The Unique Move of God

[Cal]

Originally Posted by Igzy

He also taught that if you weren't in his movement you were outside of God's move. He taught that if you left his ministry you could not go on with God.

That alone puts the rest of his stuff in a very bad light.

If you don't understand that you don't understand me, or many others here.

Drake,

I have a question: Why didn't you honestly respond to this? Why did you just ignore it?

You know that I personally heard Lee talk about how T. Austin-Sparks (!) said that he "lost the flow of life" when he told Nee that the local ground wasn't for him, and how Sparks said he "could never get it back." Do you really believe that happened?

Do you know I heard this stuff from Lee regularly. About how he knew of no one that became "a prevailing Christian" after leaving his movement. About how everyone who left the movement fell by the wayside and became useless. He said this kind of thing regularly. I'm speaking from firsthand experience. I am not lying.

This is what he taught. It wasn't just about the LCM having the right to maintain order within its ranks. I was about how Lee declared all-out war on all rivals. How he put the fear of leaving his ministry into everyone he could. How he damaged many people in his care by doing so.

You've always seemed like fairly smart guy, unlike some others around here who shall remain unnamed. How does that stuff sit with you?

What say you? I'm counting on you to be righteous. Let's hear it, brother.

[Drake]

Igzy,

Sometimes I don't respond because I have no peace and the Lord prevents me. Or in some cases it is a more serious reason.

However, none of those are reasons for not responding to your post. With your post I heard the same things you did but I considered them differently or interpreted in a different way. So I simply chose not to debate your view because I understood how you might see it that way. In other words, though I don't have the same view as you do, I understand your view as plausible to you and that I probably could not offer anything to persuade you to my view.I don't differ in this case with the events you described, just your conclusion.

For instance, yes I believe the events surrounding T Austin Sparks because I have experienced a similar loss of flow of life. To me, it is not only possible, it is a certainty. Brother Lee brought this up not as self-serving as is often alleged, but as a lesson and a warning. At least, to me it is instruction and I take it from the Lord that way.

Or the usefulness before the Lord if one departs from the vision He has entrusted to him will diminish as regards to that vision. Could a person who has enjoyed the deep things of God related to, for instance, the Church and the churches leave and have a successful ministry or pastorship in the denominations? No doubt, I have seen it. Yet, are they useful to the vision that once guided and controlled them? I have not seen that at all.

Thanks for asking.

Drake

[Cal]

Originally Posted by Drake

Igzy,

Sometimes I don't respond because I have no peace and the Lord prevents me. Or in some cases it is a more serious reason.

However, none of those are reasons for not responding to your post. With your post I heard the same things you did but I considered them differently or interpreted in a different way. So I simply chose not to debate your view because I understood how you might see it that way. In other words, though I don't have the same view as you do, I understand your view as plausible to you and that I probably could not offer anything to persuade you to my view.I don't differ in this case with the events you described, just your conclusion.

For instance, yes I believe the events surrounding T Austin Sparks because I have experienced a similar loss of flow of life. To me, it is not only possible, it is a certainty. Brother Lee brought this up not as self-serving as is often alleged, but as a lesson and a warning. At least, to me it is instruction and I take it from the Lord that way.

Or the usefulness before the Lord if one departs from the vision He has entrusted to him will diminish as regards to that vision. Could a person who has enjoyed the deep things of God related to, for instance, the Church and the churches leave and have a successful ministry or pastorship in the denominations? No doubt, I have seen it. Yet, are they useful to the vision that once guided and controlled them? I have not seen that at all.

Thanks for asking.

Drake

Drake,

Lee wasn't talking about being useful to the vision of the LCM. He was talking about something else.

He was saying if you left the LCM you were in rebellion against God, by definition. No exceptions. I was there. I heard it myself. Benson taught it. The elders taught it.

Benson once said there was "nothing" in Christianity that can help you. Do you believe that? That is what he taught.

No offense, but it seems you must do some pretty heavy rationalizing to reconcile yourself to these kind of things. I understand you are committed to the LCM. But there has to be some place in your conscience that has a problem with this stuff.


Anyway, that is this gist of the problem with me. And that is what messed me up for so many years. As I said, if you don't understand that you don't understand why I post here. The LCM attempts to hold people there and is intolerant to any alternatives to their way. I believe that is extremely damaging. You can talk all you want to being faithful to a "vision." But why that "vision?" Is really because it is so plainly what God wants or is it because that's what you've been convinced of through fear and manipulation?

The problem with the LCM is a person cannot honestly even consider that question, because to them reconsideration is the beginning of rebellion and so is suspect in itself. It's the same mindset that prevented the callback of the bombers in the book "Fail-Safe." The pilots were so trained to carry out orders past a certain point in their flights that they ignored the pleas of their own wives to turn back, and so mistakenly obliterated Moscow.

It reaches the point where the psychological mechanisms necessary for healthy correction cannot even function because the person has been trained to be suspicious of them. That's when things get very dangerous. That's when you can be controlled and yet be convinced you are making your own decisions.

The psychological pressure for members to conform pushes them to agree with things they might otherwise disagree with. This causes them to think and argue in unreasonable and irrational ways. You see it all the time here. I know people don't necessarily agree with some of the tenets of the LCM in their hearts. But they convince themselves they do because they feel they have no choice, because they fear judgment, both from men and God for not doing so. And that expresses itself in irrational ways. Even you seem to manifest this sometimes, sorry to say.

I don't think the Lord operates that way. Certainly truth is objective. But God doesn't use peer pressure or the fear of ostracization from community to convince us (except in very extreme cases). He hand is gentle and fair. The LCM's is anything but that.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by Nell

Perhaps you could provide UntoHim with the post # of those you consider to be relevant to your discussion.

Nell

Okay, UntoHim, could you please move posts 218, 219, 221, 222 and 223 to a new thread for Drake and I. Thanks you very much.

Thanks, Nell. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[UntoHim]

Ok guys, if you want to come up with a title for this thread let me know and I'll change it. Thanks

[Drake]

Thanks Untohim.

Igzy, I will share my view of your post by section/point as I am sure you prefer it that way. Sorry, it may be longer than my usual readers digest version type post but I want to address you points thoroughly.

Drake,

Lee wasn't talking about being useful to the vision of the LCM. He was talking about something else.

The vision is the overarching driver, Igzy. It's not about something being useful to the vision, for me its about a controlling vision. So it is part of everything.

He was saying if you left the LCM you were in rebellion against God, by definition. No exceptions. I was there. I heard it myself. Benson taught it. The elders taught it.

It would be useful to see the exact quote but for sake of argument I can hear Brother Lee saying that. I can hear Benson repeating it and some elders also. Yet, this was my earlier point. If you have once seen the vision of the ground unity of the believers, the local churches as the practical expression of the universal Body of Christ, the resurrected and ascended Christ as the Head transmitting His power into the members of His Body, as the means to defeat God's enemy and bring in the kingdom of God to the earth..... then, yes, if you having seen and affirmed that, and you then go back to denominations for instance, then you are in rebellion.

Benson once said there was "nothing" in Christianity that can help you. Do you believe that? That is what he taught.

I think I heard Benson say that also. Both agree and disagree. I disagree if the person is an unbeliever or a new believer because most denominations preach the gospel and can lead a person to the Lord. A new believer also can receive help with the basics of the faith and to overcome sin and sinful habits. Can learn to become grounded in the christian truths. Some charismatic groups can also help a person to experience the gifts of the Spirit.

Yet, I agree with it in this way. If you have been in the Lord's Recovery for more than a few years then all those experiences were available to you and the controlling vision took you even farther, deeper, and higher. Having received all that and to then consider returning to denominations or Catholicism , well, then I agree that there would be nothing in Christianity that could help you beyond what you already received. Nothing there for you.

No offense, but it seems you must do some pretty heavy rationalizing to reconcile yourself to these kind of things. I understand you are committed to the LCM. But there has to be some place in your conscience that has a problem with this stuff.

No offense taken. I have zero problem with this stuff just mentioned. Reconciliation is not only not difficult, it is perfectly congruent with my understanding of the truth in the Bible, my personal experience with the Lord, and my corporate experience (practicing the body life) in the local churches.

Anyway, that is this gist of the problem with me. And that is what messed me up for so many years. As I said, if you don't understand that you don't understand why I post here.

Ok. I understand that your experience is different from mine. I am sorry it messed you up for so many years. I have heard and read about folks who had a bad experience and had I went through what they went through I might be on your side of the fence. I cannot say for sure because on the other hand, I have read in this forum the bad experience someone had and I recognize that I went through the same experience but came out on a different side than they did.

The LCM attempts to hold people there and is intolerant to any alternatives to their way. I believe that is extremely damaging. You can talk all you want to being faithful to a "vision." But why that "vision?" Is really because it is so plainly what God wants or is it because that's what you've been convinced of through fear and manipulation?

I disagree. The local churches do not attempt to hold people there. That sounds like against their will. I watched people come and go. Of course, you want to understand if there was some offense to clear it up. Of course, there is concern and calls and persuading going on. That is not holding people there. That is not damaging. Eventually, they stay or they go, its up to them. The vision I described above is a real vision, a seeing, a spiritual insight, and a life-changing must have experience. Fear, manipulation? They don't even enter the equation.

The problem with the LCM is a person cannot honestly even consider that question, because to them reconsideration is the beginning of rebellion and so is suspect in itself. It's the same mindset that prevented the callback of the bombers in the book "Fail-Safe." The pilots were so trained to carry out orders past a certain point in their flights that they ignored the pleas of their own wives to turn back, and so mistakenly obliterated Moscow.

Well, a governing vision is governing but it is not irrational, obsessive, blind, or however you wish to think of it. Reconsideration is a healthy exercise and I do it often but it always brings me back to the governing vision, sometimes adjusted with a little more clarity.

It reaches the point where the psychological mechanisms necessary for healthy correction cannot even function because the person has been trained to be suspicious of them. That's when things get very dangerous. That's when you can be controlled and yet be convinced you are making your own decisions.

Well, that can be applied to any discipline but that is not my experience and healthy correction or adjustment are a necessary iterative process.

The psychological pressure for members to conform pushes them to agree with things they might otherwise disagree with. This causes them to think and argue in unreasonable and irrational ways. You see it all the time here. I know people don't necessarily agree with some of the tenets of the LCM in their hearts. But they convince themselves they do because they feel they have no choice, because they fear judgment, both from men and God for not doing so. And that expresses itself in irrational ways. Even you seem to manifest this sometimes, sorry to say.

As to judgement, a fear of God it is a healthy thing. I probably have expressed it here because here the brazen slander, false accusations, and derision leveled against brothers and sisters in the local churches is very disturbing and often shocking. At those moments, I truly am concerned for the well-being of that person at the judgement seat of Christ. I am not familiar with the "psychological pressure to conform" you speak of.

I don't think the Lord operates that way. Certainly truth is objective. But God doesn't use peer pressure or the fear of ostracization from community to convince us (except in very extreme cases). He hand is gentle and fair. The LCM's is anything but that.

I agree the Lord is that way. My experience in the local churches is also that way.

That does not mean that once in a while a brother or a leading one will not say something that comes across as emphatic, zealous, or prescriptive. I welcome zeal but that does not mean that that particular word was for me. Everything that is stated may not be for me, or at least maybe not for me at the time I first hear it. The Lord knows what we can absorb so we just have to keep our eyes on Him. Every man is a sinner, every man needs the blood daily, every man has weaknesses and faults. Every man, no exceptions. We are all in the process, we are growing, sometimes more, sometimes less. The fear you describe is not the fear I am familiar with in the Lords' Recovery. I acknowledge that you and others may have indeed experienced something different than I did. Or based on your circumstances or who delivered the message or how it was delivered are all factors that I cannot know. Maybe expectations were set too high and when others did not live up to them their world crashed and the disappointment was to great to overcome. I cannot know that either for you or for anyone else. I can only tell you that for me, I did not have the same experience and do not recognize the local churches you describe.

Drake

[Cal]

Drake,

I am so grateful to the Lord and you for your careful and thorough response. Thanks for taking the time to write with such care.

I think one of the things that separates us is that I speak of an LCM of about 30 years ago. You speak of the one of today. They are no doubt different. LCMers of my day would have never joined Facebook, had it existed. Now such a thing is pretty much accepted. Things have softened, and that's good.

Davy Crockett, a Texas hero, famously said, "Be sure you are right, then go ahead." Feeling assured makes us feel good. But regardless of your feelings of assuredness about your vision, in the final analysis you must admit that you cannot be 100% certain of its complete accuracy. That being the case, and in keeping with the humility the Lord commands us to embrace, you must defer to at least the possibility that you may be wrong about some things. And that being so, you should be more tolerant of those who disagree with you on those points that reflection says you may be overly confident in.

Take the local ground for example. The fact that the Bible does not command it is incongruous with your insistence on it. However much you think your vision of it is clear, you have to ask yourself, Why didn't the Lord specify it more clearly? I believe this: if you really pray and think about it, the only conclusion you can come to is that he wanted us to be less contentious about it.

The fact is that in his Word God is vague about some things. Why is that? I can think of two possible reasons. One is so that an anointed few can know they are right about things that others miss. Another possibility, which I favor, is that God wishes to convey deeper points about which more specificity would lead to superficial misapplications.

Take, for example, Babylon the Great. We all want to know--What is Babylon? So why didn't God just tell us? I think it is because the important point about Babylon is not what it is, but what it represents.

Babylon is about people organized in rebellion against God. In the LCM we were taught that Babylon is the Roman Catholic Church. Cut and dried. Plain and simple. And that may be true. But for some reason God didn't make that so clear. Why?--so that those of us who "know" can know we have special insight? Or was it because the important point is not the superficial specifics, but rather the deeper principles? I believe the latter. I believe this is always the reason God sometimes speaks in vague parables, figures and analogies--not to present a puzzle, but to lead us to deeper realizations.

So when you look at the local ground, what does it represent? That we all need to meet as the church in the city? Or does it represent a deeper principle about oneness? And does being contentious for the local ground represent a desire for that deeper principle of oneness? Or something else?

It's an interesting dilemma, and one which I hope is not lost on a guy as smart as you.

I hope this makes some sense.

[ZNPaaneah]

Originally Posted by Drake

He was saying if you left the LCM you were in rebellion against God, by definition. No exceptions. I was there. I heard it myself. Benson taught it. The elders taught it.

It would be useful to see the exact quote but for sake of argument I can hear Brother Lee saying that. I can hear Benson repeating it and some elders also. Yet, this was my earlier point. If you have once seen the vision of the ground unity of the believers, the local churches as the practical expression of the universal Body of Christ, the resurrected and ascended Christ as the Head transmitting His power into the members of His Body, as the means to defeat God's enemy and bring in the kingdom of God to the earth..... then, yes, if you having seen and affirmed that, and you then go back to denominations for instance, then you are in rebellion.

I was hoping we could dig down here because I would hope this is something that everyone on this forum can agree on.

1. There is a ground of unity for all believers.

I would argue that this ground of unity is the work of redemption of Jesus Christ that tore down the middle wall of partition and made us all one. I stand on the work that Jesus did and this is what makes me one. It is a blood soaked ground that is outside the camp. It is the ground where the Father offered up His Son because of His love for us that we could believe on Him and have life. It is also the ground where Christ made a peace offering for our sin of pride and rebellion.

Now I realize WL thought he was making it "practical" through his doctrine, but in my experience he was merely building a middle wall to partition himself from other Christians.

2. To me the "practical expression of the universal body" is when believers stand on this ground and allow the Lord's blood to make them one, they allow the Lord's work to tear down those walls, they allow the Lord's work to make peace, they repent of their pride and rebellion to submit to the Lord's word.

I would argue that what WL taught was the "practical expression" was merely having a child with Hagar, a child according to the flesh. You have to have faith to walk this path and it does not require faith to claim that you have a monopoly on the proper ground, that is pride and rebellion.

3. I also agree that the vision is of "the resurrected and ascended Christ as the Head". I believe that we see this worked out practically in Matt 18. Matthew 18 answers the question "who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?"

I asked EM why he signed the letter apologizing to PL for the discipline from the previous Anaheim elders. He said that "it made WL happy". That is not someone who is walking by this vision that Jesus is "the resurrected and ascended Christ, the head of the Body". If you see that Jesus is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven then the real question is what makes Jesus happy?

In verse 6 Jesus said that "whosoever offends one of these little ones who believe in me it were better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck". That is a very clear statement that offending little believers who believe in Jesus does not make Him happy. Making Witness Lee happy at their expense does not make Jesus happy. That letter, signed by EM, was an offense to many "little ones who believe in Jesus". Yet EM's response as well as all the elders in the church in NY is that "he doesn't want to deal with that right now". This was 20 years after the fact and they have still not dealt with this, still not accountable. This was the response from several "blended brothers", and four leaders of the LRC.

Therefore I would argue that they are the ones who have left this vision that Jesus is Lord. I would say that they are the ones who are in rebellion.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by Drake

If can only tell you that for me, I did not have the same experience and do not recognize the local churches you describe.

If you are remaining in the LCM because you believe it is right for you then that's fine.

If you are remaining in the LCM because you believe it is the "one true way on earth today" then you have validated most of the complaints on this board that you claim you don't recognize--because that belief leads to all the fear, manipulation, abuse and damage that those complaints testify of.

When any subset group of the Church holds the belief that it is "one true way," abuse within that subset group is unavoidable. History cites no exceptions that I know of.

Please pray about it.