TAKING THE SHEPHERDING WAY
TO PREACH THE GOSPEL AND REVIVE THE CHURCH

SERIES One
Practicing the Church Life
according to the Framework of the God-ordained Way

Message Two
The Exercise and Practice of the Gospel Preaching
in the God-ordained Way

Scripture Reading:

Luke 10:1-2          Now after these things, the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to come. And He said to them, the harvest is great, but the workers few; therefore, beseech the Lord of the harvest that He would thrust out workers into His harvest.

Matt. 28:18-19     And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and disciple all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

THE PREACHING OF THE GOSPEL BEING THE FIRST THING
TO PRACTICE IN THE GOD-ORDAINED WAY

Since the Lord’s ordained way was brought into the recovery, most of the saints and the churches have received it and are continuing in it. However, our exercise and practice of the new way is weak. We may accept the Lord’s ordained way, but we do not have much exercise or practice of it. What we need today is not merely to know what the new way is; we need to exercise in the new way.

The first thing we need to practice in the God-ordained way for the New Testament service is the preaching of the gospel. We preach the gospel to get sinners saved, to bring them to the Lord. However, this is not the goal. The goal of saving sinners is to build up the Body of Christ. We have a burden to save sinners, but it is not only to rescue the perishing. If soul winning is the only goal of our gospel preaching, we are too shortsighted. We must have God’s sight according to His economy. From eternity past God had an economy. In His economy God wants the people created by Him to be saved for the building up of the Body of Christ. What God desires is not a group of saved sinners. God desires the Body of Christ. We must have a high and long-range view. With this view, we should bear the burden to preach the gospel. When we preach the gospel with this view, we are practicing our priesthood. The first aspect of the New Testament priesthood is for us to preach the gospel to make the saved sinners spiritual sacrifices to be offered to God for His acceptance (Rom. 15:16; 1 Pet. 2:5).

AVOIDING DEBATE AND REDEEMING OUR TIME
TO SAVE SINNERS FOR THE INCREASE OF THE CHURCH

Many Christians are fighting, debating, and arguing. Without exception, as long as Christians are occupied with fighting and debating, the result will be barrenness. Even though they feel they are fighting for the Lord and defending the truth, the issue of their fighting is that there is no fruit. Many times I have seen a group of Christians doing quite well until they began debating. Once they began to debate in the name of defending the truth, they began to decline in number.

Whenever Debating Come in,
the Best Way to Stand Against It Being to “Go”

Whenever debating comes in, the best way to stand against it is to “Go!” We should not care for debating but for getting people saved. We must go to get a number of people saved. Some may say that we are wrong if we care for numbers. However, the Bible cares about numbers. There is even a book of the Bible called Numbers. God told Moses and Aaron to count, to number, the people (Num. 1:2). We should number the people in the church in our locality (Acts 2:41; 4:4; 21:20). If we do this, we will be aware of our negligence in bearing fruit. Our urgent need is to go to get people saved. Instead of debating, we should prefer to save at least one person today. When we baptize someone into the Triune God, we feel glorious. The glorious way is to save sinners and count them.

Our Urgent Need Being to Go to Get People Saved

If someone comes to us to debate about the truth, we should simply say that we do not have time for that. Then we may ask him if his parents and relatives have been saved. If they have not been saved, we can pray with him for them. We should not debate concerning what is right and what is wrong. We have not been appointed to be a judge, and we do not have time for debating. We must give our time to save sinners and to feed and nourish the young ones in order to help them grow.

We must go to visit people and preach the gospel to them. The Lord did not tell us to go to the “right” persons and not to go to the “wrong” ones. He simply told us to go! First, we should go to visit the homes (Luke 9:4). Then we should visit every city and place (Luke 10:1). Eventually, we must go to the entire world (Matt. 24:14; 28:19; Acts 1:8).

PICKING UP THE BURDEN
TO PREACH THE GOSPEL BY GOING OUT

Our first burden in this training is that every trainee would be burdened to go to visit people in order to preach the gospel to them. We must pick up this burden. We have no way to excuse ourselves. The Lord sent Himself first; then He sent the twelve and the seventy; and now He has sent all the disciples. The book of Acts records that a great number were saved in Jerusalem through the preaching of the gospel. On the day of Pentecost, three thousand were saved (Acts 2:41). Then Acts 4:4 says that “the number of the men came to about five thousand.” There were thousands of saved ones in Jerusalem, yet they would not go out. They all had become stuck in that city. Then the persecution came, and this forced them to go out (Acts 8:1). Acts 8:4 tells us that those who were scattered went about preaching the glad tidings of the word. Because of the persecution, they went out and the gospel was spread. As a result of their going out, the kingdom was spreading to many places and the church was being built up (Acts 9:31).

Our Having to Be the Ones Going Out

We must be the ones going out. If we cannot go out every day, we should go out at least once a week. Everyone can do this. At least one evening or one afternoon each week, we have to go out. We should go first to our “Jerusalem,” which means we have to go to our close relatives-our parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, in-laws, etc. Then we must go to Judea, to Samaria, and eventually to the remotest part of the earth (Acts 1:8).

Our Going Everywhere

We do not know who the chosen ones are. The Lord has chosen people “out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9). Only the Lord knows who is chosen. Luke 14 says we should “go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city” (v. 21), and then “go out into the roads and hedges” (v. 23). This means that we should go everywhere. We should not discern who is high or who is low. As long as they are people, we should bring them to the Lord. The Lord said to go out and bring in “the poor and crippled and blind and lame” (v. 21).

We Having to Be Compelled, Forced, to Receive the Lord’s Salvation

Some debating ones may say that we force people to believe and to be baptized, but the Lord charges us in Luke 14 to “compel” people to receive His salvation (v. 23). Before we were saved, we were not willing to seek after the Lord; we had to be compelled, forced, to receive His salvation. If we compel people to receive the Lord, we may wonder whether some of them are genuine believers. But only the Lord knows who the tares and the wheat are (Matt. 13:29-30), and the Lord did not tell us to try to discern the difference between them. The Lord told us to go to disciple the nations and baptize them into the name of the Triune God (Matt. 28:19). As members of the church, our first responsibility is to rise up and exercise to go out and preach the gospel in the new way. (The Exercise and Practice of the God-Ordained Way, msg. 2)