You need to exercise all wisdom to open your whole being to let the word of the Lord as a living person dwell in every inward part comfortably and freely. Then, when you want to speak for Him, this word in you will be living, rich, and available. You will be able to use it freely. Because of the educational standard in Taiwan today, the level of knowledge of everyone in Taiwan has been raised. The age has also changed. As Christians in the twentieth century we cannot speak for the Lord in an unsophisticated way, saying, “It is so good to believe in Jesus. We can eat and sleep in peace. After we die, we will go to heaven and not to hell.” No one would listen to this kind of speaking today.
You must have something substantial to speak. For example, you must be able to speak clearly on Romans 8:2, which says, “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed me from the law of sin and of death.” Such a clear speaking would shock the knowledgeable university students. They would ask, “What is the law of sin and of death? I want to hear about it.” Then you may show them a “diamond” by saying, “All who sin are the slaves of sin. But if the Son of God shall set you free, you shall be really free.”
When you let the word of the Lord dwell in you richly, you will have wisdom to bring out different verses for the different people you meet. You may read Genesis 1:26, which says, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Or you may read John 1:1, which says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Try reading these verses. All those who hear will be amazed because they had no idea that such deep and mysterious things are in the Bible.
I hope that through my fellowship with you today you will be enlightened to see that we must speak for the Lord. Only through our speaking for the Lord can the Lord have a way to go on, and will we also have a way. To speak for the Lord, we must be equipped and we must have a reserve supply. We must use all wisdom to receive this living Lord, to let this living word dwell in our being. If so, we will have the words to speak at school and at work. Even when the sisters go to the market or to the fabric store, they will have words to speak to whomever they meet. They will be able to preach the word of God to others.
I exhort all of you always to carry a Bible. The older brothers and sisters who cannot read small print can purchase a Bible with large print and separate it book by book. They can make a booklet out of the Gospel of Matthew and a booklet out of the Gospel of Mark. I did this when I was young. I used to bring the Bible to work so that I could read it at any time. Every word and every phrase of the Bible is a diamond. It is unfortunate that few would show these diamonds to others. I hope that each of you will learn to speak the word of the Lord, using all wisdom to receive the word of the Lord into you as you would receive a living person, that He may feel at ease and richly dwell in you.
We need to equip ourselves daily. We need to be those who have a reserve supply. For example, when we meet an older person, first we need to consider what an older person would most like to hear. What the older Chinese people like to hear most is “Children, honor your parents.” Therefore, when speaking to an elderly Chinese lady, I would open up my Bible and show her Ephesians 6:1-3: “The children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise, that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth.” This elderly lady would think to herself that she has never heard this kind of word in Buddhist teaching. She would think, “This is very good. I want to believe in Jesus. After I believe in Jesus, my children and grandchildren will all have to honor me. They will all have a long life and will be blessed.” This is wisdom.
Perhaps the lady next door often quarrels with her husband. The best verse for you to use to preach the gospel to her would be Ephesians 5:25. You may say to her, “Look at what the Bible says: ‘Husbands, love your wives.’” This word would be the gospel to her. It would certainly touch her heart, and she would think, “Not for any other reason, but just so that my husband will love me, I need to believe in Jesus. If I believe in Jesus, and he also believes, then he will love me.” The word in the Bible is too rich. We should use it. We must have a reserve supply that we may use it freely.
When you meet a young person, you can read Proverbs 1:7 with him: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” We need to receive the word of the Lord into our being. There are sixty-six books in the Bible with over 1,200 chapters. If we would only choose one golden verse out of each chapter to be stored in us, we would have over 1,200 verses to speak. If every brother and sister in the church would do this, we would all become a house of scholars, and whatever we utter would be a scholarly composition. I hope that the church in Taipei will become such a church where every saint, whether old or young, will speak the word of the Lord everywhere in a logical, meaningful, valuable, and skillful manner, speaking until others are attracted, until everyone has heard the word of the Lord. This must not be practiced in a rigid way. We must spend time to research continuously.