Negative Speaking

I have a struggle with this issue of calling people who spoke out the immoral behaviors and abuses of leadership as being negative. Just this morning, I read a post from a LC with a quote from Witness Lee.

"Positive listening will rescue us from negative listening. If we listen to God's word from morning to evening, we will not have an ear to listen to any negative speaking. Negative talk prevails in the church life because certain ones turn their ears from God to something else. These ones do not speak Christ, the word of God, grace, or the gospel. Instead they listen to negative things, and they work and move according to the negative things they hear. The result is the spreading of death. If we turn our ears from other things back to God Himself, there will not be any problems, and only life will be spreading, not death." (Life-study of Leviticus, Msg. 30)

[Trapped]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I have a struggle with this issue of calling people who spoke out the immoral behaviors and abuses of leadership as being negative. Just this morning, I read a post from a LC with a quote from Witness Lee.

"Positive listening will rescue us from negative listening. If we listen to God's word from morning to evening, we will not have an ear to listen to any negative speaking. Negative talk prevails in the church life because certain ones turn their ears from God to something else. These ones do not speak Christ, the word of God, grace, or the gospel. Instead they listen to negative things, and they work and move according to the negative things they hear. The result is the spreading of death. If we turn our ears from other things back to God Himself, there will not be any problems, and only life will be spreading, not death." (Life-study of Leviticus, Msg. 30)

Hi Unregistered,

This teaching is one of the ones that lets us know the local churches are an abusive church. This is literally in the books about spiritual abuse: "if you talk about a problem, then YOU are the problem, it's not the problem that's the problem."

It's the chef whose got his food stored in a dark, filthy back room. You walk back there and you flip the light switch to turn on the lights and you catch a glimpse of all the rats and roaches before they scatter......and rather than get horrified that he has rats and roaches, the chef instead gets mad at you for shining the light on the rats and roaches.

We can all see the issues with that scenario, and what's going on in the local churches in that regard is no less gross and disgusting.

Much of the epistles contain the apostles doing this very thing (talking about the problems) - calling out immoral behaviors and abuses of leadership, or in the church in general. Paul in 2 Corinthians 11:19-20 speaks to this directly: "You gladly put up with fools since you are so wise! In fact, you even put up with anyone who enslaves you or exploits you or takes advantage of you or puts on airs or slaps you in the face." Do Lee or the co-workers want to call the apostle Paul "negative" for speaking about the abusive behavior of the false apostles toward the Corinthians? I don't think so.

Much of what Jesus said to the religious hypocrites was also doing this very thing (talking about problems) - calling out abuses of leadership. Condemning the Pharisees for tying up burdens on men's shoulders, etc.

Abusive churches don't like it when their members follow this pattern of Paul and Jesus.

I mean, read Lee's words: "if we turn our ears from other things....there will not be any problems..."

For reals? You mean, if you stick your fingers in your ears and say "lalalalala" then what your parents are saying to you doesn't really exist? This is child's thinking. All that it means is you are ignoring the problem. Healthy churches want to know the problems so they can address them because it matters to them that people don't get hurt, harmed, and damaged. Abusive churches blame the people who bring up the problems, because it matters to them that they constantly have a shiny, polished, whitewashed, pure, spotless image to anyone wasting their time looking at them. It's the ultimate narcissism.

This "death" or "death element" that the co-workers love to threaten the saints about also perfectly fits the characteristic of an abusive church. It's threats, fear, intimidation, condemnation. Is this the atmosphere intended within the church Jesus bought? Not at all. And they are using "death" in an unscriptural way. The Bible tells us in no uncertain terms that "the wages of sin is death". Death is our wages for our sin. Who paid us these wages?

God!

God is the one who gave us the death penalty for our sins. He is so holy, so righteous, so morally perfect, that any sins condemns us to the death penalty. Yes, as the Bible says, Satan has the power of death because he can deceive people and thus keep them from accepting everlasting life as a free gift from God, but death doesn't come from Satan. It's our wages, what we earned, from God. Death is not something you can "spread" like is threatened in the excerpt you quoted. It's the perfect intangible, undefined threat......classic for abusive churches.

Yes, yes, "life and death are in the power of the tongue" says Proverbs. Yes, we need to watch what we say because it has an effect on people. But neither of those concepts are talking about squashing people who speak up about sins, abuses, immorality, or harm in what is supposed to be a safe place.

Your struggle in this area shows you are seeing with clear eyes and are using your God-given mind to discern.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I have a struggle with this issue of calling people who spoke out the immoral behaviors and abuses of leadership as being negative. Just this morning, I read a post from a LC with a quote from Witness Lee.

"Positive listening will rescue us from negative listening. If we listen to God's word from morning to evening, we will not have an ear to listen to any negative speaking. Negative talk prevails in the church life because certain ones turn their ears from God to something else. These ones do not speak Christ, the word of God, grace, or the gospel. Instead they listen to negative things, and they work and move according to the negative things they hear. The result is the spreading of death. If we turn our ears from other things back to God Himself, there will not be any problems, and only life will be spreading, not death." (Life-study of Leviticus, Msg. 30)

The Life Study of Leviticus was given during the worst scandal of WL in the USA. His son was caught (again) molesting the office help at LSM.

The church in Anaheim, then SoCal, and soon many other LC's, bacame naturally chaotic. Many God-fearing believers were pretty upset about the perp and the victim. Instead of dealing with the sins honestly, biblicly, and righteously, WL covered it up. He protected himself, his family, and his family business. Then he lied about those who DID attempt to properly address the sin situation. Hence, more chaos.

So what did WL teach? That we should all dive into his own books amd keep our mouths shut. Like the military policy of "don't ask, don't tell." And don't be negative, don't spread death, don't be a gossip, yada yada.

[Nell]

Originally Posted by Ohio

The Life Study of Leviticus was given during the worst scandal of WL in the USA. His son was caught (again) molesting the office help at LSM.

The church in Anaheim, then SoCal, and soon many other LC's, bacame naturally chaotic. Many God-fearing believers were pretty upset about the perp and the victim. Instead of dealing with the sins honestly, biblicly, and righteously, WL covered it up. He protected himself, his family, and his family business. Then he lied about those who DID attempt to properly address the sin situation. Hence, more chaos.

So what did WL teach? That we should all dive into his own books amd keep our mouths shut. Like the military policy of "don't ask, don't tell." And don't be negative, don't spread death, don't be a gossip, yada yada.

Here's the big one...DON'T TELL THE TRUTH!!!

Nell

[Trapped]

This "don't spread death", by the way, is directly from Lee's just plain bad interpretation of the two trees in the garden of Eden, geared off of "we don't care about right and wrong."

Lee said "right and wrong are on the wrong tree" and he called that tree "the tree of death". The problem is, it isn't the tree of death. It's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It sounds catchy to call it the tree of death, because the other one was the tree of life, but that's simply not what the verses say, at all. If it was the tree of death, then God would have called it what it is, like the honorable God He is. But Lee added to scripture, as he was wont to do, and he taught that death came FROM the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, when the verses plainly show that death came because God separated them from their access to the tree of life (the thing that would allow them to live forever) and drove them out of the garden.

So since the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is NOT the tree of death or the source of death, we can unhook "death" from "good and evil, right and wrong", and voila! The co-workers' fearmongering of death against anyone who speaks up about "right and wrong" becomes visible for what it is: a totally empty windbag full of a whole lot of stinking hot air.

And what we end up with is a situation where a bunch of "blended brothers", in a position of what they think is power, are abusing the Word of God (and abusing God's children in the process) to cover darkness.

[Sons to Glory!]

Originally Posted by Trapped

This "don't spread death", by the way, is directly from Lee's just plain bad interpretation of the two trees in the garden of Eden, geared off of "we don't care about right and wrong."

Lee said "right and wrong are on the wrong tree" and he called that tree "the tree of death". The problem is, it isn't the tree of death. It's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It sounds catchy to call it the tree of death, because the other one was the tree of life, but that's simply not what the verses say, at all. If it was the tree of death, then God would have called it what it is, like the honorable God He is. But Lee added to scripture, as he was wont to do, and he taught that death came FROM the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, when the verses plainly show that death came because God separated them from their access to the tree of life (the thing that would allow them to live forever) and drove them out of the garden.

So since the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is NOT the tree of death or the source of death, we can unhook "death" from "good and evil, right and wrong", and voila! The co-workers' fearmongering of death against anyone who speaks up about "right and wrong" becomes visible for what it is: a totally empty windbag full of a whole lot of stinking hot air.

And what we end up with is a situation where a bunch of "blended brothers", in a position of what they think is power, are abusing the Word of God (and abusing God's children in the process) to cover darkness.

That, Trapped, is actually the best defining of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil I've heard on here from you - very concise! God did NOT call it the "tree of death." Yet for our original parents, eating of it did mean death.

[Trapped]

Originally Posted by Sons to Glory!

That, Trapped, is actually the best defining of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil I've heard on here from you - very concise! God did NOT call it the "tree of death." Yet for our original parents, eating of it did mean death.

Thanks, StG.

It did mean death, yes, but because it was forbidden, not because of what it inherently was. It was described at least twice as being "good for food". The fruit itself (or its nature, its element, its essence) is not the issue. I would still say, "Yet for our original parents, disobeying God did mean death."

[Indiana]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I have a struggle with this issue of calling people who spoke out the immoral behaviors and abuses of leadership as being negative. Just this morning, I read a post from a LC with a quote from Witness Lee.

"Positive listening will rescue us from negative listening. If we listen to God's word from morning to evening, we will not have an ear to listen to any negative speaking. Negative talk prevails in the church life because certain ones turn their ears from God to something else. These ones do not speak Christ, the word of God, grace, or the gospel. Instead they listen to negative things, and they work and move according to the negative things they hear. The result is the spreading of death. If we turn our ears from other things back to God Himself, there will not be any problems, and only life will be spreading, not death." (Life-study of Leviticus, Msg. 30)

“From Watchman Nee’s time until today, for seventy-two years, our practice has never come up to the standard of our vision that we have received of the Lord.” (Living a Life According to High Peak Revelation, www.MinistryBooks.org)

High Peak Revelation period 1991-1997

Watchman Nee period
1922-1952

“Brother Nee had stressed two things: Christ as life to produce the church and the church as the Body of Christ to express Christ. But, sorry to say; even among Brother Nee’s co-workers, who were my contemporaries, very few fully entered into the realization of these two matters. Not to mention the matter of the Body of Christ, they did not even see the matter of Christ as life to us.”


Witness Lee period
1962-1997

“From the time that I began my ministry until today, I have put out many books concerning the vision that we have seen. Through all the years, in mainland. China, in Taiwan, in Southeast Asia, and in the West today, in our practice we have never come up to the standard of what we have seen”
“Since we have seen such a high peak of the divine revelation, we need to put into practice what we have seen. “The goal of our practice should be to live the life of a God-man. This is the goal we should reach.”

"Our practice will have a success, and that success will be a new revival—the highest revival and probably the last revival before the Lord’s coming back".

"This should be and this must be our church practice from today onward. If not, we are practicing something in vain.


Witness Lee 1994 “But when the Lord put me in quietness, I examined myself according to this light, and found out that I have not really entered into it that much [the God-Man living]. What I have seen is very thorough, and what I have preached may also be considered quite complete, but it is really questionable how much of the reality of Christ as life I have in me.” This spoken 3 years before his passing. (Witness. Lee, 1994 message, Taipei)

Such a revival has not been realized by those charged to practice the God-Man living; and neither has the past been cleared by God-Man living in the leadership in taking reconciling measures in the Body - which in itself would bring revival before high peak teachings ABOUT God-Man living should be expected to do so.

[Indiana]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I have a struggle with this issue of calling people who spoke out about the immoral behaviors and abuses of leadership as being negative. Just this morning, I read a post from a LC member with a quote from Witness Lee.

"Positive listening will rescue us from negative listening. If we listen to God's word from morning to evening, we will not have an ear to listen to any negative speaking. Negative talk prevails in the church life because certain ones turn their ears from God to something else. These ones do not speak Christ, the word of God, grace, or the gospel. Instead they listen to negative things, and they work and move according to the negative things they hear. The result is the spreading of death. If we turn our ears from other things back to God Himself, there will not be any problems, and only life will be spreading, not death." (Life-study of Leviticus, Msg. 30)

"Brotherly love is a priceless heritage of ours" - John Ingalls - Dec 2018

I want to dedicate the link below to our "unregistered" guest whose post is quoted above. He, or she, is representative of so many throughout the years who have struggled in their conscience with such teachings as this - and more. Former leaders had their experience, after having known the priceless heritage of brotherly love for many years in and among "the local churches".

http://www.leadersofthelordsrecovery...Stronghold.pdf