"...it was the promise of the spiritual death that awaited us if we departed that kept many of us involved."
I can't imagine, nor recall every hearing such or saying such in any fellowship that happened in a twig of mine. That junk only come from the WC, later on.
Galen, I'm with you, and thanks for your comments.
I think for me the thoughts of spiritual death were abandoned early on, after a few good twigs. By the 7th Session of PFAL (not to mention Session 5) when VP spoke about sonship and all, that sealed it.
Hmmm....well I was told that in 1980, after my 1 st wow year that if I returned to my home town, that I would *die spiritually* because there wasn`t going to be any fellowships nearby.
I was told this by the people that undershepherded me ..... and no, these were not way corpes, simply former wows.
Lol, that is how I ended up in North Dakota.....It was so much more spiritually healthy than Alabama!
How many people were lured into the belly of the beast to be deeply hurt because of me....because I *ignored* problems in twi?
Rascal, I think the real vast majority of the bad stuff came to my attention after I got out. I had no clue about the sins of Loy, Vic and crowd- or of the real horrors some ladies faced.. I think those who really knew and refused to speak really bear the blame.
Sadly, that won't "fix" it either.
My eyes must have been glazed over with all the stuff I saw, and did nothing.. but usually said actions were justified by some arcane teaching, "we have liberty in christ" or some such nonsense. And I trusted the friggin idiots- with my life. Suprised I still have it..
Hmmm....well I was told that in 1980, after my 1 st wow year that if I returned to my home town, that I would *die spiritually* because there wasn`t going to be any fellowships nearby.
Well, alls I can say is, if folks were listening to PFAL, they'd know that once born again, ya can't die spiritually.
I thought that the evil I saw was just isolated instances.....It took getting out and fonding wd and grease spot to understand the enormity of the abuse....*trusted them with my life*....yeah a lot of us did.
Our trust was betrayed.
Oldies, when they said *die spiritually* it had a different meaning than the one in pfal.
I was told without the nurture of a fellowship, that my new *spirit within* would wither up and die....
Yep. "Die spiritually" kind of meant "because you intend to do otherwise with your life, and even though we don't have the remotest clue of what God wants you to do, but INSIST you jump at our every command- God wouldn't even BOTHER TRYING to spit in your direction".
"Sure you're saved and stuff, but if you don't tow the line you'll wish you never went to heaven.."
That was actually spoken.
I finally got to the point that I figured if the Lord came back, and it was gonna be like that, I just plain wasn't going to go. No thanks. Send me to a worse place, like where there is lots of beer, schnaps, and naughty women folk, heh heh.
If there is a hell, I think a lot of us already passed through it.
Now it seems just like such a remote, bad, bad dream.
Lifes a bitch. So lets bitch. From what I read and perceve from most of your comments, it seems ,that most of you all have made it through most of the bull ..... I have written a book about my experences, from the mid 60es, to the late 80es. I write about the beginning of the eara of LSD and leading up to the summer of love in San Francisco,1967. Knowing "The Grateful Dead" "The Airplane" and the only "Janis Jolpin". The house of Acts a christain community. The beginning of The Jesus movment and the first time I met V. P. Wierwille.
I am not trying to be the great guru gahunga, but I was there in the beginning of the exspansion of Vicks work. I am also not hawking my book, because it isn't published, but it is completed.
I disided to write my account after 1987, when everything began to fall apart and I saw all of these broken hearts dropping like flys away from twi. The # one reason was to tell people that thier was a life after a cult, and I think most of you have figured that out by now. #2 To leave the most accurte acount of what happened during that time. Many things have been written about the House of Acts and the whole Jesus movement, but I have never thought that anyone really caught the heart of the whole movement. You must remember that the Jesus movement was not just the TWI, but a whole bunch of groups ie cults. and #3 To help ones who are falling into the trap of a cult. I think if you ever have a chance to read my book a lot of questions will be anwsered and a lot of healing will take place.
You see nothing is more inportant then our relationship with God and His Son, our Lord and Savaor
Christ Jesus. I saw someones note in the above portion, that leaders were holding things back from the new believers. Yes I am guilty of this, and all I can say is, from my veiwpoint, I didn't want to scare off someone, but to nurtcher one in the word, to the point, that nothing would sachk :wave: them from the foundation of and the greatness and the Power of Gods Word.
1 Cor.13:11 Gal5:1 Eph.6:10-19 I love you all and don't ever forget it.
P.S. As far die spiritualy. You have no idea how many times I was told that I was going to die. Vic once told me that "if I kept going the way I was going, someone was going to put a bulet in my head" He and I were having a little fight over states rights. Well I am still here.
Your statement about the "Jesus movement" being a bunch of cults makes sense. I think we had a work of God, people really wanting answers, turning to the Lord- and then the vultures swarmed, wolves in sheeps clothing.
I remember some of the way living in love stuff with doc's "interview"- how he was unimpressed with the apparent lack of discipline, or whatever.. I think the movement had an element that he could not somehow quantify.
I'm looking forward to reading this book, and hope it doesn't stay in the drawer.
As far as why did people stay if they weren't being blessed, an hurs reading from this website should be answer enough , if you can't figure it out for yourself. Of course there were wonderful people and an exciting brand of Christianity when we first got in. I agree that noone would get involved in something that didn't seem inviting. It's a complex subject, but I'll comment on 2 aspects.
1- We were conditioned to believe that if anything was wrong, it wasn't the ministry's fault it was ours. God's ministry surely could not be so wrong, so we needed to look inward at our own unbelief. We were taught that if we left we were 'tripped out' and destruction would surely follow. We still believed in the integrity of the organization and did not want to turn our backs on the man of god , the word, et al
2-COMMITTMENT- The most important word in way lexicon. Are you committed? where's your comittment ? Only the committed reap God's blessings.
The value of our lives was reduced to the proportion we were committed to the way!
You have a problem in your life? get more committed. You're not blessed? Your not committed enough.
We still had a few good friends, a lovely hq to visit, rousing teachings, and a sense of belonging to something that was bigger than ourselves, and that we genuinely believed was doing some good for the world.
Hmmm....well I was told that in 1980, after my 1 st wow year that if I returned to my home town, that I would *die spiritually* because there wasn`t going to be any fellowships nearby.
Well, alls I can say is, if folks were listening to PFAL, they'd know that once born again, ya can't die spiritually.
This is true, Oldiesman. In PFAL it was certainly one of the clearest points taught.
I think where the mush comes in is in the cavalier use of the word "spiritually" in the Way. A person would really have to follow VPW's vocabulary and contexts to understand what he meant when he used it at any given time. They'd fall into the two categories he taught - standing and state.
A person's fellowship with God could be considered a "spiritual" part of their lives. Harmony and alignment with God's written Word would be considered a spiritual component for grads of PFAL.
New birth, salvation, that's a different "kind" of spirituality - it's the gift as taught in PFAL, pneuma hagion.
Where the pressure comes in to a person is in the "walk" part of the spirituality and that's where this kind of terminology gets mushy.
Someone says "you've got spiritual halitosis" for instance. What's that mean? That's a pretty vague term often used in the Way by some people to infer another person's "spiritually screwed up, out in left field" in their "walk". But it also has been used to infer a person has "devil spirits" and are being influenced by them in what they say or do.
That's the kind of terminology and uses of words that I found so damaging when I encountered them. Mixing up spiritual and physical metaphors was really common amongst Wayfer leaders and those who aspired to it because they often didn't know what they were really talking about and would change their meanings to suit what they were saying. So you could get these incredibly vague and mush declarations that a person didn't really know exactly what they meant, except that they knew it was bad.
Hmmm....well I was told that in 1980, after my 1 st wow year that if I returned to my home town, that I would *die spiritually* because there wasn`t going to be any fellowships nearby.
Well, alls I can say is, if folks were listening to PFAL, they'd know that once born again, ya can't die spiritually.
"This is true, Oldiesman. In PFAL it was certainly one of the clearest points taught."
I am going to have to throw the penalty flag on this call.
PFAL DOES NOT state that if you go to an area without twigs then you will die spiritually.
PFAL does teach about: 'standing' and 'state'. One deals with spritual birth and your place in the Heavenly family. The other deals with you current closeness to Our Heavenly Father, which could be accomplished in a Twig, or in a church or anywhere the two or more beleivers can fellowship together. Within PFAL it really does not say a specific method of 'how' or 'what' you must do to stay close to Our Creator, just that it is needed.
:-)
We have certainly gone to many areas where there was not an existing twig, that did not stop us from starting a twig. Nor did anyone every tell us that doing such would harm us.
I dont doubt that some idiot told you such, but they were not quoting PFAL, when they did it.
What socks said was that "if folks were listening to PFAL, they'd know that once born again, ya can't die spiritually" was one of the clearest points taught.
"What socks said was that "if folks were listening to PFAL, they'd know that once born again, ya can't die spiritually" was one of the clearest points taught."
Thanks, that's what I tried to say anyway, PFAL completely made the case that a person can't lose their salvation once they're born again. There's a basic "token" paid, an entry level admission fee satisfied by belief in Christ, accompished by the sacrifice of Christ.
But...I have heard from some people that LCM (and whoever else I don't know) taught something to the effect that a person could lose that basic level of salvation in Christ if they did something really wrong, like leave the Way and join another crew or worse yet actually stand against the Way.
That might have been...but I don't know for sure....a misunderstanding of Craig's rants. I understand he made the whole "grease spot by midnight, worse than dogs, spiritual mincemeat" rant over people who left the Way during his regime very very harsh and ugly. People here post about it all the time.
Which is my point, not so clear I guess - by shooting his mouth off so often, so loosely and so outright evil-ly, he may have made it seem possible to "spiritually die" where it was some kind of spiritual ding that wouldn't be forgiven, that wasn't covered by salvation. (and let's face it he certainly wasn't forgiving anyone so for a person responsible to pastor the church he'd been given he did a lousy job. What makes his wife, his family, his friends, anymore worthy than any of us? Because they hung around and putup with him longer?).
Those who have been given much have much expected. I've said it before, he's lucky he didn't get his face kicked in and most of us chose to walk away. It says more about the decency of the people he abused than it does about what he deserved.
From his viewpoint he wanted to make people that left seem so bad, so marked, so devoid of God's love and protection and so hopelessly lost that there was no way a person would ever be acceptable again.
Churches represent God and Christ, right? Or are supposed to. If a church completely condemns you that way it absolutely will leave you feeling like you're unforgivable.
But PFAL didn't teach that, no. If anything PFAL at least presented the environment that all of those people who felt that they'd been abandoned, forsaken and left for dead had a place to come in out of the storm and get well - God's love. Not a bad thing, really.
As far as I know, Martindale was not teaching that you could lose that "basic level of salvation". I was in and active through late 2001.
However he did talk a lot about the bēma not necessarily being a pleasant experience for what he considered the unfaithful, as well as not having access to the benefits of being "in the household" both in this life and the next.
Martindale wasn't that clear a teacher, and certainly could have been misunderstood as he mixed 2 minutes of scripture in with 58 minutes of venom on a Sunday afternoon.
The way it was explained to me that without the nurture of a fellowship, my spirit couldn`t grow.....it would wither up ...if you weren`t growing you were dying.
Once I was weak spiritually, then I would be open season for Satan....God would not be able to protect me. I would probably die physically as well.
Add that together with the teaching that had been hammered home all that year on the wow field that leadership was always tp be obeyed even if they were wrong....You know, like Peter who walked out on the water when Jesus told him....and you had one obediant little wafer.
That is why m&a was viewed as a fate worse than death...most of us would have done anything required by twi in order to maintain that spiritual nurture.
The way I understood it- when the "gathering" hit, you would wish that you were rather NOT saved- if you did not tow the company line.. something like, "yes, you have eternal life. But you may spend the most part of eternity getting a real foot whippin".
I even heard some bigwigs say that you'd be better of if you just died, than to "lose rewards".
Yeah I heard that too Mr. Hamm. That is why when I was declared *posessed* by my tc`s wife at 18, I wanted to commit suicide, figuring that it was far better to die now, than to lose anymore rewards, or to *contaminate the rest of the body with my vileness.
I remember craiggers yelling about people who leave, especially wc and ordained ministers, that if they left they would go "spiritually dark" - conscience seared with a hot iron, scales on their eyes and unable to read or understand Biblical truths, that they would forget what they knew, get posseessed, have no more protection from God and be contaminated with seven times the spirits they had before getting involved with TWI. Dogs returning to their vomit, he called 'em.
He may not have called it spiritual death, but he sure as he11 painted that picture.
My thoughts about what you all said and the status of twi. Look what that got lcm when he was "in" raping women, M&Aing people that he just did not care for even though they were great people of God and all the other number of things that are so aganst what the bible says and what twi and lcm taught.
Just remember according to what they taught and I belive to be true. That the devil has to speak some truth so he (the devil) can deceive. That is The Way International in a nutshell from way back when to this day.
I was told in the early 80's that things (rapes) were going on. I wish I had pursude the storys instead of dismiss them as gossip. I believe God kept slamming me in the head with things that were wrong, telling me to "get the hell out". One night I heard it loud and clear. The next day I was gone.
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oldiesman
Galen, I'm with you, and thanks for your comments.
I think for me the thoughts of spiritual death were abandoned early on, after a few good twigs. By the 7th Session of PFAL (not to mention Session 5) when VP spoke about sonship and all, that sealed it.
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rascal
Hmmm....well I was told that in 1980, after my 1 st wow year that if I returned to my home town, that I would *die spiritually* because there wasn`t going to be any fellowships nearby.
I was told this by the people that undershepherded me ..... and no, these were not way corpes, simply former wows.
Lol, that is how I ended up in North Dakota.....It was so much more spiritually healthy than Alabama!
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Ham
Rascal, I think the real vast majority of the bad stuff came to my attention after I got out. I had no clue about the sins of Loy, Vic and crowd- or of the real horrors some ladies faced.. I think those who really knew and refused to speak really bear the blame.
Sadly, that won't "fix" it either.
My eyes must have been glazed over with all the stuff I saw, and did nothing.. but usually said actions were justified by some arcane teaching, "we have liberty in christ" or some such nonsense. And I trusted the friggin idiots- with my life. Suprised I still have it..
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oldiesman
Well, alls I can say is, if folks were listening to PFAL, they'd know that once born again, ya can't die spiritually.
Happy Weekend, one and all!
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rascal
I thought that the evil I saw was just isolated instances.....It took getting out and fonding wd and grease spot to understand the enormity of the abuse....*trusted them with my life*....yeah a lot of us did.
Our trust was betrayed.
Oldies, when they said *die spiritually* it had a different meaning than the one in pfal.
I was told without the nurture of a fellowship, that my new *spirit within* would wither up and die....
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Ham
Yep. "Die spiritually" kind of meant "because you intend to do otherwise with your life, and even though we don't have the remotest clue of what God wants you to do, but INSIST you jump at our every command- God wouldn't even BOTHER TRYING to spit in your direction".
"Sure you're saved and stuff, but if you don't tow the line you'll wish you never went to heaven.."
That was actually spoken.
I finally got to the point that I figured if the Lord came back, and it was gonna be like that, I just plain wasn't going to go. No thanks. Send me to a worse place, like where there is lots of beer, schnaps, and naughty women folk, heh heh.
If there is a hell, I think a lot of us already passed through it.
Now it seems just like such a remote, bad, bad dream.
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jimdoop
Hi Dear Ones.
Lifes a bitch. So lets bitch. From what I read and perceve from most of your comments, it seems ,that most of you all have made it through most of the bull ..... I have written a book about my experences, from the mid 60es, to the late 80es. I write about the beginning of the eara of LSD and leading up to the summer of love in San Francisco,1967. Knowing "The Grateful Dead" "The Airplane" and the only "Janis Jolpin". The house of Acts a christain community. The beginning of The Jesus movment and the first time I met V. P. Wierwille.
I am not trying to be the great guru gahunga, but I was there in the beginning of the exspansion of Vicks work. I am also not hawking my book, because it isn't published, but it is completed.
I disided to write my account after 1987, when everything began to fall apart and I saw all of these broken hearts dropping like flys away from twi. The # one reason was to tell people that thier was a life after a cult, and I think most of you have figured that out by now. #2 To leave the most accurte acount of what happened during that time. Many things have been written about the House of Acts and the whole Jesus movement, but I have never thought that anyone really caught the heart of the whole movement. You must remember that the Jesus movement was not just the TWI, but a whole bunch of groups ie cults. and #3 To help ones who are falling into the trap of a cult. I think if you ever have a chance to read my book a lot of questions will be anwsered and a lot of healing will take place.
You see nothing is more inportant then our relationship with God and His Son, our Lord and Savaor
Christ Jesus. I saw someones note in the above portion, that leaders were holding things back from the new believers. Yes I am guilty of this, and all I can say is, from my veiwpoint, I didn't want to scare off someone, but to nurtcher one in the word, to the point, that nothing would sachk
:wave: 
them from the foundation of and the greatness and the Power of Gods Word.
1 Cor.13:11 Gal5:1 Eph.6:10-19 I love you all and don't ever forget it.
jimmy doop
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jimdoop
P.S. As far die spiritualy. You have no idea how many times I was told that I was going to die. Vic once told me that "if I kept going the way I was going, someone was going to put a bulet in my head" He and I were having a little fight over states rights. Well I am still here.
He isn't.jdoop
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excathedra
boy i'm glad you're still here, jimmy
love,
ex
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Ham
Jim, I'm sure glad you're still here, too..
Your statement about the "Jesus movement" being a bunch of cults makes sense. I think we had a work of God, people really wanting answers, turning to the Lord- and then the vultures swarmed, wolves in sheeps clothing.
I remember some of the way living in love stuff with doc's "interview"- how he was unimpressed with the apparent lack of discipline, or whatever.. I think the movement had an element that he could not somehow quantify.
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Belle
Thanks, Jim! I look forward to reading your book. You will please let us know when it's for sale?
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hiway29
I'm looking forward to reading this book, and hope it doesn't stay in the drawer.
As far as why did people stay if they weren't being blessed, an hurs reading from this website should be answer enough , if you can't figure it out for yourself. Of course there were wonderful people and an exciting brand of Christianity when we first got in. I agree that noone would get involved in something that didn't seem inviting. It's a complex subject, but I'll comment on 2 aspects.
1- We were conditioned to believe that if anything was wrong, it wasn't the ministry's fault it was ours. God's ministry surely could not be so wrong, so we needed to look inward at our own unbelief. We were taught that if we left we were 'tripped out' and destruction would surely follow. We still believed in the integrity of the organization and did not want to turn our backs on the man of god , the word, et al
2-COMMITTMENT- The most important word in way lexicon. Are you committed? where's your comittment ? Only the committed reap God's blessings.
The value of our lives was reduced to the proportion we were committed to the way!
You have a problem in your life? get more committed. You're not blessed? Your not committed enough.
We still had a few good friends, a lovely hq to visit, rousing teachings, and a sense of belonging to something that was bigger than ourselves, and that we genuinely believed was doing some good for the world.
Oh yeah-we were also brainwashed.
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socks
This is true, Oldiesman. In PFAL it was certainly one of the clearest points taught.
I think where the mush comes in is in the cavalier use of the word "spiritually" in the Way. A person would really have to follow VPW's vocabulary and contexts to understand what he meant when he used it at any given time. They'd fall into the two categories he taught - standing and state.
A person's fellowship with God could be considered a "spiritual" part of their lives. Harmony and alignment with God's written Word would be considered a spiritual component for grads of PFAL.
New birth, salvation, that's a different "kind" of spirituality - it's the gift as taught in PFAL, pneuma hagion.
Where the pressure comes in to a person is in the "walk" part of the spirituality and that's where this kind of terminology gets mushy.
Someone says "you've got spiritual halitosis" for instance. What's that mean? That's a pretty vague term often used in the Way by some people to infer another person's "spiritually screwed up, out in left field" in their "walk". But it also has been used to infer a person has "devil spirits" and are being influenced by them in what they say or do.
That's the kind of terminology and uses of words that I found so damaging when I encountered them. Mixing up spiritual and physical metaphors was really common amongst Wayfer leaders and those who aspired to it because they often didn't know what they were really talking about and would change their meanings to suit what they were saying. So you could get these incredibly vague and mush declarations that a person didn't really know exactly what they meant, except that they knew it was bad.
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Galen
socks:
"This is true, Oldiesman. In PFAL it was certainly one of the clearest points taught."
I am going to have to throw the penalty flag on this call.
PFAL DOES NOT state that if you go to an area without twigs then you will die spiritually.
PFAL does teach about: 'standing' and 'state'. One deals with spritual birth and your place in the Heavenly family. The other deals with you current closeness to Our Heavenly Father, which could be accomplished in a Twig, or in a church or anywhere the two or more beleivers can fellowship together. Within PFAL it really does not say a specific method of 'how' or 'what' you must do to stay close to Our Creator, just that it is needed.
:-)
We have certainly gone to many areas where there was not an existing twig, that did not stop us from starting a twig. Nor did anyone every tell us that doing such would harm us.
I dont doubt that some idiot told you such, but they were not quoting PFAL, when they did it.
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Steve!
Galen, you didn't read that right.
What socks said was that "if folks were listening to PFAL, they'd know that once born again, ya can't die spiritually" was one of the clearest points taught.
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Galen
Steve!:
"Galen, you didn't read that right.
"What socks said was that "if folks were listening to PFAL, they'd know that once born again, ya can't die spiritually" was one of the clearest points taught."
Ooops.
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socks
What? I wasn't perfectly clear?
:D-->
Thanks, that's what I tried to say anyway, PFAL completely made the case that a person can't lose their salvation once they're born again. There's a basic "token" paid, an entry level admission fee satisfied by belief in Christ, accompished by the sacrifice of Christ.
But...I have heard from some people that LCM (and whoever else I don't know) taught something to the effect that a person could lose that basic level of salvation in Christ if they did something really wrong, like leave the Way and join another crew or worse yet actually stand against the Way.
That might have been...but I don't know for sure....a misunderstanding of Craig's rants. I understand he made the whole "grease spot by midnight, worse than dogs, spiritual mincemeat" rant over people who left the Way during his regime very very harsh and ugly. People here post about it all the time.
Which is my point, not so clear I guess - by shooting his mouth off so often, so loosely and so outright evil-ly, he may have made it seem possible to "spiritually die" where it was some kind of spiritual ding that wouldn't be forgiven, that wasn't covered by salvation. (and let's face it he certainly wasn't forgiving anyone so for a person responsible to pastor the church he'd been given he did a lousy job. What makes his wife, his family, his friends, anymore worthy than any of us? Because they hung around and putup with him longer?).
Those who have been given much have much expected. I've said it before, he's lucky he didn't get his face kicked in and most of us chose to walk away. It says more about the decency of the people he abused than it does about what he deserved.
From his viewpoint he wanted to make people that left seem so bad, so marked, so devoid of God's love and protection and so hopelessly lost that there was no way a person would ever be acceptable again.
Churches represent God and Christ, right? Or are supposed to. If a church completely condemns you that way it absolutely will leave you feeling like you're unforgivable.
But PFAL didn't teach that, no. If anything PFAL at least presented the environment that all of those people who felt that they'd been abandoned, forsaken and left for dead had a place to come in out of the storm and get well - God's love. Not a bad thing, really.
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Oakspear
socks:
As far as I know, Martindale was not teaching that you could lose that "basic level of salvation". I was in and active through late 2001.
However he did talk a lot about the bēma not necessarily being a pleasant experience for what he considered the unfaithful, as well as not having access to the benefits of being "in the household" both in this life and the next.
Martindale wasn't that clear a teacher, and certainly could have been misunderstood as he mixed 2 minutes of scripture in with 58 minutes of venom on a Sunday afternoon.
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socks
Thanks Oaks. That clarifies it. No bennies at the bema, hey? I'm not sorry I missed the Afternoon Sharings.
:D-->
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rascal
The way it was explained to me that without the nurture of a fellowship, my spirit couldn`t grow.....it would wither up ...if you weren`t growing you were dying.
Once I was weak spiritually, then I would be open season for Satan....God would not be able to protect me. I would probably die physically as well.
Add that together with the teaching that had been hammered home all that year on the wow field that leadership was always tp be obeyed even if they were wrong....You know, like Peter who walked out on the water when Jesus told him....and you had one obediant little wafer.
That is why m&a was viewed as a fate worse than death...most of us would have done anything required by twi in order to maintain that spiritual nurture.
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Ham
The way I understood it- when the "gathering" hit, you would wish that you were rather NOT saved- if you did not tow the company line.. something like, "yes, you have eternal life. But you may spend the most part of eternity getting a real foot whippin".
I even heard some bigwigs say that you'd be better of if you just died, than to "lose rewards".
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rascal
Yeah I heard that too Mr. Hamm. That is why when I was declared *posessed* by my tc`s wife at 18, I wanted to commit suicide, figuring that it was far better to die now, than to lose anymore rewards, or to *contaminate the rest of the body with my vileness.
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Belle
I remember craiggers yelling about people who leave, especially wc and ordained ministers, that if they left they would go "spiritually dark" - conscience seared with a hot iron, scales on their eyes and unable to read or understand Biblical truths, that they would forget what they knew, get posseessed, have no more protection from God and be contaminated with seven times the spirits they had before getting involved with TWI. Dogs returning to their vomit, he called 'em.
He may not have called it spiritual death, but he sure as he11 painted that picture.
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justloafing
My thoughts about what you all said and the status of twi. Look what that got lcm when he was "in" raping women, M&Aing people that he just did not care for even though they were great people of God and all the other number of things that are so aganst what the bible says and what twi and lcm taught.
Just remember according to what they taught and I belive to be true. That the devil has to speak some truth so he (the devil) can deceive. That is The Way International in a nutshell from way back when to this day.
I was told in the early 80's that things (rapes) were going on. I wish I had pursude the storys instead of dismiss them as gossip. I believe God kept slamming me in the head with things that were wrong, telling me to "get the hell out". One night I heard it loud and clear. The next day I was gone.
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