O Lord Three Times
The False Gospel of Witness Lee
On the one hand, when Recovery members preach the gospel to outsiders, they can and do preach the gospel according to the gospel of the Bible, which is the gospel. I can speak to this from personal experience.
But on the other hand, Recovery members sometimes preach a false gospel that cannot save. One of those false gospels is the “O Lord Three Times” gospel:
We have seen that to reach the unbelievers, no preaching is necessary. If we help them to say “O Lord” three times, they will be saved. If they open the window, the air will get in. All they have to do is to open their mouth and say, “O Lord, O Lord.” Even if they have no intention of believing, still they will be caught. Regardless of whether they have the intention or not, as long as they open the window, the air will get in.
Witness Lee, The Seven Spirits for the Local Churches, Chapter 5, Section 2 (Emboldened Emphasis My Own)
This is a false gospel that cannot save. Since a false gospel does not come from the one true God, a false gospel does not serve God; it serves a false god; it serves nothing. The O Lord Three Times gospel has nothing to do with Jesus or God. To put His name on it is meaningless. It is a false gospel preached by Witness Lee, serving a god that doesn’t exist.
To be clear, here are my direct contentions with Witness Lee’s O Lord Three Times gospel:
- To reach unbelievers, preaching is essential (Romans 10:14).
- Saying “O Lord” three times for salvation is a made up idea.
- Confessing the Lord’s name (which is Jesus, not just “Lord”) must be paired with belief (Romans 10:9-12).
- Saying “O Lord” three times does not open some mystical window in unsaved people. Again, this is made up.
The Bible: Believe and Confess
Take a look at Romans 10:9-12
9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
11 For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.”
12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.
Romans 10:9-12 (ESV)
Romans 10:9 makes it clear that you will be saved if you do the following two things:
- Confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and
- believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead.
Romans 10:10 gives us the reason for those two things being qualifiers for being saved:
- The heart is the internal part of you with which you believe God raised Jesus from the dead and are thus justified and
- the mouth is the external part of you which you use to confess Jesus as Lord and are saved!
Then Romans 10:11-12, once again, talks about belief with the heart and confession with the mouth:
- Romans 10:11 talks about those who believe not being put to shame and
- Romans 10:12 talks about the Lord being the same Lord of all who call upon Him.
Finally, Romans 10:13 says:
For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Romans 10:13 (ESV)
If this last verse is taken out of context, someone might conclude that an unsaved person just needs to call Jesus’ name to be saved. But if you read the preceding verses, it’s obvious that calling on Jesus’ name is confessing His name, which is just one part of salvation.
The Bible: Preaching and Hearing Required
Romans 10:14 says the following:
14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
Romans 10:14 (ESV)
Witness Lee’s O Lord Three Times gospel asserts that no preaching is necessary. The Bible asserts that it is:
17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
Romans 10:17 (ESV)
The Bible tells us that faith comes from hearing through the word of Christ, that an unsaved person cannot believe until they’ve heard the gospel, that an unsaved person cannot hear the gospel unless someone preaches it.
Conclusion: O Lord Three Times is a False Gospel
Leading an unsaved person to say “O Lord” three times will do nothing. It has no biblical standing, and it is a false gospel that does not come from God. Unless the Recovery as a movement repents of this gospel, the O Lord Three Times false gospel of Witness Lee is just another heretical doctrine within the Recovery that proves it is a Christian cult.
Do not forget the gospel consists not only of belief, it REQUIRES repentance. I have never heard the Recovery preach repentance,
Wyatt, thanks for pointing out that BIG omission in TLR Doctrine – the need for Repentance should always be a part of the Gospel message. Ironically TLR leaders actually will reach for the “R” word whenever a current/former member is found to be in violation of their commonly accepted “Group Think” guidelines! Here is one recent example: https://youtu.be/m89Jgd7ghwo
Amen. The gospel of easy-believism taught by the LC is dangerous. Along with repentance, someone’s faith has to persevere to the end to truly be saved (Matthew 24:13, Ezekiel 18:24, Hebrews 3:14, 2 Peter 2:20-22). From my own experience, I saw many in the LC from my own extended family lose their Christian faith and live like everyone else thinking they can still be saved after passing through 1000 year dispensational punishment. But actually, according to the bible, they were never saved to being with. If they knew what the bible truly teaches about salvation, some would actually try harder to get right with God (through the grace of God; works don’t justify us but are just evidence we are saved). I was one of those people.
Related testimony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IXMaFXAx1A&t=2389s
“You can go to church every week and still bust hell wide open”
I was there for over 20 years. You can see fruits on tree not after one day but after some period f time. I was honest and simply christian 30 years ago drawn by this ministry. The main idea they preach was unity of christians obove the division and different teaching. But after years I discovered that all this turned into simply cult. I know there is many honest brothers and sisters. But exactly this is how deceiving works. They offer techniques, practices and so called truths. They depersonifcated Lord Jesus and replaced Living God with other things. They do not teach about Holly Spirit but other spirit.
Jacob,
Your first quote from the book Seven Spirits is missing the context before and after. In that message, Witness Lee was talking about the work of the Seven Spirits of God and used an example of a SF hippy, who got saved during the meeting without being directly preached with any doctrines of gospel by anyone. The focus was on the wonderful work of the Seven Spirits rather than mere doctrines. I believe that the hippy must have heard the gospel about Jesus and his need to get saved during the Christian meeting he was in, without a particular preacher to use any doctrines to get him saved. And the hippy got saved and had a good testimony before his parent after going back to SF. The below quote is obviously related to a particular, personal experience of the hippy’s salvation only. Most unbelievers got saved after hearing the words of salvation directly from a preaching believer, but not without the work of the Holy Spirit, the Seven Spirits in Revelation. I was saved by following and reciting the prayer in a gospel track at home all by myself with no preaching believer sitting next to me. In my salvation experience, the Holy Spirit saved me and regenerated me directly with a gospel track. The hippy must have heard the gospel during the Christian meeting and turned to the Lord after the Holy Spirit convicted him to repent. This is the only logical conclusion one can come to.
The missing context in your first quote are the first sentence and the last sentence of the below.
” How was he (the SF hippy) caught by the Lord? It was not by preaching or teaching. It was just by touching the Spirit through calling on the Lord. This is really wonderful.
We have seen that to reach the unbelievers, no preaching is necessary. If we help them to say “O Lord” three times, they will be saved. If they open the window, the air will get in. All they have to do is to open their mouth and say, “O Lord, O Lord.” Even if they have no intention of believing, still they will be caught. Regardless of whether they have the intention or not, as long as they open the window, the air will get in. It is not a matter of teaching; it is a matter of touching the seven Spirits of God.”
Without hearing the gospel directly or indirectly, at the present or in the past, and without the work of the Holy Spirit in one’s heart, merely an outward act of calling the Lord Jesus three times would not get him saved. We all know this. Without the complete context in his message, what Lee said could be easily be misunderstood.
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The below is a copy of the most popular gospel track that the believers in the Lord’s Recovery use day-in-day-out to read to unbelievers and invite them to open their mouths call upon the name of the Lord Jesus and to pray before the Lord to accept Him as their personal Savior. Repentance and asking for forgiveness of sins are emphasized in the guided prayer under 5. Man’s Regeneration. The below is a copy-righted material by the LSM used by the believers widely in multiple languages worldwide to preach a scriptural gospel with every details as possible. I personally used the Mystery of Human Life gospel track dozens of dozens times for more than two decades, and many unbelievers got saved and repented to the Lord through the use of this gospel track. I still have more than 30 copies at home to read and give out to unbelievers today. This is one of the most long-lasted church practices among all the local churches worldwide. That said, using this gospel track to preach the gospel to unbelievers is not the only way that we preach the gospel to them.
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GOSPEL TRACK By Living Stream Ministry
The Mystery of Human Life
Have you ever wondered why you are living in this world
and what the purpose of your life is? There are six keys
that unlock this mystery.
1. God’s Plan
God desires to express Himself through man (Rom. 8:29).
For this purpose, He created man in His own image (Gen.
1:26). Just as a glove is made in the image of a hand to
contain a hand, so also man is made in the
image of God to contain God. By receiving
God as his content, man can express God
(2 Cor. 4:7).
2. Man
To fulfill His plan, God made man as a
vessel (Rom. 9:21-24). This vessel has three
parts: body, soul, and spirit (1 Thes. 5:23). The body contacts and receives the things of the physical realm. The
soul, the mental faculty, contacts and receives the things
of the psychological realm. And the human spirit, the
innermost part of man, was made to contact and receive
God Himself (John 4:24). Man was created not merely to
contain food in his stomach, or to contain knowledge in
his mind, but to contain God in his spirit (Eph. 5:18).
3. Man’s Fall
But before man could receive God as life into his spirit,
sin entered into him (Rom. 5:12). Sin deadened his spirit
(Eph. 2:1), made him an enemy of God in his mind (Col.
1:21), and transmuted his body into sinful flesh (Gen. 6:3;
Rom. 6:12). Thus, sin damaged all three parts of man,
alienating him from God. In this condition, man could
not receive God.
4. Christ’s Redemption for God’s Dispensing
Nevertheless, man’s fall did not deter God from fulfilling
His original plan. In order to accomplish His plan, God
first became a man called Jesus Christ (John 1:1, 14).
Then Christ died on the cross to redeem man (Eph. 1:7),
thus taking away his sin and bringing him back to God
(John 1:29; Eph. 2:13). Finally, in resurrection, He
became the life-giving Spirit so that He could dispense
His unsearchably rich life into man’s spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b;
John 20:22; 3:6).
Nevertheless, man’s fall did not deter God from fulfilling
His original plan. In order to accomplish His plan, God
first became a man called Jesus Christ (John 1:1, 14).
Then Christ died on the cross to redeem man (Eph. 1:7),
thus taking away his sin and bringing him back to God
(John 1:29; Eph. 2:13). Finally, in resurrection, He
became the life-giving Spirit so that He could dispense
His unsearchably rich life into man’s spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b;
John 20:22; 3:6).
5. Man’s Regeneration
Repentance and belief brings God into man.
Since Christ has become the life-giving Spirit, man can
now receive God’s life into his spirit. The Bible calls this
regeneration (1 Pet. 1:3; John 3:3). To receive this life,
man needs to repent to God and believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ (Acts 20:21; 16:31).
To be regenerated, simply come to the Lord with an open
and honest heart and say to Him:
Lord Jesus, I am a sinner.
I need You.
Thank You for dying for me.
Lord Jesus, forgive me.
Cleanse me from all my sins.
I believe You rose from the dead.
I receive You right now as my Savior and life.
Come into me! Fill me with Your life!
Lord Jesus, I give myself to You for Your purpose.
6. God’s Full Salvation
After regeneration, a believer needs to be baptized (Mark
16:16). Then God begins the lifelong process of gradually
spreading Himself as life from the believer’s spirit into his
soul (Eph. 3:17). This process, called transformation
(Rom. 12:2), requires human cooperation (Phil. 2:12).
The believer cooperates by allowing
the Lord to spread into his soul
until all his desires, thoughts, and
decisions become one with those
of Christ. Finally, at Christ’s return,
God will fully saturate the believer’s
body with His life. This is called
glorification (Phil. 3:21). Thus, instead of being empty
and damaged in each part, this man is filled and saturated
with the life of God. This is God’s full salvation! Such a
man expresses God and fulfills God’s plan!
© 1998 Living Stream Ministry
2431 W. La Palma Ave.
Anaheim, CA 92801
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Hope the above helps clarify the misunderstanding that you and other believers might have.
In Christ,
Stanley
Even with the missing context you have provided. It is still blatantly false teaching. Romans 10:9-12 is not teaching that merely saying words will save an individual. It clearly states that someone must “believe in your heart”. It is belief centered in a particular individual namely Christ and his work. Teaching and preaching is absolutely central to salvation. Romans 10:14-15 says, “14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”
Jacob, maybe the below Christian Research Journal with the title “We Were Wrong” can help clarify or explain to some if not all of your misunderstanding about Lee’s ministry and the practices of the local churches in the Lord’s Recovery.
http://www.equip.org/PDF/EnglishOpt.pdf
Jacob, my sense toward your website is that you tend to selectively pick up some speaking by Witness Lee or a certain believer meeting in a local church that you don’t like or disagree to begin your accusations and attacks toward another Christian or Christian group. Your interpretation and thinking of what you read and watched in a video seems consistently with much bias and prejudice. The Biblical verses that you cited to support your opinion are very good verses in the Bible by themselves. But disappointedly, they were all wrongly applied according to your misunderstanding of what you read or watched in a video. Follow your heart in which the Lord Spirit dwelling before you launch vicious accusations with a one-sided opinion judging against a Christian believer before the world. The Lord has records of every words you said and published in your website. All the attacks in your articles against Christ’s believers will be judged at the Judgment seat of Christ which I firmly believe. I am scared for you as the Lord Jesus will recompense you accordingly based on your words and deeds toward other Christians. I will pray for your heart and conscience, Jacob. Amen.
Your comment just confirmed what Jacob is saying about TLR. Good job!
When I was in ftta, I felt uneasy about proselytizing on campus. It wasn’t about saving souls. The goal was always about numbers. I didn’t like that we were befriending people with the express purpose of growing the campus club or locality. It was wrong. I never expressed my doubts, believing that it had to be the right thing to do. Now I feel so guilty about thinking about all the young college students that I might have harmed.
O Lord Three Times is a False Gospel is more then just false Gospel. Everything from LC is False Gospel. LC is worshiping Witness Lee’s thought and his “feeling”. There is no God’s Word in LC’s teaching. They only read “Holy Word for Morning Revival” which is only focus on Witness Lee’s teaching. They only read 7 meeting’s materials, which only focus on Witness Lee.