IV. EXPERIENCING THE FIRE
IN THE WORD BY PRAY-READING
[Let us use for an illustration a match. The match stick, it is true, is made of wood, but in essence the match is really phosphorus....Now suppose I want to use the match: what shall I do? Of course, I must strike it. But how shall I strike it? If I strike it, using the end without the phosphorus, though I strike till eternity I will get no light. I am using the wrong end. The Bible is the match, and the Lord Jesus, the Spirit, is the phosphorus. The wooden stick may be likened to the black and white letters, the words in the Bible, which hold Christ as the phosphorus, the heavenly day-star. How can we make the phosphorus take fire and shine? We must use the right end of the match, and we must strike it on the right spot. The right end is the Holy Spirit, and the right spot is our human spirit.]
Ephesians 6:17-18 tells us that we should receive "the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God, by means of all prayer and petition, praying at every time in spirit." [When we read the Word, we should mingle our reading with prayer. As we exercise our eyes and our mind, we should also exercise our spirit to touch the Spirit. Then all that is in the Word will become in our experience the bountiful supply of the Spirit.]
[If we fail to exercise our spirit in reading the Word, we fail to "strike" the "match" in our spirit. As a result, the "phosphorus," the Spirit embodied in the Word, does not ignite. If we want to experience the phosphorus embodied in the match, the Spirit embodied in the Word, we need to exercise our spirit to pray-read the Word. Then we shall strike the match in the right place and experience the fire in the Word. We can testify that by taking the Word in the proper way, exercising our spirit, we experience the burning in our spirit.]
V. MINISTERING THE WORD BY THE SPIRIT
A. The Word Growing and Multiplying
[In Acts we are told three times that the word grew and that the word multiplied (Acts 6:7; 12:24; 19:20). A lifeless thing can never grow but the word grows. Actually, the multiplication of the disciples depends upon the growth of the word. However, many who read Acts would mostly pay their attention to the Spirit. No doubt, the Spirit is stressed in Acts. But those who received the Spirit did not go out and preach the Spirit. Rather, they preached the word. Many verses in Acts tell us that what was preached and taught by the first group of believers was the word. The scattered ones in Acts 8 went out to bring the good news of the word (v. 1). People believed in the word, received the word, and the word became so prevailing in that it grew and multiplied.]
B. The Need to Be Full of the Word
[I want to impress you that the divine Word is what we really need and we should be one with the Word, full of the Word, saturated with the Word, and constituted with the Word. Then when we minister, we minister the Word by the Spirit. We do not minister the Spirit by the Word, but we minister the Word by the Spirit. In chapter four of Acts, while the disciples and the apostles were praying, they were filled with the Spirit and began to speak the word with boldness (Acts 4:31). They did not teach or preach the Spirit; the Spirit was only the power for them to preach the word.]
(Lesson Book, Level 3: Two Spirits—Two Spirits - the Divine Spirit and the Human Spirit, Chapter 12, by Witness Lee)
