Well, if anyone wants to know the truth and story behind that paper... Once back when Ray had gotten an email from someone who said they thought he should tone down his sarcasm, Ray responded, "I'll think about it." I wrote him an email and said, "NOooo, don't tone down your sarcasm. I repeat, DO NOT tone down the sarcasm."
And so he was inspired to write that paper. (Not that I inspired him to write it, because he had been wanting to write it before my email; God inspired me to make my request to not tone down the sarcasm and God used that as the nudge he needed to write it -- if you want my my humble assumption.) He asked me if he could mention my name, I said yes initially. But then after the forum initially opened and I saw exactly what he was undertaking (but making what he was going through and doing look soooooooooo incredibly easy), I got the wind knocked out of me, and I asked him to take my name off the paper. There was a while there where I didn't like him or that paper at all! See, because then I came to the assumption that he was just being highly egotistical (but that's because I was seeing my own reflection in the way he wrote). I got angry and wrote him and said, WHY DO YOU SPEAK THIS WAY TO THOSE PEOPLE!??? (Just like the pharisees did to Jesus. Then I had THAT hanging over my head.) I looked and looked and looked and looked and searched diligently for something, ANYTHING to pin on Ray so I could be in the right, but I couldn't find anything. Oh, my ego wanted so badly to be right about him and his ego. But boy was I wrong. (Could you imagine if he actually LISTENED TO ME and tried to accommodate me and my wishes? The thought makes me shudder to think. He didn't listen to me at all. Thank God for that! haha!)
So yeah, that's why that's one of my favorite papers.
This is a very lonely, lonely road we walk. Can you imagine being a nobody from Hoboken, New Jersey and then all of a sudden having people flocking to you? Imagine how easily that would go to your head if you didn't have the spirit of God working and operating in you, or making you not very attractive (as was Jesus) so that no woman (or any man for that matter) would desire you for themselves -- never mind that you were going around saying things like, Let the dead bury their dead and you come and follow me. Or like you mentioned, "Go tell that fox...." Imagine having everything and then giving it all up so you could stoop to help a bunch of whores and tax collectors who Jesus probably got to know quite well during his stint as a carpenter in Hoboken -- er Nazareth (can anything good come out of Nazareth?) -- and then saying to the pharisees: Prostitutes and tax collectors will be entering the Kingdom of heaven ahead (not instead -- as so many mistakenly believe) of YOU! Imagine being a pharisee and hearing those cutting words! The axe was truly at the base of the tree.
Timberrr! All fall down.
I mean, Jesus spoke the very words most of us would speak if we had the God given brains and the nerve, and wherewithal to withstand the constant attacks. But no, we cower and think, hmmmm ... but then no one will like me. And people will be mad at me and how am I going to feed myself and the list goes on... till one day you're being murdered and laughed at and humiliated.
I'm telling you if I was in Ray's place, I would have packed it in after about the first 100 or so emails. I know it takes the spirit of God to operate in someone to be able to do all that he did. We are witness to a miracle. There's no doubt.