John did the work for Jesus for seven years. When Jesus came, he had already paved the way. Before that, people everywhere heard the good news of the kingdom of heaven preached by him. The good news preached by him spread all over Judea. They all called him a prophet. At that time King Herod wanted to kill John, but he dared not, because John was highly respected by all the people, and he was afraid that they would oppose him if he killed John. The work John did had taken root among all the people, and the Jews were all convinced by him. He paved the way for Jesus for seven years until Jesus began to perform his ministry. So he was the greatest of all the prophets. After he was put into prison, Jesus began to do his work formally. Before John, none of the prophets paved the way for God, because God had never been incarnated before Jesus. So among all the prophets until John, only John was a prophet who opened up the way for the incarnated flesh of God. Thus he was the greatest of all the prophets throughout the Old and New Testaments. John began to spread the good news of the kingdom of heaven seven years before Jesus was baptized. In people’s eyes, the work he did was greater than the work Jesus did later. But no matter what, he was only a prophet. He did not work or speak in the temple, but in the villages outside the temple, of course, among the Jewish people, especially among the poor Jews. He seldom contacted people of the upper-class society but only spread the good news among the common Jews to prepare suitable people and working place for the Lord Jesus. Since such a prophet like him had paved the way, the Lord Jesus could directly carry out his way of the cross after he came. When God is incarnated to do the work, he need not do the work of selecting people and need not personally search for people or search for his working place. He does not do that work when he comes. A suitable person has already prepared them for him before he does his work. Before Jesus began to do his work, John had already made the preparation. For when the incarnated God comes to do the work, he directly does his work on the people who have been waiting for him. He does not come to do man’s work or to do man’s reorganizing work. He comes only to perform the ministry he ought to perform. The other things have nothing to do with him. John came just to lead out of the temple and from among the Jewish people a group of people who would accept the good news of the kingdom of heaven, so that the Lord Jesus could work on them. John worked for seven years, that is, he preached the good news of the kingdom of heaven for seven years. During his work, he did not perform many signs, because his work was only to pave the way and to do the preparatory work. The work apart from that, the work Jesus would do had nothing to do with him. He only asked people to confess and repent of their sins and baptized them so that they could be saved. Although he did a new work and opened up a way that his predecessors had never walked, he was only a man who paved the way for Jesus. He was only a prophet who did the preparatory work. He could not do Jesus’ work in his stead. Although Jesus was not the first one to preach the good news of the kingdom of heaven, and he continued the way John had paved, no one could do his work in his stead and the work he did was greater than John’s. He would not prepare the way for himself. The work he did directly represented God. So, no matter how many years John worked, he was a prophet and was a man who paved the way. The work Jesus did in the three years surpassed the work John did in the seven years, because the works they did were essentially different. When Jesus began to perform his ministry, that is, when John’s work ended, the people and the place John had prepared were sufficient for the Lord Jesus to use and sufficient for the Lord Jesus to use to do the work for three years. Therefore, when John’s work had just been completed, the Lord Jesus began to do his work formally. Then all the words spoken by John were abolished. This is because his work was only transitional and was not to speak words of life which could lead people to make new progress, and the words spoken by him were only useful temporarily after all.

The work Jesus did was not a supernatural work but went through a certain process. All his work proceeded according to the natural course of things. In the last half year of his life, Jesus knew that he had truly come to do that stage of the work and knew that he had come to be crucified. Before he was crucified, he always made prayers to God the Father, such as his three prayers in Gethsemane. After he was baptized, Jesus performed his ministry for three and a half years. He did the work formally for two and a half years. In the first year, he was faced with accusations from satan, disturbances from man, and temptations from man. He overcame many temptations while doing the work. In the last half year of his life, that is, at the time he was going to be crucified, through Peter’s mouth, he was made known as the Son of the living God, the Christ. Not until then were his identity and his work made known to people and disclosed. After that, Jesus told his disciples that he would be crucified for man and would be resurrected in three days, that he had come to accomplish the redemptive work, and that he was the Savior. It was in the last half year of his life that he made known his identity and the work he would do. That was the time of God. The work should be done that way. When Jesus did his work at that time, he did some works according to the Old Testament of the Bible or according to the words Jehovah spoke in the Age of the Law and the Law of Moses. He did some works through them. At that time, he preached and taught people in the synagogue, reproached those Pharisees who were hostile to him by the prophecies of the prophets in the Old Testament, exposed their disobedience by the words in the Scriptures, and condemned them according to them. For they all loathed what Jesus did, especially that Jesus did many works not according to the laws in the Scriptures and his teachings were higher than their words and even higher than the prophecies of the prophets in the Scriptures. The work Jesus did was only for the sake of redemption and crucifixion. So, he did not need to speak more words to conquer anyone. He quoted many words from the Scriptures to teach people. Even if he had done the work entirely according to the Scriptures, he could have accomplished the work of crucifixion. The work he did was not to speak words, not to conquer mankind, but to redeem mankind. He was only a sin offering for mankind but not the source of the word for mankind. He did not do the work among the Gentile nations—to conquer people, but did the work of crucifixion and did the work among those who believed in the existence of God. Even though he did the work on the basis of the Scriptures and condemned the Pharisees according to the prophecies of the prophets of old, he could accomplish the work of crucifixion in just that way. Now, if the work were still done on the basis of the prophecies of the prophets of old in the Scriptures, it could not conquer you, because the Old Testament did not record the disobedience and iniquities of you Chinese or the history of your evil. So, if the work were still done according to the Bible, you would never be subdued. The limited history of the Israelites which is recorded in the Bible is simply not adequate to determine whether you are evil or good or to judge you. You tell me, if I judged you according to the history of the Israelites, could you follow me as you do today? Do you know how impossible you are? If I did not speak words in this stage, I could not accomplish the conquering work. As I have not come to be crucified, I have to speak words outside the Bible so as to conquer you. The work Jesus did was only one stage higher than the Old Testament of the Bible, and through it he opened an age and led an age. Why did he say: “I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it”? However, many of the works he did were different from the laws that the Israelites in the Old Testament practiced and the commandments they observed, because he had not come to keep the laws but to fulfill them. In the process of fulfilling them, he did many practical things. He worked in a more realistic and practical way and in a living way, and did not work rigidly according to regulations. Hadn’t the Israelites been keeping the Sabbath? When Jesus came, he did not keep it, for he said that the Son of Man was the Lord of the Sabbath. After the Lord of the Sabbath came, he could do whatever he wanted to do. He had come to fulfill the laws of the Old Testament and to change the laws. The work of today is done completely according to the present situation, but it is still done on the basis of the work Jehovah did in the Age of the Law, not done outside the boundary of that. Aren’t such requirements as watching one’s tongue and not committing fornication the laws of the Old Testament? Now you are not only required to observe the Ten Commandments but to observe higher commandments and laws than before. But this does not mean that the old ones are abolished, because every stage of the work is done on the basis of the previous stage. Now aren’t you also practicing on the basis of the laws Jehovah set down in Israel at that time, such as offering sacrifices, honoring one’s parents, not worshipping idols, not hitting others, not reviling others, not committing adultery, not smoking, not drinking alcohol, not eating dead things, and not eating blood? The work has been done until today on the basis of the former laws. Although the former laws are no longer talked about and you are asked to observe new requirements, those laws are not abolished but improved. By saying that they are abolished, I mean that the age is past. But you have to observe some of the former commandments forever. People have been able to put into practice the former commandments, such as not smoking and not drinking alcohol, and these things have become people’s acquired attributes, so there is no need to particularly emphasize them again. On that basis, new commandments have been set down according to your present needs, according to your stature, and according to the work done today. When the commandments of the new age are issued, it does not mean that the commandments of the old age are abolished but that they are commandments improved on the basis of the old ones and that people are required to practice in a more complete and practical way. If today you were only required to keep the commandments and the laws of the Old Testament and you were required to do the same things as the Israelites and were even required to memorize the laws set down by Jehovah, then you would never gain any transformation. If you were only required to keep a few limited commandments or memorize numerous items of the law, your old nature would still be deep-rooted and could not be dug out. In that case, you would only become more and more fallen, and none of you would become obedient. That is to say, a few simple commandments or numerous items of the law cannot help you to know the deeds of Jehovah. You are different from the Israelites. They can see the deeds of Jehovah and be absolutely faithful to Jehovah by keeping the laws and memorizing the commandments, but you simply cannot. The several commandments of the Old Testament age not only cannot cause you to offer up your heart and not only cannot become your protection, but on the contrary they will cause you to slack and fall into Hades. Because the work I do is a conquering work and is done specially to deal with your disobedience and old nature, the gentle and kind words of Jehovah and Jesus cannot at all compare with the stern words of judgment of today. Without these stern words, you “experts” who have been disobedient for thousands of years could not be conquered at all. The law of the Old Testament has long become ineffective in you. The judgment of today is much more powerful than the law of that time. What suits you best is judgment but not some restriction from the law, because you are no longer the human beings created in the beginning but human beings who have been corrupted for thousands of years. What you are required to live up to now is required entirely according to your actual situations of today and your qualities and real stature of today. It is not to let you observe regulations, but it is for the only purpose that you can have your old nature transformed and can drop all your notions. Do you think the commandments are regulations? They are normal requirements for people but not regulations for you to observe. For example, you are required not to smoke. Is this a regulation? It is not a regulation! It is a requirement given according to the normal humanity. It is not a regulation but a rule for all mankind. The more than ten commandments set down today are not regulations either. They are the things people must have to live out a normal humanity. As people did not possess or know them before, now they are required to live up to them. They are not regulations. The laws do not necessarily mean regulations. The regulations I speak about are rituals, formalities, or people’s erroneous ways of practice. They are conventions unbeneficial to people. They are not beneficial to people but are meaningless practices. They are truly regulations. These regulations must be abolished because they are unbeneficial to people. But the things that are beneficial to people must be practiced.