We should also pay attention to the matter of quoting the Scripture. In delivering God’s word, we have to follow the example of the apostles who quoted from the Old Testament. When we speak on a certain subject, we should quote from the Old and New Testaments. In speaking God’s word, we must have the written Bible as our basis. We should base our speaking on the Old Testament as well as the New Testament. But there is a problem today: If we are not careful, we can be led astray by the Scripture. In quoting from the Old and the New Testaments, we may get carried away by the quotations. We may miss what we intend to speak in the first place, and when we return home, our burden becomes even heavier. This is not a simple thing. Many times while we are speaking, we have no control over our memory. It is easy for us to speak on an Old Testament passage or a New Testament passage and then get carried away by it. We wonder why we feel heavier and heavier as we speak. When we return home, we feel condemned; we feel that we have wasted time. We have expounded the Scripture and explained the doctrine, but we have not discharged the burden that God has given us. Therefore, in our speaking, we have to learn to continually check whether or not the burden is unloaded. We may say this or that, and we may quote from the Old Testament and the New Testament, but all these are peripheral to the purpose of bringing out God’s present word. Unless there is God’s present word, there is no need for us to speak at all. If we do not have God’s present word, we would do just as well if we came together and studied the Scripture together without any special speaking. We must not be satisfied with just repeating something in the Old Testament and the New Testament; we must release our own words as well.
The ministry of the word is a very subjective thing. We have to speak God’s past words, and we have to speak God’s present words. We must not only speak about the Old Testament and the New Testament; we have to come back to our own words. We can say something through the Old Testament, and we can say something through the New Testament. But we also have to say what we need to say. Our words have to be strong and rich. We should release what we want to say sentence by sentence. As each sentence is released, we touch the right spot, and more life is released. The burden is gradually discharged, and it is fully discharged when the message is done. We may feel that our utterance is short, but our burden is discharged; we have done what we needed to do. Following this, we will see the fruit in others. One thing is certain: Where there is the discharge of a burden, God’s children will see the light. If they do not see the light, it is their problem, not ours. But if we cannot discharge our burden, then the problem lies with us, not them.
We must realize before the Lord that a minister of the word should always be burdened with words. Speaking is for the discharge of a burden. In order to discharge a burden, we must have the Spirit’s memory. Without the Spirit’s memory, we cannot discharge our burden. Even when the Spirit’s memory is fresh, we must still be careful not to be carried away by the truths of the Old Testament and the New Testament. We should always remember that our burden is to bring God’s present word to men. We should not merely expound the Bible, while forgetting what we are supposed to do. If we forget the words that we are supposed to speak, we will find that we still have not said that very thing even after we have said everything. It is possible that there may be a hindrance from Satan. In any case, our thought has to be rich, and our memory has to be rich. We have to be rich in everything before we can release our burden through our speaking.