While a minister of the word is speaking, it is not enough for him to release words alone. If the obstacles mentioned above are not dealt with, nothing will happen even if one has light, thoughts, the inner word, the memory, and the outer words; all of these will be vain. It is a big problem for our feeling to be different from the feeling in God’s word. Today we should not try to touch the feeling of the Bible in an outward way. Rather, we should speak with our feelings when we exercise our inner being to speak from the Bible. God’s word embodies God’s feelings, and He demands that we have the same feelings. When we speak, our feelings must match our words. Our feelings should be reflected in our words. Only then will our feelings touch the audience. In other words, when we speak with our feelings, the Holy Spirit reaches others through our feelings.
What is the problem today? The problem is that some have the revelation and the word, but they do not have the fruit. Why do some have the revelation and the word but not the fruit? The only explanation is that their spirit is not released, and their spirit is not released because their feelings are not released. When their feelings are not released, the Holy Spirit does not have a channel through which to release Himself. Hence, even when we have the light and the word, we can still be fruitless if our feelings are absent. We must remember that feelings are needed to release the word. We have to have light, thoughts, the inner word, memory, and the outer words. But when we speak, we must have feelings as well. The Holy Spirit touches men through feelings. Of course, trying to touch others with feelings alone is just a performance. It only conveys death; it is not the ministry of the word. We can touch others with our feelings because both our spirit and the Holy Spirit are working already. In other words, our feelings must match our speaking before both can be released in a powerful way. Only then will the Holy Spirit operate in others when the word is released. It is a great frustration indeed when the first hindrance we encounter in our speaking is ourselves.
When some brothers stand up to speak, the first hurdle they face in discharging their burden is themselves. They try very hard to release what they want to say. Yet they have one problem: their words do not seem to go very far. There are hurdles; the words are not easily released. The word cannot find a proper channel for its release. The biggest hurdle with these ones is themselves. While they speak to the brothers about the Lord’s love, they do not feel the Lord’s love at all. Such a feeling is not in them. It is not a matter of whether or not they have seen the love of the Lord, but a matter of whether they have the sense and the feeling of the Lord’s love as they are speaking. A brother may have seen the sinfulness of sin, but when he stands up to speak, he may not feel the sinfulness of sin. His words and his feelings do not match. He is short of the proper feelings. When a brother stands up to speak about the grief of repentance, but does not have the feeling of such grief, his words are not released in a proper way. If he does not have feelings for it, his audience will surely not have feelings for it. We minister the word to others because they do not have the feeling, thoughts, and light. We have seen the sinfulness of sin, but they have not. If we want them to see the sinfulness of sin, we must have feelings about it when we speak. Only then will a word on the sinfulness of sin affect them, and only then will our word convey the proper feeling to them. We have to reach their feelings, and we have to speak until they see the same thing that we see. If we are short of feeling or our feeling is not usable, others’ feelings will not be affected. George Whitefield was very effective in speaking about hell. One day while he was speaking on hell, men held on to pillars in fear of slipping into hell. His word on hell was full of feelings. It was as if hell was opening up for the sinners right before their eyes. Because he spoke with such feeling, his spirit went out with the words, and the Holy Spirit went out as well. This is the reason men were so touched that they held on to the pillars for fear of slipping into hell.
If a man is very careless with his speaking, he will not be conscious of the limitations of his feelings. He will not realize that his words are vain and that his speaking is useless. If we are serious about being ministers of the word and serious about speaking to an audience, we will find that our feelings often are inadequate. We will realize that the thing that hinders us the most is our feelings. This first hurdle frustrates us. We may need to say a very strong word today, but the more we speak, the weaker we feel; our feeling cannot match our speaking. Our words are harsh, but not our feeling. The more we speak, the less serious the matter sounds. Our feeling cannot catch up with our words, and all that is left is shouting. Many brothers only know how to shout; however, their shouting is not for others but for themselves. They cannot do anything else, and so they shout. Whenever they shout, others immediately know that they are short of feelings. When many people speak, half of their energy is spent on struggling with themselves. They spend half of their energy on themselves because their feelings are so short. They have to speak until they have the feelings first. They have to speak until they come up to a desired level before they are able to convey the same word to others. Words that are meant for others have to be spoken to the ministers first because they are a barrier to their word. It is a serious problem with many people to find, after stepping onto the platform, that they are in fact a barrier to their own words. They want to pass on God’s word to others, yet they do not have such a feeling before God. Their feelings do not match their words. As a result, their words are blocked.
We must see that a minister of the word must have usable feelings. If he does not have them, he is not qualified to be a minister of the word. If his feelings are not adequate, his words cannot be released; they will be blocked inside of him. This is a serious thing, a very serious thing. This is where much of the problem lies. We have the word, but our feelings are different from the word. We realize the seriousness of the word, yet our feelings do not match it in seriousness. When the word is released, our feelings should be released at the same time. Yet we find out that our feelings are absent. If a man speaks without any feeling at all, no one will believe him. It would be useless even if he shouted at the top of his voice. While he is speaking, he does not feel the things he is speaking. In fact, he may even find the whole exercise amusing; he may feel that he is performing. How can one expect others to believe such a word? We can only expect others to believe our word if we believe the word ourselves and have a feeling for it ourselves. If the more we speak, the colder and more unnatural we become, and if we realize that our feelings really do not match our word, we can be certain that our spirit is not released, that the Holy Spirit is not released, and that our word has no power.