The Governing Principles of the Practice of the Local Church

Witness Lee explains below that as God’s people drink of the sweet water, the resurrected Christ, they are spontaneously regulated by a living “ordinance” which precludes their need to complain and murmur, thus closing the door of the local church to God’s enemy.

At Marah, even before the law was given, the Lord made for the children of Israel a statute and an ordinance (15:25). This signifies that if we have the drinkable, sweet living water among us, out of this living water there will spontaneously be a living statute and ordinance. The more we drink of the living water, the sweet water of the resurrected Christ, the more we are regulated. The statute and ordinance are not of the law of letters but are the living statute and ordinance of the drinking of the living water.

I believe that the statute made at Marah may have been that there was to be no more chiding or murmuring. After the bitter waters were made sweet, the children of Israel may have said that there was no more need for them to chide or murmur so they made a statute to this effect. There is no need to chide or murmur when there is plenty of water and when the waters are sweet. If there is much chiding and murmuring in a local church, there will be much sickness in that church. If we murmur all the time, we will be sick. Murmuring opens the door to the enemy to bring in all kinds of diseases. If we are those who murmur, complain, and chide, we are the same as the Egyptians, the worldly people. In most worldly associations or societies, the people murmur, chide, and even fight with one another. Should we have this kind of situation or condition among the people of God in a local church?

Below, Witness Lee interprets the rich significance of the twelve springs and seventy palm trees of Elim, where God flows into His people as living water to grow and be expressed within them in His victory.

Following their experience at Marah, the children of Israel came to Elim where there were twelve wells of water and seventy palm trees (Exo. 15:27). The palm tree in the Bible signifies the victory of the evergreen life. We have to praise the Lord for the palm tree, for the victory of life. Seventy is ten times seven. Seven is the number of completion and ten is the number of fullness, so Elim is a place full of victories of life. There were also twelve springs of water at Elim. Twelve is composed of four times three. The number four signifies the creatures, especially mankind, and the number three signifies the Triune God. Therefore, four times three, the number twelve, is the mingling of divinity with humanity. The springs at Elim are for the mingling of divinity with humanity. God as the living water is flowing into His chosen people to be mingled with them. The resurrection life at Elim flows and grows. It flows out of God into us, and through this flowing it grows upward to express the riches and victory of the divine life.

We need Christ as the tree, the resurrected One, to be put into our situation. Then we will have the sweet waters. Out of these sweet waters will issue a statute and an ordinance not to murmur or chide but to praise. Our situation should not be one of murmuring, but one of praising. We need an ordinance of saying, “O Lord, Amen, Hallelujah.” Our ordinance and our statute is not to chide, criticize, murmur, or complain, but always to praise. This statute and ordinance was not of the letter of the law, but of the drinking of the sweet waters. Eventually, we are brought to a situation at Elim with twelve wells of water and seventy palm trees. This situation is full of the flowing of life for the mingling of divinity with humanity and full of the victories of life for praising the Lord. Elim is a place full of praises coming out of life.

(Witness Lee, Crucial Revelation, 35-38)

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