I believe that the sufferings we could not understand, are in the past, and that the future is to understand, causing our distresses to be turned into love with further purification. This could be called a translation of focus, from how worried we are, to how wonderful are God and our neighbour.
My doctrine is that the Roman Catholic's fear of pergatory, was their purgatory, and they have only a little more to fear. And even for those who will have more tears, Nana Mouskouri sings: there should be laughter after pain, there should be sunshine after rain, these things have always been the same; why worry.
A new covenant is spoken of, of which it is written. My law will I write on their heart and in their minds will I write it, and they will no more say, Know the Lord for all shall know me. God says he will take away the stony heart and give a heart of flesh. Some might say that this happened in Jesus' day. Jesus did teach the importance of kindness and love. But Christians have thought of this as the new law, and many disregard the importance of doing good at all, and disregard the fundamentals of the Old Testament. So I think that the New Covenant spoken of, is entered into during the millennium. Just as a week has a Sabbath rest after six days, so the seventh thousand years, after Adam, according to biblical chronology, is a wonderful age.
There are different kinds of suffering. There is suffering from evil men, which can be destructive and not helpful to our purification. This may be to test us as we battle for the right. For example the soldiers who were gassed in WWI, although they, one day, in a different life, will be purified, were not purified by that experience, because it was too horrible.
And then there are sufferings from Satan, which purify us as Job was purified, and his heart was made soft. Part of Job's affiction from Satan, was that men stole his cattle. So Satan's affictions may be through men, but would not involve the greatest evils. The soldiers who went to battle in WWII were perfected with their wives, and parents. Some soldiers have said that the comradeship of war was an experience never repeated.
The last hundred years from WWI, has seen the loss of those systems of family care, personal responsibility and ethics of war, and thus the erosion of the consequent factors responsible for past perfection. Instead the State tries to prevent anything from going wrong. And society votes their approval of this way, by disallowing their children playing in the streets.
The Scriptures teach the perfecting work of trials and sufferings, that we might learn to do the right think. David said: before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep thy commandments. (Psalm 119:67) These are those sufferings or chastenings from our heavenly Father, through a variety of means.
Paul writes of these for thelast age, when the kingdom of God was not of this world: If ye endure chastening God dealeth with you as with sons: for what son is he whom his father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards and not sons . . . now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous; nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them which are exercised thereby. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, ad the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed. (Hebrews 12:7-13) This is the first step of our perfection and continues as long as necessary, even into the new age of the heart, into which we are coming now.
These chastenings are more like a parent's chastenings of children. This is the care of our heavenly Father's toward us. Solomon writes: chasten thy son and he will love thee, and again, rebuke a wise man and he will love thee. And again: Iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend. (Proverbs 27:17) So men should be a good influence upon one another. But we must also learn to love one another.
There are two great commandments, to love God and to love our neighbour. Because Christians have been exercised in fear during the past millenia, when we learn that our heavenly Father does not send half the world to eternal fire, our discovery, will bring the joy of love for our heavenly Father. But my thought is that these fears be translated into love for our neighbour, when the hand of chastening from another, teaches us, that other is better than oneself, and this is the focus of my doctrine in this article.
Peter writes: Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations; that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ; whom having not seen ye love, in whom though now ye see him not, yet believing ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory; receiving the end of your faith even the salvation of your souls. These trials seem to relate to this life, which is good, as we can enjoy the fruits of our perfection here and now.
I do not undestand the cleansing necessary for a woman, but I know that the hearts of men can be very hard, and that they all need to be purified, and that this involves suffering. Generally speaking, the greater our reward the more we are called to suffer. Those called to rule must go through more sufferings, than those who people the nations outside the New Jerusalem.
The purgatorial fears of the Roman Catholics, must be translated into the knowledge for man, that his wife is superior to him in some ways. Therefore he must respect her, and through that respect comes love. It is more important to love your wife than Jesus Christ, because you are with her now, and will be with a wife also in heaven. It is true that husband and wife, are both better than each other, but in different ways.
In times past our reward in heaven was hidden from us, as we stumbled about, seeing through a glass darkly, waiting for heaven, to see God. While this is good, and it is necessary, to perfect our hearts unto godliness, we must now be perfected with respect to our neighbour.
A man must be perfected with respect to women, and his wife in particular. Belinda Carlisle sings: they say in heaven, love comes first, we'll make heaven a place on earth. In this world we are just beginning to understand the miracle of living. Baby I was afraid before, I'm not afraid any more.
It is not beneficial to put ourselves, or even worse, others, through great suffering to perfect them. Paul writes: though I bestow all my gofs to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:3) To have love in the chastening, and to translate the fears, it is good for a man to be chastened by a woman he loves. For most simple Roman Catholics, I think that the doctrine written under sexual cleansing, of flogging of a man by his wife and her girl friends, is enough.
But those like some Roman Catholic Priests, that have done bad things, require more flogging, by angry nuns. Many priests have lived their lives with no pleasure, so to speak of, as most people think. This is probably be what caused their problems. So they should have a future of being accompanied by a nun when visiting houses, and when ministering in a variety of ways, to give confidence to others, and so that they have a variety of joys of fellowship, and work.
We can not do the work of Satan, by bringing great fears and calamaties upon each other. Out job is to translate past sufferings to perfection, rather than to cause those great sufferings in the first place.
Some people are destined to be rulers in the next world, perhaps one in thirty, of the five billion whom I believe go to the supernatural worlds. These are perhaps called sons and daughters of God, rather than children of God. These sons may require more chastening to perfect them, particularly if they have wronged someone over whom they may rule one day, so that that person is not bitter. But future rulers should have the understanding to forgive one another.
The Old Testament teaches penance and the shedding of blood of goats and lambs for atonement. But it also teaches something that the protestants forget, the making of amends. (Ian Robb told me that it is good to make mistakes, because we learn from our mistakes and so it is a victory. Although this is correct, perhaps fortunately, I did not agree at the time. But now I understand that perfection is through contrition and the love that is established through making amends for our mistakes.) Men all need women to lift them to a higher standard, and should not think as Cain, who said, Am I my brother's keeper?
If we all had the resources of penitance within us we would not need our neighbour, but there are two great commandments, to love God, and to love our neighbour. Those women who help a man, are in particular loved by him. Solomon says: chasten your child and he will love thee, and of a more emotional love, it can be true of men and women.
Women and children should not be fear hell. It is enough for them that their parents or husband is cross with them, and may cane them on the bottom. It is for a woman to write about perfection for a woman. Men show their love by self sacrifice, women more by care, but I understand more what is required of man than of woman, as I am a man.
Roman Catholic priests tell the confessor what amends to make, and they used to tell them about purgotary, I don't know if they still do; but I do know that they have changed the theme of purgotary from punishment to cleansing. Whilst this process was good for the time then present, because their fear of purgatory was thair purgotary, this process did not lead to the required perfection. This is because perfection is best obtained through the heart of someone you love, perhaps a man's wife or mother in law.
Perhaps, if a man had an affair with a women who had fallen into hard times, whether married or unmarried, and who, for example, could not afford some expenses, her past lover could be threatened with flogging by a woman who loves him (ie. the floggee), if he does not help her. Men will do some things by themselves, but perhaps only a woman can understand how much more they should do.
Sexual immorality is too much fun, too little responsibility. If a man has known a woman's holy place, he bears some responsibility of care for her, for the rest of her life; Even if she is married to another man, and though she may not reciprocate his friendship, as he might like by chatting with him.