We Christians are strange. We believe and hold on to some things in the Scriptures without any feeling, but we do not believe in other things in the Scriptures; we will not hold on to them until we have the feeling. Recently I asked a brother, “Brother, do you know that you have been saved?” He said he did, so I asked, “How do you know?” He replied, “Because the Scriptures tell me.” This is right.
The Bible consists of the Old Testament and the New Testament. Many Christians do not know the right meaning of the word testament. Testament is not a synonym of the word covenant. Using our human words, a covenant is an agreement, a contract, and a testament is a will. A will is not merely an agreement. In a covenant, an agreement or contract, there may be certain promises, promising something will be done for you. In a will, however, everything is completed and ready for you. The Bible is a will in our hands. It is not a book of teaching or even of promises; it is book containing a will. In it there are thousands of items telling us that everything is ready for us. Christ was incarnated, lived on this earth, was crucified and resurrected, ascended, was seated and enthroned, and has descended as the Spirit. Everything is finished. What does it mean that Christ is sitting in the heavens? It means that everything is accomplished, finished, and ready, waiting for us to enjoy. A will goes into effect at the time the giver dies. Without the death of the giver, the will is not good. After the death of the giver, however, the will is in effect. The Giver of this will has died already, and He is living in the heavens as the Executor of His will.
What we go to tell the sinners are the items of this testament, this will. What is the preaching of the gospel? The preaching of the gospel is the proclaiming of the items of this will. When we go to a sinner, we must help him to realize that he is a sinner. Then we can read the will to him. We can first read the item in the will that tells us that our sins have been put on Jesus, that He has borne our sins on the cross. Second, we read the item that says that due to Christ’s redemption our sins have been forgiven. Then we read the item that says there is the remission of our sins. It is not that God will forgive us but that, according to the will, God has forgiven us already. Likewise, the remission of sins is here already.
In this will there is an item that says Christ has poured down His Spirit upon the Body. He has already accomplished the baptism of the Spirit upon the Body. Now, we have become members of the Body. As long as we are identified with the Body, what has been accomplished upon the Body is our portion already. The baptism of the Holy Spirit was accomplished upon the Body nearly two thousand years ago. This is already accomplished. Today we have to exercise our faith to take it. If we do not believe this, we cannot be powerful and prevailing to preach the gospel.
Besides the bearing away of our sins, the forgiveness of sins, and the remissions of sins, there is another item in this will telling us that Christ has ascended to the throne and poured out the Spirit upon His Body. Today the power from on high is on the Body, and we have been baptized into the Body. We are identified with the Body, we are a part of the Body, so we have the ground, the right, the entitlement to claim, take, and share this portion. However, we may not believe it. We may doubt it a little. When we do not believe it, we do not have the power to preach the first item of the will, concerning redemption, because the enemy who occupies the sinners still occupies us. If we still do not believe the Word in a full way, how can we help people to believe something in the will? We have to know the subtlety of the enemy. If we are going to preach any item from this will, we have to believe all the items in it. If we believe every item mentioned in this will, have no doubt, and do not care about our feeling, then when we come to someone, we have the impact, because Satan has been chased away from us.
When I was young, I was helped by the Lord to believe in Him, His Word, and His accomplished facts in this way. Then I did the work of preaching. Many times, though, when I was telling people they had to believe that the Lord Jesus died for them, within me was the accusation that I did not believe that the Lord Jesus has baptized the church. I could not fool the enemy. The evil spirit is very alert. If we have such a weakness, he will always hit this weakness. Therefore, we have to deal with this matter. If we are going to preach any item of this will, we have to believe all the items of this will.
Here we have a vital matter, that is, that we have to believe that the power from on high has been put on the Body and that now we are a part, a member, of the Body. We have to believe in this, take this ground, and not pay attention to the feeling, the manifestation. If we pay attention to the feeling, this means that unbelief and disbelief are within us. That is evil. On the other hand, of course, we should not be sloppy or slothful. We have to exercise our spirit, even exercise our will in the spirit, to believe what we are told in this will. This kind of believing, this kind of faith, honors the Giver of the will. We have to exercise our spirit and our will to take the word and reject our feeling. Even if a feeling comes to us, we reject it. We do not care about that feeling, and we can tell the enemy, “I do not care even a little about feeling. If I do not have even a little feeling, I still have the full assurance that the baptism of the Spirit is mine, because it is accomplished on the Body, and I am identified with the Body.” If we do this, we will see the result. However, there is no need to pay attention even to the result. Rather, we must learn to walk in faith, to act in faith in the Holy of Holies, “in the dark,” without any natural light but with the divine light in our spirit. Learn to exercise your faith in this way.
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