Mike

Who did the song "Drop Kick Me Jesus, Through The Goalposts of Life" ?

"...so vote for ME, because I never lie, and I'm always right" George Tirebiter 1971

I have felt a lot of legalism regarding certain matters in some posters here at times. Then again, if I were in their situations I might hold similar feelings to theirs just for practicality. I've been more than once impressed in how male friends of mine had changed their feelings regarding where to draw lines in sexual matters AFTER they had daughters.

Hi waysider, Thank you for not only starting this thread, but also for so graciously “shouting” an invitation to me to visit. I have a few stories that may not impress very many people, but I still remember them with great relish. Be warned, that these may not be what some want to hear, but here goes it with one. When I was first into the Word I took up witnessing with great zeal. I loved it. I did it whenever and wherever possible and then in a few impossible situations. However, early on in my adventures I kept running into people who seemed to have satanic revelation or something to hit my doubt buttons. One thing that I was repeatedly hit with were doubts about how the books of the Bible were collected together. I was locked onto the “new” idea I received from PFAL that the original scriptures were flawless and perfect. I broadcast this to many strangers as my job and lifestyle allowed this in great abundance. In those days I probably witnessed to about 4 or 5 people per day for a couple of years. None of the strangers I talked to could move me away from the inerrancy of the texts, but they DID have my head spinning on the Canon and how the books came to be collected together. The doubt that a non-God-breathed book could have wandered into the collection, or that a critical God-breathed book could have been lost both plagued me. It was astounding how many strangers would bring these doubts to my mind. I read the articles on the Canon in the back of Young’s Concordance and they made it even worse. As I researched for answers on this from other sources it got even still worse. I was coming to see that the Canon looked to be a gigantic accident of history, guided by a lot of warring factions of equally fallen Christians hundreds of years after Christ and the fall of the first century church. God’s hand in the process seemed to be absent. At the Rock of Ages 1972 I lucked out (or was it believing?) and was parked right next to Dr. Wierwille’s camper. I stalked him for days, often needing to do some fancy end runs around Mrs. Wierwille who was “protecting” him from my long list of questions. The Canon question was my biggest. He was very gracious and helped me a lot, but with the Canon he was enigmatic. He simply said “I never teach on the Canon, except that Paul’s Epistles were always in the same order in the early manuscripts.” This indicated to me an early assemblage, but it was far from the answers I wanted. Then he did add that he had tried to include the Apocrypha but he just couldn’t get it to fit. The next year (or maybe two later) I still was plagued with doubts and was in a Family Camp setting. I was early for registration and many preparations were still in the works setting things up. I asked one of the Rye people about my Canon question, a young woman named Michelle I think. She had no inkling what I was talking about, and had a pained look on her face. But suddenly someone who was behind a couch on the floor out of sight making posters jumped up into sight with a shout! He got my attention and then he told me that the first thing the adversary tries to do is get us to doubt the integrity of God’s Word. I think his actions were somewhat to protect Michelle from being infected with the same doubts I had. To math and science nerds like me, the word "integrity" has a slightly added nuance in it’s understanding. It has the idea built into it of “adding up the sum total of what is wanted and including nothing that is not wanted.” In math talk it's adding up the area under a curve and not including anything above the curve. If something has integrity or if it’s integrated, then it’s all there in pure form... with nothing missing and nothing contaminating. The fact that this young man used that word spoke loudly to me regarding the books of the Bible being all there and with no counterfeits added in. He helped me louder and better than he probably knew. It seemed like inspired utterance to me so my attention was piqued when I heard that word "integrity" and thought of all the right books of the Bible being there in the sum total. The man then added that we were taught to go to God and his Word for our answers and not man. I immediately realized that was what I had been doing, going to men, like whoever wrote those Young’s Concordance articles and other materials I had looked for. It seemed logical to me that the collecting together of the books of the Bible took place AFTER they were written, so they, those same books of the Bible, couldn’t address that topic... ...UNLESS THEY WERE GOD-BREATHED! Eureka! I had never put that together in my mind until that incident at Family Camp. It seemed like a longshot, but what the young man said fit perfectly with what I had been taught in the class so I decided to believe and see what would happen. Now here’s the big payoff. It was big for me, regardless of how it sounds to anyone else. It was a VERY big deal to me. For the next eleven years, count them, 11 years, EVERY SINGLE TIME I OPENED MY KING JAMES there would be staring me in the face some piece of evidence in the text that told me something of the story of how the canon was not a problem at all. The general gist of it all was that the same men God entrusted the writing of His Word to were also responsible to collect it all together in the first century, but that canon wasn’t finally "officially" recognized by the fallen church until hundreds of years later. The mountain of evidence I collected I still have and the file is almost three inches thick. I believed, acted, and received. I didn’t dare read my KJV in those days without pen and paper nearby to record each session’s canon find. By the way, that young man at Family Camp was Chris Geer. I’ve learned from God’s Word and from personal experience that God can work with ANYONE to get His jobs done and bless people. Sure, the adversary can get in there too, but we know Who wins in the long run.

My thoughts were not connected with the front page at all. There are OTHERS, many others, who shy away from here because of that page and many other pages with it. I haven't shyed away at all. My suggestion is that if there were a separate forum here where positive aspects of PFAL and the good doctrine that we were taught could be discussed without the usual "harassments," then that would be nice for me and some of those others who "faithfully" stay away from here. By harassments, I mean endless distractions to anything positive about PFAL and constant focus on sex and plagiarisms and mental manipulations. We discipline ourselves on the "In Memoriam" to not go into any negative things, and I suggest that there could be a separate forum here where only positive PFAL talk could happen. If other proPFAL people here would suggest this, then Pawtucket might consider it more than if I alone suggest it.

Many grads I've talked to who refuse to make a second visit to this board cite an atmosphere of excessive negativity as their reason. I can take the atmosphere but, like you, White Dove, I prefer to look at the record of what was taped and printed over anecdotal information and feelings. If there were a forum here where positive memories and constructive thoughts could be hammered out (without harassment) then maybe more grads would feel like coming here.

"No translation, no translation, and I want you to listen very carefully; for no translation, and by the way that's all we have today at best are translations. No translation may properly be called The Word Of God... ..no translation!" "Now I said that no translation, no translation, let alone a version, no translation may properly be called The Word Of God..." "And in this class on Power For Abundant Living, when I refer to The Word Of God I may hold the King James Version or I may hold some other version and point to it; I do not mean that version. I mean that Word of God which was originally given when holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." All three quotes are from the end of Session Three, Segment 16.

So the claim can be seen as bad behavior. Here's a twist: I'll claim to have the greatest commitment to bad behavior. Would my behavior then be good or bad in your association? It reminds me of the graduate student who dedicated his thesis "To all those students who did not dedicate their thesis to themselves."

Well here is a KIND of a barb, heading ROUGHLY in your direction, but not directly. I think it's the hight of hype to label common human characteristics as twi characteristics. All the abusive attitudes I saw in twi can be seen in some posters here today, it's just that they have little more than the power of typed words to execute their wrath. Many of us (on a bad hair day) would readily invade Poland if we had the troops. I must suppress my common old-man characteristics also. When I first started posting the pile-on I experienced was massive, and far more abusive than anything I had experienced in twi. I should paste a few of the incidents here sometime to illustrate. My hat is off to management here, as the environs have increased in civility MUCH, but those nasty common human characteristics that twi (actually TVTs) did bring out are still present in some posters and ready to pounce here if left unchecked.

I called the HQ Bookstore a little over a year ago, and they were very polite and sent me a price listing that served as a catalog. Friends of mind have ordered and received books and materials. They have lightened up greatly in this category. I don't know what kind of a "black List" they might still have, but they have always been nice to me in phone calls in recent years. In previous years I was black listed, and they told me back then. They have lightened up greatly in THIS category too. HOWEVER, they have messed with the books. They changed a lot of things, including page numbers, so it’s a nightmare when it comes to accurately mastering what Dr left us with. The editing started slowly, the very year of his death in 1985, but they really botched things up with the “prevailing word edition” around 2000. In my fellowship we stay away from the new editions and regard them as entirely untrustworthy.

Well, there once was a time when some of the music was most excellent. Instead of focusing on what went wrong, I like to identify and to come back to what DID work. In the process it clarified for me the TVT situation. Being able to see the difference between the TVTs and what God had wrought is a great luxury I enjoy, so I try to share this wealth.

Well, there's time now.

I don't doubt it. TVTs started earlier than 1975. We were supposed to line things up with the Word. TVTs drifted from the Word, and they got more abundant as time went on (as well as drifting farther and farther), because we OLGs (Older Leaderlike Grads) became less diligent in lining things up with the written doctrine we were given. We went with the verbal more and more. It was denser in some places, less in others, but in the end TVTs prevailed.

Please let me ask if this is the root of the issue with White Dove here. 1. On December 13th, in post number 234 of this thread, White Dove quoted a rascal post and then briefly commented on it. 2. The rascal quote reads: “I remember being taught in twi, that if my husband ever...” She then listed several items. 3. White Dove’s comment was: “I was just wondering just when and where this was taught. I seem to have missed that class” Is that IT? *** My judgment: 1. Rascal heard that “teaching” from a TVT (Twi Verbal Tradition) 2. White Dove never heard that in a class. 3. I never heard it in a class, nor on a tape, nor read it in a book or magazine. 4. I did hear it in a TVT or two. 5. Case Dismissed!

Gosh! ... kinda makes MY infomercials look tame and low key.

waysider, Sure. I already did expound on that. Below is a quote from my post #22. At that time I was unable to post the picture, so I described it to Watered Garden. Here is her quote and then my description. For those who didn't see it, the poster cartoon can be found here, in post #86. The first picture is extraneous. I was unable to cur it out. It refers to Key #7 and was not being discussed. To see an example of the principles of this poster's Key #8 being VIOLATED (albeit somewhat tongue-in-cheek) we need not look far. Here’s what Danny said to me the other day here. ******* Frank, It’s true that I am locked in. The reason for this is I want to go to the source. With the books and bibles available to us in English, I find too many middlemen have inserted their opinions. Some of the translators of your KJV or NIV may have gotten revelation in some places, but we know they blew it in many places too. Think of how many middlemen stand between you and God, the source, as you read your KJV! I see FAR fewer middlemen when I read PFAL, and they’re almost all grads who could SIT as they worked with Dr preparing the texts and printing it all out. God is not limited here, but grads who don’t know and utilize the treasure God gave us in PFAL are missing out on the source. ******* Tom, you got that one right, too! ******* Danny, that was cute. ******* shazdancer, if my memory serves me, the cultural icon that had lines wrapped around movie theatres was “The Exorcist.” Yes, those other influences you listed were there setting it up, but they didn’t reach the numbers that the movie did. ******* cinderpelt, Yes, it did say that. Several people of late have noted something very similar about my posting. They find it odd that I see coming back to PFAL in nearly everything I post on. Well this is somewhat a fact. The way I look at it is this. Since PFAL is from God, it covers nearly every aspect of our lives. When and where it was not mastered in our lives problems erupted. Those problems are discussed here. I note the connection back to PFAL where those problems COULD have been solved back then had we known the material better we were being taught. Not only that, but those and other problems can be solved now, in addition to the abundance of fellowship with the Father coming back to PFAL will provide.

Please, cinderpelt! If you look back on this thread I have provided many on-target points. It's people's responses to my points that derails things, for a while, and then I bring it back again. This thread was pretty dead for many days until I revived it with my cartoon post #86. Please give me some credit for on-topic posting that took this thread much deeper into your topic than you had originally envisioned.

I forgot two items and they were gnawing at me so I had to make time for them. rascal, You missed the point there. I posted that not to deal with the subject you are asking about, but to deal with a different subject. My point there is that the claim was MADE, not that the claim was VALID. I believe it was valid, but that’s not what I was pointing out. That’s a whole different issue, and certainly one worth discussing, but not in the context I was dealing with. In the light of the many clear claims he made to be getting revelation from God which I posted in the links mentioned several posts above (like TNDC p. 34 and TNDC p. 116), it shouldn't be a big leap of logic to think he could make the same claim in PFAL p. 83. I’m simply making the case (1) that he DID make the claim in the grammar of p. 83, then (2) we grads usually missed or forgot this claim and many others, and (3) thinking is so hostile towards Dr that emotion STILL clouds many grads here now from being able to see that this claim is being made in the grammar of p. 83 *** WordWolf, The second item I forgot is that I noticed in your long post dissecting my posts that you omitted one of the most important IMO. This is the same post that set rascal off in the direction I was not going, mentioned above. Here’s what I posted with some post-post highlighting and a minor format edit: If we temporarily omit the parenthetical phrase and the other phrases which refer to the exceptional nature of those writings of a man that were commissioned by God, then my paraphrase could read: “What men say is relatively worthless. What God says is crucial. ... Wierwille ... has relatively worthless words ... they are merely his own.” So, with the exception of the extraordinary commissioning of 1942, my original paraphrase fits PERFECTLY with the entire context of p. 83 of PFAL which is the relative worthlessness of man’s word relative to God’s Word.

You're right, Tom. I see it. I should have put three asterisks separating that last line from the rest, as my regular style is. I assumed that it was obvious that I was only using Joni to highlight one phrase, and NOT using her to represent a definitive multi-point intersection of ideas, and thus thought the asterisks weren't needed there. Maybe because it was a short post. Anyway, time is short for me and I wont be able to look it up right now. *** I've seen this before, where a minor illustration is mistaken for a major derivation. In this case, with my missing asterisks, it's a minor illustration being mistaken for a major intersection. It's in the "needs and wants parallel" thing that I've seen this before. Dr uses a verse in Matthew to illustrate one word in his teaching of needs and wants. Without looking it up, I think it's the word "synchronize" or maybe "harmonize" corresponding to "parallel." (SIDE NOTE: Remember, in the book "parallel" becomes "balanced" in some places) I've seen many grads pull their hair out (I was one once) trying to see how that verse in Matthew "proves" or derives the whole teaching on getting needs and wants parallel. It doesn't, and wasn't intended to. Again, without the time to look it up, I'll bet the book version (as opposed to the film version) makes the distinction between illustration and derivation easier to pick up, just like my asterisks would have made it easier too. I'll have to remember to include them in the book and movie versions. ;) I'm sure it has come up often here especially in Raf's big thread.

Heck no! Who ever said I said THAT? I just threw her in the mix for cultural variety, to lighten things up a bit. It was a mere convergence of words and sounds more than meaning. It was like comedy relief only not funny, so more like cultural relief. Sorry if I wrote it in a misleading way. *** I totally agree that this word has many meanings. Discerning which is which is a big job, certainly involving each context. In some passages it could conceivably even take on more than one meaning. In the fellowship I attend we are now studying ADAN and what you mentioned above is rather uppermost in our minds as we study. *** I agree that the abuses occurred, but I differ on their source. I have presented my evidence here that Dr fought these abuses. He knew people were imitating him in in this area an abusive way, and were getting over-concerned with evil spirits. He had the syllabus changed, and he sent out teachings that led to some taking action like me and my artist friend to produce that cartoon posted. "Light dispels darkness" became a theme to replace cheap reenactments of "The Exorcist." It was that movie that I alluded to in a much earlier post here as I asked a trivia question about our culture in the 70's and what was influencing us to go a way that needed correcting. This cultural icon of a movie was as major an influence on Discerning of Spirits as Hal Lindsey was a major influence on modern Israel being Biblical. I'm surprised no posters brought up this movie and how it shaped things back then. It still influences people today into thinking that ds are overt and sensational. It still provides camouflage for the more subtle and more dangerous ones. Dr fought the dumb stuff leadership and we grads were getting into, but we OFTEN did not listen. For what I did listen to and benefit from back then I think the bucks I paid were puny. *** Oops! STOP THE PRESSES! Tom I just read your post on "The Exorcist" Bingo! I think you got it!

Tom, It had to do with them having spirit, a connection directly to God. It's that spirit part of them that died on "that very day" that they ate the forbidden fruit. With that spirit and a soul (mind) breathed by God, God's voice was loud and clear. With no spirit and a mind feeding only on the senses curriculum of the adversary's doing, God's voice diminishes to a still small one AT BEST. I think you're right about CSNY.

Come back to the written forms of PFAL, book and magazine, and see what THEY say. :P

Page 83 of PFAL reads: "Not all that Wierwille writes will necessarily be God-breathed" My paraphrase of PFAL page 83, taking the context into account: "What men say is relatively worthless. What God says is crucial. Even a man like Wierwille, who was commissioned to write FOR GOD, has relatively worthless words when they are merely his own."

******* Actually, in going over all the above I discovered that I linked to a pre-synopsis of my "Thus Saith" presentations including PFAL page 83. It was something WhatTheHey had "leaked to the press." In later pages I re-wrote a little what he had posted of mine and all that can be found here by clicking here and scrolling down to post #312. I don't know how many times posters have told me here that Dr never claimed that PFAL was God-breathed, so that's why I posted those 22 examples. I actually have 90 examples, but time is too short to do them all. Maybe I'll do more later. So many posters WRONGLY insisted that Dr never made such claims, yet posted in that thread link above are 22 of them. It makes one think "How many OTHER things did those posters miss?" Come back to written PFAL and SEE!

doojabble, are you getting desperate OR WHAT? Sheeeeesh! *** WordWolf, You pasted in Goey’s attempt to shut down my presentations of PFAL page 83 and made it look like I had given up. You wrote: “For the benefit of those in the cheap seats, here’s how Goey explained that passage, June 1, 2003, back when Mike was claiming that passage meant vpw was saying that part of his own books would NECESSARILY be ‘God-breathed.’....” Hey! I never stopped claiming this! Maybe you stopped reading my continual stream of posts on this page 83 in the Orange book. Just to bring you up to speed on this issue below is one of my posts dated TWO YEARS after Goey’s just cited post. The following appears in a thread that contains my presentation of 22 “Thus Saith the Lord” statements of Dr’s. Page 83 is one of the strongest of his “Thus saith” statements. It’s so funny that you and many others can’t seem to get the logic of that one sentence. Little things like the possible figurative use of the word “scripture” seem to throw you. You seem to ignore the use of the words “necessarily” and “not all.” Someday some language expert is going to show you I am right here. Such an expert need not BELIEVE Dr’s claim to see this is the case. What are you going to do when this is finally proved to you? Anyway, here is my old post from two years after Goey’s cited post. It’s in the thread titled “The Official, the Ultimate, the Amazing PFAL Thread.” It’s not a paste but a slight re-work. It can be found here: click here Some time after posting this I asked these two editors if I could cite their agreement with me. They said yes. They are my long time best friends J. Fred Wilson and David Craley. Goey failed to note that Dr switched from “write” to “said” so his attempt to fit this into a figure of speech was a cram job. At the end of his life Dr came right out and said we must master PFAL collaterals. They ARE the “scriptures” we are to search. We don’t really HAVE the ancient scriptures to search, just men’s poor copies and translations thereof. Before the PFAL collaterals were finished being written, and when Dr spoke this sentence in the film class in 1968, all we had were the hand-me-down ancient scriptures and human versions to search, and searching them was right and proper. Before the PFAL collaterals were finished being written, and when he published the PFAL book with it’s page 83 in 1971, we STILL didn’t have nearly all the “book and magazine form” presentation of God’s Word, and searching our KJVs was right and proper. But in 1975, as the publication of Volume IV was nearing, he slowly and quietly started his TEN YEAR campaign of urging, first only top leadership, to search the PFAL literature, and MASTER IT! As the years progressed and more was printed (or scripted) Dr stepped up his urging to master PFAL. In 1979 he STRONGLY urged only the AC students and grads to master RHST with this now famous quote in segment 5 of that Advanced Class: “I have set for our people, and it’s set in the book on ‘Receiving the Holy Spirit Today,’ and people, when you reach the Advanced Class, you ought to be able almost to quote this line for line. You should have mastered this book by the time you get to the Advanced Class. If you haven’t, you better get busy and do it - work it to where you understand the Word of God in every facet, in every way of it’s utilization regarding the holy spirit field - all of them, you must know this book, in and out. But I’ve discovered as I’ve worked among my people, and even all the grads of the Advanced Class, there still are areas where we got to push ourselves.” Sure looks like he wanted us to SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES, the scriptures he and God were publishing. By 1984 he was urging new students to master (which implies “search”) some more of the collateral books. Then in 1985, in his second to the last teaching “The Hope” he urged us all to master ADAN. Two weeks later, in his soon to be lost and trodden underfoot LAST teaching, he TWICE urges us all to master and search the written PFAL SCRIPTURES. Not all the Wierwille wrote was God-breathed, but what he and God put into the PFAL writings is worthy of mastery because it was of GOD.