The Communion of the Holy Spirit (13 page)

Hence the basis of our knowledge of people is found in ourselves being judged. To the degree that we know ourselves, to that degree will we know our brothers and sisters. If we have not been judged before God, no amount of methods will be effective. What we ourselves have not passed through can never help other people through. But with sufficient dealing we shall be able to detect others’ problems and help them get through their difficulties.

We ourselves need to have more dealing. The more we learn before God about ourselves the better we are able to know our brothers and sisters. Otherwise, we are unaware where and how they have gone wrong. We need to be dealt with by the Holy Spirit in large and small matters. What we ourselves have experienced enables us to understand the actions or proclivities of others. For as a matter of fact, men are more or less alike. Their temper, nature, desires and so forth are not that far apart. Their ways of error and sin lie within a limited range. Everyone is a descendant of Adam; all therefore inherit Adam’s life. And hence, should we be enlightened to better know ourselves, it is almost certain that we can better know our entire world. Just bear in mind that in every descendant of Adam can be found a full-fledged Adam. It therefore becomes relatively easy to diagnose others if we have learned to know ourselves. Let us not fancy that if we can just learn a certain technique we can know people. No, we must first learn the lessons about ourselves before we can ever use any method. Our usefulness depends upon our willingness to be dealt with by God. Whatever dealings we avoid experiencing before God will be precisely those areas in which we cannot help others. So let us not be so foolish as to play truant in this regard. For if we do play truant, it will only lessen our spiritual usefulness.

What is ministry? Ministry is supplying others with what we have learned before God. No learning, no supply. All our happenings, arrangements and disciplines are for the sake of preparing us for the ministry. True discipline of the Holy Spirit increases the richness of ministry. The less you pass through, the less help you can give to others. The more difficulties you encounter and the more discipline you experience, the better you are able to lead people to fullness. The scope of ministry will be determined by the amount of the Spirit’s discipline in your life. If you have not learned anything, then all you can say to your brothers and sisters are but trivial, humorous words-words which can never hit the target. But if you have learned much, you can discern whether or not people’s problems have been resolved. Moreover, you will not be easily deceived.

Take, for example, the matter of the gospel. This is at least one issue about which you know something. No person can deceive or cheat you about whether or not he is saved. Even so, the principle will be the same for you when it comes to deeper spiritual issues: it all depends upon your learning and experience before the Lord. The more you learn, the sharper will be your discernment. A casual touch with a brother will quickly tell you what is wrong.

May I therefore beg you, for the sake of fulfilling your ministry in serving the Lord, that you gladly and willingly put yourself in God’s hand and accept the discipline of the Holy Spirit. Unless there is a building up within, there can be no work without. All God’s works are done
deep
within a man, not merely in his mind. Not because of two or three years’ study of the Bible are you able to be a preacher. How easy it would be if the Lord merely required His disciples to recite some sermons. Instead, He desires to bring them through much practical learning.

The reason why we desire to know people is for the sake of helping them, not for the sake of curiosity. It is to build them up, not to destroy them. In order to be useful, we must unconditionally, unreservedly, and joyfully commit ourselves into God’s hand and accept the discipline of His Holy Spirit. The measure of your acceptance here determines your future usefulness elsewhere. The more the discipline, the more the enlargement and usefulness. We should not instruct people merely with teaching. We must accept the discipline of the Holy Spirit that can lead us into spiritual fullness and service.

Yesterday we spoke on the importance of spiritual judgment or discernment. Today we would talk more specifically about the importance of using our spiritual senses. Whenever you are communicating with people, you give them opportunity to talk so that you may have the opportunity to know and discern with your spirit. It is rather difficult to know a person if he keeps his mouth shut. It is rare that you are able to see through a silent man. You may perhaps sense the quality of his spirit, but you cannot explain it with understanding. Sometimes you may indeed detect something wrong with his spirit, but in what way it is wrong you cannot tell. In our messages about the character of God’s workman, we mentioned how a worker needs to learn to listen.

He should cultivate the habit of listening. Even if a person is talking about nonsense or is just pretending, you still have to listen. Without having this habit of listening, you close the door to knowing people. For it is through people’s speech that you come to know them. What is most to be feared is if they should keep their mouths shut. But once they talk, it becomes God’s opportunity for us to get to know them. Especially with those talkative people, in fact, you are able to know them quite much.

When a person begins to talk, you should prepare your spirit to touch his spirit. Yesterday we mentioned five principles or criteria to follow in rendering judgment. With these five as a foundation, let us use our spirit to sense and to discern. For a person’s spirit is manifested in his talking. He is not able for long to cover his spirit with words. For as he speaks, his spirit will come forth. While he is talking let us listen on the one hand and use our spirit to contact him on the other. It is certain that how he talks will disclose his spirit, and how a man’s spirit is, reflects upon his person. Hence, when another person begins to speak, your spirit should be open, tender and ready for any impression to be registered in you. As we listen and use our spirit to touch another’s spirit, we need to notice several conditions. These we shall now take up one by one and discuss.

As we listen and touch the spirit of a man, we must first of all detect whether his spirit is right or wrong. If your own spirit is open, you will discern within yourself whether that other man’s spirit is right or wrong by the impression he leaves with you. Someone may say the right word, but his intention is wrong. Someone may fill his words with love, yet his spirit is hateful. Someone may utter gentle words, but soon thereafter he reveals a hard spirit. Though it is possible for intent and word to differ, nevertheless, inwardly his spirit follows out after his word.

Recall what the Lord once declared, that “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matt. 12.34b). Man’s speech cannot be controlled by his will to such a degree that his spirit will never be disclosed. In the end he shall reveal himself through his own speech. In other words, his mouth cannot totally check his spirit. Sooner or later his accent will expose him. If, for example, a Galilean keeps his mouth shut, nobody can tell he is a Galilean. Once he opens his mouth, though, he is recognized as a Galilean by his very speech (see Mark 14.66-70).

Because the intent of someone may be triggered by pride, jealousy or boastfulness, his spirit will for sure be most wrong. As a consequence, we cannot simply hearken to his word; we must also try to detect his spirit. Let us not believe the word that is restrained by a person’s will, for it cannot represent either the truth or himself; his spirit alone represents him. This is basic. A person’s real condition is his spirit’s condition, not his will-managed word. Many are deceived because they are unable to distinguish between word and spirit. In spite of what man may disclose his intention to be, let us take note of his spirit. The words of Absalom, for example, were quite right, but his spirit was quite wrong because his was a rebellious spirit. Hence we must always touch people’s spirit. Then we shall truly know them and discern whose words are trustworthy.

When a person commences to speak, his spirit, right or wrong, will soon come forth. As his spirit emerges, his inner condition is revealed. In listening to a person, attempt to find out where his strongest point is. Ask yourself what impression he has given you. Ferret out which part of that man is the strongest. If your spirit is open and tender before God, it will sense where his strength truly lies. As his strength is revealed, he makes a deep impression in you. He may be a subjective person or a stubborn person, and so as he speaks he will let his strong point be exposed. And in so doing, he will leave a distinct impression in you. A gentle person, as cited in James 3.17, is easy to be entreated. But with someone else you may beg for half a day and still not easily get an answer. A person who is subjective and strong-willed is difficult to be entreated. Someone may be a strongly emotional person who can easily be swayed. He may say words of love, but it may not be genuine love. If your spirit is clean and gentle you can quite easily touch a person’s strong point, which more often than not will turn out to be his fundamental problem; and as such it is where he needs to be dealt with. We must therefore use our spirit to touch people’s predominant characteristic and so come to know what kind of person we are dealing with.

Usually when you converse with a brother, you can touch his spirit. But sometimes man’s spirit does not come forth. Even after holding conversation for quite a long while, you still are unable to touch his spirit. His real person is in hiding, where you cannot apprehend him. His real self is concealed so well that you just cannot figure him out. Such a person must have a serious defect, since God’s people should be easy to contact: they live, or
should be
living, according to “the principle of amen.” That is, whenever they act or speak, it causes the spirit in others to respond with an amen. Such should be the “natural” state of a Christian. Nevertheless, there are some people who always seem to be hidden or are shut within themselves, and so much so that others cannot say much. These are hidden ones. Nobody knows them, nor do they fellowship with anyone. This constitutes a very serious situation. Their isolating individualism is so strong that no one may touch their real person. They are thus severed from the fellowship of the Body.

True, a Christian should be deep, yet he must also disclose his real state and allow people to touch his spirit. He who forbids his spirit to be touched has cut himself off from fellowship. He has not learned any lesson of the Body and knows nothing of what fellowship is. Someone may have been a Christian for eight or ten years, and yet you could never touch his spirit through his speech. Such is a closed spirit. We must try to touch that person’s inner man, for the spirit of him who is beyond touch constitutes a big problem in the Church. It is deemed in the world that the more unfathomable you are the better. This is not to be so with Christians. The spirit of a Christian needs to be open so that he can fellowship with others.

As you listen to a person talking, his word will show whether his emotion is strong, his mind the dominant characteristic, or that he is very subjective. Although such a person may be particularly strong in some area, he is nonetheless a normal person. However, there are people with a strong mind or a rich emotion who are so aggressive that they become what can only be termed abnormal. The thought of such a person is crooked. He is abnormal, strange, extreme. Indeed, he is a devious person. His psychological constitution differs from that of ordinary people. Yet such people are not that rare to find. Among a hundred people, there will always be a few abnormal ones. Their thought and action are quite different from that of ordinary folk. They will always be against others.

Now their problem is so great that the ordinary way of contacting them will be of no avail in helping them. They need a special way of being dealt with. As a matter of fact, they must be dealt with very strictly because their constitution is so devious. If the ordinary way is used, you may exhort such a person twenty times and each time you will be disappointed, for his character has already become so deeply set and entrenched in him. Hence you must have your eyes especially wide open to judge if he is such a devious person indeed.

In discerning, you need to discover if that person is pretentious. A sanctimonious person can hardly make any progress before God for it appears he needs to be doubly dealt with by God. In an ordinary person, there is only the corrupted flesh present. But a hypocritical person adds a shell of falsehood to the corruption of his flesh. Now an ordinary person need only have his flesh dealt with. But a pretentious person must have not only his flesh dealt with; there must also be a dealing with that shell of falsehood he has: such as a false goodness, feigned piety, assumed humility, manufactured gestures, a make-believe mannerism, and so forth. For people like this to be delivered, a double effort is required. God must first destroy their falsehood, expose all their pretensions, demolish their unnaturalness, wreck all that appears more than they really are; and finally, He must deal drastically with their flesh.

As soon as you are in contact with a brother, you should learn whether he is transparent or pretending. If there is only outward appearance, he needs to be dealt with by God. You must ferret out the man’s hypocrisy. The person who laughs before you today may be putting on a facade. He may not be really joyful. Or another person may speak good words and assume a fine manner, but after conversing with him for a while the experienced in the Lord’s ways of dealing can sense he is not altogether right.