an epilogue
... continuation of post #872 (moved here because the other was too long)
It’s been an hour or so since I wrote the above and I need to add a little epilogue to this last post (and make it even longer, sorry) because of something that just happened. When I started to write the above, I had it in my head that there had been 5 brothers that cried. Every time I have remembered that event, I have thought that there were 5 brothers. Writing this, I went through the events in my mind and every time I could only come up with 4. I went back and found the account in my journal and sure enough, there were only 4, so I set aside my thought that there were 5 brothers who had shed tears and just wrote about the 4. Why am I sharing this now?
Because very shortly after I finished writing the above, I received a phone call from an old brother who was around during the earliest days in California. He has no internet connection and spends much of his time praying. He has been out of the LC for many years. I think this was the 3rd time I have talked to him on the phone over the last few months. I had never met or talked to him before this, but he had written me a letter after he read my book.
When he called, I had just finished reading the post by Hope about Benson jumping to conclusions and acting on them, and I was feeling very sad about the brothers allowing Benson to operate with wrong information without telling him. Surprisingly, this brother was calling to ask me to stand with him in prayer for Benson who was particularly on his heart at the time. His prayer was very heartfelt and moving. As he prayed, he began to cry, and I started crying, too. He stopped and asked me to pardon him that he just had such intense feeling about this. We both cried as we finished praying.
This brother told me that in the not too distant past (months I believe) he had a vision in which God was weeping through him over Witness Lee. In it, he said there was another man who was wielding a cane which he understood to be Witness Lee’s authority. He didn’t know who that man was at the time, but later God showed him it was Benson Phillips. Since that time he had been praying for Benson. He said that the Lord had shown him that these brothers had been caught up in idolatry and had committed spiritual fornication. Yet, God still loved them intensely. The brothers, however, that God had put around them, had not loved them.
As he shared, I sat there thinking over and over, “How could this be happening?” On the day I decided to write about the 5 “weeping” brothers, and come up short one brother, the Lord sends the 5th weeping brother?! And that after I had just read a post about Benson that made me feel like crying.
Through the last minute and uncannily timed appearance of the 5th tearful brother God reminded me that He is not sleeping. He is very much present and very much involved in all we are doing, even posting on this forum.
So God used the 5th brother’s tearful prayers for Benson, whom I had just read about on the internet before the brother called, to show me that He has watchman on the walls who are not holding their peace day nor night and who are interceding for all His children, and especially for those who are the most egregious of sinners.
Thank you, again, Terry for your post that took me on this little journey. I was exceedingly comforted and encouraged by all of this, so I’m sharing my encouragement with you and with anyone else who made it through another of my long posts J.
Thankful Jane
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