Witness Lee and the Lord's Recovery Movement

So we can where a Satanic organization comes in in God's enemy's scheme to plant false believers among the true believers - tares among the wheat.

" ... his enemy came and sowed tares in the midst of the wheat and went away. And when the blade sprouted and produced fruit, then the tares appeared also." (Matt. 13:25,26)

You could well say the crop of tares is an organization of counterfeit plants planted by Satan deliberately to FRUSTRATE the growth of the plants God planted.

We just may not view it as an organization, ie. with only one board of directors or and incorporation.

Where does the local church come in? The genuine proper local church should be a place to grow God's crop. That is a farm or a cultivated land specifically for the single purpose of growing the divine life of Christ in His believers.

This growing of the divine life in believers apart from all frustrations is the BUILDING of the house of God, the church. Paul and his co-workers (and I might add the late Witness Lee too) were planters and waterers of God's farm.

"What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Ministers through whom you believed, ...

I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth. So then neither is he who plants anything nor he who waters, but God who causes the growth. ...

For we are God's fellow workers; you aer God's cultivated land [or farm] God's building." ( See 1 Cor. 3:5-9)

This word is to the church which is in Corinth' This is written in principle to all the local churches.

The co-workers planting and watering are not only apostles. All the saints should be helping the believers to grow in the divine life.

The nature of the local church is for growth of Christ in people.
They have to be wary of the onslaught in the world of mixture, false believers, and frustrations and stumbling blocks to the growth of God in men.

For the growth of God in man is building up of the church universal.

I have to suspend now for the sake of company.
More needs to be said.

@sonship

Do you think Witness Lee was justified in claiming that all other churches were organisations under the influence of Satan?

How do you think this influence of Satan manifests itself withing the members of such organisations?

The first thing that the parable of the wheat and the tares show is that the presence of false Christians is an organized scheme of God's enemy to destroy God's plan.

The second thing which is a historically realistic fact is that sometimes false believers occupy positions of authority in the congregations of Christianity.

So what we might call "Satan's organization" consists of a two pronged attack:

1.) False believers planted in the world in the midst of true believers.

2.) False believers actually situated in positions of ecclesiastical authority over true believers.

For 1 Satan has organized a worldwide counterfeit counter attack to Christ's planting sons of God in the earth.

For 2 genuine sons of God often find themselves under the illegitimate authority or damaging influence of these phony Christians.

It is no secret that many will give degrees to unbelievers which furnish them with a facade of "Christian" expertise. These are the Reverends, Doctors, Pastors, Deacons, and other officials or members of congregations who are actually not regenerated believers (wheat) but unbelieving fake disciples (tares).

They were tactically planted in the world and some tactically placed by the Devil into positions of religious authority leading astray the actual believers.

For the latter strategy of Satan we might we look to Christ's parables of the abnormal mutation of the mustard seed into a great tree Matthew 13:34. and of the evil women who leavened the fine flour (Matthew 13:33).

Here is the abnormal mutation of the mustard herb seed into a giant tree housing the evil birds.

"Another parable He set before them, saying, The kingdom of the heavens is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field.

And which is smaller than all the seeds; but when it has grown, it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of heaven come and roost in its branches." (13:31,32)

This is not a positive parable. This is a parable about something small and humble like a mustard seed, which broke the law of developing after its own kind. It mutated into a huge tree to provide roosting places for birds.

Now in the previous verses of Matthew 13:4 the birds represent demonic spirits, evil spirits.

"And as he sowed, some seeds fell beside the way, and the birds came and devoured them."

The evil spirits devouring the Lord's word from the hearts of those too close to "the way" and the traffic of the world, become the evil spirits roosting in the branches of the great mutated tree in verse 32.

" ... it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of heaven come and roost in its branches."

The huge world wide organization of Christiandom becomes in many places the resting place of Satanic / demonic spirits. They are quite comfortable there and "reproduce" themselves there.

What is the Satanic organization is the mutated mixture which becomes a breeding place for the Satanic spiritual influence.

@divegeester

Do you think Witness Lee was justified in claiming that all other churches were organisations under the influence of Satan?

First find me the quotation which says in essence this -

"all other churches were organisations under the influence of Satan"

I want to see the phrase or equivalent to "ALL OTHER CHURCHES" and I want to see the phrase or equivalent to "ORGANIZATIONS [plural] of Satan".

Provide for me the source quotation for your question.

Then we come to the evil woman who LEAVENED the meal until the entire lump was turned to leaven.

"Another parable He spoke to them: The kingdom of the heavens is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened." (Matt. 13:33)

Previously we saw a small mustard seed mutated into a huge tree.
Here we see a lump of fine flour so permeated with leaven that it become entirely leaven.

Neither parable is positive. Both show the abnormal mutation of what Christ came to start into something quite alien and against what Christ intended as a counter-attack.

The meal, for making the meal offering (See Leviticus 2:1), signified food for God and man. Three measures was the quantity needed to make a nice meal (see Genesis 18:6).

Unleavened bread used in so many of the offerings signified the enjoyment of Christ without sin. And Jesus told the disciples to beware of the leaven of the religionists Pharisees and Sadducees.

That would be both the ancient traditionalists and the modernists alike.

"And Jesus said to them, watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees." (Matt. 16:6)

The Apostle Paul also said the church should be an unleavened loaf. The unwanted leaven should be purged out of the church life.

"Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?

Purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, even as you are unleavened, for our Passover, Christ, also has been sacrificed.

So then let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." (1 Cor. 5:6-7)

Leaven is definitely a symbol of something evil, not good, corrupting, ruining the feeding meal of God. It should be purged OUT of the church life.

But in the parable the woman HID the leaven in the meal until the whole meal was saturated with the leaven. Leaven bloats up the bread. Leaven makes the bread more edible. But this "help" of leavening the bread is seen NEGATIVELY in spiritual terms.

The Roman Catholic Church did much to the Gospel in order to make it more appealing to the masses. And in mixing pagan superstition into the pure Gospel, the whole Gospel became a mixture of corruption with truth.

The whole thing became leavened, bloated, larger and larger in a a way of worldly fame.

This too is Satan's tactic to counter the work of God to mutate, pollute, and corrupt it into an organization of Satan. We mean not Christ's people and not the Gospel, but the whole ANITY of Christianity as a mixture of truth with human superstition.

Now if you will notice readers, Paul, speaking to a local church, did not give the impression that they could never themselves have a problem with leaven.

To the church in Corinth, the local church of the locality of Corinth:

Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole limp?

Purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, even as you are unleavened ..."

Some of the criticisms I see in this thread are of this tone:

"Your Witness Lee teacher says only other churches are corrupted and being in a local church you are automatically free from any problems - a utopia under Witness Lee's leadership."

They resent the insituation that "We have arrived" at the problemLESS church.

Well, the Corinthians met on the ground of the local oneness. And they were exhorted to beware and purge out the old leaven. Their boasting might have the same effect as the woman hiding leaven in the meal offering of Matt.13:33 until the whole church life there would be corrupted.

The nature of the church there is unleavened. Beware that tolerating old leaven might ruin the church in Corinth, is what Paul is warning.

So those who argue that Witness Lee is EXEMPTING local churches under his ministry of problems of mixed Christiandom at large, are incorrect. He went through First Corinthians as well, warning of the need for local churches to purge out leaven of all kinds.

Like Paul, Lee exhorts -

"Let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." (v.8)

II. KEEPING THE FEAST OF
UNLEAVENED
BREAD

In verse 7 Paul says that the believers at Corinth are unleavened. Is this not difficult to believe? How could the Corinthian believers have been unleavened? In the first four chapters of this Epistle they were rebuked by Paul for their divisions. Is divisiveness not leaven? Are not jealousy, strife, and pride sinful things? How, then, could Paul say that the believers there were unleavened? This seems to be a contradiction. Actually, there is no contradiction here at all. The Bible always gives us a complete view of a matter, especially of our history as believers. This means that the Bible reveals both sides of a matter. On the one hand, we have the side of Christ; on the other hand, we have the side of what we are in our fallen nature. According to one side, the side of Christ, we are holy. We are saints in Christ. In 1:2 Paul pointed out that we are “sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints.” Thus, in Christ we are unleavened. But according to the other side, the side of our natural being, we are full of leaven. The crucial question is whether we eat unleavened bread or leavened bread. In other words, do we live Christ or do we live ourselves? If we live Christ, then we eat unleavened bread. But if we live ourselves, then we eat leavened bread.

In verse 7 Paul charges us to purge out the old leaven that we may be a new lump, even as we are unleavened. We need to be a new lump according to Christ's side. We are unleavened in Christ, and should live according to Him, not according to ourselves.

Copied from Life Study of 1 Corinthians by Witness Lee

https://www.ministrybooks.org/SearchMinBooksDsp.cfm?id=230F81C8F4

sand sand, sand sand,
sand sand, sand sand,
saaaaand .... wonderful sand.

@divegeester

sand sand, sand sand,
saaaaand .... wonderful sand.

contempt, contempt, contempt, contempt,
Wonderful goofy contempt.

But No effective rebuttal.
But No proof of "other churches" or "Satan's [plural] organizations" provided.

Three parables establishing Christ's prophecy of the history of the decline and corruption of the church buy Satan:

The parable of the enemy sowing tares among the wheat.
Matthew 13:24-30

The parable of the mutating mustard seed into great tree.
Matthew 13:31-32

The parable of the evil women hiding corrupting leaven in the fine flour.
Matthew 13:33

@sonship said
No [/b] proof of "other churches" or "Satan's [plural] organizations" provided.

It's you who claims churches other than yours are organizations of "Satan", not divegeester.

@FMF

So you produce the quotation then.

I want to see "other churches" and "organizations [plural] of Satan"

I'm telling you - an atheist is a renegade unitarian's best friend. Take care of your buddy.

@sonship said
@FMF

So you produce the quotation then.

I want to see "other churches" and "organizations [plural] of Satan"

I'm telling you - an atheist is a renegade unitarian's best friend. Take care of your buddy.

If your group is or isn't a "Satanic" organization - either way - say so.

@sonship said
@FMF

Does the presence of such people in your group mean that it is ALSO part of the "Satanic" organisation?

I said SHOW ME THE GUARANTEE.

Ie. "You meet in the local church? No problem, you've arrived in every sense. Nothing could be amiss as long as you are on the phone list."

SHOW ME THE GUARANTEE.

So you offer no "guarantee" that your cult/group is not "Satanic" like - you suggest - all the rest of Christian groups and churches are?