Paul is a pattern to every one of us. He brought the gospel with him and visited the sinners by knocking on their doors, pleading with them to receive the gospel. Once a sinner receives the gospel, angels in God’s presence sing until the courts of heaven ring. In the record of Luke 15, the Lord Jesus said that there were a hundred sheep, and one was lost. When the shepherd found the lost sheep, he called together his friends and neighbors to rejoice with him (v. 6). The Lord Jesus also mentioned the parable of a woman who had lost her coin. The woman lit the lamp, swept the house, and sought carefully until she found it. When she found it, she called together her friends and neighbors and said, “Rejoice with me” (vv. 8-9). Hence, we have to know that to bring a sinner to salvation is not a small thing. It is a tremendously great thing. We must consider this seriously. Everyone has to bring people to salvation. This is to fulfill the duty of the priest of the gospel.
Bringing people to salvation only brings us through chapter four of Romans. We cannot stop there; we have to go on. By chapter twelve of Romans, not only do the new ones have home meetings, they are being perfected in the small group meetings as well. Then they have to go on to prophesy in the meetings. This is not easy to accomplish. Hence, there is the need for laboring. We have to struggle according to the operation of Christ’s power within until the saints can be presented full-grown in Christ to God. We must arrive at this point before the duty of the New Testament priest of the gospel can be considered as completed. When we perfect people this way, the ones being perfected will in turn perfect others. Then those other perfected ones will go to visit people by knocking on doors, will set up home meetings in the homes of the newly saved ones, and will also bring people to attend small group meetings and to prophesy in the district meetings.
In this way, what you have done in others in the way of perfecting is fully duplicated by them in more new ones. Men will be brought back to the flock and will be presented full-grown in Christ to God. Everyone will be a priest of the gospel. In the church there is no pastor or preacher; neither are there any spiritual giants. We are all ordinary believers. Yet we are all priests of the gospel. Everyone goes to knock on doors, and everyone brings in sinners as offerings. Following that, we have to read to them Romans chapters one to four. Gradually, when they have been established, we must bring them to the small group meetings and help them to experience chapter eight, the walking in spirit in all things (v. 5). In this way, they will be qualified to offer themselves up as living sacrifices to serve God. The practice of the new way is to make everyone a priest of the gospel. In the old way only a few people are the priests; the ordinary believers are not priests in their daily lives. They only go when there is a gospel meeting, and they drag people to listen to the gospel.
Today I have only one burden, which is to tell you that you have to be a priest of the gospel. Not only do the brothers have to do it. The sisters have to do it as well. Even the young sisters should do the same. There is no pastor among us; neither are there preachers. We only have all the saints serving as priests of the gospel, bringing in the sinners. This cannot be secured by any amount of money. There is no other way to accomplish this except by visiting people personally through knocking on doors. We must be bold to proclaim the gospel loudly. Whether you have been trained or not, you are a priest of the gospel, and you have to preach the gospel to others. This is the universal priesthood. It is not the priesthood of a few people. Do not be afraid that you cannot preach, and do not say that you cannot preach. The reason you cannot preach is that you do not preach, and the reason you are afraid to preach is also that you do not preach. The more you preach, the more you will be able to preach.
The Bible states that each one of us, the saved believers, should be a priest of the gospel. In the past, we were influenced by Christianity to depend on the gifted evangelists, while we ourselves only stood by the side to help in ushering, writing down names, and other Levitical services. We did not fulfill the duty of the priest of the gospel. This way is an offense to God. From now on, I hope that all the five thousand regular attendants in the church in Taipei would all be priests of the gospel. There is no need to gather together at the meeting hall for the preaching. You can take the Bible and go out to preach by yourself. You can also take one or two other companions to go along with you. You have to knock on every one of the hundreds of thousands of doors in Taipei to send the precious gospel to people.
Nineteen centuries ago, Paul did not have convenient means of transportation. Yet he traveled by boat across the seas, taking long journeys far from home and paying the price to send the gospel out. Acts chapter sixteen shows us that when Paul was in Philippi, no saint was there to greet him. There was not a church to receive him. He did not know anybody there. What he did was to go outside the city to the riverside on the Sabbath where there was a place of prayer. He then sat down and talked with the women gathered there. One of them was a woman by the name of Lydia who sold purple cloth. She and her whole household were saved and baptized. She then asked Paul to stay in her home (vv. 13-15). This was how Paul began his gospel preaching in Philippi. In the house of Lydia a home meeting was set up, and the church in Philippi began this way. What Paul did is a pattern to all the believers. We all should learn from him. What he did is what we all should do. We should be the same as he was.
In Acts 20, Paul sailed to Miletus. There he sent for the elders in Ephesus and told them that he “did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and to teach you publicly and from house to house...for three years, night and day, I did not cease admonishing each one with tears” (vv. 20, 31). This was how Paul labored, struggled, and strived to perfect the Ephesian believers. We have been in Taiwan for forty years. If we had been laboring in the way that Paul did, struggling and striving to perfect the saints, Taiwan would have been evangelized long ago. We have not done so because we have been damaged by the old system. Now we have to go back to the biblical way. Everyone is a New Testament priest of the gospel. There is no longer a need to depend on anyone else. We can all preach the gospel, bring people to salvation, and offer up the sinners to God by ourselves. Then set up home meetings in the homes of the newly saved ones. After they are established, bring them to the small group meetings and teach them the truth, nourishing, perfecting, and instructing them until they can offer up themselves as living sacrifices to God and are able to prophesy one by one in the meetings. In the end, whatever you can do, they can do also. We have to ask the Lord to grant us the grace that we would be able to bear at least one fruit per year to offer to God.
I believe that from tonight on, everyone will see clearly that every believer is a New Testament priest of the gospel and must personally preach the gospel by visiting people through knocking on doors, that the sinners may be saved and may be offered up to God as sacrifices. We are like the branches of the vine sent by the Lord to go forth to bear fruit. This work cannot be replaced by anyone else’s labor. This is ordained by God, and this is the way revealed in the Bible. As priests of the gospel, we should go and preach the gospel. Whether we are capable or not, this is our destiny. No one will preach the gospel for us, or bear fruit for us. The fruit of others are on their own accounts.
Since we are the branches of the Lord, we must personally bear fruit to God. This is our duty. This is also our glory. As 1 Peter 2:9 says, we are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, for the telling out of the virtues of Him who has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. If we labor according to the Bible, struggling and striving as Paul did for the gospel, perhaps hundreds of thousands of sinners will have been saved by us when we see the Lord. This is not a small thing. This will accomplish the eternal purpose of the Lord and will realize His economy among us. May the Lord be merciful to us, deliver us out of the old way that kills the organic functions, and bring us into this new way that takes us out of death into life.