The preaching of the gospel is a significant matter. Some people, however, may regard it merely as an event full of excitement. When they meet their friends, relatives, schoolmates, and colleagues, they may mention the church’s gospel campaign as a topic of conversation and may invite people to come to the gospel meetings. However, we need to see that in preaching the gospel, there should be no human excitement.
In our consideration of preaching the gospel, we need to pay attention to the spiritual burden within. On the negative side, we are fearful that in preaching the gospel we may have only outward excitement and pay little attention to the inner spiritual burden. Although we desire that many will have a heart for the gospel and offer themselves for this, their offering of themselves should not be the issue of outward excitement. We can never give the Lord’s life to others through excitement. If we preach the gospel out of excitement, we will bring others only into excitement, and it will be difficult for them to have a thorough repentance and receive the Lord Jesus. Preaching the gospel out of natural enthusiasm and excitement cannot stir up the sense of sin and the emptiness of human life within people. It will not help them to sense their need to gain the Lord Jesus and to have God in them as their satisfaction and life.
The Holy Spirit has done some amount of work in people’s hearts. However, we often frustrate the work of the Holy Spirit because of our natural enthusiasm and excitement. Whenever the Holy Spirit has led a person to sense his need for God and feel the heaviness of sins, the emptiness of life, and the longing for a Savior, we need to cooperate with the work of the Spirit by denying our natural excitement and by speaking in the spirit by faith a few sentences that can touch the person’s inner being. This will open to him a new and living way to touch God, to gain God’s salvation, and to receive the Lord Jesus as his Savior. To cooperate with the Holy Spirit’s work in this way is a very difficult lesson that we need to learn.
All natural enthusiasm and excitement comes from and flows out of the self, and whatever issues from our self cannot cause others to gain life or receive salvation. The more we exercise to deny our self and whatever issues from the self, the more we will exercise our spirit to speak the gospel.
When we preach the gospel, we need to be filled with Christ. As we consider and wait before the Lord, we should sense a special spiritual need concerning the preaching of the gospel. This spiritual need is Christ as the burden of the gospel. We should not only have Christ as our burden, but our inner being also needs to be filled with Him. When we go out to contact people, we should not boast about our gospel meeting, nor should people sense our natural zeal or excitement. Rather, after being contacted by us, people should have the impression that we have nothing but Christ within us. They should sense that we are full of the element of Christ and that Christ is in us as our spiritual weight. The people whom we contact should never have the sense that we are zealous or excited or that we are religious people. Instead, they should sense that there is something special that fills us inwardly and that this special thing is Christ.
Christ our Savior died for us on the cross so that our sins could be forgiven (Rom. 5:6, 8-9). He shed His blood on the cross and washed away our sins (Heb. 9:14; 1 John 1:7, 9). Hence we can have peace in our conscience. Today He is in us as the Spirit (Col. 1:27; Rom 8:9-10), and we have joy and satisfaction in our human life because He fills us inwardly. When we give Him the ground in us, He as our life and our strength delivers us from the world and every sin that entangles us. Hence, we preach the gospel by contacting people not because we are zealous or excited but because the Lord has filled us inwardly. He is our spiritual weight and our unique burden. He fills us to the extent that we need to overflow and unload Him into others. When we speak the gospel to others, they should not have the sense merely that the lake of fire is horrible, that a life of sin is miserable, or that salvation will bring peace and joy. That kind of gospel is shallow, low, and light. When we contact people, they should sense only the Lord Jesus and contact Him. We need to give people a gospel that is high, deep, and weighty. When we contact people, they should sense that we are filled with Christ.
Our being filled with Christ within is not a matter of pretense. If a person has no joy inwardly yet pretends to be joyful, it will be apparent that his joy is not real, and his false joy will be short-lived. Whatever a person is and whatever he is filled with inwardly will eventually be expressed. Therefore, if we are filled only with excitement and are eager only to see many people come to our gospel meeting, those who come to hear the gospel will sense only our excitement when we contact them. However, if we are filled with Christ inwardly, we will spontaneously and naturally express Him in our behavior and speaking when we contact others. When we contact unbelieving people with Christ as our content, satisfaction, inner weight, and outward expression, they will sense that there is something special within us that is not religion or excitement. They may not be able to say what this special thing is. Nevertheless, as we converse with them, they will gradually realize that we have something within us that they do not have. This something is Christ. We should help them to see that they need to open their hearts to receive Jesus as their Savior and their Lord.
In Acts, although the apostles spoke concerning sins, perdition, God’s judgment, and God’s righteousness, these things were not their focus when they preached the gospel. Rather than stressing these things, they emphasized the Lord Jesus Himself. They preached the Lord Jesus not only as the Savior but also as Lord of all (Acts 2:36; 2 Cor. 4:5; 1 Tim. 6:15). Their central topic was Christ, because they were filled with Him inwardly.
Some Christians pay much attention to being filled with the Holy Spirit. However, they may not realize that to be filled with the Holy Spirit is to be filled with the Lord Jesus. The Holy Spirit is the transfiguration of the Lord Jesus (1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:17). Thus, to be filled with the Spirit is to be filled with the Lord. Some people say that when a person is filled with the Holy Spirit, he should shake, experience a burning sensation, or feel that he is being electrified. Others say that in order to be filled with the Holy Spirit, a person must jump and speak in tongues. However, the genuine, valuable, and weighty experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit is the experience of being filled with Christ within. When Christ fills us with Himself in our spirit and in our mind, emotion, and will, we love Him, follow Him, and live for Him. In addition, we learn to live in Him and allow Him to possess every part of our being. This is the experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit.
After the outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, Peter stood with the other eleven apostles to preach the gospel (Acts 2:14). We can tell from his speaking that the one hundred twenty disciples were full of Christ inwardly. The disciples had followed Christ for three and a half years. They were in contact with Him every day. When the Lord was betrayed, they were there. When He was crucified, they were there also. They knew of the Lord’s resurrection, and they saw the Lord’s ascension into heaven. Therefore, when the Holy Spirit came upon them, their hearts, including their thoughts and feelings, were full of Christ. If anyone had asked them the way to have life, the way to have peace, or the way to be saved from perdition, they might have responded that life is Christ and that peace also is Christ. They might have said that a person can have real life and be saved from perdition only by gaining Christ and that a person can have true peace only when he has given Christ all the ground in his being. At Pentecost the disciples were full of Christ within.
Before he was saved, Saul of Tarsus was a person altogether in Judaism (Gal. 1:13-14; Phil. 3:4-6). He was filled with the Old Testament teachings and the Jewish law, and he opposed the Lord. However, when Saul was on the road to Damascus, the Lord Jesus appeared to him, called him by name, and revealed Himself to him (Acts 9:1-5). After the Lord’s appearing, Saul had a complete turn. Previously, he was filled with Judaism, and his mind was filled with the law. After the Lord’s appearing, he was thoroughly filled with Christ. Christ was the subject of his speaking. Christ was his center, life, strength, and power. We may say that Saul was “crazy with Christ.” He was full and even “drunk” with Christ. In his Epistles, although Paul, who is Saul, spoke concerning sin, judgment, and God’s righteousness, his center, content, and focus were Christ. We may say that when Paul interacted with others, he spoke only concerning Christ. Only Christ is the unique and real gospel. If God is to have a way through us to flow out Christ and impart Christ into others so that they may gain Him, we must be filled with Christ instead of being filled with excitement.