"Early Nee" vs. "Later Nee"

[Cal]

They all left out the 21st message. Which was entitled, I believe, "I Was Just Kidding. Deputy Authority is a Bunch of Baloney."

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by Igzy

They all left out the 21st message. Which was entitled, I believe, "I Was Just Kidding. Deputy Authority is a Bunch of Baloney."

Can I get a copy of this chapter?

[IDon'tKnow]

If I may ask what is the subject of “Revive Thy years” and what is the problem with it?

[OBW]

I note that in mentioning "Revive Thy Work" that even Stephen Kaung suggests that there are problems with Nee's writings — at least some of them. I know that, while I never read it, The Latent Power of the Soul was often spoken of quite negatively, even by Nee himself.

But while the ministry of Stephen Kaung is apparently not as dogmatic as that of Lee, I note that its foundation is deep in Nee. Since I am now seeing that even Nee's much less controversial works have problems, is this merely another "this is the way" ministry that managed to keep from stepping over the line to add "and you are not and are the whore of Babylon." I do respect them for that restraint. But I wonder whether Oliver is now joined to something that might be likened to LC-lite.

In any case, besides the opportunity to delve into another "book" by Nee, this is not a discussion about, or a place to advertise some other ministry, whether good or bad.

As for "Revive Thy Work," I couldn't find it in LSM's collected works of Nee. I wonder if it is from notes and the LSM has given it a different name to avoid copyright issues.

[OBW]

I have found it interesting to randomly look around in the ministrybooks.org web site. Recently, I have looked more at Nee’s works than at Lee’s. This is because the discussion in Further Talks on the Church Life caused me to more clearly see Nee’s part in the errors in which the LC now openly operates.

Besides Further Talks, I read Sit, Walk, Stand about a year ago (actually as part of a several-week discussion on Ephesians at church that used the book as underpinning). In that, I saw hints at some of the error that I see so fully in Lee. Nee rightly walked through Ephesians in order. First you must be equipped, ten you must use that equipment, and finally you must be firm in your stance. But it was only a few nuances away from being Lee’s “sit and be equipped and the rest will simply flow out of you.” I realize that neither Nee or Lee said it quite as directly as that, but Lee did say it indirectly.

So today I was perusing the ministrybooks.org site again and came across The Collected Works of Watchman Nee: Central Messages (Vol. 36). (It is unfortunate that there is no indication when and where any of these messages were given.) The second chapter is “The Overcoming Life.” I quickly scanned it and saw a couple of things that slowed me down. So I looked closer. I will not give a blow-by-blow account of what I saw, but it was like reading Lee lite. I will provide at least this one quote which is from the first paragraph in the section “The Christian Life Spoken of in the Bible”:

Philippians 1:21 says, "To me, to live is Christ." Does it say that to live is to be like Christ? No. Does it say that to live is to imitate Christ? No. Does it say that to live is to make Christ our pattern and example, and to follow Christ? No. It says, "To me, to live is Christ." It is absolutely useless to imitate or to do good. Even if we can read the Bible, pray, live a good life, and pursue diligently, as long as we have a wrong life, we will still end up with a wrong living. We may yearn, weep, repent, and pray to God, "God, I really want to obey You," but there is something basically wrong with us—we have a wrong life.

As I read through the rest of the chapter, I keep seeing the same thoughts. The Christian life is not doing. The Christian life is not even “working out your own salvation” as Paul said in Philippians 2:12. Instead, it is all about getting Christ’s life. He points to verse 13 which refers to the willing and working for His good pleasure. According to Nee “Inwardly we plan, and outwardly we speak and act. We are able to will and work because God operates in us. This verse does not say that we should will and work; it says that God is operating in our hearts until we are able to will and work. God's operation is God's working. God works in our hearts until we are able to will and work. Since God has already worked in, we are able to work out. If nothing is worked in, nothing can be worked out.”

This is contrary to Paul’s own words. He does not say here that we will eventually work out our salvation when enough Christ is worked in so that He is willing and working in us. He says “it is God who operates in you both the willing and working.”

This future tense living of the Christian life is not what Paul taught.

But more telling in reading this portion from Nee, and taken in the light of all that we have heard and/or read from Lee over the years, it is evident that they are ignoring half of Paul’s writings. When Paul wrote to the Galatians, the Corinthians, the Philippians, etc., he started with a real, practical problem ─ taking freedom to sin, not treating those different from you righteously, etc. Rather than simply say “cut it out!” he would provide the sound scriptural basis, complete with the updated understanding based on the “law” being written in our hearts rather than just on tablets of stone. He completely discussed the spiritual implications of the issue. But that discussion was not to turn the reader’s response into a journey forward into spirituality to eventually achieve a level that would work out the practical problem. It was to explain why it was something that should happen now.

This has gotten us only about half-way through the chapter. But the rest is more discussion about how we must do so much in a spiritual way to have Christ live out of us and achieve the thing that we are up against (like the things for which Paul was chastising the various churches).

Now I do not deny that we should be “walking” toward a higher plain in our relationship with Christ, however you want to describe the steps. But according to Paul, that does not stand between us and victory over bigotry, over taking too much liberty in Christ to even sin, and over dividing based on preferred teachers. He continually says that we have what it takes. He expected the Corinthians to stop dividing and he considered them babes in Christ, only able to take in spiritual milk rather than meat. In fact, the Corinthians seem to have been a microcosm of error, yet after Paul went through his reason, spiritual and otherwise, he said to “cut it out.”

Originally Posted by OBW

So today I was perusing the ministrybooks.org site again and came across The Collected Works of Watchman Nee: Central Messages (Vol. 36). (It is unfortunate that there is no indication when and where any of these messages were given.)

Every volume of the CWWN has a detailed listing with information concerning the source, date, and location of each chapter.

[UntoHim]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Every volume of the CWWN has a detailed listing with information concerning the source, date, and location of each chapter.

Thanks for this information.
Could you please take a few moments of your time and maybe give a testimony of how you have been helped by this website?
Thanks in advance!

[OBW]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Every volume of the CWWN has a detailed listing with information concerning the source, date, and location of each chapter.

That may be true in print. But I went back into the same volume online and could find no reference to the time and/or place the particular messages were given. So no matter how it is actually published and printed, that particular detail is not presented online in a manner that is easy to find.