[Freedom]

Originally Posted by aron

Put another way, the continued LC experience eventually gives one a choice: whether to obey your feelings or the plain words of the Bible in front of you? Do you prefer more warm fuzzies, and mutual grooming ("Amen, brother!!!"), or your conscience? Will you choose the right "flavor" or 2,000 years of Christian precedence, going back to the apostolic establishment of the NT record? Do you want more "life" or do you want to discern the basics, like right from wrong?

The LC "exercise your spirit" modus leans toward the first choice in every case. Where scripture, apostolic precedent, common sense, and one's conscience diverge from the LC path, one's forced to go with the feelings. That's the peril of chasing the sensuous experience, of building on such sand.

As WL asked the Shanghai elders, "How did you feel" when you expelled WN? Didn't matter that he was sinful, or grossly sinful, or repeatedly sinful. Only mattered how they felt. That gave WL leverage. And this indicates that the path had already deviated. The die was already cast for the Little Flock/Local Church experience.

When the Shanghai elders expelled Nee, I'm sure that they didn't 'feel' happy about having to make that kind of difficult decision. This highlights a good point that aron has made. WL tricked everyone into becoming dependent on supposed feelings such as what he called the "sense of life." The problem with that is that not all decisions or situations are going to make someone feel 'peaceful'. Difficult, but necessary decisions can be quite the opposite.