Andy Anderson on the "Overcomers"

[Cassidy]

Originally Posted by aron

I met a brother in the local churches who told me of his "back-slidden" daughter. She had received the Lord, then in college went back to the world. He told me this bad news, then brightened and said, "Well, at least she isn't going into the lake of fire!!"

I found this kind of thinking to be dis-heartening. This guy, the last I knew, was an elder in a local church. Drinking right from "the ministry" fountain. Wonderful guy -- would give you the shirt off his back. I just don't like his teaching.

The children in the LCs got "reward" and "outer darkness", and that's it. All of it very vague & arbitrary. There is some line somewhere, completely ill-defined, that if you cross you'll be blessed and if not you'll be whacked for a thousand years. If I was a teen-ager, sitting in this teaching month after conference after year, I'd probably take my chances on the world as well. At least I might have some enjoyment for a while.

I saw this in the Baptist church too. Assured of eternal salvation many I knew lived like the Devil. I wasn't regenerated at the time but knew that something was not right about that. After regeneration I gravitated to the Arminian persuasion where one could lose their eternal salvation if they lived liked the Devil. Depends on what condition they were in at the moment they died (i.e. did they die in an automobile because they were drunk at the wheel). But that seemed to oppose scripture which assured salvation based on faith and belief. Whenever I sinned my belief in Jesus did not change, so that did not feel right either.

When I first heard the teaching on the kingdom I started realizing the synchronization of the scriptures for the first time based on these two views having lived in both camps. I had an epiphany at some point when everything fell in place and I could see both viewpoints had part of the truth but not enough to explain the other side. The epiphany was a flash of light and I knew that the kingdom was not just a doctrine, that reconciled these major viewpoints, but a reality to be lived out.

Youth is wasted on the young so they say. I wish I had the revelation of the kingdom as a teen but I might not have the appreciation for it that I do now if I had heard about it all my life.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by Cassidy

Youth is wasted on the young so they say. I wish I had the revelation of the kingdom as a teen but I might not have the appreciation for it that I do now if I had heard about it all my life.

This is such old news. You haven't been in evangelical Christianity for decades, obviously. The idea of the need to be faithful and being answerable to the Lord is everywhere. And you don't need Lee's convoluted kingdom narrative to get the point across.

Lee didn't invent the idea of accountability and he certainly didn't popularize it. No church I know of teaches "free ticket to heaven, live as you please." It's a red herring. And it's dishonest or at least ignorant to continue to act like Christianity sanctions such an idea.

[Cassidy]

Originally Posted by Igzy

This is such old news. You haven't been in evangelical Christianity for decades, obviously. The idea of the need to be faithful and being answerable to the Lord is everywhere. And you don't need Lee's convoluted kingdom narrative to get the point across.

Lee didn't invent the idea of accountability and he certainly didn't popularize it. No church I know of teaches "free ticket to heaven, live as you please." It's a red herring. And it's dishonest or at least ignorant to continue to act like Christianity sanctions such an idea.

No church teaches it but people live it and I have heard them say it. A preacher in fact who fit that description of living like the Devil.

I have attempted an answer to your every objection and to provide you the scriptural and experiential basis for my beliefs. In response, you have merely rejected them without providing a scriptural basis and presentation of your own. I can go along with that for a time yet, now you are casting dispersions on my truthfulness and intelligence and once we enter that phase there is nothing I can say that will satisfy you.

So thanks for the dialogue.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by Cassidy

I have attempted and answer to your every objection and to provide you the scriptural and experiential basis for my beliefs. In response, you have merely rejected them without providing a scriptural basis and presentation of your own. I can go along with that for a time yet, now you are casting dispersions on my truthfulness and intelligence and once we enter that phase there is nothing I can say that will satisfy you.

So thanks for the dialogue.

Your problem plain and simple, Cassidy, is that you can't accept the possibility that you might be wrong. So when someone challenges your beliefs too effectively you go into a shell and either say you answered the challenges (you haven't), or that the person didn't refer to scripture (I have), or that they called you names, like "prevaricating" (be honest and upfront and that won't happen).

The thing is you don't realize how deceived you are. You don't see it. But your fruit manifests it. Everyone here sees it. But you ignore their feedback. Because you can't and won't deal with the possibility that the problem is you and the way you think.

The Bible calls that a "stronghold."

[Cal]

Here's my challenge to you, Cassidy. Spend 10 minutes a day for the next 60 days praying sincerely and openly to the Lord that he would make you clear about Lee and his teachings and your relationship to them. I'm talking about sincere and desperate prayer. Put everything on the table. Ask about all the doctrines. Ask the Lord to correct you where you need correction in your thinking and outlook. Ask him to break down strongholds.

You know, I asked an LCer one time to do that and you know what he said? He said, "I don't need to pray."

How about you? Check back with me in 60 days. You've been challenged.

[awareness]

Originally Posted by Igzy

Here's my challenge to you, Cassidy. Spend 10 minutes a day for the next 60 days praying sincerely and openly to the Lord that he would make you clear about Lee and his teachings and your relationship to them. I'm talking about sincere and desperate prayer. Put everything on the table. Ask about all the doctrines. Ask the Lord to correct you where you need correction in your thinking and outlook. Ask him to break down strongholds.

You know, I asked an LCer one time to do that and you know what he said? He said, "I don't need to pray."

How about you? Check back with me in 60 days. You've been challenged.

Cassidy, free your mind, become a critical thinker on your own. Don't let others do your thinking for you, especially Witness Lee and the Blendeds.

That's where the prayer will lead you anyway.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by awareness

Cassidy, free your mind, become a critical thinker on your own. Don't let others do your thinking for you, especially Witness Lee and the Blendeds.

That's where the prayer will lead you anyway.

That's right. Prayer leads you to your own unique knowing of the Lord. And that's how you get the "new name, which no one knows but him who receives it." (Rev 2:17).

Being a Lee clone doesn't lead to a name which only you know. It leads to your name being Lee, and everyone knowing it

[aron]

Originally Posted by Cassidy

I saw this in the Baptist church too. Assured of eternal salvation many I knew lived like the Devil. I wasn't regenerated at the time but knew that something was not right about that..

I remember going to a Baptist meeting and the sermon was on "The wages of sin is death", and I had the realization that they preached some variation of this sermon every Sunday. Although as an evangelical Protestant fundamentalist the message seemed right and true to me, it also seemed static. But they had to keep coming back to it, week after week, to keep the faithful from "living like the Devil", as you put it. Every week you are fixated on Square One. The gospel consists of "Repent and be saved". The rest of the journey isn't shown very well, if at all. No wonder the children leave! The world and the flesh are calling, and the mind only has "See Spot run" to work with, and the heart is bored. So they leave.

After regeneration I gravitated to the Arminian persuasion where one could lose their eternal salvation if they lived liked the Devil. Depends on what condition they were in at the moment they died (i.e. did they die in an automobile because they were drunk at the wheel). But that seemed to oppose scripture which assured salvation based on faith and belief. Whenever I sinned my belief in Jesus did not change, so that did not feel right either...

The assurance comes from God's work, not from ours. I also recognized the uncertainty of the Arminian position. But I could not deny that the level of "the living testimony", on the whole, was better than most everywhere else. It seems that fear is a good motivator. "Fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom."

When I first heard the teaching on the kingdom I started realizing the synchronization of the scriptures for the first time based on these two views having lived in both camps. I had an epiphany at some point when everything fell in place and I could see both viewpoints had part of the truth but not enough to explain the other side... I knew that the kingdom was not just a doctrine, that reconciled these major viewpoints, but a reality to be lived out...

Yes; for that I am grateful for that attempt at reconciliation, and harmonization. My complaint(s) for the LSM's version of "the kingdom" is that it is so insufficient. The idea is important; the Epistle to the Hebrews' lengthy reference to Exodus makes that clear.

Youth is wasted on the young so they say. I wish I had the revelation of the kingdom as a teen but I might not have the appreciation for it that I do now if I had heard about it all my life.

My sample size is small, since I only visited one local church; therefore my observations may not have broad applicability. But while there I was struck by the dearth of all the children whom I'd known ten years earlier. Where were all the young adults? And I have also noted this trend elsewhere in the Protestant fold. The young people get a message that may have had some resonance in the 19th century or even into the 1960s, but its drawing power, and importantly it's holding power, has diminished exponentially over time. They get an antiquated, static, museum-style message which can't overcome the barrage of stimuli from the world they live in.

In order to "overcome" they try what the Catholics did, which was become priests and monks and nuns. Only today they call them "campus workers" and "serving ones" and "full-timers". By an abundance of work you might cross some invisible line, be pleasing to God, and be an "overcomer".

Of course they won't say this: they'll say that you need a relationship with Jesus Christ, etc etc. But when I don't see any young people there, only hear of a few who are "serving the ministry" abroad, it makes me feel that this message of the kingdom is not working at all.