Our speaking with prayer, the Spirit, and boldness is for four things. These four things are practical. The first is the preaching of the gospel. The second is the releasing of the truth. The ministering of life is third. The fourth is the recovering of the saints. We speak the holy Word for these four things: to preach the gospel, to release the truth, to minister life, and to recover the weaker ones.
Let us first consider the preaching of the gospel. On a recent weekend in Taipei 1,104 were baptized. These 1,104 newly baptized saints were all gained not through preaching, but through speaking. The 1,104 were brought in by just about ten percent of the church in Taipei. Only a little over three hundred practiced my instruction to speak the gospel. By speaking the gospel every day they brought in so many. This was by speaking, not by preaching. Learn to speak. We all have to pick up the habit of speaking.
As Christians, we are witnesses of Christ. We should speak Him, making this kind of speaking a habit. When you go to visit your aunt, forget about current events in the news and speak Christ to her. Build up such a habit. You have to believe that when you speak, the Holy Spirit always follows your speaking and honors your speaking, and people will be saved. Learn to speak the living word and learn to speak the rich word. When you speak to your aunt, do not say, “You have to believe in the Lord Jesus, otherwise you will go to hell.” This kind of speaking will offend people. You have to learn to speak the rich Christ. Tell your aunt that five years ago you never knew how much the Lord Jesus was to you. Tell her by listing all the rich items of Christ. You may tell her, “Now I know Christ is God’s power and wisdom to me. He is also my righteousness, my sanctification, and my redemption.”
If you are going to speak such a rich word you have to study 1 Corinthians 1. Learn to pick up the riches in the Word. First Corinthians 1 also tells us that we are the called saints, that Christ is ours, which means Christ is our portion, and that we have been called by the faithful God into the fellowship, the enjoyment or the participation of this portion. Now for us to enjoy this portion, God gives us Christ as power and as wisdom that we may receive Him as our righteousness, our justification; as our sanctification, our holiness; and also as our redemption. You have to pick up all these points from this one chapter.
Actually, today this is easy for you to do because you have the Recovery Version. All these rich items of Christ in 1 Corinthians 1 are pointed out in the footnotes. If you say you do not understand some of these points then you can go to the life-study messages. Some messages purposely explain what it means for Christ to be our sanctification, and why He is firstly our righteousness, then secondly our sanctification, and lastly our redemption. The life-study messages explain these points clearly. For this reason I strongly recommend the life-studies and the Recovery Version with the footnotes. From these two sources you can find the answers to all your questions and you can receive the living and rich word.
Human beings are always interested in knowing new things. In this top Christian country, the ears of the people are filled with going to heaven and going to hell. They do not like to hear any more of this. To them you need to speak something concerning the all-inclusive Christ. Pick up some rich word and speak to your relatives. Do not preach, just speak. To preach you may need to study at a seminary, but to speak you just need to pick up the habit. Learn to speak by speaking. Do not dream of a shortcut way saying, “I will fast for three weeks and then a great revival will come.” Sixty years ago I studied about revivals and since then I have been watching. Honestly, within these past sixty years I have not seen or heard of one prevailing revival anywhere. God does not take the revival way. God just plants small potatoes like you and me. Then we all speak. If every Christian in this country would speak Christ, this would turn the American continent around. If you had a hundred great evangelists, I do not think you could accomplish this. We all must learn to speak. Do you not believe that through speaking Christ daily for one year someone would be saved? If we would speak, the number of saints would surely double. The doubling of our number is assured by our habitual speaking of the gospel. Just practice speaking; whether they believe or not is up to them.