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. We've gone into this whole situation, unfortunately, where people in church leadership, you know, fall into sexual sin, and it's just been rampant. It's been rampant, crazy, in the last few years, as Satan certainly has ramped up against the church.
Spiritual warfare all over this is just—it's unbelievable, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if many of you are facing similar situations, but you actually had some of that happening this very week, right, Pete? Yeah, yeah, and I guess maybe to do a little bit of advice, maybe for people having to go into this situation, is I would just recommend that you're able to surround yourself with people who are for holding people accountable to the leadership that Paul describes in his letter to Timothy, and aren't going the route of David in Don't Touch the Lord's Anointed, which is really taken out of context. In that case, it's King Saul, who was, you know, a wicked king, and David wasn't going to kill him. And when you read into Paul's letters to the church in the New Testament, he talks about praying for leaders in governmental authority that pray that we can live peaceful lives.
You know, those leaders weren't good at that time, so it continues that thread of praying for governmental leaders. And what's really interesting to me is how he handles the church leaders of that day, and that really brings—what's really spoken to me lately is Galatians 2. And kind of Paul's going through this, you know, we've had this revelation of Christ, oddly enough, possibly in Petra, Jordan, when he says, I went to Arabia. And he's kind of coming out of that, and people are—it seems like he's having this debate of people who are questioning whether or not his revelation is true, or it came from him meeting with the other apostles. And he kind of says, I didn't meet with any of the other apostles. But what's really interesting to me is he's getting ready to confront, well, the issue of circumcision is coming into the church at that time. And Paul's likely meeting with the apostles in this passage, and verse 6 really gives some great insight to me, as for those who seem to be important, whatever they are makes no difference to me. God does not judge external appearance.
Those men added nothing to my message. And when you look at the footnotes related to verse 2, it's likely Peter, James, and John. So these are the apostles of the church. And so much of what goes on when leaders fall is it's don't touch the Lord's anointed. Well, Paul confronts Peter over the issue of circumcision to his face.
He says, I opposed him to his face. And at that time, Paul wasn't really necessarily fully established. It says, I was unknown to the church other than somebody who used to persecute the church and is now a believer, and they rejoiced over that.
Anyway, so that's just a little side note. I just recommend that people get people together who are for biblical leadership as Paul spells out in his instructions to the church. And one good litmus test in a conversation is just kind of seeing what their view of biblical leadership, how they view David, and that whole scenario, if they start going down that path of don't touch the Lord's anointed, odds are you don't want to be in that person isn't going to be on your side as you try and bring the issue of abuse forward.
Okay, so I guess then going into the story of this week taking a little sidetrack here without hunting this week. And, and we're sitting at dinner after being done with a hunt, and my buddy who's an evangelist and just an incredible guy I'm very bold and just has a group of amazing people that he goes and ministers with. Let me get the text from one of his young leaders and basically the internet to a conversation with somebody who was sexually abused. And, and they shared with them his testimony and his story which was about him having to forgive because his daughter was sexually abused by a pastor. Not only a pastor but a relative, and how they had to navigate that situation and in the end, God had to bring him through a forgiveness process. So but that's the only part that this individual heard was that he had forgiven somebody who had assaulted his daughter and then that individual no longer wanted anything to do with that ministry, because that individual thought that, you know, he was letting that perpetrator go scot free. So, they just said hey, she really wants to talk to you.
Would you be willing to, you know, call her or whatever so on the way back. We get back to the world we're staying and getting ready for the next day and he's up friends his wife on this call was also sexually assaulted when she was young. And they call, they reach out to this young lady. And, and then she just kind of asked them, how can you forgive was kind of where it started. And they both took them down the path of forgiveness but was was really good is that he didn't just take them down the path of forgiveness. They also took them down, took her down the path of justice. And the situation that happened to their daughter. They went to the police and pursued it as far as they could with the police.
And unfortunately, even though the person had confessed to them what they did, they then silenced up and when confess to the police so there wasn't enough evidence to bring it to the to bring it to court kind of the deal. So, after going through that whole whole ordeal. He had come to that point of forgiveness and he just said look, realize that justice is coming whether it comes in this life, or when we die and meet the Lord.
You know we're all going to face standing before God and and justice will come for those, especially that go on on repentance. So, he brought her into that conversation. And then just talk to her about how forgiveness wasn't an easy step how that was a battle that he had to go through. And also his wife how she just ran from the Lord for a number of years after that situation but the Lord just just just never stopped pursuing her wherever she tried to go and bury her pain. So, it was just an encouraging story to hear, and then the lady at the end of the conversation said the next day.
She was going to be going to the police to report what had happened and it sounded like this and happened years ago. So, so it was just really encouraging to see a situation handled where they weren't trying to ignore it. They were trying to encourage the pursuit of justice, and at the same time, helping her to at least start to examine the road of forgiveness, not forcing her trying to bring it right to that point right then and there but just encouraging her to not let this be something that define all of her future relationships and, and how forgiveness opens the healing and the ability for restoration and how all the future relationships won't be defined by that individual who took so much away from from that young lady. So, there was just a lot of hope in, in, in kind of talking to him about the situation that that he had just gone through we were at the table and I was having to wrestle with my own situation where, how much do I stay involved in a ministry where there's a lot of people in a war torn country, doing kind of weekly zoom calls with them starting to question the leadership, because it seems like they're trying to support some of the stuff that's going on in the house of prayer here so the decisions coming to leave as a result of, you know, people going down the King David path and knowing that something would happen in the future are the situation won't be handled correctly.
So that's a that's kind of a side note or a side story of this week. And then, which brought me a lot of hope. Again, just knowing that the situation. There's hope for this lady there's hope for her future.
And, and they were willing to walk with her through this whole process of even going to the police and that whole scenario. So I think that's a really good place to kind of jump in and share what God has kind of been teaching me along I'm certainly dealing with a lot of this in my own church, because I'm interim pastor currently because of the pastor before that was the senior pastor when I was his assistant, you know fell into the same kind of thing. And, you know, there's a lot of folks that, you know, in order to not imprison ourselves we have to forgive, like forgiveness is a gigantic issue. And Jesus, you know, certainly said, you know, in our in our Lord's Prayer forgive us as we've been forgiven and we've been forgiven for so much, a whole lot and we can't have our whole heart if we harbor in any way, shape or form, any unforgiveness.
So we've got to go in there and get that done. And it's it's gigantic actually that, that we get an opportunity to receive the kind of forgiveness that we can actually give it. However, and here's the big however. And I can't overstate the need for forgiveness. I can't overstate it.
It's huge. But forgiveness does not mean trust. Amen.
Okay. You know, if you know, in other words, I forgive a brother, but I'm certainly not going to leave him in a position of authority, where other people could fall victim, or even fall victim to standing with him in certain situations. Because, especially if somebody is not repentant, you know, if you look in Matthew 18, and in different places, you know, at some point, you have to treat them like you don't associate with them, you don't eat with them. That doesn't mean that you don't forgive them. That just means that you simply don't trust them to not hurt themselves or others.
Right? You're not going to put yourself in a position or put somebody else in a position, you know, with somebody that's, you know, totally blind. You know, you forgive them for what, what may happen, but you don't want them to lead you into another situation. And so I think for a lot of folks, you know, they, they go down the path of forgiveness means I trust this person, this person's gonna No, no, no, no. Forgiveness means, oh yeah, I'm not holding this against him, I'm going to hold them up in any way I can help them get to the kingdom, I want to do this. If they're not repenting, then it may be, and prayerfully, God may be wanting you to disassociate with them in order for them to feel the need to repent. Amen. Amen.
And, you know, and it, you know, in a lot of those things, that person, yes, you want to see them restored to God, but they're not to be restored to leadership, because, you know, they, they're no longer qualified, they've disqualified themselves. And anyway, you know, I, I've got one more story to share, but go ahead. No, no, I, that's all I, I just wanted to throw that in there, because it's a perfect time, because I know a lot of, you know, for me myself, I need to isolate the difference.
Yes, yes, yes. And, and that forgiveness, especially for the victims, isn't an easy process. I mean, he talked about his struggle of, I don't know, weeks and months of just having to read that passage that you just brought up, and just, and just say that, you know, Lord, bring me to that place of being able to forgive.
Because, so anyway, that he brought that up. And, and also just then, yeah, so it's not, it's not, you know, I'm not saying God can't work a miracle, but it's not typically a one moment thing. It's something that you're going to have to wrestle with. And, but you can't exclude if somebody just points you towards forgiveness and doesn't pursue justice.
That's wrong. And especially when, you know, ravenous wolf is inside of that person. And maybe to finish up that story in my hunting one night I was by myself, and it was raining, and I shouldn't have taken the shot because of the rain but I went ahead and, and, and hit a doe, and couldn't trace the blood trail because the rain was washing the blood away.
But anyway, as we're going back to the, as I'm going back. It was just me at that point to the cabin that night. You can just hear the coyotes ravenous wolves, just going crazy as the direction that it was coming from I was like they found it they found the injured, the injured doe the injured female, and we're just devouring devouring her. And so I would say, you know, oftentimes that ravenous wolf of that leader will surround themselves with a board that are willing to devour and injured individual. And, and typically they prey on people who are injured and people will say well but they have this pastor whatever whatever. Well, that's who will prey on wolves prey on coyotes prey on the week.
And those that has been hurt and are carrying a wound. And it was just really interesting to me to see that next day. We went and looked for the deer in the morning when, when my friend got there.
And we found it, he found it, which was pretty crazy how he even found it but you know, it was just ripped apart, and then the next day when I went there the skin was totally ripped apart and there was nothing left whatsoever, as far as meat on any of the bones. So they just totally devoured so that gave me that picture of the ravenous wolf. That's described I believe in Matthew seven, and, and what's done often. Unfortunately, by wolves and sheep clothing and leaders in the church. So that's, yeah, it's important. Yeah, they were an authority to, you know, make sure those kind of things don't happen and we're in, you know, we all are given opportunities right to love all the people involved in the way the best the best way you possibly can because, you know, at times we've fallen into similar situations so thank you again Pete quite an episode. And that was quite a story at the end to by the way, that was outstanding. And so we will be back with a whole lot more Horns of Light.
