Third John, verses 9-10, a person named Diotrephes is written of there. Witness Lee was like him.
v9. I wrote something to the church; but Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them, does not accept what we say.
v10. For this reason, if I come, I will call attention to his deeds which he does, unjustly accusing us with wicked words; and not satisfied with this, neither does he himself receive the brethren, and he forbids those who desire to do so and puts them out of the church. (NAS)
Diotrephes held to this kind of attitude and practice on a local level. Witness Lee did the same thing on a global level. Diotrephes no doubt felt that he had the best way for the church to go on where he was. He was totally self-sufficient and didn't feel he needed any help from other brothers. He felt so strongly about this that he was willing to even physically hinder them. In this way, he kept the church where he was in the way of a cult, just following him alone. By keeping them from outside influence, he could be sure that no one would question his teaching and practice. A deceiver is always afraid of the truth.
Witness Lee did the same thing on a global level, and had no thought to follow the way of Watchman Nee. He felt that he had the unique vision for how the church was to go on. He even declared his teaching of church practice to be the "God-ordained way." Having such an attitude, he was never open to any servant of the Lord who held even a slightly different view to his. He discouraged his followers from reading anyone else, and used tremendous pressure to see to it that all the Local Churches read only the materials printed by the Living Stream Ministry. They even monitor the sales level of Living Stream Ministry books in the Local Churches to determine how their members are doing.
T Austin-Sparks, from England, had been a mentor to Watchman Nee, and Nee did not segregate himself from Austin-Sparks. However, once Nee was imprisoned and Lee was "running the show", he successfully cut Austin-Sparks off from those that were following him (Lee).
Lee's history is that his ministry mixes with other ministries like water and oil. He purposed it that way. Even until today, if any one in any of the Local Churches tries to introduce any other writings into the meetings, they are rejected outright, and labeled as divisive or poisoned. This recently happened in the Local Church in Bellevue, Washington. So strong was rejection by the leadership there that they sent out a letter to all of the other Local Churches stating their "problem" and reaffirming their resolve to "having only one publication (Witness Lee Elders Training, Bk. 8, pg. 161-164)."
By this quote from that letter you can see that Lee even trained the elders in his Local Churches to be the same way that he was.
The Local Churches' effort to tie themselves to Watchman Nee is FRAUDULENT. Watchman Nee would never have ascribed to the teaching and practice of Witness Lee in his exclusivism. It was not until Watchman Nee was securely locked away in a Chinese Communist prison, that Witness Lee began to show his true dictatorial tendencies. Of course, Watchman Nee was never able to testify as to whether or not he would have agreed. We just have to take Witness Lee's word for it - right? However, there are scores of elderly saints who knew Watchman Nee, who can tell you that what they see in the Local Church today, bears no resemblance to what was raised up under the ministry of Watchman Nee.
The Local Church is very crafty and subtle in their methods of "catching" (their own term) people for their group. Please be careful, and run the other way.
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