We have to realize that our history is not that of an organization or of a movement. It is a history of the Lord's recovery. A recovery is the restoration or return to a normal condition after degradation, damage, or loss. The Lord's recovery brings us back to the beginning to have the proper church life. In the early days of the Lord's recovery in China, the Lord showed us the wrongdoings of Christendom, on the negative side, and the church, on the positive side.
It has been very difficult for us to fully come out of the old and unscriptural practices and concepts in Christendom. Christendom has been on earth for hundreds of years. It bears the name of Christ, it holds the Holy Scriptures, and it preaches the Lord Jesus as the Savior. These three items are positive, but Christendom is a mixture of these positive things with things other than Christ.
According to the book of Revelation, Christendom is the great prostitute and is called "Babylon the Great, The Mother of the Prostitutes and the Abominations of the Earth" (17:5). This evil woman is seen holding "a golden cup full of abominations and the unclean things of her fornication" (v. 4). In typology gold signifies something divine, something of God. This means that the apostate church has something of God in outward appearance, but within her golden cup are idolatry, pagan practices, and satanic things in a heretical, religious relationship. Christendom holds something divine, but there is a devilish element within it.
This was predicted by the Lord Jesus in Matthew 13. In this chapter the Lord said, "The kingdom of the heavens is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened" (v. 33). Meal for making the meal offering signifies Christ as food to both God and man. Leaven in the Scriptures signifies evil things (1 Cor. 5:6, 8) and evil doctrines (Matt. 16:6, 11-12). Fallen, degraded Christendom is a mixture of leaven with fine flour.
Christendom has a devilish element, but it still holds something divine. It holds a golden cup, but within the cup are abominations and unclean things related to spiritual fornication. The golden cup is the outward appearance, but the inward reality is abominable. It is easy for people to realize the outward appearance, but it is difficult to realize the inward reality. The appearance is divine, but the reality is devilish. Because Christendom is a mixture, when one gets the fine flour, he also gets the leaven because these two have become one. This is why it has been difficult for us to fully come out of Christendom.