Later, there was a second split among them. This division was between the so-called closed Brethren and the open Brethren. George Muller was one of the leading brothers among the Brethren. He was a real man of God. He was called the king of faith in the nineteenth century. He was so much with the Lord, but there was a big discrepancy between his understanding and Darby's realization. Darby and his followers insisted on not accepting any Christian who was still joined to a denomination. They considered all denominations as sin, evil. Thus, in their eyes, regardless of how good or spiritual a person was, as long as he remained in a denomination, he was considered by them as a companion of this evil. They considered a Christian in a denomination as an evil companion, and they would not receive him. George Muller, however, said that this was not fair. He said that many dear saints who were involved with the denominations were still very close to the Lord. He maintained that these believers could not be rejected and that they had to be received. This was the discrepancy between Darby and Muller, which led to another division among the Brethren. Thus, by this time there were three main groups among the Brethren—Benjamin Newton's group, the closed Brethren, and the open Brethren. The so-called Plymouth Brethren in this country mainly refers to the open Brethren. Within ninety years after the formation of the Brethren in 1828, they were divided into over one hundred divisions. Today there are all kinds of divisions among the Brethren. I was told by one sister among them that one group of Brethren was divided over whether or not to have an organ in their meetings.

Saints throughout the church's history have had different kinds of concepts concerning the rapture. Some believed in pre-tribulation rapture, others believed in post-tribulation rapture, and still others believed in a partial rapture, which takes place before and after the great tribulation. Forty years ago, I spent much time to study which school was the most scriptural. At that time Brother Nee gave us a number of messages on the truth concerning the rapture. He gave us a list of well-known believers who were found in all three schools of truth concerning the rapture. J.N. Darby, William Kelly, R.A. Torrey, Phillips Brooks, James Gray, Arno C. Gaebelein, J.A. Seiss, D.L. Moody, and C.I. Scofield are some of those who believed in pre-tribulation rapture. George Muller, A.J. Gordon, A.B. Simpson, W.J. Erdman, W.G. Moorehead, Henry Frost, James Wright, and Benjamin Newton believed in post-tribulation rapture. Hudson Taylor, Robert Chapman, Robert Govett, D.M. Panton, G.H. Pember, and Paul Rader believed in the rapture of the overcomers, which is called the partial rapture, or the mid-tribulation rapture. Paul Rader was the successor of R.A. Torrey in the Moody Memorial Church of Chicago. The doctrinal differences among the saints concerning the truth of the rapture caused much division.

Although the beginning of the divisions among the Brethren started over a disagreement concerning the rapture, the truths that were revealed to them greatly benefited all of the Lord's children. I would say that over ninety percent of the theology of fundamental Christianity came from the teaching of the Brethren. In the United States, many fundamental seminaries use the teachings of C.I. Scofield. Dr. Scofield was a great scholar and a student of the Brethren. Nearly ninety percent of what he wrote in his reference Bible and his Bible correspondence course was adopted from Brethren teaching. D.L. Moody said that if all the books in the entire world were to be burned, he would be satisfied to have a copy of the Bible and a copy of C.H. Mackintosh's notes on the Pentateuch. C.H. Mackintosh was a great teacher among the Brethren. Regardless of whether the fundamental denominations agreed with the Brethren move or not, their fundamental teaching was very much influenced by the Brethren teaching. In a sense, the Brethren teaching helped the so-called church, but in another sense, these teachings issued in divisions. The move among the Brethren at the beginning was really marvelous. This was a golden time that was a great help to the church life. Many spiritual, seeking Christians agree that this may have been the beginning of the fulfillment of the prophecy in the Lord's epistle to the church in Philadelphia in Revelation 3. However, due to the Brethren's overemphasis on doctrines, they were divided again and again.