According to our observation, there is the danger that when we go door-knocking to lead people to salvation and baptize them, what we do may become “mechanical.” This may be due to the fact that our spirit is not strong enough and that we do not want to exercise our spirit. Due to the training that we have received in the past, we have become very experienced in door-knocking and baptizing people, even to the extent that our wealth of experience has become a mechanical method. The result is that there is not much life and spirit in what we do.
Consider our practice of baptism. I believe that many of us have the feeling that when we go door-knocking and baptize people, our way is sometimes too careless. We do not take this matter seriously, nor do we impress people deeply with baptism. Baptism is a matter that concerns man’s coming out of death and entering into life, coming out of the world and entering into God’s kingdom, and coming out of the self and entering into the Triune God. Hence, it is a very serious matter.
We need to see that going out to baptize people is a great matter. If we had other options, we would prefer not to baptize anyone in a bathtub but in a pool or a stream. Nevertheless, we must still take it seriously and give the baptized ones the feeling that this is a very important matter, a matter that concerns their being delivered from perdition to salvation and their coming out of death and entering into life. This is a life-changing matter—they are coming out of themselves and entering into the Triune God—and we should give people this feeling. If we baptize them in a loose manner, giving them a poor feeling, they will avoid us on our next visit.
If there are any special needs that arise from our door-knocking, we should have fellowship right away so that the situation can be studied without delay. For example, some young people accepted the gospel and were baptized while their parents were not at home. Then their parents returned home, and they were forced to give up the gospel. When we next visited them, their parents refused to let them open the door. This is understandable, and we were forced to accept their decision. Another situation arose when a husband was not home during our visit. The wife believed in the Lord and was baptized, but when her husband returned home, he annulled her faith. When we visited them again, she kept the door shut. This also is understandable, and we were forced to accept it. In a third kind of situation, we baptized certain ones, but afterward some from Christianity contacted them and led them away before our next visit. This situation is also understandable, although not entirely acceptable, because it shows that we did not adequately protect and care for the new ones. A newborn baby needs to be protected the moment he comes out of his mother’s womb. If we protect him, he will survive; if we do not protect him, he will die. What happened with these new ones is yet another kind of situation in which people do not like to see us, lose confidence in us and respect for us, and reject us due to our improper approach. We need to be greatly adjusted in these matters.
Because we have never taken the new way before, we need to study it as we go on. We can compare this to following a car. If the car in front comes across a problem on the road, it can report the road conditions to the cars behind. Then they can consider what to do. In the same way, when we go to knock on doors, baptize others, or perfect the home meetings, we should follow the principle that we fellowship immediately whenever we discover a difficulty. Then we can discuss the way to deal with the problem in a proper manner. If we do not have fellowship when we discover difficulties, but instead discuss them in private, we are simply gossiping, which is neither appropriate nor proper.
I hope that from now on we will be particularly alert when we go out to baptize people. We must never be careless or casual. Instead, we must be very serious. We should never act rashly in order to save time. We should rather spend a little more time and baptize them in a respectable and serious manner. Even though a person may be baptized in a bathtub, our attitude must still be serious. We should fill the tub in a proper manner, accompany him to prepare and change clothes in a proper manner, and have clear fellowship with him to help him to realize that he has been saved. If we do this in a serious manner, the newly saved one will have a deep impression about his baptism. He too will respect it and be serious about it.
We should tell those who are being baptized that baptism is a very significant matter. It is the reality of coming out of death into life, coming out of darkness into light, and being saved from Satan’s hand and entering into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love. From then on, they will be in the grace of God, enjoying God’s full salvation. This kind of speaking will edify them and give them a serious feeling toward baptism. At the same time, we need to explain to them the significance of water in baptism so that they can understand its meaning. We should believe that when we are serious, our words will certainly be of the spirit, having reality and power to impress people. When people are baptized in this way, they will have this impression: “I am a different person now. I have come out of death and entered into life, and I have been delivered from Satan and entered into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love.” In this way, it will not be easy for other people to damage them. Parents may obstruct and husbands may restrict, but within the ones we contact there will be a clear realization that they have been baptized and that a reality has entered into them. This is something that they will not be able ever to forget for the rest of their lives.
We must pay special attention to a particular matter. If there is no bathtub in a person’s home, we should never simply sprinkle him with water. This way is too careless and casual. We would rather not baptize him at that moment but make an appointment with him for another time at another place in order to baptize him in a serious manner. We should never be careless about baptism lest people have a dubious impression of us. These are areas in which we should be careful and cautious.
Regardless of whether we knock on doors to baptize people or go to perfect a home meeting, we should act and move in the principle of death and resurrection, living in the spirit and following the spirit. We need to leave people with the impression that these matters are very significant and serious.
Question: Can we affect someone’s thought about baptism by speaking more to him about it?
Answer: With whatever organ you speak to people, that organ in others will be touched. If you speak to people with your spirit, you will touch their spirit. If you speak to them with your mind, you will touch their mind. Moreover, if you speak to them with a suspicious, analytical, and argumentative tone, you will stir up a debate. It all depends on you. We must exercise our spirit and learn to speak in the spirit, telling people, “Dear friends, this is a great matter. This is the day that you can ‘walk out of hell.’” When we speak in this way, the Spirit will work in them. If we ask them in the mind, “Do you know that today is the day that you are walking out of hell?”, they will answer, “No, I don’t.” Hence, it matters how we speak. We must speak from our spirit and give others the feeling that our speaking is in the attitude of the spirit, the tone of the spirit, and is not merely from our mind. We should realize that the attitude and the tone of our mind only stir up debate.
We must never baptize people in a loose manner. This is improper. We should not care about the number of people we baptize each day. This does not depend on what we think; rather, it depends on the work of the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit saves one person, we will baptize one. If He saves ten people, we will baptize ten. How many will be baptized is not up to us. Rather, it is up to the Holy Spirit and the cooperation of the environment.
With regard to idol worship, we must have a time of clear fellowship with the newly saved ones that since they have believed in the Lord, they should forsake all the idols. If they do not forsake the idols, the Lord cannot accept them. We cannot baptize those who are not willing to reject the idols. If they say that they want to reject the idols, we should help them to smash them. The idols must be done away with. However, we do not necessarily need to resolve matters such as smoking and drinking right away, because both smoking and drinking are a kind of habit. To deal with these requires the newly saved ones to overcome by the Lord’s life after their baptism. Idols, however, need to be dealt with right away.
(A message given on March 17, 1987 in Taipei, Taiwan)