When I was saved, all the pastors and ministers were happy to use the word denomination. Then the Lord raised us up to condemn the denominations, and the pastors and ministers stopped using this term. Although they no longer used the term denomination, they still held on to the different names. Do you realize that every name is a division? Every denomination, every naming, is a division. Do not say that our name is "the local church." We do not have a name. The moon, for example, has no name; it is just the moon. We should simply call the moon "moon." Some people have said that the American moon is brighter than the Chinese moon. But there is no such thing as an American moon or a Chinese moon. The most you can say is the moon in America or the moon in China. It is one moon. There is only the one moon. Likewise, the church is simply the church. The term "local church" is not our name; it is the designation of our nature. We are not the divisive and divided so-called churches; we are the church in a locality. Thus the term "local church" denotes our nature; it is not our name. Do not consider "the local church" as a name. The most we can say is the church in a certain locality, such as the church in Los Angeles, the church in Anaheim, etc.

There is no king in a family. The head of the family is not a king. When you differ in your opinion or expression, you still do not have a king. When you divide the land, there probably is still no king. However, once you become denominated and become a nation, you acquire a king and you are divided immediately. Originally, unity was based upon one God and one goal and division was caused by many different worships, even worships of different objects with different interests and purposes. Eventually families were formed, language was expressed, the land was divided into territories, and the nations, or we may say the denominations, were formed. The result was division. If you look into the history of Christianity, you will see that it was divided in precisely this way.

During the 1930's I spoke a great deal on this matter of denominations. One day, upon returning to my hometown after a period of absence, some friends invited me to feast with a number of older Christian leaders who knew me quite well. When I went there, I discovered that I, a man of a little over thirty years of age, was surrounded by a group of old men, each one being more than sixty years of age. One of them, taking the lead to speak to me, said, "Mr. Lee, in the past years in your preaching you have condemned the denominations. We wish to ask you why, since you have been preaching against the denominations, you yourself have formed another denomination?" They thought that they had already defeated me. I replied, "I am glad to be here with you all, for this is the best time for me to clear up this whole matter. The Apostle Paul rebuked the Corinthians for saying, 'I am of Apollos,' 'I am of Paul,' and 'I am of Cephas.' Some even said, 'I am of Christ.' The Apostle Paul rebuked all of those divisive persons at Corinth (1 Cor. 1:11-13). You all say that you are either Baptist, Presbyterian, or the Chinese Independent. Tell me from your sincere heart, if the Apostle Paul were here, would you be approved by the Apostle Paul?" They said, "No. Of course, Paul would never approve us." They were honest. They had to be honest because I had pinned them down already. Then I continued, "Since you agree that it is not right to say, 'I am Baptist' or 'I am Presbyterian,' then where do you put me? Will you put me in your Presbyterian denomination, or in your Baptist or Chinese Independent?" They said, "We don't put you anywhere." Then I said, "But you have to put me somewhere. Shouldn't I stay somewhere?" They were shocked. Then I proceeded, "By the Lord's mercy and grace, I surely love Him. Since I love Him, I must preach the gospel to the unbelievers. Many have been saved through my preaching. Where shall I put them? To which denomination shall I send them—to the Baptist, Presbyterian, the Chinese Independent?" They had nothing to say. Then I said, "Do you see the situation? Now do you see why on the one hand I preach against divisions and why on the other hand, it seems to you that I form another division? We need to come together. We are not one with you because you force us into not being one with you. Now if you promise me that from tomorrow you will take down all of your signs and forget about all your different names, then I promise you that I will have fellowship with all the brothers tonight and that we will close our meeting hall immediately. Then we can come together as one church in this city. How about this?" At this point, they said, "No, we can't do this." I concluded, "Since you will not do this, then who is responsible for the divisions?" After that night until the day I left mainland China, none of them bothered me again. They had lost the case in the heavenly court. They wanted to keep their divisive, denominational names. Some wanted to say, "We are the Chinese Independent. Nothing is better than this." Others would say, "We are third generation Presbyterians. How can we renounce this name?" Still others wanted to say, "We are Baptists. The Baptists are much better than Presbyterians. They only have sprinkling, which is not right, but we have immersion." We are all familiar with this kind of fighting.

When we came over to the island of Taiwan, the Lord blessed the work. We increased in number from less than five hundred to more than twenty thousand. During a ten-day conference in Taipei in 1957, I gave at least thirty messages on the ground of unity. After those ten days, all the elders felt that we should contact some of the leading free groups in the city of Taipei. There were at least two or three groups claiming to be nonsectarian or nondenominational, simply meeting in the name of the Lord. At first, we sent two or three elders to visit these groups to have a thorough talk with them regarding the unity among the saints. Then we invited each of the groups to send some of their leaders to meet with us. When we all came together, we said to them, "Brothers, perhaps you are thinking that since we are so great in number compared with you, we will maneuver the situation. Be at peace. We have a sincere heart in talking with you. We mean business for the Lord's recovery and for the genuine unity of the Body. We are willing to resign from the eldership and allow you brothers to be the elders. We are willing to put all the properties of all the meeting halls into your hands. Furthermore, we are willing to hold a conference to tell all the saints to be one with you and to be submissive to you all. We promise you this and we are even willing to put it in writing and sign it." They were pinned down immediately. Then they said, "Brothers, we appreciate your sincerity, but we still want to be by ourselves." The leaders of each group said the same thing. We learned from this that they did not want to be one. Why were they unwilling to be one? Because they enjoyed having their own little empires, their own little nations.