After we help them to this extent, we must help them to offer themselves to the Lord, to consecrate themselves. All these foregoing five items should be done within one week. This means that even before they are baptized, we have to help them with all these points.
I do not want to make anything legal, but I would beg you to learn to do this. I stand here humbly to tell you that if we all would practice this, we will see the effect. We will see the impact of the preaching. Many persons will be saved. Our meeting for preaching the gospel is only a start of the preaching. More people will follow. One fish in the sea always bites the tail of another one. If we can catch one, many will come in. We will reap the harvest. If we will do this well, every month we will bring in a good number “by the tail.” However, we have to learn how to work and how to help the new ones to work. We should visit them right away to help them to work. They have now become members of the church, even “leading” members. They will take the lead more than we do because they do not have much knowledge; they only have life. We have too much knowledge. Our “head” is too big.
The Lord covers me to say this. I am looking to the Lord very much; I have been looking and still am looking to the Lord for this matter. This is the secret of the church’s preaching. Do not trust any speaker. In our meeting for preaching the gospel there may be no speaker, yet the gospel will be preached. Do you believe this? I believe this, because I saw it in the past. Many persons were saved in a living way, but they did not know through which speaker. They could never say that they made their decision through a certain famous preacher. We did not have that kind of famous preacher in the Far East, but thousands of people were saved. Rather, we had the church, the whole Body, and the exercise of every part of the Body.
After helping people with the five foregoing items, we must help them to realize their need of baptism. We have to testify to them and explain to them what it means to be baptized, helping them to realize that since they have been identified with Christ, they have been crucified and are now dead. Therefore, they have to be buried. Regarding baptism, they have to exercise their faith to believe that in many cases a great blessing came down to those who were baptized. I saw people healed through baptism. Before they went into the water, they were very sick, not merely with a cold but with a chronic sickness. After baptism, however, some people have been healed. We are not superstitious concerning water baptism, but there is really something to it. There must be, because the Lord commanded us to do it. We should not take baptism as a mere ritual. We should tell people that it must be a spiritual realization.
We should also help them to know that when they are baptized, they bring all their problems with them to be buried, just as Israel brought the whole of Egypt into the Red Sea when they crossed it. It was not they who were buried there, but the whole of Egypt, including Pharaoh and his army. We should tell them that if they have any problem, even physical sickness, they take it into the water and bury it there. Do they have some besetting sin or a moral weakness? They bring it into the water. They bring everything into the water. They especially bring their pleasures into the water. In the Far East and in many other places, when someone is buried, the things they loved, their favorite things, are buried with them. In a sense, this is scriptural. When people are baptized, they bring whatever they love to be buried in the water. We must help them to realize all these matters.
After they are baptized, we have to help them with four matters. First, we must help them to pray in a daily and hidden way. Second, we must help them to study the Word day by day. Third, we need to help them to attend the regular meetings of the church. Fourth, we should help them to preach the gospel. They have to pray, they have to study, they have to attend the meetings, and they have to act to bring others to the next meeting for gospel preaching. They have to be the most active members in the gospel preaching of the church. If we cannot or will not work this out, we will have a failure. All the sinners who come to the first gospel meeting must be the preachers in the next gospel meeting. This does not depend as much on the Lord as it depends on us. It depends on how much we labor and in what way we work. I am sure that we will see a good result if we will work in this way.
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