In Reply to: what an amazing story!! posted by MV on August 11, 2003 at 03:04:53:
Dear MV,
Okay, I'll try to answer all your questions as best I can.
You asked if I ever doubted God or blamed him for my losses, or for my joining the COG.
Sure, I've had doubts whenever I was going through trials and tribulations. I'm only flesh and bone, and far from perfect. The Bible talks about how tribulation in this life acts like a refinery to purify silver. When we are under pressure, the garbage boils to the surface where we (and everybody around us) can see it. The important thing is not to wallow in the garbage, but to let the Holy Spirit cleanse that stuff from our hearts.
The accidents I had with the alligator and the exploding signal flare are just that...accidents. Did I ever blame God for them? Sure, I admit that I entertained the thought that God might be responsible. Does God cause bad things to happen to Christians? You can find scripture that seems to support either side of this theological question.
We know that God is omnipotent, that he knows the future. I don't think the alligator attack caught Him by surprise. Could He have prevented it? Sure. Why didn't he? I don't have a direct word from the Lord, but when I consider the positive impact of that horrible incident, I must conclude that God allowed it to happen. Does God ever use animals to carry out his will? Sure He does. In II Kings chapter 2, for example, the prophet Elisha cursed a bunch of children for mocking him. A couple of bears suddenly came out of the woods and attacked the children. This is a pretty clear example of God directing an animal to attack humans.
I don't know if God directed that gator to attack me that day, or if he simply allowed that ill-tempered lizard to do what comes natural, but because of that attack, I returned to the Lord that day. I cried out to Jesus, "Lord Jesus, save me, and His presence was instantly with me. That gator could have drowned me, and if he had held onto my arm just a few more minutes, he would have killed me. I am convinced that God was responsible for making that gator release me and swim away.
For me, that ordeal is an example of the scripture that says that all things work together for good to them that love the Lord or are called to His purposes.
We humans have a tendency to blame others for things that are often our own fault, and when another human can't be found to blame, we blame God. A guy can be a chain-smoker his whole life. He knows cigarettes can cause cancer, but he is unwilling or unable to break the habit. Then he gets lung cancer. Who does he blame? The cigarette companies and...God!
I have accepted my responsibility for swimming in a lake that I knew was populated with alligators. God didn't force me to snorkel in that lake. In fact, I believe He gave me a couple of warning signs on the two previous times that I had dived there. The first warning came when I dived down into a dark cove in this lake, and came face-to-face with a large gator who was resting on the bottom! Believe me, I just about walked on water to get out of there! The next weekend, I was in that lake again (yeah, I was a slow learner) and was using a spear gun to get some fish. I thought I'd spotted a fish among the water lilies, so I fired my spear gun at it. It wasn't a fish; I'd speared a small gator in his tail! I pulled the spear out and set the gator free. (Warning sign #2 duly noted and ignored.)
Perhaps these events were just coincidental, but maybe not. Maybe God was trying to warn me of the coming attack. Coincidental or not, if I had heeded those warning signs, I would still have my left hand, but what about my backslidden condition? I think something drastic had to happen in my life to get my attention and cause me to repent of my rebellion against God. So I'm minus a hand. Jesus said it is better to enter into heaven halt or blind, rather than being physically whole and being cast into hell.
Do I blame God for my becoming a member of the Children of God? No, I can't believe that it was ever God's perfect will for any of us to be subjected to the abominable things that went on in that cult. Was it God's will that young women be turned into prostitutes? Was it His will that children were physically, psychologically, and sexually abused? Was it His will that thousands were deceived by that false prophet David Berg? No! No! No!
We live in a fallen world and we have free will. We often ignore the significance of these two facts. We can live according to God's laws or we can rebel. God has set limits upon himself; He won't force us to obey. He didn't create obedient zombies, he created individuals who can choose to love and obey of their own free will, or they can choose to rebel against God. If we choose to break God's natural or spiritual laws, there are consequences. If we ignore the law of gravity and jump off a cliff,we will die. If we commit sin, there is spiritual death.
The blood of Jesus atones for our sins if we have received Him as our savior, but that doesn't free us of some of the consequences of sin. A girl who prostituted herself can repent and find forgiveness, but she may still be infected with a sexually transmitted disease. You can't ignore the laws of nature.
Notice that I wrote that it wasn't God's perfect will that we ended up in the COG. Even though God didn't want me in what would become an increasingly perverted cult, He still used me to reach the lost with the Gospel. I must have witnessed to and prayed the sinner's prayer with thousands of people during my time in the COG. When I joined back in 1971, the emphasis was on the Bible. I didn't even read a Mo letter until I'd been a member for several months. We didn't distribute Mo letters until a couple of years later, so everything we shared while street witnessing was from our Bibles.
Don't misunderstand me. The seeds of evil were always there within the inner circle of the COG leadership, and it gradually infected the rank and file. I'm just saying that God was able to use me to win many souls while I was a member. I give God the credit and praise for getting me out in 1974, before the COG really went into a moral tailspin.
I remember repeatedly praying, "Lord, please don't let me be deceived. Open my eyes to the truth." God answered those prayers. When the Mo letters started to push Berg's false doctrines, I recognized the lies. When his prediction that the comet Kahoutec would be a huge sign of the eminent fall of the U.S. didn't prove true, the red flag went up for me. Berg's weasely denial that he had not really prophesied the collapse of the U.S. was so ludicrous. God reminded me of the scriptures that say that if an old testament prophet gave a prophesy that didn't come true, he was a false prophet, and should be stoned.
When the "Flirty Fishes" and "Women in Love" Mo letters came out, my spirit was grieved. I knew in my heart (as did most COG members) that this was false doctrine. Our leaders in Central America read this perverted crap without any comments. They probably knew in their hearts that this stuff violated God's word, but they suppressed their consciences and followed the false prophet. Most of us did the same thing, and little by little, the false doctrines were accepted by the sheep.
I thank God that He caused me to rebel against the gradual slide into heresy and perversion. Eventually, the leadership in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, told me to go back to the U.S. They gave me a so-called letter of recommendation, which I was to give to the leader of whatever U.S. colony I went to. I say "so-called" recommendation, because it was really an example of damning with faint praise. Needless to say, I ripped up that stupid letter along with my collection of Mo letters.
Do I have regrets? Sure. I regret ever swimming with hungry man-eating alligators. I regret experimenting with unstable signal flares. I regret loosing my precious eyesight. I regret not being able to look at my two children. I regret having recruited others into the COG. Yeah, I have regrets, but I'm not dwelling on them. I'm washed by the blood of the Lamb, and I'm moving on. I'll take credit for whatever good I did during my time in the COG, and the guilt for the bad stuff has been forgiven by Christ. Everything we experience in life is just part of the big journey.
Alan