[UntoHim]

For decades after coming to America, Witness Lee denied being an apostle. He even denied being an apostle under oath in a legal deposition (circa 1981). Not more than 7 years later Lee was boastfully declaring that he was the only person ON EARTH speaking as God’s oracle SINCE 1945, and most of his closest co-workers were declaring that he was “an apostle of the first kind”, comparing him to the apostle Paul.

Dear brothers and sisters, this kind of attitude did NOT just appear in the 1980s, or even the 1970s. There is ample evidence that Witness Lee held this kind of attitude all the way back to the Taiwan days, and maybe even before. The evidence was there for Lee’s earliest American followers to find out, if they just did some basic fact checking. For example, they could have easily found out that, despite his claims, Witness Lee was not the only person sent out by Watchman Nee to continue the Local Church denomination. They could have easily found out that Lee had already defrauded and even sued members of his own sect. They could have easily found out that his teachings were already being challenged and found to be unbiblical by other Christians there in Taiwan.

Witness Lee already had a reputation of financial malfeasance (with church funds no less), and it’s a safe bet that his sons Timothy and Phillip were already well on their way to becoming a major disgrace to Witness and the denomination he lead. The simple fact is that by the time Witness Lee hit our fair shores, he did not even meet the most basic qualifications to be an elder, much less the leader and chief theologian of an entire Christian movement. Samuel Chang was surely aware of this, and you can be sure that the saints whom Lee defrauded were aware as well.

And I haven’t even gotten into the fact that Witness Lee had already deviated greatly from Watchman Nee in teaching and in practice. Many of Nee’s books were already available at this time, and had the early Americans done some fact checking and comparing and contrasting, they would have seen the stark contrast between Nee and Lee right from the start.