The apostle told us that after he received the revelation in spirit, knew the Lord Jesus, and realized that God was sending him to the Gentiles, he followed the leading in the spirit. He did not confer with flesh and blood; he no longer needed to listen to men's opinions, thoughts, and arguments. Neither did he go to Jerusalem to see the "spiritual seniors" to ask for their opinions regarding this matter. He followed the leading of the spirit all the way. Once he had obtained the revelations of God in his intuition and understood the will of God, he no longer sought other proofs. According to him, the revelation in spirit was sufficient to guide him, even though preaching the Lord Jesus among the Gentiles was an unprecedented move in those days. According to man's soul, the more we consider, the better it is, and the more we seek others' opinions, especially of those experienced in preaching the gospel, the better. But Paul only followed the spirit and did not care for the opinions of men, even of the most spiritual apostles.

Therefore, we should not follow the words of some spiritual person, but instead, the direct guidance of the Lord Himself in our spirit. Does this mean that the words of the spiritually mature are useless? No, they are still of great profit. Their reminders and teachings are helpful, but we still need to think carefully and clearly to see whether their speaking is from God, and we still need to receive the Lord's personal instruction. When we are not certain whether our stirring within is really the revelation of the spirit, the teachings of those deeply experienced in the Lord are very helpful. However, if we are certain that the revelation is from God, as Paul was in his day, we would not need to check with the apostles even if they still existed today.

If we read the context, we can see that the apostle considered it important that his gospel was by revelation and not taught by other apostles. This is a crucial point. Our gospel must not be obtained from listening to a certain man, from reading a certain book, or from a certain mental exercise. If our gospel is not by God's revelation, it has absolutely no spiritual value. Today young believers stress the matter of learning from an instructor, and spiritually advanced ones stress the need to pass correct beliefs on to the next generation. They do not know that these are spiritually worthless. What we believe, what we preach, and what we have are all a big zero if they are not by revelation. A believer may receive many wonderful thoughts from another person's mind, and yet his spirit may still be poor and empty. Of course, we are not expecting some new gospel, nor do we look down on the speaking of other servants of God, because the Bible clearly states that we should not despise prophesying. Nevertheless, we must know that revelation is absolutely indispensable.

Without revelation, all that has been said is in vain. We must gain the revelation of God's truth in our spirit, then our preaching can have spiritual results. Otherwise, the supply from others will still be useless. For each worker of Christ, revelation in the spirit must have the highest position. This is the foremost qualification of every worker. Only by this way can we do spiritual work and follow the spirit. Today too many workers rely on their intellect and thinking! Even the believers of the purest faith probably receive truth merely in their mind. These are all dead [works]. Let us ask ourselves, is our preaching from God's revelation or from man?