In the Bible there is a way ordained by God to spread the gospel. God’s pattern of spreading the gospel is seen in Genesis and Exodus.
Genesis records the first time in the entire universe that God Himself directly visited fallen man. First God came to find fallen man, then God preached the gospel to fallen man, and finally God ministered salvation to the condemned man. In Genesis at Adam’s fall, God came to find him (3:8-9). God was the first “door-knocker.” He came to “knock on Adam’s door” immediately after Adam sinned by eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Although Adam hid himself from the presence of God, God came to find him. He came to visit Adam, to knock on the door of Adam’s heart. He called unto Adam and said to him, “Where are you?” (v. 9). After God found fallen man, He preached the gospel to him (Gen. 3:15). God told fallen man that the seed of the woman would bruise the head of the damaging serpent. The seed of the woman was Jesus Christ who was born of a virgin, and He bruised the head of the old serpent, the devil, on the cross.
Furthermore, God ministered salvation to the condemned man (Gen. 3:21). God made coats of skins to cover fallen man, and those skins came from a slain sacrifice. The coats of skins signify Christ as the very righteousness from God to cover us. Before being covered by these coats of skins, Adam and Eve were afraid to be seen by God so they clothed themselves with fig leaves sown together (3:7). But God came in to clothe them in a proper way, signifying that God’s salvation clothes fallen man with Christ Himself. God’s clothing of fallen man was a type of God’s covering salvation.
God’s pattern of visiting man can also be seen at the time of Israel’s fall. Israel had fallen deeply into Egyptian bondage. Then God came down to visit them. In Exodus 3:8 the Lord said, “I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians." God came down to visit Israel in order to deliver them out of the usurping hand and the tyranny of Pharaoh in Egypt.
The New Testament reveals the example of the Lord Jesus Christ in visiting man. He came down from heaven to save sinners (1 Tim. 1:15). For Him to come down means that He went out to visit the sinful race. We all have to follow the Lord Jesus as our pattern to go out to visit fallen human beings. Furthermore, the Lord went to visit Zaccheus with His dynamic salvation (Luke 19:1-10). The Lord told Zaccheus, “Today I must stay in your house” (v. 5), and “Today salvation has come to this house” (v. 9). The Lord’s word shows us that the unit of God’s salvation is not an individual person, but the whole family, the whole house.
The Lord also set an example in going to visit the Samaritan woman to bring her the living water (John 4:3-15). John 4:4 tells us that the Lord Jesus “had to pass through Samaria.” The Lord had left Judea and was on His way to Galilee. The Lord had to pass through Samaria because He had to go to Jacob’s well to wait for that sinful, Samaritan woman. He went to the well to bring her the real living water of salvation. This story of salvation took place not in a chapel or a cathedral but in the open air near Jacob’s well. We should follow this pattern of the Lord Jesus in going to visit sinners for their salvation.
Also in the Gospels, we can see the Lord sending the disciples. He sent the twelve to go to the cities and villages to visit the lost sheep of the house of Israel and bring them peace (Matt. 10:5-8, 11-13). While the Lord Jesus was physically on this earth, He did not practice calling meetings, but He always went to visit. He visited Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem. He visited Martha and Mary’s home (Luke 10:38-39) and the house of Simon the leper (Matt. 26:6). The Lord carried out His ministry all the time by visiting people. The practice of visiting people to bring them the salvation and riches of the Triune God is absolutely in contrast with the practice of today’s deformed and degraded Christianity. We must be rescued from that kind of degraded situation back to the Lord’s way.
When the Lord sent the twelve, He charged them to go to cities and villages to visit the lost sheep. We should follow the Lord to do the same thing by going to new cities and small towns. The number twelve bears a particular significance in the Scriptures. Twelve is composed of four times three, the Triune God (three) multiplied by man (four). Twelve refers to the mingling of the Triune God with the tripartite man. If we have gospel groups composed of twelve saints, there can be four teams with three saints on each team. We are linked up with the Triune God going out to knock on people’s doors. We go out as people who are mingled with the Triune God.
The Lord also sent the seventy to go to every city and place to seek the sons of peace (Luke 10:1-6), and we have to do likewise. According to Luke 10 these sons of peace are in the midst of wolves (v. 3). A person may be a son of rebellion one evening and a son of peace the next. A husband may have had an argument with his wife, and when you go to visit him, he may be a son of rebellion that evening. But the next day something might happen to make him happy. When you go to him that evening, he may be a son of peace. That may be the right time for you to sow the seed of the divine life into his being. We should not be disappointed with being rejected when we go out to visit people by knocking on their doors. Before we were saved, we also were sons of rebellion, but one day we became sons of peace. God prepared all of us to receive the gospel. At one time we were rebellious toward God, but one day we changed our attitude. At the right time the gospel came to us, and we repented, believed in the Lord Jesus, and were saved. If we have the patience and endurance to knock on the same door again and again, the ones who live there may eventually become sons of peace. We need to follow the Lord Jesus’ example to go visit every city and every place to seek the sons of peace.
The Lord Jesus sent all His disciples to go into all the world and preach the gospel to all the creation (Mark 16:15). They were charged to disciple all the nations by baptizing them into the Triune God (Matt. 28:19). All the creation needs to hear the gospel. If we do not have men to preach to, we can preach to the flowers and to the animals. This will increase our faith and cultivate our utterance. Some people have told me that they do not know what to say when they speak to others. My advice to them is to speak to the creation, which includes all the creatures. If we do this, we will learn how to speak. The gospel should be preached to all the creation. If we are crazy with the enjoyment of Christ, we will talk to everything we see about the gospel. If we are speaking the gospel all the time, we will eventually be prevailing, and our preaching will be full of power. Soon after I received the Lord, I practiced speaking by the seashore to the ocean. I did not learn how to preach in a seminary but at the seashore by talking to the sea.