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In this chapter we will consider how to preach the gospel. After young people consecrate themselves to serve full time, the first thing they need to do is preach the gospel. However, what is the best way to preach the gospel? When we preach the gospel, our main goal is to be effective. To be effective means to get people saved. If we speak vividly and eloquently, but no one gets saved, our gospel preaching is a failure. Hence, it is crucial for us to learn how to preach the gospel effectively.
Some say that the best way to preach the gospel is to sing hymns. This is not wrong; it is one way to preach the gospel. However, singing hymns as the first step in preaching the gospel can be compared to walking with one’s hands. Others say that the best way is to use the booklet The Mystery of Human Life, which uses four keys to preach the gospel. The key of God’s creation unlocks the mystery of human existence, the key of man’s fall unlocks the mystery of the two natures of man, the key of Christ’s redemption unlocks the mystery of the God-man, and the key of God’s dispensing unlocks the mystery of faith. Lastly, it tells a person how to receive the gospel. This is good material for preaching the gospel, but we need to begin preaching the gospel from a basic level.
We must consider the matter of preaching the gospel from the most basic level. A certain kind of task requires a certain kind of person. If we want to preach the gospel, we must be persons who are for the gospel. As soon as the apostle Paul was saved, he proclaimed Jesus Christ (Acts 9:20-22). This is the first thing that he did. Every serving one, including the New Testament apostles, such as Peter and John, and those throughout church history, such as Moody and Spurgeon, begins his service by preaching the gospel. Every person who is saved and loves the Lord has a spirit of the gospel, the desire to preach the gospel. In particular, those who love the Lord and consecrate themselves to the Lord have a strong desire to preach the gospel. We all must be persons who preach the gospel.
Immediately after I was saved, I felt within that I should preach the gospel. At that time no one was shepherding me. Furthermore, in Chefoo the members in the various denominations were very cold toward preaching the gospel. It seemed as if I was the only person who was zealous for the gospel. I went to the villages to preach the gospel every Lord’s Day. Since there were no buses, I walked. I would walk about twenty miles in a day. By the time I returned home, I would be exhausted. Nevertheless, I did not cease preaching the gospel. There was a shortage of gospel material, so there were no gospel tracts for purchase. Hence, I began to write gospel tracts. This spirit of the gospel is in every one of us, but some of us suppress it instead of cultivating it. The spirit of the gospel is like fire that can either be extinguished or set ablaze. Hence, we need to cultivate the spirit of the gospel, and we even need to fan it into flame. The bigger the fire, the better.
In order to preach the gospel, we first must be a person for the gospel, having the spirit of the gospel. Next, we must pray. If we lack prayer, all our labor will be in vain. Therefore, we must pray. However, we should not pray for any specific persons; our prayer should be general. We should pray for the Lord to strengthen the spirit of the gospel within us so that the fire of the gospel would burn among us. Furthermore, we must pray for the Lord to give us a heart of love toward men, to give us a sense of urgency toward the thousands of people who are perishing every day, and especially to give us an interest in sinners and a desire to contact them. This kind of prayer fans the fire of the gospel into flame; the more we pray, the more the fire of the gospel will be burning in us. Eventually, when we see a sinner, we will be moved to tears, and we will love the unbelievers. The young saints should exercise in this way. If we feel nothing in our heart when we see people, the gospel tracts that we give them will be cold. However, if the fire of the gospel is burning within us, we will be burdened when we think of the unbelievers going to the lake of fire. Then every tract that we give out will touch people’s hearts.
If the fire of the gospel is kindled within us, we will become crazy for the gospel and go everywhere to preach the gospel. The young people should be crazy for the gospel on their college campuses. Whenever they see an unbeliever, they should be enlivened, even to the point that they forget about eating and care only for the gospel. We should distribute gospel tracts and booklets every day. When I was young, there were always gospel tracts in my pocket. On my way to and from work, I would give them to the people I met. We should never be without gospel tracts, and we should give them to everyone we see. Whether we are in a store or eating in a restaurant, we should give out gospel tracts. If we are the kind of people who preach the gospel everywhere, we will see the effect of the gospel. The economical Spirit, the Spirit of power, will be upon us, and we will be full of power in the gospel.
What I have fellowshipped is the common way, the general way to preach the gospel. Every full-time serving one must have this experience. We must be on fire for the gospel, crazy for the gospel, for at least two to three years. All those who are crazy for the gospel will become thick-skinned, bold, not shy. If we have not already learned this spiritual lesson, we must make it up. All the young ones who are serving the Lord full time must be crazy for the gospel.
We have practiced the common and general way to preach the gospel. Now we will enter into specific ways to preach the gospel. The Lord will give us a special burden for certain ones among our relatives, friends, and classmates. We should pray for these ones by name. This is specific prayer. We must also know the gospel. This requires learning. We need to get into the Life-studies and the spiritual books so that we may know the content of the gospel. The first item of the gospel is God, the second is man, and the third is sins. We need to know God, man, and sins. We also need to know Jesus Christ as the Savior, know redemption, and know how people can believe in the Lord. When we preach the gospel, we need to speak of faith and of repentance. When a person repents and believes, the issue is the forgiveness of his sins. Then there is justification and reconciliation to God. We need to know all these steps. Furthermore, we need to know what is cleansing from sins, what is release from bondage, and what is regeneration. After experiencing these few steps, a person is saved. These are the contents of the gospel.
Besides studying the contents of the gospel, we also need to practice speaking the gospel to others. If there is no audience to practice with, we can practice in front of a mirror at home. We should practice speaking concerning God, man, sins, the Savior, and redemption. As we practice in this way, we will become skilled. This can be compared to playing basketball; a player is required to be skilled in all the basic movements so that he will be able to handle the ball with ease, knowing how to receive and pass the ball.
We should also find effective and appropriate verses and memorize them. Some brothers and sisters want to quote the Bible when they preach the gospel, but they do not know where the verses are and spend their time searching the pages of the Bible. As a result, the listener is distracted. One thing we should pay attention to is avoiding distractions when preaching the gospel. Moody’s experience is an example. One evening Moody was preaching the gospel to someone. At a key moment, when this one was about to receive the Lord, another person came into the room and closed his umbrella. This noise distracted the gospel friend, and she did not get saved. Not only should there not be any distractions when we speak the gospel to others, but there is also the matter of timing. Sometimes someone is ready to be saved, but not being conscious of it, we continue speaking. Eventually, after we finish speaking, the gospel friend may argue with us instead of believing.
We should not speak to people about God as if we are going through a list of points in a lecture. Sometimes we should speak with one person concerning only one point and speak with another person concerning a different point. When we contact people, we must be clear that what we say depends on whom we are talking to. We may speak concerning God or concerning man’s condition, because different people have different needs. Hence, we must have some knowledge about the person we are speaking with. In the outlines of the service training that was held in 1953, there is a section related to preaching the gospel that contains different categories of people. We should study those points (see “How to Lead Different Kinds of People to Receive the Gospel” in Fellowship concerning the Urgent Need of the Vital Groups). If we practice using these points, when we contact someone, we will know what kind of person he is. We will be like a good carpenter who knows how to work with different types of wood. We need to spend time to study the different categories of people so as to learn how to speak with people and which verses to use.
I have been saved for sixty years, yet sometimes I still feel inadequate when preaching the gospel. How to preach the gospel is a big subject that we need to study. I once spent three hours preaching the gospel to a person. I wanted to save him, and he also wanted to be saved, but he did not get saved. Later, Brother Nee preached the gospel to him, and within five minutes he was saved. Hence, we need to learn the skill of preaching the gospel. We should make an effort to learn this skill. Either we can study by ourselves, or we can learn from those who are more experienced in preaching the gospel so that our gospel preaching will be effective.
So far we have fellowshipped concerning what we need to learn before we lead people to salvation. There are still more skills that we need to pay attention to while we are preaching the gospel. For example, we must help a person to pray, but we cannot do this in a formal way. Rather, we must observe the situation; only when it is the proper time to pray should we lead a person to pray. This requires discernment. In some situations we need to lead a person to pray sentence by sentence; we pray one sentence, and they repeat the sentence. With one person we may need to kneel down and pray, but with another person we should not compel him to kneel down. Every situation is different.
The principle is the same when we lead a person to call on the Lord’s name. We may lead someone to call on the Lord’s name three times for him to receive salvation. However, this is not a formula that can be applied in every situation. The way we lead a person depends on the situation. It may be sufficient for one person to call on the Lord’s name three times, but another person may need to call on the Lord’s name more than thirty times. On the one hand, it is a matter of skill. On the other hand, different people go through different processes to receive salvation. Hence, we must learn many lessons in order to preach the gospel. We should never think that our gospel preaching will be the same in every situation. In the past we were unable to lead people to salvation, but if we are willing to learn, we will see results within a month.
When we preach the gospel, the most important thing for us to learn is how to use the Bible and how to be flexible in using the Bible. We should spend time to practice. We may not thoroughly understand the contents of the gospel even after reading many books. We should endeavor to memorize verses and the main points from the books so that we may freely speak the gospel. In this way we will be able to speak freely with people concerning the gospel, using any verse. We must practice until we are skilled. If we are well-versed in all the points of the gospel, whether we are preaching the gospel on a campus or in a home gathering, the people we contact will be saved.
From this time onward, we must promote the gospel on the island of Taiwan. First, every home must preach the gospel. Second, we must preach the gospel to people in every occupation. Third, we must preach the gospel in middle schools and on college campuses. Fourth, we must go to the villages and towns to preach the gospel. We can all go to the campuses to preach the gospel. Many of us must go to the towns and villages to preach the gospel. It would be good if every meeting hall in every church could send one small group of saints to preach the gospel in the villages every Lord’s Day. We must spread the gospel and not merely have meetings. In particular, in the future the full-timers who are in this training should go to other places to preach the gospel. According to Matthew 10, we should go out to preach the gospel. We go out in groups. Several brothers and sisters can form a group and go to a village. They can stay there for three to four days and preach the gospel there.
Recently, a group of five brothers in America went to different places that do not have a church and preached the gospel on the campuses. They went to a university in the state of Louisiana, but they were turned away by the school authorities. Later they had a meeting with the president of the university, who allowed them to stay there and even provided a place on campus for them to preach the gospel. Many students in that place have been baptized. In the same principle, we need groups of four to five brothers and sisters to go to villages and towns. I believe that the Lord will arrange for many Taiwanese-speaking saints to go to the villages. In the future the young ones should spend a long time in the villages to preach and spread the gospel. We should not be in a hurry to establish churches. We should first be diligent to preach the gospel. All the full-time trainees should be the first group to learn these lessons and go preach the gospel. Based on these instructions, we should find the relevant information from the books and study on our own or with companions so that we are equipped. The results depend on how much effort we put in. Hence, we need to study and work hard. The young people must not be idle.
Question: At present, there is a good response among the college students to the gospel, but it is not easy for them to be baptized. Some students feel that to be baptized is to join a religion and are concerned about the opposition from their family. Other students who have a positive response to the gospel want to wait until the time is right to be baptized. How can we help the students take the next step and be baptized?
Answer: We must pray and ask the Lord to give us the economical Spirit. Preaching the gospel requires power. We must pray for this, but we should not take the way of the charismatic or Pentecostal movements. We should tell the Lord to give us the experience, not feelings; we want to experience the economical Spirit. For a person to be willing to believe requires the work of the Holy Spirit. For a person to be willing to be baptized requires even more of the work of the Holy Spirit. Merely using methods to persuade people to be baptized is human manufacturing. We must look to the Lord to give us the economical Spirit; we need the presence of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, the best way is to take people to the mountain. It is not so easy to lead people to be baptized if we are in a home or in a school; however, if we take people to the mountain and spend a few days together, it will be very easy to lead them to be baptized. Human beings are living organisms with feelings and emotions. A person will respond one way when he feels cold in one setting and differently when he feels warm in another setting. So we must consider these two factors: the economical Spirit and the setting.
Question: Recently, more than a hundred young people were gained and baptized. We hope that they can live a normal Christian life and can also preach the gospel to others. However, since they have recently been saved, it is not possible for them to know the Bible well or to have read many spiritual books. Is it possible to collect crucial verses with simple explanations into a booklet so that these young people can become familiar with these items in a short period of time and use them to speak to others?
Answer: Everything depends on us. We have the materials, but we need some saints to dig out the treasures, to digest them, and to compile them into booklets or tracts. This is the right method, and it will be useful. Furthermore, in the future we can compile material from these treasures that would be suitable for children’s meetings. We should not use worldly material for the children’s meetings. We should digest the main points of the truth and turn them into simple words so that we can speak the truth to the children.
