In Reply to: to Miguel posted by Kathy on August 10, 2003 at 18:34:38:
I was referring to my previous post in this thread:
"Was not God there to help us see the truth? Or did we pull ourselves outof that hole by our own bootstraps? Did He lead us out and put us in situations for us to think hard? Was it our decision to leave or was God controlling our situation so tightly we didn't have any other choice - in which case He is just like Berg was and P&M try to be!!!
"And then, why would Jesus teach His disciples to pray 'Lead us not unto temptation' unless there was the possibility of that happening..."
I am trying to get a handle on the idea that God cannot tempt us (James 1:13-14) and yet Jesus taught His disciples to pray against that. The broad question would be, can God lead us into temptation? There must be another explanation beyond what James offers. The context for these questions is around the idea of Christians staying in The Family. In my opinion, we may be wrongly using the word 'Christians' because how could a real Christian stay in The Family after what you call being 'undeceived'?
For Christians to join was totally different because they based their judgement on The Family’s lies making the mistake of accepting a stranger's yoke. It is here where your story about the child in front of car comes in. You can’t see God allowing that but I cannot see a God Who has pledged to give total free will to His children to interfere in the child's decision to go in front of a car.
He will plead with the child and protect the child as much as possible but at the end, how can He intervene? He didn't intervene to save Jesus from the cross. How could He intervene, if we are bent on making the decision to be in front of that car? That is a delicate line to discuss but I am not ready to say that God will not allow it. It obviously happen, therefore He allows it. Of course, this is not the same as saying He makes it happen.
But going beyond that point, once a person has been in The Family for a certain amount of time, it is impossible to deny knowledge of what their real teachings are. It is then when the Holy Spirit kicks in. So, how can a real Christian stay in, which seems to be a current line of thought among ex-members. Berg’s doctrines resemble Christianity but they are not Christian.
So far, I cannot see how a real Christian can stay in The Family participating in the promotion of the false doctrines they teach, which is almost everything. It is sort of "No Neutrals" and they would either be leaving The Family or becoming more sold out. Because of that I can accept that some people in The Family may be on their way to know the real Jesus, which means they are on their way out of The Family. Paul was a believer in remission until the scales came off his eyes.
As an aside observation, even in the case of Paul, (1) he had to realize his own blindness, (2) then he had to seek help, and finally (3) he had to hear and accept the real Word of God.