I am very happy about these annual trainings because many truths were not put out according to inspiration, but according to the books of the Bible. The speaking in a conference just depends upon the speaker’s burden. A series of messages are given to release that burden and all these messages cover certain points. They do not, however, serve the purpose of educating the saints or building up the saints in the full knowledge of the truth. To study our way through the books of the Bible, however, does not allow us to pick up our burden to put out something in the way of inspiration. Rather, it forces us and even regulates us in the line of the truth according to the divine revelation. For instance, in Matthew there is the basic truth of the kingdom of the heavens. I do not believe that any conference speaker would pick up a burden with an inspiration to speak about the truth of the kingdom of the heavens. This would be very rare. When you make a decision to cover all the books of the New Testament, though, you cannot avoid covering the truth in its entirety.
I must truthfully testify that if I had not been writing the notes on the books of the Bible, I would never have had an inspiration to give messages on the book of Mark. I do not believe any burden would have come to me to give a conference concerning the books of Mark or James. In the first eleven years I was in the United States, all the messages I gave were concerning Christ, the Spirit, the human spirit, the ground of the church, and the Trinity. I even very rarely quoted anything from the book of Mark. When we came to Mark in the Life-study of the Bible, I was wondering what I was going to write. I had no choice and I was forced to write something. According to my realization, however, the trainings on the Epistles of Peter, the Epistles of John, and the books of Mark and James were in the heavens. The best trainings were these trainings. The light came just by my being forced to write the notes on these books.
I was never so clear about 1 John as I was during the training on this book. I still have a clear bird’s-eye view of 1 John. The subject of this book is the fellowship of the divine life. It is divided into three parts: the fellowship of the divine life (1:1—2:11), the teaching of the divine anointing (2:12-27), and the virtues of the divine birth (2:28—5:21). The virtues of the divine birth comprise three items: to practice the divine righteousness (2:28—3:10a), to practice the divine love (3:10b—5:3), and to overcome the world, death, sin, the Devil, and idols (5:4-21). This is a bird’s-eye view of the wonderful book of 1 John.
According to my consideration, the best of all the trainings we have had was the one on the book of Mark. This exceeded all the others. If I was not compelled to get into Mark, I would have never touched it. This shows that we are partial in our studying of the Bible. We are not balanced, but by studying the books of the Bible in a definite way we have no choice. Every book is God-breathed so we must study them.
Despite all the trainings we have given covering the entire New Testament, I realize that still the saints in the Lord’s recovery in the United States have not been helped to be so knowledgeable of the truth. In other words, they have not been helped to come into the full knowledge of the truth. I discovered that even many of the positive ones in the Lord’s recovery cannot present the truth. For example, many of the saints in the Lord’s recovery are not able to present the matter of sanctification clearly to people in a doctrinal way. All the saints in the Lord’s recovery need to be those who preach the gospel, teach the truth, and minister life to others. I discovered that so many dear saints have the heart to do this, yet when they begin to preach, teach, or minister life, they have nothing to say. They have nothing as the gospel, the good news to impart something to others. They have the desire to teach the truth, but they do not have the materials constituted into their being to talk about. Many saints treasure the ground of the church. They would tell people, “We are standing on the church ground. If you do not have this, you will be divisive.” When the other people ask what the church ground is, many of the saints have little to say. The outsiders do not know what the ground of the church is, and neither do many of us know.
A person may be attending a denomination for twenty years. Eventually he is not able to preach even a little of the gospel because he was not trained or raised up in that way. Many have been sitting in the pews of denominations for every Sunday morning service for over twenty years. Eventually, after twenty years they cannot teach people about one spiritual subject. Our concept when we were there in the denominations was that it was not our obligation to teach. That was not our duty, but that was the duty of the preachers or of the pastors. We never had the thought of being able to teach others. Even in our homes we could not teach our own children. We just encouraged them to go to the service. This principle is nearly the same with us. Most of the saints have been sitting with us for years appreciating all the messages as a treasure. Through all the ministry of the Word they received the help point by point, but they are not capable in presenting the items of the truth to others. We must admit that here we have a great lack and a failure.
I did say in the past that everyone can be an apostle, but if you do not have the knowledge of the biblical truths, how could you be an apostle? Also, to be an elder you must be appointed by the divine truth. Until you have the knowledge of the divine truth you are not adequate or qualified to be an elder. Even the elders in most of the churches cannot present the truth adequately. We must see that we are short in this matter. If all of the approximately eight thousand saints in the Lord’s recovery in the United States would be educated in this way, we would have eight thousand apostles preaching, teaching, and ministering the divine truths. The actual situation, however, is not like this today, so I think we have to wake up.