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Scripture Reading: Rom. 1:14-16; 1 Cor. 9:16-17; John 15:1-8, 16
We have seen that Christ is our life, the truth is our freedom, and the church of the living God is our house. In this chapter we want to see the gospel as our living.
There are many ways to preach the gospel. The best way is to sing hymns to people. The young brothers and sisters can use the hymns to preach the gospel to their schoolmates. This kind of hymn singing should be informal. When the young people preach the gospel by singing hymns, their joy will touch their classmates, and when they sing to their classmates a second time, their classmates will easily believe in the Lord.
Since the gospel is our living, we should pay attention to and practice several things related to preaching the gospel.
When we preach the gospel, it is crucial that we have a burden. Paul was a person who preached the gospel. In Romans 1:14 he said, “I am debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to wise and to foolish.” This verse speaks of owing a debt, which is a burden. Burdens differ in size, but a debt is a heavy burden. If we owe others much money, this will continually be a burden. We will think about the debt when we are studying and working and even when we are sleeping. However, as soon as we pay our debts, this burden will be removed from us, and we will immediately feel lighter. This was Paul’s feeling toward preaching the gospel. He said that he was a debtor not only to individuals but also to the Jews and the Greeks. He was a debtor to different races, and he was a debtor to all men. This shows that Paul had a large capacity.
The young saints should preach the gospel at school because they feel the burden of a “gospel debt” to their schoolmates. Of course, the capacity of the young people may not be as large as Paul’s capacity. Hence, they may not owe all their schoolmates a debt. Nevertheless, they owe a debt to their classmates and especially to the person who sits next to them. As long as we are alive, we will always be indebted to a few persons. We bear the burden of this debt every day.
After we have a burden for the gospel, we need a gospel spirit. Even though a gospel spirit initially comes from a burden, there is still the need of prayer. We should pray about the gospel debts that we owe. The best way is to make a list of our classmates at the beginning of the semester and pray for them one by one. When we pray, we should seek the Lord’s leading. The Lord may give us a burden to pray specifically for certain classmates. The more we pray for our classmates the better.
Our prayer can be compared to placing a piece of paper on a balance. Paper is light and does not weigh much. However, if we pray every day in the morning and in the evening, we will soon place several hundred pieces of paper on the balance. This will eventually be heavier than any weight on the other side of the balance. Brother George Müller ran an orphanage, and he testified that he prayed for many people by name. By the time he died, everyone whom he had prayed for by name was saved, except for one person. Eventually, this person was saved shortly after Brother Müller’s death.
We also need to learn to be “thick-skinned” when we preach the gospel. If a person is not thick-skinned, his words cannot move others. However, few people are thick-skinned by nature. We need to practice in order to become thick-skinned. I am thick-skinned because I have practiced for sixty years. I was in primary school the first time that I spoke in public. I stood trembling before the audience and even forgot my speech. The young people should learn to be thick-skinned. Those who are thick-skinned and crazy in spirit can preach the gospel.
We also need to know that preaching the gospel to save sinners is the way to bear fruit. The Lord’s word in John 15 concerning the vine shows that every believer is a branch in the Lord, who is the vine. If we do not bear fruit, we are in danger of being taken away (v. 2). When I was young, I thought that to be taken away meant to go to hell. Later I understood that it means to lose the position to enjoy the riches of the Lord. We are branches, and when we abide and remain in the vine, we are positioned to enjoy the riches of the vine. Once we are taken away, we lose the position to enjoy the riches of the vine. Therefore, if we do not bear fruit or bring sinners to salvation after our own salvation, we are in danger of losing the position to enjoy the riches of the Lord.
This portion of the Bible speaks of another danger. Verse 6 says, “If one does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is dried up; and they gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.” Being cast into the fire and burned does not refer to going to hell. People usually read the Bible with the understanding of either going to heaven or going to hell. However, this thought does not exist in John 15. Rather, this chapter says that if we do not bear fruit, we will encounter the danger of losing our position to enjoy the riches of the Lord and of being cast into the fire. I have seen many believers who had been saved for a long time but did not bear fruit. These believers gradually lost their enjoyment of the Lord, were captured by Satan, and suffered damage.
Romans 11 says that as the Gentiles we were originally branches of a wild olive tree. However, when we were saved, we were grafted into the Lord, the cultivated olive tree, to enjoy His fatness (vv. 17, 24). If we do not bear fruit, we can lose the enjoyment of Christ and be captured by Satan and suffer damage. This is a word of warning.
In order to preach the gospel we need to be equipped. Just as it is difficult to work without tools, we need gospel tools in order to preach the gospel. We will fellowship concerning four gospel tools. We first need to be equipped with gospel verses. This requires that we be familiar with the Bible. We cannot reap a harvest and bring in the sheaves if we are empty-handed. We need a sickle. The Bible is our sickle. We need to be equipped with some basic gospel truths and know how to use the relevant Bible verses. We should know verses such as John 3:16, which says, “God so loved the world”; 1 Peter 2:24, which says, “Who Himself bore up our sins in His body on the tree”; and 1 Timothy 1:15, which says, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” I also recommend the book Gospel Outlines. This book contains two hundred and sixty-four gospel topics as well as Scripture references for every topic. This can help us learn important gospel verses.
The hymns are another tool for preaching the gospel. We can preach the gospel to others by singing hymns, such as Hymns, #1058. I translated this hymn into Chinese, and Brother Nee polished it and made some improvements, including my translation of the line “Be of sin the double cure.” The first cure for sin deals with the record of our sins before God, for which we should receive eternal punishment. The second cure for sin deals with the law of sin within us, which brings us under the ruling of the power of sin. This hymn also speaks of “the water and the blood” that flowed from the Lord’s side. The blood deals with the record of our sins before God, and the water denotes the law of the Spirit of life. This law enables us to overcome the law of sin and of death (Rom. 8:2). I mention this because I hope that some young people may be raised up to learn to write hymns.
In relation to preaching the gospel, there are two categories of hymns that we should be familiar with. The first category is gospel hymns, and the second is hymns on the assurance of salvation. We have many gospel hymns. Hymns, #1080 was written using the thought of the book of Ecclesiastes. There is also #1024, which we used in the gospel marches that we had in the early days in Taiwan. When we sing a gospel hymn, we should not be too concerned about the music; otherwise, we will lose the flavor of the hymn. Instead, we should express the feeling of the hymn.
Many years ago in mainland China Dr. John Sung was powerful in preaching the gospel, and he was full of feeling when he sang a hymn. Once in a gospel campaign meeting, everyone was waiting for Dr. Sung to come to the stage. Suddenly he came in through the main entrance at the back of the hall, singing, “Down with Satan, down with Satan, / Out with sins, out with sins” to the tune of a popular revolutionary chorus. As a result, everyone was enlivened and received salvation without the preaching of a gospel message. In that meeting Satan was defeated, sins were forgiven, and people were released. Therefore, the young saints should not fear their schoolmates who are knowledgeable in science, philosophy, and other subjects. People who seek knowledge are miserable inside. We should lead the people whom we contact at school or in gospel meetings to sing hymns. In order to do this, we need to be familiar with the gospel hymns by reading the ones in our hymnal and learning to sing them.
When we preach the gospel, we should also be familiar with hymns on the assurance of salvation, such as Hymns, #309. It is not difficult for young people to sing hymns, because many of them have a good foundation in music. It is especially not difficult for the sisters to sing hymns, because God created them in this way. In Ecclesiastes 12:4 Solomon is referring to the vocal cords when he mentions “the daughters of song.” When young people sing, there truly is music.
Among the hymns on the assurance of salvation, Hymns, #322, which is about “the Fountain that never runs dry,” is a good hymn. Another good hymn is #296, which was written by Charles Wesley. This is not an emotional hymn; it is very elegant. The first stanza says, “And can it be that I should gain / An int’rest in the Savior’s blood? / Died He for me, who caused His pain? / For me, who Him to death pursued? / Amazing love! how can it be / That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?” The fourth stanza is also very good. When the young saints invite their professors to a meeting, it is good to sing hymns with them. We can choose a stanza that we like and lead our professors to sing with us. This will help them to receive the Lord Jesus. When we sing a hymn, others should be touched. We should then sing with them according to how they are touched. Hymns, #499 is also a good hymn to sing. If we are always singing these hymns, it will be difficult for our gospel friends not to be touched and to believe in the Lord.
Gospel tracts are another tool for preaching the gospel. After we know some gospel verses and hymns, we must pray to the Lord and say that, because we are a branch in the vine, we want to bear fruit by preaching the gospel every day. In addition, the church in Taipei needs to print gospel tracts, and we should all build up the habit of having some gospel tracts with us all the time. Whenever we meet people, we can give them a gospel tract. This practice is effective. When I was young, this was my practice. According to the commercial statistics in the United States, if a person distributes one hundred advertisements and has a three-percent response, he will make a profit. If we distribute one hundred gospel tracts and only one tract is effective, we are making a profit because someone will be saved.
By distributing gospel tracts, we maintain an atmosphere of the gospel, and we can break through our shyness. Sisters and even brothers feel ashamed to distribute gospel tracts. However, if we are willing to distribute gospel tracts, we will be able to break through this bondage. Because Satan has his power of darkness, we are not ashamed to speak about Confucius, but we feel shy to speak about the Lord Jesus. This happens even in a Christian country like the United States. The feeling of shyness comes from the devil, and the way for us to break through this feeling is to distribute gospel tracts.
The great American evangelist D. L. Moody had the practice of preaching the gospel to at least one person every day, even if he spoke only one sentence. One day he was about to go to sleep when he realized that he had not spoken to anyone that day. Therefore, he quickly got dressed and went out to preach the gospel. Because it was late at night, he was unable to find anyone except a policeman who was on night duty. Moody ran to the policeman and told him that he must believe in Jesus to be delivered from perdition. Even though the policeman was offended, Moody was not concerned. Eventually, this policeman was saved. We should all have such an attitude. We should be persistent.
Last, we should grasp the opportunity to preach the gospel to the people around us. The students should grasp the opportunity to preach the gospel to their classmates. This can be compared to sowing seeds. We are bound to have results if we sow many seeds. Even though our sowing may seem ineffective today, after twenty years a classmate or a friend may remember what we said and be saved. Many people have this testimony. Therefore, the Lord Jesus said, “In this the saying is true, One sows and another reaps” (John 4:37). The young saints should sow seeds today, and it may be that twenty years from now someone in Europe will reap the harvest. God will add the ones who are saved to our account. Therefore, we must sow the seeds. Paul says, “Proclaim the word; be ready in season and out of season; convict, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and teaching” (2 Tim. 4:2).
There is a new arrangement in the church in Taipei. Every full-timer will preach the gospel on the college campuses. These brothers and sisters should contact the college-age saints when they go to the campuses. These two groups of saints must cooperate with one another. The young people on the college campuses and the full-timers must work together to fight for the gospel. They can coordinate together to lead college students to study the Bible or to have meetings in order to be saved. I hope that every college-age saint can lead two classmates to salvation in one semester. Then they will all have two new ones. The students can bring in four new ones in one year. There are now more than one thousand three hundred students attending the training. According to our calculations, by this time next year there will be more than five thousand students if every student leads four people to salvation in a year. We should not say that this is not easy to achieve; it all depends on us. Some of the young people can lead even twelve people to salvation in a year. We need to make great resolutions in heart and have great searchings of heart (Judg. 5:15-16).
In order to experience the gospel as our living, we must follow specific steps in our work. We need to have a burden for the gospel. We should make a list and pray persistently for every person on our list in order to have a gospel spirit. We need to learn to be thick-skinned and crazy in spirit, and we need to realize that preaching the gospel is the way to bear fruit, which keeps us in a position to enjoy the riches of the Lord. We also need gospel tools. We need gospel verses and hymns, we should distribute gospel tracts and contact people every day, and we should grasp every opportunity to sow the seed of the gospel. In addition, the young saints on the college campuses should cooperate and coordinate with the co-workers who preach the gospel on the campus. If we practice this, it will not be difficult for us to lead four people to salvation every year. If we do not have a good result today, we can practice again tomorrow. By taking this way and by practicing to lead people to salvation, we will grow in life. According to John 15, the branches that bear fruit are those that will bear more fruit, but the branches that do not bear fruit are taken away. Therefore, we must bear fruit.
May we all practice the four items of Christ being our life, the truth being our freedom, the church of the living God being our house, and the gospel being our living. As we daily experience Christ as our life, we will live by Him, until it is no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us. As we daily contact and absorb the Lord’s word by reading with our eyes, understanding with our mind, and receiving in our spirit, we will experience the truth as our freedom. We also need to know the ground, nature, and function of the church and to enjoy the church as the house of the living God. Furthermore, on the practical side, we should labor on the meetings in order to experience the God who is really among us. Finally, our living should be to preach the gospel and bear fruit for the Lord. In this way we will gain the full enjoyment of the Lord and cause His Body to increase.
Question: What should a student do if he wants to spend one or two years in the full-time training after he graduates?
Answer: The most precious thing that the young brothers and sisters can do is to join the full-time training in order to be equipped and perfected. Hence, the young people should pray before they graduate and ask the Lord to prepare the environment, their parents’ heart, and their family’s financial condition so that they can spend two years in the training after they graduate. It is easier for the sisters in Taiwan to go to the training because they do not need to serve in the army. However, the brothers should set aside at least one year to learn to serve the Lord after they serve in the army. On the one hand, this will enable them to be equipped, to learn the truth, and to grow in life. On the other hand, they will practice preaching the gospel and speaking the truth to others. They will also learn other services. If the brothers feel that they need to get a job the second year, they may do so. Their one or two years of training will greatly influence them for the rest of their lives. In this way the service and the testimony of the church will be strengthened.
Moreover, while the young people are in the full-time training, they can determine whether God has called them to serve Him full time. They may finish the training and have the desire to serve for two years. Some of these young people who are gifted may be produced to serve God full time for their whole life. Then the Lord will have a way to advance among us. This practice is beneficial, especially for the young people.
