Never be frustrated, never be confused, never challenge yourself, and never be challenged by others. I say boldly that the way of miraculous preaching is the wrong way. The right way for the church to be built up is the way of life, and the right way for the church to preach the gospel is also the way of life. Do not listen to so many voices. Within you there is the discernment. The Lord Jesus said that His sheep hear His voice (John 10:16). Do you feel those challenges are the voice of the Lord Jesus? There is no need to argue. We must use our inward discernment to realize what voice is the voice of the Shepherd.
I would like to stress a thousandfold: The proper way for the church to be built up is the way of life. We do not want to have any more confusion. There already has been too much confusion and frustration in history, even up until today. We do not like to have these frustrations again. We want to be simple. We just pay attention to one thing, that is, Christ as our life and everything. We do not care for anything else. Do not be frustrated and confused, and do not frustrate and confuse others. Simply learn to be simple. We are nothing. We are just little members of Christ. Therefore, we must learn to live in Him, live with Him, and be built up together. We do not expect and we do not appreciate those miraculous things. This is my speaking not only today; since I have been in this country it has been the same. The trouble I have seen in various places was simply that people repeated the tragedy of history. We, however, have learned the lessons from history, and we do not like to repeat the tragedies.
Forget about teachings, the so-called gifts, miracles, and other such matters. Only one thing works well, that is, to take Christ as life in an inner way and to be built up in this life as the living Body. All the apostles-Peter, Paul, and John-were brought into this same realization when they became old. Read their writings. In the last book of the whole Scriptures, Revelation, nothing miraculous is presented in a positive way. According to Revelation 13, it is the Antichrist and his false prophet that will do many miraculous things when they rise up. Rather, Revelation tells us clearly that we have to sacrifice, to die, to be martyred, as the last apostle, the aged John, did.
Learn to live by Christ, live with Christ, and live in Christ, and learn to be built up in this life. Then the preaching of the gospel will be the issue of this kind of life. I look to the Lord that we all will be brought into such a proper understanding. Allow me to say once again, we have to forget about our backgrounds. We must not be influenced by the backgrounds. We are not speaking here about preaching in the old way of our old backgrounds. We are talking about gospel preaching as a part of the church life. I look to the Lord, and I hope that one day the church here will have not only a formal gospel preaching, but that gradually people will be brought into the church not mainly through that kind of preaching but through the daily living of the believers. Do not have the concept from your old background that we are having a kind of movement or activity. Rather, when we speak about the preaching of the gospel, we mean that it is a part of the church life. This is why in this message we have read from Philippians and the Gospel of John, to show us that the preaching of the gospel is a part of the church life.
I say again, do not challenge yourself, do not challenge others, and do not be challenged to take the way of movement or miracles. We simply realize that we are little members of Christ, abiding in Him, learning to live with Him and to be built up together. Then we believe there will be the spontaneous issue that people will be brought into the church life through us. This is the genuine gospel preaching.
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