This issue of The Ministry contains the third and fourth messages given by Brother Lee to the co-workers in Southern California in September 1996. These messages comprise a timely, loving warning from our brother to beware of four destructive matters: ambition, pride, self-justification and exposing others' failures and defects, and not conforming to the death of Christ. Trouble after trouble has come to the Lord's recovery over the years simply because of these four matters. But if we will deal with these four matters, the Lord's recovery will immediately have a revival. In addition to dealing with these four matters, we must also be right in following others. In actuality, our leading is not a person but the divine truth, the divine vision. Consequently, our following others must be according to the divine truth and the divine vision. The next three messages in this issue are the concluding messages of the Living Stream Ministry's Summer Training of 1998 on the Crystallization-study of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Message Ten emphasizes the crucial matter of the dividing of soul and spirit for the experience of the reality of the Sabbath rest. Message Eleven indicates strongly that in order for the believers to be brought on to maturity (Heb. 6:1), we must progress from the word of the beginning of Christ--the milk--to the word of righteousness--the solid food. Message Twelve, as a conclusion to the summer training, stresses the critical need of being transformed and of being matured. To be transformed is to be metabolically changed in our natural life, whereas to be matured is to be filled with the divine life that changes us. We need to go on, to be brought on, to maturity by forgetting the things which are behind and stretching forward to the things which are before, pursuing toward the fullest enjoyment and gaining of Christ for the uttermost enjoyment of Christ in the millennial kingdom. Ultimately, the Lord's desire to bring us on to maturity must be matched by our willing cooperation with His gracious work. Lastly, we include a report concerning the International Elders' Training in October 1998, held on the new campus for the ministry in Anaheim, California.
