According to the principle revealed in the Scriptures, to speak God, to speak forth Christ, and to speak for Christ, surely we need the Spirit. Without the Spirit, we would not speak, and even if we would speak, we would feel shameful. When you talk about science, geography, history, or the political situation, the more you talk, the more you feel quite proud. There is no restriction or frustration in speaking about these things. But whenever you speak about Jesus, the feeling of shame follows right away. It seems hard to open up your mouth to speak about Jesus to people. Unless we have the Spirit, it is really hard for us to speak Christ. But when we are filled with the Spirit, we become crazy; we like to speak things concerning Christ to people.
For this reason, in the Old Testament, when the seventy were going to prophesy, the Spirit of God descended upon them. As genuine Christians, believers in Christ, do we still need the Spirit of God to descend upon us? If you say, “Yes,” then you are in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament the incarnation and crucifixion were not accomplished. There was no resurrection of Christ and no ascension, so there was no breathing of the processed life-giving Spirit into God’s people, and there was no outpouring of the processed Triune Spirit upon God’s people. However, in the New Testament, incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension have been fully accomplished. Today our Lord is the processed God. He went through all the necessary processes and in His resurrection He breathed Himself as the life-giving Spirit into His disciples, into us. He does not need to do it again. He died for us once for all. He does not need to die again for you and me particularly; such a thought is wrong. In the same principle, He does not need to breathe Himself into you and me particularly, because He has breathed Himself into all His disciples as the life-giving Spirit on the day of resurrection (John 20:22). Hallelujah! Not only so, in His ascension He has poured Himself out as the economical, processed Triune Spirit upon all the members of His Body. All the members of His Body, in ancient or in modern time, Greek or Jew, slave or free, were once for all baptized in one Spirit. We were baptized in one Spirit and now we all are given to drink of this Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13).
Nearly all of us have the faith that the Spirit is in us. When you are going to argue with your wife, someone inside you would not let you do it. That someone is the indwelling Spirit. We know that the Spirit is in us and we have the faith to say this. We also need the assurance that the Spirit is upon us. The impact for speaking comes from the Spirit who is right now upon us. If I did not have the assurance that I have the Spirit upon me, I would not be speaking now. I believe that my impact comes from this Spirit who is right now upon me.
Over forty years ago I did a lot of preaching in large gospel meetings. One morning when I spoke to a large congregation, I said something to the young junior high students. I told them that even though they considered that they had not committed sin, at least on one occasion one had stolen the chalk from their school and taken it back home. I did not know while I was speaking that there was a student there who had done exactly that. Later, I found out that in the meeting there was a young boy about thirteen years of age, a son of a widowed sister. This boy, although quite smart, would not listen to his mother to believe in the Lord Jesus. Yet he came to the meeting that morning, and when he heard me speaking, he thought to himself, “That is nothing.” Then I asked, “Is that nothing?” It was quite strange that I should have spoken in this way. I said, “You drew circles upon the floor with the stolen chalk.” That shocked him. He thought, “Who told this man that I did this?” What I had spoken was altogether a clear description of what he had done. It was through this that he repented. Do you think that was me? Actually, this shows that when I was speaking, the Spirit was not only within me but also upon me to carry out the speaking. This happened in my speaking a number of times.