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Additional Local Church Quotes by Witness Lee on Watchman Nee’s Burden for the Local Churches
God not only showed Noah the evil generation, but also revealed to him His intention. God was and still is a God of purpose, and He can never be defeated in His purpose. Years and years ago, God showed us His purpose. Many of you have read Brother Nee’s own testimony in which he says that once he had a dream, meaning a revelation, in which he saw local churches raised up throughout China. He saw churches raised up by God. What he called a dream was actually a revelation. Through him, many years ago, God showed us His need of the churches. Before the Lord comes back, He needs the churches to be raised up. Otherwise, He will have no way to return. What is today’s ark? What is God’s way of terminating this evil generation and bringing in a new age? It is the churches. God revealed the ark to Noah, and I must testify that God has revealed to us the need for the proper church life. The proper church life is the ark God needs today. The church life is needed to terminate this generation and to bring in a new age.
(Witness Lee, LS of Genesis, 393-394)
The ground of locality was not discovered by us until 1937, and that through Brother Nee. Even by 1934, Brother Nee had only discovered the boundary of a local church, which is the boundary of the locality within which a local church is situated. Due to the confusion among the Brethren assemblies (that is, in one city there are several Brethren assemblies) which he saw in 1933, he studied the New Testament once again in order to ascertain the boundary of a local church (assembly). Eventually, he discovered that the New Testament reveals clearly that the boundary of a local church is the boundary of the locality (city) in which the local church stands. Immediately after his new discovery, Brother Nee gave a series of messages on this matter in January of 1934 in Shanghai, and these were published in the same year as the book The Assembly Life. Thus, in his messages and publications subsequent to that time, he began to use the term the boundary of locality, not yet the term the ground of locality.
(Watchman Nee, Orthodoxy, 7)
Watchman Nee had a definite goal for his ministry. His ministry focused on Christ and was expressed in the local churches. The goal of his ministry was to establish local churches. He preached the gospel with the intention of producing material for the building of the churches. His Bible teaching, edifying the young believers, holding conferences, conducting trainings, and issuing publications were all with the goal and view of building a corporate testimony in the local churches. By reading his writings we can realize that he received a clear vision and a definite commission from the Lord concerning this goal.
HIS EMPHASIS ON THE GOAL
In the introduction of his book The Assembly Life, he stressed this goal emphatically:
Before times eternal, God had a will and a foreordained plan of His own. His goal is to have a group of people containing His life who are like His Son. The goal of God was to establish not just the individual Christ, but also the corporate Christ. This corporate Christ is the church. From this we can know that it is the church which God pays attention to today. Unfortunately, it is not only the carnal believers who fail to emphasize what God stresses, but even the spiritual believers fail to emphasize it. They always replace the church of God with many works.
Today what Satan causes man to do is substitute the
church of God with various kinds of work. However, we know that the purpose of
God from beginning to end is to have a corporate Christ, which is the church,
so that Christ might be the Head and the believers might be the members. Satan
is determined to destroy this plan. This is why he causes man to pursue
various works in order to replace the church.
Today some lay much stress on preaching the gospel,
and by so doing they replace the church with gospel preaching. There are many
today who can surely preach the gospel and save sinners. And
preaching the gospel is good, but if gospel preaching replaces the church and
causes men never to think about the church, then we are definitely deceived by
Satan. What I have said is not too strong. God’s intention in gospel preaching
is merely to collect stones for the church. If gospel preaching substitutes
for the church, that is wrong.
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