changedagain Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> AD:
> "The Living Word Fellowship is famous for many
> decades now, they don't pay but certain pastors,
> they don't pay for "volunteer" work they that
> people are "encouraged" to perform in their for
> profit sweatshops, and they don't pay any pensions
> except to certain people."
>
> I was part of a small crew that spent seven years
> maintaining/upgrading the South Gate facility on a
> volunteer basis. Hence, my interest in what
> became of the proceeds of the sale of the church,
> approximately a year after I left ('98), From what
> I gather, the money went into Marilyn's trust
> fund--purpose, unknown. During the time period I
> was at that church, I don't think she spent more
> than 3-4 days visiting there.


___________________________________________________________

Here's a tidbit (Nazi fix) for you; maybe you already knew this?.........."Work Sets You Free," appeared on the entrance to Auschwitz and other labor camps. Could have been a Grace Chapel or Shiloh propaganda slogan.

Many posters on this forum use the term “fellowship” frequently. There was great fellowship and love among our peers of equality as should be in a healthy church. There was another element working where there was very little fellowship. I call that the assigned position in the “colony.” As in many ant colonies or bee hives the kings/queens have it made while the rest of the participants/workers are dispensable, discarded as they age/become useless.

For the sake of my own feelings, I didn’t reject the loving fellowship but rather had to reject the concept that God’s Kingdom is a structured colony of inequality where the privileged few flourish and the underlings get used up and ripped off.


Adding to lily rose’s list:

A -- Are you drinking the Kool-Aid (blind obedience)?

B -- Biblical fellowship or prisoners/servitude in/to a colony?

HEADLINE NEWS: Trust Issues

"Believe In The Goodness Of God"
June 1, 2016

[www.garyandmarilynhargrave.com]

"As we prepare for the Feast . . . we must be free of our mistrust of God. (God) alone is good, (and) can only do good to us and for us."

GOD we KNOW--it's the rest of you we no longer trust.

kBOY Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> HEADLINE NEWS: Trust Issues
>
> "Believe In The Goodness Of God"
> June 1, 2016
>
> [www.garyandmarilynhargrave.com]
> eve-in-the-goodness-of-god/
>
> "As we prepare for the Feast . . . we must be free
> of our mistrust of God. (God) alone is good,
> (and) can only do good to us and for us."
>
> GOD we KNOW--it's the rest of you we no longer
> trust.

Oh my. Hargrave at work manipulating the emotions of the people. Some things never change.

I find it interesting that Gary would speak of dealing with our mistrust of God. I would suggest that TLWF is actually the cause of that mistrust. When another human takes the place of God, of course there are going to be problems. In hindsight, I would also suggest that those that want to play God to others, as well as those who give up personal responsibility and hand over their lives to others, have skin in the game. At times I have wished I could say that someone put a gun to my head and made me follow their “words from God” – it just didn’t happen. I am now more aware of the conscious manipulation techniques used by the leadership. It was very deceitful. Carefully following the teachings of Jesus would have saved a lot of grief in my case.

The thief comes to kill, steal, and destroy. Jesus came that we would have life. When you witness the damage, it becomes easier to see why Jesus said to examine the fruit. Unfortunately, many of those involved in TLWF have not been exposed to good fruit, so there is nothing to compare their lives with. They think that when their lives are falling to pieces, it’s God’s way of disciplining them for their good. Of course He disciplines us – but it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness, not years of counseling to clean up the mess.

This mistrust of God reminds me of the “word” of resurrection life for John. If you surrender your life to me, John, and then you, will escape death. When it didn’t happen, the sons were responsible because of their lack of obedience – not those who came up with a false word. Either it never was a word in the first place and people were not speaking the truth, or God can’t be trusted. Real words from God do not return to Him void without accomplishing what He spoke – that’s how you can tell if they were a word from God - they come to pass. God’s will is not dependent on getting fallible humans to run faster on the treadmill before He moves. God doesn’t love us because we are good, but because He is good. Just because we were allowed to live loosely with other man-made rules like not smoking and drinking, doesn’t mean we were not manipulated by our religious natures to perform in order to get God to do what we want.

All of these “words” that have nothing to do with what Jesus taught, are just a means to control others in everyday life matters. Buying the red car or the green car does not have eternal consequences – it’s just a matter of personal preference. For most people, it doesn’t take very long to realize these “words” are not God’s truth – there are nothing more than the opinions of man. Someone having a good feeling about something does not make it a word from God. Many of us have been on both sides of this equation. The fruit of it is that we mistrust God when it doesn’t work out. I honestly thought TLWF was God, in spite of all the problems – I just thought God was screwed up. God is faithful 100% of the time and never makes mistakes. The more you walk with Him, the more you trust Him. What you learn to mistrust are those who want to take His place – typically to fleece you in some way.

Larry Bobo said:

"This mistrust of God reminds me of the “word” of resurrection life for John. If you surrender your life to me, John, and then you, will escape death. When it didn’t happen, the sons were responsible because of their lack of obedience – not those who came up with a false word. Either it never was a word in the first place and people were not speaking the truth, or God can’t be trusted."

I remember discussing the December 12, 1979 manifestation of the Kingdom of God thing with a buddy of mine, and of course he was of the standard WALK opinion, "oh it came alright, it just didn't come with observation,/visibly. He might as well have said, which I am pretty sure he implied "you have to be on a high enough spiritual level to see the manifestation of it."

I watched a video recently, I might have posted it here, of a church where the pastor there told his followers to go outside and graze in the field next to the building. They did, maybe a hundred people out there on the lawn eating grass, and happy to do so. In their minds, they were doing the will of God, because they were doing the will of the one they have accepted as a god. If someone that a brainwashed person has accepted to be an oracle of God tells them an obvious lie, suppose they are told that they are invisible, you can hold a mirror in front of them all day and they will swear that they can not see their reflection, and they probably can't see their reflection. All you can do is pray for them, and go on with your life.

[youtu.be]

HERE YOU GO Gary Hargrave, you need to make sure you have total control. This is dedication here.

You little people should actually consider yourselves fortunate, Gary and Marilyn at least had enough pity on you that they didn't make you go out in the yard of the church and eat grass, and take a video of it and put it on youtube.

AD- I take my hat off to you and everyone on this forum who continues to speak out. Some may say what's the harm in following self appointed apostles and prophets who say they have special revelation and a direct portal to God and say come listen to me, I am elevated above you. II Tim 2:18..because it overthrows the faith of some (not everyone.)


Len Oakes, author of Prophetic Charisma (Prophetic Charismania-my revision):

'A striking thing about the (cult) followers is how little they seek to know about the leader's background. Few ever ask searching questions and critically evaluate the answers. They prefer to let the leader's daily example serve as the testimony of his truth, and hence as a vehicle for their great work (that is, the followers' deepest hopes for their own transformation). TO QUESTION TOO CLOSELY would be to disrupt the pleasant flow of here-and-now fusion.' (Oakes, p 129)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/05/2016 08:46AM by lily rose.

corboy Wrote In Part On 9/17.2014:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
More on Len Oakes:

> Oakes lived in and got married in a commune led by
> a charismatic pastor.
>
> He and his wife eventually had worries about the
> direction it was taking
> and they wisely left. Sometime later, the leader
> took the community into
> a crisis.
>
> Oakes interviewed 20 different charismatic leaders
> -- those willing to be interviewed.
>
> All of them turned out to have great difficulty
> enjoying and feeling comfortable
> in adult, peer to peer relationships. All of them
> had to be within a structure
> where they and their vision were deferred to.
>
> Being a leader was hard work. They had to micro
> manage and be in control and
> on alert, all the time.
>
> The members of the group could, as a group and in
> shared enthusiasm accomplish a very great deal.
> Those who did not get intimate (inner circle) with the leader and
> who
> left the community when they sensed themselves
> ready (as the Oakes chose to do) -- they fared
> best.
>
> The leaders all seemed to have some form of injury
> to self image. All of them
> sought self repair by influencing the world
> outside of themselves.
>
> The first thing they had to do was find some way
> to believe in themselves as marked for a special
> mission, and then find ways to persuade others to
> share
> their belief in themselves as special.
>
> Prophetic Charisma, by Len Oakes. A very good
> read.
>
> There are some excerpts from the book on Sustained
> Action, a website that
> examines the methods and damage done by Carlos
> Castaneda.
>
> [www.google.com]
> len+oakes+sustained+action&ie=ISO-8859-1&hl=en&sou
> rce=hp&gbv=1&btnG=Search


________________________________________________________________

Note: Lens says all cult leaders had some form of injury to self image. JRS was booted out of 2 Assembly of God churches and prior to the Walk, his congregation left. Once at South Gate, I saw an elderly couple get up and leave during the service. The expression on JRS's countenance was not the confident bold charismatic preacher. He looked embarrassed and I noticed he kept gulping. At the time I felt sorry and sympathy for him.