We have printed thousands of pages of the truth and most of you have bought these pages and put them on your shelves. We all know the terms and the subject areas, but we just do not know how to present them, how to teach them to people. We can all add and subtract, yet we do not know how to teach. Now we must endeavor. First, the leading ones must rise up to become educated, equipped, and prepared by laboring in the Word and laboring in teaching. They then must bring the saints into these two experiences.
I would encourage all the saints in the Lord’s recovery to rise up to diligently seek after the truth. We do have the groceries. This means that we have a lot of printed pages, a lot of messages. Regardless of how busy each of you are every day, I still believe that you could spare thirty minutes every day. You could spare ten minutes in the morning. Suppose you normally rise up by six in the morning. Could you not rise up ten minutes earlier? Surely you could. And you could spare ten minutes at lunch time. Spend ten minutes to get into the Word. Put a life-study message in your pocket and wherever you are, if you have the time, read a few pages. The life-study messages are not to replace your Bible. Rather the contents of the life-studies are all based upon the verses from the Bible. Then in the evening before bedtime it is so easy for everybody among us to spare fifteen minutes. Consider how much you have wasted your time in the past. Brothers and sisters, consider how much time you spend on the phone rather than on the Bible or the life-study messages. We always take an excuse saying, “I do not have the time,” but you do have time to spend ten minutes looking at the newspaper. Would you please, for your education, for your edification, for your growth in the Lord’s life, for the Lord’s interests, and for His recovery, redeem your time from all those wastes? Do not spend that much time on the newspapers. Do not spend that much time on the phone. As long as you can answer what they want, do not induce them to talk more. Do everything to save some time. I believe that it would be easy for everyone among us to spare thirty minutes a day.
In addition to the life-study messages, you have the Bible, especially the Recovery Version with the notes. Nearly all the hard points have been explained in the notes. The notes will render you much life supply. If you open a life-study to any line, you will get the benefit, but I would rather propose to you that you read the life-study consecutively. Pick a message and begin to read and consider the verses quoted on the first page. At the most this will take four minutes. Gradually, bit by bit, you will get yourself properly educated in the truths.
First Timothy 2:4 tells us that God desires everyone to be saved. In addition to this, God desires that every saved one have the full knowledge of the truth. But it bothers me that we are not like this. In the past twelve years, as a farmer I have grown a lot of groceries for all of you, and thank the Lord that you have bought them and stored them. However, the only sad thing is that you do not cook them much and you do not eat them much. This is not proper. We have the groceries, but we do not have sufficient cooking and we do not have enough eating. All the groceries are lying there as a waste.
Learn to handle the word of Christ, which is the word of life. First, we have to let the word of Christ, the living Person, dwell in us. Then we speak by teaching. Ephesians 5:19 says, “Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,” but Colossians 3:16 says, “Teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.” Speaking is somewhat liberal, but teaching is with regulations. We all have to pick up the living word of the living Lord and then teach one another. Learn this. This is a word not only to the leaders, the elders, but to all the saints. Let the word of Christ dwell in you, teaching in all wisdom. It is difficult for the Bible students to determine whether the phrase “in all wisdom” qualifies “let the word...dwell in you” or qualifies “teaching.” According to our punctuation it qualifies teaching: “In all wisdom teaching.” In order to teach in all wisdom, you must first learn the Word in all wisdom. If you do not study the Bible with all wisdom, how could you teach it with all wisdom? In John 6:63 the Lord says, “The words which I have spoken unto you are spirit and are life.” Whatever we teach, whatever we speak, should be words of life.
The elders should be apt to teach and should labor in word and in teaching (1 Tim. 3:2; 5:17). All these words should be the healthy words (1 Tim. 6:3; 2 Tim. 1:13), and the teaching should be according to godliness (1 Tim. 6:3). In 1 Timothy godliness simply means God manifested in the flesh (3:16). This means that you have to practice the principle of incarnation. When you speak, when you teach the healthy words of the Lord Jesus, you must exercise yourself to such an extent that people can see God manifested in you. This is to teach, to speak, according to godliness. This requires much learning and much practice.
We should not be that ignorant, remaining in the darkness of today’s Christianity. Today there is just darkness, but the light is shining here in the Lord’s recovery. We should get into the light so that we could be enlightened, rescued, and delivered from our ignorance. I surely look to the Lord that you would take this word and have a turn to practice what the Lord is doing today.