from this age and the lust of this age. The unbelievers have no way, but we believers have the way because we have the holy nature of God. Because we have the nature of God, and God’s nature is holy, we also can be holy and can be kept from the lusts of this age, from the current of the world. By saying this, I believe that he will get the help. That means that he will be fed by you.
Since we are lovers of the Lord Jesus, we must realize that we have much to learn in order to be a proper Christian. In order to learn adequately, we need to redeem our time. A brother may come home from work and have ten minutes before he eats dinner. He can spend those ten minutes to read 2 Peter 1:4 and some of the accompanying footnotes in the Recovery Version. While a mother is taking care of her children, she can look for opportunities to open up her Bible and read a verse. This is the way to learn things. We learn things bit by bit, little by little.
My concern is for your prayer, for your experience of the Spirit, and for your learning. Do you really mean business to learn? Your time in the vital groups is a golden time for you to learn. You can learn with the other members in the vital group and practice what you have learned. With your experience in the vital groups and the coaching you receive in these chapters, you can learn much.
I came into the center of the work in the Lord’s recovery in a practical way in Shanghai in 1933. Two years later in 1935 Brother Nee went to another locality to hold a conference. In that conference he said that there was a brother among us by the name of Brother Lee whose progress in the Lord was like a person who was not just running but flying. A brother who was in that meeting reported this to me fifteen years later when I was ministering in Manila. Whenever I heard something out of Brother Nee’s mouth that I did not understand, I always studied it right away. Do you all really learn, or do you come to the ministry and training meetings merely to hear? If so, you cannot pick up too much. You have to learn.
Since you heard something about 2 Peter 1:4, you should read this verse and study it with the help of the footnotes in the Recovery Version. You may remember that this verse speaks of our being partakers of the divine nature, but because you do not remember the entire verse, you may not be able to say too much. Second Peter 1:4 says, “Through which He has granted to us precious and exceedingly great promises that through these you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption which is in the world by lust.” This verse is really precious. To have or to partake of God’s divine nature has something to do with escaping the corruption which is in the world by lust. Also, it is through the precious and exceedingly great promises that you become partakers of His divine nature. If you are to partake of the divine nature, you must go through God’s promises.
You need to learn what all these things mean. Through these precious and great promises, you can partake of, taste, experience, the nature of God. This verse by itself would need an entire message to expound adequately. What are these promises? Most of you would say that you do not know. Why does the divine nature have so much to do with escaping from the corruption of this world by lust? Even the corruption of the world by lust needs a lot of explanation. If you study this verse thoroughly, you can say a lot to your colleague about it. Then you can convince him. You need to give yourself to learn the truth. Do not say that you have no time. Everyone has time. You need to learn to redeem your time.
Question: What is the difference between prayer and petition? Does prayer include fellowship with the Lord?
Answer: Petition is more particular, whereas prayer is general. Of course, in your prayer and your petition, whenever you open up your mouth to say something to the Lord, that is a kind of fellowship. Prayer and petition are both a kind of fellowship. Petition implies that you have a particular burden to pray for certain things. You may pray for the vital groups in a general way. But sometimes you may be burdened to petition the Lord concerning the vital groups. You may separate half a day to specifically petition the Lord for all the groups to become vital. Then you may be burdened further to even fast by skipping a meal to petition the Lord concerning the vital groups. You would be burdened to petition the Lord for only one thing — “Lord, make all the groups vital. Make me vital, Lord.” The words prayer and petition are used in Ephesians 6:18 and Philippians 4:6. Prayer is mentioned first and then petition.
Question: You mentioned some golden verses that we need to know in order to meet people’s need. Can you give us some of these verses?
Answer: There are many of these verses in the Bible, but we can mention some of them. Concerning the existence of God, you must use Romans 1:19-20: “Because that which is known of God is manifest within them, for God manifested it to them. For the invisible things of Him, both His eternal power and divine characteristics, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being perceived by the things made, so that they would be without excuse.” This is the top portion of the Scriptures to show people the existence of God. The creation is a strong evidence of God’s existence. You cannot see God, so you do not know His existence, but you can see His creation. In the creation you can see God’s eternal power and divine characteristics. Because of the beauty of creation, God must be a God of beauty. God created so many living things, so He must be a God of life. God is living. This is one of God’s characteristics.
The best verse for Christ’s redemption is Romans 3:24: “Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.” This verse on Christ’s redemption should also be read with verses 25 and 26. Verse 25 speaks of Christ being the propitiation place, which refers to the lid, the cover, of the Ark in the Holy of Holies. The lid, the cover, of the Ark is a type of Christ. Upon Christ, God justifies us and meets with us. God talks to us upon Christ, because the cover of the Ark was the place where God met with man. We pray to God there and God answers us there.
The best verses for justification are in Romans and Galatians. Romans 3:20 says, “Because out of the works of the law no flesh shall be justified before Him.” Galatians 2:16 also says, “Out of the works of law no flesh will be justified.” These are the best verses on the negative side, whereas Romans 3:24 is the best verse on the positive side.
The best verse for Christ’s blood is 1 Peter 1:19, which speaks of the precious blood of Christ. This is the only verse that refers to Christ’s blood as “precious blood.” The best verses for the Spirit’s indwelling are Romans 8:9 and 11.
The best verse to tell us that we receive eternal life when we believe in the Lord Jesus is John 3:16. We also need to realize that verses 14 through 16 of John 3 show us that Christ was crucified on the cross that we may have eternal life. Verses 14 and 15 say, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that everyone who believes into Him may have eternal life.” When you read such a verse, you must stress the word that. The Son of Man was lifted up that everyone who believes into Him may have eternal life. If you do not believe that the Lord Jesus died on the cross for you, you could never have His eternal life.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses train their people with many verses in order to spread their heresy. They twist the verses regarding Christ’s deity because they do not believe that Christ is God. Romans 9:5 says, “Whose are the fathers, and out of whom, as regards what is according to flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever.” We all admit that these words refer to Christ’s deity. Christ is God, who is over all and blessed forever. But the Jehovah’s Witnesses change the punctuation and wording in this verse to change its meaning. They train their people very particularly on Romans 9:5 in order to prove Christ is not God. They also twist John 1:1 which says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” By their twisting they teach the great heresy that Christ is not God. The Jehovah’s Witnesses believe this strongly. They train their people with many verses. If they are like this, surely we should be the same with regard to the divine truths. We should be trained with verses to show the truth concerning Christ being God and to show all the precious divine truths of God’s New Testament economy.
The best verses on God’s salvation in life are Romans 5:10 and 17. Verse 10 says that we are reconciled through Christ’s death and that we will be saved in His life. Verse 17 shows that we shall be saved by God in life to such an extent that we will reign in life.
How could we prove with verses from the Bible that the tree of life is a figure of God? We first need to read Psalm 36:9 which says, “With You [God] is the fountain of life.” Genesis 2:9 speaks of the tree of life. In John 14:6a the Lord Jesus said, “I am...the life,” and in 10:10 He said, “I have come that they may have life and may have it abundantly.” Furthermore, Jesus told us in John 15:1 that He was a tree, the vine tree. By these verses you can prove that the tree of life must signify God embodied in Christ.
Recently, someone who appreciated the Life-study of the book of Genesis asked me a few questions. Genesis 3 says that God came to seek after Adam and made coats of skin to clothe him and his wife (v. 21). This person asked whether or not God Himself was clothed when He came to Adam. How would you answer such a question? You should say that God was in His glory, and His glory was His covering. In Isaiah 6 God was sitting on the throne with a robe, and that robe was His glory (vv. 1, 3; cf. John 12:41 and footnote 1, Recovery Version). Furthermore, when God came to Abraham in Genesis 18, He appeared to him as a man with man’s clothing. These questions show us how we need to spend our time to learn the Bible so that we can meet the need of the new ones.
This person also asked another question related to Genesis 3. After man fell, God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil” (v. 22). So God closed the way to the tree of life. This person said that, on the one hand, God wants us to be like Him, but on the other hand, it seems that God did not allow us to be like Him. This one also said, “Wouldn’t it have been good if God would have let fallen man eat the tree of life? Then the tree of life would have come into the fallen man to fight against his fallen nature.” He asked why God would not do this. How would you answer such a question? (See Life-study of Genesis, Message 21, for God’s reason for closing the way to the tree of life after man’s fall.) This shows that in order to help people, you need much learning. Otherwise, you will only be able to tell them that you do not know.
