Another year has slipped by ever so quickly! The months have seemed to be more like weeks, even days; yet this gives cause for us to anxiously look forward to when there shall "...be time no longer" (Revelation 10:6); that is, when we have been fully transformed by the renewing of our minds, when our corruptibility has put on incorruption, and when our mortality has put on immortality. Even though the dawn of that hour is not known to us, regardless of the time element, we will continue our course. We will make our way through the allotted days through the valley of the shadow of death until that glorious destination victoriously receives us.

Today, rather than hearing what I have to say, Margit and I both feel to share the voice of others who have richly blessed us, and we are sure it will be the same with you. Therefore, first from our very dear friend:

{1}

We've been cut from the mountain, you and me.
And someday, God will set creation free.
I'm not yet what I was meant to be.
For in the end, I'll be pure white, don't you see.
For I've been washed in the soft sands of time.
I've been cut, I've been polished, and I've been shined.
Yes, I've been washed in the soft sands of time."

--Daryl Bates Chesser {2}

Oh, my Father - I cry unto Thee
If it be possible, let this cup pass from me.
My footsteps are weary, my strength almost gone
Nevertheless, not my will, but let Thine be done.
When I first started out to run in this race ⁽¹⁾
I had strength and vigor to keep up the pace.
But the nearer I come to reaching that goal
The more trials and testings doth weary the soul.
I strive not for salvation, it was purchased at Calvary ⁽²⁾.
For the prize of the high-calling in Christ ⁽³⁾, is my plea.
Oh, my Father - send grace from above
That I may be like Thee in mercy ⁽⁴⁾ and love.
Not willing that any should forever be lost ⁽⁵⁾
But that every knee bow at the foot of the Cross ⁽⁶⁾.
When all Thy prodigals are safely back home
Oh, my Father! Thy will shall be done.

(1) Heb 12:1-2
⁽²⁾ John 3:16
⁽³⁾ Phil. 3:14
⁽⁴⁾ Psa 106:1
⁽⁵⁾ 2 Pet 3:9
⁽⁶⁾ Phil 2:11, Rev 5:13

--Dorothy Gibbs

{3}

"I'm writing to thank you so very much for your teaching on the real meaning of the word MEEKNESS in your Pathfinder series, In The Beginning, Part 12, #171.04. I had despaired of ever attaining to that quality in this life. I had accepted the general belief that meekness meant spineless, demure, and the like. In my efforts to try to be meek, I have squashed my natural enthusiasm, passion, and expressiveness. For some reason, I seem to be surrounded by phlegmatics who prefer me to 'tone it down,' especially if I am angry or upset over something. I don't get out of control -- I am simply vivacious. For years I have complained to God for giving me this stupid personality. I felt that if I could not act meek like so many of my friends, then I was not a good Christian.

"Your explanation of true meekness set me free from self-condemnation. I can be free to be me -- to use the personality God gave me for His service. I was so busy squashing my LION and trying to be all LAMB that I just was driving myself crazy.

"Thank you and thank God.

"That whole Part 12 teaching was particularly enlightening. I have spent a long time over it. It also answered my questions of how could Jesus say he was meek and act and say some of the things He did. Now I understand. Yes!

--Barbara Kuniholm

{4}

Thank you, Elwin, for Part 14 (#173.04) about the meek -- a message we all must read and heed. I will not be the same.

--George Howe

{5}

"ELWIN STRIKES AGAIN!!! Yet another Jesus story has come out of your writings!

"For some years I have felt that the Lord was calling me out of the organized church, telling me that He has other things in mind for me. Because I had been taught from childhood that on Sunday morning we go to church. . . on Sunday morning I went to church. That, coupled with the fact that I am very slow to act on what seems to be the Lord, I have stayed in church until very recently when I was reading II Corinthians 6:15, '...what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?'

"Suddenly, I saw with clarity the answer to 'What HAS a believer in common with an unbeliever,' which is absolutely nothing! Nothing! Yet, I had never before been able to grasp that Truth!

"Then, verse 17: 'Therefore, COME OUT FROM THEIR MIDST, AND BE SEPARATE, and do not touch what is unclean!'

"I laid awake most of the night thinking on this! I was still thinking about it into the next day. Early that evening I said, 'Lord, how can I participate in, and thereby perpetuate that which You have condemned? How can I manifest all that You are calling me to be as a significant part of which is sharing that which You have given me - thereby exposing the Babylonian system?'

"I thought, The Babylonian system! A Godless gathering of demands to `Be Ye Therefore Perfect'. . . but the one constant is the demand within the expectation that we 'be therefore perfect' in our own fleshly efforts!

"We are simply not taught that the Person of the Holy Spirit was made available to us to be His power through us. HE is the one who walks us through that promised perfection. Perfection was God's gift to us through His Spirit.

"He never intended that we come to perfection through the power of our own flesh! He knew the impossibility and the sheer foolishness of such wasted effort far better than we.

"That System of self-strength increases our own chosen path of self control and self aggrandizement. It is not God's Path of death to our flesh. We choose our own path rather than His, because we feel it keeps us in total control of our own lives.

"Finally, I said, 'Lord! How can I teach and expose the condemned Babylonian system - while still remaining a part of it! (within the church building)'

"His Word to me in that moment was:

'YOU CAN'T!'

"I sat in stunned silence for some time. After thinking for awhile on His straight-from-the-Throne Room response, I said, 'Lord, will you please give me a confirmation - a really strong one - as to Your wanting me completely out of the Babylonian system in its entirety. My body is out of the building, but I continue to feel torn in soul and spirit between what I've been taught versus what You seem to be saying to me. . .' 'Come OUT from her. . . !'

"Your latest booklet, Elwin, 'Forsake Not the Assembling,' had just arrived that afternoon. I put it on my night stand to read later that evening. When I read the title, 'Forsake Not the Assembling,' I thought, 'Oh, dear me. I guess I've really missed it this time. God is going to tell me that I AM supposed to be in the assembling after all!' I winced as I turned the page.

"I read, 'Most Sunday services are gatherings rather than assemblies. Compare the many members of Christ's body to an automobile that has many members or parts. We can have all the parts of a beautiful Mercedes Benz gathered in a pile, but I challenge anyone to hop on the top of that pile of new parts and drive them to the market for a quart of milk. Those parts would be more akin to a junk pile than an automobile, and the supposed driver would get nowhere! However, when all those parts are properly assembled - you can zip across the country at breakneck speed if you so desire!'

"The more I read the more astonished I became! Although you said it far better than I, it is the same basic premise that God has been saying to me for years, and I've been too afraid to act on it.

"'COME OUT FROM AMONG HER (BABYLON) MY PEOPLE! COME OUT!' (out from the counterfeit and into the Real!)

"I had asked God for a powerful confirmation as to coming out of the system body, soul, and spirit, but I had never dared to hope for such a powerful confirmation!

"Elwin, through your teaching you gave me the answer for which I had been searching for years, but had never found. You explained everything in words and examples that I could really see and hear!

"I was so stunned by the speed and the clarity with which the Lord had answered the cry of my heart, that I was up yet another night, 'thinking on these things' - but new things this time. Not rehashing the same old thoughts of fear based on religion. This time, in the presence of the Lord, I was thinking on Him through your teaching! If I'd had the money I would have called you! (never mind that it was by now the wee hours of the morning!)

"My family will be so pleased to hear of your teaching. My sons and my brother have been telling me for years that I needed to get out of that system and go to where there are hurting, hungry people who

are longing for Truth. But, because of all I had been taught from childhood on... Thank you, Elwin, for your obedience to the Lord in your life that positioned you in Him to be able to write His Truths that are releasing me in a significant area of bondage in my life!"

--Sunny Bell  

The remainder are letters written to J. Preston Eby, Gary Amirault, and Gerry Beauchemin, or by Ted Jones:

{6}

"The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and give His life a ransom for many. The whole idea that we have of 'ministry' has got warped up in these days, and I believe we shall have to have a new picture of what ministry really is put into our minds by God. The word ministry comes from two Latin words, minis, (from which we get minus), which means lesser, and tri, which is the Latin word for servant. Now, when you think about it, a LESSER SERVANT is a whole lot different from what we think of when the word ministry is put in our minds. We think of accomplished pastors, famous evangelists, large meetings, crowds with a tremendous flow of miracles and worship, and people that can really hold your attention by their great preaching -- and then we find that the word means LESSER SERVANT!

         "The impact of this hit me recently and I'll share the experience with you. For most of my life I have served in a professional capacity. Before I was an ordained minister I was a registered nurse. I have never really worked as a servant of any kind, until recently. A friend of mine was doing a little job here in town which involves helping an elderly lady who has had a stroke. You need to help her in whatever capacity she needs, from housework to bathing her. My friend had to leave town and, to help her out, I took the job. Nearly a year later I am still doing it! One day I was kneeling on the bathroom floor drying her feet when suddenly I said to myself, 'Whatever am I doing here -- I'm supposed to be an Ordained Minister!' Immediately the Spirit of God answered within my heart, 'You wanted to minister, didn't you?'

"The time has come when we must understand that ministry is not preaching but servant-hood. We are going to have to learn all over again what it means to serve people with the same heart of love that Jesus had when He walked among men. It was not beneath Him to lift a woman caught in adultery to her feet and speak a word of reassurance to her, nor was it beneath Him to eat at the house of an ungodly tax-gatherer and his friends. Jesus did not hire a huge auditorium and put out publicity announcing great meetings. He simply moved among men and women where they were and touched them with love, and healing, and comp"  

--Lyn Gitchel

{7}

Ted Jones' Testimony (Toronto, Canada) who suffered a nervous breakdown resulting from believing in eternal torment):

"The idea that God lets any creature suffer endlessly has caused me more suffering than all the other problems of my life combined. By the time I had reached the mission field I had hoped to have found a satisfactory answer that would justify God allowing this to happen. I didn't find such an answer. Surrounded by thousands of people, dozens of whom were dying every day and beginning an eternity of suffering in hell was too much for me. In 1966, at the age of 28, it caused me to have a nervous breakdown. For several weeks I was confined to my bed in a state of terror night and day. The terror was caused by the fear of what a God I could not love or respect would do to me after I died. It took me twelve years to fully recover from the breakdown. I quickly became agnostic, for the Christian gospel and the Bible were no longer any comfort to me at all. Many evangelical friends tried to help me. They meant well, but in the end they all had only words of condemnation towards me. This added more suffering to my already intense suffering.

"Gradually I began to learn that there have been, in centuries past, and still are today, a few people in the world that see a different kind of God in the Bible. They see a God who will not let any creature suffer forever. They see a God in the Bible who will change every second of everyone's suffering into something better that it happened, including the sufferings of Satan. I read dozens of books, and listened to hundreds of tapes by men who believe this way and I gradually became converted to believing this way myself. Since 1981, through my newspaper ads and my telephone ministry I have sent out many hundreds of packets of literature explaining why I believe as I do. I have also sent this evidence to hundreds of pastors and Bible school teachers. None of them have told me that they are able to refute it. I have also read eight books that were supposed to refute the evidence in favor of universalism, but none of them do. Because of this evidence, my panic attacks became less frequent until twelve years after my breakdown they ceased altogether. Now, nothing gives me greater pleasure than to make this evidence available to others who have suffered because of the same problem that I had, and I use a substantial amount of my money and time to this end.

"Because of the enormous amount of suffering the idea of 'endless hell' causes in this world, I am asking you to consider the possibility that you should stop endorsing the idea that the Bible teaches it. Or, at least, let others know that there are (and have been in centuries past) people who do not think the Bible teaches it. Many of the responses from pastors and teachers range from a mild, 'The majority don't agree with you so you must be wrong.' to the vicious 'For every week you leave your ad in the papers, God will increase the temperature of the fires of hell for you personally.' Most are somewhere in between these remarks But none have told me they are able to refute the evidence. And, until they can, they will not be able to shut me up."

Another from Ted Jones: Can Children Go to Hell?

{8}

"Evangelicals are divided in their opinion about the fate of infants who die.

"Some, who believe in God's sovereign election of the 'few,' also believe that non-elect babies who die will spend eternity suffering in hell. John Calvin said, 'there are babies a span long in hell.'

"Others consider this unfair, and assert that infants who die will spend eternity in heavenly bliss. This of course is true, but not because the child is innocent. It's true because the Scriptures teach that God intends to save everyone from everything that they need to be saved from.

"A few years ago there was a story in a Montreal paper about an Ohio lady who drowned her baby in a bathtub. Her defense was that she loved the baby so much that she wanted to make sure that her child would not have to suffer forever in hell. After serving a sentence she remarried, had another child and drowned it for the same reason. She trusted that God would forgive her because her intention, though warped by false theology, was for the good of her children.

"The jury decided that she was mentally ill, BUT WAS SHE? The simple pragmatic fact remains that if *Arminianism is right, her two infants will spend eternity in heavenly bliss because she loved them so much that she insured, by killing them, that this will be so. *The Arminian view is that man has an unconditional free will to chose or reject God that seals their eternal destiny of either heaven's bliss or hell's torment.

"Apparently, many Christians believe that there is a magical split-second in time before which a child, if they die, will go to heaven, and after which, if they die will spend eternity suffering in hell. They call this the 'age of accountability.'

"If I believed this nonsense I would take a gun into the largest maternity ward in Toronto and, before the police arrived, kill every infant who had just been born. This would cause an enormous amount of suffering to the parents, but this wouldn't matter much in the long run, because probably most of them (according to evangelical theology) are destined to suffer forever in hell anyway, so why not save their babies from the same fate?

The Pathfinder, PO Box 4004, Alamogordo NM 88311-4004

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