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[Gailon Arthur Joy]

I was lucky enough to have instructors at all levels of my educational experience declare un-abashedly that the Spirit of Prophecy was exactly as Ellen G. White described it herself... the Lesser Light that reflects the Greater Light.

I do believe the Red Books have much light for the path just  ahead on the way to the final conflict and we would all benefit from much more time reading and studying their content carefully that we can
have clarity on the eschatology and God's purpose in these very special times.

Gailon Arthur Joy
AUReporter

[horsethief]

Well said Gailon... I just remember having the red books taken to me when I refused to be a vegetarian. When I took a shower on sabbath at a self-supporting academy. When I disagreed in a SS class when someone declared that Jesus was a vegan. 

Mrs. White never intended her writings to be used to divide and conquer.

[Gailon Arthur Joy]

I beleive Elder Ralph Larsen said it best when he pointedly asserted the Spirit of Prophecy was given for "me" and not to be used as a sledge hammer for the indiscretions of "them". We are to read it, study it and to use it as a pathway for our own lives and not to use it to abuse the right of conscience of others.

That is a fundemental of Protestantism...the absolute right of conscience!!! We can exhort and plead to pursuade the brethren
and we should be doing a whole lot more of that, but we can not enforce our will upon the conscience of another.

That does not grant us leave to allow public sin to go unchallenged.
Nor does it allow us license to simply ignore a clear injustice when it comes to our attention, particularly when that injustice is executed by those purporting to be "annointed of the Lord" or pretending to be in Holy Communion with the Brethren.

I shall not bore you with examples, but will assert the Lutheran Bishop has failed in his duty to seek justice for the victims of the Lutheran Pastor as certainly as the Catholic Bishops failed in their duty to the young parishioners that becam victims of the various preists.

We can hold DLS and 3ABN to the same standard in several cases over the years, and I readilly do so.

Gailon Arthur Joy
AUReporter

[Gailon Arthur Joy]

One other point I cannot leave unstated...the exercise of Matthew 18 also has the affect of seperating the men from the mice. Men, directed by the Spirit of a Living God, will learn a valuable lesson in going to the offending brethren and making him aware of their concerns and listening to the response. Then, given the response is not acceptable, or open sin is endorsed, going back with yet another brother will go far to acheive conciliation with the offending brother. Redemption will often be the result as the softening spirit works with the offender.

However, if the offender is rebellious, church discipline is never fun, but must be properly and judiciously exercised so as not to deprive the offender of due process and to leave open the door for the offender to confess his error and reform it's behaviour... and the congregation must make every effort to leave that door open for the redemptive process.

It is not an easy balance to acheive, and can seem very devisive at times,  but if done in the proper spirit and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, God's purpose will be acheived. It is not always the result we would expect, but it will always lead to the fulfillment of God's purpose over time.

It will also build your backbone for dealing with open sin in the church.

Gailon Arthur Joy
AUReporter

[princessdi]

Jesus was a vegan?  Based on what?

Well said Gailon... I just remember having the red books taken to me when I refused to be a vegetarian. When I took a shower on sabbath at a self-supporting academy. When I disagreed in a SS class when someone declared that Jesus was a vegan. 

Mrs. White never intended her writings to be used to divide and conquer.

[mrst53]

Gailon,
It has been a long time, since I have heard any preach Matthew 18 or practice it. If this has been practiced with Tommy and Danny and neither has repented then they should have been openly revealed in the church. Has anyone done that? Just asking...

[Gailon Arthur Joy]

Tommy is not a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and never has been.

Most of my communications with Danny over every issue we knew about at the time were "off the record", however, I have noted that Bob Pickle has shared some of the communications that both he and I conducted with Danny Lee Shelton and Dr Thompson. I do know that some administrators of the church did speak with officers and directors and "denied everything and admitted nothing" despite overwhelming evidence that there were clear disparities and factually challenged accounts.

We proposed a conciliation process and that concept was adopted by some church leadership and facilitated. The record is available for all to read and see and we did not go to the church and the world until the doors were closed by 3ABN...documentation is clearly available on two websites.

What clearly struck me was the failure of Matthew 18 in dealing with Linda Sue Shelton!!! And from the ministry that claimed to be annointed to counteract the counterfeit, a clear hypocricy.

I knew as early as December 2006 that litigation was inevitable and prepared for it, despite the concert of opinions that they would never sue us. Yes, the decison was made in December!!! It was then that I authorized the pre-emptive strike that revealed the open and notorious sin in the camp in the form of Tommy Lee Shelton and openly charged 3ABN and DLS with a malicious and un-biblical process and abuse of their authority regarding Linda Sue Shelton. The rest is history and I DO NOT REGRET A MOMENT OF THE BATTLE AND WOULD AND WILL DO IT AGAIN!!!

Gailon Arthur Joy
AUReporter

[tinka]

One other point I cannot leave unstated...the exercise of Matthew 18 also has the affect of seperating the men from the mice. Men, directed by the Spirit of a Living God, will learn a valuable lesson in going to the offending brethren and making him aware of their concerns and listening to the response. Then, given the response is not acceptable, or open sin is endorsed, going back with yet another brother will go far to acheive conciliation with the offending brother. Redemption will often be the result as the softening spirit works with the offender.

However, if the offender is rebellious, church discipline is never fun, but must be properly and judiciously exercised so as not to deprive the offender of due process and to leave open the door for the offender to confess his error and reform it's behaviour... and the congregation must make every effort to leave that door open for the redemptive process.

It is not an easy balance to acheive, and can seem very devisive at times,  but if done in the proper spirit and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, God's purpose will be acheived. It is not always the result we would expect, but it will always lead to the fulfillment of God's purpose over time.

It will also build your backbone for dealing with open sin in the church.

Gailon Arthur Joy
AUReporter

and in our case (smile) wonder what side was convincing against us? Trauma was beyond comprehension! Not a soul was there to stop it, help it cause gain was in their sight. We have suffered beyond comprehension!  Funny, they did not end up with it but State and Federal did for a plus they wanted for their agenda....via organizational deceit.

[mrst53]

Gailon, I know that Tommy was a member of the Church of God, was he still preaching at the time of the accusations or had he stepped down. Could you not have gone to his preacher or the church elders about the accusations with Matthew 18?

When you went to SDA church that Danny and Linda attended, didn't they do anything? Or did they just ignore what Danny was doing? I know I read something about one church kicking Linda out, but I am not sure which one- my mind has a way of forgetting things...













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[princessdi]

That is it, exactly Mrst!  Presentation!!!!!

[tinka]

I believe Elder Ralph Larsen said it best when he pointedly asserted the Spirit of Prophecy was given for "me" and not to be used as a sledge hammer for the indiscretions of "them". We are to read it, study it and to use it as a pathway for our own lives and not to use it to abuse the right of conscience of others.

Hmmm, I thought it was testimonies for the church and their guidance in smaller detail leading straight back to the Bible. So it is an Abuse to teach the truth or change the the uneducated of religious conscience of others? True some go to church not seeking truth but too bad it could not change the conscience of TS. So what shall it do? What is the purpose? I imagine that if TS was seeking truth instead of victims and His reading of testimonies for the church he might not be in this problem. As it also addresses mental illness. So who did not tell him where to go for help and hid good counsel as we hide and now hold our light under the bushel for all aspects or patterns in life where conscience is almost sealed to evil?

Probably the above states the reason why many do not want to hear or have anything to do with it in some of our churches. Of course she stated that would happen.

The only time I have seen abuse is when it is all taken out of context into fanaticism . How can truth be abuse? If someone does not like what our faith started on by a truth brought on by messenger then they should move on. It's like double jeopardy, they now believe in one thing of the Sabbath but don't infringe on the rest of "me".  It all was for our "Salvation, meditation, health and welfare and training the conscience". That's it!

I feel it was for the use of truth seekers that gathered together as a church. Shall we slam the door on an instrument that opened it or hide it, chide it, and get rid of it? EGW never wrote or was "Inspired" to be a forceful sledge hammer. her writings never "Inspired' me as a sledge hammer but a "thankfulness" for understanding better what I was seeking so shall I not share it?.

Right now it would be good if "Hope" channel took that into consideration instead of leading others into the "Worldly abyss" because it is evident they have already discarded.  If it was just for "me" then why no "unity" in SDA church that we cannot discuss freely? One thing sure for fact is -if just for "me" why go to church into diversion? Just stay home.  Fact is some except a messenger and some don't and never will. Keeping or going on Sabbath will never get it. Vanity of self interests is in the way.

[Gailon Arthur Joy]

Gailon, I know that Tommy was a member of the Church of God, was he still preaching at the time of the accusations or had he stepped down. Could you not have gone to his preacher or the church elders about the accusations with Matthew 18?

When you went to SDA church that Danny and Linda attended, didn't they do anything? Or did they just ignore what Danny was doing? I know I read something about one church kicking Linda out, but I am not sure which one- my mind has a way of forgetting things...

Tommy pastured two Church of God Churches, one in Southern Illinois and the other in Virginia.  The original information I received that opened into an inquiry of the reliability of the allegations, were allegations in Southern Illinois. However, quickly lead to allegations in Virginia as well. In fact, we did speak to Tommy, who arrogantly refused to discuss the charges. In Southern Illinois we had to speak with Head Elders/lay pastors and they confirmed the allegations and made it clear they had already attempted several avenues for justice but were largely thwarted by the intervention at every angle by Tommy’s little brother, Danny Lee Shelton.

 In tracking the trail of Tommy, we inevitably opened the Linda can of worms, an issue I had considered closed as I assumed that administrators at 3ABN were telling me the truth when I had inquired the year before.  We then opened a line of communications with DLS inquiring of both LSS and TRS. Again, we reached a very quick nerve and indignant arrogance quickly shifted the contact to the Chairman.

Both church of God entities were largely cooperative and were quite informative until, once again, threatened by DLS. The church of God Anderson conference was also quite helpful but by the time we were communicating with them,  TRS had long since ended his pastoral career and was working for 3ABN full-time again.

We did then approach the 3ABN directors but got more of the same arrogance with total silence other than via the standard “deny everything and admit nothing” from the chairman. Obviously, we took our concerns to the SDA Church administration and they did facilitate a form of conciliation hearing, but 3ABN insisted on a “secret format” and we insisted on a record for limited access and review in the SDA University “Heritage Rooms” and they pulled out…what became quite clear was that they did not want an open and fair process to guarantee fairplay by way of “oversight”.

What turned the battle into a public debate was DLS taking up the issue on the “3ABN Live” and started denigrating the entire Team on live satellite. I retaliated with a website and the remainder is history.

As to your comment on Linda, I seem to recall it was the Springfield SDA church. She was active and even occasionally teaching the Sabbath School and the conference president, a member of the 3ABN board, assigned a 3ABN co-host to be full-time pastor and he moved promptly to shut her out and discipline her. I have come to the conclusion he was not worthy of the title pastor, let alone anointing as a minister of the gospel, but I leave the consequences of his hypocracy to his day of reckoning.
In summary, we attempted to invoke Matthew 18 and other discipline processes only to be directly denied at every turn. So we took it to the church and let them decide.

Gailon Arthur Joy
AUReporter

[tinka]

and the church..did nothing ?

[mrst53]

Thanks, Gailon