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Scripture Reading: Gen. 3:8-9, 15, 21; Exo. 3:8; 1 Tim. 1:15; Luke 19:1-10; John 4:3-15; Matt. 10:5-8, 11-13; Luke 10:1-6; Mark 16:15; Matt. 28:19
In the Bible there is a way ordained by God to spread the gospel. God’s pattern of spreading the gospel is seen in Genesis and Exodus.
Genesis records the first time in the entire universe that God Himself directly visited fallen man. First, God came to find fallen man, then God preached the gospel to fallen man, and finally God ministered salvation to the condemned man. In Genesis at Adam’s fall, God came to find him (3:8-9). God was the first “door-knocker.” He came to “knock on Adam’s door” immediately after Adam sinned by eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Although Adam hid himself from the presence of God, God came to find him. He came to visit Adam, to knock on the door of Adam’s heart. He called unto Adam and said to him, “Where are you?” (v. 9). After God found fallen man, He preached the gospel to him (v. 15). God told fallen man that the seed of the woman would bruise the head of the damaging serpent. The seed of the woman is Jesus Christ who was born of a virgin, and He bruised the head of the old serpent, the devil, on the cross.
Furthermore, God ministered salvation to the condemned man (v. 21). God made coats of skin to cover fallen man, and those skins came from a slain sacrifice. The coats of skin signify Christ as the very righteousness from God to cover us. Before being covered by these coats of skin, Adam and Eve were afraid to be seen by God, so they clothed themselves with fig leaves sown together (v. 7). But God came in to clothe them in a proper way, signifying that God’s salvation clothes fallen man with Christ Himself. God’s clothing of fallen man is a type of God’s covering salvation.
God’s pattern of visiting man can also be seen at the time of Israel’s fall. Israel had fallen deeply into Egyptian bondage. Then God came down to visit them. In Exodus 3:8 the Lord said, “I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians.” God came down to visit Israel in order to deliver them out of the usurping hand and the tyranny of Pharaoh in Egypt.
The New Testament reveals the example of the Lord Jesus Christ in visiting man. He came down from heaven to save sinners (1 Tim. 1:15). For Him to come down means that He went out to visit the sinful race. We all have to follow the Lord Jesus as our pattern to go out to visit fallen human beings. Furthermore, the Lord went to visit Zaccheus with His dynamic salvation (Luke 19:1-10). The Lord told Zaccheus, “Today I must stay in your house” (v. 5), and “Today salvation has come to this house” (v. 9). The Lord’s word shows us that the unit of God’s salvation is not an individual person but the whole family, the whole house.
The Lord also set an example in going to visit the Samaritan woman to bring her the living water (John 4:3-15). John 4:4 tells us that the Lord Jesus “had to pass through Samaria.” The Lord had left Judea and was on His way to Galilee. The Lord had to pass through Samaria because He had to go to Jacob’s well to wait for that sinful Samaritan woman. He went to the well to bring her the real living water of salvation. This story of salvation took place not in a chapel or a cathedral but in the open air near Jacob’s well. We should follow this pattern of the Lord Jesus in going to visit sinners for their salvation.
Also in the Gospels we can see the Lord sending the disciples. He sent the twelve to go to the cities and villages to visit the lost sheep of the house of Israel and bring them peace (Matt. 10:5-8, 11-13). While the Lord Jesus was physically on this earth, He did not practice calling meetings, but He always went to visit. He visited Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem. He visited Martha and Mary’s home (Luke 10:38-39) and the house of Simon the leper (Matt. 26:6). The Lord carried out His ministry all the time by visiting people. The practice of visiting people to bring them the salvation and riches of the Triune God is absolutely in contrast with the practice of today’s deformed and degraded Christianity. We must be rescued from that kind of degraded situation back to the Lord’s way.
When the Lord sent the twelve, He charged them to go to cities and villages to visit the lost sheep. We should follow the Lord to do the same thing by going to new cities and small towns. The number twelve bears a particular significance in the Scriptures. Twelve is composed of four times three, the Triune God (three) multiplied by man (four). Twelve refers to the mingling of the Triune God with the tripartite man. If we have gospel groups composed of twelve saints, there can be four teams with three saints on each team. We are linked up with the Triune God going out to knock on people’s doors. We go out as people who are mingled with the Triune God.
The Lord also sent the seventy to go to every city and place to seek the sons of peace (Luke 10:1-6), and we have to do likewise. According to Luke 10, these sons of peace are in the midst of wolves (v. 3). A person may be a son of rebellion one evening and a son of peace the next. A husband may have had an argument with his wife, and when you go to visit him, he may be a son of rebellion that evening. But the next day something might happen to make him happy. When you go to him that evening, he may be a son of peace. That may be the right time for you to sow the seed of the divine life into his being. We should not be disappointed with being rejected when we go out to visit people by knocking on their doors. Before we were saved, we also were sons of rebellion, but one day we became sons of peace. God prepared all of us to receive the gospel. At one time we were rebellious toward God, but one day we changed our attitude. At the right time the gospel came to us, and we repented, believed in the Lord Jesus, and were saved. If we have the patience and endurance to knock on the same door again and again, the ones who live there may eventually become sons of peace. We need to follow the Lord Jesus’ example to go visit every city and every place to seek the sons of peace.
The Lord Jesus sent all His disciples to go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to all the creation (Mark 16:15). They were charged to disciple all the nations, baptizing them into the Triune God (Matt. 28:19). All the creation needs to hear the gospel. If we do not have men to preach to, we can preach to the flowers and to the animals. This will increase our faith and cultivate our utterance. Some people have told me that they do not know what to say when they speak to others. My advice to them is to speak to the creation, which includes all the creatures. If we do this, we will learn how to speak. The gospel should be preached to all the creation. If we are crazy with the enjoyment of Christ, we will talk to everything we see about the gospel. If we are speaking the gospel all the time, we will eventually be prevailing, and our preaching will be full of power. Soon after I received the Lord, I practiced speaking by the seashore to the ocean. I did not learn how to preach in a seminary but at the seashore by talking to the sea.
Going out to visit people is the most effective way to spread the gospel for the kingdom of God. Actually, visiting people by knocking on their doors is not a new way but an ancient way. This way began from the garden in Genesis 3. Every Christian should knock on people’s doors to bring others the gospel. To knock on people’s doors means to visit people. To visit people by knocking on their doors is actually the God-ordained Christian way to spread the gospel, which has been picked up by the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses to spread their heretical teaching. It is regrettable that the proper people, the Christians, have nearly given up the God-ordained way to spread the gospel. But now the Lord is leading us back to this way.
We have to take the way of going out to visit people by learning how to do it and by being trained. The greatest hindrance to our being trained to go out to visit people is our concept. We may be holding on to our past practice of preaching the gospel. Our past practice may have been good, but it is not nearly as effective as our present practice of going out to visit people. The first requirement of our being trained in the new way is to drop our concepts. We must drop our concepts and pick up the instructions of the training. We cannot be trained by the Lord if we hold on to our old practice. If we would forget about our old way and pick up the Lord’s new way, we will see the positive results.
In the Lord’s new way we must be believing, assured, bold, and aggressive. We have been sent to visit people by the ascended Christ, and while we are talking to people, we are linked to Christ. We have the position and the authority of the ascended Christ to direct people to believe and be baptized. Because we have been entrusted with the authority of the ascended Christ to preach the gospel, we should not ask people questions. We should not ask, “Will you believe?” We need to direct them to believe. We should not ask others if they want to be baptized, but we need to direct them to be baptized. We need to be like John the Baptist, who told people, “Repent, for the kingdom of the heavens has drawn near” (Matt. 3:2). John the Baptist preached with an imperative, not with questions.
In our natural man we always want to be nice, good, and humble. We like to ask others, “Would you please believe in the Lord Jesus?” But if we ask others questions in this way, we will be rejected most of the time. Our asking of questions opens the door for rejection. We need to speak everything in the way of a command. We are the Lord’s heavenly ambassadors who have been committed with all the authority in heaven and on earth to baptize people into the Triune God. We need to direct people to repent and confess their sins. We need to lead them to pray. After a little prayer we need to tell them that they are now ready to be baptized. If we would exercise this divine authority, many of the people we visit will be like lambs. We will be able to lead them out of the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of God. The most effective way to preach the gospel is not to ask questions but to direct people to repent, pray, and be baptized. When we baptize a person into the Triune God, he will become another person. Baptism changes people because we are baptizing them into the name of the Triune God, which is the sum total of the Divine Being.
To go out to visit people for the spread of the gospel by knocking on their doors is altogether reasonable and logical. The gospel should be spread and preached, and the best way to bring the gospel to others is to go to them by knocking on their doors. All of us should take the initiative and be bold to practice this. We do not need to get agreement from the church to visit people to spread the gospel. For the leading ones in a locality to require the saints to come to them in order to get their agreement to go out to knock on doors is wrong. We do not have to get the church to agree with us in order to breathe or to eat. In like manner, as branches of the vine we have to bear fruit, and we do not need to get anyone’s agreement to do this. We must bear fruit if we are to remain in the vine, so we all have to exercise our boldness to go out to visit people to spread the gospel for the kingdom of God.
