Some people criticize us, saying, “You think that you are special and that others cannot compare to you. By so doing, you have a narrow view that limits the Lord’s move. This is similar to Peter before he went to the house of Cornelius. At that time he was limited by his Jewish concept. Today you say that everyone must come to the local church. This limits the Lord’s work.” However, in reality, paying attention to the ground of the church does not limit the Lord’s work; rather, it becomes a great limitation to man’s naturalness and flesh. Any kind of correction is a great restriction and limitation to man. The truth concerning the ground of the church strongly corrects the various situations within Christianity today. We deeply sense that this truth advances God’s work while greatly restricting the move carried out by man’s naturalness and flesh.
We do not agree that the ground of the church limits the work. If all of God’s children came to the local ground, what kind of a spread would God’s work have? We do not mean that God works only on the ground of locality. Rather, as we have said repeatedly, God works on many different grounds. He has carried out a considerable amount of work even in the Catholic Church, whose ground is full of fornication and idolatry. When we read the history of the Catholic Church, we see that a great deal of God’s work has been carried out by it. Even today the piety found in the Catholic Church is something rarely found in today’s Protestant churches. God does work in their midst. People must acknowledge that God works in the midst of the Catholic Church.
The reason we speak of returning to the local ground is that we want people to see God’s desire to gain a ground on the earth for a pure testimony. This is a matter not of control but of preservation. Whom does this ground control? God’s people stayed in Babylon not because they wanted to but because they were taken captive. Today, now that the time of captivity has been fulfilled, everyone should return. Sadly, few desire to return to Jerusalem, the ground of locality. It would not be considered a matter of control for someone to have said, “Brothers, since we are God’s people, we should return to Jerusalem.” To regard such a declaration as control is either a misunderstanding or a matter of prejudice.
Nevertheless, we acknowledge that our brothers are scattered onto all kinds of different grounds. Hence, some people have asked, “According to the truth you preach, if we return to the local ground of the church in order to worship and serve together, should we have absolutely no contact or fellowship with those on other grounds and no union with them in their work?” With regard to this question, we need to answer it according to two aspects. The first aspect is concerning fellowship. If you fellowship in the Lord with individual saints, it is absolutely proper and acceptable; however, if you have any involvement with a work or organization that is not on the ground, we believe that such involvement is wrong. This is because the difference in grounds will eventually create great problems, even unto the tearing down of God’s building.
The second aspect is concerning the work. We have had much consideration regarding whether or not we should work or preach on a different ground. Both Daniel and Ezekiel were prophets in the land of captivity. They were not in Jerusalem but in the land of captivity; nevertheless, both had a ministry raised up by God. Hence, we need to ask, “What was their ministry?” As prophets doing the work of God, they told the people that Babylon was not the proper place and that, as God’s people, they should return to Jerusalem. According to this principle, when we go to preach on a different ground, our basic attitude should be, “I come here to speak Christ and the word of God to you, but you are on a ground that is not proper and is condemned by God. You should return to Jerusalem.” If your preaching is a different kind of preaching that strengthens and solidifies their ground, not only will we say that this is not right, but everyone else will also say that this is not right.
In the end, we can only say that the matter of serving on a different ground is something that should be decided by each person according to his own conscience; this is altogether a matter of a person’s enlightenment. Some people have a conscience enlightened to the extent that they dare not and cannot do a work on a different ground. As an illustration, when a person comes to another’s house for a meal, he may not dare to eat the food after seeing the mess in the kitchen. This is because he has received a strong light regarding hygiene. In contrast, other people simply do not care. Hence, we do not want to control; rather, each one should live before the Lord with a pure conscience according to the light that he has received.