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Scripture Reading: Rom. 1:14-15; 1 Cor. 9:16-17; 2 Tim. 4:2a; Acts 6:4; 5:42; 10:24
The four pillars in the Lord’s recovery are the truth, life, the church, and the gospel. The truth brings us life, life produces the church, and the church is responsible for the preaching of the gospel.
Christians today have a very superficial view of the gospel. They think that the gospel tells people that they are sinners and will perish after death but that God loved the world and gave His only begotten Son to save them—He was crucified to bear the sin of the world—so that if they repent and believe in Him, they will not perish but will have eternal life and enjoy peace in the future, and they will also enjoy prosperity and peace in this age. We cannot say that this kind of a gospel is wrong, but it is superficial and very poor.
The book of Romans, written by the apostle Paul, consists of sixteen chapters, and each chapter contains the gospel. In 1:14-15 Paul says that he is a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to wise and to foolish, and that, for his part, he is ready to announce the gospel to the Gentiles. In the gospel Paul preached, which is the whole book of Romans, there is no mention of perdition, heaven, or prosperity and peace. Instead, Paul first speaks of justification, then of sanctification, then of the Body of Christ, and last, of the local churches in every place. This means that even the local churches are a part of the gospel.
We must see that if what we preach is merely about escaping perdition and going to heaven, then we are preaching the poorest gospel. We must preach the gospel in a way that allows people to clearly see that once they believe in the Lord, their sins will be forgiven, and they will be redeemed and justified by God, reconciled to God, and accepted by God. They should also see that at the same time they will be regenerated in their spirit, have God’s life and nature, and have God dwelling in their spirit to renew them day by day and transform them moment by moment. This is so that they may be conformed to the image of His Son and eventually reach the maturity in life and be fully glorified as the sons of God. Furthermore, they should see that although they are sinners, they will become sons of God. At the same time they will become members of Christ, coordinating together to constitute the Body of Christ, which is the testimony, the riches, and the expression of Christ expressed practically on the earth as the local churches. This is the gospel in Romans.
In the New Testament there are not only the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John but also the gospels of Acts and Romans. In Romans 1 Paul tells us that he was ready to announce the content in his Epistle to the Gentiles in Rome as the gospel. This Epistle contains the complete gospel of God, beginning with forgiveness of sins, passing through sanctification, transformation, and the constitution of the Body of Christ, and eventually arriving at the living of the church life in the churches.
Romans 8 is the center of Paul’s gospel, which is concerning the Triune God dispensing Himself into the tripartite man. Hence, in this chapter Paul mentions the Father, the Son, and the Spirit (vv. 9-11). God is the Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—for the purpose of dispensing Himself into man. We human beings are tripartite, having a spirit, soul, and body. Our mind occupies a great part of our soul. Romans 8 tells us that the Triune God first enters into our spirit (v. 10), then saturates our mind from our spirit, that is, enters into our soul (v. 6), and then enters into our body, giving life to our mortal bodies (v. 11). In this way our tripartite being—our spirit, soul, and body—is filled with God. This is the center of Romans 8 and of the entire book of Romans as well. This is the gospel of God.
Do not think that the gospel is one thing and that the truth is another thing. The truth is the gospel, and our preaching of the truth is the preaching of the gospel. To preach the gospel is not to tell people about escaping perdition and going to heaven, nor is it to tell them about prosperity and peace. It is to tell people about God, about Christ Jesus, and about the church. In other words, to preach the gospel is to tell people that God wants to enter into man and make sinners sons of God, that these sons of God are living members of Christ for the constitution of the church, and that these ones are in the church, which is expressed in different localities, so that they can live the church life in the local churches.
Unfortunately, today most Christians have a mistaken view concerning the gospel. Their view of the gospel is too superficial and limited. Sometimes we make a distinction between the meetings for gospel preaching and the meetings for preaching the truth. When we are in a gospel meeting, we spontaneously preach the gospel, and when we are in an edification meeting, we preach the truth. Actually, this is altogether wrong, because the truth is the gospel.
Take the Gospel of John for example. This Gospel begins with God: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...In Him was life, and the life was the light of men...And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us (and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only Begotten from the Father), full of grace and reality...For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace...No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (1:1, 4, 14, 16, 18). This is the gospel that we should preach.
In their preaching of the gospel, many people do not have the boldness to preach “In the beginning was the Word” as John did, because they do not know the truth. What is the meaning of the beginning? Not only are those who listen to the gospel unable to understand this; even those who preach the gospel do not know what this means. Moreover, in the Chinese Union Version, Word is rendered as truth. Then what is truth? Confucius said, “Truth is something so valuable that one is willing to die soon after learning it.” Is this “truth” the same as the Word mentioned in John? If not, then what is the Word? The Gospel of John begins with, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...In Him was life, and the life was the light of men...And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us...full of grace and reality” (vv. 1, 4, 14). It may seem that people will not be able to understand the truth, but we cannot say that they will not understand any of it. John knew a secret—the secret that as long as he continued to speak, people would eventually understand.
Let us use an illustration. When parents teach their child to speak, they do not care whether he understands or not; they simply speak to him every day. Although the child may not understand at the very beginning, as long as the parents continue to speak to him, he will gradually understand in less than a year. Perhaps he will first learn to say, “Mom,” then, “Dad.” The parents do not need to tell him particularly that this is dad and that is mom. He spontaneously knows whom to call. After some time he may learn to say, “Love Mom!” How does he learn to speak? It is through constant hearing. Those who are dumb are usually deaf as well. Being deaf, they cannot hear and therefore cannot speak. Thus, they become dumb.
Therefore, when we preach the gospel, we need to have the faith and boldness to speak God’s word to people. Do not worry about whether they will understand or not. As long as they can hear, it will be all right. We should simply tell people, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” People may not understand it the first or second time or even after seven or eight more times, but eventually they will understand. For example, those in the Lord’s recovery always use new terminology to speak the new language, such as the Spirit and the Triune God dispensing Himself into man. The elderly saints can testify that it is the younger ones who learn these things first. Then the younger ones speak these things to them all the time, and eventually after hearing these things many times, the older ones also learn them. This is just like the elderly Chinese people who live in the United States and learn to speak a few simple English sentences after hearing their grandchildren speak English.
Therefore, the young people need to have the boldness to endeavor to speak the truth. First, you have to speak to your parents. You can tell them, “I know more than you do concerning the truths in the Bible. I know about the essential Spirit and the economical Spirit; I also know that Christ’s humanity is mingled with divinity, that Christ’s divinity is mingled with humanity, and that the Triune God is dispensing Himself into the tripartite man. I will speak these things to you every day; then eventually you will understand and be able to speak them as well.” What a blessing of life this would bring to your parents!
From now on we should not preach the shallow and superficial gospel. We have to preach the high and mysterious gospel. Perhaps it will not be easy for people to understand, but inwardly they will appreciate and respect it. Once they appreciate and respect it, they will easily open their hearts. The problem of our gospel preaching is not in people’s inability to understand our preaching but in our inability to preach. The problem is not that people cannot understand our preaching but that we only preach the superficial gospel. If we preach the high gospel, we do not need to worry about people being unable to understand or believe. In actuality, the problem is not that people cannot understand but that we do not know how to preach.
For the preaching of the high gospel, we have a strong burden to encourage everyone to pursue the knowledge of the truth. In Texas there are some saints who put the Life-studies everywhere in their home—not only in the study, the living room, and the kitchen, but also in the bathroom. They make good use of their time to pursue the truth. Some saints play message tapes in their cars and listen to them while driving. We must have this kind of pursuing spirit in order to know the truth thoroughly. The truth is the gospel. This corresponds to the Chinese saying, “What is real in a person will be manifested outwardly.” If we are filled with the truth inwardly, we will spontaneously express it outwardly by speaking the mystery of the gospel to people. May we all one day be able to speak the Life-study messages even in our dreams. This would prove that the Life-studies have been received and thoroughly constituted into us, because what we dream about at night is what we think about during the day.
We all have the heart to preach the gospel, but if we do not know the truth, we will quickly run out of words as soon as we open our mouth to speak to people. After two or three sentences we will not know what to say. In the end we will have nothing to say, and people will be unwilling to listen to us. Hence, we must learn the truth. The word of the gospel is the truth. For us to speak the word of the truth, we must first learn the truth. If from now on we would be willing to seriously learn the truth, we all would know how to preach the gospel in two months. To preach the gospel is actually to speak the truth, because the real gospel preaching is the speaking of the truth. To speak the truth is to preach the gospel; thus, we all must learn the truth in a proper way.
Today the truth is needed everywhere. Not only do the non-Christians not know the truth; even many Christians do not know the truth. However, the Lord has given us many rich truths. Even our gospel hymns are full of precious truths. For example, the first stanza of Hymns, #1058 says, “Rock of Ages, cleft for me, / Let me hide myself in Thee; / Let the water and the blood, / From Thy riven side which flowed, / Be of sin the double cure, / Save me from its guilt and power.” Here it mentions the water and the blood, the double cure, and guilt and power. Even many saints among us may not know the meaning of these phrases. Here the double cure refers to the cure of our outward sinful acts and our inward sinful nature. The blood refers to the precious blood shed by the Lord to deal with our outward sinful acts (John 1:29; Heb. 9:22), and the water refers to the life imparted by the Lord to deal with our inward sinful nature (John 19:34). The precious blood of the Lord redeems us from the eternal punishment we deserve due to our sinful acts, and His life saves us from the power of our sinful nature.
If we have a thorough understanding of this hymn, we will be able to preach the high gospel to people. We may invite someone to sing this hymn with us and then explain it to him. This would be a very good gospel message. After hearing this, he will be surprised and will respect the excellence and mysteriousness of the content of the gospel. When we speak to him, the Holy Spirit will work in him. Then we could sing this hymn with him again. In this way he would probably be saved in less than half an hour. We should not say anything about perdition and heaven or even prosperity and peace. Instead, we should speak only about Christ Jesus, the Rock of Ages, who was crucified for us, and out from whose riven side came blood for redeeming us from the eternal punishment that we deserved due to our sins and water for saving us out of the power of sin. This kind of simple but excellent singing and speaking, matched by the working of the Holy Spirit, will lead people to salvation. This is the proper way to preach the gospel today.
First Timothy 3:15b says, “The church...the pillar and base of the truth.” This indicates that without the truth, there would be no church. The truth brings in life, and once we have life, we become the church. In addition, the unique commission of the church today is to preach the gospel, the content of which is the truth. The truth tells us one central point: the Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—is dispensing Himself into us—sinful, tripartite men—that our sins may be forgiven and that we may receive God’s life and have God Himself in us for our transformation into the sons of God. This is the truth and the gospel. We must learn the truth.
Once we have learned the truth, we have to go out to preach. However, before we go out to speak, we must pray. The proper sequence is first to pray and then to preach. Merely having the truth without the Spirit does not work. Once we have the truth, we also have to pray that we may be filled with the Spirit inwardly. Otherwise, we will be like a flat tire, without the strength to move. In Acts 6:4 the twelve apostles said, “We will continue steadfastly in prayer and in the ministry of the word.” This indicates that prayer precedes preaching. We must continually pray for those who are in our hearts—our relatives, friends, and neighbors who are surrounding us. Once we pray, we will be filled and saturated with the Spirit. With the truth and the infilling of the Holy Spirit, we will be equipped to go out to preach the gospel to others.
We have to encourage all the saints, no matter what their situation, to open their homes for the gospel. We even have to motivate the saints who are weak and the saints who have not been meeting for a long time to open their homes. This is a tremendous task, and it requires the responsible brothers and full-timers to put in all their effort. If a church has over one hundred open homes, and every home preaches the gospel at least once a week, the number of people will be doubled in just half a year. This will not only recover those saints who have not been meeting for a long time but will also cause their unsaved family members, friends, neighbors, classmates, and colleagues to be saved through hearing and believing the gospel.
In the Bible the best pattern of home gospel preaching is seen in the house of Cornelius. Not only was he saved, but he also brought his whole household to be saved. When the angel told him, “Now send men to Joppa and send for a certain Simon, who is surnamed Peter,” he immediately sent people to Joppa and called together his relatives and intimate friends to his house (Acts 10:5-8, 24-27). This is why when Peter entered his house, not only was his family there but also his relatives and intimate friends. This is a good pattern showing that while we are the mouthpieces for preaching the gospel, our homes are the outlets for preaching the gospel.
We must preach the gospel through our homes. The best way to invite people to your home is to invite them for meals or to prepare the best refreshments for them. When the best refreshments get into their stomachs, their hearts will be opened. As long as the best refreshments can get into their stomachs, the Lord Jesus will gain an excellent opportunity to come into their spirits. How worthwhile and meaningful this is!
The first stanza and chorus of Hymns, #921 say, “Rescue the perishing, / Care for the dying, / Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave; / Weep o’er the erring one, / Lift up the fallen, / Tell them of Jesus the mighty to save. / Rescue the perishing, / Care for the dying; / Jesus is merciful, / Jesus will save.” As long as we are willing to open our homes, prepare the best refreshments, and invite our relatives and friends to come, they will surely be saved. This is the best way to preach the gospel. I hope that from now on, every saint would open his home for the preaching of the gospel, and every saint’s home would be a gospel station for the preaching of the gospel once a week or at least once every two weeks.
Moreover, owing to the universality of education, there are many schools in many different places. The campuses are like fishponds, and the students are like the fish. All the “fish” have been gathered in the “fishponds,” so we must go to every college, high school, and elementary school to preach the gospel. This requires some specific ones in every church to receive the burden to serve in the gospel on the campuses and seek all kinds of opportunities to go to the campuses to preach the gospel. On the other hand, this also requires a large number of full-timers to be raised up, especially the full-timers who have just graduated from college, because it is easy for them to go to the college campuses to preach the gospel to the college students. This is why we encourage the saints who are in school to consecrate two years after college to serve the Lord full time. If the full-timers really have the burden to continue to preach the gospel at the colleges, this will be another profitable way to preach the gospel.
The third way of gospel preaching is to preach the gospel to the children. This requires the sisters to pick up the burden. It is not necessary to use the meeting hall as the place for the gospel meeting. Rather, it is best to meet at the saints’ homes. Use the weekends to gather the children from your neighborhood and to invite the children of your relatives and friends to your home. Many times parents are saved through their children, so do not overlook the children’s work. If, starting from now, we use our effort to work on the gospel for children whose ages range from six to twelve, then after ten or twelve years they will be those who will rise up to bear the responsibility of the church service. This way may seem slow, but it is actually very fast. This way is also profitable.
The fourth way is to preach the gospel to people of all levels. Most of our brothers and sisters work in different professions, trades, and circles; they may be in schools, hospitals, factories, corporations, government bureaus, or private organizations. Wherever we are, we should exercise our influence by preaching the gospel to everyone whom we contact.
If we preach the gospel in these four ways simultaneously, it will not be difficult to double the number of the people in the churches in a year. If all of us would rise up to learn the truth, pursue the growth in life, live the normal church life, and preach the truth as the gospel, one year from now every brother and sister will be strong, and the churches will also be enriched and fruitful. Not only will the number be doubled, but the meeting also will not be short of flavor and riches. May we all receive this burden and practice accordingly in every place, leading the saints to learn the truth in a serious way and encouraging them to pursue the growth in life, to go out to preach the gospel, and to bring people to the Lord and into the church. This will allow the Lord to have a way to go forth and will also bring Him back.
