Leaders of the Lord's Recovery

[Indiana]

Originally Posted by aron

In my years of 24/7 total immersion in LC, I never once heard "Daystar" mentioned. Nor, sons Philip and Timothy Lee. Yet the shortcomings and failures of "Christianity" were ever before us, constantly reminding us of our utter dependence on the "ministry".

Thus we became both suspicious of anything outside the LC, and unable to critically examine our own thoughts and teachings. Myopic, introspective, subjective, and unbalanced; we wondered why others shied away from our zeal, and were constantly trying to massage the "gospel" (our proseletyzing efforts) to make it palatable to prospective members.

ABRAHAM's Journey South

WL Radio transcript: "I don’t care how many blessings you have received, as long as you are not remaining in the fellowship with God, you are still in the flesh. Don’t have any trust in yourself. Yourself, myself, ourselves are altogether untrustworthy. We have to put our trust in the presence of the Lord, telling him “Lord, if you take Your presence away from me, I am just like a dog”. But, hallelujah, in your presence, I am a saint.” God’s presence to us means a lot.

"Now you can see in chapter 19 while Abraham was walking, bringing God on his way, and standing still in the presence of God. What a wonderful saint! Saint Abraham. Oh what a wonderful saint there. A giant saint there. One that could stand with God talking to God face to face as a friend to another. Can you believe that such a wonderful person right in the next chapter that he was just like a dog? Could you believe such a saint person after being in fellowship with God he could lie again at the sacrifice of his wife? This is…just …unbelievable! But he did it. By this we all have to realize that we need to remain in the fellowship with God. Our self is not our protection. Our protection is His presence."

http://lsmradio.org/audio/genesis.html #66 25 minutes

"Don’t have any trust in yourself. Yourself, myself, ourselves are altogether untrustworthy."

This radio broadcast is well-worth listening to, as Dick Taylor and Chris Wilde emphatically agree in their own testimony with WL's strong appeal to the saints to have no confidence in the flesh. Brother Lee pointed to himself, as if to say, "don't think I am an exception", and his voice broke, for an instant, with emotion. [He knew Watchman was not an exception either; rather, he was the prime example of a saint journeying southward]

[OBW]

While I realize that the flesh is mentioned much in scripture, I believe that the way that Lee talked about it was not consistent with what was intended and that it constituted a kind of duality or dichotomy that was more Gnostic than Christian. He and Nee spoke words like those in this radio broadcast, but the cure always seemed to turn out to be something formulaic, but unspecific, like being "in the spirit" or being part of "the church" (not meaning the body of Christ in general, but the Local Churches hearing the words of Witness Lee).

I think that Lee is too often given a pass because what is said sounds reasonable in a "spiritual" sense. But when there is a way to cure the flesh, it is too often exclusive in application in that it is only truly relevant to those who follow him. Not to others. So there is something wrong in the teaching as a whole no matter how real our "flesh" is.