[Thankful Jane]

I had this post written to Ohio about his question to Matt, but because the thread was moving on at lightning speed, I set it aside. It fits with the topic of idolatry that keeps surfacing, so I decided to post it now, even though it's a bit late.

Originally Posted by Ohio

Matt, what do you mean a "mixture of ... demonic influences" in the early days.

Dear Ohio,

I believe that a mixture of demonic influences would be found in the hierarchy that was sown among us in the USA from the early days. You referred to those early days in an earlier post when you said, “How do we deal with the fact that nearly all the LC saints were the most dedicated and given bunch of Christians ever assembled. That's why I put all the blame on the leaders, and not the saints.”

If the reason you don’t blame the saints is that they were the “most dedicated and given bunch of Christians ever assembled” (ever? <-- ) then how can you blame the leaders because they were also in that “elite” group. What happened to them that made them blameworthy? Did nothing happen to the common saints?

Travelling on down the road a few decades we start to see the result of the growth of the bad seed of hierarchy that was mixed in among us from the time of the early days. The 1986 letter Matt just posted is one big, ugly bud that was about to bring forth its ugly black fruit.

In what was about to happen, you see not just demonic influence, but demonic control, not over just the leaders, but the common saints.

In the "Fermentation of the Present Rebellion" which Lee published a few years later, he pronounced John Ingalls and Bill Mallon as rebellious. This was a false accusation and a sinful act.

God’s Word says, “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” Whoever says “amen” to something that is not true is bearing false witness, so common saints who agreed with this false accusation also sinned.

A common saint cannot excuse themselves by blaming the leader for providing false information. Each of us is responsible to give due diligence to know the truth. If we sin in ignorance it is still sin (See Lev. 4). If I hear such a demand from a leader, I should go to God and ask Him what is true. Then I should ask John Ingalls and Bill Mallon for myself about what was happening. After gathering information I can make my own determination about what is true and decide for myself which master I will serve.

WL also required that all the saints quarantine these men. Whoever submitted to this directive, sinned against God, because he/she was submitting to someone other than God alone. You cannot serve two masters. If you obey a leader to commit sin, you have disobeyed God. You have bowed to another master and have another god. You are in violation of commandment two which shows that anyone who bows to and serves another god is committing idolatry. In this case, that would be leaders and common saints alike. A group isn't to blame. I am. You are. Whoever bowed bears the blame.

When I reduce things down to measuring my own behavior by the commandments of God, then suddenly everything, including the definition of idolatry, becomes a lot simpler and clearer. That's one big example. I think you can see there are many more.

Hope said earlier that the root cause of all that went wrong was deputy authority. I agree that deputy authority was a huge part of the problem, but it wasn’t the root. More later.

Thankful Jane