The Present State of the Lord’s Testimony (Part 1): From the Plymouth Brethren to Watchman Nee

It’s about 1820, in a town called Plymouth, and two men are holding forth. They have preached the greatest messages ever preached. You have heard of them, whether you know it or not, and if you have ever lived outside the institutional church anywhere, you have heard those messages. Where are you, Mike Broadie? Will you please raise your hand? Mike, they are what you and I heard, updated. They preached about the church, and then turned right around and denied its existence, totally. They preached on the cross, and they preached on the cross, and they preached on the cross, and they preached on the cross, and they never practiced it. I said to brother Bob yesterday, and I’ll say it again: scratch one of them and they’ll rip you to shreds.

We’re going to keep going here. I’m talking about the Plymouth Brethren; I haven’t even warmed up. I’ve been told that they’ve divided more than any other denomination on the face of the earth. They fought with one another like cats and dogs. The cruelty that they have shown toward one another is unspeakable. The damage that they have inflicted on one another is unspeakable, and the carnage that they have wrecked upon the kingdom of God is at least undeniable. John W. Kennedy’s book ends by saying essentially what Bob said: they were standing in line to excommunicate one another. It is the craziest story. It was a battle between Newton and the Newtonites, and the Darbyites, with all sorts of people over here whose names are legendary. I’m not going to bother talking about them. I do think you would be wise to get that book and read the last chapter.

Isn’t it crazy? They tell me that John Darby, before he died, said the most godly man I ever knew in my life was Newton. Make sense of that; Newton was excommunicated. That’s not what they did that was so terrible. What they did, for the first time, was to introduce gimmicks and sleight of hand into the kingdom of God. You want to hear it? First of all, I want to go back to this thing of preaching so beautifully about the true church, then turning around and denying it. John Darby and those others preached on the church and then turned around and said there are seven dispensations of the church, and the last one, the seventh one, is the age of the Laodiceans, which is an apostate church that cannot be redeemed, and God is through with the church. The brethren don’t believe the church can be helped in any way. It is forever in an apostate state. That teaching has gotten into institutional Christianity, and it is the very reason why you will not find the church being stood for by men and women in this generation, because the aroma of that teaching still exists. The church is the way it is, and we’ll go on with it. No effort whatsoever to go back to first things. Now that’s saying the church, and taking away the church.

Now they brought in something else, and that was a teaching of the Philadelphia church, which was the, somebody tell me what number is the Philadelphia church. It’s the sixth. I thought it was, but that’s a little late to be having a Philadelphia church. Okay. So, we are going to be the Philadelphia church, the church of brotherly love. Well, they never made the church of brotherly love. Now, here are their gimmicks. One, we have never read anything or studied anything from anybody. We have read only the word of God. That’s a lie. They had influence everywhere, but they used it to bring people into the Brethren, and they are still using it today. People are still joining them because of that. They have a term, and if you ever hear that term, you run as fast as you can. We only teach the pure word of God. Well, my personal experience is that they don’t even get close to the pure word of God. I apologize, but this sword is about to be sheathed, and just before it is, it’s going to speak as to the present status of God’s testimony on this earth. Furthermore, I have earned this right.

Now, when they began doing that, and people began noticing they were growing, then I give you a principle: anytime anyone does anything successful in the Christian religion, somebody else is going to mimic it because it works. At the same time, we see the birth of Pentecostalism. It’s hard to set a date for the birth of Pentecostalism worldwide, but I want to speak to my resident historian here, brother Matt. Would I be correct in saying it more or less began with the Welsh revival? Thank you, Matt’s really gracious. He’s British, you know. So, they came up with some gimmicks, too. One of them is: God wants to restore the gifts. Look at me; look at how old I am, and people still try this on me: what God wants to do is restore the gifts. Well, I’ll tell you something, folks. I’d rather see him restore the church, not healing and power and all of these things.

In the United States, back in the early part of the 20th century, there was a place called Bonnie Brae, and they moved to Azusa Street, so we hear about the Azusa Street revival. I want to give a brief interpretation of Gene Edwards’s account of what happened on Azusa Street. What really happened at Azusa Street is a book. I will tell you what I think happened at Azusa Street: I think those people began experiencing church life, and blamed it on tongues. Read the story sometime and see if it’s not as clear as it can be. Those people began to understand the experience of the church, and then they turned it into the Pentecostal movement. Many Pentecostals believe they’re part of non-institutional Christianity, but I could not name one on this earth today. There came into our country out of the Azusa revival, the Pentecostal revival, something called the “latter rain”. Has anybody here ever heard of it? You’ve heard of it. The latter rain, I believe, founded the Rema Bible school in some place. Is that correct? That is correct. Okay. It still exists.

Out of the latter rain, which was really going, folks, that thing was plowing up the earth; that was exciting. I’ve never been in the latter rain, but I saw one of their meetings when I was a young kid. Wow! Out of that came Sam Fife and The Move. Now, here’s what Sam did…Lord, are you going to forgive me for doing this to God’s people? Forgive me, Lord, but I’m going to put it on record, even if it costs my life…it’s going to cost my life anyway.

We’ve come to the latter rain, and we are the overcomers. Number one, we, The Move, are the overcomers. Two, if we live righteous lives, we will live forever and not die. Now, I think most of you have never heard of that one. A lot of you never even heard of that. Well, then you see how far behind you are. I want to poke fun at Sam Fife by saying he died…but that’s not fair…he was killed in an airplane crash, so I don’t know if that was part of their theology or not.

The Brethren and The Move. I’m sorry, we need to go back to the Brethren again. The Brethren came up with the doctrine of the overcomers, and we are the overcomers, and they spread that thing all over the world. What’s the recovery? Who are the overcomers? That’s the people who get back to the pure word of God. These are people who experience what God teaches in this world, and they attach to that the theology of John Darby. If you don’t accept John Darby’s teaching, you are not an overcomer, and you cannot be.

Then, The Move said, “We are the overcomers.” Both groups taught something called “The Ground of Unity”. To be one together and to receive one another regardless of denominational differences. That is an absolute, I will use the strongest word that I have, a rape…a rape of that teaching. They taught it. They still speak it. They still teach it, and they still excommunicate one another on the basis of John Darby’s teachings. Now that’s not “a ground of unity”. The ground of unity was Christ and Christ alone. So, the Pentecostals began to notice a lot of things that worked, and a lot of other people began noticing a lot of things that work with the Brethren, and all these things got disseminated, with some of it going this way and some of it going this way.

Now, in the Pentecostal world, there’s a brother still alive, and I’m very reluctant to tell this, but I don’t have any criticism of this brother, who actually is the fountain head of the present mess of anybody who is in the Pentecostal movement who claims that they’re outside the institutional church, and this is what God is doing. He was an evangelist, and he had a tent as big as all get-out. He would preach and heal people, and he needed money, so he came up with an idea: if you would give, God would give you more. It was something about sowing a seed of faith: you give $100, that’s your faith, and God will give you back $150 or $200. Well, the Pentecostal preachers looked at that and said, “Wow.” Then the Pentecostal television evangelists said, “That’s a WowWee”. I do not know where this positive thing came from; I have no idea, the positive gospel. There is no cross; Christ did all the suffering. Everything in the New Testament is positive. Everything is wonderful and glorious, and if anything goes wrong, you don’t have enough faith, and the devil did it. It’s a very simple theology, and it’s growing like weeds, and I don’t personally care because that’s not my world; that’s not what this sword was charged with, those gimmicks.

Then another one came up: “What is your gift?” Well, we have got a sister here with some burned fingers. So, we got books on figuring out your gift, little charts and checklists, and all that. I will speak of “The Gospel Outreach” by name because it no longer exists. Gospel Outreach and Calvary Chapel were the two big things that came out of the Jesus movement, and Calvary Chapel has grown into a large…and I’m not saying this; I’m saying I respect Calvary Chapel. I really do. They have…they’ve been decent people. The gentleman who was with Gospel Outreach moved into a town, and they would say…and this all grew out of “the ground of unity” … that, according to John 17, God wants us to be one, and here we are, a group of Christians, and you’re a little group over there, and you come join with us, we’ll join with you and we’ll restore oneness. Gimmick. The whole gospel outreach movement was built on a lie. You come be with us, said the spider to the fly, said the wolf to the lamb.