Some of us, after attending this training for five or six terms, prefer to stay in this area and work instead of returning to our sending churches. After being produced by our sending church, we would not go back. There is no need to ask why, because I know the answer already. We must realize that on this earth there is no place that could fit into our kind of requirements. Even the locality that produced us does not fit us. Where is there a place that suits us? We may say that by staying and working in this area, we are following the leading of the Lord. Although our own feeling is that it is the leading of the Lord, to me that is the leading of our requirements. What we want is not really the leading of the Lord but the leading of our requirements. We may say that Anaheim is the best place. However, Anaheim may be the best place for only three months. Now we are in the training and are working here. If we would stay away from the training and still work here, after only three months we would say that we made a mistake. We should not have made Anaheim our choice. Then we will say that there is nowhere else to go. So we all have to realize that not one place can fit into our requirements.

Eventually, it is not a matter of where we should go; it is a matter of our transformation. If we have not been transformed adequately, there is nowhere on earth for us to go. No one today can say that he has been thoroughly transformed. Before the redemption of our body, the need for transformation is unlimited. As an old man, I need more transformation. Although we may be somewhat short of truth, knowledge, and the growth in life, we can still go on. But if we are short of transformation, there is nowhere for us to serve the Lord. Without the adequate transformation, sooner or later we will be in the natural life. The natural life is the very source of trouble. We will have trouble with our wife, with the brothers, with the sisters, with the elders, and with the church. If we say that we do not like the Texan churches and go to California, we will find that the Californian churches do not fit into our requirements either.

The wisest way is not to stay in a place for too long. When we first come, everybody welcomes us. However, we have to realize that this is the honeymoon. We should prepare ourselves to go. After the honeymoon we must say goodbye and go to another place to receive a warm welcome. But after five years, we will have nowhere to go because we have traveled through all the churches. In my experience, I never saw one servant of the Lord go back to the same place three times. After the second visit, nobody wants us; neither do we desire to go back. So, if we return to our locality, at first everybody will welcome us. But if we do not possess an adequate amount of transformation, then after two months, everybody will be disgusted with the full-time training. They will not want to hear that we have been trained.

The nation of Israel left the mount of God in Numbers 10. Right after chapter ten of Numbers is the record of rebellion in chapter eleven. There is also rebellion in chapter twelve. In chapters thirteen and fourteen, we find the rebellion of unbelief. There is rebellion in chapters sixteen and seventeen as well. Right after chapter ten of Numbers, there is trouble in nearly every chapter. It seems that none of the Israelites had been adequately transformed. Because they all became troublemakers, eventually all died in the wilderness. Almost all of the Israelites were not adequately transformed. There were only two exceptions—Joshua and Caleb. Even Moses was not adequate, because he became a failure. However, all of them were producers of the new generation. They were not good in themselves, but they were good to produce others. Although they did not enter into the good land themselves, they produced a second generation that went in. So, we still have to worship the Lord. Although we may not go in, the second generation will be able to enter the land. In a sense they laid a foundation, and others built upon that foundation. The entire second generation entered into the good land; but the first generation, that was trained yet were short of transformation, brought the second generation to the edge of the good land near the Jordan.

Although the elderly Moses at one hundred twenty years of age had been serving the children of Israel for forty years, eventually God told him that his transformation was not adequate enough. So he was not allowed by God to enter the land. Moses had to accept this. Moses repeated this matter to the children of Israel at least two or three times (Deut. 1:37; 3:26). In Deuteronomy 3 Moses spoke to Jehovah, "Let me please cross over and see the good land which is across the Jordan, this fine hill country and Lebanon. But Jehovah was infuriated with me on your account and did not listen to me" (vv. 25-26). God only allowed Moses to stand on a peak and look at the good land from a distance. He could only see the land; he could not enter into it. What a pitiful situation!

But on the other hand, Moses was happy because a people who were qualified to enter were brought forth by him. Moses prepared them. Yes, it seems that Moses did fail and was defeated in his forty-year work, for even he himself did not enter into the good land. But Moses was successful in producing the second generation. This is a matter of qualification by transformation. In conclusion, I would say that what we have received during the past few terms is an amount of growth in life, growth in truth, and growth in capacity, but what about our transformation?