I have been told that I am like the people that expose cults, as if that were bad thing. But the thing is, I respected John Stevens as much as anybody did, however, i did not think that he could not be wrong, and I did not think that he could not sin. I am doing this because it is time that people analyze what he taught with the bible as the judge to see if it is correct. Even people that are already out of the Living Word now, still hold his teachings as if they are gospel. I have been told that even though he "might" have been imperfect, still his 'word' is pure. However, when I say to show me in the bible, I am told "well manifest sons of God is all through it." Yea, where?

I still have respect for JRS, although I don't have as much as I did, because I feel like he destroyed my church. I hold him responsible because he is the one that made the provision for the future of the Walk we have seen after he died.

I talked with someone recently that I knew when I was in the fellowship, someone that had plenty of intelligence when we were in the Walk together, but that person today makes absolutely no sense at all any more. He is still talking about the parousia of Christ being in the body (church) and that church being Living Word Fellowship. I would like for people to at least look at the teaching and determine if it was from God or man, if it is biblical or if it is some pipe dream, and if it is bad theology, then bury the bad theology and grasp reality, because the truth will set you free.

If I am a "cult hunter," then so be it. A cult should be exposed, for the good of those in it, and for the good of those that were in it, so they can make a correction and get on course with the truth.

I know John claimed to have received his revelation of the Living Word while waiting on the Lord in a remodeled chicken coup, but outside of him being the Door Opener Apostle and Marilyn being the Lamp of Israel, his teaching is all Latter Rain stuff that he claimed as his own. I can't seem to find either title mentioned in the teachings of Jesus - especially in light of their apparent importance. One of John's relatives emailed me that after Martha died, they removed a bunch of Latter Rain reel-to-reel tapes that had belonged to John. He said many times that he was never involved in the Latter Rain movement, but his teaching shows he certainly was under their influence. I would suggest, as Apostle Dog has recommended, that we compare these teachings with the teaching of Jesus - they don't match up. While we are at it, we might want to look at the context of "unequal yoke" and see if it mentions anything about divorce when there are doctrinal difference or one spouse leaves TLWF. I have heard that there is more of a focus on the Bible than on LW materials in services that are open to the public. I seriously doubt the root has changed and would expect to see a wolf in sheep's clothing pretending to be something they are not.

larry bobo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I would suggest, as Apostle Dog has
> recommended, that we compare these teachings with
> the teaching of Jesus - they don't match up.
> ____________________________________________________________

I have found it very helpful to compare the teachings of the LW with using the scriptures as the standard for the Word of God. It is fine to have warm and fuzzy feelings about JRS but when it comes down to it, it's the teaching and subsequent fruit that defines if a movement was of God or not of God. The NT warns that false prophets and false teachers will be so charismatic, seductive and slick, they possibly will deceive the elect. I suspect as time moves on and the end times become very apparent (and that could be soon or far down the road) the seductiveness of false teachers/prophets will become even stronger and possibly overpowering if one is not grounded in the Word. During my time in the LW, I think I got a taste of what that can be like.

Just take a quick look at this little paragraph and compare this to Living Word Fellowship. I know that John is the spiritual father to many, and that Gary and Marilyn are the spiritual mother and father to many, and of course in the Living Word, they need shepherds, oh yea, they gotta have the OK from the shepherds,,Well here goes, let's see if the one that said this has enough authority to have an opinion about it:;:::



Matthew 23New American Standard Bible (NASB)

23 Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to His disciples, 2 saying: “The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses; 3 therefore all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds; for they say things and do not do them. 4 They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger. 5 But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men; for they broaden their [a]phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments. 6 They love the place of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues, 7 and respectful greetings in the market places, and being called Rabbi by men. 8 But do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers. 9 Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. 10 Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ. 11 But the greatest among you shall be your servant. 12 Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.

I was trying to decide yesterday whether to have spaghetti or chili. I sought the Lord as best as I could but I needed a shepherd to guide me. I called com-central but the ole number that I had didn’t work, so I tried ComWest, Apco, I tried it all and I couldn’t get anybody. After a few hours, it started raining, and then I knew that John’s spirit was Parousia. Then it came to me, just the thought came right into my head, and I didn’t have chili or spaghetti, I cooked Alphabett soup. I ate each kernel of corn first, one at a time, then I ate the English peas, one at a time, there was 17 kernals of corn and 31 English peas. I was very grateful that John visited me, I knew there was an open heaven that day, because I had just reached in and appropriated consciousness of it, after that I repented for several hours for not being more submissive to Gary, after all, Gary is bonded with Marilyn, and therefore he also has John’s spirit.

What did you guys do yesterday?

I think I might have said this before, but, about my last post, I decided I would do a little walk talk. That was sort of the way the life was, just getting into a bunchy of prayer and concern about nothing, and letting important things just go by. I was thinking about when my sons went to a "kingdom school." When the Jonestown suicide happened, two of my sons were in the next state in a kingdom school. I recall my wife and I wondered right then what we had done, sending them there. We had just gotten in the Walk, or been in long enough to be brainwashed enough to think that church schools were better than public education. I recall when they came back for the summer that year, that one and only year they went there. When I got their records to transfer them to public school, I wish I had kept those report cards. Anyway for math, the middle son's report card read, for the GRADE= We just open his spirit to a revelation of the reality of numbers, we say just be LOOSED to the next level, in the Name of the Lord." Well, that's the mentality of the Walk.

I think about it sometimes, I think those that had the ability to function somewhere else probably left when the walk changed over to the new management. The ones still in there, are pretty much there, that is why it is best to pray for the leadership to be saved and not so abusive, not pray for somebody to get out. Where would they go? They would seek out the nearest cult. But then I guess you could pray for the people in the congregation to be delivered from the deception that gravitates them to be involved with mind controlling cults. The need to be controlled, the need to have someone explain the bible to them, and to do their thinking for them.

I wish the posts in this forum could be translated to Portugese, to warn those in Brazil.

Vamos trocar uma ideia? (Let's have a chat?)

There is one thing in Living Word Fellowship that does make very good sense. That is the marriage check outs. Read below:

Animal husbandry is the management and care of farm animals by humans for profit, in which genetic qualities and behavior, considered to be advantageous to humans, are further developed. The term can refer to the practice of selectively breeding and raising livestock to promote desirable traits in animals for utility, sport, pleasure, or research.[1]

I was being a little sarcastic, or at least, satirical when I compared marriage checkouts with animal husbandry. By the way, you could certainly add arranged marriages to that, I had forgotten those. But if you really think about it, how much concern did the "shepherds" have for the happiness of the "sheep" when they decided who should marry who? In animal husbandry, the OWNERS of the ANIMALS which SHEEP will mate with which SHEEP, for the financial advancement of the owners, not for the health and well being of the sheep.

Really, what was the motivation behind the marriage checkouts, and of any 'strongly' suggested marriage arrangement? Was it not so that the SHEEP would make pair of followers that would produce a litter of more followers, family units that enforce the ideals of the Living Word Fellowship upon one another, keeping one another in line, twenty four hours a day? Or was it that they believed that they had the spiritual maturity to help the members of the church have a higher quality life?

I hope there are Living Word "sheperds" reading this, it would be nice if they would question their own motives.

As I said before, I have a friend that stayed in Living Word all of these years. When our local church broke up, one of the families moved to another church and stayed. When I knew the man thirty years ago he formed thought out opinions, he had a pretty strong knowledge of the scriptures, a very logical person. Talking to him now is much different. The walk talk is there, the walk vision is there. I believe it is very subtle, how the members just seem to grow into a mold, and stay there. I wonder how many people there have sat in their seats and taken notes of what is said at the pulpit, and never after all this time, realized that what is said is only carefully extracted partial truths.

It is a shame that people who sought a relationship with the Lord, ended up knuckling under someone with an agenda, it's a shame that these people that wanted to support the Kingdom of God, just spent their time and money to supply several mansions to greedy double talkers. I can not fathom such a loss of life.