Everyone who participates in preaching the gospel should ask the Lord for timely utterance, that is, instant words to speak according to the need. Whether we are giving a message or participating in other activities, such as inviting gospel friends to the meeting, ushering them to their seats, speaking to them after the meeting, writing down their names, or praying with them, we should learn to ask God for instant utterance. We should never repeat the same old things to people. Too often we have repeated the same thing in our preaching of the gospel: “There is one God in the universe. He created all things, including man. However, Adam, the first man created by God, sinned, and thus the entire human race became sinful and came under God’s condemnation. Therefore, God sent His Son to die on the cross so that we might be redeemed. After His death on the cross, He was resurrected, and He ascended to the heavens to become our living Savior. Today in order to receive eternal life, joy, and peace and to be saved from perdition, man only needs to repent. Oh, believing in the Lord Jesus is the greatest blessing!” We may repeat these words time after time so that they become old. Although these words are words of the gospel, our speaking may no longer be fresh. When we preach the gospel, Jesus should be our unique subject. However, we need to speak this unique subject with fresh utterance.
The unique subject of the apostles’ preaching in the book of Acts was the Lord Jesus. However, every word that they spoke concerning this One was fresh, because they spoke not only the written words of the Bible but also the instant words from the Holy Spirit. We must learn to pray and look to the Lord for instant utterance. Before attending a gospel meeting, we should begin to pray from our homes so that we will not only have feeling for the people whom we contact but will also know their inward condition and have the instant words to speak to them. Although the people we speak to may not have a full understanding of doctrines such as God’s creation, Jesus as the Savior, and man’s fallen condition, we can ask the Lord to make known to us their inward condition and give us living words that speak to their condition.
A brother once preached the gospel to some college students in Nanking. After his speaking, a bright young student said to him, “Sir, I really want to believe in Jesus, but I need to wait for a little while. My parents are over seventy years old, almost approaching the end of their lives. I need to wait until they have passed away before I can believe in Jesus.” Although this brother did not have much experience in preaching the gospel, he did not argue with the student. Instead, he received the Holy Spirit’s instant utterance and said to the student, “What a loving son you are! You want to send your parents to the lake of fire, and then you will enter into the heavenly kingdom.” After hearing these words, the student asked, “Sir, what do you think I should do?” Then the brother responded by telling him that the best way was for him to receive salvation first, and his salvation would open the way for his family members also to be saved. Immediately after hearing this, the student knelt down to pray and received the Lord Jesus. The simple words spoken by this brother completely subdued that student and led him to the Lord. Although the words spoken by the brother sounded like words of rebuke, at that moment they were crucial to the salvation of that student because his words were the instant utterance from the Holy Spirit.
In preaching the gospel, we should not merely rely on the doctrines that we know. Rather, we need to have instant utterance from the Holy Spirit. On one hand, we need to prepare certain words to speak concerning the gospel. On the other hand, we should never use the words of the gospel in an inflexible way. Rather, we need to speak according to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. If we have no feeling inwardly and merely recite words from the Bible to others, our speaking will have little effect. Therefore, we should not recite the words of the gospel to others in a rigid way. If we merely recite to others, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23), “the wages of sin is death” (6:23), and “it is reserved for men to die once, and after this comes judgment” (Heb. 9:27), they may have no response. We need to speak such words under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. These portions from the Bible show that according to God’s plan, sin leads to death, judgment follows death, and perdition follows judgment. Sin, death, judgment, and perdition are all connected. These are heavy words. When we speak these words, we should not speak them rigidly, repeating them in the way that we did in the past. Rather, we should use these words flexibly, according to the leading of the Holy Spirit. We should not only speak the word of the gospel from the Bible but also receive the living utterance from God.
It is important when preaching the gospel that we do not argue with others. Someone may respond to our preaching by saying that it is not necessarily true that there is only one God in the universe. Although we do not agree with him, we do not need to argue with him. We only need to speak the facts in a positive way. We may simply say to him, “There is only one God.” We should do everything in our power to avoid arguments. Arguing can never subdue people. On the contrary, it causes resentment and stirs up the flesh. The more we argue with someone, the more points of argument we will create, the more that person’s fleshly nature will be stirred up, and the less possibility there will be that he will receive God’s salvation. We need to speak the truth in a positive and calm way and avoid all arguments.
In order to have good results in our preaching of the gospel, we need to earnestly care for all the points that we have covered. We need to be persons who consecrate ourselves to the Lord, who pray proper prayers, and who are full of God as our faith. When we preach the gospel, we need to have faith, because we are speaking God’s words, and God’s words will never return to Him vainly (Isa. 55:10-11). Also, we should never offend people by speaking argumentative words. Rather, we should speak positive words in a polite and humble manner. When we contact people, we need to ask the Lord to give us the proper feelings and the instant leading so that we can speak timely and living words rather than merely repeat what we have spoken in the past. Man cannot teach us how to speak living words. Only God is able to give us the timely words that match a person’s condition and mood, touch his inward feelings, and satisfy his inward need. God desires all men to be saved (1 Tim. 2:4). We need to be those who spread the gospel. For this reason, we need to practice all these points faithfully in our preparation to preach the gospel.