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Kit, I have loved your contributions to this thread. You have such a gentle manner in person, and it flows over into your written words. Geisha, I like and respect you, and I have no doubt that you do many good works. But why are you addressing Kit in what seems to me like a very harsh tone? Seems to me you're assuming she hasn't considered your words, but perhaps she has already considered them, disagrees, and chooses not to debate but rather to simply restate her view. I don't believe she's under any obligation to counter your points one by one. This isn't the debate club, it's a conversation among people of differing opinions. The rest of this post is directed to no one in particular...just some random thoughts on the topic of forgiveness. I do not believe I must require someone to ask for my forgiveness (which I've often heard is a prerequisite for forgiveness). God has that right; I am not God and therefore do not assume I share that right. On a human-to-human level, forgiving is something I believe God instructs us to do. It doesn't get anyone off the hook with Him, but it does remove others' hooks from us. It doesn't restore trust or credibility in the wrongdoer. It lifts a burden from the wronged. At the risk of sounding repetitious (although I think it bears repeating), no one here is God (well, unless He's reading this thread :)) Who are we to judge? We can judge actions, sure. I can determine whether an action is righteous or sinful. But to judge a person as worthy of heaven or hell? No way. That's definitely God's job. He sees hearts. He knows the "backstory" behind everything. He is much better equipped to judge. It's His job, not mine, for which I am extremely grateful.

Kit, What are you talking about? I think I am being reproved for something, yet, I am being reproved by someone who it seems has not taken the time to really examine what I am saying. You have not addressed one thing I have said from scripture. What is TWI or who is Victor Paul Wierwille to you? What does Jesus say about false teachers, what does Paul say , what is said in Jude and what does 2 Peter say.....along with Titus, Timothy, Romans, 2 John, Galatians, Colossians, Thessalonians and basically the entire Old Testament in dealing with false prophets? And we must make sure that part of our own judgment does not include being able to tell a false Apostle from a true one and deal with them according to what scripture tells us. Revelation does not speak of the great white throne of guessing games? Is your idea of Christianity one where someone can blaspheme God, deny the Holy Spirit and deny the very Lord who bought us, yet use God as a reason for moral debauchery? Mine is not. I love God far too dearly to ignore this and continue on in some half-baked understanding of scripture. I also love ex-way people far too much to come on here and espouse something that is not true. My heart is that those who seek Christ, but have been deceived by a man who handled the scriptures so deceitfully, are delivered from his false teaching and brought out of the cult mindset and into Christianity. The scriptures tell us that false teachers teach what? Doctrines of devils. Can it get any plainer for you. Is that a bit of judging or is that telling the truth? VP was not a brother in Christ and we can understand that IF we understand the crystal clear warnings in scripture that articulate WHAT to look for in a person's life which will expose them for WHO they truly are, that would be their actions and their immorality. God does not reserve his worst judgment for Christians. Once we understand this, we can begin to examine the doctrines and twisted understanding we were exposed to in the PFAL series and myriad of other heresy affirming classes and programs TWI has to offer. Not to mention the psychological manipulation and the subtle persuasion that messed with our heads and convinced us of things against our will and normal inclinations. I went into TWI a fairly moral person....I came out cussing like a sailor and having the compassion and understanding of a gnat. I put a cheap value on life because of their teachings.... I justified my sin and I assumed I was a Christian when in reality my heart and understanding was opposed to God and the scriptures. I had an aberrant understanding from my sojourn in TWI under the tutelage of a master manipulator. I am not alone. Knowing that VP is not a brother who erred, I have to wonder why it is you are telling me about pulling the beam out of my own eye before judging a brother. Advice that you might take until you really look at what it is I am trying to articulate to you from scripture. False teachers are self-condemned. I am not condemning them. They are already judged. I am not judging them. Paul called them servants of Satan. Is that judging because Paul didn't understand he too was a sinner?? He said he was chief among sinners. Jesus told us to beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. Well Kit, if they are disguised as angels of light, which scripture also points out....how are we to beware? If we forgive them without their repentance what are we saying about God? Should we let others keep on following them without warning? That is really loving. No it is not, here is what Jesus said "Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment." Here Jesus is telling us to judge. To judge rightly. John, the Apostle known for being the most tender said, "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world" Test them? Test them how? By forgiving them? Scripture gives us the benchmarks by which to test. Their morality and actions. John said, don't even let them in your house, don't feed them or give them drink. Didn't Jesus say he judges us by what we do for strangers? When I was hungry you gave me food? John knew what Jesus said. There is a bit of a disconnect there unless.....there is something in between we need to beware of! Kit, you have no idea of my life or what I do. What I have been doing because of forgiveness. A few days ago, I was riding in an ambulance with someone who I had forgiven and am now serving. His BP was 70/34 and I made sure that if he was going to die...I was going to be with him. I made sure he would not die alone. He is going to die soon. I have been there almost everyday serving and ministering to him. I had him put in an extended care facility because he was unsafe to live alone. In the same facility his mother is recouping from an emergency surgery and life threatening infection. I serve her too...his Aunt is down the hall with dementia. I serve her too and yesterday, I was kneeling at her feet wiping the tears from her eyes as she remembered she was a widow and her husband was gone. It is a privilege to serve and for the Lord to call us to good works. THESE are the true blessings of God. My service now is a direct result of my unconditional forgiveness to someone who wounded me deeply. I GET IT! I have to live it....that is what God calls me to. But, these are the things and understanding that VP robbed people of.....he stole them from people by twisting God's word and putting forth an ugly understanding of love, giving, and charity. He used this ugly understanding to abuse people in the name of God. Yet you espouse forgiveness for him when the scriptures do not? How about a little awareness of what the scriptures are actually telling us? The "joke" is not very funny if we don't judge. I actually do believe in eternal life. I really do believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. So, to me, none of it is a joke. I really do believe people have died unsaved and were convinced by VP that they were. It isn't a joke to judge rightly. Johniam....get a good study bible. I recommend The Apologetics Bible...it deals specifically with twisted scripture and directly with TWI. Edited so my tone is not so harsh.

sounds like a fair statement.. just because he used a torch to "finish off" cake recipes, does not make all cakes evil and possessed and all.. so cakes outside of *ministry* confinement just might just be OK?

"LCM went on and on about how the devil spirit realm was trying to take over the ministry by people refusing to change their personal habits and becoming contaminated. And how people will become indignant when reproved and say I'm righteous who are you to tell me this or that. This was LCMs rationalization for the debt purge, the homo purge, the planning your day to 15 minute increments, reporting back...all the control measures because we gotta keep the household clean for Jesus, y'know." LCM became a first rate horse's as s over the years and received full certification after taking over for VPW. Comparing his M.O. with anything else is like comparing the Three Stooges act to a football's team playbook. Based on "principles" that allowed for any flight of fancy to become his latest revelation from god he developed a history of activity that would rival a bee's flight pattern for twists and turns. What made sense to him was what he made make sense to himself that week. It's misguided to compare scriptural guidance with his hide-and-seek games. Of course he diverted attention to things that didn't amount to a pile of pig swill while screwing other's wives and living like a fatted calf off the usury of the sweat of others. He didn't concern himself with the work of a pastor, teacher or minister, he beat people over the head with directives designed to denigrate and demote anything that might have turned into real prosperity and value while promoting carefully crafted campaigns that wouldn't be worth the virtual paper it takes to describe them were it not for the fact that they remain even still today the lowest of the lowest points in his putrid past of pilfering and plundering the good names, character and virtue of those who, given even the smallest amount of help and assistance one might expect from a "ministry" that claimed to hold forth the Word of God, could have benefited from that very help had it been there. I could never compare his misguided and maniacal "home purge" with any kind of honest, intelligent and scriptural evaluation. He was an idiot waiting for the next bomb to drop that he was never going to see coming because he was too busy strutting and dancing. I would never confuse what the bible teaches with what he did. Doesn't make sense. Because he was a spiteful small minded toad doesn't mean that making decisions and judgment based on clear teaching from the bible wrong.