In fighting there is the need of wisdom. Once we have been trained, we should do everything with much discernment; we should not fight foolishly. To knock on people’s doors for the gospel we have to exercise our discernment, and to talk to people in their homes also requires discernment. In order to discern we need to exercise our wisdom. Wisdom is related to God and is mostly a matter of our spirit. In order to have wisdom we must have God, and the more God we have, the more wisdom we have. We must contact God and stay with God to have wisdom for our discernment.
All the local churches are very good; they are in the Lord’s recovery and for the Lord’s recovery. However, the condition of the churches are not all the same, and the condition of the saints are not all the same. We must be wise to discern the condition of the church and the saints in our locality. The way we contact the church and the saints should not be according to our preference but according to their situation. Sometimes to contact the saints is like walking on thin ice, requiring us to exercise much care and to walk with discernment. The saints in the churches are not our “trainees.” Rather, they may be our spiritual fathers and mothers. We should be as gentle as lambs with them. In this way we will be useful to everyone. We will not damage anyone, and we will not cause a problem. However, we should not say that in order not to cause problems we will do nothing. This is not the way of training. We are being trained to be useful, to do something for the Lord, yet without causing any trouble. We must be as useful as we can, as useful as the Lord’s sovereignty allows and His grace affords, taking every opportunity to be used by the Lord, yet without damaging anyone.
Question: It is needful to dress properly when we visit people, but should the members of a gospel team dress uniformly?
Answer: We simply need to dress properly. Many institutions, such as banks, insist that their employees dress properly. However, it is not needful to dress uniformly. We may have some variety.
Question: Should we practice the trained way to visit people step by step only when we first begin to go out, or should we practice it step by step every time?
Answer: Large corporations train their salesmen not to speak according to themselves. The salesmen are told in writing what they should say. Then they learn to recite it until it becomes their own word. We should read the booklet The Mystery of Human Life and take its contents into our being. Then when we go out, we will not speak the gospel in a general way. We will spontaneously speak from our own being according to the instructed way. This principle has been proven by many business corporations and by other preachers of the gospel. We should not believe that our own way is better than the trained way. Our own way is natural, and the natural way of doing anything will not be successful. The most successful way is a trained way. Even in playing ball, we must be coached. We must do everything according to the coach’s instruction, and we have to practice until that instruction gets into our being. Then it will not merely be instruction; it will be “in our blood.” We should be trained until we get into the trained way and the trained way gets into us. Then whenever we open our mouth, the trained speaking will come out. If we practice this way, our visiting people will not be in vain.
We must make up our mind not to visit people in our own natural way. We should reject the natural way and always try to go out according to the instruction given in our messages. At first we may not be successful, but if we practice the trained way for about two weeks, we will see the results.
We must be the first ones saved by our preaching. If we doubt that people will be saved by the trained way, we have not first been saved by it. We must pray that we be saved by the message we are going to give others. Then we can go out with the assurance that they will be saved. This principle is the same with our teaching. If we doubt that our message will help people, we have not first been helped by it, and we should not speak it. The way to believe that what we preach will save others is to pray and get ourselves into our message. In this way we will be saved and have the assurance others will be saved. Then we will be zealous to knock on people’s doors and find people to talk to.
Home | First | Prev | Next