Witness Lee and the Lord's Recovery Movement

@KellyJay

Understand that what Ghost and his backround "chap" seem to be doing to to manufacture shame for me for being helped by Brother Witness Lee's ministry.

Ghost thinks that heaping up manufactured shame I will distance myself from Lee. But I have nothing to be ashamed of whatsoever. I do not intend to pretend guilt by association or frantically distance myself from a servant of the Lord because someone says -

"Aha! THIS shows that he is willing to die on his sword to defend this guilty guy."

You see? Then some other person may say they don't like to exalt any particular servant of God. I agree that only Christ is exalted.

I neither have the slightest reason distancing myself from Brother Lee one hand.
Nor do I feel the need to exalt unduly a useful servant of God.

Neither extreme reaction do I intend to fall into for anybody. I remain "militant middle of the road" about this. What reason do I have for apologizing to critics as one having been so helped in my spiritual walk by Witness Lee (among others)?

@sonship said
@KellyJay

Understand that what Ghost and his backround "chap" seem to be doing to to manufacture shame for me for being helped by Brother Witness Lee's ministry.

Ghost thinks that heaping up manufactured shame I will distance myself from Lee. But I have nothing to be ashamed of whatsoever. I do not intend to pretend guilt by association or frantically distance ...[text shortened]... t unduly a useful servant of God.

Neither extreme reaction do I intend to fall into for anybody.

@Ghost-of-a-Duke

Why are testimonials from people who have left your movement 'manufactured'?!

Is that what you are told to say?

@sonship said
@Ghost-of-a-Duke

Why are testimonials from people who have left your movement 'manufactured'?!

Is that what you are told to say?

They have a right to their opinion.

Suppose I collect all the sour things ever said on this Forum ANYWHERE about poster Ghost of a Duke. Does that PROVE something indisputable about your guilt?

No!

https://shepherdingwords.com/category/teaching-and-fellowship/

articles:

1.) Following the Vision or Following a Man

2.) Our Attitude Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help

3.) The Proper Way to Deal with Problems in the Church

4.) Concerning Hierarchy and Organization

5.) Spiritual Authority and Its Misuse

6.) A Specious Claim of Racism

7.) Some Questions and Answers Regarding Deputy Authority

8.) Concerning Having One Publication Work

9.) Concerning the Ministry’s Attitude Toward Sisters

10.) The Minister of the Age, Not Infallibility


Read more - SHEPHERDING WORDS
From the co-workers in the Lord’s recovery in North America

https://shepherdingwords.com/category/teaching-and-fellowship/

'A couple of summers back my mother decided to send my sister and me to a "summer school of truth" with the Local Church in a city in Southern California. Well, my sister and I are Bible believing Christians that have been attending church weekly since we were old enough to remember. It was pretty funny how awkward we felt when we first joined their Bible study group. It was the middle of the summer and my sister and I were the only people not dressed up... (tie, good shirt if you were a guy or a long dress if you were a girl).

Right after the first meeting people started to swarm us trying to tell us of how Israel crossed the Red Sea out of Egypt to the promise land and how that symbolizes leaving the world.... I tried to tell them that I was a fellow believer but they didn't seem to understand or really care. They asked if I had been baptized yet... I answered "yes".... They ask "you want to be baptized again?" I was thinking... "Whats up with this? Is my current baptism not authentic to these people?" Pretty soon I caught on to how the Local Church considers itself to be the only true church.'


(Source already provided).

@Ghost-of-a-Duke

I have read many sincere and frank accounts from people who have left your movement. It's very odd that these accounts mean nothing to you.

@sonship said
@Ghost-of-a-Duke

I have read many sincere and frank accounts from people who have left your movement. It's very odd that these accounts mean nothing to you.

I have read many sincere and frank accounts of people who left ATHEISM too.

Why should I consider it ODD that you don't think it is mandatory that you agree with them all and ALSO leave Atheis ...[text shortened]... [/b] WARM, POSITIVE and ROSY THINGS will EVER be written about them ?

Um, since WHEN ??

@sonship

Church members no longer being able to question the accepted beliefs of their leaders is a strong indicator off that church being a cult.

I have asked you sonship, a simple question maybe a dozen times in this thread (and the very same question dozens of other times elsewhere without reply from you) about your perspective of a clearly erroneous doctrine presented by your church, and you refuse to clarify your position on this simple matter.

It is my genuine opinion that the Local Church group is a cult and that you sonship, cannot contradict any of their teachings because of cultish pressure.

Furthermore, a few years ago a strange thing happened in this forum whereby a new poster suddenly began directing supportive feedback type comments to you during a debate regarding your church’s doctrines. It was most odd, as though your posts were being reviewed. I wasn’t the only poster to notice this occurrence and it has stuck with me ever since.

@ghost-of-a-duke said
Why are testimonials from people who have left your movement 'manufactured'?!

Is that what you are told to say?

@Ghost-of-a-Duke

It is noted that you could not find a valid biblical criticism of your Ie. "this is bonkers" sample. So you have resorted to hearsay of "He saids, She saids." to replace your ineptitude in seeing Lee's paragraph was not bonkers at all in view of the Bible.

Time for some more positive testimonials.

Testimony of Marcie E. Phillips

The Union in Life of God and Man

I am a nurse in the operating room at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. In college, I was looking for enjoyment and reality. I was longing for it. Nothing I did was satisfying me. I met some people who told me the answer was Jesus. I definitely did not believe that Jesus had anything to do with reality or enjoyment, but since nothing I was studying or doing was answering my questions about life, I was willing to find out.

I could not deny the enjoyment these people had. I wanted it, so I did what the girl I was with told me to do. She said, “If you ask Jesus to come inside of you, He will. The Lord is the Spirit, and He can enter into your spirit and be your enjoyment.” So I asked Him in. Apparently, nothing happened, and I told my friend so. My friend said, “If you asked, He came in. Now bother Him to make Himself real to you.” So I did. All day I talked to Him, asking Him to make Himself real to me. That night I went to a meeting of Christians. While we were singing, I saw something so amazing, so beautiful, it changed my life. I saw the life of God lived out in man. I saw the union in life of God and man. I didn’t know what it was, but I wanted it. I had received a revelation of Christ and the church in one day. The church is all His believers with His life in them. It is His Body, a union in life of God and man.

All the questions I ever had about the meaning of life were answered for me. God's life inside of me became so real. God went through a long process of incarnation, human living, death, resurrection, and ascension to become able to enter into me.

The reality in the universe is what God is and is doing. I have been led into this reality through the ministry of Witness Lee. The more I read in prayer about the truths of the Bible revealed to this man, the deeper my experience and the reality of the Lord and His Body becomes.

Marcie E. Philips

Testimony of one identifying only as E.T. from Newton Mass.

From New Hampshire’s Forest: Jesus Christ is the “I Am”

I was born in rural New Hampshire, the son of a logger, and today I live on a tree farm. I also grow blueberries and apples. Though I’m a woods person, I’m well read and have traveled widely.

As I grew up, worldly pleasures held some initial attraction, but ultimately they left me emptier still, and often damaged as well. I looked for the meaning of life in various philosophies, but they failed to sustain me. Science was fascinating, but it could only be pursued so far until the various scribes succumbed to conjecture. Evolutionary biology in particular I thought offered marvelous explanatory powers, but at best it could only tell me “how”, not “why”. Religious experience, for me, soon degraded into dull repetition, or worse.

One day I met some believers from a local church who responded to my questions by telling me about my human spirit. I could exercise my human spirit by opening my mouth and calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 10:12-13). I had heard about Christ, and was amenable to Him in principle, but now here was a chance to contact the very God Himself. I tried exercising my body in the local gym, my mind in the local university; how about exercising my spirit in the local church?(1 Timothy 4: 7-8) “Why not?” I thought. An empirical, testable hypothesis. If Christ is real, then He will respond to my opening. So I called, loudly, repeatedly: “O Lord Jesus! Lord Jesus! Amen, Lord Jesus! Hallelujah, Jesus!”

Two days later I was driving along the highway, and an extraordinary event occurred which resonates within my being still. I became aware of a Divine Presence within me, a marvelous invisible Person, who was in the car within me. It grew so strong I had to beg Him to stop—I just couldn’t take it any more.

Today I continue to experience and enjoy the wonderful, excellent Lord Jesus by exercising my human spirit. I love Him together with my brothers and sisters in Christ, members of the household of God (1 Peter 2:5). As we go on together under the covering of His precious redeeming blood we grow in life and are being built up as members of the Body of Christ to express Him (Ephesians 4:15-16). Hallelujah for Christ and the local church!

E.T

Testimony of one signed merely J.C.

Finding God as a Supply

I was brought up as a Catholic and attended Catholic school for eight years. We were taught about God and how we need to fear him. I especially remember having to memorize the ten commandments-all the “Thou shalt nots”. Church was dark and confession was even darker. We said the rosary and learned different prayers, but I longed to use my own words.

I really rebelled when I attended high school. I went to a boarding school and I became more daring because I was away from home. My friend and I put little plastic monkeys in the wine container when we went to mass because we wanted to try to lighten up the boring mass. Of course we were discovered and our punishment fit the crime. We were forced to attend an even more boring mass with elderly people watching our every move. We just wanted God as life!

In college I continued to seek the real God. I knew there must be more than religious tradition. I went to a certain group because I thought they were open to all people and I believed that God was that way too. There was much discussion but I went home with an empty feeling. Then I noticed a friend at school was away quite often and I asked where she was going. She said “you wouldn’t be interested,” which made me even more curious. I kept bothering her and she finally told me she was meeting with some Christians. I asked if I could go with her sometime and she reluctantly brought me. I was amazed when I walked into the large living room. There were a number of people (mostly in their 20s) singing and playing guitars. I really felt the love of God poured out there. It was so moving that I spent the rest of the time crying.

I returned again and am still continuing after 20 years. In the meantime I have learned a few things in the Bible. John 4:24 says, “God is Spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness.” And John 6:63 says, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” I have been enjoying this spirit and this Word very much. There is a line in a hymn which says “Here I find a never-ending, sure supply,/While the endless ages roll,/To this, Healing Fountain I would ever fly/There to bathe my weary soul.” (Hymns, 332) I am so thankful that I found this sure supply and got attached to “the true vine, Christ” (John 15:1).

J.C.

@Sonship,

On your church’s website, in the statement of beliefs section, it states that a person MUST accept the trinity doctrine in order to be saved.

Do you agree with what your church has published in this regard?

@divegeester

We had this argument before.

Read the information there and follow the use of the phrase WE EMPHASIZE in -
CONCERNING SALVATION [my bolding]

In Christ God has provided for man a full and complete salvation. This full salvation includes our whole being: spirit, soul, and body. In God’s salvation, man’s spirit is regenerated, his soul is being transformed, and his body will be transfigured.

In order to be saved, one must have a living faith in the Person and work of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Every genuinely saved one has what the Bible calls the “common faith” (Titus 1:4), which includes what we must believe in order to be saved: we must believe that the Bible is the complete divine revelation wholly inspired by God; that there is a unique Triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit; that Jesus Christ is the Son of God incarnated to be a man; that Christ died on the cross for our sins, shedding His blood for our redemption; that on the third day He was bodily raised from the dead; that He has been exalted to the right hand of God and made the Lord of all; and that He is coming again for His own and to set up His kingdom on earth.

Eternal salvation is by grace through faith, not by our works.

In order to be saved, one must have a living contact with Jesus Christ. Therefore, in bringing unbelievers to salvation, we emphasize prayer and calling on the name of the Lord. According to Romans 10:9 and 10, if a man is to be saved, he must believe in his heart and confess with his mouth.

Once a person has been saved, he may have both the assurance of salvation and the security of salvation. Once we are saved, we are saved forever.

The local churches believe that the Holy Bible is the complete divine revelation verbally inspired by the Holy Spirit (2 Pet. 1:21, 2 Tim. 3:16).

The local churches believe that God is the only one Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—co-existing equally from eternity to eternity (1 Tim. 2:5a, Matt. 28:19).

The local churches believe that the Son of God, even God Himself, became incarnated to be a man by the name of Jesus, born of the virgin Mary, that He might be our Redeemer and Savior (Jn. 1:1, 1:14, Matt. 1:23).

The local churches believe that Jesus, a genuine man, lived on this earth for thirty-three and a half years to make God the Father known to men (Jn. 1:18).

The local churches believe that Jesus, the Christ anointed by God with His Holy Spirit, died on the cross for our sins and shed His blood for the accomplishment of our redemption (Matt. 3:16, 1 Pet. 2:24, Eph. 1:7a).

The local churches believe that Jesus Christ, after being buried for three days, resurrected from the dead physically and spiritually and that, in resurrection, He has become the life-giving Spirit to impart Himself into us as our life and our everything (Acts 10:40, 1 Cor. 15:4, 1 Cor. 15:45b).

The local churches believe that after His resurrection Christ ascended to the heavens and that God has made Him the Lord of all (Acts 2:33, 2:36).

The local churches believe that after His ascension Christ poured down the Spirit of God to baptize His chosen members into one Body and that the Spirit of God, who is also the Spirit of Christ, is moving on this earth today to convict sinners, to regenerate God’s chosen people, to dwell in the members of Christ for their growth in life, and to build up the Body of Christ for His full expression (Acts 1:8, 1 Cor. 12:13, Rom 8:9, Jn. 16:8, Titus 3:5, Eph. 4:16).

The local churches believe that at the end of this age Christ will come back to take up His members, to judge the world, to take possession of the earth, and to establish His eternal kingdom (1 Thes. 2:19).

The local churches believe that the overcoming saints will reign with Christ in the millennium and that all the believers in Christ will participate in the divine blessings in the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth for eternity (Rev. 20:6, 21:2).

The local churches stand on the Holy Scriptures, not according to any traditional interpretation, but according to the pure Word of God.

The local churches stand on Christ, the living rock, the foundation stone, the Head of the Body, and the life and reality of the church.

The local churches stand on the genuine unity of the Body of Christ. We are not sectarian, nor denominational, nor nondenominational, nor interdenominational.

The local churches stand on the ground of the oneness of all believers in each locality; we recognize all the blood-redeemed and Spirit-regenerated believers in Christ as members of the one church in each city.

The local churches hope that as many as are ordained by God to eternal life will believe in the Lord Jesus.

The local churches hope that all regenerated Christians will seek the growth in life, not the mere increase of knowledge.

The local churches hope that all seeking Christians will see the vision of the church and come into the practical church life in their locality.

The local churches hope that the Lord will have a remnant of overcomers that His Bride may be prepared.

The local churches hope that the coming back of the Lord will be hastened by our growth and that we may participate in the blessed rapture and in His coming kingdom.