HOME MEETINGS
Read and pray: “Although I am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given to me: to announce to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ” (Eph. 3:8)
SPEAKING THE FOUR PRACTICAL THINGS
Our speaking with prayer, the Spirit, and boldness is for the four things. These four things are practical. The first is the preaching of the gospel. The second is the spread of the truth. The third is the ministry of life. The fourth is the recovering of the saints.
We speak the holy Word for these four things: to preach the gospel, to spread the truth, to minister life, and to recover the weak.
PREACHING THE GOSPEL
First we will consider the preaching of the gospel. During a recent weekend 1104 were baptized in Taipei. All these 1104 newly baptized saints were not gained through preaching but through speaking. The 1104 were attracted by approximately ten percent of the church in Taipei.
Only a little more than three hundred practiced my instruction to speak the gospel. Their daily speaking of the gospel brought many. This was through speaking and not through preaching. Learn to speak. We all need to acquire the habit of speaking.
As Christians, we are witnesses of Christ. We should speak Him to people, making this kind of speaking a habit. When you go to visit your aunt, do not only listen to the news and current matters; take the opportunity to speak Christ to her.
Acquire such a habit. Believe that when you speak, the Holy Spirit will always follow your speaking, honor it, and people will be saved. Learn to speak the living and rich word. When you speak to your aunt, do not say, “You need to believe in the Lord Jesus, otherwise you will go to hell.” This kind of speaking offends people.
You need to learn to speak the rich Christ. Tell your aunt that five years ago you did not know how rich the Lord Jesus was to you. Tell her, listing all the rich details of Christ. You can say: “Now I know that Christ is the power and wisdom of God to me. He is also my righteousness, my sanctification, and my redemption.”
If you are going to speak such a rich word, you need to study 1 Corinthians 1. Learn to draw the riches from the Word. First Corinthians 1 also tells us that we are 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, and the participation of this portion.
We need to enjoy such a portion now. God gives us Christ as power and wisdom so that we may receive Him as our righteousness and justification, as our sanctification and holiness, and also as our redemption.
You need to extract all these points from this one chapter. Actually, today it is easy to do this because you have the Recovery Version. All these rich details of Christ in 1 Corinthians are indicated in the footnotes.
If you say that you did not understand some of these points, then you may go to the Life-study messages. Some messages explicitly explain what Christ as our sanctification means, and why He is first our righteousness, second our sanctification, and finally our redemption.
The Life-study messages clearly explain such points. For this reason I strongly recommend the Life-studies and the Recovery Version with footnotes. From these two sources you will find answers to all your questions and will receive the living and rich word.
Human beings are always interested in knowing something new. In this essentially Christian country, people’s ears are filled with hearing about going to heaven or going to hell. They cannot bear to hear more about this.
To them you need to speak something concerning the all-inclusive Christ. Take some rich word and speak it to your relatives. Do not preach—just speak. To preach you may need to study in a seminary, but to speak you only need to acquire the habit. Learn to speak by speaking.
Do not dream of a shortcut saying, “I will fast for three weeks and then a great revival will come.” I have studied and observed revivals for sixty years. Frankly, in those sixty years I have not seen or heard of a prevailing revival anywhere.
God does not take the way of revivals. God only plants little potatoes like you and me. Then all of us speak. If every Christian in this country spoke Christ, this would circle the entire American continent.
If there were a hundred great evangelists, I do not believe this would happen. We all must learn to speak. Don’t you believe that by speaking Christ daily for a year someone would be saved? If we are willing to speak, the number of saints would surely double.
The doubling of the number is assured by our habitual speaking of the gospel. People are simply taught to speak; whether they believe or not, the decision will be in their hands.
🌿 Enjoy more:
Hymn: – “Fellowship with Him”
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