Mike

You and I briefly discussed this idea of counterfeit tongues, and I said I had no more to offer, and was too busy to continue it. But then I remembered where a certain old post was located, so I am rekindling this little fire. I am still working on a response to a few of So_crates posts, but I noticed this excerpt from an old post by Ralph D had several ties into this whole thread, as well as our mini discussion on SIT. I slightly re-formatted Ralph’s post, and bold-fonted some selected excerpts, but you can find the entire original post here: https://www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/topic/17393-how-did-the-ordination-of-clergy-thing-work-in-twi/page/4/#comment-415724 These excerpts were originally in a thread titled “How did the ordination of clergy thing work in TWI?” on page 4. Look below for the genuineness of T.I.P. and also for a verification of what I said earlier in this thread about the way the Word moved in the early 1970s on Long Island, just across the bridge from Rye. */*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/* posted June 7, 2008 by DontWorryBeHappy: … i too experienced similar "niceties" from vic when he thought i had something in my life and background he could use...... my mother took the class, foundational, intermediate, after i left for the in-rez corps training, and was a "vocal" and active believer in the area i left behind for the corps "training". ..........however, my father, a professor of linguistics at ccny, and nyc high school foreign language department chairman and teacher, who was fluent in 13 different languages, was never "converted", despite vic's best efforts. ........my dad attended a sunday night fellowship at the rye presbyterian church once, in the fall of 1971, where steve heefner taught .........as per twi "liturgy", there were "worship manifestations" at the beginning of that service, which included 2 "interpretation of tongues" which my father recognized as "known languages" ..........one, according to him, "portugese with a 'noticeable castillian spanish accent', and, the other a northern syriac dialect he recognized.. ........his comment to me later that night when we got home............"neither of those people accurately translated what they spoke in those languages.........it was more of a 'rough paraphrase' (his words") in the english" ............of course, to me, this was a "miracle", and i recounted this for the believers to share with them how frustrating my father's "unbelief" was to me, despite this "miracle" god had performed for him!! ...........it was an incident which made the rounds among the fellowships back then........a great "witnessing tool" in spite of my father's refusal to "believe"! my parents attended the roa '75, in lima,,,,,,,,,having spent the week previous visiting my wife and i at hq upon our return from our interim year of the corps............during that time, my mom cooked a sauerbraten which she prepared for us, in the kitchen of the wierwille home, and we ate the dinner she cooked, in the dining room of the "president's home" with vic, dotsie, uncle harry and naomi, my parents and my wife and i.........had a great time, 'cuz my mom was a german native, and we spent a couple of hours laughing and joking in german with the wierwille brothers and their wives. ......the next night, vic and dotsie took my parents and my wife and i out for dinner, at the wooden shoe in in minster, in order to "witness" to my father and "get him in the class"! ..........vic brought up the incident from the rye meeting i recounted above, which had occurred 4 years previously, as "proof" to my dad, that christ's resurrection and the "gift of holy spirit" were indeed true. ........and then he said to my dad, "i'm convinced you'd love the intellectual logic and mathematical exactness of what i teach in my class..........why not take it and see for yourself?"..........my father's reply......."until you can put holy spirit under a microscope for me, so that i can analyze it, i prefer to remain the agnostic that i am". ........LOL!...............my mouth must've dropped to the floor as i gasped out that good wooden shoe inn chicken when i heard that resaponse!!! ........i was expecting the worst, but vic just chuckled, and ordered another pitcher of beer for our table, and said, "well sir, that's just something i am not able to do"........... during the rock, just several days later, vic called me backstage, where gary curtis was with him, and asked if i would introduce gary, who was the "head" of the twi translations department, to my father, because vic and gary wanted to ask my dad to translate the pfal book and class into french, which was my father's favorite of the 13 languages he was fluent in. .......so, i took gary over to meet my dad, and they talked for about 25 minutes, with the discussion ending with my father "respectfully declining" to participate until that microscope of his had holy spirit under its lenses! .............i still have that microscope of his!!............point being, that, all those nice, friendly things vic did for me, and my parents, were simply designed to get my dad to do the first french translation of vic's class!! ........pure and simple.............at the time, i was so disappointed that the mog himself could not win my dad for his "ministry", but today, looking back, i just laugh to myself, and whisper a little "way to go pops!" in loving memory and respect for my father's "unbelief"! as i've stated previously on this thread, it was'nt vic who "fooled me" into the new birth.........it was my hippie, musician friends who first "witnessed" to me.......and dragged me to my first fellowships, where i met steve heefner and others in the early days of the way east "revival". ........as socks posted above, "I would like to say ditto to many of the things that have been said of Jim and Steve. I met them both way long ago, in 1968 and am glad I did. There were a few years there when the amazing and the unusual were the pattern of the day. It's because of those things I came to know beyond any doubt that Jesus Christ is living today and that God is my Father."...........amen, bro! ..........the miracles, signs, and wonders which "followed" all those friends of mine, and which were present in palpable abundance during that way east revival, throughout the many fellowhips sprouting up all over ny...........that was what "fooled" me into the outstretched arms of the risen christ! .............vic's conspicuous "absence" from those early fellowhips had a lot more to do with that revival than did his later "conspicuous presence", imho!! .............that "conspicuous presence" is what choked the true life out of that revival, as it did to the one in the way west, and the one in the old "northern ohio branch" mentioned in several posts on this thread!............it was wanting to see that kind of genuine, christian revival repeated again and again around the globe, which hooked me!.......and vic, ever the master manipulator and showman that he was, deftly transferred that desire to see the "resurrection power of christianity" with it's attendant miracles, signs and wonders, to his "ministry", in the stead of the ministry of jesus christ............that's where i got "fooled", and yes, that cult deception was indeed "poignant" for me, and thousands of others who experienced it!.................fool me once, shame on you.......fool me twice, shame on me! Edited June 7, 2008 by Don'tWorryBeHappy */*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/ I was there too. Things really happened big on Long Island in the 1970’s, before the Corps over-organization (dare I call it Wierwille’s Folly) ruined it. I was forever hooked, just like Ralph, on ever wanting to see that kind of Church on fire happen again. It absolutely can!

Someday I'd love to delve into details on this. The non-counterfeitability of SIT was something I studied long and hard in the decades before GreaseSpot, but then I put my notes down, and I never got into it here, so I am very rusty on it. But it is an important subject. I have a folders (paper and digital) on this topic also going back to the 70s. In the digital is an .mp4 of an old 1990s VHS of Andy Kaufman playing bongos and singing in tongues or faking it. Hard to tell which is which. */*/* How do you know your HS gibberish was not genuine tongues? BTW, my theater friends told me they call it gibberish in their circles. They also will do low volume "raspberries and strawberries" mantras to simulate a crowd of people talking randomly amongst themselves. I have thought people like Andy Kaufman (my hero, along with Firesign) might be born again and his bongo SIT was real. I noticed someone here posted a different Andy Kaufman doing non-singing gibberish, again maybe SIT. */*/* I also studied complex rhythms in dance were similar to complex rhythms of rap artist friends of mine when I was doing Open Mics. In your HS gibberish did you ever go for VERY LONG periods of time, like 10 or 20 minutes to see if there were repeating patterns? Did you even know to do such an experiment? I am very rusty on this, but re-awakening circuits as I type. If I ever have time we ought to get into this, and I'll break out my folders. Meanwhile, I have explored the repetitiveness of gibberish with my friends to see if it resembled the repetitiveness we see in many PFAL grads. But grad repetitiveness is what I looked at most, and helped others overcome the most. Being able to SIT for 10 or 20 minutes out loud with no noticeable repetition patterns is a big deal. I have often thought that part of the non-counterfeitability of SIT was due to the ZERO motivation counterfeiters have to get fluent with it. I have noticed with repetitive grads, that if you listen REAL close, there are all sorts of modulations of volume and rhythm that seems to augment the vocalization envelopes. So if the vocalization envelopes for these grads carries less information due to repetition, but the volume and rhythm modulation carries lots of info, then the repetition that is most noticeable ain't so bad. */*/*/* Anyway, that’s all the time I have for SIT right now. I am swamped with a large backlog of posts I want to respond to next, and some posts I haven’t even read yet. I’m home sick today so I may get to some of that backlog today. PLUS, I want to post my Double Doors scriptures. There are not that many. I culled out the most clear ones to keep things more simple.

Well, I see another flurry of posting all around me. I have lots of typing to greet me when I return. Meanwhile, I noticed earlier that the term "mental assent" only comes up ONCE in the 1968 PFAL class.

Thanks much!

YIKES! Can you PLEASE give me a date for that? Also, were the twig and branch leaders Corps? This is crucial for me, others, and an accurate history being written someday. I had turned off my computer to go out and see the nice weather, but I came back to talk about that check that went to the wrong address on that Saturday? Was that the example you were referring to in this latest horror story? Was that you with the wrong address story? I'm not being facetious; this kind of story enrages me about leadership. I don't think any stupid things like this happened in the early 70s on Long Island. I did see these bonehead moves in the Corps (just some) and they increased into the 80s, and went over the top in the 90s (so I am told). I haven't had time to check if the check story was you. Please pardon my memory. I try to keep track of lots of things. I would have checked but this latest story sort of stopped me in my tracks. I feel for you, because I've been there and done that myself; sometimes spectacularly. When I was going out WoW in 1982 my car had an aluminum head that had cracked, but I got if fixed “semi-miraculously” and was off in running a cross country trip from San Diego to Ohio. But my new head cracked in the Colorado Rockies! I could tell, because I had to limp on a blown head for weeks prior to its fixing in San Diego, and I was now limping again. But I was answering a call from God! I had resisted acting on the WoW challenge for 11 years, but now finally I am giving God a year of my time and heart. I had put my business in the hands of 5 grads, with verbal promises they would give it all back to me on my return. No cracked aluminum head was not going to stop this Ambassador for Christ! No sirree! I started picturing in my mind the aluminum poles that hold up the huge Rock of Ages tents, and how strong that metallic bond was. I was a Physics major, and it was easy to imagine my cracked head “healing” up by God’s power. It would be so easy to work those atoms around, bring in a few needed neutrons or protons, or scoop up aluminum from the road dust…. I was into “the believing images of victory” that we all were galloping with in those days. As I limped up each hill I’d make these mental images stronger to defy the wobbles in the my car engine’s strength. As I coasted down the next hill I’d be thanking God for that head to he healed on climbing the next hill…. and the next… and the next… Arrrrggghhhh!! It was mentally exhausting. It was a miracle I made it to Ohio in time, though !!! My diagnosis was right; cracked head. I had a sick feeling when I saw the aluminum poles and how strong they looked at the big tent. It took another 6 years before I could figure out what went wrong. Can you see it? */*/* Anyway, I want to go back out and enjoy the weather for a little bit before it gets cold. AND, I want to get back to that wrong address check thing. Like I said earlier, I’ve spent a lot of time reading posts here lately, and accumulating a lot of notes on posts from many days ago (and other threads too) that I want to respond to, including all the fresh ones from the past few hours.

In science, when a "force law" like gravity or electricity is investigated, it is necessary to do what is called "controlled experiments." The control refers to eliminating all other forces acting on the experiment. That is hard to do at times, because there are so many different kinds of forces happening in real life. In the labortory the idea is to control other forces towards simplicity by eliminating them. This is the reason I looked at the phenomenon of "free will" in the simplest possible kind of a mind, that is, one that does not have spirit. I think we were taught the "lab" version or the "controlled" version of the law of believing for simplicity. We were not taught about all the other forces much. Believing is something that doesn't usually happen once. It is usually cultivated with many implementations or attempts. Lots of persistence is involved in believing. I think when that is the case, the "other" forces out there have less chance to persistently mess it up. I think there are random events; $hit happens. But they don't happen persistently, not truly random ones. Then there are the occasions where the adversary can find a way to mess it up EVEN IF we are believing. With true believing, a failure like this is ignored, and the believing persists, to win another day. (Think of Jesus having to heal that blind guy twice.) But, oldiesman, the scarcity of miracles IMO is mostly due to us not having real believing most of the time, or not having a written promise, or not having a direct revelation. Then there is also the believing that is needed AFTER a miracle to deal with the adversary's empowerment due to the double doors. I never heard anyone teach like this, though, that there are other forces at work along with the force of us believing a promise from God. I think it should have been in the Advanced Class. As I came to a slow understanding of this, I started to hear things different from grads who were perplexed at not getting results from believing. When they would say "But I was believing!" I slowly learned to think that if they were really believing, then what made them stop? The lack of results from believing should never be put on God, or paid much attention. If we keep on believing what He says, it will eventually come to pass. For some things that may be a long time, even to the Return of Christ. I have a couple of things like that in my life, but I don't let my lack of persistence, or my lack of nailing accurately a promise from God, stop me from applying the law of believing to other matters. I think most of us are still beginners at the believing stuff.

No, it all narrows down to how Jesus taught on believing and the lack of believing. Have you ever gone through the 4 Gospels and taken note of all that Jesus teaches on believing? It might change your attitudes. Maybe I should post them here? Are you even AWARE of Jesus talking about believing? What VPW taught us was that mental assent lacks action. When there is risk, and something to lose by acting, but the action is taken anyway, then that is an indicator that believing is happening. But don't forget, genuine believing with action, but lacking a written promise that is the object of the believing, is bogus and believing amiss. It's genuine believing-action, but it is aimed wrong. This part about linking believing with a promise of God often slips out of our speech, and later out of our awareness. It is equally critical that all operation of the power manifestations must be linked to a direct revelation. I see both of these links often missing in people's speech, and I conclude that means it is lacking in people's minds just how important that what God says about these things, either in writing or directly, must never be divorced from the believing-action part. I think these are the reasons so may are disappointed with what they assimilated from PFAL and associated teachings. The law of believing is fine; we operate it very poorly. So, in for believing for miracles make sure you have a written or direct promise from God to link your believing to and then ACT on it. */*/*/*/ I cling to what God says about the law of believing, even if He doesn't use that modern terminology. The terminology is not as important as the ideas. I trust that Jesus got the ideas straight when he taught on believing. I trust that all the Biblical writers got it right. I trust what VPW taught us about believing and the necessary links to associated promises of God, as I mentioned above to So_crates.

For the past two weeks I have been reading a lot here; far more than every before. I’ve also been resisting the urge to post every time I see an opportunity. That has helped my reading progress. I even got another chapter read yesterday in “Undertow.” */*/* OldSkool, the more you share your life here, the more I can relate to what you folks are doing here. A few others have also helped me relate to how things went at TWI after I left in 1988. In my mind I was leaving before 1988, and openly criticizing the Corps tactics and structure even as early as 1982. So I turned a deaf ear to lots of TWI-2 by the ’86 meltdown. The more I read the more I see that things changed more than I thought in the late 80s and thru the 90s. I have to admit, this separating the baby from the bathwater is more complicated than I thought it would be 20 years ago. What I am trying to say is I am better recognizing the culty trappings of the Corps and TWI-2 and TWI-3, and the difficulties in breaking away from them. Translated into action, these observations have led me to read more and post less. */*/*/* To avoid directly debating these following points, I will not address them to a quote. This little theory or hunch I am airing out here is still in the making. I am not insisting that this double door and tight budget thing is true. It just seems to help me think sometimes, and it has been persistent over decades in popping up in my mind. But NEVER have I been entertaining the thought that God is interested in “turning off miracles.” I always see it as a temporary STRATEGIC measure, that God would cause the doors to close. It’s limiting the adversary’s power over us that I see as God’s motivation behind the closed doors. I think He is always looking for the safe opportunity for Him to bless us in ways that do not allow the adversary the ability to mess it up. Opening the doors for a direct and powerful intervention seems to not be His inclination, due to circumstances. God not only looks at our believing before a miracle occurs, but afterwards as well. He sees in fore-knowledge where our believing will be after the miracle. I feel God looks to see that we are ready and able and believing for the miracle, but He ALSO looks at our believing to handle the “after-challenges” of the adversary. An example of this might be how Elisha handled the post-healing scenario with Naaman, compared to how Gehazi mis-handled it. */*/* Something that was a big part of my life before my first twig was “cosmic consciousness.” It was in the wind in those days, late Sixties and early Seventies. It was in the music and in many people’s minds. Achieving it with drugs seemed like a great shortcut, at first, but it was only a taste, at best. As I studied the ancients as well as modern enlightenment programs I developed a strong sense of SCARCITY of people who were willing to discipline their minds well enough to achieve the delicate state of enlightenment. I had a super hard time following authors who would teach on this. Reading them was an exciting adventure, but disciplining my thinking in between reading sessions was the hard part. When I got into the Word, it was immediately apparent to me that “ believing” and “fellowship” was equivalent to this delicate cosmic consciousness I had been pursuing. Fellowship got super easy to achieve when I discovered the First Epistle of John, but believing without a trace of doubt remained hard. When VPW taught about “mental assent” I completely knew what he meant. It was simple agreement with some idea, and a pleasant feeling that it was true, but lacking the crystallization required to take bold action. I could also see many grads around me who lacked any understanding of the difference between believing and mental assent. Hardly anyone, back then, would even speak out the term “mental assent.” The word “assent” is relatively rare, and I think the less educated grads never really embraced what mental assent was and how super common it was. I just always had the feeling that many grads never got the difference, and pretty much ignored the ideas behind these subtle differences. I think most of the confusion about the law of believing comes from people thinking that their mental assent is real true believing, the kind of true believing that Jesus talked about, and having no doubts. I think real believing is rare and mental assent is very common. I know for sure that’s the way it works with me. I hardly ever see anyone write the phrase “mental assent” here. My hunch is that mental assent is abundant and that real solid believing is scarce, and hence the main reason for the scarcity of miracles. */*/* I am almost ready to post the scriptures I had promised. I’ve broken them up into 2 groups: the “double doors” verses and the “budgetary” ones. The double doors ones are fewer, so that will be first.

No, NOT at that point. It was much earlier. I was an eye witness, along with more than a hundred other staffers. The scrapping of PFAL'77 being a replacement class happened in the BRC basement at lunchtime approximately 4 days before PFAL'77 started. I was there. Read my detailed account here: https://www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/topic/24553-the-wierwille-legacy-who-will-write-the-book/page/2/#comment-586383

Yes. It is only for a short time that the devil has a wide open door; then it's from door to doom, as Christ returns to Earth with us. That is when the full power of God happens on Earth: "...thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven."

Please save those questions for after I lay out the scriptures I have. I think there is some overlap, but I have not committed them to memory very well. Some of them are very old notes I haven't seen or thought about in 30 or 40 years. I am slowly processing them all for posting. It may take a day or two. If I make the case that this budget/door thing is a useful idea, then you can help me apply it to the scriptures you are bringing up. Please remember, that there is no guarantee that every situation in scripture will have clues that help us on this topic of the budget/door. But if the scriptures I have found will help solidify the idea, then there may be MANY more scriptures where the clues ARE there to be found. Please, in addition to opposing this idea, try putting the idea on, to see how it fits. Hold it in mind and try to apply it to odd places in the scriptures. It may help explain some of them.

The best I understand it, as we help others to get the eyes of THEIR understanding enlightened to the verses you quoted, then the more we will understand them. We have been give LOTS of details on those scriptures, and teaching them by example puts in the maximum position to hear His guidance. He certainly wants us to help others get a LITTLE understanding here, and we certainly can do that. This is the ultimate of what we give out we get back in abundance. It was always in witnessing and teaching the Word that I grew the most. The action is in helping others with this. That is what 7 of the 9 manifestations are for: ministering to others.

No. It is more detailed than that. But, I have to backtrack for a bit to situation similar to the Corps, first. I posted several times here how VPW & Co. were very busy working away for about a year at PFAL'77 being a replacement for the '68 class. Then at lunch, 4 days before PFAL'77 we were surprised to hear VPW pull the plug, in that he confessed to us staff at lunch that he and the top leadership never got the "go ahead" from God on the project. He said they were off the Word. A far more detailed account can be seen here: https://www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/topic/24553-the-wierwille-legacy-who-will-write-the-book/page/2/#comment-586383 My current model on VPW is that he had a private project going with PFAL'77 being a replacement for the '68 class. He was wrong in that he was spending God's money (lots of it) on his own private project. Then God FINALLY got through to VPW that day, 4 days before PFAL'77 was to start, that He was ....ed! Ok, that is something that VPW admitted happened. That TVT report that I cited about Oral Roberts was similar to this, where Oral was enticed to veer away from healings to get denominations to contribute to his school, his private project. Another similar situation was Paul’s private project to travel to Jerusalem, which was a major undertaking in those days. God very active in warning Paul against it, because He knew it would limit Paul. God was unable to get through to Paul. He tried His best. Remember, God and Paul are working behind enemy lines, in the devil’s world. That in itself is a limitation on God. */*/* So, VPW admitted that he and the machinery of the ministry were on the wrong track, and for a long time, and spending lots of money and man-hours on without God’s approval and guidance on PFAL’77. I thing that exact same thing happened on a grander scale with the Corps. PAUSE – I know there was probably a large MAJORITY of good people who got a lot of good things from the Corps training, and then served God well in their Corps service. I am not talking about that majority hump in the Bell Curve. But there was a minority of Corps, found in greater concentrations as you moved up the chain of command, that were drifting in all sorts of directions AWAY from what we were taught and were supposed to go. UNPAUSE - I think that exact same thing happened on a grander scale a few years later with the Corps. VPW and the machinery of the ministry drifted onto on the wrong track(s), and for a long time, and spending lots of money and man-hours on without God’s approval and guidance when it came to the Corps being trained to take over the ministry leadership as the 1980s progressed. So, I would correct your diagnosis to read: VPW ~~~ good new-man nature, bad old-man nature Corps members ~~~ good new-man natures, bad old-man natures Corps Training and Structure ~~~ lots of good points mixed with a few very bad points Activities of leadership ~~~ drifting from good to very bad at times

Again, it is the IDEA of limitation, not the exact word "limitation" that I am looking for. The words (limit, budget, door) are all my vocabulary words to express the idea. The same idea could be in the scriptures with different wording.

If the limit thing is of my construction, then it should be JUNKED. But if the scriptures talk of said limitations, then it deserves some consideration. I will be posting more scriptures, but you have a few already. We can see the limitation put on angels from that chapter in Daniel. We see some kind of limitation in the Book of Job when God could only forbid the devil from killing Job. I will be posting more.

I am recalling way back to the 1970s to when I first started a paper folder for this topic. The term "double doors" is merely an alliteration for an idea, making it easy go remember, and there are the iconic bar room double doors in our vocabulary. The idea may be in scriptures, but not with my nomenclature. I was thinking of interventions between the spiritual realm into the physical realm as being possible for BOTH God and the devil. That is what the "double" refers to: both God and the devil are limited by them being shut. But when God opens them, both of them suddenly have access. */*/*/*/* If what I am talking is an abundantly clear pattern in the scriptures, then it can rise above the charge of private interpretation. If not then I have to drop it and not teach it. I will be producing the scriptures that convinced me enough to at least bring it up here in the "Doctrinal Dungeon" as opposed to teaching it in a twig. I have never taught this all these years. I have brought it up to about 3 or 4 people I thought could handle it, and they encouraged me to look into it deeper.

We heard of some miracles in VPW's ministry in the years prior to the filming of PFAL in 1968. I have reason to believe they were genuine. HOWEVER, I have never heard of any big, huge, undeniable miracles coming from VPW, nor from anyone in top leadership. I am not sure about a lot of things, but we all have to make temporary models to understand how things went down. I juggle these models from time to time. In the 70s, part of the early TVT (it wasn’t all bad) was that Oral Roberts did have a genuine ministry of healing miracles. However, as the TVT went, the adversary sort of “bought him out” by clearing the path for Oral to set up a College or a University. Then his healings went down. The adversary had identified a soft spot in his stand, and tempted him with good (Bible School) to get him to relinquish the best (healings). This could even be looked at as an example of the Peter Principle, from that book from the 80s. Now, I imagine this was not a black-and-white sudden change in Oral’s life. It may have taken years, with lotsd of back and forth. It looks like something similar may have happened to VPW with his “School of the Prophets” that the Corps was supposed to become. It looks to me that VPW’s ministry worked great, until around 1972 and it started rapidly changing from being "PFAL for new people" oriented, to being totally Corps oriented. I was outraged at how the top leadership TOTALLY ignored all the need-to-know issues we non-Corps people had while the ministry was melting down in the years after 1986. Top leadership acted as if we did not exist. I can imagine VPW doing a back and forth in those last years of his life, but the pattern was set in stone for his top leaders. */*/*/* Now let’s look at your question. All nine all the time NEVER meant miracles all the time. It pretty much mean SIT most of the time, and look for ways to do T.I.P. as often as once a day. The rest of the time could be in helping others and asking God what to do. All nine all the time was just a meme, a slogan for us to remember easily, that we always have these great manifestations to learn. */*/* It has occurred to me that ONE reason the doors may be closed when a miracle is needed is because the believer, the potential miracle worker, needs to be spiritually strong enough to withstand the adversary rushing in to mess up the miracle. If that believer is taught things like PFAL and memes like “all 9 all the time,” then that believer can SIT a lot and work the Word and his walk to BECOME strong enough to withstand the devil rushing in, and get that miracle done. I see no contradiction in VPW teaching “all nine all the time” and YET he himself (or the structure of top Corps leaders he built) being out of fellowship, or just not disciplined enough to handle God open that door. There have been PLENTY of times I was not up to my best, yet I would still teach what I knew to be the best, even if I often fell short of it. HQ is a terrible place to get the fire to move the Word face-to-face with a new person. It was very challenging to me to get those two locals signed up for the class. In a little over 2 years, that was all I got. I can understand HQ people sliding into complacent easy-believing there, and not rising to the challenge of witnessing to the end of changing someone’s life for the better. I imagine that top leadership circles at lots of the States was equally boring, and lots of paperwork and putting out ego fires. But on Long Island in the 70s, it was exciting and loaded with signs, miracles, and wonders when a large team of “know nothings” with holy spirit started speaking the Word boldly in public. */*/* I believe, and am thankful for minor miracles, like ones that are so private that no one can know about them save the ones who benefited. That can be happening a lot. But it seems some miracles, like my friend George getting a miraculously built arm, are rare and require a big hit on the “budget.” Remember that “budget” is just a word I came up with to describe God limiting Himself and the devil simultaneously. At the Christ’s return we can probably expect to see that budget busted after the adversary is gone.

I think I understand one of your points – to a degree anyway – what I acknowledge is that God is all-powerful, and that He is limited only by His own designs and purposes – and we should not assume we know all about His designs and purposes. I totally agree. The only way we can have any surety here is to the extent that we see it in the scriptures. Over the years I kept on THINKING that I was seeing this in the scriptures. I will soon be processing my collection for posting. I have them all in one folder already, so it won’t take too long. */*/* But to say that He “MUST work within His own constructed framework” is to dictate what an all-powerful being can and cannot do. Here, I think we already have pretty clear scriptures that confirm this part, like God cannot lie, and the scripture cannot be broken. */*/* Imagine a 6-year-old throwing a tantrum at Walmart because Mom won’t let him grab stuff off the shelves and mess with everything – like he does at home. Maybe the kid doesn’t understand something about the ‘all-powerful’ Mom. She’s a single Mom and works online from home. When at home she devotes a lot of her time and energy to online work. Most folks at Walmart will probably think she doesn’t discipline the kid at home…But maybe she’s a great single mom doing the best she can to provide for 2, loves the kid and just makes sure the kid doesn’t burn down the house. At Walmart – maybe the kid is trying to figure out what the ‘all-powerful’ Mom can and cannot do. In this silly parenting metaphor, to the kid the mom is like a god. At 6-years-old maybe he doesn’t get that an all-powerful Mom can have different strategies and purposes in different situations – but her love and concern for the kid’s well-being and development doesn’t change – no external force…not even a tantrum throwing 6-year-old can alter mom’s love. Why did God create angels with free will? Why did God create humankind with free will? Why didn’t God immediately fix the rebellion in heaven or the screw up in the Garden of Eden? There’s lots of questions this little kid has. file:///C:/Users/mike7/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image001.gif *We know very little about angels. Again we are totally limited to what the scriptures tell us about them, and it seems they tell us far less about angels than what they tell us about God, and Jesus, and us. We can barely understand free will of our own; far less angels’ free will. As far as our free will goes, we have precious little said in the scripture about that. I hear rumors Calvin launched a whole religion that has no free will in their doctrine. The Bible does seem to favor determinism at times, a little. But most of all I think the Bible assumes or implies SOME kind of choice is available to us, without going into the Biology at all. We need to have choice to be individuals. As for your last question of God fixing problems quickly, versus dragging it all out this way, possibly with a budget and double doors, there is an answer to that. It is in Romans, but the best translation I’ve seen that makes this clear is the New English Translation. Romans 5 N.E.T. But death held sway from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned as Adam did, by disobeying a direct command, and Adam foreshadows The Man who was to come. But God’s act of grace is out of all proportion to Adam’s wrongdoing. For if the wrongdoing of that one man brought death upon so many, its effect is vastly exceeded by the grace of God and the gift that came to so many by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ. And again: the gift of God is not to be compared in its effect with that one man’s sin; for the judicial action, following upon the one offence, issued in a verdict of condemnation, but the act of grace, following upon so many misdeeds, issued in a verdict of acquittal. For, if by the wrongdoing of that one man, death established its reign through a single sinner, much more shall those who receive God’s grace in far greater measure, and His gift of righteousness, live and reign through the one man, Jesus Christ. What I take away from that is that I trust God that IN THE END it will have been worth all the crap and delays. That passage in Romans 5 is a PROMISE that we will not be disappointed when we get there. It will be the big Ah Ha! moment. The delays will look puny, and all the tears will be wiped away. I think it is connected with Jesus leaving to prepare a place for us, and it takes time. Likewise, in the OT, it took time for angels to get jobs done. Why? We can ask that then, but now we clearly see this happens.

My point with the story about George was that HUGE undeniable miracles (like a new arm where there was never one before) were so rare that CERTAINLY if even ONE had occurred in TWI we'd all have heard about it. My point was that big miracles were very rare for us, and then I extended it to all ministries, and even to the ministries of the apostles. The scarcity is universal. Why? I think the closed doors are to keep the devils lying signs, miracles, and wonders very scarce also. There will come a time, after we are gone, when the door will be wide open for the devil's power, and that way he will seduce the whole world.

All we have are scriptures to guide us in these matters, and they plainly say that God's angels were hindered, and it was a tight struggle. I believe God's handling of this matter was the best way, and He tells us, with scriptures, what His angels had to go through. We should not second guess this situation; just learn from it. It was a close, difficult struggle.

I was thinking the responsibilities at 30 may be too much for many to have dropped everything to follow Jesus. Younger people could withstand the hardships of touring like young Grateful Dead fans would tour with that band from city to city.

Time is always an issue. It took me a long time to write that all out. And no, I did not finish Penworks book yet.

No! It is the double doors that kinda make it fair for the devil. Or maybe also to make life a real choice for Adam. The tight budget that God limits Himself to is to limit the devil to the same tight budget. Maybe you missed the part where I said that IN ADDITION to "signs, wonders and miracles didn’t follow victor" they don't follow anybody exceptin' Jesus. All the apostles were lacking a miracle at their time of death, and many lackings before that. I think the scarcity of heavy duty miracles is universal, not just with you and me. Every ministry outside of Jesus' goes for long periods of time without ever seeing a spectacular miracle. I believe they happen; just rarely. Every now and then, when the doors are open, they happen and even in spurts.

I will be working on that this week. It took me a whole week to bang out that first post, because I am trying to be less rushed as I write. The posting frenzies that can happen here were times when I would use awkward grammar or forget crucial mitigation. I'll just to throw out the one easiest to document scriptures that SOMEWHAT supports this double door part of my theory. It is: Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, “Yea, hath God said, ‘Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” This verse often gets us wondering WHY was the serpent there in the Garden of Eden at all? !!! Everything in the Second Earth was "very good" at that time, so how was this subtle, crafty, lying enchanter able to get in? Answer: Double Doors In order for God to operate freely in the Garden with Adam, He had to allow that open door for the adversary to operate freely as well. At the end of Eden this set of double doors was closed. Genesis 3:22-24 And the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become as one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live for ever” — therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken. So He drove out the man; and He placed at the east of the Garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. */*/* This is not any kind of proof, but it does answer a long standing question of many, and it is part of a pattern that I will be documenting. Please try to think of some "double door" or "bugetary" leaning scriptures yourself. I don't mean to ignore any of the other posts. This one was a fast easy scripture to put on the table. The other comments here will take me more time to read better and compose my thoughts.

Do you mean in Jesus' cult? Or in TWI?