According to our training and experience in the church life, we have learned that we must stress the balance of five things: life, truth, service, gospel preaching, and going out for the gospel. The matter of life is very basic; we need life to grow. Then as regards the truth, we must be trained to know the word of the Scriptures in a proper, living way. The service is the Body life and includes the meetings and every kind of function and ministry in the church. Then we must also have gospel preaching. In addition to this, we need to go out for the gospel, not as apostles but simply as disciples. In Acts the first way for the spread of the gospel was not the way of apostles going out. It was the way of the disciples being scattered (Acts 8:1). The disciples were scattered by the persecution in Jerusalem, and wherever they went, they brought the gospel. That was the spreading of the gospel and the expanding of the kingdom of God. In order to go on with the Lord in the way of His recovery, we need to be balanced by stressing all the above matters.
As we saw in a previous chapter, after the Lord was anointed to minister, he called two pairs of disciples, representing two kinds of ministries (Matt. 4:18-22). When the first pair was called, they were fishing by casting a net, and when the second pair was called, they were mending their nets. The fishing ministry is to bring people in, and the mending ministry is to keep them from falling out. The fishing ministry is to open the front door, while the mending ministry is to close the back door, to keep people in to be built up. Through Peter, who had the fishing ministry, the doors of the kingdom were opened (16:19). The keys of the kingdom were given to him, and he used them to bring people in. Today in the church there must be many Peters with the fishing ministry. Wherever they go, the door will be open, and they will bring people in.
Then after Peter brings people in, John follows with the mending ministry. People should only come in; they should not go out. They come in the front door and should not go out the back door. The back door has to be mended closed in order to keep people in until they are built up. Eventually the New Jerusalem comes out of the mending ministry. The one who wrote about the New Jerusalem was not Peter but John, who had the mending ministry. The fishing ministry is for the start, while the mending ministry is for the accomplishment. In the church we need these two ministries. Moreover, with these two ministries there is the possibility for the building, so between the fishing and the mending ministries there is the building ministry of Paul.
We must have the outreach. We must bring unbelievers to the Lord, spread the word of the gospel, and expand the kingdom of God. I would encourage you, even burden you, to take care of these matters. Otherwise, we are not balanced; we are wrong.
After we are burdened, we will want to know the way to reach people, to “catch the fish.” To do anything, we need certain ways. When a general leads an army to take a city, for example, he may take several ways. Depending on the situation, he may come from different directions. Moreover, one city should be taken in the morning, while another city should be taken at night; and one should be taken from the north, but another should be taken from the south. In the same way, to bring a person to the Lord we must have wisdom to know the proper time and the proper way. Here we can only give principles; you must practice them to learn the details.
According to our past experiences, there are at least ten ways to deal with a person for Christ. In order to catch people, we must realize what they are and where they are. The first way to catch people is with the matter of sin. This is not the only way, nor is it the best way, but it is one of the prevailing ways.
All people on the earth are sinful; they are sinners, and many are in a very bad situation of sin. However, it is not right to touch everyone by dealing with sin. It is only right if they are conscious that they are sinful and to some degree desire victory over and deliverance from their sin. If a person is like this, this is the best opportunity to use this way to catch him. We need to strike his conscience even the more. Such a one is already conscious that he is sinful, but we still need to make him more conscious of sin. This creates a hunger and thirst to be saved and a realization of how much he needs salvation and deliverance.
The most important thing for a salesman is to create a market. When there is a market, it is easy to sell, but if there is no market, no one will buy. We need to create the need within a sinner. For this purpose, we must know the best passages to use from the Scriptures. If we are familiar with the best passages, they will be ready and handy to us to deal with this kind of person.
There are two aspects of sin. One aspect is the nature of sin, and the other is the outward deeds of sin. We should be familiar with these two aspects and know how to deal with a person in both ways.
When we deal with a sinner, we should remember not to talk too much. Salesmen know the secret of making a deal and then not talking too much; if they talk too much, they will lose the deal. After making a deal, a salesman gets the buyer to sign and pay; for us this means that we ask the sinner to pray.