Quote:
Originally Posted by Ohio
When Lee and LSM needed a little credibility, then they "stand on Luther's shoulders."
When Lee and LSM demanded exclusive authenticity, then they alone "started afresh."
It may just be a "contrived illusion" to the entire body of Christ, but they just need their own folks to believe it.
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There's no doubt that The Recovery is a contrivance. There's no such term in the New Testament.
So to draw the picture of the Recovery from scripture, Lee had to hijack the 7 churches in the Apocalypse, on which he drew to contrive his imaginary Recovery. He wasn't the first to interpret them as prophetic progression of the church down thru, or up thru, history. The Recovery, of course, as I understood it back then, is Philadelphia ; the end of the progression.
But if the 7 churches represent models of the development of the church, up thru history, all the way up to until Jesus returns, there's a principle in the modeling they like to overlook. And that is : The Laodicea principle.
The Laodicea principle is that the church reaches Philadelphia and falls back. As the Recoveryite's tell it, Luther broke the church free from Rome, but created a church that is pretty much a cookie-cutter image of the RCC, but based on faith and not works.
And Laodicea has happened over and over again, ever since, to each and every step of the 'recovery,' as the Recoveryite's like to see it.
And now, they like to think, in the final stages of the historical churches, we have Lee's Recovery.
I tried and failed to keep the local church from becoming Laodicea way back in the 70's. It fell much deeper into Laodicea after I left. I'd hate to see it today. Again, why do people join and stay in cults? I'm in awe of the mysterious power that holds them. I broke free long ago ... and my head is still spinning.