I hope that in the Lord’s recovery, our concept concerning going out to preach the gospel will be altogether revolutionized. If I ask you what you are going to do when you are going to preach the gospel, you should say, “I am going to beget some that they may become the members of the organic Body of Christ.” We should drop the thought of saving sinners from hell so that they can go to heaven. This is according to our natural thought. We have to pick up the thought that we are going to gain some living members for Christ. Then we will have the intention to gain materials for the organic building up of the Body of Christ. We need to have such a change in our concept. We need to tell people, “You have nothing to do with Christ, but I am here to beget you, to regenerate you, to make you a living member of Christ.” If we speak in this way, the Spirit will cooperate with us. Then these new ones will be deeply impressed that they have become living members of the organic Body of Christ. From the first day of their Christian life, they will have received the proper understanding and realization of what it means to be saved.
To come to a sinner and tell him right away that you are here to disciple him and baptize him into the Triune God is not the wisest way to begin to preach the gospel. The wisest way is to say, “I have come here to share the riches of Christ with you, and I have the right and the position to minister some of these riches into you.” Then they may ask, “What are the riches of Christ?” We can tell them that the riches of Christ are different blessings. They may ask, “What are the blessings?” We can tell them: “Peace is a blessing, life is a blessing, light is a blessing, and joy is a blessing. Many times we are miserable. We want to have peace and be joyful, yet we cannot. Christ is life, Christ is joy, Christ is peace, Christ is light, and Christ is everything that we need. I have come here to bring Christ as all these blessings to you.” We need to preach the gospel in this way.
We are too natural in preaching the gospel. We may think that Ephesians 3:8 is too deep to share with the unbelievers. Instead, we may want to tell them that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners (1 Tim. 1:15). This word is very rich, but in our natural way of preaching, we make it poor. Jesus Christ’s coming into the world implies a lot. Whether this word is rich or not depends upon how we explain and expound it. We must learn to get out of the natural way and into the proper, spiritual, divine way. To minister the riches of Christ is to bring all the blessings of Christ, with Christ, and through Christ to the pitiful sinners. By doing this, we are imparting Christ in His riches to people. If we preach Christ in this way, the Holy Spirit will be happy with us. He will strengthen us, anoint us, and use our word to penetrate into people’s inward parts. We have to impart, to dispense, whatever Christ is and whatever Christ has into people’s inner being. Then the Holy Spirit will confirm, strengthen, and impress people with our words, and they will be regenerated.
In your preaching of the gospel, you may also share with people what it means to be begotten of God. You may say: “We are human beings born of our parents, but God’s intention is to regenerate us with His life. We have only the human life, not the super life. The super life is the divine life, God’s life. Whether our human life is good or bad, it is still too low. We may want to be humble, but we cannot. We may want to love others, but our love is short and is soon exhausted. Our life is too limited. We need a super life, and this life is God’s life. God’s intention is to give His life to us that we may be reborn. I came here with God’s life so that you can receive this life. While I am talking with you, if you open yourself, this life in the Spirit will enter into you and beget you. Our human life is invisible and mysterious, and the divine life is invisible and even more mysterious. But you can receive this marvelous divine life.” Then you can direct him to pray with you to receive Christ as his life. Such preaching is divine preaching and corresponds with what is unveiled to us of the Lord in the four Gospels. The Lord preached the gospel in a divine way, but many times we preach in a natural way.
In order to bear fruit, we have to abide in the Lord. When the branches are abiding in the tree, the life juice flows into them. This life juice is so rich, fresh, and energizing. The issue of the branches being filled with this rich life juice is their bearing of fruit. We may even tell the ones to whom we are preaching that our speaking to them is a flowing, an issue, of the divine life within us.
In recent years, many of us have been helped to preach the gospel by using the booklet, The Mystery of Human Life. That booklet is written according to the divine thought that we are containers and God wants to be our content. We were made to contain God. The use of this booklet has been prevailing because it has such a thought. This booklet shows the three parts of man, the crucial part being the spirit of man, and touches the very center of the gospel preached according to God’s economy. In our preaching of the gospel, we do not need to be limited to using this booklet, but we need to keep the principle of preaching the gospel in a divine way according to the divine thought. My fellowship here may be considered as some training on how to preach the gospel. We must learn to preach the gospel in the biblical way.
If we speak with people about ministering Christ in His riches, begetting sinners that they may become God’s children and the members of the living Body of Christ, and bearing fruit, we can go on to speak concerning discipling the nations. We cannot disciple dogs to be men because dogs do not have the human life. If we were able to regenerate dogs with the human life, we would be able to disciple them in such a way. To disciple others implies that they have been regenerated with the divine life. The nations do not know anything concerning God, so we have to disciple them firstly by putting God’s life into them. Then we can train them in the way that we would raise up our own children. To raise them up, to perfect them, is to disciple them.
The Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—is today the consummated Spirit. After His resurrection, the Lord came back to the disciples and told them to disciple the nations, baptizing them into the Triune God, the processed, consummated God who is the all-inclusive Spirit. As those who are speaking by God, with God, and in God, we are qualified and able to put people into the consummated Spirit. We have to change the way of our preaching, and we need to have our concept revolutionized. When we go to preach the gospel, we have to speak with the understanding that we are speaking in the Triune God and with the Triune God. Because we are in the Triune God, who is the consummated Spirit as the air, we can put people into the Triune God. What we have fellowshipped above is the proper way to preach the gospel, to save sinners in the Lord’s new way, for the organic building up of the Body of Christ.