The prerequisite, however, in responsibility, in the eldership, in the leadership, is pureness. The coordination needs pureness. If you are short of this, regardless of how careful you are, you will have trouble again and again. In the church life, things are always happening. If you are not pure in your motive, you will be entangled either by this trouble or by the next one. It is unavoidable. By the same token, if you are pure, no trouble will entangle you.
Many times our seeming patience comes from impurity. We wait and do not take action because we are afraid of offending others. I don’t mean that we should be rude or careless. But pureness is a basic factor. It kills all the germs. If you check with the elders of the church in Anaheim here, I believe they will all agree that, whatever I do, whether I am happy or not happy, they never doubt my motive. They do not doubt my motive, and I do not doubt theirs because we have a mutual history over many years. We have known each other for a long time. Thus, we can save much time and trouble in the way we do things and still not have misunderstanding.
Do you know where misunderstanding comes from? Often its source is impureness. A husband and wife who truly love each other without impureness may quarrel and have disagreements, yet without misunderstanding. Once some impureness comes in, however, there is one misunderstanding after another. They may try to be careful, patient, and wise, but the misunderstandings will continue because of the impureness.
To offend others comes from the flesh. Fear of offending others is also of the flesh. In the world, say, in a corporation, people are very careful not to offend each other, because the world is filled with impurity. If this is true of the church also, we are no more the church. In the church there should be nothing but pureness in every avenue, every corner.
It is when we are impure that we become suspicious. We become detectives to spy out the meaning behind what others say. If we are pure in our motive, we do not have such a thought. We are on another globe, taking others’ words in a simple way.
I have heard that some brothers notice things happening that are not right, but they dare not say anything. To avoid getting involved, they stay silent and let the suffering go on. To do this is to play politics. This is what some of you have been practicing. Dear brothers, change your mind. Repent. Let us have no more such thing.
You think someone has secretly reported to Brother Lee about you. Actually, I have not received any such report. There is a demon in your thinking, because you are doing something which you hope Brother Lee will not find out about. No one gave me any information, but under the Lord’s sovereignty I stepped in just to say that from today we will do things that way no more. Because my correction was exactly right, you thought someone had given me secret information about you. Such was not the case. The Lord Jesus Himself gave me the word to come to your meeting to correct certain things in principle.
If you are in this meeting tonight with an impure heart, you may think that what I am saying is the result of reports I have been given. You may think that a certain remark specifically applies to you, because it fits your situation exactly. If no one had reported you, how could I have known about it?
Well, what I am sharing with you I wrote down six days ago. I listed the points that I wanted to cover. After our last meeting, I wrote them all down, because I realized that, now I am getting older, I would not remember the points without notes. From this it should be clear to you that what I am saying is not because of reports I have received.
Learn to be pure. This is not a small thing. Now that the Chinese-speaking meeting has started, all these frogs from the depths of the well have come to the surface. Surely if you don’t condemn those things, the blessing will be gone. Such suspicious thoughts will kill your service. If you wonder how I can keep going on, I would say it is because I have no such way. You all know my frankness. If you are pure, there is no need to be afraid of anything. Pureness is a basic condition of our service.