Quote:
Originally Posted by Ohio
Sorry Paul, I guess I was mostly unaware of how frustrating my responses were to you.
As I have said before on this forum, I came to realize over time that my biggest failure in the LC was over-trusting the leadership. Heb 23.17 was taken literally by me, which made me very vulnerable to the controls and manipulations of other brothers.
I entered the LC during the time of the Life-Studies ('74-'84), which were basically a verse-by-verse exploration of the NT. Of course, WL added much to this, both good and leavened. Before WL was able to exert his controls and mandate his own ordinances over every LC meeting, there was actually great liberty, anointing of the Spirit, and enlightening from the word of God. I was regularly filled with joy and love in the meetings.
Based on his Brethren background, WL spent an inordinate amount of time interpreting the OT, often at the expense of the plain words and lessons of scripture. (aron has extensively illustrated this in his many posts from Psalms.) Both WL and the Exclusives could basically get the OT to say anything they wanted in order to seize power and heap judgments upon their opponents, both within and without their respective systems. Many of these teachings are the worst, including the "ground of oneness" based on Israel's return to Jerusalem, and the "minister of the age" based on Moses and Noah.
Once they used these two teachings on fake-oneness and fake-authority to seize control, they were able to wield tremendous power over their loyal followers. The "ground" teachings enabled them to reject all outside influence that the Lord might attempt to use in order to provide correction. The "mota" teachings enabled them to squash all voices from within who attempted much needed reforms. Their history of periodic 10-year "storms" proves this. Outside apologists were regularly sued and labeled as opposers / persecutors, and inside teacher / prophets were tagged as ambitious / rebellious lepers.
Neither of these two teachings has any basis in the NT.
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There is no hard feelings or offense on my end at all. I completely understand and know exactly how that manipulative approach works and what it does to a person (I been around it my whole life, was born into that environment). So there is really nothing wrong about not trusting nobody or at least until they show something that worth you giving them a bit of rope.
I was talking to one of my best buddies yesterday, I have been praying for a while to share a gospel with him, and the Lord gave an opportunity that came from nowhere. He is an exile from SDA movement, and almost exclusively holds to Old Testament laws and commandments. It’s a very powerful grip on a person, almost impossible to even approach the subject of grace and unconditional love. I think that the OT structure of GOD-PROFITS-to regular people, is so advantageous to man that love to rule, exalt themselves over all others, and that what makes it most difficult to break through. People have to realize how and what Christ did, and how beautiful and how precious living under grace is!