Sorry for the delay in letting you guys know how it went. I'm just a little unsure of how much I need to tell you for the sake of keeping the post short. Oh well, I'll give you the whole story...might be a little long though.
Well, it turns out that the meeting was a setup to try and make a fool out of me and the scripture. However, I fully expected something like that to happen. Let me see if I can explain the setting to you. I was told that I would be leading the class with my teaching and would be answering a lot of questions and such. I was fully prepared with an outline of everything that I would be going over. However, it was also my prayer that God would lead the meeting and not my outline.
This church usually has a sermon going on at the same time as this Sunday School class. Well, they had completely canceled that service in order for the pastor and church CEO to be in this class. They had also brought in another pastor who was supposedly well educated and trained in Greek and Hebrew. Now picture this...in the small classroom, there was 14 people. 10 of us sat around one of those metal tables in normal metal type chairs...then next to the wall just behind us, there were 4 big priestly type chairs with cushions and armrests and such. Guess who sat there? That's right...the pastor, the CEO, the guest pastor and his wife. They were on their pedestal and about to make a meal of me. It really was a funny site.
When the meeting started, I was told that I had 10 minutes to say what I wanted....so much for my preparations. I just closed my notebook and sat it down beside me. The next hour was basically a lot of discussion and debate. Here is an example of some of it. At one point the guest pastor was talking about himself. He proudly stated that he was seminary trained and well educated in the word. He asked me if I was educated in Greek and I said "no". He asked if I was educated in Hebrew and I said "no". Then he proudly stated that he was educated in both Greek and Hebrew. (Have you ever seen a puffer fish? Well, that's exactly what he was at that moment. I tried not to smile at his arrogance.) About 5 minutes later, we began discussing eternity in a certain passage. I said, "Well, lets let David tell us what the Greek word is that is used here since he is more educated than myself." Get this...he didn't know.
So I let every one know that the Greek word used here was "aionios." Then we asked David if he could tell us what "aionios" was and what it meant. He started babbling a bunch of nonsense. I was almost embarrassed for him. I then explained to them the meaning of this word and how it was used in scripture and how it was impossible to mean eternal. After that, David had very little input for the rest of the meeting. We then discussed the various "hell" mistranslations and the "lucifer" mistranslation to which no one could refute.
Out of everything discussed, no one could refute one thing I said by using scripture. It basically came down to their final answer for everything they believed being this: "We accept what we believe on faith." That was it. They refused to accept the truth and replaced it with their own beliefs and traditions.
So what took place in the meeting? Was it beneficial to anyone? I believe it was.
- It showed me what it truly means to be blinded. If I showed these people a red pen and said "this pen is red", they would have said "no, the pen is blue" if that is what they believed.
- A couple of them asked me inquiring questions after the meeting. Maybe God is beginning to open there eyes. Only he knows.
- My wife realized just how deceitful, cunning and mean they tried to be. She realized what Ray always says, "Hell hath no fury like a Christian that has been shown the truth." She cried later that night when it all set in. She has never read any of the hateful comments that I receive on my site so it was kind of an eye opener for her. It really upset her that someone would be so hateful to her husband over this.
Thank you all for your prayers as I went into this meeting. God was completely in control. My carnality wanted to say that "I really showed them." But, it was all of God. It is my prayer that when I feel victorious with things like this, that God will make me humble. It is so easy to expose their false teachings. Yet if God had not brought me out of Babylon, I would still be believing those same teachings. This is also part of the reason I was hesitant to post this. I didn't want others to think that I was bragging. I am no different than anyone else that was in that meeting. It is only God that has given me grace and opened my eyes to his wonderful truth.
Thank you Father for your Grace and Mercy.