In this message my burden is just to exhort you to learn to speak the living and rich word of God. If you read through the verses listed above you could see that each verse speaks about the word of God. Each one bears a crucial point. When you put all the points together, you could see that the spoken word is something living. It is not only living, but also rich. What we are charged to speak is the living and rich word of God. We have to learn how to speak the living and rich word of God.
When we speak the word of God, we have to speak it with boldness. In Acts 4:31 boldness is used for the speaking of the word of God. This boldness is very much related to the Spirit, and the Spirit is related to prayer. This one verse is comprised of these three things. While they were beseeching, that is, while they were asking, petitioning, or praying to God, they were filled economically, outwardly, with the Spirit of power. Through their prayer they experienced the Spirit. With the Spirit they spoke the word of God with boldness. You can see that the speaking of God’s word here is related to three things: prayer, the Spirit, and boldness. You could not have boldness without the Spirit, and you could not experience the Spirit without praying. Prayer brings us the Spirit, and the Spirit is the boldness. It is not only that the Spirit gives us boldness, but the Spirit Himself is the boldness. Sometimes we are timid because we are short of the Spirit. Because we are short of the Spirit, we do not have the boldness. Boldness always comes from the Spirit, and the Spirit comes from our prayer. These three things, prayer, the Spirit, and boldness, are all wrapped up with our speaking. We have to learn to pray that we may get the Spirit. Then we will have the boldness to speak the word of God.
In this series of messages we have been stressing one thing: that we should always be speaking. We have made it quite clear that this speaking is a divine speaking which is for the meetings. The Christian meetings are for a purpose, and this purpose could not be carried out without speaking. If there is little speaking, then little of the meeting’s purpose is accomplished. This purpose could only be carried out by the saints’ proper and adequate speaking. I am concerned that you have not been adequately impressed and even more concerned that you may not be practicing this speaking.
In Acts 1:8 the word witness implies a great deal. The Lord Jesus said, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be My witnesses.” A witness is a speaking one. We are chosen and appointed, even assigned to be His speaking ones. We all have to speak Him, speak for Him, and speak forth Him. This is our duty.
Revelation 12:11 says that the brothers overcome the accuser by three things. One of these is the word of their testimony. The word of our testimony is a weapon to defeat our enemy, the accuser. Therefore, we should not be silent, but open up our mouth to speak. We must speak throughout the day. All the time we have to be learning how to speak, how to be a genuine, constant, and instant speaker. You should speak the Lord’s word continually. This is our daily duty. We were chosen, regenerated, appointed, and even assigned with this commission. It is good to sing, “This is my story, this is my song, speaking my Savior, all the day long.” Learn to speak the living and rich word.
If you are going to speak the living and rich word, you should not trust in some kind of inspiration. Suppose you have never learned English, yet you trust in spiritual inspiration to enable you to speak it. I assure you, you could wait until the Lord comes back, and you would still not be speaking English. To learn English you first have to learn the alphabet, then the words, then sentences. You have to study English for many years before you are able to speak it in a living and rich way. In the same way we could not have the living and rich word from the Bible just by inspiration. In the past you may have had the desire to speak something from the Bible, yet you felt that you were short of utterance, short of words. You did not have the living and rich word.
Paul’s main thought in 1 Corinthians 12:8-11 is that the Spirit is distributing the word of wisdom and the word of knowledge to the saints while they are in the meetings. If you do not read the Bible and therefore lack a rich deposit of the divine Word, you will come to the meeting empty. Then, even if the inspiration comes, you will not have the deposit you need. If you are going to serve people with a rich feast, you first need to get the groceries. If you do not have the groceries, how could you cook a rich meal? It is impossible. We all have to spend adequate time to pick up the Lord’s word from the Bible.