Question: Will saying, “Lord, I hand myself over to You” in whatever we are doing help us to learn the Lord in those things?
Answer: It is not necessary to speak so much. To hand ourselves over to the Lord is to abide, to remain, in the Lord (John 15:4). When we are abiding in the Lord, remaining in Him, we are handing ourselves over to Him. As long as we are remaining in the Lord, it is not necessary to say much. Just be simple, and remain in the Lord.
As fallen beings, we find it easy to be independent. This is our habit. When we are independent, we are not in the hand of the Lord. Still, because we are religious, we would not do wrong things. Rather, we may do many good things independently, even recklessly. There is nothing wrong with loving a brother, going to a meeting, or reading the Bible. However, we may do these things according to ourselves, independently of the Lord and not according to spirit. It is dangerous to be independent of the Lord. We should not care merely for where we are going or for what we are doing. We should care mainly that where we go or what we do is by and with the Spirit and not by ourselves.
Question: We have seen that we should follow the trained way in preaching the gospel, and we have also seen that we should be flexible. How do we reconcile these two ways?
Answer: They do not need to be reconciled. On our face, the eyes are the eyes and the nose is the nose. We also have a mouth with teeth and a tongue. We cannot “reconcile” them; they are what they are. When we hear a Christian teacher talking about the “tongue,” we like to make every part of our face a “tongue.” However, we still need the “eyes,” the “nose,” and the “ears.” We have said that in visiting people, we have to form a team; we should not go by ourselves. We have to follow some regulations and not our opinion, and we are blessed if we go out in this way. However, it is very easy to do this in legality. Forming a team to go to people of the lower class is effective, but if we always go out in this way, we will gain only people of the lower class; we will miss the other classes of people. It may be that a middle or upper-class household will not open the door to a team. In this case we must change our way. We love all classes of people. We have to use different ways to gain different people. Our way to reach people must be flexible. The way we use in Taiwan is good for Taiwan, but it may not fit in America. All of us, especially the co-workers and the leading ones in all the churches, have to study the flexible way.
The Chinese have been very conservative for many centuries, but they have gradually changed their concept since coming to Taiwan. Today many Taiwanese merchants are very flexible. They can manufacture many things according to the patterns given to them. They do not produce things according to their own taste but according to the buyers’ taste. They make clothing for South Americans according to the South American tastes, and they make clothing for northern Europeans according to the European tastes. We should not be so legal. If we are flexible, we will surely be able to touch any kind of person.
All human beings are reachable and touchable, but we must find a way to touch them. If we live in a neighborhood with a few men who are fond of fishing, it may even be necessary to go fishing with them. To go fishing without gaining fishermen as our goal is to fall into the world, but if we go to reach people, we will not be going fishing; we will be going preaching. After we go fishing with them three times, they will thoroughly open to us, and we will have an opening in their community. By this we can see that there are many ways to reach people. We should be flexible. There is a way to contact any kind of person.
Question: Is there literature available that categorizes people for gospel preaching and can help us to reach different kinds of people?
Answer: We have such material in Chinese that has not yet been translated into English. It is helpful in a general way, but if we rely on this too much, we may frustrate the Spirit. We must be desperate in gospel preaching because we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ (2 Cor. 5:10). If we are not desperate, we will have a problem with the Lord both in this age and in the age to come. We must endeavor and be desperate to reach people to gain every kind of person. We have to pray that the Lord would burden the saints and make them desperate to gain people.
Question: After I preached the gospel to my employer, he was saved, but he has not gone on. Why is this?
Answer: We should not preach the gospel without coming to people. We must reach them and approach them. If we only preach the gospel to them, they may be saved, but if we do not come to them, they can never be fully brought to the Lord. We should first lay a good foundation by visiting them. It is inadequate only to invite them to come to the meeting hall. They can listen to a message, but even if they believe, they may still go away. The best way to approach someone is to go to their home. It makes a big difference if we go to their home to preach the gospel. Distributing tracts is not as effective as preaching the gospel by visiting people. To reach people by visiting them really works.
To reach people requires us to be absolute for gospel preaching. If we are teaching school, we are not merely teaching; we are living for Christ’s preaching. This is what we are short of today. Thank the Lord that today there are many new ones among us because of the door-knocking, and some new churches have been raised up. In the past, when we insisted on bringing people to the meeting hall, we did not baptize many. However, in the new way, many people have been baptized. I hope that all of us would be stirred up to preach the gospel as priests of the gospel in the new way.
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