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

SERIES Two
The Outflow of the Vital and Revived Living—
Preaching the Gospel by Visitation Weekly

Message Six
Visiting People for the Gospel by Knocking on Their Doors

Scripture Reading:

Matt. 28:19    Go therefore and disciple all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

Acts 4:31        And when they had so besought, the place in which they were gathered was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness.

THE PREREQUISITE FOR VISITING PEOPLE BY DOOR-KNOCKING—
THE PERSON HIMSELF

On the Lord’s side He has the authority, the power, but on our side we need to cooperate, to take action.…We have to learn how to visit by door-knocking.

Your person is crucial when it comes to door-knocking. Due to our persons, your visiting may be one way, and my visiting may be another way; if the president were to visit people, he would do it in yet another way. Therefore, there have to be some requirements for visitation by door-knocking. First, you must be one who loves and seeks the Lord. Second, you must be one who pursues the truth and is learned in truth. Third, you must be one who grows in life and is being transformed day by day. Fourth, you must be one who deals often with sins, prays before the Lord, and is always filled by the Holy Spirit. Fifth, you must be one who has had a change in character because of the life that is within you. In order to go out visiting people by door-knocking, you need to be equipped with these fundamental requirements.

THE LAW OF EFFECTIVE DOOR-KNOCKING

Praying, Confessing Our Sins, Dealing with Our Sins,
and Being Filled with the Holy Spirit

When we go door-knocking in the community and on the campuses, we must know how to do it. First of all, every time before we go out, we must have adequate and thorough prayer until we are filled with the Holy Spirit. Once we turn to our spirit and pray to the Lord, our inner being will be enlightened. We will sense many things that are improper, as though we have come to a mirror and seen our real situation. At that time, we have to confess our sins, the more the better. This will cause us to deal with our sins. When we have nothing more to confess is when the Holy Spirit fills us. When all of our trespasses and sins have been emptied out, the Holy Spirit will fill our entire being. Then we will have the boldness to go door-knocking.

Being filled with the Holy Spirit is like breathing. Breathing is a continual matter. If we hold our breath for three minutes, we will die. Hence, every time we go to visit people, we first have to pray earnestly. Even though we prayed yesterday, we have to pray again for our going out today and come before the Lord for His shining. In our daily walk in the world we are always being defiled; thus, we need to be cleansed again and again. This may be likened to washing our hands. Although I do not usually do the cleaning at home and try my best not to touch anything dirty, I still have to wash my hands seven to eight times a day. In the same way, no matter how thoroughly you prayed and confessed to the Lord yesterday, you still have to pray thoroughly today before you go out to visit people and bring the Lord to them. You cannot omit this time of prayer. You must pay the price for this. If you are serious in this matter, you will realize that it is not enough to spend merely three to five minutes to pray.

It is an unalterable law that to pray until we are filled with the Holy Spirit requires us to be enlightened and to confess our sins. The more silent we are before the Lord and the more we are open to Him, the more sense we will have within. That sense is the Lord’s speaking to us; it is the Lord’s shining. The Lord speaks to us by the sense we have. As this sense becomes clearer and clearer and the Lord’s shining becomes brighter and brighter, we will see our mistakes. We need to confess our sins one by one and deal with them as we sense the Lord’s shining. The Lord may shine on you to show you that your anger at your wife this morning was not right. After confessing this to the Lord, He may say, “Now that you have confessed your sin to Me, you need to go to your wife to apologize.” This puts you in a difficult position. If you stop here and do not go and apologize, you will be finished. In this condition you will not be effective in your door-knocking. Amazingly, if you do go and apologize and come again before the Lord, you will immediately be filled with the Holy Spirit. You will feel the “wind” of the Spirit passing through you. Then your going out to knock on doors will go well.

This is not a coincidence; rather, this is a spiritual law. If you have some knots within you that you cannot be freed from, how are you going to free others? If you yourself are not saved, how are you going save others? In other words, we need to let the Lord first save us to the uttermost until we are freed; then when we go out door-knocking, we can save others. We might be able to pretend in other matters, but we cannot pretend in this matter. One can tell by looking at the fruit.

To pray, to confess our sins, to deal with our sins, and subsequently to be filled with the Holy Spirit will result in boldness and confidence. If you go out door-knocking but have not prayed, your legs will be shaking, and you will not have power in your speaking. However, through prayer, confessing of sins, and being filled with the Holy Spirit, not only will you have the boldness when door-knocking, but you will also have the confidence that the person you are visiting will be saved. If you have not been filled with the Holy Spirit, you might not be able to speak even a word out of your mouth. Once you are filled with the Holy Spirit though, not only will you have the power for speaking, but you also can determine whether or not he will be saved. If you say he will be saved, he will be saved; if you say he will not be saved and that he needs to wait awhile, then he will not be saved. This is the effectiveness of prayer, confessing of sins, and being filled with the Holy Spirit.

Exercising to Speak Wisely

When you go door-knocking, you have to pay attention to your attitude. You should never be reckless or hasty. Rather, you should be modest, courteous, gentle, respectful, dignified, and weighty. Moreover, when you speak, you should learn to be concise instead of being wordy and to be affectionate instead of being cold. If you are too wordy and mechanical, people may close their door immediately or find an excuse to reject you. Thus, you have to exercise to speak straightforwardly, directly, affectionately, and politely. If they answer, “I do not have time,” you should not give up. Instead, you should say, “It will take you just one minute.” Eventually, the person may be saved and baptized because of this one-minute gospel preaching. It is because we have had this kind of experience that we practice the “one-minute gospel.”

Learning to Grasp the Opportunity

Brother Nee once told us that gospel preachers have to be thick-skinned. Those who are thin-skinned cannot lead people to salvation. Perhaps some brothers and sisters would say, “If this is the case, then since I am such a thin-skinned person, I may as well forget about going out to knock on doors.” You may do so as long as you have the peace, but everyone else will still continue to knock on doors.…It does not matter if you are thin-skinned; as long as you are willing to practice, willing to go visit by door-knocking, slowly you will have the boldness. On the other hand, while you are door-knocking, you must learn the technique of grasping the opportunity to lead a person to believe and pray. Immediately after he prays, you should show him Romans 10:13, which says, “For ‘whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’” Then say to him, “My friend, congratulations! You are saved!” The next thing is to lead him to be baptized.

The important matter is not how we baptize people but how to baptize people at the opportune time. Sometimes the person we visit has already believed and received the Lord; he has already prayed to be saved. In this case we must baptize him immediately. If we insist on a method, such as bringing him to the meeting hall’s baptistery to be baptized, then before we reach the meeting hall, he probably will have changed his mind and made up excuses to not be baptized. There have been times when some people already had arrived at the meeting hall to be baptized; however, when they were about to change their clothes, they rejected the idea and ran away. Therefore, you have to carry out the baptism while “the iron is still hot.” Once you see the opportunity, you should grasp it and baptize people. There are many new and modern apartment buildings in Taipei where there is a big bathtub in the bathroom, and the temperature of the water is easily managed to be hot or cold. As long as there is the opportunity for baptism, the sisters can go fill the tub with water while others are praying. Then after the prayer, the brothers can baptize the person.

Exercising to Continue Steadfastly

I hope that from now on each brother and sister will practice door-knocking and visiting people. This is the first item we should practice. Maybe we cannot go out to knock on doors every day, but one thing we can do is spend two to three hours each week for door-knocking. We should visit not only those whom we know but also those we do not know. We should knock on all the doors in the district in which we live. Do not worry or be anxious. As long as we are willing to do it, we will be successful. (Rising Up to Preach the Gospel, msg. 5)