When I was young, I learned the lesson not to touch anything that was not mine without first asking. One of the elders in Shanghai always instructed the young people in this way. When he knocked on someone’s door, he would wait for them to open it. When the door would open, he would not enter into the house until the host invited him in. Then, once in the house, he would stand until the host offered him a seat. This brother learned the lessons of the inner life to a great degree. Eventually, his standing in the inner life was manifested. In a single day the communists imprisoned one thousand of the leading brothers throughout the country, including this brother. Many of the brothers eventually lost their faithfulness to the Lord. The communists spoke in a subtle way, saying that they were not persecuting the church. They only asked that the brothers would say that they believed in Jesus Christ but did not follow Watchman Nee. They tempted them, asking whether or not they believed that Watchman Nee was always right and never made mistakes. At first, the brothers did not reply to this manner of questioning. However, they eventually told the questioner that they felt Brother Nee had been wrong in certain things. After speaking in this way, they were allowed to return home. The brother from Shanghai, however, had learned the strict lessons of life and had taught others to always follow their inner feeling. He told his questioners that as a Christian his inner feeling did not allow him to say anything negative about Brother Nee. He said that whether or not Brother Nee was wrong was not his business. This brother was kept in prison until he died a half year later. The other brothers were good saints, but eventually, when the test came, most of them could not stand because they had not been built up with a strong character. We also may feel that we are right, but we may not have built up a strict character. It is not a small matter to build up our character.
We need to build up a habit of visiting people in their homes for the gospel, and we must learn the proper way to visit them. This should be a part of our church life and a life-long habit in our Christian life. We should first visit people for gospel preaching to get them baptized, and after this we should continue to visit them to have home meetings with them. The way in which we visit people makes a big difference. We need to go out in a proper way, the trained way. Many saints have a sincere heart to visit people, but they go out in a natural way. I helped to compile our hymnal with over a thousand hymns, but I cannot play the piano because I was never trained by a proper tutor. In the same way, we may diligently practice to visit people for preaching the gospel, but we may not be doing it in the trained way.
When we visit people for the gospel, we should observe our rate of success, how many doors we knock on in order to baptize one person. We should also consider the way we care for the newly baptized ones. After they are baptized, we need to give them a good lesson on salvation. To fail to do this will create a great lack in our care for them. In visiting people we also need to properly proportion our time. After baptizing new ones, we need to care for them, but at the same time we may need to continue to knock on more doors in order to baptize others. If our practice is proper, our visiting of people will not be in vain. We will always gain people.
In order to preach the gospel in the best way, we have to be those who are very much interested in people. We have to like to talk to people, but not in the way of gossip, and we must be very concerned for them. Then, for the sake of our gospel preaching, we must learn to be attractive persons. Christians who preach and minister Christ must be attractive. When we enter into people’s homes, they should be attracted by us. Some of us may be good saints, but we may not be attractive. When we enter into a home, the people there may be afraid of us and will not want to have anything to do with us. If we are this way, we are finished with the gospel preaching. A precious stone is valuable, but it may not be attractive. To Christ we should be the precious stones, but for the ones we visit, we should be a “magnet” to attract them. We should be attractive not only in our speaking but even in the way we look at people. We should be soft and warm to them.
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