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Scripture Reading: Acts 4:31; 8:4; 6:7; 12:24; 19:20; 1 Cor. 1:18; 12:8; 2 Tim. 4:2; 2 Thes. 3:1; Col. 4:3
In this chapter my burden is just to exhort you to learn to speak the living and rich word of God. If you read through the verses listed above, you could see that each verse speaks about the word of God. Each one bears a crucial point. When you put all the points together, you could see that the spoken word is something living. It is not only living but also rich. What we are charged to speak is the living and rich word of God. We have to learn how to speak the living and rich word of God.
When we speak the word of God, we have to speak it with boldness. In Acts 4:31 boldness is used for the speaking of the word of God. This boldness is very much related to the Spirit, and the Spirit is related to prayer. This one verse is composed of these three things. While they were beseeching, that is, while they were asking, petitioning, or praying to God, they were filled economically, outwardly, with the Spirit of power. Through their prayer they experienced the Spirit. With the Spirit they spoke the word of God with boldness. You can see that the speaking of God’s word here is related to three things: prayer, the Spirit, and boldness. You could not have boldness without the Spirit, and you could not experience the Spirit without praying. Prayer brings us the Spirit, and the Spirit is the boldness. It is not only that the Spirit gives us boldness, but the Spirit Himself is the boldness. Sometimes we are timid because we are short of the Spirit. Because we are short of the Spirit, we do not have the boldness. Boldness always comes from the Spirit, and the Spirit comes from our prayer. These three things, prayer, the Spirit, and boldness, are all wrapped up with our speaking. We have to learn to pray that we may get the Spirit. Then we will have the boldness to speak the word of God.
In this series of messages we have been stressing one thing: that we should always be speaking. We have made it quite clear that this speaking is a divine speaking, which is for the meetings. The Christian meetings are for a purpose, and this purpose could not be carried out without speaking. If there is little speaking, then little of the meeting’s purpose is accomplished. This purpose could only be carried out by the saints’ proper and adequate speaking. I am concerned that you have not been adequately impressed and even more concerned that you may not be practicing this speaking.
In Acts 1:8 the word witness implies a great deal. The Lord Jesus said, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be My witnesses.” A witness is a speaking one. We are chosen and appointed, even assigned to be His speaking ones. We all have to speak Him, speak for Him, and speak forth Him. This is our duty.
Revelation 12:11 says that the brothers overcome the accuser by three things. One of these is the word of their testimony. The word of our testimony is a weapon to defeat our enemy, the accuser. Therefore, we should not be silent but open up our mouth to speak. We must speak throughout the day. All the time we have to be learning how to speak, how to be a genuine, constant, and instant speaker. You should speak the Lord’s word continually. This is our daily duty. We were chosen, regenerated, appointed, and even assigned with this commission. It is good to sing, “This is my story, this is my song, speaking my Savior, all the day long.” Learn to speak the living and rich word.
If you are going to speak the living and rich word, you should not trust in some kind of inspiration. Suppose you have never learned English, yet you trust in spiritual inspiration to enable you to speak it. I assure you, you could wait until the Lord comes back, and you would still not be speaking English. To learn English you first have to learn the alphabet, then the words, then sentences. You have to study English for many years before you are able to speak it in a living and rich way. In the same way we could not have the living and rich word from the Bible just by inspiration. In the past you may have had the desire to speak something from the Bible, yet you felt that you were short of utterance, short of words. You did not have the living and rich word.
Paul’s main thought in 1 Corinthians 12:8-11 is that the Spirit is distributing the word of wisdom and the word of knowledge to the saints while they are in the meetings. If you do not read the Bible and therefore lack a rich deposit of the divine Word, you will come to the meeting empty. Then, even if the inspiration comes, you will not have the deposit you need. If you are going to serve people with a rich feast, you first need to get the groceries. If you do not have the groceries, how could you cook a rich meal? It is impossible. We all have to spend adequate time to pick up the Lord’s word from the Bible.
We have to thank the Lord that on this earth, two great gifts have been given to humankind and to God’s chosen people. One of these is the Word, the Bible. In this universe and on this earth, there is such a book that is called “the Book.” Bible is a Latin word that means “the Book.” This is “the Book,” the unique book. If today there were no Bible, the earth would be full of darkness. The Bible is one of the greatest gifts of the Lord to mankind.
Our God has also given us another gift, the Holy Spirit. The Lord Jesus as the very God went through the wonderful processes of incarnation, human living, the all-inclusive death, resurrection, and ascension. Through all these wonderful, excellent processes He eventually did two things. First, He breathed the Spirit of life into His disciples on the day of His resurrection. Then He took another step to pour out the Spirit upon His disciples in His ascension. In His resurrection He breathed the Spirit into us, and in His ascension He poured the Spirit upon us. In that way He baptized all of us into one Body. We have the Bible, the Holy Scriptures, and the Spirit — the Holy Spirit. These are the two greatest gifts that we have today.
However, we always neglect these two gifts. We may have the Bible on our shelf or even in our pocket, but it has never gotten into us as it should have. In addition, many times we grieve the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 4:30 says, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed unto the day of redemption.” The Greek word unto implies “with a goal to reach.” This means that the sealing is not once for all but continuing, still going on. We are still under this sealing all the day long. The Spirit is sealing us until we reach the goal of the redemption of our body. However, the real situation is that most of the time we care neither for the Holy Spirit nor for the holy Word. Mainly we just care for ourselves. As Christians, we have been saved by the Lord, and we have been graced by Him. Today we are seeking after Him, and we love Him, yet we mostly care for ourselves, not for the holy Word or for the Holy Spirit. We need a turn to care for these two gifts. We have to enjoy these two gifts hour after hour, day by day.
We have to pick up the word from the Bible until we have a rich deposit. Then when we come to the meeting with such a deposit, at any time we can write a check for a hundred dollars, a thousand dollars, or even a million dollars. When you come to the meeting with a deposit of the living and rich word, surely the Spirit will distribute to you the deep word of wisdom and the rich word of knowledge. The way to keep such a deposit is by laboring on the Word of God. Just as we have no reason for not eating the physical food, we have no reason, regardless of how busy we may be, for not taking the spiritual food. Christians today are so weak, so poor, and so low just because of the spiritual famine. They do not eat the spiritual food. They do not pick up the Word regularly. Even among us I still feel that there is such a famine. If you mean business with the Lord for His recovery, and if you do love Him, you have to love His Word. The Lord Jesus said clearly, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word” (John 14:23). We must take His Word daily. Learn to pick up the Word and gain a deposit. Then when you come to the meeting, it will be easy to receive some distribution from the Spirit, either the word of wisdom or the word of knowledge. In this way you will speak by the Spirit. For this you must have a praying spirit.
I have many experiences along this line because I speak so much. Recently, before a meeting I felt that I had no choice but to pray much. The inner feeling told me that a little prayer would not be adequate. That would be like going to the gas station to get your tires pumped up but leaving before the tires are filled. You have to pray. Not only so, when you come to the meeting, you must come with a praying spirit. Then while you are speaking, you will speak with a praying spirit. While I am speaking, I am praying. I am trusting in the Lord. I believe that while I am speaking, He is one spirit with me. In this way you will spontaneously have the sensation, the assurance, that you are speaking the holy Word with the Holy Spirit. Then you will have the boldness. We need this kind of speaking. We need the saints today to speak the living and rich word by a praying spirit. Then through this praying spirit, you will surely participate in the Spirit, who is your boldness.
Our speaking with prayer, the Spirit, and boldness is for four things. These four things are practical. The first is the preaching of the gospel. The second is the releasing of the truth. The ministering of life is third. The fourth is the recovering of the saints. We speak the holy Word for these four things: to preach the gospel, to release the truth, to minister life, and to recover the weaker ones.
Let us first consider the preaching of the gospel. On a recent weekend in Taipei 1,104 were baptized. These 1,104 newly baptized saints were all gained not through preaching but through speaking. The 1,104 were brought in by just about ten percent of the church in Taipei. Only a little over three hundred practiced my instruction to speak the gospel. By speaking the gospel every day, they brought in so many. This was by speaking, not by preaching. Learn to speak. We all have to pick up the habit of speaking.
As Christians, we are witnesses of Christ. We should speak Him, making this kind of speaking a habit. When you go to visit your aunt, forget about current events in the news and speak Christ to her. Build up such a habit. You have to believe that when you speak, the Holy Spirit always follows your speaking and honors your speaking, and people will be saved. Learn to speak the living word, and learn to speak the rich word. When you speak to your aunt, do not say, “You have to believe in the Lord Jesus; otherwise, you will go to hell.” This kind of speaking will offend people. You have to learn to speak the rich Christ. Tell your aunt that five years ago you never knew how much the Lord Jesus was to you. Tell her by listing all the rich items of Christ. You may tell her, “Now I know that Christ is God’s power and wisdom to me. He is also my righteousness, my sanctification, and my redemption.”
If you are going to speak such a rich word, you have to study 1 Corinthians 1. Learn to pick up the riches in the Word. First Corinthians 1 also tells us that we are the called saints, that Christ is ours, which means that Christ is our portion and that we have been called by the faithful God into the fellowship, the enjoyment or the participation, of this portion. Now for us to enjoy this portion, God gives us Christ as power and as wisdom that we may receive Him as our righteousness, our justification; as our sanctification, our holiness; and also as our redemption. You have to pick up all these points from this one chapter.
Actually, today this is easy for you to do because you have the Recovery Version. All these rich items of Christ in 1 Corinthians 1 are pointed out in the footnotes. If you say that you do not understand some of these points, then you can go to the Life-study messages. Some messages purposely explain what it means for Christ to be our sanctification and why He is first our righteousness, then second our sanctification, and last our redemption. The Life-study messages explain these points clearly. For this reason I strongly recommend the Life-studies and the Recovery Version with the footnotes. From these two sources you can find the answers to all your questions, and you can receive the living and rich word.
Human beings are always interested in knowing new things. In this top Christian country, the ears of the people are filled with going to heaven and going to hell. They do not like to hear any more of this. To them you need to speak something concerning the all-inclusive Christ. Pick up some rich word and speak to your relatives. Do not preach, just speak. To preach you may need to study at a seminary, but to speak you just need to pick up the habit. Learn to speak by speaking. Do not dream of a short cut way, saying, “I will fast for three weeks, and then a great revival will come.” Sixty years ago I studied about revivals, and since then I have been watching. Honestly, within these past sixty years I have not seen or heard of one prevailing revival anywhere. God does not take the revival way. God just plants small potatoes like you and me. Then we all speak. If every Christian in this country would speak Christ, this would turn the American continent around. If you had a hundred great evangelists, I do not think that you could accomplish this. We all must learn to speak. Do you not believe that through speaking Christ daily for one year someone would be saved? If we would speak, the number of saints would surely double. The doubling of our number is assured by our habitual speaking of the gospel. Just practice speaking; whether they believe or not is up to them.
We must speak not only the gospel, but we must also speak the truth, the divine realities in the Bible. To speak the truth, you have to know the truth. There are many truths in the Bible. The Trinity is probably the greatest truth. Nearly all Christians know that our God is triune, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, yet that is all they know. When asked to speak more concerning this, they have little to say. We all must learn to speak something deeper. You can tell people that to be baptized is to be baptized into the Father, the Son, and the Spirit (Matt. 28:19). Then they will enjoy the grace of Christ the Son and the love of God the Father and will have a share in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. They will enjoy the riches of the Trinity. You may think that it would be hard to pick up all these points, but I do not think so. It all depends upon you. If you have the heart and the desire, you can surely do it, especially if you go to the Recovery Version, where there is a long footnote on 2 Corinthians 13:14. This footnote gives a long list of the references concerning the Divine Trinity, from Genesis to Revelation. Furthermore, 1 Peter 1:2 says, “According to the foreknowledge of God the Father in the sanctification of the Spirit unto the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.” This is the very enjoyment of the Triune God. Then Paul in Ephesians 3 says that he bowed his knees to the Father, that He would strengthen us by the Spirit that Christ may make His home in our hearts. Again you can see the Triune God. There are many verses like this, including John 14:17-20. These are the rich words. Learn to pick them up and to speak them. Twelve years ago you might have had a lot of excuses not to speak the rich word, but not today. This is because I have put a lot of rich groceries in your pantry or at least at the book counter where you can get them. Now you can get all the riches.
In our training on the book of Acts we stressed the matter of dispensational transfer. I am concerned that many of us may have missed this crucial point. We need to spend a lot of time on all the footnotes that deal with this transfer in the book of Acts. I believe that in just half a day you will pick up a strong point concerning the dispensational transfer found in the book of Acts. I hope that you would spend some time to pick up the riches of the Word. Then when you speak, you would speak not only livingly but also richly.
I am thankful to the Lord that many have been attending the ministry meetings for over twelve years. I do believe the reason you have kept attending is that I do not render you some cheap things, some dead things, speaking things in a poor way. Whatever I have delivered to you has been at least somewhat living and rich. The livingness and the richness of this ministry attracts you. We all have to learn to speak not only the living word but also the rich word. Then our speaking of the rich word will be the release of the truth. There are so many truths in the Bible. For example, the book of Galatians is full of riches: “When it pleased God...to reveal His Son in me” (1:15-16); “I through law have died to law that I might live to God” (2:19); “I am crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (2:20); “Until Christ is formed in you” (4:19); and “Neither is circumcision anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creation” (6:15). With the Recovery Version and the Life-studies, it is so easy to pick up all these riches. It would be a pity if you have been with us for over five years yet are still not so full of the riches of the holy Word. You are in a rich family with many riches. On your left side there are riches. On your right side there are riches. In back of you, in front of you, above and below you, there are many riches, but all the riches are not in you. We all need to realize the situation and pick up the riches of the holy Word so that we may speak to people the living and rich word.
Our speaking with prayer, the Spirit, and boldness is also for the ministering of life. Life is conveyed in the holy Word. The Bible is the word of life. Whatever we speak as the living, rich word of God is the word of life. We speak the word, but within the word is life. Therefore, in our speaking we spontaneously minister life to others. However, due to our shortage in the Word of God, we just do not have the utterance to say anything when we try to help others. The most we could say might be, “You have to love the Lord and realize that the Lord loves you and is trustworthy.” Instead, we need to minister something new, something of our own experience, something that we have discovered, something that we have gone through. By doing this, we will spontaneously minister life to others. We need the proper speaking of the living, rich word so that we can minister life to others.
If you would do these three things — preach the gospel, release the truth, and minister life to others by speaking the living, rich word — then when you come to a big meeting or a small meeting, you will be so rich. You will have the habit to speak, and you will have a lot to speak about, even to speak with. You would have a lot; I would have a lot; each one of us would have a lot. In this way the meeting would never be poor, low, dead, or cold. It would always be uplifted, enriched, and quite living. This is the way to have the church life built in the small group meetings.
The rich speaking also helps us to recover the weaker ones. In the church there is always a number of weaker ones. They need your support; they need your comfort; they need your help through the rich word by the Spirit.
In conclusion, if we really mean business with the Lord in His recovery, we all have to rise up. Do not take the short cut way. Prepare yourself with a lot of endurance, a lot of divine patience to take this way for at least three or four years. Go to the small group meetings, always spend your time to get into the holy Word, pray properly, and learn to speak habitually the things concerning Christ. Speak the divine riches first to build yourself up. Then you come to the meeting to practice this habit of speaking. Do not say, “I do not feel that I have the burden to speak anything in the meeting. I am not led; I have no inspiration.” Forget about this traditional way. Learn to enter into the Word and pray about it, and then practice speaking according to the deposit in you. Then when you come to the meeting, whether or not you have the feeling that you are inspired or led, you will just speak. First your speaking will build up yourself, and then it will spontaneously build up others. Thus the meetings will be built up. This is the way for the church life.
