Horns Of Light 20 - The Dark Light Of Abuse In Church Continued

Welcome to the Horns of Light Chronicles. Peter Berbalis chronicles his family story, prophecy, and testimony. God's story unfolds, from his grandfather in Lithuania, Nazi Germany, the Russian Revolution, to Ronald Reagan in the fall of the Berlin Wall, the gospel spreading across Eastern Europe, how God called Peter to Petra, Jordan, and so much more as prophecy and testimonies unfold.

And now, the Horns of Light Chronicles. You know, Pete, this is kind of the string we've been on. these very difficult circumstances. And maybe kind of the biggest, one of the hardest things to comprehend is you're dealing with Christian people, and you keep expecting them to do the right thing. And the saddest part is, is there's, in my opinion, there's a very small window of opportunity to do the right thing, not that that window is closed. Of course, everybody could always repent and do the right thing.

But if, if that window isn't taken, and the right thing isn't done, then kind of the hardship is to continually see the wrong thing done and expecting these people to do the right thing, if that makes any sense. And that's very disheartening, but kind of going back a little bit to the last time we had talked and kind of mentioned, kind of getting that, that phone call that you don't want to get. And it was one of the pastor's kids, associate pastor's kids and just kind of mentioned that there was a scandal going on in the church, we had kind of left that church already. But we had been a part of that church for many years. And so, let me maybe back up a little bit for this is before this whole thing had taken place I can't remember the dates but it might have been a year or two before this whole thing had come out into the open to the scandal broke. The Lord had given me a dream, and in that dream.

There was a huge train wreck, and there were bodies all over the place. And everybody was waiting for our pastor to come and speak. And after I you know it's one of those dreams that you just knew wasn't that God was speaking through I guess you could say.

But for me how I took that dream initially is, I took that as well. You know, I'm going to share with the pastor that, you know, God's appointed him as a leader and he wants him to speak and take the authority that God's given him and just not be afraid to speak things from the pulpit and speak his truth so that was kind of my first initial interpretation and I had a meeting with him and we just talked about that. And I told him that. And that was wrong. That definitely was not what God was speaking.

And it wasn't until later on that I came to understand this dream that the train wreck was the train wreck that he had created. And everybody was waiting for him to come out and confess his sin and to speak. And, you know, the sad thing is, is there's a tremendous amount of healing that can come to the victims, and not only to the victims but to the whole congregation, if you're just willing to stand up and do the right thing.

And unfortunately in this situation that never came. So, so basically I get that telephone call. Then after receiving that telephone call I had already had another husband from the church come to me with some concerns.

Before that time. And so I just kind of started digging into the matter and seeing, you know how much what what all was going on I guess you could say. And then we received another call from an associate pastor's wife there and basically you know she was talking about a situation where her husband was having a role play other women in the bedroom and so you know once that door is open by the leader, it just really creates an open door for that for the devil just come in and kind of like a domino effect just start rolling through the staff I mean and that doesn't, you know, deny people personal responsibility or might just mean they have poor discernment and they're hiring bad people. And so that's why it's so important to look at Paul's letter to Timothy, and to hold the leadership standard before putting people in leadership to that standard of leadership that Paul's telling Timothy to to adhere to. And then the last thing to remember and this is kind of that last verse and James I think it's James 520 where it talks about if you're able to turn somebody away from their sin, you're able to cover over a multitude of sins. Well, the multitude of things just doesn't include the sins of that person, it's how the leaders respond. And then, are they, you know, going into sin by, you know, favoring baptism or something other than God's word so and and the hurt that comes from the congregation there, it just that domino effect comes in and once you're in leadership, you're really held to the standard of how will you treat manage sinful situations. And that's something that, you know, leaders left to stand before the Lord and account to God for. And then on that situation maybe just one other side note related to that one thing that I've kind of been asking the Lord about recently is just that kind of veteran because had another dream series of dreams are related to the I hop Kansas City situation that we'll get into, but it's kind of just frustrating in that you've got the stream that you know is from the Lord, and I didn't get the revelation of it until really after the situation was over.

And that's where kind of. So I've been asking the Lord, a lot about this lately and kind of had one of those middle of the night moments with a passage that was playing, and it ended up being Luke five or Luke 18 Luke 1834. And basically, it goes into the, you know, Christ tells the disciples he explains the gospel, he's going to be, you know, he's going to suffer and rise on the third day. But the following verse of Luke 1834, basically says, and these, these things were hidden from them. So that just really perplexed me and, and it was also comforting to me to know, and to realize that when God speaks to you and start sharing some things with you, that ultimately the full revelation is the Lord's timing. So I don't fully understand how all that works. But, but it's it's the Lord's timing as far as you still need to be diligent and seek a matter out, but full revelation of that is dependent on the Lord releasing that.

So anyway, that's just a kind of a tangent side note on that. But in this case, what that led me to was trying to set up a meeting with a board and explain the situations that, you know, the telephone calls we had gotten. And immediately one of the associate pastors contacted me and just started saying really nasty things that I was kind of shocked on. And then it seemed like he was trying to just to dig into that a second. I'm curious, Pete.

What do you think the goal of his phone call? I mean, obviously, you know, nasty things to you. In other words, he wanted you to keep your nose out of it or he said you were lying or what?

Well, it's well, he it's it's hard because there's victims involved in people that, you know, still could be hurt by some of these some of these revelations. But in this case, he was saying nasty things related to the victim, the person that spoke out. And I just couldn't believe what he was saying. And it seemed like he was trying to protect the leader and put the blame. He was attacking the credibility of the witness.

Exactly. And kind of the hardest thing is this was the head pastors, you know, somebody who had left a very lucrative job in the corporate world to come on staff who was his friend and his daughter had gone through a very difficult, abusive marriage that she had had to get out of. It was it was brutal.

It was brutal. And and then, you know, the associate pastor asked the head pastor to counsel his daughter. And, you know, ever there's a case made for, you know, those who prey on weak willed women, this kind of to me, from my perspective, was fully that case. And he took advantage of that counselor relationship. And, you know, and so I'm just so he was actually, you know, as I go, as I just he was trying to get you to change sides. I think so he claimed that he wasn't, you know, he claimed that he wasn't trying to keep me from speaking to the board. But, boy, I, you know, I'm a pretty black and white guy.

And, and that's, you know, I felt like he was trying to. Right. Right. Right.

Right. And so at the very least, at the worst case, he was trying to keep me from going before the board and speaking. But you did.

But I did. And the board didn't want me to. So there was one of the board members and they were trying to keep me from coming before the board saying, you know, he's not a part of this church anymore. Why should he be allowed to even come in and speak? So there was just a lot of there was a lot of cover up right within the board, even in allowing me to come and speak to them and address the situation.

So I went to the board. And what's even harder in this is that pastor who was associate pastor who was kind of protecting the head pastor. He, his wife ended up embezzling, you know, 100 plus thousand dollars to which he said he didn't know that was going on because she was part of the accounting staff at the church so it was just a huge, huge, huge, huge mess. And, and so they agreed to pay back that amount, which the head pastor held and his wife held them to.

And, you know, I think that they still may be paying back on that still to this day and this is, I don't know 1415 years later, not more. So, and then in the end that associate pastor did kind of come around and see things. But, and kind of try to get the head pastor to do the right thing. So, um, it's just, you know, but, but that was after I left and kind of by gone, so then I went in and spoke to the board. And, and they basically didn't want to hear it, you know the president of the board or the head of that board at that time.

You know, in my opinion he's tainted because he had pornography issues that he was struggling with. So it was kind of, you know, we need to protect God's anointed and that whole thing. And at the end of my conversation with the board over the issues. One board member came to me, and he was just a really kind, kind man, and he said thank you thank you for coming in and sharing, but ultimately nothing was done. So, then I contacted I was in contact with the head of the assemblies of God in the state of Illinois. And, you know, I contacted focus on the family. Wow and focus on the family basically said, you know, you need to start putting pressure on the situation. And they said and don't expect them to do the right thing. So I was receiving some counsel from one of the guys there and he kind of brought up, you know, some of the history at times of the assemblies of God not not doing the right thing, and covering up and restoring and all that kind of stuff and I think he might have brought up Jimmy swagger which becomes significant.

Later on, in relation to this whole thing. So, so then I'm talking to the head of the assemblies of God in the state of Illinois. And, you know, he's, it sounds like this church was an affiliate church so it didn't have full membership as so you know they didn't have full authority to go in and speak in and they were looking at things from a legal matter. And it was very reflective at that time.

It was fully. What does the law matter. Why are you worried to me it seemed very cynical Why are you worried about, you know, the legal aspects of this situation, when you know you have a man who's taking advantage of a real woman, and you know I was just totally frustrated with the whole situation. And then that associate pastor would kind of gotten involved he is, he was now moving on to another church, and he wasn't disclosing to his to that church that his wife was taking advantage of money so it was just, it was just I was, you know, so and I brought that situation up to him too and I'm like look, you're, you're this pastor is going on to another congregation, and chances are if a pastor left a congregation, and that this congregation is going through a time of confusion and pain themselves and now you're going to send somebody in, who's coming out of a situation of, you know, just in. Right, right, right, right, right, right, I think we're out of time right here because like oh my goodness, but the good news is God is not done. Yeah, and he will make all things new, and he will be involved so you know stay tuned. We appreciate you, Pete and and again what God was teaching you in some insights from Pete standpoint coming up in the next episode. Thanks Pete. Thank you.