Letter to Mr. Trechak from Jules Dervaes
Copyright © Jules Dervaes
September 13, 1990
Dear Mr. John Trechak,
RE: Our phone conversation of 9/11/90
If you are going to print the facts which you learned in this conversation, I hope that you will be fair about also printing my attitude towards your passing this information on to your subscribers.
I answered your questions openly because I’m not trying to hide who I am and what I do. On the other hand, my having been too free with my comments and having not clearly qualified my views might give the impression that I supported your work of publishing the AMBASSADOR REPORT.
I admit that I was flirting with the idea of possibly making use of your report to influence others and to gang up on the Worldwide Church of God. I was wrong. Especially after going back and rereading parts of some copies of the AMBASSADOR REPORT that had been sent anonymously to me some time ago, I knew I had made a grave and foolish error which I now regret.
It is not as if your reports were a mainly neutral news gathering source or if your efforts were devoted to disseminating only doctrinal expositions. No—yours is not the right way.
How do I know this? Because I have trouble myself with Proverbs 24:17! And, furthermore, I haven’t just watched with glee at the downfall of “my enemy”; more than a few times, I have jumped in to “cast stones” myself—if not verbally, at least mentally.
It is a difficult, constant fight to keep the correct loving attitude; but it’s a real picnic to tear down what you don’t like while vandalizing what you can’t tear down. Uncovering deviant behavior and secret corruption is the stuff of tabloids. And, who doesn’t have any dirty laundry? Although a Christian must speak out, in public if needs be, about doctrinal sins, he is not to be an investigative reporter.
How dangerous and deadly is that business! The personal exposé approach leads one to start playing God. For instance, if he were alive today, how would you have handled someone like Samson? Even though he could have inspired some really juicy headlines, Samson’s story wasn’t over until it was over.
I have always to keep checking myself, questioning why am I doing this and what is my attitude in doing it. Wouldn’t it be so very simple if all it took to be right is for us to say “I’m doing this to help people!”? However, the final say in this regard belongs only to God.
When God wanted to directly help those who had gone astray, He sent the prophets. What was the proper attitude as displayed by them when they had to point out the failings of the Old Testament Church?
Look at Jeremiah, for example. Do you detect a sense of joy in his experience? And, in the case of Jonah who would have liked to have seen God’s wrath destroy the Gentiles, God did emphatically rebuke him. Through Ezekiel God declared that He took no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Don’t you recall what both Abraham and Moses did in pleading to get disaster averted?
So, if you believe the WCG to be an evil cult, shocking and depraved, are you to wish for its destruction and applaud it when it comes? I have to battle my visceral gloating instinct constantly; for, otherwise, I would begin to cheerlead in the contest leading to the inevitable defeat of the wicked.
My question to you is: Why does the AMBASSADOR REPORT “live” off the blood of the WCG? Finally, I will leave you with the warning that God has given to those who have said “Aha!” over the ruin of Israel: Ezekiel 36: 1-7.
You are responsible for what you have been told. Dare you teach others the way of sin! May God help you to see your peril AND REPENT!
Jules Dervaes