I don't know the answer to that but will think about it.
Oh tell me about narcissists! I have had many in my life.
St John of the Cross
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Oh tell me about narcissists! I have had many in my life.
MostlyConfused
Well-Known Member
I read about that. They (whoever they is/was) didnt like that she said satan could deceive a believer, so they wrote an abridged version that took that out everywhere and called it an unabridged version. I’m not sure what kind of wrangling they could do though since it’s what the entire book is ABOUT…
They changed believers to “people.”
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I just posted this to another thread but I think it fits here as well:
The natural man often fails to grasp what pleases or displeases the Lord and to what degree. Saul shows a man mercy and is rejected by God for it. David steals an honorable man's wife and murders him...God shows him mercy. The rich would give abundantly at the temple but Jesus only honors a poor widow that gave a penny. We must never be presumptuous and think our gift OR our sin surpasses anyone else. Only Paul said he was chief among sinners and that was by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Let God be the judge and hope our faith and humility are real.
I have mixed opinions about Jesse Penn Lewis. It appears she stopped the Welsh revival by her dominance of Evan Roberts. There is disagreement on if this was a good or bad thing. I know the story, Evan was burned out and she took him in. However, and this is just a question:
"Apart from such knowledge, when thinking he is "fighting for truth," it is possible for a believer to fight against, defend the enemy's cause, and persecute the work of the Holy Spirit, and his work, believing he is thereby "defending" God, and His works?"
Isn't that what the Pharisees did?
MostlyConfused
Well-Known Member
I’m not making any connection between my post and your reply...do you mean it could be that God may have been more displeased with the angels who taught whatever they taught to the women than He was at what satan did?
Its okay if that’s what you meant, it’s one way of looking at it I guess, but if that’s not what you were thinking, you’ll have to explain for me to grasp it.
MostlyConfused
Well-Known Member
Yes. And Saul/Paul. And many outspoken men throughout crusades and hunts and mutterings of “heretic,” and imprisonments and burnings.
The times when satan uses a proxy are often more violent, although it feels more viscerally and terrifyingly assaulting when he doesn’t use a proxy.
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You wondered why the angels that kept their first estate were confined while Satan, who has committed many more heinous acts, roams free. I am just pointing out that we often fail at determining the degree and resulting punishment of sin. If it doesn't speak to you then you can ignore.
MostlyConfused
Well-Known Member
I see. Yes, I had wondered at the severity of corrupting the genetics of all mankind.
with the goal of preventing "the seed of the woman" to manifest. This was a special class of angels, that commited a special class of sin, resulting in a special degree of punishment.
I would be rather wary of accepting things that come out of a time of revival regarding those who were at the top end of it. Satans minions are very active at those times to bring down God's servants with rumours and bad reports.
Of the two, I thought that Evan Roberts would be trhe one, if not just by youth, to be taken in by the mixture with demonic activity that began to take over, coming from the US. I believe it was that which ended the revival. They usually end that way.
Must do some reading about it as it was a long time since I looked at it.
I would just like to add that JPL followed Keswick Theology, in which there is a 'second blessing' like the teachers from the revivals in the US. This does depart from the early church fathers teaching on the three stages: Purgation, Illumination and Union or Theosis.
I believe that the teachers of the 2 stage, got to the Illumination phase, and understood the doctrine but had not gone on to sinlessness/perfection and therefore did not teach it.
Still I think that JPL is very useful due to her clash with the demonic realm and the thigns she learned especially about believers being under that influence which many took offence over.
Watching this short video, I remember now that Evan Roberts came under some dellusion that made him sacrifice his health, which is what we are not called to do. Missing sleep and care for our bodies, means we have become carried away with what is happening. He was very young and inexperienced so it is understandable.
I wonder why he did not listen to others around him who must have warned him like the Penn-Lewis'. I feel that they were more responsible then he was.
MostlyConfused
Well-Known Member
I finally, finally understand why JOTC calls “memory” what I call “emotions.” I can’t believe I couldn’t see it before. Our emotions are BASED on memory. That’s why there’s talk about “being triggered.” Even if you can’t articulate why something “triggers” you, there is an embedded memory from childhood of hurt or rejection or ridicule, etc. And a person doesn’t even have to be doing any of those things to you or have any ill intent. They could hold their head a certain way or purse their lips a certain way while thinking and it recalls some memory of a person who hurt us so we FEEL they are trying to harm us.
That’s all, just amazed I didn’t see it.
That’s all, just amazed I didn’t see it.
Are they always stored as memory though? I seem to recall van der Kalk saying they are stored in the nervous system.
I have a picture in my mind or somewhere, of looking into a side ward in a hospital (I was 10 months old), seeing an iron cot in front of an open window. I was in with mercury poisoning and believe I was abused there apart from the habit they had in those days of just leaving infants to cry it out.
Animals have this ability too to avoid harm.
Otherwise it is triggering from suspected rejection.
It even can related to the womb, a fetus that isn't wanted by the mother has a higher chance on mental problems. The fetus feels the rejection, notices it is not welcome, not wanted and already is in survival mode. It's one of the reasons there are Einzelgängers because as a fetus they learned they have to take care of themselves. Tragic.
MostlyConfused
Well-Known Member
They’re always stored in the brain as memory, but if they caused a physiological effect in us at the time because our body told us we were in danger, they can also involve the nervous system - racing heart, sweaty palms - I don’t get extremely angry much any more but when I do, I get really shaky because of an adrenaline dump that (I believe) is my body telling me to fight. It used to happen all the time whenever someone would try to force me to accept a lie (gaslighting). I would be hit or beat if I insisted on telling the truth and I was stubborn so I most often got hit but I think it was how my defensive mechanism worked that…it opted for trying to save me emotionally rather than physically because it was of greater damage to my psyche than my actual body…?
I was rebellious but remember I wished I had been born mute so would not get into trouble. I still dissociate when faced with a situation out of the blue that I cannot understand, otherwise fawning.
Yes I think that not feeling safe is so deep routed that it can only have been experienced that early. I regret to say that one of my children, conceived during a time of considering to leave an abusive marriage, must have been affected.
I am sorry my post hit a nerve, no doubt left another scarf in the soul. Sometimes we are into situations above our emotional pay grade and it hurts.
We had our own fair share of a emotional rollercoaster when we decided for a foster child and do something good giving one of those lost children (taken away from parents by a judge) and locked up in child care institutions waiting for a couple who wanted them. And so we got him (I don't want to use his name), a boy, 4 years and 2 days old. And we were told to keep our expectations low because of his background. We did not listen, we believed that love would heal everything. How wrong, we did not know then.
What I saying now is all in retrospect, we had to learn a hard lesson. The boy when we got him was already damaged to the core because what his parents did to him and did not the things parents ought to do. Neglect, hardly food, but the most damage was done by the mother with an IQ of 55, who sexual abused him and mentally abused him by seeking help by the boy, claimed him to help her in her despair. You get the picture. When we got him the boy was full of fear, in survival mode because you can't trust those adult people telling you what to do and what don't.
And in the beginning we had those explosions of violence 3-4 times a day, we comforted him as best as we could, the months passed by and the daily explosions became less, but never left completely. And our 3 other kids suffered from it, most of our attention was for the boy who always without exception was able to ruin a perfect day.
Now the boy was a really good boy with a soft and gently character, he just could not help and his low IQ of 72 was another obstacle to understand the world around him.
During the years things really got better, but never as it should have been. When he was about 8-9 years he told us -- when I am 18 I don't have to listen to you any longer and I can do what I want -- and kept repeating that maybe a hundred times. And when he became 18 so he did and what we feared became reality, wrong friends, drugs, ending him totally addicted in the gutter. And then he called us, we put him in a Christian institution for drug addicts, it helped somewhat but soon after, same old old story, he with his IQ and background could not cope with daily life.
And things got worse, his first failed suicide attempt. And he was put in a psychiatric clinic for a special therapy for these kind of kids. And it was amazing when we visited him there, he radiated, we never seen him that happy, he even got some extra weight. Unfortunately for him these kind of therapies last only for 6 months. And so he was on his own again. While everything was arranged for him, an own flat, money, help available, a complete new start, he could not, followed by a second failed suicide attempt.
Another psychiatric clinic, another new round, he insisted to lead a normal life as everybody else, new flat etc. It did not work. Then on an evening he called me, and soon it became clear to me he wanted to say goodbye, that he has seen his life, going from one clinic to another clinic and he did not wanted that life any longer. And he asked me, -- will God be angry with me? -- And I was actually happy with this hard question, because he had said his faith farewell during the years, it showed his Christian upbringing in the hour of death wasn't unfruitful after all. And I said, no son, not at all. And looking at his life born for unhappiness, suffering I believe he is with the Lord and his tears are dried up, living the life meant for everybody. We talked for 2.5 hours. Later I heard that after our talk he went to his room and 30 minutes later they found him dead.
At times we were emotionally totally exhausted, situations above our pay grade. Did I make mistakes, I remember a few bad ones, but while giving it all, these mistakes did matter for the inevitable final outcome. That kind of logic may have worked for me but not for my wife, she felt guilty, a failed mother. She needed years to overcome.
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