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Originally Posted by ;5936
AL CLARK:
Saints, I saw clearly through that experience what happens when a person gets this – I’m an elder now, and I have authority…” – We began to walk through the land, and zoom! We lord it over others. Oh, this is the enemy., the very expression of Satan! We all condemn this. Due to this experience, when I came to Elden, I did not want to be an elder. I rejected it. You know my testimony, and the Lord knows my heart; I believe the Lord stands with me that I am telling the truth. Even I wouldn’t sit in the front row because there seemed to be to me a “spirituality” attached to sitting there...........
To me, in the Recovery over the years, the greatest suffering and the greatest problems among us all has been this authority matter. I‘ve seen it happen right before my eyes.........
I feel that in this matter of elders, the persons who have the function versus those who have a position has been a big, big problem among the churches. We are supposed to have the position and the function, but it is much better if we just have the function., and forget about the position! Forget about this thing of spiritual leadership and spiritual authority. I tell you, among us, this matter of spiritual authority is a big, big superstition! We actually now have so many superstitions among us. They make us pitiful and sectarian. We can’t possibly be open to other Christians if we are in such a mode.
To me, we have become one of the most intolerable denominations in the world, due to the control by certain ones. Some meetings are just like the communist party.: you don’t dare say anything, or speak anything else. “Out with you. You are negative!” (If the umpire says you are out, you are out. But saints, the church meetings are not a baseball game. This is the church.) ...
This is why so many, including me, dropped out of the meetings. Yet I feel it was sovereign that I dropped out, otherwise I would never have come into contact with some dear brothers I have not seen in years. When I saw them, I found out, Hey, they are not too bad after all! The Lord has not come down to destroy them. They are not consumed. Why, some of them are actually under the Lord’s blessing, and have seen something new from the Lord. So, I began to wonder: What is this? Some are doing better than me! They have some joy, and some enjoyment. Then I reasoned, But, it’s supposed to be all here in the local church. If you leave the Recovery…woe is you. You are condemned to the uttermost. Oh saints, let us be done with this! The Lord Jesus Christ is the most open and most wonderful Person in the universe! He says, Come unto Me ALL who are heavy ladened. Come to Me, and I will rest you. But, we come to the meetings, and burdens are thrown upon us which we are just not able to bear. Like the Pharisees, we say “Brother, what’s the matter with you? You’ve got the Life; you have a spirit. Exercise your spirit…Oh, Lord Jesus…” But, the brother is dying, and unable to bear such a load. Oh saints, this kind of thing just has to go! The church can never be built up with that.
I appreciate what you (leading) brothers have confessed: we all have been subjected to unrighteous practices, to unclean things. I Amen you, and forgive you. But saints, all of us—the whole church in Anaheim—have to reprove the filthy works of darkness. You know what I am talking about, that which the brothers here have confessed: one thing is the past unrighteous conduct of the manager of Living Stream Office, with his control through that office. As a member of the Body of Christ, I reject that thing completely. I condemn and judge it, because the Lord has judged the Nicolaitan system!....-------------------------------------
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