[aron]

Originally Posted by Evangelical

So are you really saying that in the early church period before Roman Catholicism, the local church was not an objective reality?

Not as defined by Nee and Lee. The Nee/Lee definition of the ground of locality is a human assessment of reality, shot through with ignorance and subjectivity. That's why attempts at universal application, stretching now at a century and spanning continents and generations of naifs who've come in and been "wrecked" for the local church (many literally) has produced ennui at best, with paralyzed "local church saints" passively waiting for the next extra-local edict from GHQ, and "storms" and "turmols" and "rebellions" at worst, as people realize they've been had by the Nee/Lee daydream and try to come to grips with it. It's no different from the absolute of Marxist Communism, so elequently put forth by Karl Marx that it swayed millions, but produced nothing but wreckage in its implementations. Cuba, Albania, Cambodia; many tried. So it is with the Nee/Lee ethos.

And Marx' critique of capitalism was pretty good, by the way. There was a lot wrong with capitalism. But the Worker's Paradise never successfully replaced it. So it has been with the Local Church. Nice try. Good idea, but sorry, bad idea.

You know, there's an interesting book, by Jessie-Penn Lewis. I'm sure you've heard of it.

War On The Saints is an extremely detailed discussion of the daily realities of our life: and how those realities indicate our level of subjection to evil spirits and heretical doctrines. It pries into every area of our inner-lives; calling us to give account to ourselves about our dreams, our social habits, our recurring thoughts, our persistent fears, the state of our health, the things that provoke us to anger, and etc.

This is the only book I ever read that I approve and recommend, while at the same time, I always approach it fearfully: for every time I read this book, I am forced to account for something that is going on in my life that frightens me. She makes no accusations, nor does she damn anyone for having these problems; but does hold the reader 100% accountable for every breach of peace or holiness in their life. EXAMPLE: if you have an evil dream, it's because you yet cherish some thoughts and considerations in your heart, upon which the evil dream is built. The demons play to your prejudices, and appeal to your own judgments, in order to foist upon you something you would finally reject, by appealing to the roots of those things, that you haven't yet rejected. You may not be willing, FINALLY, to commit adultery; but you yet secretly cherish a little "looking to lust;" maybe just a tiny little bit. [Note from the Editor: Mrs. Lewis calls these concessions "Ground"] The demons fasten on that concession to sin, and starting there with that which you WILL allow, they build a scenario which leads ever onward to the main sin. Upon being confronted in the dream with the main sin, you revolt (hopefully), and wake up: but the little root from which the appeal was made is still with you, so at another time, you have a somewhat similar dream, which while taking a somewhat different path, is still leading to the main sin. You revolt, and wake up; but still haven't renounced and rejected the little teeny sin in that area that you allow. So you have another dream sometime, with a different scenario......and here we go again.

Mrs. Penn-Lewis has it that you are both victim and responsible for every evil intrusion in your thought life, and she turns over every rock in your psyche, and exposes all the little vermin that we all try so hard to ignore. She posits that clinging with the mind and confessing with the tongue to the particular verities of the Word of God is our chief weapon of defense against these influences, and that a lack of escape from the problems she describes is the chief symptom of embracing false doctrine. Therefore, unlike most others who address these things, she does not leave you with ONLY "Appealing to God" to deliver you from said problems, but has it that God has already provided the means of relief in The Word; and that those who, thinking to "skip" past this, and demand that God prove Himself faithful by a fiat of deliverance, are only purchasing despair; since for God to ignore your ignoring of His Word, is tantamount to denying His own righteousness and faithfulness. Ergo: hungry child says: "Dad, I'm hungry." Dad says, "There's a bag of fried chicken in the kitchen, go eat that." Child responds, "Dad, I'm very hungry." Dad repeats his instructions. Child now says, "Dad, I'm so hungry, don't you love me?" The next answer is either silence or rebuke.

I bolded the little part in question. "The little root is still within you." As long as people don't realize they received uncritically several false assumptions, they'll go round and round. Always wondering where is the promised revival.

In the case of the Nee/Lee programme, they don't realize that ekklesia were perhaps much more local than they could ever have imagined. "Whenever two are gathered, I am there" and "with these words he dismissed the 'ekklesia'". The ekklesia was probably so local. It could vanish as they dispersed. It was a meeting! There could be dozens of ekklesia all over the place! Nee never realized that, so he built a figurative church that wasn't local, but was. (If you know what I mean) And this ideation has never come to pass, no matter the attempts.

As long as you allow the Nee/Lee programme the "Ground" in you it will have power over your thinking. But it was just a dream. It wasn't real. It was an idea that didn't correspond to reality.