another spot

Sheesh. Another wayism slipped out. Who says a sinner can't believe God? I think I am one...

I also agree with Oldie's above, and also Oldie’s green gas of negative believing (he used different words). By sheer logic, however, if it’s green gas in the negative, it’s green gas in the positive. Meaning, the power comes from God and not our minds. In which case, it doesn’t really work for saint and sinner alike. I bet Oldies’s would agree with that too. Just guessin’. :)

PFAL page 268 “The Devil now has the rulership, the dominion, the authority, the power which Adam originally possessed over God’s creation. Whenever the Devil wants to flood a territory, he floods it out. When he wants to kill people, he kills them.” It isn’t possible to reconcile that statement with the law of believing.

The only real way to make the thing work, WW, is to say God allowed the boy to die because of her negative believing, which was taught all the time. That is the same thing as saying God could have and would have stopped it, but chose not to because of a law. So God becomes responsible for the death indirectly through inaction, on purpose because He himself set it up that way. Oh yeah, the devil is the author of death (no such Scripture). The devil actually killed the boy because he had access through the fear. So through inaction, God lets the devil be the agent. Wait a minute, it was fear in the heart of the woman. Let me get this straight. God sets up a universe on a law where He is only free to act when there is enough of the correct amount of believing (how much is enough?). Otherwise, his hands are tied. The devil is free to operate within the fear side. So both watch to see whose power will get to operate. Now God’s hands are tied by both believing and the devil. So my son comes home from school. No you may not have supper today and you must sleep outside in the snow (where the wolves are free to eat you), because, dang, you didn’t follow the rules yesterday. This is how it works in this house. It’s either or. No exceptions, grace, or mercy. I dunno. I thought we got a Savior because we couldn’t do everything just right.

PFAL pg 43-44. “About a year later the woman’s only son was coming home from school early. Mother had not met him at the street corner. As the boy walked out into the strret, he was hit by an automobile and killed. I went to the funeral service of that boy, and guess what the minister preached? “God now has another rose petal in heaven.” Imagine that! That the God who created the heavens and the earth should want to kill a little boy because God needed another rose petal in heaven. Do you know what killed that little boy? The fear in the heart and life of that mother. She was so desperately afraid something was going to happen to her little boy that she finally reaped the results of her believing.” Of course saying “God has a rose petal in heaven” is NOT the same as saying God killed the boy. So here we have a grieving mother and family, vp shows up for the funeral, is blaming the mother for the death, and internally criticizing the “accuracy” of the minister’s remarks. What does he choose to emphasize?

Lol, Shifra. I understand you. I only laugh because these are hard questions, not because they are funny. Just we are, I think. I really hope you get what I really mean. I’m just going to trust you do rather than edit my post. I think God does know everything. At the same time, I think He works His best in light of our decisions. We don’t particularly know His will, even if we think we do. I think His grace covers our lack of understanding/knowledge. We just ask, and He does according to His own will and timing, knowing we are far from perfect, yet not requiring us to be so. I think you are right in a symbolic reference to Ishamel and the gentiles. Makes perfect sense to me, but I hadn’t thought of it before. Or read it anywhere. As far as Abraham and a test run: I just think God wanted Jesus to come as a result of His will and faith. As it turned out, the faith of Abraham. I think God just wanted someone to believe. Otherwise He could have turned stones into sons of Abraham. And yeah, it was hard. I think God sacrificing His Son was hard. And gut wrenching. Does it all make sense to me? Not perfectly. Maybe it has to do with giving your most precious possession, else it’s not that great of a gift. I dunno. Would you give no matter what it cost you? Jesus did that. Hard thing to wrap your brain around, imo. In any case, Abraham was a special case. From him God chose to bring about Israel and Jesus. God wanted him to put his believing on the line in an unequivocal manner. No one else has been asked to do that. I’ve lived most of my life with military members. After all these years, I still don’t get their mindset. My middle son is in the Army. He has already done one tour in Iraq. He doesn’t regard it as a big deal to go back. We are NOT on the same page on that topic. 1Jo 3:16 Hereby perceive we the love [of God], because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down [our] lives for the brethren. I’m not there…I have serious doubt I ever will be. At the same time, I appreciate those who did. Just being honest. I think of those whose lives were martyred for Jesus (and God). Could I do that? Deep down I have doubts. Yet Hebrews talks of those who died. Some got deliverance, and some did not. But again, God isn’t asking most of us to do that. As I think this over, I conclude something. The point of believing God is to do so, whether we see an immediate personal benefit or not, and trusting in an ultimate justice. Otherwise, we are just serving ourselves and using God to do so. For now we see through a glass darkly. God gets to decide what is good and what is evil, whether we get it or not. That’s a big part of the trust. Do I want to reduce God to my own terms, or accept Him on His, even if I don’t get it?

”On the other hand -- Jesus had to have faith in God that He would raise him from the dead.”—Larry. That’s actually a pretty powerful point, Larry. It truly is. It really, really is. Connect that with Abraham. Abraham had nothing to go on but the promises of God. He staked his life on it and the life of his son.

I should think God sacrificing and Jesus sacrificing were both true. There is Scripture for both. It was the will of God, and as such it was the will of Jesus, although Jesus wasn’t all that excited about it (records of His prayer beforehand sweating great drops of as of blood, or something like that). And giving on the part of both are true. In the military, a soldier may give up his life, but the doing of it is sacrifice for others. In theory. (As a person who detests war…well, another subject, hmmm?). So Jesus gave Himself up in sacrifice for others and His faith was God would raise him from the dead, so that it wasn’t for nothing. He wasn’t doing it just for the fun of it. God likewise gave His Son as a sacrifice for something. For the greater good. Well, Wordwolf: I’ll just let you take this back to where ever. Even if the discussion is far removed from what you planned, well, the questions are being asked. As such, IMO ok. I never was real good with rules. Not to mention I learned some things.

Sure sacrificing my own son would of course be evil if it was my will. My own premise is God is good always. I don’t believe God ever had any true intention of Abraham sacrificing his son. I think there is a difference between test and temptation. Until a thing is tested, it isn’t proven. There is both a Hebrew and Greek word for this. The benefit isn’t for God so much, but for man’s, except that God’s premise is evidence of believing with regard to the Savior. As I said before, it took Abraham awhile to get to the place He took God at His word. It is similar to the story of Meshak, Abednego, and (the other guy). Oh Shadrak. (sp? for all). They didn’t know if God would deliver them or not, although they believed God was able. Likewise, Genesis 22 states Abraham believed God would supply an alternative sacrifice, which He did. If not, he was prepared to do it anyway. Was God sacrificing His own son evil? On a human level, I would have to say yes, even if it sounds terrible to say. Somehow, God deemed it proper and the only way. That is one part of the Bible I’ve ALWAYS found hard to digest. There are only two choices: either believe God is good always whether I understand or not, or the opposite. I assume I know less than God. Mmmmm….and a whole host of people!!!!!! That means more than a few… I reckon you’re right, Larry. God’s foreknowledge and God’s will are closely related, as I think about it.

Deu 18:22 When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that [is] the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, [but] the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him. It would seem logical that if God would speak the future to a prophet and the test of a true prophet is does the thing come to pass, then God has to know the future. As to how long: evidently for quite awhile. The Savior was to come from Abraham. There are numerous examples of God foretelling the future to prophets. Luk 3:8 Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to [our] father: for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. He does things after the counsel of His own will. I don’t think the point of Gen. 22 is that God didn’t know. I think the point is He wanted Abraham to prove it. Abraham was called the father of all who believe. That would require actual acts of believing as opposed to theory or foreknowledge. If you read about Abraham, there are several times God promises he would have fantastic progeny. It seemed to take awhile (Ishmael, for example) to get to the place he absolutely did take God at His word. This record of the sacrifice of Isaac parallels God sacrificing His own son. And, something I just realized. If God expects believing from us, He must have it Himself. One of the manifestations is the manifestation of believing. If God wanted to, he could raise up stones to be whatever He wanted them to be. The point is He wanted it to be based on faith/believing as a freewill decision, and from that premise the Savior would come. He only asked one person to do it in terms of the grand scheme of things. Later Mary and Joseph also believed. And now, way off topic I suppose…

From RHST: “The answer is: No, they do not all do all of these things in the Church. But, there is no implication or inference that these things could not be happening in the lives of all the individual Christian believers.” This is all vp says, and it is not at all logical. First off, these are a series of rhetorical questions. The answer has to be either yes to all, or no to all. The statement implies I might be a prophet or an apostle in my individual life. That makes no sense. I am a part of the body of Christ all the time. Is he trying to say I can be an apostle at home but not at a meeting??? The REAL implication of the verses, is no, not everyone does them all at anytime. 1Cr 12:29 [Are] all apostles? [are] all prophets? [are] all teachers? [are] all workers of miracles? 1Cr 12:30 Have all the gifts of healing? do all speak with tongues? do all interpret? 1Cr 12:31 But covet earnestly the best gifts (charisma): and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way. Verse 31 is a summary verse and concludes all the items in the rhetorical questions as gifts (charisma). I am pointing this out because vp tries to make a distinction between charisma and manifestations, stating all nine are available to all and gifts (charisma) vary. I am not done studying this yet. To me, part of the real emphasis of 1 Cor. 12 and Romans 12 is not so much what the charisma are, but the fact God does the energizing as He sees fit. Dan, you mentioned ego, but I think an important piece of the puzzle is the mention of idolatry in the beginning of I Cor. 12. That seems like an odd contrast to charisma. I am working on that also.

Hamm:

There is a little space between the tub of a washer and the frame of it. That is where socks and all kinds of things disappear. My ex was fixing someone’s washer once. After taking it completely apart, he discovered some ummmm…rather large underwear wrapped around the bottom of the thing in the middle that turns (I never claimed to be mechanical…). They were pink.

Bumpy: Ok, now would you interpret???

On a Hewlett Packard commercial last night they explained the way to prevent mind control is with an aluminum foil hat. It looked similar to a pope’s hat except much shorter and squared off on the top. (Wish I’d known about this much sooner). I vote for 12 rolls of foil in the MAL pack.

Lol. And a stern look in his/her eyes. That should fend off foolish and unlearned questions. Impressive, Hamm. I’m not going to ask about the bra looking thing…That could hold who knows what??? Pizza with pineapple? All things covered in pink should be undiscovered.

”I wonder if a similar version of this MAL pack is how some of us got here..” da squirrel Maybe we were just looking for one…and settled for coffee and doughnuts instead. Dang, a counterfeit. Standard issue MAL pack should include: (In the event of flood in kitchen while watching “Psycho”) 1 pair pink high-heeled shoes (rise above the world) 1 red-orange rain hat (helmet of salvation) 1 pair underwear (gird your loins with truth). (Why is one thing called a “pair?”) Other necessities: 1 very large glass (so as not to exceed 2 drink limit and to prevent one’s cup from running over…) 1 very large bandaid (cover whatever ails ya). (mmmm…maybe several. Maybe tons of them. Pass them out.). Prepared on all points. Spiritually equipped. Ready and willing. For this purpose I cared. MAL packs over the world. Wear your MAL pack with pride and dignity and avoid foolish questions.

I remember my first few months in twi hearing on a SNS (1979) vp averted some big disaster in 1968. I inquired what this was, but no one knew what it was all about. I did hear numerous times the only reason the U.S. wasn’t in slavery was because of vp interceding. Everyone was encouraged to own a gun in the event of a take over, because it would be a matter of hand to hand combat, house to house. I never was clear if this take over was to be another country or our own. In addition, everyone was encouraged to read up on the Illuminati. Also some book I can’t remember the title of, but it had to do with Jewish bankers running the world banks, loaning huge sums of money to countries thus owning them, etc. Anyone ever read Robert Ludlum? He had similar plots to his books. (He wrote Bourne Identity, Bourne Supremacy, and Bourne Ultimatum). And Sir Squirrel, sober now...(in spite of playing the twi drinking game) hooks up with agent James Bird (agent 007) to avert world disaster, stop the evils of cancer, and brandishing his rightly dividing sword, discerns the difference between a false and genuine prophet. His conclusion? Himself, of course. I know this by revelation.

”This is ignoring and/or focusing on everything that's wrong with TWI. Iow -- you've concluded that nothing good can come out of TWI and therefore people should be warned against them. We've been over this before - If God is leading people to TWI then either God sees some redeeming qualities and purpose for TWI or God is evil.”—Larry Only God knows what He is doing. Or why. There isn’t one person on this forum that can say God did or did not lead anyone into Twi. I don’t care what senses arguments a person gives. Does God check in with you? Disclose His heart and will to you? His purposes? I doubt it. Whether you know it not, you just slapped God Almighty in the face. I’m starting to wonder if you even care…

Harmony My flower garden Identifying constellations and planets in the night sky Doing art work A good movie and reading Talking to my sons Fall and Spring weather Decorating my house A good home-cooked meal Video games (Tiger Woods Golf is my favorite) Sleeping in when it’s raining

I forgot in my post to say this was excerpts from a GS document. To tell you the truth, I was quite hesitant to post it. However, I think it is really important to understand the problem with twi is much bigger than doctrinal error. It didn’t just mess us up in our relationships with God and each other from a Biblical point of view. It isn’t enough to simply say it was abusive. The organization in its teaching literally stripped away our basic humanity, conscience, feelings, all the God-given things that we were born with. Normal defense mechanisms gone. And yes, Eyes, no personal responsibility. And this coming from a psych. major… Going back to an earlier post of mine. It really is important in recovery from twi to reconsider emotion and conscience. I also think it is very important to reconsider personal responsibility in light of this. It isn’t just a matter of separating out doctrinal/practical error. And yes, this is lcm. But just consider who taught him. Even in vpw days emotions/feelings had no respect. Some emotions were assigned devil spirits (spirit of depression and fear spring to mind). Feelings come and go, it’s the truth that abides, as I posted earlier. Here’s your retemory. Drive your natural defense mechanisms and conscience out of your mind…Fear was always wrong. Guilt and condemnation are wrong (conscience). Sometimes fear is a very good and healthy warning sign. All the things that told us “don’t touch that stove, it’s hot,” were worked out of us. Not only to ourselves, but our dealings with others. Even without critical thinking skills in play, the very things that would have warned us, such as emotion and conscience, were driven out. Now ask me again, why did we stay so long…there was no gun to your head. Yes there was. It was a spiritual gun. And the bullets were: do it or get possessed. You will be a grease spot by midnight. God won’t spit in your direction. All the time teaching the truth will set you free. How much freedom was in twi? Virtually none. The more than abundant life? I think we lost our most precious possessions. Ourselves, tops the list. Excellent, terrific posts, T-bone, and Eyes.

Staff Meeting at The Way International Headquarters on 04/14/1996 L. Craig Martindale “About emotions and not letting them run you: We don't mean that it's wrong to have emotions. We mean that what becomes wrong is to allow that emotion to become a state of mind and then that state of mind colors and valances and sets the values to all your decisions. Then you're wrong. And that's so often what happens to people that become adamantly adamant when they're confronted. It shocks them because they've been so stupid. They might become embar- rassed because they're confronted in front of two or three or the Church. And so they take that attitude of shock and embarrassment and then they turn it into anger. And that becomes not just an emotion that they get hit with that they should deal with and get rid of before they make any decisions, but that becomes their mental state. And when an emotion becomes a chronic mental state, you're talking pretty much possession. Because the human mind and body is not made to maintain emotional states. Anger eventually dissipates. Circumstantial hilarity eventually dis- sipates. When an emotion becomes a state of mind, you're in deep doo doo by your own willingness. And they want to hang on to their hurt, anger, embarrassment as a state of mind--you got to have help to maintain that intensity, and that's spirit. I cannot be in a high state of emotional upheaval and be able to think in depth. You can't do that. That's why you got to get on stuff when it comes up so it doesn't fester to some soap opera emotional-type state. You have to get over negative emotions quickly. You got to use the positive emotions to think soundly. Remember Peter's emotional state of happiness almost led him to baptizing those people. But "then I remembered the words of the Lord Jesus," remember? Emotions always should be fleeting. Sometimes you'd like for them to last. If you're angry for a good reason, it feels good; happy, etc. Emotions are fleeting. Can't be in a state of emotional upheaval constantly or chronically, or you cannot think the Word, make sound spiritual decisions. You have to maintain a spiritual equilibrium, mental sobriety, and you can't live in a state of emotional upheaval. People try to live that way and they get contaminated. You can't do it at any level. Whether it's a positive or negative emotional state. You have to have the Word of God in your mind, which requires in-depth thinking. You cannot think in depth when you're in an agitated emotional state.” ____________________ I read this several times. The first thing I noticed, these confrontation sessions (which typically were screaming sessions) were not to produce anger in the recipient. Anger is a very normal response to verbal abuse. If that was the response, lcm defines it something that is willfully done (not) and an improper response. Taken all together, he is defining emotions at two extremes where it is either fleeting or mental state (possession). Those are the only two choices. We were supposed to be almost emotionless or we couldn’t think “the Word.” I remember being taught this. The end result of course, was to deal out the abuse without feeling much of anything and take it without feeling much of anything. At least that’s how he thought it should work…if not, well you’re possessed. At the same time, it ruled the emotions of conscience.

You’re so welcome, Rainbows child!!

We often hear people say "I've got a bad feeling about this" or "my gut just tells me this is wrong." "This just doesn't feel right" ......Interesting.... Yes. So we couldn't even hear God…. He might be yelling and screaming through the crap in our heads, but we were taught to use our brains and not anything else. Disregard it all except the intellectual logic of twi. And the whole time we thought God was working in us constantly. Or wanted to think so. Back to taking the Lord's name in vain thing.

Another Spot, bringing up TWI's Sedative to the Conscience thread gets me thinking about how it empowered the spiritual abuser and left the spiritually abused defenseless. That’s right. Once the relevance of sin is taken out of the picture, there is nothing to go to. You can’t say, ahem, adultery is wrong…you can’t say screaming at me is wrong…you can’t say treating me as valueless is wrong. You can’t say what is important to me has no value is wrong. To top it all off, sin was defined as “missing the mark.” I have books that say that, but the fact remains, sin is wrong. Add to that no degree of sin….you can’t even say something is WRONG. Furthermore, you are supposed to obey and submit. Even if you were to stand up for yourself, there is nothing to fall back on, and the nature of the teaching eliminated even the thought of it. Any emotional difficulty on either part is dealt with nicely just by identifying those emotions as a front of the adversary (yourself) and here’s your retemory. Feelings are further identified as something that come and go, but the truth abides forever. So they aren’t trustworthy anyway. The result is one’s own natural defense systems are broken down that would normally kick in even with no Scriptural knowledge at all. vpw's personalized twist of "renewing the mind" was egocentric – based upon what pleased him! Similar to his interpretation of the two great commandments – as long as you love God and neighbor [according to YOUR standard of loving God and neighbor] you could do as you full well pleased. That idea still bothers me. In general, it is like lawlessness. Combine that with the erroneous assumption that you could "renew" your mind to something and it wouldn't "bother" you anymore – and you have a potent recipe for a sedative to the conscience. You’re right. That is contrary to the process found in Romans 12 – where it shows that real transformation by the renewed mind is preceded by offering ourselves to God as a living sacrifice. vpw misapplied the law of liberty on non-moral issues covered in Romans 14. A famous saying of his was something along the lines of, "what I may allow in my life you wouldn't allow in yours and visa versa." That could cover a lot of ground – when you don't put it in the context of moral or non-moral issues. When this idea dominates a group of folks it becomes a green light for predators to have a field day – and wreaks havoc on the faith of their victims who think they're not spiritual enough to handle it. It's training someone to violate their own conscience – " just renew your mind, baby!" Absolutely. The end result is a feel good theology (rationalization imo) that favors the abuser. The abused tries to feel good with it but can’t. The shoe just never fits, thus begins never ending effort to try and feel comfortable and OK. An interesting twist to the thing: during lcm’s reign of m&a, folks were being accused of things, told to correct their error, etc. However, I remember when I was in this situation I was so totally, completely confused as to what to do. Dumbfounded really. The guidance was the section on godly sorrow. Ok fine. I’m sorry. Now what??? How in the world am I supposed to prove I have it? I had zero understanding of sin, or what to do about it. Not to mention there was no Scriptural back up to define I had done something wrong for me to go to. I was accused of being at fault for my husband’s actions. Sorry, I can’t do a thing with that. I couldn’t find one single verse that dealt with that subject. After awhile, I decided no can do this one. I’ve gone as far as I can go. I cannot go any further. After this, I started to wake up. And thank goodness for Waydale, because I discovered it about this time. So here we have a very complicated theology that does not in any form or fashion handle even basic understanding of right and wrong. T-bone, truly outstanding post. Your first post on your thread on conscience has never left my mind for long. At the time, I hadn’t progressed in my thought process on twi to understand the real impact of it. I did understand it was pivotal, the key to the mystery so to speak. It has taken me all this time to even start seeing how it all fit together, but for me it was the first thing I really needed to think about in terms of being able to look at the picture as whole, or myself in particular. Again I am going to tell you, I hope you know how really important that was to me personally. It was important to me in regaining a sense of internal balance and going back to fundamentals. If your foundation is muzzy, how can you build anything solid on it? Thanks so much T-bone!!!