HomeARC ML 1740
KEDA'S PENANCE! DO 1740 3/84
1. THAT KIND OF PRIDE IS SOMETHING THAT SOME PEOPLE GET INTO THAT IT SEEMS LIKE THEY'D ALMOST RATHER DIE THAN GIVE IT UP, & THEY'D DO ALMOST ANYTHING TO DEFEND IT! If she's not really breaking, it's dangerous business! (Maria: She really did today though, when we talked to her, she really did! I mean, everybody felt that.) But then you get her before the people & just like Saul, Saul would break down & weep before the prophet & he would break down & weep before David. But he could not stand to be embarrassed before the people! (1Sam.15:30).
2. WHEN GOD FINALLY GETS FED UP WITH SOMETHING, HE REALLY RUBS THEIR NOSE IN IT! That way we wouldn't have to make the rest of the Family suffer & me suffer too if we set Keda up in a room with talk tapes & videos during dinner. She's going to have to make restitution. Mere saying "I'm sorry, please forgive me!" is not enough! She needs discipline, punishment, chastisement, penance & to have to suffer for it for awhile! We'll give her exactly what she asked for, talks! Then I don't have to sit there & look at her vacant stare! I just dread seeing her because I know that Pentecostal-type of repentance, some big emotional display that will just sicken me! She can just go down & get her little plate & have one of the boys set her up with a video, & she can sit in another room & listen to the talks!--That's what she asked for!
3. SHE STILL HAS NOT DONE ONE OF THE THINGS THAT I REQUIRED, & THAT IS TO WRITE AN EXPLANATION OF EXACTLY WHY SHE SAID IT! Maybe she thought that thing she wrote today was an explanation. She couldn't have said anything that would have been more offensive to me. The Devil knew just exactly what to say to get my goat!
4. THAT WOULD BE THE IDEAL PUNISHMENT! THAT'S WHAT THE LORD DID TIME & AGAIN WHEN HE FINALLY GOT FED UP WITH ISRAEL MURMURING & ASKING FOR SOMETHING THEY DIDN'T HAVE! Then He just let'm have it, & I mean He really let'm have it! He gave'm all they wanted until they glutted themselves till it killed them! That's exactly what the Lord does, He sends them the desires of their hearts & leanness to their souls! (Ps.106:15).
5. THAT'S THE SOLUTION! I HATE TO MAKE THE WHOLE FAMILY SUFFER FOR HER SINS, but it often happened. But I don't see why it has to go on any longer. They've had their share, more than their share, & if any of them felt the same way, that last dinner talk should have knocked it out of them! ("Why Should I Say More?")
6. I DON'T CARE TO SEE HER FACE ANYMORE UNTIL SUCH TIME AS THE LORD GIVES ME THE GRACE! She can see mine all she wants on video & have all the "talks" that she "hopes" for! That'll save us a trip, TTL! I was trying to figure out some way to get away from here & her. I don't want to see her again until the Lord gives me the grace to stomach her! She was always a bitter pill for me to take! They can have her go down & get her meal first thing & get her safely tucked away in that room with her talks before I go down. I want her to stay in there with the doors closed watching talks until I dismiss & am upstairs before she's allowed to come out.
7. I MEAN, EVERY NOW & THEN SHE SUDDENLY COMES TO LIFE & IT'S ALMOST LIKE THE DAWN, THE BREAK OF SUNRISE, & HER FACE LIGHTS UP & SHE LAUGHS & SHE'S ALMOST BEAUTIFUL! And then so often she goes back to that blank, vacant stare! (Maria: She really is different now. The Lord's really delivered her. You can really see a difference.) Any spirit that really is oppressing you, when you get rid of it, it makes you different, right? I mean, it makes you even look different! I don't see how Christians, saved people, can have evil spirits, but I guess they just plague them. They don't totally possess them apparently. I guess if they just keep listening to the Devil & letting the camel's nose in, they can really be influenced.
8. (MARIA: THE LORD IMPRESSED ON ME YESTERDAY TO PRAY FOR KEDA FIRST BEFORE WE TALKED TO HER & TO GET RID OF THAT SPIRIT THAT WAS HINDERING HER, or she couldn't even receive what we were going to talk about. We laid hands on her & got rid of that oppressive spirit before we even talked.) You were obviously led right & it apparently did the trick. TTL!
9. SHE'S GOING TO HAVE TO GO THROUGH A COURSE OF [EDITED: "RETRAINING"] & IT'S NOT EASY & IT'S NOT QUICK, & I think the best thing in the World for her to do is to have to sit up there & watch what she asked for, talks!--Not song tapes but just the talks. And be sure they cut out the dances & the music beforehand, all the pretty island girl dances. She doesn't want dances, she wants talks. Meanwhile, she's a pariah!
10. ANYTIME I WAS ANYWHERE NEAR HER I FELT LIKE I WAS NEAR SOMETHING UNCLEAN! IT MUST HAVE BEEN THAT SPIRIT! (Maria: Yes.) Something in me would just rise up in revulsion & almost made me furious! You know how I've been about her ever since I can remember. That viewing my video talks is a happy medium between either me or her leaving!
11. (MARIA: KEDA WAS TALKING TODAY TO FAITH, & THEY SAID HOW THAT CHAIN INFLUENCE HAD BEEN SO STRONG FOR BOTH OF THEM, LIKE IN FAITHY'S CASE, MOM & JETHRO & DEBORAH. But Keda was talking about how she had her own Chain, in a way, & that was Shua. Shua was over the whole East in the beginning, & Keda became her right-hand helper, & Shua reigned like a queen! People said she was very very self-righteous. They were completely into their works & their great witnessing adventures. They said it made the average Family disciple feel like they were nothing. They were evidently extremely self-righteous & very proud of themselves & their own works.)
12. MAYBE IF WE CAN GIVE KEDA ENOUGH TALKS SHE'LL GET SICK OF ME & SICK OF TALKS, SHE'LL NEVER WANT ANOTHER ONE MAYBE! I don't think they should be having festivities or dancing till I return. Now the festivities won't continue until the bridegroom returns to be with his bride, GBT! That solves the difficult situation, to sort of exile her. That's what the Russians do, internal exile they call it, with dissidents. They assign them to internal exile. I'll give her enough talks until she screams for mercy!
13. WHEN SHE'S COME UP SOMETIMES & KISSED ME THERE AT THE TABLE, I FELT ALMOST LIKE IT WAS LIKE JUDAS! We'll see if she can take the humbling. It's easier to make public confessions & all that stuff. Some people even like that. It's a continuation of the glory & the attention. But if she gets stuck away in a hole now with nothing but talks, let's see how much victory she's got.
14. SHE'S NOT TO BE ALLOWED TO EAT WITH THE FAMILY AT NIGHT DINNER AT ALL OR ANY TIME I'M EVER THERE UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE! I don't even want her walking through there when I'm down there. She's to be [EDITED: "in"] that bedroom with that video from before the time I go to dinner until after the time I've left & gone upstairs. Somebody can go down there that has mercy on her & dish her food up for her, take her her meals. [DELETED] I mean it, I don't want to see her face until the Lord gives me the grace to forgive her or tolerate her!
15. IF I EVER SAW A DEADPAN, KEDA'S GOT A DEADPAN FACE! To try to imitate her expression, all I can think of is a blank stare, almost like looking in the face of a dead person with her eyes wide open, except when she reacts once in awhile about something & comes to life, then she can almost look radiant! But in-between times it's almost like the face of a mental case. (Maria: Well, I guess when you're oppressed by those spirits you get a bit weird.)
16. ISRAEL MANY TIMES REPENTED & MOANED & WAILED & CRIED & LET OUT A LOT OF WEEPING & WAILING & gnashing of teeth, & Moses would then pray & God would then relent of the evil that He would do to them. Then they'd be right back at it in just a few days & it never lasted! Just like with Saul, he'd weep & cry on the prophet's shoulder or weep & pray in David's presence & say he was so sorry & he knew he was wrong & David & God were right & blah blah! And then the next day or two he'd be out hunting, trying to find David to kill him! (Maria: Well, not everybody is like Saul. Some people must get the victory. There are a lot of people that have been changed.) Not too many in the Bible that you find got the victory, some of those people who had that type of spirit. (Maria: Well, we've had a lot of victories in the Family...) Many are always being sorry but never really changing. They're just sorry because they got caught, like Saul & Israel. (Maria: Well, I must say I think I have more faith because I've seen a lot of big changes in people, even recently, like Ho & Eman & others.)
17. HOW MANY PEOPLE CAN YOU REMEMBER IN THE OLD TESTAMENT WHO HAD A TREMENDOUS TRANSFORMATION & CHANGE, a real change from the way they'd been, besides in the New Testament where Jesus was there & present, converting them? How many people in the Old Testament do you find really changing? (Maria: Well, we've got Jesus & the Holy Spirit present to do it now.) It took God 40 years to change Moses! It took him years & years to change Jacob to Israel! Esau never changed, he found no place of repentance, even though he sought it carefully with tears! (Heb.12:17). I'm just going down the line of Bible heroes, trying to think of people who really had any dramatic change after they had been that way for some time.
18. THERE WERE A FEW TIMES AMONGST THE KINGS WHERE THEY REPENTED & GOD RELENTED & SPARED THEM the judgement & let them go on for awhile, like good king Hezekiah, who was spared for 15 more years--& King David, of course. His was a great sin but a great repentance, I mean genuine true change, repentance! Therefore God gave him a great forgiveness. But he was not let entirely off the hook! Even after he repented & God forgave him, the Lord said he was still going to have to suffer the consequences. He lost that son, then he lost the throne, then he lost his favourite son, Absalom, who was hung by his hair! I mean, he really went through it for several years before God restored him & allowed him to come back & be restored to the throne & the kingdom! It was a long hard battle before the division between the house of David & the house of Saul was even partially patched up, & it was never totally healed. It caused trouble from then on, just like our schism, our division, the house of Saul, the Chain!
19. THERE WERE SOME DRAMATIC CONVERSIONS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT, OF COURSE. There was a big change in Peter after he received the Holy Spirit, & some of the other disciples had some rather remarkable changes.--And of course St. Paul, his Damascus Road experience turned him from a self-righteous, proud--I mean, that was his problem--persecutor to a preacher of the Gospel. But it seemed that you take some of the people who had been in the way for some time, like Peter who compromised & joined the Circumcision & had to be rebuked before all. He never seemed to attain the same heights of leadership again, ever. He was never used like Paul, never wrote like Paul or guided the church like Paul. It seemed almost that he went downhill from the time when he & Paul had that confrontation, & it looks like the Lord anointed Paul instead of him to lead the church. It's almost like Peter missed the boat with his compromise, with his self-righteous Circumcision or Concision, the legalists who said they were willing to believe in Jesus as long as they still kept the Law of Moses.
20. HOW LIKE THE CHURCH PEOPLE THAT IS! You know, they'd be willing to receive our message, even about the Future & things like that perhaps, if we'd just keep the Laws of Moses & the laws of the church & the strict rules of their celibacy! That's what it almost amounts to, their prohibition & limitations of sex, etc. If we hadn't gone so far overboard & so far afield & really far out & made such a tremendous break with their traditions regarding sex, they probably could have finally swallowed almost anything else we taught, even that the church was somewhat wrong. But the sex issue is what really really set us apart. They just couldn't swallow that, that was too much!
21. IF WE'D AGREED TO RECEIVE THEIR CHURCH CIRCUMCISION & KEEP THE LAWS OF MOSES & THE CHURCH, WELL, THEY MIGHT HAVE BEEN WILLING TO TOLERATE US. But to go as far as we've gone, that's just absolutely intolerable! And that was in essence the spirit of her crack that night: All this foolishness & fun & dancing is fine, but we'd better have another talk, we'd better be a little more religious, a little more pious, have a little more sanctimoniousness, be a little more spiritual, not so carnal!
22. SHE WANTED TO LET ME KNOW THAT NIGHT THAT SHE HADN'T FORGOTTEN TO BE SPIRITUAL IN SPITE OF ALL HER ANTICS & THE DANCE, THAT SHE WAS STILL SPIRITUAL. She would still rather have a talk. "I'm not really this way, I really prefer talks." And I think it was an absolute lie! She was enjoying herself as much, if not more, than anybody! But see, even if they like it & they enjoy it, because of that rut of tradition that is ingrained in them, they have a guilt complex, & if they do enjoy it they feel constantly guilty about it. Like my Mother used to say about things that were good to eat, she had a crack where she'd say, "It tastes so good it must be a sin!" That sums up the church attitude beautifully! Anything that's enjoyable, anything that's that much fun, anything that tastes that good, anything that is that great a pleasure, to them, they figure it must be a sin! So she just wanted to let me know that she knew better & that she would prefer a talk! It was an absolute self-righteous display!
23. SO WE'LL LET HER HAVE HER TALKS WHILE WE HAVE OUR FUN! The rule will be that any night I'm going to go to dinner, she's to be [DELETED] away with her talks before I put in my appearance [DELETED] until I've gone. I don't want to see her face again until we know that she has really changed & stood the test. That will be her penance. I sometimes think that the Catholic Church's practice of penance was a very good idea. You know, the priest would often hear confession & if they felt it was serious enough that they didn't deserve an immediate absolution, they would assign them to some form of penance.
24. I REMEMBER IT WAS A FAVOURITE PUNISHMENT WHEN I WAS YOUNG & I HEARD ABOUT CATHOLIC KIDS, THE PRIEST MADE THEM PUT PEAS IN THEIR SHOES & HAVE TO WALK AROUND WITH PEAS IN THEIR SHOES HURTING THEIR FEET! I bet every step they took it reminded them of their sin & made them sorry! (Maria: Well, they still have that, don't they?--Penance?) You'll have to ask some of these modern Catholics. The Catholic Church has modernised a lot. But I even thought that sounded like a good idea as a punishment for sin, to have to suffer for it a little while. We believe in punishment, chastisement, chastening, & the Lord certainly does! He uses the rod, even on the repentant!
25. EVEN AFTER ISRAEL WOULD WAIL FOR FORGIVENESS, HE'D OFTEN ASSIGN THEM SOME FORM OF PUNISHMENT OR PAYMENT FOR THEIR SIN! He wouldn't just let'm off scot-free. That would be too easy. They had to suffer a little bit for their sins. So she has already chosen her form of suffering. As the king in the Bible said, "As thou hast said, so be it"--let her have her talks & I won't have to make the whole Family suffer for it & I won't have to suffer. We've suffered enough over it. Sometimes the Lord gets His greatest victories out of seeming defeat, so I'm not saying He can't change her.
26. COME TO THINK OF IT, I THINK IT'S BEEN HUMBLING TO ME TO HAVE TO SIT THERE & JUST LISTEN TO THE MUSIC & WATCH'M DANCE, OR GET UP & CAVORT AROUND MYSELF! It's kind of silly & foolish & childish at my age! (Maria: I didn't think of it that way.) But it certainly does help keep me humble! It's not as exalting as inspired sermons & oratory! I'm just sitting down there playing with the rest of the kids like a little child! (Maria: Yes.)
27. WHAT KEDA WAS MEANING WAS SHE WAS TOO DEEP FOR THAT, SHE REALLY PREFERRED SOMETHING MORE DEEPLY SPIRITUAL! I have to sit down there & admit that I enjoy it & it's a relief from having to be so spiritual! I think I'm spiritual enough all day reading texts, correcting & editing & proofreading & preparing things for publication. (Maria: I think that's very humbling.) I can take a little rest from being spiritual, an hour or so. (Maria: And actually, when you come right down to it, what you do all day is pretty humbling too. Look what you do, you put the commas in & you paragraph & proofread & you edit. That's really pick-&-shovel work, that really is humbling in a way, you know?)
28. WELL, LET'S SEE IF SHE CAN TAKE THE PENANCE NOW. We have to often put people on probation to see if they really are sorry & really mean their repentance. Even the government does that, & God certainly did it plenty! So we'll put her [EDITED: "on"] probation, with nothing but talks, & see how she gets along. What do you want to bet, if she lies down on that bed to watch'm, she's going to go to sleep! Poor woman!--She's so tired! (Maria: I don't know, I think she'd be in fear & trembling. Anyway, we can give her a chair to sit in. She doesn't have to lie down.)
29. SHE HAS A HARD ENOUGH TIME STAYING AWAKE IN MY MEETINGS WHEN I DO TALK, she has a real struggle. She often can hardly hold her eyes open, & that's one time I've actually felt sorry for her. I even mentioned it, I think, in the meeting. She was one of the people that I made the cracks about: "I don't mind if you go to sleep, just so you keep your eyes open." I think I even said I don't even mind if you shut your eyes & take a catnap if you're that tired.
30. I THINK THOSE CHURCHY SORT OF RELIGIONISTS REALLY FEEL LIKE THEY HAVE TO SUFFER TO BE SPIRITUAL! I think she thought perhaps she deserved to suffer a little bit, suffer some talks, in order to hang on to her spirituality. She was beginning to have too much fun & enjoy it too much. Whereas I think that the talks were almost a trial for her. I know she has a hard time staying awake. You can't kid me, I've watched people & audiences too many years, & classes, & I know when people are tired & exhausted & can hardly hold their eyes open & their eyes keep shutting & they have to shake their heads to stay awake. Maybe she feels like she deserves that kind of torment & torture to earn her merit & her righteousness. GHH!
(To Be Continued!)
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
