Herein lies the key to the difference between fruitfulness and fruitlessness in an evangelist. Sometimes, we see two evangelists having the same utterance and expressions. Yet God is able to use one to gain much fruit. The other may be spiritual and scriptural in his speaking, and his audience may also pay much attention to him, but nothing results from his speaking; there is no fruit. It is not difficult to discover the reason behind this difference. According to my observation, I can see that one is a genuinely crucified person; he has the experience. The other only remains in his imagination. Those who have nothing but imaginations surely cannot preach the cross with the way of the cross. If those who have the life of the cross proclaim their experience from their spirit, the Holy Spirit will surely be with them. Even if some have better eloquence than others and are able to analyze and illustrate well, the Holy Spirit will not be working with them unless the cross has done a solid work in their hearts already. What we lack is the deep work of the cross in us, which results in the Holy Spirit working with us in our gospel preaching and in His life flowing out through us. Although the Lord may at times use our natural gifts, this is not the source of fruitfulness. Those works done through the natural life are mainly vain works. Only those works done through the supernatural life can produce much fruit.

Here we can consider another passage of the Scripture. This will explain to us the difference between trusting in the natural life and trusting in the supernatural life. The Lord Jesus said, "Unless the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his soul-life loses it; and he who hates his soul-life in this world shall keep it unto eternal life" (John 12:24-25).

Here the Lord spelled out the principle of fruit bearing. The grain of wheat must first die before it will bear much fruit. Death is the necessary pathway to fruit bearing. Death is the unique way to fruit bearing. We usually pray for the Lord to grant us greater power so that we can bear more fruit. However, the Lord told us that we must first die and must first have the experience of the cross before we can have the authority of the Holy Spirit. Often we try to skip over Golgotha to reach Pentecost. Little do we realize that without the cross crucifying us and stripping us of everything natural, the Holy Spirit cannot work with us to gain others. Only through death can there be fruit bearing.

The nature of the fruit here also proves what we have said before, that the purpose of our work is to give life to others. When this grain of wheat dies, it begets many grains. When it dies, it dispenses life to many other grains. All these other grains contain life in them. The life that they possess originates from the one dead grain. If we truly die, we can become God's channel of life and can dispense life to others. This life is not an empty term; with it there is the genuine power of God. When this power is released from us, it gives life to others.

Here, the fruit resulting from this grain of wheat is manifold; it is "much fruit." When we are confined to our own life, the most that we can gain through our work is one or two persons. This does not mean that we will not save anyone. However, when we die like the grain of wheat, we will gain "much fruit." Whatever we do, even if we are negligent in a few words, will still cause others to be saved or be edified. May we bear much fruit.

But what exactly does it mean to fall into the ground and die? We will understand it when we read the following word of the Lord: "He who loves his soul-life loses it; and he who hates his soul-life in this world shall keep it unto eternal life." Here soul-life is mentioned a few times. In the original text, different words are used for "life." One denotes the soul- life and the natural life. The other denotes the spiritual life and the extraordinary life. Therefore, what the Lord Jesus is saying here is, "He who loves his soul-life shall lose the spiritual life, and he who hates his soul-life in this world shall keep his spiritual life unto eternity." Simply put, this verse tells us that we should put our soul-life to death in the same way that a grain of wheat is put into the ground. Afterwards, we will bear much fruit in our spiritual life, which will remain forever. We want to have much fruit. However, we do not know how to put to death the soul-life and how to make alive the spiritual life.

The soul-life is just our natural life. Our flesh is able to live because of our soul-life. The soul-life is the organ by which we live. Everything that a person possesses by nature, such as his will, power, emotion, and thought, are all part of the soul. Everything that the natural life possesses is the by-product of our soul-life. Our intellect, thought, eloquence, emotion, and abilities all belong to our soul-life. The spiritual life is God's life. This life does not evolve from any part of the soul-life but is specifically given to us by God when we believe in the Lord's cross and are regenerated. What God is doing in us now is developing this spiritual life and causing it to grow. All our good works and the power to work issue from the spiritual life. His intention is to bring our soul-life to death. (The death here is different from the death in 2 Corinthians 4. The death there is another aspect of death.)

Many times the power of our work comes from our natural ability or our soul-life. We find that frequently we need to use our eloquence, wisdom, knowledge, and abilities. One of the most awesome things is the power we employ in our preaching; it comes from our soul-life. We are exercising our natural power. This greatly diminishes our fruit. In our work, we do not know how to apply the power of the spiritual life. Many times, we take the soul-life as the spiritual life. As a result, we end up drawing upon our natural power. Often, we have to wait until all natural power of our body is depleted before we begin to rely upon the power of the spiritual life. Many people do not even come up to this standard. Whenever they feel weak in their physical strength, they concede that they can no longer work. Others who are more advanced would continue on in their weakness and would go on working by trying to trust in the Lord's strength. However, if we truly realize the way to die to our natural (soulish) strength, and if we trust in the power of the spiritual life which God put within us, we will not depend on the natural strength for our work when we are without strength as well as when we are full of strength. I feel sad that many believers' work remains in the soul, despite the fact that these believers are very zealous and sincere. Such work never touches the spiritual realm. The difference between the use of spiritual power and soulish power is something that words cannot explain. We can only comprehend it in our spirit and in our heart. Yet when the Holy Spirit enlightens us, we will come to the full realization of it in our experience.

For the sake of taking care of the weakness among many of God's children, we will discuss this question in detail. However, we can only look to the Holy Spirit of God to personally show us the real significance of this truth and the way to practice it in our experience. There are mainly three characteristics of the work of the soul. First is the natural ability, second is the emotion, and third is the mind.