I had written them regarding a dream I had. As you all know, I listen frequently to Ray Stedman's Bible studies online. Anyway, in the dream, Ray made it clear that I shouldn't esteem him as anyone special, but that he was merely a tool. As we all should be.

The husband wrote back and said in one part of his email, "...but I guess one thing that the Lord is showing us now is that the most important thing is for us to understand the Bible for ourselves. Depending on people to teach us the Bible (and this even includes Stedman) is like (at least for us) transferring our allegience from one man to another. From Berg to Stedman. From Stedman to Spurgeon. From Spurgeon to someone else. ...We've gotta get ourselves personally connected to the Bible. We feel it was stolen from us for so long and we're a bit wary of letting anyone else
become our new end time prophet, no matter how good & godly he is. Been there done that. We read the Bible, try to understand it, then compare what
we get with a variety of commentaries, including Stedman, but there's no way we want anyone to be the one to whom we look for truth any more, apart from the Holy Spirit Himself (feels good to say HIMself instead of HERself) and the Bible."

Here is part my reply:

"Believe me, I understand exactly what you're talking about and I especially could relate to the "transferring our allegiance to a different man" thingy. So let me 'splain myself a little.

I sent you that dream I had because it was something that I had just experienced. ... In the dream, you'll notice that I saw that Ray repelled any special recognition of his person. This was strongly emphasized in my dream. It's something I already knew, but it was underscored that the Lord is the one that guides us. Not a person.

In the years since I left, I've done a lot more personal listening to the Lord and I'm at ease with the fact that the Lord's words are all I need. I just thought the dream was interesting because, in my personal experience, Ray Stedman's classes were the catalyst the Lord has used to get me back into being excited about the Word again. But I don't depend on Ray Stedman and I've not replaced Berg with him. Just to make that clear.

You all are doing great and I know the feeling. Once you leave the crap and you realize you were duped all those years, you don't want to shilly-shally with anything else. You want your Bourbon straight up! I've been out longer and I'm at the mellow time of my life (maybe a lil too mush Bourgon). So I'm further upstream in my personal journey and not having to paddle as hard against the previous "current" that tries to suck any freshly exiting "fumbly" member.

I started calling it "the fumbly" as it helps me to not relate the clean, good word, family, with our former brain-wash.

Berg, the Zerb and the Ping (Peter) were tossed the "ball" and fumbled it, so that's why I say "the fumbly". I don't even dignify it with capital letters.

All that to say that I agree with you. You should certainly follow your own leadings of the Lord. And you're absolutely correct in doing so.

The Lord showed a few of us exers that He allowed us to go through that whole thing in order to innoculate us against any future deceptions.

"There shall arise false christs and false prophets and shall show great signs and wonders insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect."(Matthew 24:24)

Thank God He rescued us!

I love and pray for you.