We must also learn to use the word of the Scriptures in a vital, practical, and living way. First we pray for people, claim the power from on high, and speak to them in a living way. In this way we come to the point at which we can bring them to be saved. At this point we must “close the deal,” just as a salesman does. In gospel preaching the way to close the deal is to use the Word. In the past years I have noticed that many brothers and sisters speak with people in a good way about the gospel, but they are short of closing the deal by using the proper passage of the Word. This is very important. When we speak with people, we come to a certain point at which we should not talk any more; we should simply use the Word to close the deal. This is just like a salesman when he brings a person to the point of asking him to sign the contract.
Nearly everyone is familiar with John 3:16, but we may not know how to use it properly. We may talk with a person and bring him to the point where he realizes God’s love and that he needs the Son of God. At this point, he may not be clear whether or not he is saved. Then we must use a passage like John 3:16. This verse is very familiar to us, yet we must use it in a living way to close the deal. We may compare this verse to a knife. A knife may be sharp, but we need the right technique to properly cut with it. This verse says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that every one who believes into Him would not perish, but would have eternal life.” After reading this verse with someone, we may ask him what it says, and by repeating it to us he will be impressed. We may ask him, “Do you realize whose word this is?” This will help him to realize that this is the word of God. We can then illustrate that even we as gentlemen keep our word. To be sure, God will keep His word. Then we can point out item after item of the verse in a living way to impress him: God loved, He gave, we believe, we have, and we will not perish. We can ask him to change the pronoun in the verse and read it two or three times as, “For God so loved me that He gave me His only begotten Son, that if I believe into Him, I will not perish, but will have eternal life.” Then we can ask, “Do you have eternal life? Will you perish?” Right away he may tremble and say, “Praise the Lord, I have the eternal life and I will not perish!”
The Word is living. To be sure, if we put the Word into people and help them to apprehend it in a living way, they will be saved by this word. The Holy Spirit who works within people will honor this, and we ourselves will honor the Word of God and make it real. Learn to use the Word in a living way.
A dear brother among us who was an eye specialist became one of the leading elders in the church in Shanghai and was imprisoned by the Communists until his death. As a young doctor in his hospital, he saw a patient, an elderly lady, and spoke with her about the gospel. He asked her if she was a believer, and she said that she was; she had come to know Jesus when she was a child. The doctor asked her, “Do you know that you have been saved?” She replied, “How can I know this? I simply believe in Jesus, and whether or not I shall be saved is in His hands. After I die, I will go to Him. If He says I am saved, I will be saved, but if He says I am not, I will perish.” The young doctor opened John 3:16 to her and asked her if she knew it. She said that she was taught to recite it from her youth. He asked her to recite it and then told her that she had recited it wrongly; perhaps nine out of ten people recite verses wrongly. He told her that she was saying, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that every one who believes into Him must wait for many years to see the Lord and be told by Him that he will not perish but have eternal life.” She laughed at this, but he asked, “What does your John 3:16 say?” In this way that elderly woman was saved that night. She was very happy, saying, “Now I know that God loved, God gave, I believe and receive, I have eternal life, and I will not perish.” We may give a hundred messages to help people in a general way, but to spend five minutes to give someone a passage of the Word in a living way helps them to be definitely saved. Learn to use the verses of the Scriptures in a living and practical way.
A co-worker named Brother Chang went to visit a person who was deathly ill. This person had a certain amount of Christian knowledge. The brother realized that this man was at the very point where he could be helped by a living word from a definite verse of the Scriptures; he was trained in this way and knew how to use the Word. The book of 1 John is not mainly for the gospel, but the brother realized that the ill man was very condemned in his conscience, so he used this book to preach the gospel. Brother Chang asked him if he would like to believe in the Lord, to which the man said yes. The brother closed the deal by asking him to pray, but the man did not know how to pray. He told him simply to say, “Lord, I am a sinner. You died on the cross for me, so I believe in You and receive You as my Savior.” However, the man still said, “I am a sinful person. Throughout my whole life I have wronged persons too much, and now my conscience condemns me with all those things. I have prayed, but what about my sins?” Brother Chang read 1 John 1:7b and 9, which say, “The blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from every sin....If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” He said, “This is the word of God. God will never take back His word. He has to keep it.” He asked the ill man to read the verses a few times and change the pronouns to I and me: “The blood of Jesus His Son cleanses me from every sin....If I confess my sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive me my sins and cleanse me from all unrighteousness.” The man said, “Thank God! He forgives me and has cleansed me.” These verses were wrought into him, the Holy Spirit honored this word, and the man was saved.
We should not talk too much with people. If we talk with someone for half a day, we may not close the deal with him. Rather, we should speak in a very brief, practical, living, and real way. We all must learn to do this. We may also use 1 John 5:11, which says, “And this is the testimony, that God gave to us eternal life and this life is in His Son.” We may tell people, “This is not a word in the air; it is a testimony. A testimony cannot be changed. The eternal life that God gives us is Christ.” Then we can read verse 12, which says, “He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life,” and we can ask, “Do you have life?” A person may reply, “I do not know,” so we can ask, “This verse says that he who has the Son has the life. Do you have Christ the Son?” If the person is still not clear, we can ask him to receive the Lord by praying, and if he says he does not know how to pray in this way, we can tell him to say in a simple way, “Lord, I realize that I do not have eternal life. Eternal life is in You. Now I believe in You and receive You as my Savior.” At this point if we ourselves pray for him, that indicates that we do not believe. There is no need for us to pray. We should simply believe what he prayed and ask him to read verse 12: “He who has the Son has the life.” Then we can help him to realize that since he has prayed to receive the Lord, he now has the Son and therefore has the life. Verse 13 continues, “I have written these things to you that you may know that you have eternal life, to you who believe into the name of the Son of God.” We can read this and ask, “Do you know that you have eternal life?”, to which he should say, “Praise the Lord, I know by this word that I have eternal life!”
We can use many good verses to close the deal. We can use Isaiah 53 to speak a hundred different messages in a practical, living way. Verse 6 says, “We all like sheep have gone astray; / Each of us has turned to his own way, / And Jehovah has caused the iniquity of us all / To fall on Him.” We can read this to someone and explain, “To the Lord we are like sheep who have gone astray and turned to our own way. God has laid our iniquity on Him. Who is ‘Him?’ It is Christ the Savior. God has laid our sins on Him. What about you? Do you realize that you are like a sheep who has gone astray?” Again, we can ask him to read the verse and change the pronouns: “I like a sheep have gone astray; / I have turned to my own way, / And Jehovah has caused my iniquity / To fall on Him.” In this way we can work this verse into the person, and he will be saved. Such a brief word is much better than a long message. We need to believe that the Word of God is powerful.
If we learn to use the verses of the Scriptures in a living way, we will know what verse is fit for certain persons. Acts 13:39 is a verse on justification. It says, “And from all the things from which you were not able to be justified by the law of Moses, in this One everyone who believes is justified.” We can explain this verse briefly to someone by saying, “You cannot justify yourself by keeping the law, that is, by doing good. But if you believe in Jesus, you will be justified by Him from all things.” We can read this verse, and then we should ask the other person to read it. Acts 10:43 is a verse about the forgiveness of sins: “To this One all the prophets testify that through His name everyone who believes into Him will receive forgiveness of sins.” This illustrates how we should use different verses for different persons. We need to practice this and find the most prevailing verses.
Another verse is Romans 1:19, which says, “Because that which is known of God is manifest within them, for God manifested it to them.” Sometimes people argue that it is hard to know God. We can read this verse to them and ask, “Don’t you have a sense or feeling within you about God? If there is no God, why is there condemnation and fear within you when you are about to do something evil? God is manifesting something of Himself within you.” In this way we can feed their conscience within them. We can continue with verse 20, which says, “For the invisible things of Him, both His eternal power and divine characteristics, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being perceived by the things made, so that they would be without excuse.” Then we can add, “We can say, ‘Excuse me,’ to people, but we cannot excuse ourselves before God; we have no excuse.” To use a living passage of the Scriptures in a practical way is better than giving a long message. However, this depends on our technique, and technique depends on practice. We need to practice.
When Watchman Nee was young, he had many experiences of gospel preaching. Once while he was still in school, five or six brothers tried to deal with one person. That person was not completely against the gospel. He had a certain intention to be saved, but all those brothers fought with him for hours without getting through. Eventually they came to Brother Nee, who was sick in bed, and told him the story. Brother Nee asked them to bring that person to him. When that person came to Brother Nee, he was saved right away. The five or six brothers worked for hours without getting through, but with Brother Nee he was saved immediately. This indicates the real need for practice.
The four foregoing main points are the main things that can help us to be very prevailing in the outreach to unbelievers in gospel preaching. We need to pray, claim the power, learn to speak with people not according to our mere knowledge, and eventually close the deal by using the proper verse in a proper way. There is almost no exception to this way. We must learn to do this.